People Make Mistakes: Chris Brown Fan Appreciation Tour @ Avalon (11/18)
The shrieking washed through Avalon in a solid wave of 14 year-old girls wearing short dresses from Forever 21 and boys whose bright sneakers gleamed in the darkness like the eyes of ghosts trailing sparkly wallet chains.
Chris Brown's Fan Appreciation show last Wednesday was morally tormenting. I wanted to "Run it Run it" on the dancefloor as I have in my car, but I worried about the kids. Avalon was packed. Why were they here?!? The children are our future, and I wanted America to punish him and teach them a lesson. Instead, the human capacity for compassion (or corporate desire for $$$) enabled these kids to forgive Brown, for booty shaking's sake at least.
"People make mistakes," a ninth grader told me in the bathroom. "And he's a great performer," said her little sister, smoothing on lipgloss.
Timothy Norris Chris Brown...
Timothy Norris ...and his Appreciating Fans
That much is true. The guy can dance, and every teen needs sexy icons to pave the road to her illustrious first time with fantasies--which, of course, will turn out exactly how it's described in R&B pop songs: "Let me show you/Let me do it to you like I wanna do/Wooahhh..." Brown sang in "Take You Down" and leaped into a one arm handstand over an imaginary bed. 
Timothy Norris The guy can dance
He performed radio favorites "Kiss Kiss" and "Poppin," shedding clothing layers into the sea of camera phones. "No one screams like that when I take my shirt off," said my friend doing the tootsie roll and spilling her cocktail. A Michael Jackson medley included plenty of spinning point & thrusts. Brown lip-sang "Rock With You" and did the "Thriller" dance. During his hour-long set, he smiled pearly and flexed his abs, popped, locked, and brushed his shoulders off, never missing a note or losing his breath--unless he took air breaks when he lip-sang songs. 
Timothy Norris "Let me do it to you like I wanna do/Wooahhh"
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