Badlands

Listening: "Badlands", Bruce Springsteen

I have always loved Springsteen's idea about the Church of Rock and Roll. I've never seen him live, and I'm not sure I will ever get the chance at this point, but that idea of the music as salvation and the concert as the rite of purification has always resounded with me powerfully.

"It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive..."

I unintentionally learned that Jamie Lynn Spears, a 16 year old actress on Nickelodeon's Zoey 101 television show, not to mention the younger sister of human calamity Britney Spears, is pregnant.

Listening: "No Speak No Slave", Black Crowes

The Black Crowes seemed to get the Rock and Roll Church thing when they named their second album after a hymnal.

Most of the poorly punctuated commentary about the Spears situation seems to lament the situation, which I think any sensible person would, or blame her 19 year old boyfriend, going so far as to accuse him of rape, because, of course, a 15 or 16 year old girl can't possibly consent to sex. 

No one would suggest that her pregnancy was a good or wise thing-she herself would probably agree to that. She's now a mother to be with limited future earnings (you think Nickelodeon is going to touch her with a ten foot pole now?) and a father with no discernible skills. You can even argue that her pregnancy argues that she was not capable of fully weighing the pros and cons. But to accuse this man of rape goes quite a bit beyond the pale. If I were 19 years old, and a girl who looked like Ms. Spears came on to me, I would have done whatever she said. And any other honest man would say the same. It's something that American culture doesn't want us to say, but that doesn't make it untrue.

In fact, in retrospect, when I was 19 years old, if I recall correctly, I was involved with a girl who was younger than I was as well. And like this poor chap, I did what I was told to do as well. I didn't get her pregnant, but I certainly could have, shall we say.