I’m In Rehab!
Posted Mon 26 May 2008 3:31PM BST by Johnny Famethrowa in Touching The Void
This is a common (if fictitious) insight into the world of z-list celebrity addiction, after a week in which Aerosmith pensioner Steven Tyler was admitted to Pasadena's Las Encinas Hospital, the same medical facility featured on reality TV show "Celebrity Rehab". Oh the irony. Meanwhile, press-shy mouse-lover Amy Winehouse has been linked with admission to the Barzilai Medical Centre in Israel in yet another bid to expel the same demons which saw new best friend Pete Doherty sent half way around the world to Thailand's infamous Thamkrabok Monastery in 2004.
But these places rarely work because the ‘patients' do not possess the fortitude or desire to pack in their cheeky habit which is now a ceaseless obsession. Investigate the multitude of rock'n'roll drop-outs over the years, from Nikki Sixx to (incredibly) Tom Chaplin and you'll find people understandably unable and ill-prepared to cope with such challenges. Sixx, for example, did not react well to a stint in rehab. "One nurse kept talking to me about God until I stood up and yelled, 'F*ck God and f*ck you!' She told me to sit back down, so I spat in her face, jumped out the window and ran off. It's a shame the window wasn't open at the time."
Ozzy Osbourne recounts his first admission to the Betty Ford Clinic. "I asked Betty where the bar was. When she told me there wasn't one, I thought she was joking at first. Then I got angry." Rehab is just pop culture slang for ducking out of the media heat and having a little lie down. Anything else, like a solution to their problem, is an unlikely bonus. Occasional visionary Noel Gallagher sums it when describing kicking cocaine during the Britpop boom. "I just stopped doing it. I mean, that's just f*cking common sense, isn't it?" Apparently Amy's people have now denied she's off to the holy land to get help. Who cares? She'll be in another facility by the end of the week.
Today's Famethrowa's
New: "We Call Upon The Author" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Old: "Toxygene" The Orb



