If Britney Spears looked more like Cass Elliot, she would never have gotten a recording contract.

Saturday morning has dawned, and your author is in a profoundly bad mood; only the opening of Goldmember – and the fact I have yet to see it – has kept me from hunting for humans. Anything and everything has contributed mightily to this state, not the least of which being the lawsuit filed by one fat man against four fast food restaurant chains because … the restaurants made him fat. (Apparently the relentless shoveling of fried and fatty foods into his gullet had nothing to do with the weight gaining process.) What I wouldn’t give for this very moment to include a grassy knoll, a high powered rifle and a clear view of this gelatinous jackass’s house.

But today is the fourth day since the last column was submitted, and a certain agreement commands me to produce yet another. Lest I make the mistake of covering something serious in this cloudy disposition, I instead hearken back to four days ago, when all seemed right with the world. That day’s column had been completed and electronic mailed to the publisher a full sixty minutes ahead of schedule; in the hours that followed, other electronic mails were written and answered, that day’s Wall Street Journal was read (as were a few passages from David McCullough’s John Adams), some light editing was done to the text of an interview conducted last weekend. Finally, about three-thirty Wednesday morning, your author settled down with a lovely carbonated beverage and the remote control.

As usual, the news channels were inspected first: Bill O’Reilly was talking to relatives of people who killed themselves after being molested by a priest, too heavy a topic; CNN was on a commercial (this was probably for the best); MSNBC was rerunning Hardball, where the first name seen across the bottom of the screen was Donna Hughes Rice, and interest was piqued. (Was this that Donna Rice? Fourteen years ago I could have positively identified her; not today.) The topic was one of the classics: In an oversexed America – there seemed to be no rational debate over that contention – has the media gone so far in talking about sex it’s forced some people to commit sex crimes? Hughes was saying yes, that when so much sex is depicted on such a continuing basis, attacks will happen; the opposition – a man whose name cannot be recalled – was saying parents should be more responsible for their kids, building a solid moral foundation, and so forth. A wash; even two broken clocks are right twice a day.

None of it was particularly interesting; the debate consisted of the same four points anyone on either side has been making for forty years, which is entertaining depending on the combatants, but repetitive nonetheless. Just before the channel was changed, the guest host went to certain pains to note that Britney Spears is: 1) talentless, and 2) a tart. Well! To this contention the following points are made.

One: As the King of the Old School, hearing the phrase “tart” used in such a context produces shudders of voiceless joy throughout my body. There is no insult or observation so profound that it cannot be punched up considerably with turns of phrase straight from the Old School; as evidence, consider this exchange from Pulp Fiction:

Bruce Willis: You got a problem friend?

John Travolta: I ain’t your friend, palooka.

Bruce Willis: (beat) What’s that?

John Travolta: I think you heard me, punchy.

Enough said.

Two: The first time I saw Britney Spears, I was walking through Media Play. A large display, upon which was reproduced her first album cover, was hanging on the wall to my right, catching my eye only because it immediately came across as an advertisement for statutory rape. (Of course, to that point I hadn’t seen her first video, in which she was dancing around in a shorter and tighter version of what is conventionally referred to as a Catholic school girl’s outfit, with pigtails.) If I remember correctly, the cover was of an underage Britney on her knees, wearing a short skirt and pink top, looking up at the camera submissively, flashing bedroom eyes. This is not to say that any of those things are inherently unattractive, especially on Britney Spears, who is at least an attractive young woman (made even more attractive by her immense wealth), but she is being sold exclusively on the basis of her sexuality, not whatever talent she may or may not possess, which leads one to suppose something is amiss. (For example, the fact that she’s generally untalented.)

Someone, someone with much too much time on their hands, will write to ask, “How do you know she’s untalented?” Well, for one thing, have you ever listened to any of her songs? She’s not particularly gifted as a singer, whatever ability she may enjoy being hidden behind very badly written and performed songs, an insult made even worse by the fact she performs to a recording at her concerts. This is not a topic up for reasonable debate: I will gladly put any ten songs Britney Spears has recorded, or will ever record, up against Cass Elliot’s stand-alone vocals on the Mamas and Papas version of “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” conceding only that the entire Spears catalog is better produced.

For another thing, if Britney Spears looked more like Cass Elliot, she would never have gotten a recording contract; she is an aberration of design and public relations, not a uniquely talented vocalist set loose upon an appreciative public by a record company willing to take a chance. This can safely be said of just about anyone topping the charts today, including even those acts I particularly enjoy; those number one singles offering even the slightest hint of heart or soul come so few and far between, finding them hardly bares examination. (Cassandra Wilson is one of the greatest singers in the world; ever heard of her? Or Diana Krall?)

Anna Nicole Smith, who is probably one of this society’s most vapid and intellectually delinquent members, will be the feature of a new reality show beginning Sunday on the E! network. Now the question arises, how can this woman – who, if left to the devices of her own talent and abilities, would starve to death in the streets – possibly be the focus of a television show? Well, see, at one point she was thin enough to pose for Playboy, and because she was once made up to look rather famously like Marilyn Monroe, became a star of a rather startling magnitude. And now, on the basis of marrying a wealthy old man in his decline and inheriting his millions, she is deserving of a television show? How is this at all entertaining? Someone please tell me, is the point to revel in modern entertainment’s lack of talent as if it were some sort of cruel irony, or are we really supposed to believe Britney Spears, and her clones are legitimate?