'imagine the father who molested you owning you for slavery'

[Jeff]

But the last ten years: Somebody's puppet. The definition of it.

Thanks for the reminder. Berg's got the world on a string.

And since I really would rather not kick the Gaga = Illuminati puppet thread, I'll post here another example of why I think she is so, like, not that:

“For the deformed, there is an ownership of one's difference, an ownership that is visible and indisputable.” That's from a paper Gaga wrote at New York's Tisch School of the Arts in 2004, when she was still calling herself Stefani Germanotta. The paper distinguishes between the shackled “social body” and the natural body that is “independent, formless and free.” Trying to clear a bigger space for this freer independent body, Gaga quotes from Montaigne's essay, Of a Monstrous Child: “What we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the immensity of his work the infinity of forms that he has comprised in it.” Gaga has obviously stayed true to the monster theme, both in the title of her new album and tour, and in the way her videos and performances mash together views of the sexy body and the deformed or alien body.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/art ... le1380186/

[Maddy]

Another generation. But yeah, nobody's puppet.

Sadly, everything she does -- and, really, I do mean "everything" -- is at the behest of the leaders of the Kaballah Centre, the other cult that celebrities can't seem to learn to avoid.

She was nobody's puppet until, roughly, the mid-'90s or so, though. And quasi-independent until, maybe, 2000-ish. Or thereablouts. But the last ten years: Somebody's puppet. The definition of it.

Breaks my heart.

>.<

Moral is, anyone can be compromised?

[Forgetting2]

Barracuda wrote:

It just goes to show ya - every discreetly given first-hand account I have heard of Courtney has been highly sympathetic.

Assholism is in the eye of the beholder.

I can imagine that the people Nordic got his information from are not necessarily the same type of group that Jeff got his information from regarding Courtney Love’s treatment of the people (and other living things – see below) around her. Barracuda, I have no impression of in that regard, though he seems to me to be one of the more grounded people on the board, for what it’s worth.

It’s possible that Courtney would treat the people who work under her on a movie or on a recording very differently than the people she might have in common with an author, or a friend of a friend. In fact it would fit very well with one interpretation of her psychology. I’ve got a load of stories about the celebrity everyone thinks is the nicest person in the world, but if you ever had to wait on them at this or that restaurant, or sit at an edit session with them behind you, well, unpleasantness ensues. On the other hand people on the lower ladders of a social hierarchy can sometimes become quite bitter and irrational about the people in power above them. And then there’s the whole misogyny thing: Men on the lower rungs who can’t take directions from a woman without shorting a circuit. And some people just like tattling to be a part of the story and inflate their own importance, and will by the way tend to exaggerate.

Anyways, this is all very obvious. So why did I feel the need to say it…

As it were, I wouldn’t discount Nordic’s collected impressions as “he said, she said”, necessarily.

To add to the list, I have a friend who’s worked on “Nirvana related products”, let’s say, for the sake of anonymity. His friend personally witnessed Courtney abusing the family dog on multiple occasions. By abuse I mean kicking the dog and throwing the dog across a room. The last of these occasions resulted in 2 broken legs for the dog. The friend of my friend, who worked in an assistant capacity for Courtney, took the dog to the Vet for treatment and afterwards kept the dog for himself as a rescue dog. The Love family never missed it, he says. My friend’s impressions of his own dealings with the Love machine were that Love was “scummy”. I’ll leave out the other details.

For what it’s worth in a charged string, I have no settled opinions on what made Courtney Love who she is, or indeed, what exactly that is. It doesn’t seem good, though. And yet I believe I can have sympathy for devil and still not like the devil. Or maybe I’m fooling myself from the minute I make the judgment call of using the word, devil. I like a couple of Courtney’s songs. The movie “Kurt and Courtney” gave me some pause about her, though not completely settling an opinion. And what a scary, fucked up asshole her Dad seems to be! But maybe that’s just what I’ve beholden.

OK, that was a bit of a ramble. A bit more…

It’s strange the things you hear about people who you have some impression of from their public personas. Some people I know remember seeing Courtney dance at Jumbo’s Clown Room, an extremely seedy strip club, on Hollywood Blvd., back when she did an act with a teddy bear and nobody knew who she was, all those years ago. Where does that fit into my perceptions of her? It seems sad to me.

To give one more example of something I never expected to hear, unrelated to Love, there’s the friend of mine who, with every other person in the kitchen and on the staff, took turns spitting into Barbara Walters’ double fudge sundae at a restaurant in LA. Trust me, if the stories my friend of 12 years tells me are true, Walters had it coming. Or don’t trust me? Would you like curriculum vitae of the people involved? Would you like to see copies of the x-rays of the dog’s legs? I could technically provide these things, but of course I won’t. So should you believe me under my anony-mouse monicker? If push came to shove I’d consider giving all the details to Jeff for verification. (That is if my friend would agree to this – doubtful.) Could be a lot of work, and for what? Would everyone rest easier knowing the truth once and for all?

A quote from a movie I like a lot…

“We all got it comin’ kid.”

Which might be the real point I wanted to make anyways, long way about, in which case, I’m somewhat sorry for being here.

And suddenly, I remember the title of the thread. Anyway you slice it, it still comes out fucked up. I never followed the Brittney stories before, but reading some of this stuff I wish I could storm the castle and offer up a way for her to get honest, compassionate help. Apparently I suffer from an unreasonable desire to rescue people from un-rescuable situations. It is a fantasy which makes me ever more sad, but at least I know someone in what I consider to be reality who has a happy and healthy dog.

[brekin]

Lindsay Lohan's dad accused of looking for strippers who look like his daughter
Posted on Sunday, November 15, 2009 (EST)
Lindsay Lohan's father has been accused of hunting out strippers who look like his famous daughter.

http://www.sawfnews.com/gossip/61180.aspx

November 15, 2009, (Splash News) - Lindsay Lohan's father has been accused of hunting out strippers who look like his famous daughter.

Despite Michael Lohan's denials, Elliot Osher, a former owner of New York's most famous strip club Scores, insists the troubled dad made the bizarre request when he visited.

The weird request, which Osher did not give a date for, is part of a book he plans to write about many of the celeb visitors to the sexy hot spot.

"Lindsay Lohan's father once sat down and described the kind of dancer he was looking for," Osher insisted.

"We sent some girls over. Funny, they all seemed to look like Lindsay.

"We ended up having to show him to the door."

Michael Lohan admits getting into an "altercation" at Scores, but insisted: "No girls danced for me.

"The last thing I'd want to see is a girl who looked like Lindsay. I don't even look at the magazines where she's done some risque photos."

But Osher insisted: "Maybe he just doesn't remember.

Osher worked at Scores for 18 years, starting out as a bouncer.

Among the anecdotes in his planned book he claims Madonna stiffed the staff, Bill Gates left a $3,500 tip, Bernie Madoff "wanted a private room" and Russell Crowe "almost got in a fight with an Irish waiter". [/b]

[Jeff]

Well, Michael Lohan's doomsday clock is three minutes to creepy, but since this is Lindsay's mom snuggling up to the recto of Calum Best, it could be her dad simply has a, er, type.

[Avalon]

FWIW, one of my best friends as a kid was related to one of these female celebrities discussed on this thread. Didn't personally know that distant cousin, but I think they had grandparents who were siblings (I once saw a family obit with the other family's name listed). Since it is a tenuous link, I don't feel comfortable saying which celebrity. But my friend was an incest survivor, with the 2 perps being from the celebrity's side of the famiily.

[compared2what?]

Barracuda wrote:

It just goes to show ya - every discreetly given first-hand account I have heard of Courtney has been highly sympathetic.

Assholism is in the eye of the beholder.

I can imagine that the people Nordic got his information from are not necessarily the same type of group that Jeff got his information from regarding Courtney Love’s treatment of the people (and other living things – see below) around her. Barracuda, I have no impression of in that regard, though he seems to me to be one of the more grounded people on the board, for what it’s worth.

It’s possible that Courtney would treat the people who work under her on a movie or on a recording very differently than the people she might have in common with an author, or a friend of a friend. In fact it would fit very well with one interpretation of her psychology. I’ve got a load of stories about the celebrity everyone thinks is the nicest person in the world, but if you ever had to wait on them at this or that restaurant, or sit at an edit session with them behind you, well, unpleasantness ensues. On the other hand people on the lower ladders of a social hierarchy can sometimes become quite bitter and irrational about the people in power above them. And then there’s the whole misogyny thing: Men on the lower rungs who can’t take directions from a woman without shorting a circuit. And some people just like tattling to be a part of the story and inflate their own importance, and will by the way tend to exaggerate.

Anyways, this is all very obvious. So why did I feel the need to say it…

As it were, I wouldn’t discount Nordic’s collected impressions as “he said, she said”, necessarily.

To add to the list, I have a friend who’s worked on “Nirvana related products”, let’s say, for the sake of anonymity. His friend personally witnessed Courtney abusing the family dog on multiple occasions. By abuse I mean kicking the dog and throwing the dog across a room. The last of these occasions resulted in 2 broken legs for the dog. The friend of my friend, who worked in an assistant capacity for Courtney, took the dog to the Vet for treatment and afterwards kept the dog for himself as a rescue dog. The Love family never missed it, he says. My friend’s impressions of his own dealings with the Love machine were that Love was “scummy”. I’ll leave out the other details.

For what it’s worth in a charged string, I have no settled opinions on what made Courtney Love who she is, or indeed, what exactly that is. It doesn’t seem good, though. And yet I believe I can have sympathy for devil and still not like the devil. Or maybe I’m fooling myself from the minute I make the judgment call of using the word, devil. I like a couple of Courtney’s songs. The movie “Kurt and Courtney” gave me some pause about her, though not completely settling an opinion. And what a scary, fucked up asshole her Dad seems to be! But maybe that’s just what I’ve beholden.

OK, that was a bit of a ramble. A bit more…

It’s strange the things you hear about people who you have some impression of from their public personas. Some people I know remember seeing Courtney dance at Jumbo’s Clown Room, an extremely seedy strip club, on Hollywood Blvd., back when she did an act with a teddy bear and nobody knew who she was, all those years ago. Where does that fit into my perceptions of her? It seems sad to me.

To give one more example of something I never expected to hear, unrelated to Love, there’s the friend of mine who, with every other person in the kitchen and on the staff, took turns spitting into Barbara Walters’ double fudge sundae at a restaurant in LA. Trust me, if the stories my friend of 12 years tells me are true, Walters had it coming. Or don’t trust me? Would you like curriculum vitae of the people involved? Would you like to see copies of the x-rays of the dog’s legs? I could technically provide these things, but of course I won’t. So should you believe me under my anony-mouse monicker? If push came to shove I’d consider giving all the details to Jeff for verification. (That is if my friend would agree to this – doubtful.) Could be a lot of work, and for what? Would everyone rest easier knowing the truth once and for all?

A quote from a movie I like a lot…

“We all got it comin’ kid.”

Which might be the real point I wanted to make anyways, long way about, in which case, I’m somewhat sorry for being here.

And suddenly, I remember the title of the thread. Anyway you slice it, it still comes out fucked up. I never followed the Brittney stories before, but reading some of this stuff I wish I could storm the castle and offer up a way for her to get honest, compassionate help. Apparently I suffer from an unreasonable desire to rescue people from un-rescuable situations. It is a fantasy which makes me ever more sad, but at least I know someone in what I consider to be reality who has a happy and healthy dog.

I don't doubt for a moment that story's true. It's not the only truth of her though. It's barely even hyperbole to say that pretty much anyone who spent more than an hour with her could probably come away with at least one story that made her seem like the most vicious woman alive and at least one story that made her seem like the most heroic. She's genuinely got it in her to be both. But she isn't really either one. Neither is she really a sad story in the pitiful Jumbo's-Clown-Room sense. She's more like the kind of mundane, run-of-the-mill human tragedy that no one really bothers feeling that much grief about. Except not stashed away somewhere being effectively invisible. People generally hate hearing this too much to even countenance the proposition, but fwiw: She and her late husband had an awful lot in common, temperamentally speaking. Like fetally damaged soul twins or something.

Anyway. Yeah, she's capable of doing stuff like that. (Not of murdering Kurt, though, I should hasten to add, since that thesis is total bullshit.) But she's actually not a monster or a harridan or even a mean person. She's just a very, very fucked up, tormented and troubled person who has to fight herself and everyone else to stay alive, as she always has, and probably as she always will. That's not always a pleasant sight. But fwiw, she really is pretty on the inside, imo.

[Forgetting2]

Thanks for the comments C2W.

I really do go back and forth on something like this, and know that there are many truths, though sometimes I'd just rather my anti-heros be of the fictional sort. And I'm afraid I tend react badly to anything that smacks of abuses of power. Sounds like you know her at least somewhat, compared to what little I actually know. I debated with myself if it was even appropriate to post such a story, landing ultimately on the side of thinking that, since the events in question were in the presence of employees, and therefore somewhat public, and since very few people would actually read it, it was OK, although I'm still not sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if her and her late husband had many traits in common, and I think I know what you mean about the resistance some people would have to hearing that about someone they may have a strong emotional attachment to, yet I feel that doesn't really provide cover for any actions she may have taken. (I’m not trying to suggest she had him killed either, as the evidence for that seems specious.)

I would at the same time question that she has had to fight not only herself, but everyone else just to stay alive, although undoubtedly she might think she has to fight everyone else, and in fact there are likely any number of people who would do her harm and fighting those people would be wise on her part. The problem being that if you treat everyone in the world as your enemy, than the whole world will in fact become your enemy.

It's good consider though, that there will always be some level of understanding beyond one’s own, which might make withholding judgment wise.

[compared2what?]

I'm not condoning her bad acts, btw. There's no way to do that really. They're bad. I was more trying to make the point that she was probably already much too severely damaged by the time she was, like, three years old for there ever to be anything but very long odds that she'd someday find the resources to become a whole, healthy functioning adult who was fully in control of herself and her life.

For example, that story you told that I don't doubt is true? I doubt very much that she intended to do it at all, in any meaningful sense of the word "intended." And I'm almost sure she didn't do it with the intention of harming a living being, or out of sociopathic indifference for the welfare of living beings in general, or anything like that. She's a smart loving woman who wants to do good and live right. She's very insightful, sometimes very charming, and often very funny. And generally a sympathetic person. But that certainly doesn't make it any less totally impossible for pretty much anyone to have any very sustained or profound relationship with her that isn't constantly roiled by chaos and trouble and craziness. Because she has terrible judgment and impulse control and a lot of unmoderated, misdirected fear and anger and is kinda completely out of her mind. So. I wasn't saying that the very real hell she sometimes wreaks wasn't very real. It is. Which is very sad for everyone.

She's a spectacular lyricist, too, imo. Much underrated and misunderstood in that regard. And undercredited, insofar as there are at least a couple of songs on "In Utero" that are collaborations building on something of hers, IIRC. But I might not RC, I should add. It's been a pretty long time since I really kept up with that kind of thing.

[Forgetting2]

Thanks again for the insights. I've long appreciated your posts for their thoughtfulness.

[RocketMan]

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/03/why_do_ ... s_perform/

Everyone loves a comeback. Britney Spears, some six years after the culmination of a lengthy public breakdown that saw her hospitalized against her will, has just begun a Las Vegas residency and released her eighth studio album. The album is her third since her 2008 placement under 5150 hold following a year of erratic public behavior; the first, 2008′s “Circus,” was released so shortly after her hospitalization that press coverage tended to be admiring. Spears had come back from the edge, and so quickly that she, or whomever involved, ought to get some praise.

However, as time has gone by and Spears’ career has extended far beyond the brief moment after the “Circus” release that indicated she was doing well, it seems barbaric that Spears is still performing. Her press interviews and her recent documentary “I Am Britney Jean” are, generally, composed of banalities, as though both journalist and subject are frightened something will go wrong, except when they’re chilling and sad: She recently told InStyle that she wants a daughter so as not to “feel as alone in the world anymore.”

Her music, too, is written and performed as though by someone totally uninterested. Since a knee injury midway through her career, her dancing has been slow-paced and diffident. And promises that “Britney Jean,” her 2013 album, would be her “most personal ever” gave way to a record full of tepid dance jams unlike her terrific, aggressively experimental previous albums, and drag-world lingo Spears doesn’t actually understand. Her season-long stint as a reality show judge revealed a person who seemed ill-at-ease before cameras. She is not interested in performing; she has lost whatever talent she had for it; she is still under the conservatorship of her father, meaning she is not legally entitled to make her own decisions. It seems almost cruel that Britney Spears is still a celebrity.

One doesn’t want to be a concern-troll when it comes to Spears. But the signals she has consistently sent, from her infamously uncomfortable meet-and-greets on her last tour to her recent interviews, up to and including the wistful “I Am Britney Jean,” indicate a person who’s being kept in the spotlight against her will.

In a recent review for New York, Jody Rosen described Spears as perhaps “the most boring person on the planet” and one not really worthy of our attention on the basis of her recent work. Maybe that’s true of Spears as a person whose thoughts and utterances have lately been rather dull, but as a symbol, she’s one of the world’s most interesting: a person groomed for fame from young childhood on the basis of her sexuality who, having obtained that fame, found it a prison she could not escape. No wonder her fans want to probe “Britney Jean” for hints of a personality, or to be in the same room with her in Las Vegas when she descends from the ceiling as an angel (a curious choice).

There are so many vehicles for well-crafted pop music that aren’t simply going through the paces, and pop music is moving away from bubblegum, anyway — Spears feels like a relic or a legacy act, one prized for the nostalgia she’s able to provide of a time when she more clearly seemed to be enjoying herself. Spears may be “better now” than she was in 2007 and 2008, but that comparison is fairly uncompelling; if a musical act is only fully enjoyable in light of past trauma, is it enjoyable at all? That Spears, a person with millions of fans who is in front of thousands of people at her Las Vegas show, feels alone in the world is a sign that, perhaps, she ought to be considered more than a symbol or an icon. She’s also a person who’d be better off left in the past — but the combination of money to be made and the American appreciation for a damaged figure made better or one we’re told is “better” means that won’t happen even after the lights dim in Vegas.

[RocketMan]

So, Britney's apparently locked in as daddy's little girl in perpetuity. But that's all right I guess, she has "substantial day-to-day freedom".

http://defamer.gawker.com/report-britne ... socialflow

Britney Spears has been under personal and financial conservatorship since 2008, when she was committed to a hospital after allegedly neglecting to take her prescription meds and, according to a family source, “driving around her neighborhood like a mad-woman.” Although she’s turned things around since then, TMZ reported Monday that the conservatorship could last her entire lifetime simply because it’s working so well for her business.

Spears’s dad, Jamie Spears, oversees her finances and personal life with the help of doctors and lawyers, but has reportedly allowed her to make her own personal decisions since at least 2010. (This is with one rumored exception: her ex-fiancé, Jason Trawick, was a co-conservator during their relationship, but gave up the role when they split in 2013. Brit’s dad allegedly ended the relationship because Trawick was tired of “babysitting” Britney and wanted out.)

TMZ says she currently has “substantial day-to-day freedom” over her life.

But no matter how well she’s doing with her relationships—she broke up with producer Charlie Ebersol in June—and mental health, the financial conservatorship “will stay in place indefinitely,” TMZ reported back in 2010 and again Monday. Britney Spears™, the business enterprise, is doing quite well under its current management, bringing in $14 million last year.