Charlie Sheen Doesn't Need Rehab!

E! Online announced today that Charlie Sheen has checked into rehab. This is what his publicist, Stan Rosenfield, had to say:

"As a preventative measure, Charlie Sheen has entered a rehabilitation facility. He will take some time off his series Two and a Half Men. He has asked that his privacy be honored."

I'm not sure that Mr. Sheen or his publicist understand the meaning of rehab. Generally, one checks in after experiencing a problem.

MedicineNet.com defines rehabilitation as:

The process of restoration of skills by a person who has had an illness or injury so as to regain maximum self-sufficiency and function in a normal or as near normal manner as possible....
The word comes from the Latin "rehabilitare" meaning to make fit again.

Someone needs to let Charlie know right away--he's going to the wrong place. He needs to go to prehab!

Related post:
Denise Richards is Right: It's Complicated

Still More Stupid Baby Names

It's time for another installment of stupid baby names. Together, we'll analyze how celebrities choose baby names to accessorize themselves. It's the ultimate in lifestyle branding. Let's start with the classics:

Music and Movies: The hits keep coming for Rachel Griffiths. Clementine could be named for a 19th century song about a drowned woman, or perhaps for the scurvy-curbing Christmas stocking stuffer. Clementine joins her five year old brother, Banjo. Rachel might be trying to evoke bluegrass, but all I keep hearing is the theme from Deliverance.

Boris Becker has named his son Amadeus. This may be a hint that Boris would like his son to take up music instead of tennis, or it could be a tribute to the quirky movie of the same name. Then again, it might simply reveal an abiding love of Falco.

Will Ferrell's third son is named Axel. Could Will be sending a baby-sized shout out to Axel Rose? (Does Guns'n'Roses need more cowbell?) Or is this a sly reference to Ferrell's skating moves in Blades of Glory? Can Axel's brother, Magnus, live up to the promise of his name's Latin origin, great? I'd wager he's got a better shot than Banjo.

Nicole Richie and Joel Madden named their first child Harlow Winter Kate, which is not stupid at all compared to their new baby's name. (More later.) Jean Harlow was an actress who died of renal failure at age 26. But before that, she got to make a lot of cool flicks with Clark Gable, which happens to be Kevin Nealon's son's name. Unless Kevin named him for a roofing style, I suggest he arrange some play dates for Gable with Harlow. You never know. Some stupid baby name meta-inbreeding could ensue.

Literature: Parents can prove their own intelligence with literary names for their peeing, pooping progeny. They'll function as a portable Cliff Notes of cool. We turn to Greek mythology for Anne Heche's latest issue. Atlas was forced by Zeus to hold up the world. Atlas and his half brother, Homer, will be forced to read about their mom's time as Celestia or see her on YouTube, channeling her alter ego to Barbara Walters
(with some sophomoric sound effects thrown in for good measure). Sorry, kids.

In this category, we have a stupid baby name for the underachiever: Story. Jenna Elfman is expecting her second child this spring. Hopefully she'll aim a little higher this time. As for Story, what is it? Is it a book, a comic, a Scientology handout? It could refer to anything. No pressure, kid! Just smoke some bud and relax!

Geography: Place names have just been done to death, people. If you must, use my Stupid Baby Name Generator, but be warned! When kid number 19 from Michelle and Jim Bob (Jim Bob!) Duggar of TLC's 18 Kids and Counting is named Josie Brooklyn, place names have officially jumped the shark. Sorry, Josie! Remember, it's easy to change your name. Satchel Allen did it and you can, too. You can talk about it in therapy, which hopefully you'll be able to afford once your mother runs out of eggs.

Nature: Naked Chef Jamie Oliver is growing a human garden with Poppy, Daisy and new daughter Petal Blossom Rainbow. Granted, his wife's name is Jools, but that's no excuse. Do you want your daughter to be rolling around in the mud with some dirty hippie at a music festival? Is that what you're wishing on her?

Mr. Oliver is just not famous enough to nab the stupid celebrity baby naming prize: this goes to Nicole Richie for naming her son Sparrow James Midnight Madden. Won't the kid collapse under the weight of all those names? Is Sparrow an homage to Pirates of the Caribbean? Is James Midnight his porn name? And wouldn't it be strange if a boy named Sparrow grew up to be hugely fat? (Not that I'm wishing that on him or anything...that would be wrong.) Nicole, your prize awaits: the first three seasons of The Simple Life.

Finally, from the That's Unfortunate! department comes this announcement, run in Entertainment Weekly:

Grammy-winning album producer Rodney Jerkins, 32, and his wife, singer Joy Enriquez...greeted a daughter, Heavenly Joy, on Nov. 17 in L.A.

That's right. Heavenly Joy Jerkins. Hey, at least it's a girl!


More stupidity:
Stupid Baby Name Generator, or Zuma Nesta Rock Paper Scissors: Home Edition
Stupid Baby Names, Part Duh
I Want My Money Back!

Valentine to an Abusive Ex-Boyfriend

As anyone who's ever gritted his or her teeth through this Hallmark holiday named for a Christian martyr knows, Valentine's Day isn't always a happy day.

It is with this in mind that I dredge up a ghost of valentines past. I wrote this piece in 2002 and put it up on my original website, Cruel but Just, which was a pre-Blogger attempt to warp hearts and minds on the Internet. I haven't thought of this guy in years so don't go all psychoanalytical on me. I'm just saying that there are worse things than being alone.


Hi W,

I just got home from the latest Rush concert and thought of you. All 235 hairy, girlfriend-beating loser pounds of you. Do you weigh even more now? It's been a long time. I know I won't find you on Classmates.com, since you're a high school dropout. I guess you couldn't take the pressure of Algebra.

I was remembering the first concert we went to, the Signals tour, 1983. Those were the days, huh? After you'd been arrested for tipping over gravestones but before you were banned from school property for giving booze to underage kids.

Nearly twenty years later, I'm at the Vapor Trails tour. Front row, right in front of Geddy, getting a smile and a wink as I sing along with him, not missing a lyric. I'm wearing my Signals tour shirt. You didn't buy me that t-shirt--I had to get it last year on e-Bay. In fact, back then I had to pay for our tickets with money from my after-school cashier job. I couldn't afford the first row back then...but you couldn't afford the last.

Right before the encore, Working Man, (which you never were, by the way) Geddy points to me and has a roadie give me a special t-shirt, one of only a few printed to say it's directly from him. My husband is psyched, gives Geddy the thumbs-up and tells me I'm hot. He's happy to see me having a good time and tells me I've still got it.

I might not have lived to see this concert if I'd stayed with you. You might have killed me one day for talking to the mailman. You'd already choked me for pretending to rip a page out of a magazine and tried to throw me in front of a car for some reason I can't remember, but which I'm pretty sure didn't warrant that kind of reaction.

You were so frustrated when I got that scholarship, you told me you'd thrown a bottle of shampoo against the wall when your thumb covered the "n" in "collagen." I was tempted to tell you that spelled COLLAGE, not COLLEGE. It would've almost been worth the beating I would have gotten.

You were so angry that I wouldn't give up the scholarship and move in with you and your mom. You didn't understand why I couldn't be happy with that. And now you sit in your shitty little apartment on Main Street, maybe eating a little watered-down Dinty Moore. Remember how you used to add water and a bouillon cube to stretch it? Do you still return cans so you can buy another six-pack of generic beer?

I have to tell you, though, how much you helped me all those years ago. You scared me into running away from my hometown to New York City, where I met a wonderful man, married him and lived happily ever after (with all the bumps in the road a normal person would expect, but no tosses into traffic). Oh, and I got to sing with Geddy Lee. So, you see, you did me a real favor back then. But I'm not going to send you a thank you card.

Love,
K

A Super Bowl Mystery

At Magick Sandwich, we're not afraid to ask the tough questions:

Why don't we ever see players puking on NFL broadcasts?

It's odd, isn't it? We see plenty of injuries that might cause a player to barf, especially concussions. I'd think a helmet to the breadbasket might do it, too. I know they're padded up but a hit from a three hundred pound battering ram might make one cough up one's Gatorade.

Some of the hits look pretty bad. The network doesn't mind that: they'll replay it and amplify the sound of the impact. But the cameramen and producers are also very good at cutting away. They'll let us see a moment of someone grimacing in pain but not more than that. But it's so hard to believe that not one player has vomited on the field or the sidelines and had the act inadvertently broadcast to viewers.

I'm not saying I want someone to get hurt. That's a bit disingenuous, though, since fans watch football to see huge men smash into each other. They're paid to do damage while risking their own future physical health. The NFL runs serious ads about preventing concussions, but the only way to do that would be to ban football altogether. But then what would we do this Sunday?

I got a little too somber there. Back to the question: why no puking? Do you know?

While we're at it, let me ask you this: why don't we ever hear about turf toe anymore? It used to happen all the time a few seasons back. Did someone cure it, like polio?

Finally, why do announcers talk about "contain"? "They really need to work on their contain" or "he has to get contain." I distinctly remember that this used to be called containment. My husband says "contain" is a sports term. But why? The actual word is so much more descriptive than this stunted version. They're customizing the English language to make it sound more technical, but it's technically wrong.

There I go again, getting sidetracked by my inner English major. Why no puking? Keep your eyes peeled this Sunday. You never know.