So, Britney Spears first walked in the IN door of a rehab clinic through the building and then out the OUT door in the back of the clinic and headed into town. Where was she going? Well, wherever she was intending to go she stopped in a small hair salon. She walked in and demanded that the hair stylist cut off all of her hair. When the stylist balked at that, Spears reportedly grabbed the clippers herself and shaved all of her hair until she was completely bald. She was reported to have said something like, “I don’t want people touching me. I’m tired of people touching me.”

After that she went off and got two tattoos. From all reports these were nothing too crazy but the tattoo artist said she wouldn’t sit still and was the worst kind of customer for an artist trying to paint straight lines into someone’s skin. What is this? What’s going on? The speculation has been running rampant as to what this means. My question is, has anyone asked Britney? Where are the people who supposedly love her? Where is her mother? Where is her family?

Of course to me it seems like someone having a nervous breakdown right in the middle of public scrutiny and very publicly in general. She is a woman who is obviously damaged. She achieved tremendous riches and stardom at an early age. To be that age and suddenly have the entire world bowing at your feet must be hard to cope with. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and within her world I am betting she has that kind of power. Before you could say “Oops, I did it again” she was married for less than twenty-four hours to some kid she knew from her childhood and then married again to a wanna-be white rapper and now has children. Where are her children? Who is watching them?

Didn’t we just see a person destroyed for our amusement? Anna Nicole Smith may have had many personal problems but wasn’t it the case that the sadder and more pathetic she got the more people wanted to watch her reality television show? The more she fell apart the more entertained everyone was. If Anna Nicole had vanished from public life for about four years, cleaned herself up, and gotten an education and come back into public life speaking clearly and articulately and with intelligence would anyone have wanted to watch her any longer? Wasn’t it more entertaining to watch her slurring and stumbling around with her giant boobs hanging out of her dress? No one stepped up and said anything and it seems that the celebrity machine consumed her.

I think the problem with fame is that famous people attract too many people around them who really just want to bask in their reflected glory. It happened to Elvis. Elvis was a disaster near the end. I personally think it’s impossible that the man took all of the drugs he is reported to have been doing. Still, if he was doing even half of what has been reported then I make you a certain promise. On the day Elvis died in his bathroom if he had, instead, remained alive and quit all of his drugs that very day I am betting Elvis would have been long dead by now. No one could do what the did to his body and live a normal life span. His liver would have given out. His weight would have lead to diabetes. He might have developed some kind of brain damage and other organ damage. I am betting Elvis would only have been with us another five years had he quit that very day.

How did that happen? Well, he surrounded himself by leeches who only wanted to keep Elvis happy so they could continue to hang around with “E.” Rather than anyone stepping forward and telling the man he might be on his way toward killing himself they all just kept looking for doctors who could continue to write prescriptions for him. Rather than forcing him into rehab or staging some kind of intervention the people around him just wanted to suck his life-force away for the chance to be in his inner circle.

Many people are probably making fun of Britney. This is supposed to be a humor column, I know, but sometimes you just have to stop laughing and look. I am reminded of Pink Floyd’s original lead singer, Syb Barrett. To many he was a brilliant guitar player and songwriter. He too achieved huge stardom in England very quickly and young with that group. He too surrounded himself with people who began to feed him a constant diet of liquid LSD and he went crazy. At one point, one of the most notorious incidents, at a dinner party he walked into the bathroom and chopped his long hair off with a pair of blunt scissors for no reason. This scene was re-enacted with more intensity in the movie “Pink Floyd’s The Wall.”

Syd didn’t die from it but he was hopelessly insane. He disappeared from public life in the early 70s and never re-emerged and died last year. Many people wonder what could have been. Could he have gone on to be a major force in music had he not had his break with reality? No one knows.

I am not the world’s biggest Britney fan. I don’t even find her a particularly good singer or dancer. However, I think it would be sad to see a young person with children self-destruct in any way. If she were to die that would be hugely tragic and sad but if she were to vanish from public life and enter a world of permanent insanity that would be equally as sad.

These are people. We seem to forget that. We are very much like the Romans in their coliseum watching the gladiators kill each other. We can tell ourselves that we are better than that because we can watch it all on television and no one has to see us laughing as the gladiators fall. The fact is we are no better. Are we not entertained? Look at the amount of press coverage Anna Nicole’s death got? Some could argue she achieved greater fame and notoriety in her death than she would have gotten had she remained alive.

It would be sad to see that happen to Britney. I am betting she was surrounded by bodyguards and party friends who all laughed and told her how great it was that she cut off her hair. I am wondering if any of them, even just one, stepped forward and told her he or she was worried about her. When you are that high on your respective mountain who do you pick up the phone to call? Does she really have any friends?

I hope she finds help. Whatever it is she goes off and does, even if that means making more music I don’t care for, I hope she does it for a long time. Maybe she’ll just decide to invest her money and quit the industry and raise her kids. That wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.