Karl Klockars

Say what you will about Britney Spears, she’s got one thing going for her that oh–at least a few thousand celebrities can’t say. No one, outside of her mom, a few doctors, and a handful of dudes (depending on what tabloid you read) knows what she looks like naked. And that’s quite an accomplishment when we live in a world where the paparazzi have those spy sattelites that can read your license plate number from Saturn.

At this point we have a vague sense of being owed pictures of celebrities in the altogether, as a kind of currency or trading card. I’ve got a rookie Bridgette Nielsen even though her later years weren’t as productive, and maybe some spring training stats from Xtina Aguilera will be indicative of how she’s going to make it through this upcoming season. Or something. I’ve really turned a corner when I’m comparing nudity to RBIs. And to think I almost made an Olsen twin joke. Yeesh.

But it’s true–we either denigrate a person by saying something like “we’ll see them in Playboy as soon as their career goes south,” and then guys get all excited when they do just that. Catcalls of hypocrisy don’t go so far when they’re wrapped in black plastic. And if someone were to go down to spring break and shoot some candid photos of girls from X college and brought them back to class, the girl would be scandalized. Unless! It’s a Girls Gone Wild camera, then it’s status.

I mean, I get it. It’s like when people tell me that they’ve gone to strip clubs and seen people they went to high school or college with. I’m sure it’s the same kind of thrill. I feel like I know this person, or know of them, and now I’m seeing their butt. Woo-hah.

There’s a certain attraction to seeing things we’re not supposed to see. Or at least, that other people pretend to not want you to see. Mark my words–in the future we’ll see marketing plans based around what pictures taken in the south of France are to be “leaked” to Entertainment Tonight depending on when Random Tart’s album is released.

Which is why I always get a kick out of watching people clumsily flirt on the El, or have a first date, or just kinda stumble around in life, in general. No one wants to be watched on a first date, unless you’re on Blind Date in which case you’re an attention whore. Or bored in LA. One or the other.

I was on the train this morning and watched a couple people semi-flirt. The laughter was tense, the body language was stuttery, the eyebrows were raised in a kind of “I’m not crazy, honest” way. And the best part was that the jokes were bad. Along the lines of the guy saying something to the effect of “but the funniest thing of X was that Y did Z.” And the girl just kinda blank-faces him for a second or two and then chuckles politely.

Ah, discomfort. Such a great thing to see at 8:35 AM.

You can tell a blind date from a mile away, too. That’s the great thing. Someone is drinking too much, someone is telling bad stories that they’ll regret telling when they get home, someone is sighing and someone is wondering when the check is going to get there. I shoulda been a sociologist. Me and Dr. Phil could go along on match.com dates and watch people just fall apart in front of random strangers. The pay wouldn’t be very good but oh, it’d be a hoot.

But back to the Britney thing, I don’t know how she’s done it. Wars are fought for less money than would be on the table for a naked Britney Spears photo. I know Brit’s star has fallen lately but I guarantee no one will care as soon as the photos hit the net. She could be plaid underneath whatever it is she wears on a daily basis (but it appears to be sweatpants and the like lately–way to show off your Lousiana, sister!) and it wouldn’t matter. People couldn’t write the checks fast enough. Although, you can’t swing a liposuction tube without hitting a Tara Reid photo and look how she’s doing. It works both ways. It’s a fine line to walk.

Which is to say that the only thing of value any more is anything people don’t want you to have. I remember when Shania Twain swore up and down that she wouldn’t ever wear a short skirt because of self-image issues with her legs, and then there she was in an average length skirt-above the knee-and people fell to pieces. They couldn’t believe it. Unreal. And that’s not even a big deal. In the country world, I know we’re dealing with some early sixties mentalities that would rather have noone show any ankle whatsoever, but we’ll compromise.

Were I to ever make it in any sort of public eye, I’d make proclamations far and wide saying that I never ever wanted any pictures of my right ankle shown anywhere. For religious reasons. Then when times got tough I’d sell pictures of said ankle to the highest bidder. It’s a license to print money, I tells ya.