What's the deal with paedophilia being the new heroin? Used to be that the hip thing was to take too many drugs and die at 27 or maybe get arrested for possession, but now getting busted for kiddie porn seems to be all the rage. Besides Jerry Lee Lewis I don't think I ever heard off anyone famous, who were (accused off being) into this kind of thing until the Michael Jackson case. But now it seems like people get charged with statutory rape and possession of child pornography every day.

Obviously, Pete Townshend hasn't been convicted of anything and neither was Michael Jackson, but Gary Glitter was and R. Kelly is out on bail charged with all kinds of nastiness. And as Rolling Stone points out in their latest issue this is probably not the best time for a reissue of I Can Fly (The R. Kelly Story).
And then there was the Paul Reubens/Jeffrey Jones case, which I think is still in court.

Recently Father Brennan, who runs an orphanage in Pattaya, was accused by British paper The People of hooking rich paedophiles up with street kids. This has upset a lot of people here, because a lot of Danes have volunteered at the orphanage and several celebs have donated a lot of money to him.
And it seems every time I read a paper some old pervert is being drag off to court for putting his hands where he shouldn't have.

I can't help but wonder if this surge of cases is coincidental or if the sexual objectification of children in advertising and the entertainment industry has anything to do with this. Maybe stuff like this has been going on always and it's only now we're (or at least I'm) learning about it. But maybe it really has gotten worse.
I recently saw this fashion picture and thought it was distasteful. And add to that the schoolgirl videos for "Baby, One More Time" and "All The Things She Said", JonBenet Ramsey and the scary beauty pageants, and covers like this and you have just the tip of the iceberg.

I don't have a real point with this other than it creeps me out and I can't help but notice how kids grow into oversexed fashion conscious consumers faster than they did ten years ago. And I think that's partly because companies are pushing products towards younger demographics than before. When I was a kid there weren't any compilation records with bubblegum pop and one-hit-wonder aimed at me and the teen talent shows on TV didn't get you a record deal. But I guess them days are over.

No, when I was a kid we listened to sensible music like Hall & Oates. Okay, actually I didn't, but Ben Gibbard from Death Cab For Cutie did. Oh, and if anyone knows Ben let him know that the cherry wine Jermaine Stewart sings about does in fact exist.

And the concert season here continues with gigs from Stephen Malkmus in April and The Go-Betweens in May. The second Malkmus album will be called Pig Lib and will be in stores in the March. Can't hardly wait.