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Keef Strikes A Blow For Family Values.

I really don't have any reason to be shocked at what Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards does or admits to when it comes to the drug aspect of sex, drugs, and rock and roll -- this is a man who's done enough smack and coke to drive the gross national product of both Afghanistan and Colombia, and yet for some reason, my jaw just dropped when I read that he'd told NME that he snorted his dad's ashes with a bit of the white pony after Bert Richards bit the dust in 2002.

Keef will outlive us all; if there is a nuclear holocaust, it will just be him and the roaches left with the fallout, so again, I shouldn't be shocked at all when the man mixes in some cremated body with his nose candy. However, this was done in 2002 -- not when he was all strung out and high enough to travel through several altered states and galaxies in a 24-hour period, but when he had somewhat settled down.

I had Richards at number one on the rock bad-ass scale as far as this kind of stuff goes, but Lemmy from Motorhead was a very close second. Now Keef has to go and lap Lemmy again. Cheers, Keef; all those drugs have clearly preserved you so you can continue to do outrageous crap in your old age.

woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"Verge" has fuck all to do with it, really, as Britney Spears has hit Defcon 5. God bless vapid local news in L.A., which has nothing better to cover (via Scrap):

The woman did not even make it a day in rehab in Antigua (boy, what a nice place to have to go exorcise your demons.) Even Lindsay Lohan made it through ONE DAY. Ms. Spears then returned to the U.S., hit a Tarzana hair salon, and demanded to have her head shaved. When the stylist wouldn't do it, she did it herself, then proceeding to get two tattoos at the parlor, as you can see above in the video.

I ran an item on the short rehab stay last night -- I wouldn't have believed the head-shaving and tattoo stuff until I saw the video and heard it from the maternal unit, who was working on the national desk last night. The Redneck Trainwreck has hit the wall, folks.

a life under a microscope.

All the cable news networks are all over the death of Anna Nicole Smith, and the guessing game of what caused her death (breakdown? drugs?) is going on until actual facts are injected into the category of "developing news" (boy, is that one that I like a lot; it's when a breaker is no longer a breaker, but you don't know fuck-all else.)

In the last year, she's been a serious fixture -- giving birth in the Bahamas to a baby whom the paternity is being questioned, having her adult son die while on the islands to visit her, getting married to her lawyer, and let's not forget that she's gone to the U.S. Supreme Court to deal with the decade-long fight with her late husband's family over his billions.

That would take the fight out of a normal human, and if she was taking various medications or other drugs to ease the stress or pain, I wouldn't blame her. Usually, I'm much more cavalier with cracking jokes about celebrities and their vices, but for some reason I have serious sympathy for Smith, especially after watching what a train wreck she was on her E! reality show a couple of years back. It was different than viewing Britney Spears (the Redneck Train Wreck), Lindsay Lohan, or any other screwy celeb babe -- Smith actually looked and acted in ways that made you fear for her life, even as you loathed some of her on-screen behavior.

(Admittedly, some of my sympathy may be borne from the artist as a budding horndog -- Smith was one of the first Playboy centerfolds I saw, finding an old issue in my neighbor's dad's collection.)

naming your new baby.

As someone subject to what used to be an unorthodox first name in the U.S. (now everyone's copping it), the extravagances and whims of celebrities when it comes to gracing their children with the names they will have forever is a funny thing: B-list TV host and actress (yet A-list hottie) Brooke Burke decided to name her daughter with has-been actor David Charvet (you're a has-been actor if your main credit is "dude on Baywatch who isn't Hasselhoff") Heaven Rain Charvet.

Look, far be it for me to advise a total piece of dripping sex how to name her kids, but this has been problematic long before Gwyneth Paltrow somehow got the idea that naming a daughter after fruit was a good one. Naming a kid Apple, Heaven, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily (thank you, Michael Hutchence!), or any other such sort is asking for therapy bills.

I should note that, as I ran this story on the entertainment block of the show today, the graphics guy commented on how long it took him to find a photo of Ms. Burke suitable for use (we do said block of stories with a large graphic)

GFX dude: "Took me 15 minutes to find something...what's the term...not in various stages of undress."
Me: "Does that include the time you spent flogging or is that separate?"

a plea to the head FUPA in charge.

Rarely do I get a convergence of topics as lovely as this one -- apparently former Stone Temple Pilots/current Velvet Revolver singer Scott Weiland is a big Notre Dame fan, and has issued a plea to coach Charlie Weis to continue coaching his Papist insurgency (thank you, Deadspin), and resisting the wiles and temptations of the Big Apple (well, really, New Jersey, and doesn't that make the decision easier?) Here's a clip:

""Okay Charlie, at this point I am going to assume that you haven't spoken to the Giants' organization about their 'potential coaching job.' But LEAVING NOTRE DAME, your alma mater, without having achieved really anything of monolithic proportions like you've promised us, is absurd and unfair. So at this point, I will get on my knees and beg. Don't do it, coach. Don't do it! Stay and do what you promised; your team, your school, the fans, the legacy deserves to be taken to the promised land."

Um, Scott, about being absurd and unfair with loyalty? I think the DeLeo brothers might want to have a couple more words with you about that. Anyway, I think you have a shot at keeping Weis, but you've got to keep him alive first -- I hear heroin suppresses the appetite.

Oprah, why do you hate America?

It's hard to trust the accuracy of TMZ.com further than I can throw a stick, but if the quote in this bit is true, it's very revealing.

"Of her decision to open a school in South Africa instead of the U.S., Winfrey dissed American kids by telling Newsweek, 'If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school.'"

So, y'know, wouldn't it be a nice challenge to help....well, try to change that attitude among American kids? I don't miss my high school days -- and I went to a good one.

Baby boomers: hating on every successive generation like their lives depend on it.

slow news day, huh?

You know the TomKat wedding circus has become way too big and way too much when major news networks are showing MULTIPLE satellite shots of the castle where the whole shebang is supposed to be held tomorrow.

I shed the shame of being ashamed of my line of work long ago, but even I get a bit of a shock once in a while. It's not like life and death matters are going on in other places or anything.