The dissection of Miley Cyrus

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Well, the inevitable has happened: 15-year-old Miley Cyrus has found herself in the middle of a heated debate over her budding sexuality. Apparently a “Vanity Fair” shoot with THE premier celebrity photographer Annie Lebowitz ended up with a nude Cyrus — save for the white satin sheet wrapped around her torso and the cherry lip stain on her pout.

Cyrus released this statement in apology:
“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” Cyrus said. “I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.”

And “Vanity Fair” stands by Lebowitz, saying the Disney star’s “minders” were pleased with the “artistic” photos during the shoot.

This so-called scandal is pretty racy for a girl not old enough to drive. But this young girl also happens to be raking in a reported $1 billion for Disney by the end of the year, so it’s not surprising the media is all over this story — or non-story, depending on how sick you are of hearing about it — in attempts to figure out who to blame. Is it her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, for allowing his daughter to skyrocket to a dizzying degree of worldwide success in such a short time? Is it Miley herself, for forgetting some of her fans are stuffing “Hannah Montana” knapsacks and lunch boxes into their kindergarten cubby holes? Is it Lebowitz, for being the shutterbug who should’ve known better?

Or, well, is it us? For Googling, blogging and speculating about what the rules are for people with whom we have no personal connection? It’s hard enough being a teenager, and even though it’s sort of difficult to scrape up sympathy for someone who makes more money in a year than I will ever see in my lifetime, she is still just a kid.

And hey, look at what happened to kid stars like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears … apparently no one’s yet figured out how to raise a child in the spotlight. And what’s worse, those two were chewed up and spit out by a culture (US) that cared only just enough to chew on them. If “racy” photos didn’t whip us into a frenzy and cause us to buy more copies of “Vanity Fair,” maybe this whole thing wouldn’t be a scandal in the first place. Maybe we’d see it for the marketing ploy it is, whether it comes from “VF’s” camp or the Cyrus’.

Why not let her be a kid — and she is a kid — and make it a point not to completely turn on her if she slips up? It’s a novel idea.

Coldplay giving away song!

Coldplay is going the route of other culturally-savvy bands (Radiohead, for one) and offering a free download of the song “Violet 4:11″ from their upcoming CD, “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.” Download time begins from the Coldplay site at 12:15 p.m. Londontown time … which means 7:15 a.m. for us Eastern-timers. The single will be available for one week, and “Viva” drops June 12.

I can’t wait.

A girl walks into a bar.

About five years ago, I got my first fake ID. I was 18 and it was three days after starting college in Chicago. I paid 50 bucks to this random stranger in another dorm, and he made me and three friends absolutely atrocious Michigan IDs on his bubble-jet printer. The lamination peeled up around the edges and the ink was so faded you could barely make out the features on our faces.

But here’s the thing: they worked everywhere we tried to use them. Chalk it up to being a girl, with girl friends, walking into a bar.

So since then, I’ve been in probably about seven thousand bars. I don’t know what it is about the city of Chicago, but I swear it must be the most boozer-friendly town in our great nation … you can’t trip and fall without landing in an establishment that stays open until 4 a.m. for your drinking convenience. Thanks to this fact, I’ve told insanely personal things to strangers, kissed even more of them and, sadly, woken up in horror next to a select few.

I’ve wondered lots of times what, exactly, the appeal of a bar is. But I suppose it’s pretty obvious: Close up a bunch of frustrated, emotionally-stunted people up in a room, give them cups full of colorful liquid and watch the sparks fly. What’s not to love? I suppose bars let us do and say things we can’t anywhere else — when was the last time you groped a stranger in the supermarket check out line? — and I suppose bars are just things to do when we’re too lazy to try to be interesting. Instead of planning a dinner party or bowling outing, why not get drunk and burn your mouth on frozen pizza at four in the morning, while some strange middle-aged man fashions you a tulip out of a cocktail napkin?

Then comes the concept of the dance floor in the bar. This is universally recognized to be a disaster: Once you’re ready to get up on stage and shake some ass to horrible music, you’ve reached the point of no return. I’m one of those girls who gets out on the dance floor and doesn’t come off until it’s last call and my makeup has smeared down my face. My friends are more the type that like to hang back in the corner and fend off approaching males with mean eyes and bitchy comments.

That’s another interesting thing about bars — if you spend too much time in them, you learn to hate and mistrust the opposite sex. After years of learning that guys will tell you anything you want to get you to sleep with them, I tend to either take them for what they’re worth or ignore the whole lot of them. I have no idea what bars, cell phones and generally sluttier behavior are doing to damage the act of courtship, but I have a feeling all of them combined are a death sentence. What’s the point of even taking a girl out to eat if you can just feed her $2.50 bottles of Miller Lite on dollar beer Tuesdays? What’s the point of dating a guy when he’s exactly the same as the other dude across the room nursing a Jack and Coke?

I don’t have much of a point to make about this. I was just thinking about bars. I think I should stay out of them.

Leggings: Friend or foe?

I was in Britain two years ago when I first noticed women wearing neutral-toned leggings under shapeless tunics or impossibly short miniskirts. When I arrived back stateside in December 2006, the trend was just about to catch on in a big way. I’m going to admit it was amazingly trendy and urban-feeling for awhile, and I distinctly remember asking myself why it took so long for such an obvious accessory to catch on.

But once a fashion trend trickles into the suburbs, the general rule is that it’s probably already out of hand. Leggings went from black to grey to velvet burnout or disco-silver. The dresses covering the leggings got shorter until women were actually just wearing normal-length T-shirts over painted-on leggings (read: Lindsay Lohan).

Now, I’m not saying leggings are as bad as other fashion bandwagons women tend to jump on, like those disgusting, scrunched-up tiny tees that magically fit everyone, but I think leggings should be used in moderation. This is a little list of guidelines I am going to print out and tape to my refrigerator every time I’m tempted to be irresponsible with my leggings collection:

1. Gold leggings may be worn from December – January. Throw plum leggings out because those were obviously a mistake.

2. A camel-toe check must be completed before I exit the house in any questionably-short “dress” or “tunic” that is actually better-described as a “stretched out T-shirt.”

3. Leggings are best with flats.

4. Never wear leggings with flip-flops unless I’m going the county fair.

I have a feeling I’ll ignore rule #4, but let’s remember I’m from Indiana. You can take the girl out of the cornfield, but her love for flip-flops and boys who work in lumber yards will just never fade.

So, leggings: Are they friend or foe?

My first experience with “American Idol.”

Last night I made my first foray into the mad, mad world that is “American Idol.” Don’t ask me how it happened. I’m still not sure. I’ve been hearing for years that this show is addictive, and after watching it for one hour I really have to say that there is a certain quality about AI that makes it hard to turn off the television. I can’t say what it is. Maybe it’s the gleam in Ryan Seacrest’s veneers, or the sound of Paula Abdul’s slightly nasally voice as she once again praises a contestant. And maybe it’s the contestants themselves — they’re the only part of the show that seems genuine to me. For the most part, the singers look exhausted to the point of tears, but seem to manage leaping around stage and fielding silly questions from viewers.Seeing Dolly Parton perform was nice, I guess, but her voice was not half as entertaining as that silvery-leggings-attached-to-a-corset-under-see-through-negligee she wore as she strutted around the stage. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that if anyone can not only pull off an outfit so ridiculous, but to have the collective American viewing audience say “Awwww,” it’s Dolly Parton. How an you not find anything she does endearing? So, to sum it all up, I’ll say this: To me, AI has the same “guilty pleasure” vibe going for it as one of those 6,000 calorie KFC bowls: You might be inclined to eat one in the privacy of your own home, but wouldn’t be caught dead digging into it around your friends. Would I watch again? Maybe, but I hope not. I have a feeling AI on a regular basis would be as beneficial to me as secretly eating KFC bowls once a week. Both sound equally creepy.