"TWO MILLIONS RECORDS SOLD!!"
That's what Christina Aguilera's agent excitedly exclaimed to her as she held the cellphone up to her ear, walking through the Beverly Hills mall parking lot, headed out to do some serious shopping before her trip to Cabo San Lucus for the MTV Spring Break filming.
"ALRIGHT," Christina beamed back at her agent boisterously, the whole reality of pop culture stardom still feeling giddily foriegn to her.
Dressed in a floopy hat, sunglasses and a neat pair of bellbottom jeans, Christina tried looking as inconspicous as possible as she made plans with her agent before embarking on her spending spree in the mall.
"So when do I have to leave for Cabo?" The 18 year old star quizzed her agent.
"MTV wants you there a day early for a sound check at the stage on the beach..I've got the plane reservations set for 8am Thursday morning..Filming starts Friday night I think," The agent pleasantly reeled off information for one of her star clients.
Eventhough the reality of her own celebrity was still sinking in, Christina was steadily becoming addicted to the spotlight and to the competition with the other so called pop divas competing for Teenbeat covers. Aguilera saw this latest trip to Cabo for the MTV Spring Break filming as just another delightful excursion that proved her stardom was only aimed to shoot higher.
Christina knew she would be down there perfoming songs from her new album and Britney would not. Christina would also be getting the chance to yuck it up on several of the MTV variety shows during the week as well as a celebrity guest. If all went well, her agent had told her, a spot on the Hollywood Squares would be waiting when she returned.
Clicking off her cellphone as she walked into the upscale LA mall, Christina proceeded to get busy spending some of her hard earned, newly found wealth.
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The flight down to Mexico had been rather uneventful, with the only hassle being the usual deluge of autographs to sign for the folks in the airport and on the plane itself. One of the autographs she signed on the flight was in fact for the 40ish pilot who said that the autograph was for his 15 year old daughter eventhough he spent the whole time giving Christina the creeps, gazing at her tight body as if he was mentally undressing her as she signed a copy of her CD for him.
Stepping off the plane, out into the luxurious Pacific breeze on the island runway, Christina sucked in a mouthful of fresh air and decided that life was truly good.
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Her first MTV duty would be to act as a guest/judge for the kareokee show called "Say What". Eventhough Christina knew that most of the impersonating acts would be pure dreck, she couldn't wait to see the girls that tried to do one of her songs on the show thinking that would be kinda cute.
As she settled into her comfortable directors high chair, Christina was fascinated and a little grossed out by the presense of her fellow judges on the panel. She didn't know how long she could handle Weird Al Yankovic's incessant fart jokes and accordian playing. She also didn't like having to share the stage with Daisy Fuentes. Eventhough the Latin beauty was still magically stunning, Christina felt that the thirtyish former MTV hostess was over the hill. "Wasn't she a star way back in the 90's," Christina had whispered to one of her close female friends when she heard Daisy would be on the show with her.
And the fourth member of the panel happened to be Ru Paul, a regular now on MTV's Spring Break coverage. Christina could just picture her career going in the toilet now surrounded by such over the hill losers and drag queens on reruns that would be incessantly played over and over during the coming months on MTV.
Once seated in her beachside chair and prepping for the show however, when the red light went on and the show started taping, Christina for a while thought everything would in the end work out for the best, after all she was by far the cutest thing on the entire show.
The dreadful performances she had to sit through under the burning afternoon sun made for a long, exhausting day. But the seemingly nonstop line of drunken off key singers paled in comparison to the discomfort and disgust Christina felt sitting there with Daisy postering for the camera and the annoyance of Weird Al's never ending adolescent flatulant humor. The third member of the judging panel was really the one thogh that caused Christina the most unease. Ru Paul was sitting two seats down, his dark penetrating eyes weighing heavily on her tiny thin frame, concentrating on her more than anything else going on onstage making her visibly squirm in her seat.
Christina felt a tangible sense of disgust from having the statuesque female impersonator paying that much attention to her. Everytime she would muster the courage to dart her eyes over to confront Ru, the glamourous black crossdresser would sit there and stare right back as if she felt it was her naturaly God given right to glare openly at anyone she wanted.
In a huff, Christina would divert her gaze and shake her head at Ru as if to say, "Stop That!".
"YUCK!!," Christina grumply moaned under her breath.
When Christina finally felt the weight of Ru's gaze ease off of her momentarily, she turned her head to her left and watched Ru, full of sick curiousity as to how all Ru's 'pieces' fit together.
Just as Christina's eyes were able to focus on Ru for a moment or two, suddenly the impecabbly dressed black man rotated his superbly made up face to his right and locked his sightlines right on the shellshocked Ms. Aguilera.
All Christina could manage to do was drop her eyes to the floor in embarrassing shame as she fought the urge to throw up.
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Trying her best to return her focus back to judging the litany of performers that paraded across the sandy beachfront stage, Christina bravely fought off the continuous heated stare from Ru's direction.