Rolling Stones Trash Cancer

malignant throat cancer in the body of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts took a turn for the worse this week—the worse for the cancer, that is, as Charlie Watts and his bandmates whupped the shit out of the tumor.

Most of it is speculation right now, leaked to the press from band lead singer Mick Jagger, who declared Watts' cancer "fucked up beyond all recognition." The cancer beat-down follows six weeks of chemo-therapy for Watts, after a biopsy revealed the growth's malignancy four months ago.

Early reports indicate, after seeing their friend in dire straits from the chemical treatments, the Stones gathered together and went straight to Watts' cancer, treating the volatile collection of cells like a hotel room. By the time it was over, the growth was a nauseating sight for doctors and well-wishers alike.

"I guess we showed that cancer that us old shits can really…," said Keith Richards, puffing on a cigarette and looking skeletal, before degenerating into manic laughter and indistinguishable cockney.

While doctors wouldn't comment on Watts' treatment, stupid doctors, they did say that Watts is in a weakened condition from the chemo-therapy, but mostly from partying with his bandmates as they trashed the tumor. They also said, unofficially, they declared Keith Richards dead while he was visiting his friend, but didn't have the nerve to tell him.

"What matters now," Mick Jagger told The Daily Mirror, "is that Charlie is all better. People accuse us all the time of being big softies, but that's what a band does—we look out for one another. And it was a good business decision. We're just about ready to begin recording another album, then we're out on tour. We're not paying to put up cancer in its own room, and we're sure not sharing any of our groupies with it."

Curious for more information about cancer remissions, the commune visited the Johns Hopkins Cancer Research Institute, specifically Dr. Christopher Haig, a leading expert on cancer and cancer recovery. However, he wouldn't see us, so we went to see one of those New Age whackos in the building across the street.

"What people don't realize is that cancer has feelings, just like any of us," said the whacko, Jenella Wisp, wearing pastel scarves and enough bracelets to kill a gypsy. "Consuming other cells and converting them against the body is just the cancer's way of saying, 'I'm lonely. Let's be friends.' But cancer doesn't know it's doing damage to us, invoking a negative Chi. Cancer doesn't know much—cancer knows jack and shit and jack just left town, if you know what I mean. Cancer didn't get a very good education, and consequently, a lot of the damage it does is lashing out over feeling of insecurity. We went to high school together, actually, me and cancer. Want to see a picture of cancer's yearbook picture?"

By this time, we realized the commune was in way over its head, and stopped recording the conversation, though it took us another seven hours to make a plausible excuse and escape.

Watts, however, returned our phone call and said he is in much better spirits since the alleged cancer-trashing. However, he did think we were Ornette Coleman, and wasn't happy to find out about the deception.

Cheney Vows to Stay Course: Will Shoot Hunting Partner Again

Mardi Gras, Gonorrhea to Return to New Orleans

Aides Urge Bush to Stop Referring to Iraqi Majority as “Shits”

Sheryl Crow Takes Cancer in Lance Armstrong Split

I've got "hot property" written all over me at the moment, and I know what you're thinking, but I'm not talking about a drunken trip to the tattoo parlor this time. I mean, I've still got "hot property" from that, but this time I'm talking Hollywood talk, meaning that people suddenly remember my phone numbers. And it's all because of Ho's!

My new WB sitcom is getting hot buzz around it, thanks in part to all those phone calls where I pretended to be the TV Guide Couch Critic, and when your show's hot, you're hot, it's Hollywood science. Some people are calling this my big comeback, and not just me. I distinctly heard my agent Dusty say it, too, before he passed out and the 9-1-1 guys had to resuscitate him.

The real clue I was hot was when they called me to do a roast for my fellow actor and good friend Pockets O'Shannon. What a kick-ass child star. And Pockets was fortunate enough to have one of those weird health problems that kept him looking like a kid well after most of us grew facial hair or tits. The V.F.W. Hall was holding a roast for good ol' Pockets, turns out he's a Vietnam Vet, and guess who they picked for their keynote speaker? Guess again, asshole. Beloved child star Clarissa Coleman.

If you don't know, a roast is where you get up and just crack on people until they're pissed off enough to fight you in the parking lot. I've tried hosting a lot of them, but nobody really shows up unless the person's done something to make 'em famous. And Pockets barely qualifies, having starred as the precocious, wise-cracking kid in about two dozen movies between 1969 and 1996. I did two of them with him, Li'l Poachers and The U.F.O. Boy.

I spent weeks thinking up real digs that would totally devastate Pockets, make him turn bright red, even piss himself with fury. All in good fun, of course, except for a few things about his grandmother's diabetes that really cross the line. But Pockets is a good sport, just don't ever say we lost the 'Nam, that grinds his nads.

Now you've got the backstory, so I show up for the gig (I never do rehearsals, I told 'em) and find out, no joking, they only wanted me to introduce all his 'Nam buddies, they were supposed to be the only ones actually roasting him. Sure, I told them I would just stick to the scripted introduction, like I've told a ton of know-it-all directors, then I got up there and threw out my script—no way I was going to waste gold material because these dopes lacked vision.

So you can bet I stung him. I started off simple, just how he smells really bad and hasn't worked in years, since losing all his hair in that chemotherapy, but then I got to the really hard stuff. Making fun of his Members' Only jacket ("Does your calendar say 1986 at home?" I really said that) and how his two sons are clearly fathered by some black guy. Then, I got a little more cerebral and all—and this was hard, because by this time these two old guys were trying to walk me off the stage, but I overpowered them—and I did this whole skit about him buying this really awful pot off some Mexican guy (I brought a mustache from home) for us to smoke, and then talked about that time he tried to grab my just-starting-to-form breasts while we were doing that Poachers movie. The best part was I closed on stuff I just made up on the spot, when his wife was calling out his name as he left, covering his face—his name was Lindsey O'Shannon the whole time, not Pockets. For real. Lindsey's a total girl's name.

I know they taped it, but they may have stopped the tape after they told me to get off the stage for the fifth time. The show was just too hot for the V.F.W., I'm pretty sure. But if I can get a copy of that tape and get it to the right people in Vegas, I know I could get side gigs lined up for years to come. Just to cover me when Ho's! gets canceled. Always good to have a Plan B.

º Last Column: Ho's Job
º more columns

Ramrod Hurley at the helm. The big news this week… well, everyone knows. It's the big fat picture we so conspicuously placed atop the index page. But buried in the major national headlines was one of the most important stories we could have asked for: Tom Cruise's long battle with a male porn star is over! The victor: Tom Cruise.

It's a shame that sometimes the media gets caught up in ridiculous international headlines like whether North Korea is aggressively seeking to build up nuclear arms or the state of weapons inspectors in Iraq, and they lose touch with the simple stories that really matter. Here a man, a filthy male porn star even, accuses Tom Cruise of being gay and doing nasty things with him, and that story makes all the major tabloid headlines. Everyone read it, if in the supermarket headlines at least, and yet who will read about Tom Cruise's exoneration? It's a damn shame. Shame on you, media.

And what does Tom Cruise get for all his humiliation? Well, $10 million. But the guy will probably never pay on the bill, he's a gay porn actor, for Christ's sake. How much money is in gay porn? Don't answer that as I never, ever want to know. So basically what we're left here with is Tom Cruise, flooded with accusations and holding a big, stiff bill in his hands. A bill never to be paid. No compensation for all this.

It's nothing new for Tom Cruise. He's been hounded with claims he's gay his entire career. Research Editor Griswald Dreck says much of it stems from Tom Cruise's first claim to fame, a sitcom where he played a gay rock star married to a "beard," with two adopted kids, a show called, Queer as Fuck; that, and the fact he's gay. Which leads me to a very important note, which is to never trust anything Griswald Dreck says. But you didn't hear it here.

So why is Tom Cruise followed by gay rumors? Nothing more than wishful gay-thinking, I would guess. A beautiful, charming Hollywood star with a light touch to his nature, like a modern-day big-teethed Cary Grant. Tom Cruise has more passion than growl, maybe, more sophistication than ruggedness, but does that mean he's gay? Rock Hudson had those same qualities, as did The Brady Bunch's Robert Reed. Now what do you say?

There are plenty of people who would want Tom Cruise to be gay, I'm sure. It's hard to blame them—who hasn't considered nuzzling naked in a large bearskin blanket next to a fire with Tom Cruise? Well, I haven't. I was just trying to trap you. But no matter what gay people want, it doesn't necessarily make it so.

But that alone can't be the answer, otherwise all those rumors about George Clooney I've been starting would have caught on. No, there's something else to Tom Cruise's mystique. And I think I have it.

You see, the gay porn star wasn't lying—he did sleep with Tom Cruise; or believes he did. The answer has been so obvious I'm surprised I'm the first to reveal it. There is a Tom Cruise doppelganger out there, living la vida loca on Tom Cruise's good name. And don't get me started on Ricky Martin.

Who is the Tom Cruise impersonator? Without further evidence, it would be potential libel to say. But if I were the finger-pointing type, I'd point squarely at Peter Facinelli from the show Fastlane. Just take a good long look at him: He looks just like Tom Cruise, he's too pretty to be straight, and I could definitely drop him into a naked bearskin blanket fireplace fantasy and not notice the difference. Someone's been nailing porn stars with Tom Cruise's face, and if I were in a Fox series with Bill Bellamy and Tiffani Amber-Thiessen I'd be so full of anger and resentment there'd be no limits to what I'd do.

º Last Column: Ushering in a New commune Era
º more columns