God forgive me...

...but every time I see Susan Estrich interviewed somewhere, I half expect her to break into a chorus of either "Hello, Dolly" or "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend."

Oh noes...

Billy Mays is dead.

I know he annoyed the heck out of a lot of people, but there was something (I think) oddly endearing about his crazy, over-the-top sort of pitchman behavior.

The world will be a little less weird (in the good way) without Billy Mays in it.

And here's a comic memorializing him.

(Gale Storm is also dead today. What is going on? If I were a famous person I would be VERY AFRAID right now.)

crack is bad for you...

No, I'm not making any kind of snarky plumbers-butt joke here.

Apparently the singer Amy Winehouse has emphysema. At 24. Twenty-friggin'-four.

The doctors are relating it in part to her smoking (uh, tobacco, and then some, uh, other stuff) habits.

On the news this morning apparently someone (one of her doctors?) was quoted as saying something like, "She's going to have to decide what she loves more...being alive and able to sing, or the drugs."

And you know, that just makes me sad. I know, crack is supposed to be highly addictive. I know people have pain in their lives. But I cannot imagine someone at 24 being in that boat...I think of ME at 24, what I was like - still fairly full of hope, still kind of young and silly (I mean silly in the good way). I didn't have whatever demons seem to haunt Ms. Winehouse.

I just can't picture that level of self-destructiveness. Oh, I know people DO it, we have a long line of musicians (especially) who died young. But I still have a hard time accepting it.

I don't know. Self-destructive behavior just in general makes me sad. I can't quite imagine the kind of demons that would drive someone to find solace at the bottom of a crack pipe. (And I don't want to.)

I go back and forth on the whole drug issue, tending to be a bit of a little-l libertarian. But I do think, at times like this, that maybe the death penalty for any dealer who is shown to have gotten someone hooked - especially if that person died as a result of the addiction - might not be too harsh.

(And her family - I presume she has family? What must they be going through.)

I hope this is a wake-up call for her, I hope she can manage to kick it and to continue and to have some sort of happy life. (Somedays I wonder if there isn't something a little ghoulish about the way we treat famous people, the whole "dance monkey dance" always needing them to be "on" and the way they're always in the public eye.) I'd rather see her retire from the scene than die.

A contrast

(What is it with all these celebrities being arrested for drunk driving? I mean, I might speed, I might distractedly pull out in front of someone, I might even drive with an expired tag through sheer forgetfulness, but I'd never, ever, ever drive if I had had even a full glass of wine*)

Anyway. Ty Pennington, celebrity carpenter, was arrested this week for driving drunk (I saw it in my local paper...it's very bizarre what "news of the outside world" reaches us...mostly it's the weird little soundbitey things, not the meatier stories).

I think it's an interesting contrast with the P*aris story. Here's what Pennington did, at least according to the accounts I've read:

*He apologized to his fans and co-workers.

*He admitted he did something stupid and criminal.

*He mentioned "accountability" (he or his people paid the $5000 bail and it's expected he'll show up to court in June)

*He said he's grateful he didn't injure anyone with his stupidity.

What he didn't do:

*Call upon his fans to beg to get him "pardoned" of the charges

*Pout

*Try to say it wasn't his fault

*Claim that his "importance" (and I'd argue that he does more good in the world than the Hilton spawn; didn't he have that show where he remade people's houses for them when they couldn't afford to, like, for example, when someone had to start using a wheelchair and they couldn't afford the necessary house-mods?) should be a reason for his not being punished.

Here's part of what he said:

"We all make mistakes, however this is about accountability. Under no circumstances should anyone consume alcohol while driving. I could have jeopardized the lives of others and I am grateful there was no accident or harm done to anyone"

He also referred to what happened as a "wake-up call" (Does that mean he has a problem with alcohol? Or just that he did a stupid thing once that he won't do again?)

I suppose things may progress and change - he could always break bad and start doing the big Star Turn where he says he's not guilty or he should be forgiven or something. But for now, it looks like he's being classy about it. Well, as classy as someone who's arrested for driving drunk can be.


(*Yes, one glass. Alcohol affects me pretty strongly which is why I don't drink. The most I've ever consumed is a half-glass of white wine somewhere. I get that far and I'm like, eh, I don't want any more, I'm starting to perspire. For some reason, alcohol makes me feel very hot. And I don't mean "that's HOT" hot, I mean temperature hot.)