Oh Britney....

Well by now you have all seen IT.
While better than you or I could possibly hope to do, she bombed. BOMBED.

And I have to comment. I HAVE TO!
While I actually LIKE the song, and for that I'm twisting in an hurricane of shame, she is so lackluster and unprepared, I'm speechless.

If you are going to bust your post-baby body out in a sexy outfit, you'd best have a slamming body, and while she looks great for having two kids (and actually better than I do after, um, NONE) she is not slamming. Except those margaritas, apparently chased down with a healthy handful of fire cheetos and Taco Bell.

This was totally her chance to go up there and shut everyone's mouths. You'd have thought she would be practicing her ass off, yet by all gossip accounts, she was partying until dawn every night leading up to the event. You just have to watch the other performances to see how other artist, seeking to either establish themselves or further their star-wattage, took the opportunity to create something that people would GASP at.

Remember when Michael Jackson took the stage at the Motown 25th Anniversary Show?
I watched that with my father and both of us, BOTH OF US, were speechless. Breathless during, and absolutely stunned afterwards.

We sat silent a moment, and then my dad said, "My God, what a TALENT!"
This was back when an artist's affectations were forgiven, absolutely, for talent. And MJ flowed along that vein until it was bled dry, frankly.

But while Britney Spears was a major success for the teen-crowd, she never truly translated to the world at large, and her growing pains were, quite honestly, excruciating to watch. She married stupidly, got pregnant stupidly, and then proceeded to destroy her reputation and the solid fan base she'd built up over her brief, but phenomenal, rise.

You cannot move into the adult market by acting like an asshole adult. And yet that's what she did. She broke out of her child-tart persona into a horrifying, ADULT WHORE, new image, replete with idiotic behaviors and questionable parenting choices.

And while I will admit that I breathlessly waited to see how bad she would be, I was not at all prepared for the sympathy I felt on Monday while reading the excoriating reviews. She's a young, dumb girl who grew up quickly and collapsed under a wave of her own ill-choices. She's a young mother who is now divorced, and cannot imagine that her husband married her for herself. She's estranged from her family and brutally abused in the press. I feel bad for her.

But enough about her.

Let's focus on other people, who did this star thing right: THIS lady was at the zenith of her career for this 1990 VMA performance, and she pulled out all the stops.

That is what a STAR is, ladies and gentleman.