Tombstone Temple Pilot

Or

Blasted

 

Or

Get Out the Door

Scott Weiland has finally realized his true potential, dying of a drug overdose at 48. As the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, Weiland was well known for his flamboyant and chaotic stage persona, which often included the use of a megaphone in concerts, as well as his flamboyant and chaotic off-stage persona, which included domestic violence charges, shooting up with Courtney Love, multiple arrests and the use of crack, heroin, booze and cocaine. Upon his death, he went from a derivative, past his prime artist giving lackluster performances on the unannounced farewell tour promoting his 2015 album Blaster to “the voice of a generation.” Weiland’s drug abuse and volatile personality led to several breakups by his various bands until in the ultimate insult he was finally replaced by Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington. 

Rethinking Her Position on Rehab

Or
She Said No, No, No
Amy Winehouse, the British drunk crackhead who occasionally sang has visited Club 27, joining Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Louis Chouvin. No cause of death has been reported, but I wouldn’t bet the house on natural causes. Adopting the John Derek philosophy “Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse” – well, two out of three, anyway – she rode her husky sound and a hip-hop retro soul sound to record her second album, Back to Black, which scored her 5 Grammys in 2008, including the career ending Best New Artist. She also won Song of the Year for Rehab, which in retrospect now looks more like an unanswered cry for help. Before and especially since, her personal life has made more headlines than her singing, as she sought treatment for anorexia, emphysema, injuries from falls, tuberculosis, and rickets, and of course, lots and lots of addictions with several stints in the dreaded rehab. At her most recent appearance, she was even more incoherent than usual, slurring her way through a couple songs she couldn’t remember the lyrics too – a poor showing, even by Belgrade standards, and she was booed off the stage. The rest of her tour was canceled, and her next public appearance came when she was wheeled out of her London apartment on a gurney.

He’s Not There

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Heath Death
(Word to Kirsti)

Or
Unbalanced Ledger
(Regards for Kirsti)

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Ledger Debited
(Adolatry for Joe)

Or
They've Closed The Ledger On Heath
(Cap tip to Ern)
Yet another disaster befalls a Terry Gilliam production as Heath Ledger, who was to appear in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, has died, apparently from some pharmacological cause, at the age of 28. His resume showed great range – from the modern romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You to the medieval romantic comedy A Knight’s Tale, to the period romantic comedy Casanova, with stints as the whiny and ill-fated Revolutionary teen in The Patriot and a whiny, suicidal wannabe correctional officer in Monster’s Ball to round it out. He also managed to get out-acted by Matt Damon on The Brothers Grimm before his break-out role and an Academy Award nomination for inertly mumbling, pretending to find Michelle Williams attractive and slapping salami with Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain. Like everyone else in I’m Not There, he played Bob Dylan, and will appear as The Joker in the upcoming The Dark Knight, where I hope they’ve wrapped post-production work.

Aft Pupil

(Props to Joe)
Brad Renfro took the clichéd way out for former child stars, dying of a drug overdose at the age of 25. Renfro had roles in a series of intensely mediocre movies, starting with the kid who witnesses a mob lawyer’s suicide in The Client. He was tutored in evil by a Nazi war criminal in Apt Pupil. He was one of the more dimwitted accomplices in the murder of Nick Stahl’s Bully. Between acting gigs, he developed quite an addiction to heroin, cocaine and marijuana, which brought him into contact with the law for trying to steal a 45-foot yacht, and apparently the dock it was tied to, as he failed to cast off. He was also picked up in a 2005 sweep of LA’s Skid Row.