Granted, I my soul was already in mid-rot after viewing Rock Of Love Bus and some True Life episode about a fat kid whose friends make him lose weight so he's not a cockblock to their lusty pursuits. But somehow my stomach did a backflip after seeing the commercial for the new MTV reality show, T.I.'s Road To Redemption.
Just to refresh you memory, the rapper (whose music we love here at NCDSUV, incidentally) plead guilty last March to possession of unregistered machine guns and
silencers, unlawful possession of machine guns and possession of
firearms by a convicted felon. In other words, serious motherfucking shit. And was subsequently sentenced to a year and a day in prison (out of a possible maximum of 30), a term that was deferred until he completed a 1,000-hour-plus community-service program, in which he educates young kids on the dangers of guns, violence and general badassery.
Doesn't sound all that evil right? High-profile superstar who's weary of his personal safety makes immature mistake of having unregistered ammo, gets busted, and tries to make amends by conducting the kind of public outreach he probably should have felt compelled to do anyway as thoughtful reciprocation for his ascent to fame and fortune.
The problem is, it got spun into (and was likely intended all along as) a pseudo-sanctimonious reality show that manipulates a humbling and deserved punishment into an opportunity for PR redemption during the period of his incarceration.
Joining the ranks of shitty celebrity dads (hello, Michael Lohan), Alan Panettiere, father of Heroes starlet/subject of persistent nip-slip paparazzi stalking, Hayden Panettiere, pled no contest to battery.
And while it's tempting to insert mimicry of a certain Master Of Puppets-era Metallica song at this juncture, it becomes a lot less amusing upon learning that Alan's battery stemmed from a bout of domestic violence inflicted upon his wife back in August. The repercussions include two years of probation, fines and a year of domestic-violence counseling.
Ya know, it's starting to become more and more clear why youthful actors are the sort of kids inclined to spend their days escaping into the fantasies and imagination of less dysfunctional and, well, more heoric situations.
Ah, the innocent days of 2008. When recession, war and high-profile celebrity deaths became the glue to bond us together like societal Siamese siblings. But now it's 2009, a whole new era, a whole new ballgame. And not just for Washington, who will call Barack Obama their overlord, or the New York Yankees, who will take the field with C.C. Sabathia and Mark Texeira and still manage to lose the pennant to smaller-budgeted organizations.
It is the final stand for celebrity land in a decade that has alternately enthralled and repulsed us. It is a time for Hollywood to make its mark on culture and the planet at large, and really give 'em the good stuff we all cream for in the tabloids.
And we got off to an intermittently intriguing start, thanks largely to the birth of what could have been the First Granddaughter-in-waiting, and a certain wayward actress' parent who may love his share of his daughter's spotlight more than the woman herself. So without any pregnant pauses, here's the top 5 things NCDSUV learned this week.
4. Paul McCartney may have had to navigate Heather Mills' body sexually despite her prosthetic leg, but at least he didn't have to stick around till midnight to ritualistically spray-tan the thing.
Isn't the word recklessly kind if ironic when applied to driving incidents, given how easily it would be to plop a "w" in front of it? Well, maybe not ironic, but there's something kind of funny about it. You get what I'm siizzzaying.
Anyhow, just when we were mid-yawn over the information surrounding Matt Dillon's relatively goody-two-shoes speeding arrest, ex-NBA great/current basketball analyst Charles Barkley comes along and gets caught driving while intoxicated in Arizona early this morning. Apparently, the former Suns/76ers great was civil and polite, and this would rank as a first offense. And he always prided himself on not being a role model anyway. But unfortunately, he's also been an outspoken voice of late about racially motivated hirings and firings in sports.
And while I for one can separate a night of pre-New Year's Eve good times and momentary indiscretion from the legitimacy of his personal politics, one has to wonder if this will affect his credibility as any kind of moral arbiter. Oh, Chuck, you are quite the conundrum.
I'm not sure what's funnier. That Matt Dillon was really in such a hurry to get anywhere of significance, that it's such a slow news day that this item made the top of most entertainment headlines, or that one website tried to provide their post with extra weight by leading off with the line, "Vermont police arrested Oscar nominee Matt Dillon for speeding overnight."
You'd think they were trying to lend gravitas to the marketing campaign for an indie film. Anyway, looks like the brother of Entourage star Kevin Dillon (ouch!) went... Over The Edge, as he was caught going a tidy 106 mph. Although he wasn't drunk, and his mugshot actually makes him look better than usual.
Hopefully the pace of celebrity misdoings will pick up its pace in the upcoming 24 hours of partying, eh?
Pop quiz: What's more gratifying? Finding out that Levi Johnston's mother, Sherry Johnston, was arrested on six (!) counts of felony, narcotics-related misconduct, or reading about on FOX News' website? Trick question. They're equally heeeelarious.
So wait, you're surprised that the mother of an underaged Alaskan teenager who tattooed Bristol Palin's name on his ring finger would be white trash enough to get embroiled in a massive drug stakeout? I mean, with the hundreds of thousands of dollars his mother-in-law-to-be, Sarah Palin, spent on classing up her wardrobe and, by proxy, the reputation of her Hills Have Eyes-worthy extended family, this was no doubt a shock to several unsuspecting citizens.
Man, oh man, if only this news emerged during the election. Would have been pretty fascinating to see the conservative spinmeisters turn this into further evidence for Palin's persistence in the face of constant personal turmoil.
Ugh, I just got post-election hangover douchechills.
It's all wrapped up in the mumbo jumbo of parole possibilities and concurrent/consecutive sentences, but O.J. Simpson has been sentenced to at least 15 years with a few other open sentences and consecutive minors for armed robbery and kidnapping convictions in the double digits.
Judge Jackie Glass was harsh with Simpson before the sentencing, expressing frustration over Simpson's lack of remorse, while assuring he and co-defendant Clarence Stewart that neither of their prison terms would be guided by retribution for previous incidents.
That being said, Ronald Goldman's parents were in the courtroom. And as O.J. nearly broke down in tears and gave a piece of testimony prior to his attorney's closing comments, and rotated his eyes for cameras that captured the demise of his existence as he knows it during Glass' sentencing, I couldn't help but think (and no doubt was not alone): Fuck you, you questionably acquitted, probable murderer asshole, and have fun rotting in your shitty cell.
Remember a couple weeks back when we reported the heeeelarious story about Boy George luring some young stud over to his house for a coke-fueled naked photo shoot, but then imprisoning him and beating him 8MM style?
Well, apparently there is nothing Taboo for the 47-year-old Culture Clubber, real name George O'Dowd. A jury listened to the testimony of his alleged victim, Audun Carlsen, examined the bondage-gear-and-bruises-based evidence, and convicted the singer of false imprisonment.
Ya know, this kind of makes you realize that when you're watching movies about the seedy underworld of celebrities that involve peripheral characters lost in a miasma of masochistic excess, it's because those filmmakers probably encounter the likes of Boy George during their introduction to Hollywood.
Moreover, what does this say for George's pal and one-time producing partner Rosie O'Donnell? Perhaps that her motivation behind saddling up in leather and cuffs for Exit To Eden was more than the misguided advice of her agent?
Well, anyway, George-y boy, when you're surrounded by horny hooligans in jail, you can always stop, look them sympathetically in the eyes and plead, "Wait... do you really wanna hurt me?" Stay tuned for an update on the imprisonment status of fellow fallen celeb O.J. Simpson.
Say that headline 69 times fast. Anyway, if you weren't aware, any pop singer from the '80s with the name George has transformed into a giant, drug-addled pervy fuck-up in their middle-age. Let us not forget the repeated indiscretions of George Michael, who's suddenly got a rap sheet more pronounced than the five o'clock shadow that graces his visage.
And then there's George O'Dowd, aka Boy George, who went on trial today for allegedly beating and imprisoning a man who would come to the singer's house for naked photo shoots. Apparently because George felt his 20-something subject had been hacking into his e-mail account.
OK, here we go. Sound the kneejerk racist alarms after Katt Williams was busted for having a handgun in his car. People will no doubt be coming to their own conclusions about how the comedian is some kind of hip-hop culture gangbanger or some such nonsense, especially when he has yet to speak to the press about the situation.
But don't you worry Mr. Williams, I am here to act as your lawyer in the court of public opinion, because not only will I remind NCDSUV readers (who are of course the most objective, rational and tolerant blog perusers on the cyber-planet already) that: A.) it would be all manner of hypocritically ignorant to lump you into some larger category of troublemaker that feeds our sometimes' latent prejudices and B.) You deserve the benefit of the doubt because, you, my friend, should have been busted ages ago on charges of being heeeelarious and totally underrated.
Yes, I found this story about Fergie's high school prom date getting busted for armed robbery as amusing as the next guy. But it's also about as surprising as watching Fergie piss herself on stage during the Grammys. And in both cases, any shock is mitigated by her long and storied history as a former meth addict.
And why is her poor high school boyfriend schlub the only one sitting in jail anyway? Fergie herself should at least be doing community service for stealing the Black Eyed Peas' credibility and dressing up like a cross between Mr. Big (the band, not the Sex And The City paramour) and Annie Hall in the "Big Girls Don't Cry" video.
Personally, when I'm depressed I sit around on my computer and blog about other celebrities. Heather Locklear, though, apparently likes to block lanes in the highway and cry until her mugshot makeup is smudged (just once, I'd love to see a celebrity be cognizent of the impending public dispensing of their mugshot and keep it together).
The one-time perpetual Melrose Place special guest star, 47, was busted over the weekend for apparently driving under the influence, most likely of prescription drugs. Drugs she presumably ingests to control her well-publicized anxiety and depression. Which actually made me feel kind of bad.
But them I mostly felt scorn for the individual who reported her as leaving a parking lot and "driving erratically" to the police. Can't people just mind their own business? You don't see me calling the police every time I see someone wielding a knife in the street or mugging old ladies of marble rye.
Seriously though, that supposed Good Samaritan was likely more excited about leaking a celeb sighting than protecting other civilians. Which is what I'm here for. So back off, said Samaritan.
It's been a wild week, both here in the NCDSUV chambers and in the jungle of pop culture. I think I speak for all of us when I say that, were it not for the last five days' admissions of homosexuality, a previously admitted homosexual's concession to crack-attacks, Emmy winners' self-righteous Republican-bashing and other momentarily news-making moments I'd be... well, I'd probably more or less be fine and move on with my weekend.
But anyhow, here's the top 5 things we learned this week:
What's actually most absurd about George Michael's Friday arrest for fiddling around with crack and pot near (guess where) a public bathroom in London isn't that it's his third humiliating arrest since 1998 (and arguably third most, after getting caught slumped over in his car in 2006 while on ecstasy and receiving sexual favors in a public lavatory a decade ago). It isn't that he offered another self-deprecating apology─“I want to apologise to my fans for screwing up again, and to promise them I’ll sort myself out. And to say sorry to everybody else, just for boring them.”─that's supposed to endear us past his indiscretions.
What's batshit crazy is that the police let him go with a "caution"... for crack possession! Now, I'm the first person to admit the U.S. has puritanical drug laws, particularly when it comes to pot. But I tend to feel like, even if you're a silly old pop star who's caught in yet another unfortunate foible (although clearly, part of Michael's addictions revolve around the attention involved in getting caught, further affirmed by his precious apologies), possessing crack, which is a Class A drug over there, should warrant at least an overnight stay in a cell.
This goes a long way toward explaining how Class A fuckups like Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse keep stumbling and bumbling around London streets. Forget all the jokes about bad teeth or crappy post-Oasis stadium-rock bands (okay, that's just my stereotype). The Brits are actually more laughably lenient on their celebs than we are. No wonder their tabloids overcompensate with such unparalleled spite.
The shame of Ryan O'Neal's recent arrest on suspected possession of methamphetamine (along with son Redmond, who more or less looks like he's done a lot of meth at a fairly early age) is that I was almost done with my speech to present him with a special award as NCDSUV's Father Of The Year.
It was a close race between O'Neal, Michael Lohan and, of course, our almighty lord and savior (aka Billy Ray Cyrus), but at the end of the day, neither papa LiLo nor Mr. Montana had rebounded in the last year from almost going all Marvin Gaye on their son, and managed to keep their nose clean amidst their elder daughter's crack-cavorting scandal.
But, sadly, with this shocking news, I shall have share the award, by default, amongst the remaining two candidates. It's like an episode of I Love Money where a contestant volunteers to void their check and the remaining two chopping-block competitors bear the spoils (more thoughts on that fine program later today).
But don't worry Ryan, to paraphrase Ari Gold, Hollywood loves nothing more than a comeback. And that says nothing about the much less rigorous criteria to be welcomed back into the redeemed arms of NCDSUV. We love you, dad.
