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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2008: 1948 REDUX

I don’t want to go "Bjork" on anybody but I am really bored with political pundits, and not just because Chris Mathews is an idiot, Bill “the Big Giant Head” O’Reilly is an immoral waste of calcium, George Will is an agent prevaricator, George Snot-nose-lopside-ious is an amoral pipsqueak and Joe “Scarface” Scarborough is yet another idiot. No, all these “el pollo loco” political prognosticators don’t get paid to be right but to fill time so the toilet paper and mouth wash ads that pay their salaries don’t collide in the airspace inside their heads. I contend that the only life form lower than a politician must be a political pundit. Thomas Dewey died for their sins way back in 1948, and yet they are still sinning.
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Thomas Dewey, described by H.L. Menkin as “The only man I know who could strut standing down”, and by a political opponent as "...a guy who works hard, so he can quit early and go home to reorganize his files". was reelected Governor of New York in 1946 by an historic margin despite having his head handed to him two years earlier in the 1944 Presidential election. Ane Dewey still represented the liberal eastern wing of the GOP, while the conservative Midwest wing was embodied by Ohio Senator Robert Taft, who now ran congress after the Republicans carried both houses in the 1946 midterm elections. When Dewey beat Taft in the Oregon primary the victory ensured him the inside track for the Republican nomination, and the eternal emnity of Senator Taft.
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On the plus side for Dewey, Harry Truman was one of the most unpopular presidents in modern American history, primarily because he just wasn’t Roosevelt. The best joke of 1948 was, “To err is Truman.” The Democrats desperately wanted to nominate anybody else. It took them until 2:30 AM on nomination night to admit that nobody else even wanted the job. But Harry then surprised the convention by making his acceptance speech at once despite the late hour. Taking the microphone at close to 3:00AM a fiesty Harry promised he would win this election and “…make these Republicans like it.” Then he announced, “On the twenty-sixth day of July, which out in Missouri we call “Turnip Day,” I am going to call Congress back and ask them to pass laws …which they are saying they are for in their platform.…”
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Nobody in Missouri had ever heard of Turnip Day but seed companies found their orders for Turnip seeds suddenly quadrupled. It was the first sign that strange things were about to happen. The second sign was that when Harry called the congress back, Senator Taft saw no reason to betray his ultraconservative causes just to negate Truman’s attack on a “do nothing” congress. So Taft blocked any votes on enlarging Social Security, civil rights legislation, and the minimum wage, programs that the liberal Republican Dewey (and most voters) supported.
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As Hillary's advisors would do again in Iowa, Dewey’s advisors decided that he should remain above the fray and refuse to even mention Truman by name. But that tended to reduce his speeches to such banality that, as the Louisville Courier-Journal pointed out, they consisted of little more than four sentences;“Agriculture is important. Our rivers are full of fish. You cannot have freedom without liberty. Our future lies ahead.” The advisor's controls were so tight that Dewey’s running mate, Earl Warren, moaned, “I wish that just once I could call somebody an S.O.B.!” At this same time Truman was describing Dewey by name as “…a kind of doctor…” who answered all questions by saying, “I never discuss issues with a patient”
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Every poll predicted that Dewey would win by a landslide. The New York Times declared, “Thomas E. Dewey’s Election as President is a Foregone Conclusion.” Bookies were taking 20 to 1 odds against Truman. Elmo Roper, who started the Roper Poll, decided to stop polling after late September, asking, "What's the point?" One columnist asked, “How long is Dewey going to tolerate Truman’s interference in government?” Even Democrats were certain they were beaten. Gallup stayed on the job but their last poll before Election Day showed Dewey with 49.5% lead, while Truman showed at only 44%, a tightening but still not really close. Eager to beat the competition The Chicago Tribune headline for the day after Election Day read, “Dewey Defeats Truman”. And yet …the actual vote totals were almost exactly the reverse of that last poll; 49% for Truman and 45% for Dewey. (Which mirrored the 8:07PM FauxNews report on election night in New Hampshire of 2008 that showed Obama would win with 39% to Hillary’s 34%.)
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Dewey later admitted that waking up the morning after election day he felt like the guy who woke up in a coffin with a Lilly in his hands, and wondered, “If I am alive, what am I doing here? And if I’m dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom?” It makes you wonder where that Thomas Dewey had been hiding during the campaign. The answer was that his consultants had controlled him just as they controlled Hillary 60 years later in Iowa. And it worked about as well.
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And today’s jerks and egomaniacal pundits have only to refer to the Social Science Research Council’s 400 page study of the 1948 election to find their own fault. The council warned that pollsters in 1948 “…attempted the spectacular feat of predicting the winner without qualifications”. In retrospect Mr. Roper called his own and his colleges’ performance “honest but dumb”. And 60 years of experience has only allowed us to drop the limiting definition for a pundit of “honest”. Yes, Bill, that means you.

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