BRITNEY & BJORK: CRAZY AS A CAREER CHOICE

I confess that the pixie lunatic from Iceland has once again caught me by surprise. Bjork from Ork, the pop star elf, the Reykjavik space cadet, the musical sex kitten, touched down in Auckland recently for a concert and, like the wrathful Goddess Freya from Norse mythology, tore into a photographer from the New Zealand Herald, ripped his shirt off his back and ended up on the linoleum on her cute little lunatic ass. The last time Bjork went off like this was when a reporter had the temerity to say to her, “Welcome to Bangkok”. But this time there was no such taunting. Bjork just lost it, as if she hadn’t liked the movie or her chicken Kiev had been overdone and she had been saving up all that anger until she got back on the ground where she could earn a little press.
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You couldn’t make this stuff up unless you’ve been stranded out to sea in an open boat for a week with ten gallons of mead and some peyote. That must be how the Vikings discovered America. And speaking of America, have you noticed that for every sixty headlines that Britney Spears produces, Bjork manages to scare up at least one new one? She’s like the European version of American health care; far less expensive and yet she has all the same problems.
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According to Norse Myth, Freya, the Goddess of sex, fertility, war and wealth, wore a feather dress and flew into battle in a golden war wagon drawn by pussy cats. And if that doesn’t describe little Bjork Guomundsottir I don’t know my Nordic myths. And Freya occasionally teamed up with Frigg, the North German Goddess of marriage and motherhood and also fertility and love, who sounds a little bit like the fecund felonious Britney, for purposes of this discussion. And when Frigg wept, she wept tears of gold, and that description fits our little Miss Brit perfectly.
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Britney is our unstable national treasure, worth, according to portfolio.com, about $120 million a year to our ailing economy, plus $400 million in music sales over the last ten years, $150 million in concert tour ticket sales and $100 million in perfume sales. A cover photo of Britney with or without hair on her head increases magazine sales by about 1.3 million copies, and she accounts for 1/3 of all magazine covers, making her worth another $350 million a year to the publishing industry. It seems the only thing keeping America out of an economic depression might be Britney’s mental depression. Stabilizing her psychosis should be the top priority for both the Federal Reserve Bank and the bank of KFed. Just, please, Odin, don’t make her well. We can’t afford that.
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Bjork just seems a better educated and slightly saner version of Brit. She’s still crazy, of course, but we’re talking comparatively, here. Compare their thoughts on wealth; Bjork said dismissively, “If nothing else, I have money.” Brittney boasted “I’m rich, freakin’ rich.” And on fame, Bjork observed, “People come to you and you know exactly what they’re after; if they want to give you something or take something away or are simply curious. It’s often a good reason…”, while Britney observed, “I’m famous, but I’m not famous like freaking Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston.” Britney later elaborated on the freaking perks of her freaking lifestyle, “The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.” And Bjork observed that there are some things that freaking money and freaking fame can’t freaking buy you, when she said, “There’s no such freedom in the world that you can pick anything you want and put it in your butt”.
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It’s almost like freaking poetry, isn’t it? The limitations and responsibilities of freedom have not been phrased so lyrically and succinctly since Thomas Jefferson put down his quill and started making viral videos. Either one of these women are quite capable of being the perpetrator of a killing spree. The only difference between them is that I expect Britney will start shooting in a night club because she doesn’t like the way people are looking at her, while Bjork will likely just walk down Hollywood Boulevard executing everyone she thinks is dressed too negatively.
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You doubt that could happen? Just remember that old Norse limerick, The Lay of Thrym, that begins, “Wrathful was Freyja and fiercely she snorted…” Clearly the lady wasn’t cooperating so the other gods put a dress on Thor and “…a pretty cap to crown his head”, and in her place sold Thor in marriage to a giant. Thor escaped from this dire predicament by butchering the giant’s sister, and everybody had a good laugh; everybody except the giant, of course, and his sister. And then there was the joke they played on the god Lukey, who was forced to change himself into a horse and was mounted by a stallion and then gave birth to a,…well, I don’t want to spoil the joke. But you can understand now why Bjork is the way she is.
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But why is Britney as crazy as a loon? If you know anything about Britney’s mother you wouldn’t even bother asking that. And, by the way, Britney’s doppelganger, the goddess Frigg, is also credited with giving us the name of the last day of the work week, Figgday, or Friday. And I guess Britney's favorite day would be Friggday the 13th.

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Right, Bjork?

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