Excellent point. There was this incredible record store in Missouri back in the early-mid 90's. Its where I bought the majority of my music, and they even had a huge catalog where you could buy all these great imports and bootlegs. When the guy who owned it was telling me he was gonna have to go out of business, it was pretty sad. He said how he had to buy cds at the price Wal Mart was selling them for and there was no way he could make a profit competing with that.

The death of the mom and pop record stores is a bit similar to the death of arcade culture in the early 80's.

Well, interest in VR has dropped astronomically this year. I was basing my opinion regarding the tour on what happened on their last tour. It was a big deal when they played this area on the CB tour. I didn't hear anything about them around here this time.

Paris will never be broke, and considering how many albums Britney sold, I doubt she ever goes broke either. However, its easy to see how someone like Lohan would have already went through her bank account. Living like that isn't cheap. Not only does she buy tons of drugs, clothes,etc., she has to pay her group of hangers on a bunch of cash to keep them with her. You do realize that when a star has a group of people with them, those people are usually on that star's payroll? Its why when a star has a fall from grace and is either not popular or broke(maybe both), any time they are seen publicly, its alone or with a significant other. They can no longer afford having fake friends.

Lets say she gets $20,000 to be at the grand opening of some club. After she has bought enough coke to support her and from 5 to 10 peoples drug habit and how ever many guys she's gonna be with, that twenty thousand turns into pennies really quick.

The reason you never see the celebrities you listed is because the media no longer cares about them. The girls from American Pie still make movies, and Simpson was in a film recently. They just cant buy publicity.

I would imagine it would be very hard for these people to adjust back to a normal lifestyle. Ashlee Simpson is probably going insane. She went from a Spears type lifestyle of every move she made being reported in the tabloids and her getting off on the attention to the point where if she jumped in front of a bus no one would care, not even the bus driver.

This is why these types of stars need to understand the type of career they are allowing themselves, and to start saving their money instead of spending like there is no tomorrow. The second that the media starts ignoring a media star, its over.

I wish I had seen them in Fresno last month. I told myself a couple years ago I would go see them if they came to my area since I missed them on the CB tour.

I was too concerned with having enough money for my trip to Frisco last month to see M.I.A. and her two upcoming shows next month to even consider budgeting for VR.

If they come back here again, I'm gonna force myself to buy tickets the moment they go on sale.