That offence, it will be remembered, had to do with smoking. The Butt is very much a smoker’s, or an ex-smoker’s, book: the offensive cigarette itself was supposed to be Tom’s last, and he suffers through the mystical states of non-being incurred by an attempt to kick the habit. The late Joe Strummer, in one of his if-I-ruled-the-world moments, proclaimed that people who don’t smoke should be banned from enjoying the creative fruits of people who do. And he had a point: why should the pious non-smoker, with lungs unblemished and childlike, be allowed to read books, hear music, etc., produced by artists who coughed themselves to death at the altar of nicotine? The brilliance, range, and focus of The Butt does indeed suggest the operations of a powerful mind in a silver haze. Buy it, non-smokers, before Strummer’s word becomes law.
Related:
Claws for concern, 57. Ray J, Photos: American Idol Season 9 Auditions in Boston, More 
- Claws for concern
Further Defying Parody
- 57. Ray J
Those with success in the unfettered dating marketplace don’t seem to need a casting director to score companionship. Thus, as history tells us, getting one’s own reality dating show (as Ray-J now has on VH1’s For the Love of Ray J ) corresponds roughly with earning yourself a spot on this very list (see: Flavor Flav, Bret Michaels). The big surprise here is that being a sibling of a celebrity (Ray J is Brandy’s brother) usually suffices in the hooking up department.
- Photos: American Idol Season 9 Auditions in Boston
Thousands of American Idol hopefuls lined up very early outside the Gillette Stadium to register and secure an audition for the show.
- 15. Andrew Dice Clay
We thought it best to sum up our Dice entry in a nursery rhyme: Roses are red, violets are blue, your routine is more tired than a Lunesta rep’s, and your pathetic, shameless appearances on VH1 reality shows and on Celebrity Apprentice are, too. OHHHHH !
- Dawg days
Despite gains by blogs, podcasts, and social-networking Web sites, television is still our dominant mass medium.
- 17. Steve Wozniak
Overheard, repeatedly, by viewers during the first couple episodes of this season’s Dancing with the Stars : “Ewwww, what the hell happened to Stephen King?” Nope, Stephen King isn’t doing the mambo — that’s the Woz, who looks as if Francis Ford Coppola swallowed a Hobbit. If seeing this Apple co-founder on the dance floor didn’t make your stomach do back flips, here comes the four unsexiest words in Hollywood: he dated Kathy Griffin.
- The big sneer
On one level, predicting what the future holds for American pop culture is painfully easy. Just cast your eyes across the Atlantic to see what the European purveyors of reality television have on the drawing boards.
- Furious foodies
Top Chef at midseason
- Reality ingenue
What is it about MTV’s top-rated reality show The Hills , premiering its third season August 13th?
- Faking it
if you were Whitney Port, the colt-legged, honey-haired, cow-eyed star of The City , you might not think that what Herman Rosenblat did was so terrible.
- Photos: Radiohead in Boston
August 14, 2008 at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA
- Less
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, Entertainment, Media, Television, Health and Fitness, Jesus Christ, Medicine, Health Care Issues, Smoking, Joe Strummer, Flann O'Brien, Less
