Bert Richards has traveled through a straw.

Found an interesting little nugget in the news yesterday....

Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

Just to clarify. This is from the Associated Press. Not the Onion. The Associated Press! This story is true! What the?! Now, just to cover myself, and prevent looking like a sucker, it should be said that this is probably some strange attempt at an April Fools joke. We all know the British have a strange sense of, ahem, humour. And also, you have to take into account the...umm...time difference in Europe(?), and well, the fact that this story did hit the wires yesterday, not to mention Keith Richards' decayed and soupy brain...I mean, there is a chance he thought yesterday was April 1st. I don't know. I just don't think it's crazy to think this is some kind of prank. Although, sadly, it's not crazy to assume he's telling the truth either. So, for the purpose of this blog, I'm going to assume he did in fact snort his dead father's ashes. Cripes.

So what's the bigger issue here. After all, isn't the point of a blog to report something minor and relatively insignificant, then expand to dizzying degrees the social/sociological impact of the story? Do I need to go all Klosterman and transform this into a paradox about Keith Richards and the boundaries set by mainstream society? Nah. Should this be true (which I still think it isn't), this, more than anything, proves that celebrities are fucking insane. Hmm...I guess this is going to be a commentary on Keith Richards and the boundaries set by mainstream society. I mean, he's been famous for, what, fifty years?! Sure, celebrity has taken on a whole new meaning in this day and age, but still. He's been receiving praise and adoration non-stop for a half a century. To put it in context, Britney Spears received that same adoration and praise for, what, eight years, and she's completely gone off the deep end. I think in some sense, Keith Richards felt obligated to snort his father's ashes. At this point, he's working on a legacy. And when you have the opportunity to raise the bar that much (you're sitting at a table with a plate of cocaine and your father's urn is right there), as Keith Richards, don't you have to take it? Celebrities need fame to survive. I think that's why he did it. And it probably worked; he's just locked down the top spot on every 101 Craziest Celebrity Moments show VH1 and E! can shit out. Line up the C-list comedians and actors now. In fact, they might as well have just substituted Brian Williams for Michael Musto on this one.

Update: According to Billboard, "Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards was joking when he said that he once snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine, his spokesperson said today." Of course. Of course!!