Geez, not two months after potato-loving NYT reporter David Carr was declared the next big thing in druggie memoir publishing, the literati is already turning its attention to Bill Clegg, the next druggie memoir star. Which we note mostly so that we can use this picture that we took with our cameraphone last night: David Carr underneath a Barnes & Noble banner with his very own picture on it! Ain't that a kick? Click to enlarge.
The plan was for Track to be the good kid in the Palin family. The athletically-named son of VP nominee Sarah Palin—who's set to ship out soon for Iraq—was portrayed as a symbol of patriotism on stage at the Republican Convention. But did he only join the Army to escape a life of drugs and crime back in Alaska? The newly famous enlistee gets the full investigative treatment from the Enquirer —which always saves the best stuff for the print version. Which we now have in hand! The young man has partied with some very talkative people. So: while Track was watching his mom enthrall the nation, was he really daydreaming of mainlining sweet, sweet Oxycontin and playing "master" criminal back home? We quote: Track is portrayed as the biggest bad boy in Wasilla. A serious drug problem, vandalism, theft, and partying are his main pastimes, allegedly. Which really wouldn't be that remarkable if the Republican party wasn't holding him up as, you know, a role model. If true, this would make the Palins a caricature: the country family with a pregnant teen, son on OxyContin, and a mom desperately trying to present a respectable face to the world. And failing. And honestly, everyone: the Enquirer does not represent the media elite. So the liberal media should be safely insulated from the backlash on this one. The best quotes from the Enquirer's story:
Country politicos are still trying to ban salvia! How uncool. And it's all YouTube's fault. We warned you in May that New York was moving to outlaw salvia—the legal drug that really works, if you like falling down—based largely on the impression that hick State Senators got from America's dumbest teenagers posting their tripping experience videos online. Salvia is about fifty times more potent than weed (and "twice as prevalent as LSD," dang!), so it wouldn't be surprising if it was banned, though it would still be stupid. What's the danger? Driving on salvia? You'd be lucky to be able to find your keys. Now, in one of those laughable righteous battles between party stoners and philosophical stoners, the real salvia spiritual journeymen are speaking out against those god damn YouTube posers:
Although what we're about to tell you will come as a huge shock, try to stay calm, and we'll keep our fingers crossed that nothing else so completely unexpected occurs today. Rich, young socialitey-model, Alice Dellal, the face of Agent Provocateur, sometimes snorts cocaine! We know, it's unbelievable. But it gets worse: She allowed herself to be photographed next to a DVD case with the drug actually on it! Does she not realize that the modeling world she inhabits abhors such behavior? Almost as much as it abhors calorie control, cigarettes, and extreme youth.
While we expect actress Helen Mirren to be both bodacious and bawdy, nothing could have prepared us for the candid interview she recently gave to the British version of GQ, where the Oscar winner opened up at length about her shoplifting problem, her love of cocaine, and her multiple date rapes. The latter revelations are causing the most controversy, because though Mirren says she was assaulted "a couple of times," her attitude toward the touchy issue is royally complicated. Says People:
Pfizer went through a huge hassle earlier this year when some touchy public health types pointed out that the company's main spokesman for the cholesterol drug Lipitor—artificial heart inventor and Skeletor look-alike Robert Jarvik—was not actually a doctor, although the whole $250 million ad campaign was premised on him touting his medical expertise. So the company has regrouped and come up with a dynamic new spokesman: a regular guy, just like you! Which goes to show how unnecessary the Jarvik fiasco was. If the company had gone with either "regular guy" or "actual doctor" in the first place, it could have saved itself millions in marketing costs and months of downtime in this multibillion-dollar fight for worldwide drug supremacy. But why not live on the edge? After the jump, soak in the misleading-ness of an old ad featuring the non-practicing Dr. Jarvik:
If you're stuck at work this afternoon and in need of a little amusement because you're bored and annoyed that everyone is already relaxing and you're still sitting behind your desk, might we suggest the following video from the archives of one Geraldo Rivera from the 1980s? Watch as Geraldo poses as a thug, buys a kilo of coke, busts the dealers, and then tests it to make sure it's Colombia's finest. (He sort of inadvertently gives away his own personal experience, though, when he says, "It looks very pure!" as soon as he cuts into the key with a pen knife.) "Do you know you just sold a kilo to cocaine to Geraldo Rivera?," a cop shouts at the suspects. "You're the most famous coke dealers in America right now!" The video below.
Here's Kal Penn as captured by the LA Times at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. You may recognize Penn: He's the famous pothead "Kumar" from that famous pothead movie series, Harold & Kumar. Apparently someone asked him to be a "political whip," herding delegates while wearing a headset, and he totally went for it. "The majority of kids I've met on the road are struggling," Penn told the newspaper. Well, fine, but when the Republicans want to portray Democratic politicians as of vapid, decadent, amoral Hollywood types, they won't have to go after Paris Hilton and Britney Spears anymore. They've got Penn working the convention floor. And something tells me they won't be emphasizing his role as a physician on House. Anyway, whatever, if you try to mold your self-expression around how political extremists might twist things you'll never come up with culture gems like Harold & Kumar. Enjoy a sampling from their more terroristic oeuvre after the jump.
David Atherton, a British entrepreneur who sold e-commerce site Dabs.com to BT for $55.7 million in 2006, is going to need some of that money for his legal defense. A 49-year-old woman has accused him of abducting and trying to rape her in his $2.8 million home. Police also charged Atherton with "threats to kill, false imprisonment and possession of a Class A drug," which could be ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, mushrooms, or amphetamines. Not, as far as we can tell, OC-40.
In case guzzling down cups of coffee and cans of Diet Coke or Red Bull just doesn't deliver enough caffeine to your bloodstream, manufacturers are now considerately adding caffeine to food: As well as the supercharged versions of gum, candy and even instant oatmeal that are available, a company has introduced Engobi, the world's first "caffeine infused munchie." As Slate reporter Mason Currey discovers, Engobi is a sugary puff whose packaging promises to help you "to get wired. I mean really wired."
Richard Quest, the CNN correspondent arrested in Central Park last April with crystal meth in his pocket and a rope on his genitals, is back to loudly telling you business travelers everything you need to know! And his time off has made him no less, uh, vivacious. Click to watch him scream through the intro to his latest travel segment, including valuable info on people's loss of "Priv-uh-see." Something Quest knows all too well.
Hey, we've heard anecdotal rumblings and ravings about Klonopin lately. Is it reaching the tipping point as the latest recreational prescription drug? Is it better than Xanax and Valium? Send me your stories. (I'm so on the edge that I can't complain to the doctor about a headache without walking out with a prescription for Xanax. But yesterday I read in Glamour about how stress can make women more vulnerable to autoimmune disorders, which only made things worse.) So, Klonopin?
· We spotted this juicy little nugget of gossip just moments before last night's episode of Chelsea Lately aired on E! last night. One of the show's staffers maintains a Tumblr called C'est L.A. Vie, in which she often details the mundane things that happen on the show. Yesterday, all that changed when she alleged that someone who was wired with a hot mic was caught doing coke on set. Our handy video clip runs down the list of all the on-camera guests last night's episode; leave your guesses (and investigative rationale) in the comments! [C'est L.A. Vie]
· Our hearts just broke a little — scratch that, a LOT — when we read this anecdote about Life Goes On star Corky and his racist streak. This was a Wikipedia hoax; Corky doesn't see color. [Byron Crawford]
· Chuck Klosterman's latest Esquire column features a lengthy diatribe on Jennifer Love Hewitt's left femur ("Love Hewitt’s left thighbone strikes me as unusually long, and I feel like it lacks the convincing self-assurance of her right femur"), which he grades a B+. [Esquire]
· Ignore Lindsay Lohan's nipples for a second and, instead, focus on her mouth. Is she wearing braces? Grillz? Is she chewing tin foil? [Egotastic]
· And we know the day is almost over, but here are 88 ways you can enjoy 8/8/08. Our fave? "Call up Eddie Furlong and ask why there are 8 of him to a mile. Then, find out how he’s doing. Let us know." Guaranteed to be the best list until the 99 ways you can enjoy 9/9/09 comes out next year! [Best Week Ever]
Days after implicating Mary-Kate Olsen but months after it began, the DEA inquiry into the death of Heath Ledger has finally wrapped, filing charges against exactly no one. Does it perhaps seem like the U.S. Attorney's Office spent an awful lot of time and money with nothing to show for it? According to TMZ, that's just the beginning — the gossip website alleges that DEA agents essentially used the Ledger investigation as an excuse to talk to supermodels, fly all over the country, and meet people from Hollywood:
Can't a little movie like Tropic Thunder catch a break? The Ben Stiller comedy has thus far managed to survive racism, ratings, "retards," and American Idol — and that's before it's even come out (Wednesday, August 13!). Still, all that was child's play compared to the newest Tropic trouble, instigated by an overzealous radio DJ who crashed the film's junket to ask Robert Downey Jr. some of the most inane questions Iron Man has ever had to face. Listen in horror as the notoriously rehabbed actor is asked which costar he'd like to “drink a brew and smoke a blunt with” (only the first of many, many stupid questions) — we've even provided a helpful assortment of what we can only imagine were Jack Black and Ben Stiller's reaction shots. Enjoy!
Hawk-faced elderly man James Brady, the name-dropping veteran of 600 media outlets who has now eased into his retirement job as Forbes' "media columnist" (ha), is primarily skilled at being befuddled about the point of things (though he hasn't lost his name-dropping talent). So faced with an early copy of former crackhead-turned Times columnist David Carr's (well-reviewed) new book-which is not, as Brady hoped, a volume of media name-dropping-Brady panics in print like the senile Uncle Junior in The Sopranos: shoot the bad man and run hide in the closet! See, Brady really wanted this book to be a recitation by Carr of media inside-baseball stuff. "What a glorious read that would be, and what a column or two I could get out of it," he writes. But no-it's full of drug shit!
Apparently trying to get people to "CRAVE" their ugly, 20-mile-per-gallon (city!) CR-V crossover, Honda made a dopey, computerized 20-questions thing for their website. In case you've never done one before, that means you think of some THING and the website asks you a series of questions and tries to guess what THING you've got in mind. There are any number of sites that can do this, so Honda apparently just downloaded some sort of standard programming library to make the game work, then wrapped it in a 3-D model of their car for marketing purposes. But they forgot to take out many of the racier THINGS one might have in mind, like an herbal jazz cigarette, also known as a "joint." We're told "cocaine" also worked at one point but can't get the game to accept that — it says "I am guessing that you're thinking of something your mother wouldn't approve of." Aww Honda, just throw open the floodgates. Then the game might actually be sorta fun! [Honda]
Leon Neyfakh at the Observer reports on David Carr's fastidiously investigated druggie memoir The Night of the Gun and thinks it's just the rehab an ailing genre needs: "After years of abuse, the memoir has found its white knight, galloping in to show how a personal story can be engrossing, shocking and true. Mr. Carr's book...practically issues a challenge to those current reigning kings-David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Ishmael Beah-of the memoir genre: You get a video camera and tape recorder, and retrace the steps of your life. Will your story sound the same?" Carr even hired a reporter to help him reconstruct the evidence of his forgotten crackhead years, which raises an interesting question: Will he be credited for bringing journalistic rigor to the memoir, or will a superabundance of facts and sources — "No, this really happened, I have affidavits to prove it!" — baptize the next big thing in literary narcissism?
