Oh, and a boozy tit. Allegedly. Sam Shepard – from films like Black Hawk Down and Baby Boom – has been arrested on suspicion of speeding and driving drunk in Illinois. And that’s more or less all there is to the story.

Except that Sam Shepard now has something else to put on his CV alongside acting, directing, being a prize-winning writer and getting arrested on suspicion of DUI – his mugshots also make him look like Gordon Ramsay’s homeless uncle. That’s something to be proud of.

Reading through Sam Shepard’s list of accomplishments makes him sort of seem a little bit like Forrest Gump. A really angry Forrest Gump. He always seems to be involved in what’s going on – he was a drummer in a band that was on the Easy Rider soundtrack. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1979 play Buried Child. He wrote Paris, Texas for Wim Wenders. He’s an Oscar-nominated actor. He played the banjo on Patti Smith’s cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit. It’s almost exactly like Forrest Gump, a film that we admittedly haven’t watched for several years and can barely remember.

However, there is one difference between Sam Shepard and Forrest Gump – where Forrest Gump ended with Forrest running everywhere as fast as he could, the last few moments of Sam Shepard’s life have seen him allegedly getting tanked up on twice the legal amount of booze and driving around as fast as possible until he was arrested for it, at which point someone took of a photo of him where his hair looked a bit mad.

What else is there to this Sam Shepard DUI story? Embarrassingly little, to be honest. The Boston Herald reports:

Police Lt. Mark Kotte says officers stopped Shepard early Saturday in the central Illinois town of Normal. Kotte says the 65-year-old Shepard was driving 16 mph over the 30 mph speed limit. Kotte says a breath test indicated Shepard’s blood-alcohol level was double the legal limit… A man who answered the jail phone said he did not know the amount of bail.

It’s like Sam Shepard is daring us to find something even vaguely interesting in this story, isn’t it? Yes, he was apparently speeding, but only slightly. Yes, he was drunk, but it’s not as if he started raging at the police about how much he hates the Jews. People care so little about Sam Shepard’s DUI arrest that nobody even bothered to ask the man who answered the phone at the jail he was kept in who he was. He even did it all in a town called Normal, for crying out loud. Sam Shepard’s fiendish, we’ll give him that.

Still, at least now he’s been arrested on suspicion of DUI, Sam Shepard can continue his slow transformation into Paris Hilton. Next thing you know, Sam Shepard will be falling out of cars in a miniskirt with no underwear on, then he’ll start hosting a reality show called Sam Shepard’s My New BFF, where he’ll audition a gaggle of clueless fame-hungry numpties to see who’ll be his best friend, all the while muttering “I co-wrote Brownsville Girl with Bob Dylan, for God’s sake. Where did my life go so very wrong?”

Well we’d watch it.

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But now, possibly, Heather Locklear might just be starting to regret allegedly getting hammered on prescription medication and then parking her car in the middle of a state highway in floods of tears in September and then having a mugshot taken that makes her look a bit like a emotionally-sensitive panda being forced to watch the 2 Girls 1 Cup video.

And that’s because Heather Locklear has just been officially charged with misdemeanor driving under the influence of legally prescribed drugs. Who knew that Heather Locklear possibly had an addiction to prescription drugs? We’d have thought that her existing addictions – to making cacky TV shows and marrying idiots from crappy bands that only morons like – would have been enough for anyone.

We’ve always had a sneaking resentment of Ava, the daughter of Heather Locklear and Richie Sambora – not only does she have the genes to grow the worst haircut in history if she wanted to, but she’s going to have a hell of a Christmas.

This year her dad was arrested for DUI while she was in the car with him, and his mother’s just been charged with DUI after she was arrested for parking her car in the middle of a highway on suspicion of being off her chuff on prescription drugs. And that means Ava’s getting shitloads of presents.

True, depending on who she gets to spend Christmas day with, Ava might either have to put up with a recovering alcoholic barely in control of his own functions or a shivering depressed woman who might  constantly be on the verge of suicide but, hey, at least she’ll get an Xbox out of it. And isn’t that the most important thing?

Well, that’s unless Heather Locklear blows all her money on legal fees. Because, following her DUI arrest in September, Heather Locklear has now finally been charged with misdemeanor driving under the influence of legally prescribed drugs. The Los Angeles Times reports:

“There was no alcohol and no illegal narcotics in her system, only prescription medications, said Santa Barbara County Deputy Dist. Atty. Lee Carter. Locklear is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 26. Attorney Blair Berk, who is representing the actress, declined to comment.

Heather Locklear may have been charged, but that isn’t to say that she’ll be heavily punished for it if she’s convicted. Since this is her first real offence, it’s likely that Heather will get away with just a fine and possibly a court-ordered rehab stint.

And that’s undoubtedly the best outcome. Not only is Heather Locklear the mother of a young child, but also if she’s sent to prison, then who’ll do all the crappy cameos in all the rubbish American sitcoms in her place?

Britney Spears, that’s who. Would you really be able to live with yourselves after an outcome like that, jury members? We didn’t think so.

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Really interesting, too – there wasn’t any of this ‘occasional blogging about her implied lesbianism’ malarkey going on back then. Because, back then, Lindsay Lohan could hardly go a day without getting hammered on one substance or another and driving around all over the place like a cackling bug-eyed lunatic until she was arrested. It was fun.

But if you can’t remember that, you soon will – because some peripheral characters from one of these bug-eyed driving encounters have decided to sue Lindsay Lohan for causing them ’surprise, shock, fear and panic’. Well, hey, we’ve seen the trailer for I Know Who Killed Me – and if fear and panic are legitimate reasons for suing Lindsay Lohan, then we’ll just go and put a downpayment on that hillside mansion right now.

What exactly is Lindsay Lohan famous for these days? It’s certainly not being an actress. Is it occasionally holding a boyish girl’s hand? Her thundering political wisdom? Whatever it is, it’s rubbish.

The new Lindsay Lohan isn’t a patch on the constantly-shitfaced troublemaker that was the old Lindsay Lohan. In fact, thanks to Living Lohan and her dad’s reaction to it, it’s safe to say that Lindsay Lohan isn’t even in the top three most objectionable people in the Lohan family any more. True, it’s quite a hard family to crack – Mugabe would be hard-pressed to make the top five – but, come on, this is Lindsay Lohan we’re talking about. We expect more.

But, since Lindsay Lohan seems determined to continue down this dreary path towards cable-subscription erotic thriller career oblivion, Lindsay Lohan’s past has no option but to come back to take the slack a bit. How does it plan to do that? Only by cajoling some guest-stars in one of history’s most iconic Lohan meltdown moments to rear up and hit Lindsay Lohan with a gigantic lawsuit, that’s how.

Remember the last time that Lindsay Lohan was arrested for DUI? When she jumped into a car with her pockets full of cocaine, told the passengers “I’m a celebrity, I can do whatever the fuck I want” and chased a car full of terrified women around town until the police were called? Well, even though that happened over a year ago, those passengers have decided to sue Lindsay Lohan for it. E! Online reports:

“As it became clear what Lohan intended, the startled and fearful passengers cried for their lives,” the suit states… [plaintiffs] Blake, Sutter and Nigre are seeking at least $50,000 in damages to cover negligence, assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, conversion, trespass and slander.

This isn’t the first time the passengers have tried to sue Lindsay Lohan – there was talk of a lawsuit right after the arrest – but this time it looks as though they mean business. Or at least they would if Lindsay Lohan’s lawyers were taking it seriously. This is genuinely what lawyer Ed McPherson said in response to the lawsuit:

“If this was truly the ‘worst night’ of their summer, and not their best night, one has to wonder why they didn’t just get out of the car during the many opportunities they had to do so.”

Wow. Maybe he’s right, though. Maybe being driven around at terrifying speeds by a shitfaced Lindsay Lohan really did constitute the best night of those passengers’ summer. You can’t help feeling, though, that if that was true, those boys must have had a really shitty summer.

What was their second best night? The night that one of them had their eyed pected out by a rabid owl? The night that one of them fell out of a helicopter into a skip full of dirty HIV needles? The night that they all went to see Georgia Rule at the cinema?

No, we’ve gone too far.

But that’d be the easy way. Instead the Heather Locklear arrest story has chosen to get really weird. And it’s all the paparazzi’s fault.

Remember the good Samaritan who alerted the police to Heather Locklear’s erratic driving? Turns out she owns a paparazzi agency and managed to sell photos of Heather Locklear being arrested to TMZ for $27,000. So does that affect her credibility as a witness? Was she really just being a concerned citizen? Why’s Heather Locklear famous again? What was the date of the first Spanish Armada? Who are you? Why do our legs hurt so much?

The paparazzi, honest to goodness, are responsible for every single one of the world’s problems. It’s their fault that Kanye West is so angry, it’s their fault that Jamie Lynn Spears is so jumpy and paranoid and we’re pretty sure it’s their fault that the prepacked stirfry that was a fortnight out of date we had for dinner recently tasted overwhelmingly of vinegar. The paparazzi, in short are bastards.

Just look what they did to Heather Locklear. There was Heather on Saturday, minding her own business seemingly intoxicated on a cocktail of prescription medication, when all of a sudden – bam – the paparazzi are calling the police in case her erratic driving ends up killing somebody. The bastards.

It has emerged that the ‘good Samaritan’ who got Heather Locklear arrested for DUI after notifying the police of her unusual behaviour was none other than Jill Ishkanian, a photographer who also runs her own paparazzi agency. And, like all good paparazzi agency bosses, Ishkanian managed to get a few photos of the arrest which she sold on to TMZ for $27,000.

Except she didn’t make the transaction directly because she’s previously been accused of stealing information from US Weekly’s computers and as a result her reputation is so tattered that hardly any outlets will buy her photos.

But just because Heather Locklear’s arrest came about because of a woman who had a vested financial interest in securing photos of Heather Locklear getting arrested, it doesn’t mean that Heather Locklear didn’t deserve to be arrested, does it? AP reports:

CHP Lt. Dane Lobb said Wednesday that Ishkanian’s involvement would not change what was going forward as a regular DUI investigation. “We determined (Locklear) was someone who shouldn’t be operating a vehicle,” he said. Locklear’s attorney, Blair Berk, did not return an e-mail message seeking comment Wednesday evening.

Of course, regardless of who called the police, Heather Locklear’s guilt or innocence will be determined once and for all as soon as police receive the test results determining whether or not she was impaired at the time of the arrest.

Then we’ll all be able to say for certain whether Heather Locklear is a habitual drug user or a perfectly sober batty old shitbox who suffers from depression and possibly keeps trying to kill herself. And not a moment too soon.

It all make so much sense now – if you’d just spent several months making a family drama that nobody’s going to watch, and had to do it in the presence of Billy Ray Cyrus, getting tanked up on prescription medicine and parking your car in the middle of a busy motorway would seem like a perfectly sensible thing to do, too.

And now Heather Locklear has been arrested for DUI after allegedly doing exactly that, the director of this new movie has spoken out. Jim Amatuilli thinks that Heather Locklear’s DUI arrest is ’sad’, especially since it followed Heather’s ’solid’ work on the movie. Solid? That’s the best adjective he could drum up in her greatest hour of need? No wonder Heather Locklear went mental. And that’s not any solid. That’s solid compared to Billy Ray Cyrus. Honestly, next time just go for the more sympathetic ‘Oh, just kill yourself already,’ Jim.

Following Heather Locklear’s DUI arrest this weekend – and the accompanying mugshot that makes her look like she’s just been expelled from clown school – the race is on to uncover exactly what caused her problems in the first place.

On the surface it seems simple – Heather Locklear went to rehab and allegedly tried to kill herself because her alcoholic husband left her for her best friend. Essentially it’s an episode of Jeremy Kyle, but with better teeth.

However, if you ask Jim Amatuilli – the director of Heather Locklear’s new movie which co-stars Billy Ray Cyrus that we’re not even going to name because you’re not going to watch it anyway – then there’s another reason for Heather Locklear appearing to get shitfaced on prescription drugs and stopping her car in the middle of a state highway for no reason.

And that’s that she’s, you know, getting old and stuff. Jim Amatuilli told the New York Daily News:

“It is very easy to see the effects of the ‘show-biz’ environment, and the stress it puts on relationships and families. Add to that the pressure that women face as they get older and roles narrow, with so much ‘value’ put on superficial elements, it’s sad to watch the results play out.”

You hear that, Heather Locklear? Jim Amatuilli speaks the truth. And we agree with him – you now have three options to get yourself back on the right track:

1 - Get a proper job.

2 - Go back in time and dedicate yourself to learning your craft instead of just coasting by on a series of mindlessly trashy roles that you were only offered because you looked half-decent in a bikini and the producers all thought that you might let them have a go on your fanny if they booked you.

3 - Realise that your ageing face grows a new flaw every day, and commit yourself to a merciless lifetime of constant plastic surgery procedures that – while possibly convincing someone standing far away that you superficially look quite young – will remove all trace of your character, gradually warp you into a freakish featureless splotch and ensure that you only get picked to star in films like The Perpetually Unhappy Walking Scar From The Planet Botox in the future.

Either one’s fine.

Following Richie Sambora’s DUI arret in March, Ava’s mother Heather Locklear has gone and followed suit. According to reports, Heather Locklear was arrested for DUI on Saturday night after police found her parked on a motorway, blocking an entire lane.

However, it’s also been reported that alcohol wasn’t a factor in Heather Locklear’s arrest. That begs the question – what was Heather driving under the influence of? The best guess at the moment is that it was prescription medicine – but having seen Heather Locklear’s arrest mugshot we’re pretty sure that she was driving under the influence of either onions or the dark lord Satan.

But anyway, back to Heather Locklear’s daughter. She’s going to be in for a bumper Christmas, isn’t she? There’s nothing like parental guilt for amassing giant presents, and both her parents have plenty to be guilty about.

True, both Heather Locklear and Richie Sambora have been arrested for DUI within six months of each other, but they’ve both got their own individual reasons to feel stupid. Her father Richie Sambora should feel stupid because his daughter was in the car with him during his DUI arrest, and her mother Heather Locklear is probably feeling stupid because she appears to be in the middle of a giant mental and physical breakdown that she urgently needs to seek help for.

The signs have been there for a while, to be honest – not because of the way that Heather Locklear unconvincingly denied that story about her suicide attempt or her admission into rehab on the grounds of depression soon after, but because of the way that she let David Spade have it off with her. Urgh, David Spade.

And now all those warning signs seem to have come to fairly upsetting fruition – Heather Locklear has been arrested for DUI. But not any old DUI – potentially lethal DUI that appears to stem from the consumption of prescription medicine. The LA Times reports:

According to TMZ, alcohol was not a factor and the police believe she was on prescription medications. A resident reported Heather was “driving erratically” while pulling out of a parking lot. The California Highway Patrol say they found Locklear’s car parked on a state highway and it was blocking a lane.

After being tested for alcohol and drugs, Heather Locklear was released without bail. But, really, the arrest isn’t the important thing here – the important thing is the gradual deterioration of Heather Locklear’s condition. For God’s sake – things have got so bad for Heather that she’s now basically just copying Nicole Richie. That’s literally as bad as anything in this world can get.

Fingers crossed that Heather Locklear takes this arrest as her cue to seriously seek help to iron out her problems, for her daughter’s sake as much as her own. After all, would you really want a child of yours to be raised under the sole care of Richie Sambora from Bon Jovi? Of course you wouldn’t – the haircuts they’d receive alone would be enough to traumatise them permanently.

Only kidding. In reality Shia LaBeouf has had another kind of lucky escape that’s less lucky than nobody being able to ever watch that rubbish new film of his but still lucky nonetheless – he won’t be charged for DUI after flipping his car upside down a few months ago.

It’s not all good news, though, because Shia could still lose his licence for up to nine months, because he refused to submit to a breathalyzer test. Worse still, Shia LaBeouf’s crash-mangled hand means that the only movies that he’s currently being considered for are The Jeremy Beadle Story, Jeremy Beadle Goes To Outer Space and a little-known erotic thriller entitled Let Me Lick Your Wrist-Nub.

Although he was recently arrested for flipping his truck over while possibly drunk, it’s important to remember that Shia LaBeouf is still only three years old.

And, as such, he’s very easily led. For example, right before the crash, Shia LaBeouf had been working on Transformers 2. When you take that into consideration, it’s no wonder he smashed his vehicle to pieces in the middle of the night – he probably though it was about to turn into a Decepticon and eat him for its dinner.

At least that’s what we’re assuming the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office has decided, anyway, because it has chosen not to press DUI charges against Shia LaBeouf. The official reason? Insufficient evidence. The unofficial reason that we all know is true anyway? Because Shia LaBeouf is so cute and adorable that you just want to pick him up, wrap him in a hankie, put him in your pocket, take him home and keep him in a matchbox stuffed with cotton wool.

But Shia LaBeouf shouldn’t celebrate this news too soon. Partly because his definition of ‘celebrating’ seems like it might involve getting shitfaced and losing control of his car, but mainly because he still might lose his licence anyway. E! Online reports:

“When a person refuses to have a blood alcohol test it is an automatic suspension under the Department of Motor Vehicle regulations,” L.A. Sheriff’s Department spokesman Officer Steve Whitmore told E! News. “That is why the hearing is tomorrow is because he refused to have a blood alcohol test. It’s an automatic suspension.”

It’s unfortunate that Shia LaBeouf might lose his driving licence. We’re not saying that he doesn’t deserve to be punished for refusing a blood alcohol test, we’re just saying his gnarled stump of an injured hand is probably enough punishment. Because, face it, from now on every time Shia LaBeouf looks at that flappy lump of pointlessness hanging from his wrist like a latex bag stuffed with chicken carcasses, he’ll be forced to remember that fateful night and the events that led to it.

Oh, OK, we’ll admit it. We’re just bitter because Shia LaBeouf’s injuries mean he’ll never be able to run his fingers through our hair while feeding us strawberries under a parasol on a rowing boat in the springtime any more. We don’t think we’ll ever smile again.

Honestly, look at Shia LaBeouf’s adorable little puppydog face – it’s as if a single drop of alcohol has never passed his lips. But apparently it has – early yesterday morning Shia LaBeouf was arrested on suspicion of DUI after he crashed his car in Hollywood.

Really though? Shia LaBeouf? DUI? There must be another explanation. Perhaps Shia was impaired on something other than alcohol, like Haribo or Um Bongo. And perhaps he only crashed his car because his adorable little legs couldn’t stretch all the way down to the pedals, the wubby little lamby wamb.

Admit it, when you look at Shia LaBeouf you just want to grab him by the cheeks, muss up his hair and give him a shiny sixpence to buy some bon bons with. This is because Shia LaBeouf couldn’t be any more adorable if he was made from kitten whiskers and angel breath.

Or is he? Because lately Shia LaBeouf has found himself getting into more and more trouble. Real trouble too, not the sort of imaginary 1950s schoolboy trouble that we keep assuming Shia gets into, like being clipped round the ear by a bobby for carrying a peashooter or being chased from the farm by Old Man McGee for scrumping apples from his orchard.

Instead Shia LaBeouf has committed the heinous crimes of using homophobic slurs on YouTube and smoking cigarettes and sort of standing around in a pharmacy when he wasn’t supposed to.

With a track record like that it’s only a matter of time before Shia LaBeouf does something really stupid, like get drunk and drive his car around until he cras… what? He’s already done that? On Sunday morning? Oh Shia, you adorably illegal scamp. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Actor Shia LaBeouf was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving early Sunday in Hollywood after he and two other people were hurt in a crash. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said LaBeouf made a left turn and collided with an oncoming car about 2:30 a.m. at the intersection of La Brea and Fountain avenues. The actor’s Ford F-150 pickup truck rolled over in the crash.

Well, it’s certainly fortunate that nobody was seriously hur… what? Shia LaBeouf drives a pickup truck? A pickup truck? What for, to store all the logs that he chops down during a hard day’s acting? To transport all the manual labour equipment he needs to pretend to be Indiana Jones‘ little boy? Shia LaBeouf can’t even grow a beard properly, for crying out loud! What’s he doing bombing round in a titting pickup truck?

Anyway, back to our original point. It’s fortunate that nobody was seriously injured in the crash. If he’s charged with DUI, perhaps this incident will serve as a wake-up call for Shia to reign in his youthful excesses before he causes some serious damage.

But why did Shia LaBeouf drink-drive in the first place? He doesn’t seem as much of an irresponsible douchetard as Lindsay Lohan, and surely he can’t be filled with as much obvious self-loathing as Mel Gibson, can he?

Well maybe he can. That last Indiana Jones movie was pretty rubbish. We’d be drunk all the time if we were Shia LaBeouf, actually. But if only we could be as adorable…

So thanks heavens for us – we’ve got all the US election betting odds you could ever wish for right here. Not the important betting odds about who’ll win, you understand, but what the next scandal to blow up in a candidate’s face will be. It’s better this way. Trust us.

Here are the US election betting odds for a DUI scandal, with help from Paddy Power…

DUI - It’s unlikely that any of the remaining Democratic and Republican presidential candidates would be arrested for DUI now, because they can’t even go for a piddle in private these days without 250 secret service officers accompanying them into the toilet and checking their genitals for suspect devices, so they’re hardly likely to be able to get shitfaced and have a drag race with a 17-year-old in a clapped out Golf GTI, are they? But all three serious presidential candidates have lived long lives before entering the political arena, so it’s not beyond reason that one of them might have got in trouble for DUI in the past. It’s just a matter of digging into their pasts closely enough for long enough. For all we know there could even be truth to the rumour that, in his youth, John McCain got hammered on mead and rode a dinosaur into the side of a volcano. Chances are, though, that it’s all deeply unlikely and the only way that either Barack Obama, John McCain or Hillary Clinton would get arrested for DUI is if someone spiked their drink and sat them at the wheel of their campaign bus when everyone else was sleeping. Which, admit it, would be kind of funny. Current US Presidential election betting odds – 8/1

Tomorrow – drug abuse! But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power US elections betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

The ad was part of a campaign against legislation for convicted drunk-drivers to have ignition interlocks installed (a device that measures a driver’s blood alcohol level before their vehicle can start) and was funded by the American Beverage Institute, a trade group that supports the interests of the alcohol industry.

Why is the alcohol industry having a go at Lindsay Lohan? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. What’s next; the American Cake Institute denouncing Rosie O’Donnell?

Madness.

In the ad, ‘ignition interlocks are a good idea for’ is written above a Lindsay Lohan mugshot, taken from one of her previous DUI arrests, and ‘but a bad idea for us’ is written above photos of other folk drinking.

They are suggesting the legislation is fine for the more alleged ‘hard-core’ drink-drivers, like Lohan, but that it is unfair to tar the rest of the drink-driving public with the same brush.

American Beverage Institute managing director, Sarah Longwell, told The Associated Press:

The reason that we used Lindsay Lohan is because she’s had multiple DUIs that have been high profile. We needed to create the distinction for the public what someone with multiple DUIs looked like versus a low blood-alcohol-level first-time offender.

Several states have passed bills that would require drink-driving offenders to pay for and install the ignition interlock system – many of them extending to “highly intoxicated” first-time offenders (with a blood alcohol level of 0.15 percent or higher).

Lindsay Lohan’s lawyer, Blair Berk, said in a statement:

USA Today is idiotic to run such an irresponsible advertisement suggesting that drinking and driving is some kind of American ‘tradition’ we should protect. Not identifying that this ad was paid for by the liquor and restaurant industries is profoundly reckless… Drunk white businessmen, drunk housewives out for girls night out and drunk wedding parties should be kept off the roads of America. Lindsay Lohan fully endorses ignition interlock devices, which have been well-proven to save lives.

Now, before all you black businessmen out there get all over excited, hecklerspray would like to point out that it is still very much illegal for you to drink drive too. The Civil Rights movement achieved much in the name of equality, but nothing more. If you do wanna get pissed, just take the bus home. You can sit wherever you like.

The ABI stood by its use of Lohan’s image. Sarah Longwell said:

People magazine, Smoking Gun and a lot of people have republished this mugshot. It was publicly accessible. We’re not using it for any kind of commercial gain. So we’re well within our rights to use it.

We did it as well, Longwell, you People magazine/Smoking Gun shill! Why not give hecklerspray some free world-wide advertisement too? You couldn’t care less, could you? Well in that case, screw you, we’re siding with Lohan. Again.

In response to all this stuff that’s happened, USA Today spokesman Ed Cassidy issued the following statement:

Advocacy advertising is a big part of what we do. Our pages function as forum for competing views.

Talk to the hand, USA today, ‘cos the face stopped listening about three paragraphs ago.

Go on Berk, you show those white businessmen you mean business!

Read More – Lindsay Lohan mugshot used in liquor industry ad – Associated Press

In what’ll cap off a particularly rubbish opening third of 2008 for him, Scott Weiland has been sentenced to eight days in jail for crashing his car drunk in Los Angeles last November – a charge that he can add to another DUI from 2003, some drug offences from the 1990s and a domestic violence charge from 2001.

Still, eight days in jail isn’t that bad – it’s lucky that the judge didn’t take Scott Weiland’s music into consideration when reaching the sentence, otherwise he’d have been given life. In solitary confinement. On a dung heap. Up a farty dragon’s bottom. On the moon.

These are uncertain times for Scott Weiland. His wife has burnt all his clothes, his Velvet Revolver bandmates have sacked him for being a weirdo and his entire future rests on a Stone Temple Pilots reunion – something that ranks slightly below ’smashing your kneecaps in with a rusty golf club’ on the List Of Things You’d Happily Spend Your Money On.

What Scott Weiland needs is a constant – some routine in his life that’ll straighten out his priorities for a while. And if Scott Weiland’s constant could be located in a giant building full of little tiny rooms, and angry men with suspect hygiene inside those little rooms, then that be even better.

Which is great, because Scott Weiland is going to jail. True, we didn’t ask that his constant smells like it was painted with a million gallons of stale elephant urine, but that’s just a lucky bonus.

After crashing his car dunk in November, Scott Weiland has been sentenced to eight whole days in jail, as People reports:

Former Velvet Revolver singer Scott Weiland was sentenced Monday to eight days in jail for a second DUI conviction following a Nov 11 arrest. Weiland, who was not present at the Van Nuys, Calif. court, was represented by an attorney who entered a no contest plea on the singer’s behalf. He was also ordered to complete an 18-month alcohol education class and pay nearly $2,000 in fines.

On reflection, that’s not so bad – Scott Weiland knows as well as anyone that if he actually spends longer than six or seven seconds in jail then it’ll be a particularly harsh celebrity sentence, plus the fine isn’t prohibitively large and the alcohol education class will only be a problem if Scott Weiland falls outside of the boundaries of normal human intelligence. He was in Stone Temple Pilots, though, so let’s not rule that possibility out entirely.

However, along with jail, the fine and the stint at booze-school, Scott Weiland was also sentenced to four years probation. That might prove to be more problematic, since Scott’s current record for staying out of trouble is about three and a half seconds.

But let’s worry about that when we need to, because a DUI jail sentence is just what Scott Weiland needed to re-establish his rawk credentials. Well done Scott, you’re now officially as rock and roll as Nicole Richie. Live the dream!

Read more:

Scott Weiland Sentenced to Eight Days in Jail – People

But, hey, threatening a man with prison for being a terrible father tends to make people snap to attention. Which is why Richie Sambora has pleaded guilty to DUI after police arrested him for swerving about the highway like a pissed-up ninny.

And, thanks to the magic of the plea deal, Richie Sambora’s sudden bout of guilt means that he’s got away with three years probation instead of a jail sentence. It’s a win-win for all involved – lessons have been learned, the crowded prison system gets one inmate less to deal with and Richie Sambora’s daughter gets three solid years of ostentatious presents from her father as he attempts to buy back her love after he drove around with her while drunk. Heartwarming.

It’s no wonder that Richie Sambora has alcohol issues – if we had to listen to Bad Medicine night after night we’d have turned to the bottle long ago too, and he has to actually play the bloody thing – but there’s a comes a time in every man’s life when they stop being the kind of fun drunk who’ll wake up on the kitchen floor and can’t remember why they’re dressed as an Iranian prostitute and become the sort of drunk who’ll drive around hammered with their 10-year-old daughter in the passenger seat.

And for Richie Sambora, that time came last month. Richie Sambora was arrested for DUI on the Pacific Coast Highway after police noticed his Hummer swerving from lane to lane. That’s bad enough as it is, but throw in the fact that Richie Sambora’s daughter and another girl were passengers in the car and ‘bad’ instantly becomes ‘vastly mornic’.

As a result of the arrest. prosecutors wanted to haul Richie Sambora up on a child endangerment charge. However, thanks to insufficient evidence, they just had to make do with plain old DUI – something that Richie Sambora’s only too happy to admit. And now Sambora’s been sentenced for it, as BBC News reports:

Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora has been sentenced to three years’ probation after admitting to driving under the influence of alcohol. The 48-year-old pleaded no contest, prompting the judge in Santa Ana, California to drop a second charge. Sambora, who was not at the court hearing, will also have to attend first offender alcohol awareness classes… Sambora is forbidden from having any measurable quantity of alcohol in his system while driving as a condition of his probation.

So Richie Sambora, who just admitted to driving while drunk, can’t drive drunk any more? What a novel punishment. Still, at least it’s only for three years, after which we can presume that Richie Sambora is free to get shitfaced on whatever he likes right before he goes for a pootle.

However, Richie Sambora’s real punishment will be having to live with the fact that he drove drunk with his daughter in the car – one of the stupidest things a parent can do. That’s penalty enough for any man.

Plus, now Richie Sambora has avoided jail, which is good because it means that Bon Jovi are free to tour the world and record new albums and… hang on a minute, that isn’t good at all. That’s literally the worst outcome possible. Arse.

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Drink-drive sentence for Sambora - BBC

And part of being a man involves admitting when you do wrong. Which is handy, because another part of being a man involves getting shitfaced on booze and driving around until the police arrest you, which counts as doing wrong.

And Barron Hilton has now done both of these things – he may have been arrested for DUI, but he’s also big enough to plead guilty to it. And now that Barron Hilton has joined the man club, he’s allowed to do all kinds of other man things, like grow a moustache and beat up women. Yay!

Barron Hilton has forever been in his sister Paris Hilton’s shadow. He hasn’t been in as many movies as she has, hasn’t released as many albums as she has and, to our knowledge, hasn’t sucked off a bloke on the internet nearly as much as she has.

But, hey, when it comes to massively irresponsibly drunk driving arrests, Barron Hilton and Paris Hilton and neck and freaking neck. But while Paris Hilton’s DUI arrest ended up with the most hopelessly mismanaged jail sentence in living memory, Barron’s has ended up much more happily. So long as you define staring at the dead as happy, that is.

You see, after Barron Hilton was arrested for DUI and subsequently charged with DUI and possession of a fake license, he decided that he’d take the moral high ground and plead no contest to what breath and blood tests would have conclusively proved anyway. And therefore, as E! Online reports, he pleaded guilty and got off easy:

Hilton was not in court, leaving his attorney, Richard Hutton, to enter the plea to driving under the influence with a blood-alcohol level above the 0.08 percent legal limit and unlawful possession of a false license. To atone for the driving sins, Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner H. Jay Ford sentenced Hilton to three years’ probation, fined him $2,000, suspended his license for one year and ordered him to log time at the L.A. County morgue.

Ah, the old trip to the morgue trick. It’s a classy move by the judge, because only the morgue will teach Barron Hilton that drink driving accidents don’t kill nearly as many people as heart disease or cancer or strokes. But, despite this, the visits should still have the desired effect on Barron Hilton – the inability to sleep due to fear that dead people will start clawing at his feet in bed the second he closes his eyes.

Or maybe it won’t – after all, the sight of withered, lifeless, foul-smelling bodies isn’t anything Barron Hilton hasn’t experienced before. His sister did used to hang out with Nicole Richie a lot, remember.

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Hilton Bro Mans Up, Cops to DUI – E! Online

According to reports, Mischa Barton decided to enter a no contest plea to her DUI charges, which means her only punishment will be three years' probation, three months of alcohol education classes and a small fine.

On reflection, this is probably the best result Mischa Barton could have hoped for. By avoiding jail, Mischa has freed up a large block of time she's already sworn to spend furthering the advancement of shoddy direct-to-DVD bargain bin movies that no normal person would ever dream of watching. And the world thanks her for that.

Looking at the IMDb list of upcoming Mischa Barton films, you have to worry for the girl's state of mind. There's a movie co-starring Ja Rule, a movie entitled Malice In Sunderland and – God help us all – a movie about forgotten Russian lesbian pop duo tATu. Never has one actress contributed more to the future 2am weekday schedules of Five US. Really, what must Mischa Barton have been on to agree to make all this crap?

Well, pot. Pot and booze. Mischa Barton was probably on pot and booze because Mischa Barton loves pot and booze more than words can say. She loves them so much that sometimes she'll even drive around in her car blasted on pot and booze just to get her pro-pot and booze message out to as many people as possible.

Which neatly explains why Mischa Barton was arrested for driving drunk with marijuana in her possession just after Christmas. Mischa was charged with these offences in February – and was looking at winding up in jail if she was found guilty for them, too.

Not that jail would have been particularly traumatic for Mischa – she's so skinny that only the most accurate berserk shivver on her wing could have stabbed her with any degree of success. But that's all by the by anyway, because Mischa Barton has avoided jail with our old friend, the no contest plea bargain. Reuters reports:

"Actress Mischa Barton… has agreed to serve three years' probation for drunken driving, allowing her to avoid jail and escape a charge for marijuana possession…. Barton will plead no contest, which is similar to a guilty plea, pay a small fine and attend three months of an alcohol education class. One charge of marijuana possession will be dropped and another charge of driving without a license will be reduced to a traffic violation, according to People.com."

On the surface of things, this plea bargain looks like a lucky escape for Mischa Barton, and it is – but only in the short-term. Long-term things are pretty bleak. Next time Mischa Barton goes out in LA with her friends Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie, and they're all discussing all the nonces that they shanked during their time in the big house and comparing prison tattoos, what's non-con Mischa Barton going to do?

Sit there and feel pretty bloody stupid, that's what.

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Mischa Barton seeks plea for drunk driving: report – Reuters 

But anyway, back to the rebellion. Time was that to be a rebel you only had to get drunk and drive around in your car for a while. But now that everyone from Paris Hilton to most of the stars of Lost have done that, the bar had to be raised. Which is why Richie Sambora apparently got drunk and drove around with his own 10-year-old daughter in the car with him.

And now Richie Sambora might be hit with child endangerment charges for it. How many times, Richie? You should only get drunk and endanger the lives of your passengers when your passengers are the other members of Bon Jovi, not kids. That's just stupid, although the Bon Jovi thing really should be actively encouraged.

If Richie Sambora could learn one thing from being in Bon Jovi, it's that driving along a road is a suitable metaphor for life. Crossroads, Lost Highway, Seat Next To You, Born To Be My Baby, It's My Life – all songs that very clearly state that life is like a road. However, hardened Joviists – once their brain medication wears off – will be able to tell you that not one of these songs mentions veering about this road all shitfaced with a terrified ten-year-old girl in the passenger seat.

Richie Sambora needs to do some boning up on the wisdom of Bon Jovi, in that case.

Although Richie Sambora's struggles with alcohol are well known, possibly stemming from having to balance having the world's most complicated love life with being in the world's most fist-gnawingly awful band, up until now he'd managed to avoid combining getting hammered on booze with bombing around in a car with his own daughter in it.

But on Tuesday night that's exactly what Richie Sambora was arrested for. The New York Daily News reports:

Rocker Richie Sambora could face criminal charges of child endangerment after being busted on a DUI charge Tuesday night. Cops in Laguna Beach, Calif., tell us they're investigating whether there's enough evidence to hold the Bon Jovi guitarist responsible for putting his 10-year-old daughter, Ava, and another child at risk. Police pulled over Sambora, 48, at 10:52 p.m. on the Pacific Coast Highway after spotting his car "weaving within lanes," Laguna Beach Sgt. Jason Kravetz tells us. "The officers smelled alcohol on his breath and did several field sobriety tests. He failed [all of them] and was arrested."

Richie Sambora is due in court on May 7, although he's yet to be charged with anything pending results of a blood test. If the tests do test positive for alcohol, though, the extent of Sambora's fall from grace will be immense. Of all the boneheaded things you could possibly do, weaving around on a road drunk with your own child on board is right up there with trying to dislodge pieces of biscuit from plug sockets with your tongue and, well, being in Bon Jovi.

Hopefully this arrest will have some long-term benefits, though – the shock should be enough to sent him back to rehab where he can take his recovery seriously. Plus if Richie Sambora ends up going to prison, Bon Jovi won't be able to release any more albums for a while. Great – if only more acts we didn't like seriously endangered the lives of their own children while drunk. Oh Johnny Borrell, when will you have children just so you can almost drive them into a tree?

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Richie Sambora busted for DUI – New York Daily News