In the Hair Tonight

Love Phil Collins. Love chocolate. Love gorillas. Here's a new U.K. commercial for Cadbury.

My New Pals

Last week I journeyed to Lakeview Fundamental Elementary School to talk to a bunch of 9- and 10-year-olds about my job. I was supposed to talk for 40 minutes; I wound up chatting about Hannah Montana, Corbin Bleu and Billy Ray Cyrus for more than an hour.

The kids were smart, funny, highly entertaining, especially one little dude, who said he was a huge Elvis fan. I asked him what his favorite Elvis song was, and he started crooning Clambake. That pretty much made my year.

Anyway, the gang just sent me a bunch of thank-you letters, so I thought I'd share a few snippets...

"The one thing that I learned from you was famous people have big heads and little bodies."

"You are a great guy. I want to be a writer someday like you. P.S. Like the hair."

"When you said that you made fun of Billy Ray Cyrus for his song I didn't blame you! If I were there, I would just be laughing 'cause it just seemed so funny!"

"You are my most favorite music critic that ever existed. I almost wanted to yell out how I feel. Is that how you felt when you were a child?"

"I hope you come again very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very soon."

Slash Speaks!

Just had a great interview with Slash, who comes to Tampa Oct. 6 with Velvet Revolver. A nice guy and a helluva quote. Nothing was off limits, no warnings from his PR people. The 42-year-old guitar god talked for about 30 minutes, covering everything from:

His addictions: "I'm a real loner. I'm not a social partier. I'm more like the closeted f---ing junkie." These days he says he's "reasonably clean."

His mystical top hat: "It's something I hide behind. Without it, I feel really naked."

His upcoming work on Guitar Hero 3: "I was obsessed with playing Guitar Hero 2. As a guitar player, it's actually harder to play than if you're not a player. I could do medium, but on expert, I can't pull the chords off!"

He even has his own autobiography hitting stores in November: Slash: It Seems Excessive But That Doesn't Mean It Didn't Happen.

And, of course, he talked about Axl and Guns N' Roses: "I'm so sick of it. It just doesn't go away....I haven't been keeping abreast of all of the [Guns N' Roses news]. I'm not really interested. It's been a long time since I left.... Besides the recorded music, the only thing that ties [Axl and I] together is everybody's fantasy about us getting back together."

About a reunion tour, Slash says: "The figures that have been thrown at us have been astronomical."

But alas, he says, it ain't gonna happen.

[Photo: Getty Images.]

Morally Repugnant...and Awesome!

Beneath the blizzards of cocaine, bindles of smack, mountains of pills and gallons of Jack Daniel’s, there’s a vital lesson lurking in The Heroin Diaries, the new tell-all by Motley Crue bassist and world-class dumbass Nikki Sixx. And that lesson is this:

You can totally bag more strippers when you’re sober.

What? You were expecting Hallmarkian sentiment? This is the Crue we’re talking about, the most debauched troupe of dirtballs to be birthed in the sin-stained gutters of West Hollywood. This is a multiplatinum metal band that, during its ’80s heyday, entertained itself in hotels by greeting room service in the nude (and that's when they were being charming).

Strangely enough, though, the boys make for riveting storytellers. In 2001, Sixx, plus Motley bandmates Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Tommy Lee, delivered best-selling oral history The Dirt, the first 250 pages of which are so morally bankrupt...I can’t recommend the book enough. Seriously, it's awesomely shocking, and it makes Led Zeppelin’s infamous bio Hammer of the Gods read like The Book of Virtues.

Equally abhorrent and highly entertaining, sorta-sequel The Heroin Diaries also includes ribald interviews with Neil, Mars and Lee. But this one’s primarily about Sixx, who kept a day-to-day journal in 1987 when Motley Crue was the biggest band in the world — and the band’s leader and songwriter was spiraling down a rabbit hole of heroin and cocaine addiction.

If The Dirt was about the party, The Heroin Diaries is about the morning-after wreckage. It’s bleak, violent, mind-blowingly profane. By embracing both candor and crassness — and dishing on everyone from Jon Bon Jovi to Slash to Heather Locklear — Sixx spins a gross, gripping yarn, the rare celeb to detail every drop of blood, every trashed hotel room, every naked groupie crawling through his window.

Say what you want about Sixx — he’s been pronounced dead twice — but in this day and age of milquetoast rock stars, it’s refreshing to be repulsed by the old-school guys. Using old journal entries and modern-day commentary, he paints scene after pathetic scene of his drug use, impotence and increasing paranoia: "There is something about spending Christmas alone, naked, sitting by the Christmas tree gripping a shotgun, that lets you know your life is spinning dangerously outta control."

Eddie Vedder's "Into the Wild"

What took Sean Penn and Eddie Vedder — two surly, ranting iconoclasts — so long to collaborate? Penn asked the Pearl Jam singer to score his adaptation of author Jon Krakauer’s best-selling true story. You know the drama right? A young man ditches a life of affluence for a tragic existence in the Alaskan wilderness. Total exit the rainmaker job.

I've never been the biggest Pearl Jam fan -- I have five PJ songs on my iPod, including a great cover of Dylan's Masters of War. But this album is 33 minutes of jarring music. Playing almost all of the instruments, and writing all but two of the 11 songs, Vedder delves into the mind of someone rebelling against society and trying to find peace in an unforgiving land. The kid could also be completely bonkers, so Vedder has to factor that in, as well.

This is heavy-duty stuff, as the percussively intricate songs range from prickly ruminations to jarring, giant rockers. It's moving, but also rather disturbing. In related news, St. Pete Times film critic Steve Persall — yet another surly, ranting iconoclast — says Into the Wild could be movie of the year.

Sean's Suspect Parenting, Part 374

Kid Lulu got into the comic books last night. Spidey, Silver Surfer, Captain America. She liked all the guy crime-fighters, but she flipped when she got to She-Hulk, a tough female superhero. "I wanna be She-Hulk!" I've never been more proud.

So this morning, I wore my Incredible Hulk shirt and referred to her as She-Hulk during breakfast. Lulu was loving it. During our walk to school, she asked me: "Can you have my teacher call me She-Hulk?"

Sure. Where's the harm in that?

So we get to her home room, and I say to her teacher, Miss Holly: "Hey, do you mind calling her She-Hulk today?"

Miss Holly looked like I goosed her: "She-Hulk?"

"Uh, yeah. She-Hulk. She's like the Hulk, um, but a girl." I pointed to my Hulk T-shirt, as if that explained everything.

"I'm She-Hulk!" my daughter said triumphantly to all of her classmates.

That's when the Big Girl in the Class, the Loudmouth, the Bully, the Meanie, walked over to my daughter and said, "She-Hulk? YOU'RE WEIRD!!!"

And all the kids started giggling.

Uh-oh.

My daughter then gave me a look, a horrible look, a trembly look, that basically said: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? SHE-HULK? YOU COULDN'T PROMOTE A MORE NORMAL SUPERHERO? MAYBE BATGIRL? OR WONDER WOMAN? NO, YOU HAD TO GO WITH A MARVEL LESSER-KNOWN, A CULT FANTASY FOR NERDS WHO CAN'T GET GIRLS. SHE-HULK?!! GREAT. NOW I'M THE WEIRD KID. HOPE YOU'RE SAVING UP FOR THERAPY, 'CAUSE OL' SHE-HULK, SHE'S GOT SOME SERIOUS BAGGAGE TO UNLOAD.

I tried to correct the situation, sizing up the Bully with a: "She-Hulk is the coolest. Don't you know anything?" But by then, the damage was done. Miss Holly came over and started talking to Kid Lulu about dolphins. Dazed, dizzied, I staggered out of the room.

I left feeling pretty bad. But c'mon, if a 3-year-old girl can't be She-Hulk, who can? So in honor of my crime-fighting daughter, here's today's playlist:

Superhero -- Jane's Addiction
Stronger -- Kanye West
Heroes -- David Bowie
Born to Fly -- Sara Evans
Fire Woman -- the Cult
Flash -- Queen
Superman (It's Not Easy) -- Five for Fighting
Herculean -- the Good, the Bad & the Queen
I Believe I Can Fly -- R. Kelly
Iron Man -- Black Sabbath
Learning to Fly -- Tom Petty
Believe It or Not -- Joey Scarbury

[PICTURE: Marvel Comics]

Take Your Apology and Go

I BLAME NIKKI SIXX.

It's certainly no coincidence that I spent yesterday morning absorbing the Motley rocker's debauched, disorderly tell-all -- and then spent yesterday afternoon (and, um, night) doing my damndest to act like a complete buffoon. Without getting into the details, I'd like to apologize to the following people:

The entire city of Boston
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Pitcher Edwin Jackson
The beer vendor who tried to dress like Johnny Depp but instead looked like Little Steven stuck in the rain
The Walt Disney Co.
That girl at Ferg's with the cigarette in her cleavage
The Forever Fiancee
Kid Lulu
Most of my Feather Sound neighbors
That girl in the Jason Varitek jersey who couldn't take a joke

To all those people, I'd also like to dedicate the following playlist...

All Apologies -- Nirvana
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word -- Elton John
I'm Sorry -- Brenda Lee
Hard to Say I'm Sorry -- Chicago
Sorry, Blame It on Me -- Akon
Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing -- Chris Isaak

My Unhealthy Alicia Keys Crush

Alicia Keys' new album, As I Am, doesn’t come out until Nov. 13, but her passionate, piano-pounded first single, No One, makes me think her third studio effort could be lethally good.

Of course, my ability to fairly critique the classically trained Keys has been hindered ever since I met her face-to-face at the MTV VMA's and realized she was THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN OF ALL TIME. I also saw her at the Grammys a few years ago. Now I'm no fashion expert, but I'm fairly certain her backless dress was THE MOST AWESOME SARTORIAL CHOICE IN THE HISTORY OF CLOTHING.

On No One, currently available on iTunes, the 26-year-old New Yorker borrows from Bob Marley and Brahms, weaving classical and Kingston threads into this sweaty, pleading hit. How romantic is this sucker? Nine months from now, there will be thousands of babies named Alicia. That's how romantic.

Questions for Slash?

Next week, my hirsute dreams come true.

In anticipation of Velvet Revolver's Oct. 6 stop in Tampa, I'll be interviewing Saul "Slash" Hudson, if not one of the most influential guitarists of all time, then definitely the hairiest.

But here's the deal: I'll probably get 20 minutes at best. So where do you start? Maybe lead with a few VR queries and then go for the G N' R gold? And you have to devote at least 6 minutes to his top hat, right? Gonna have to plan this sucker just right.

WHO HAS A QUESTION FOR SLASH?

The iFlush? (This is NOT a joke.)

"Now you can Enhance your Experience anywhere..."

Or say so the scientists at Atech Flash Technology.

Can you imagine? I shudder at the thought of one of my friends, after a pitcher of beer and 20 hot wings, saying, "Hey, Sean, you mind if I borrow your iPod. I need to hit the head."

For more info, go here.