Here's how to save the kid

Two things, via my two-bits, that Britney needs in order to ‘survive’ figuratively and, yes, literally – because something that the carrion-eating scumbag paparazzi are collectively creaming their jeans over is the fact this kid is in deep peril of having a terminal Anna Nicole moment – are both an intervention, and a Col. Tom Parker.

This is one time in which I have to agree with bombastic, hubristic and lovably ‘mean motor scooter’ shrink, Dr. Phil in his public statement that this kid is in grievous peril. She is. She is addicted, she is unbalanced (very unbalanced), she is manipulated by venal and parasitical family and others, and she’s dumb. Mega-dumb. What a perfect victim. Just like Princess Diana, except for the addicted part.

She’s also an obsessive target for the baser elements of the gutter press, as well as the legitimate (and they should be ashamed of themselves for giving this messed up kid more copy than Barack Obama). Granted, she desperately panders to them by seeking them out, forgetting her underpants, appearing drunk and disorderly and semi-dressed in public, and so forth. She's reminiscent of the late Jayne Mansfield late in her tragically short career.

And she’s an obsessive target for the rest of us, too. What will the human train-wreck do next? Hey, if the kid didn’t exist then Perez Hilton’s screeds on “Unfitney” would leave a big empty space on his daily website.

Back to Dr. Phil. Having been in the trade, I fully believe in interventions. And, if you want a professional word on the matter check out Dr. Deb’s Jan. 4 column, it offers some excellent insights. Personally, I have seen interventions work. They work when the individual is too addled and threatened to make reasonable decisions on their own. If you don’t believe in the virtue of this approach, just ask Betty Ford.

Not that interventions always work. Sometimes when the patient gets sober they are antagonistic to interference in their lives and will bolt from whatever facility in which they have been placed. But, sometimes they don’t. I have seen this. I have seen rehab clients (who got there via family intervention) who were initially brooding and resentful, and yet, at some point, maybe a couple of weeks in, a kind of transformation would occur. We called it the ‘miracle moment’ in which a certain serenity and sense of wellness would permeate the client. Of course, such a moment offers no guarantees. There is much work to be done afterwards – literally a lifetime of work, hard work – but it can be done and is being done every day. I would rather read that such a thing had taken place for Britney, then to check out whiny and hypocritical obit comments.

My other suggested need was, yes, a Col. Tom Parker. Despite the fact that this fake Kentucky ‘Colonel’ was .a manipulator par excellence and as greedy and exploitive as they come, he protected his young hayseed (albeit magnificently talented) charge and guided his fortunes – often badly. But, the point is, nobody got close to Elvis Presley without going through Col. Tom, and when he sprited Presley away from small-town Sun Records (still the best collection of his earliest, and arguably finest renditions) and took him over to giant RCA, the Presley career soared unlike that of any of his contemporaries. Equally talented (in my esteem) Jerry Lee Lewis could have done better with a Col. Tom. And so could Britney Spears with a Col. Tom equivalent.

Like Elvis, Britney too is a dumb hayseed, and easy pray to parasites. Like Presley, she is manipulated by her family. A Col. Tom would wrest her away from that and just maybe guide her into a good career. She’s nowhere near as talented as Presley, but she has definite musical skills.

So, that’s my two bits on the matter.