SAY IT ISN'T SO, KEITH...
DID you snort your dad, or DIDN'T ya? Enquiring minds want to know!

I thought I'd heard it all. After all, didn't Ozzy Osbourne, the former rock star who is now a reality-show has-been, bite the head off a RAT at a record company's executive meeting once? Didn't Led Zeppelin put fish to a quite creative use when they stayed at a Seattle waterfront hotel after a concert? Didn't Chicago's guitarist, Terry Kath, kill himself whilst playing with a pistol? His last words were something to the effect of, "don't worry, it's not loaded." For fun, the Doors' Jim Morrison used to hang by his fingertips from a window ledge high above the streets of Los Angeles. There was a guitarist named Les Harvey, who was a member of the British band "Stone The Crows" (I actually have one of their albums) who was electrocuted when he was hanging onto a mike stand, and the mike shorted out...he held the stand in a death grip, quivering all over the place before letting go and dropping to the stage, dead, and the audience applauded, thinking it was part of the act...

So we've heard a lot of things about our universally loved (or loathed) rock stars, but, as I've found out: Just when you think you've heard it ALL, someone else will come along and throw a whole different angle at you that you weren't prepared for. That holds true in the business world, politics, media, entertainment, or whatever. And, I was presented with something that just left me stupefied, with my mouth open, totally AGHAST...and that was, a news report that Rolling Stone KEITH RICHARD said he had SNORTED HIS DAD! He mixed some of his dad's ashes in along with whatever drug (or detergent, or whatever) that he was snorting, and I am literally dumbfounded that someone could even IMAGINE doing something like that. That smacks of some sort of respiratory cannibalism, doesn't it? But then again, you have to consider your sources; after all, 'twas the same Keith Richard who was sitting in the top of a coconut tree (or whatever kind of tree) in the tropics last year when he fell outta the tree and hit his head. The reason he didn't DIE? He landed on his HEAD. Nothing in there to get HURT. And, back in the '70s, Keith Richard actually underwent a TOTAL TRANSFUSION to get all the drugs outta his system. I imagine Keith was the inspiration for Dow Chemical's slogan, "better living thru chemistry".

There is really nothing that can sink Keith's image any further; he's ingested so many drugs by now that he has been officially certified as a Living Corpse by the English Society of Funeral Directors; indeed, he shouldn't be alive. This proves, that if a nuclear holocaust wipes out the entire planet, Keith Richard will still be alive, along with the cockroaches. But lately, just lately, Keith has been involved in some kind of damage control; he's come out and said that he didn't really snort his dad, that he was just kidding. I don't know about that...after all, SNORTING YOUR DAD'S ASHES just ain't something you kid about. That is totally unimaginable, except, perhaps, to a depraved rock star who probably hasn't had a decent drug-high in ages because he's built up a tolerance to EVERYTHING...and sure, it is universally known that a "bad boy image" helps you if you're a rock star, but snorting your Dad's ashes? That goes beyond "bad", into the realm of "awfully creepy", and I just kinda think, "ACK." And if being a rock star is anything like being a politician, if you have to come out and say, "I didn't do/say that", WELL OF COURSE, YOU DID! And Bill Clinton DID inhale, and he DID have sex with that woman! In the White House library! On Government time! With a Government Employee!

So, Keith, I think you DID snort your dad! And the reason I think you DID is because you felt you had to come out and DENY it! Now, rock stars can say or do almost anything, and other than some sort of temporary shock value, no harm is done. But this...this...well, if I was one of Keith's bandmates, I'd think that if he's not actually going senile, that he is deranged, and as such, an embarrassment to the group.

I have a Rolling Stones Concert Video from 2002; they played at Madison Square Garden, and while Mick Jagger is jumping around, leaping all over the stage and running wind-sprints with microphone in hand, Keith either moves slowly, stabs weakly at his guitar or kneels, trying to catch his breath. In the foto at left, Mick isn't singing; he's shouting, "come on, Keith, stand up! I know you can do it!!!" There may be some truth to the rumor that Keith takes a swig of formaldehyde before a concert; that way, if he dies onstage, the audience members won't notice any difference.

BLOGGER'S UPDATE: After I wrote all the above, ABC-TV's "Nightline" program quoted someone as saying that only cockroaches and Keith Richard would survive the holocaust! Which I'd written here a couple hours previously! Truly, blogging in the psychic realm. At the beginning of tonite's "Nightline", host Martin Bashira (who was attempting to look 'thot-provoking'), wondered aloud for us all to hear, "this time Keith Richard might have gone too far." And who am I to disagree? A sign of the times: The "Nightline" correspondent intoned, "Could Keith Richard have actually SNORTED his father's ashes?" Did you, in your wildest dreams, ever think that question would be asked on national TV? Well, if the question were directed at anyone else, the answer would most probably be negatory. But with Keith Richard...who knows?
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The Stones have been billed as the "World's Greatest Rock Band". Personally, I think they're the "World's Sloppiest Rock Band." And if they can hang around until after the nuclear holocaust, they may very well be "The World's ONLY Rock Band". And, if the rest of the Stones don't survive, well, ol' Keith will be touring solo.