An open message to Britney, Lindsey, Paris, etc.

OK, I've heard it all and I've seen it all, after the photo of Britney Spears going bald was released a few days ago. I have an open message to you, Britney, and to all of you young up-and-comers like Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, and the rest of you wild animals.

Enjoying life at a young age is great; I've been there and done that in the late-80s and much of the 90s both here in SoCal and in Las Vegas. But there are limits to how much fun you can enjoy, at least where I come from there is.

Britney in particular needs help...and fast. We already lost Anna Nicole, and none of us certainly does not want to lose Britney. Plain and simple, folks; Britney is 25 or so now, and I'm sure she wants to endure as much living as possible. Drugs and alcohol abuse is certainly not the way to go, and I have seen this pattern many times with others whom I thought had a bright future ahead of them upon making their debuts.

Lindsey Lohan, if she can battle her demons, I think can become as huge as anybody in the Entertainment World. She has all the talent, no question about that.

The jury's still out on Christina Aguilera, but I have a feeling that she is going to be around for quite a while.

I don't know about you; but the one young star that I can recall who has really kept her mind in the right direction is Deborah Gibson. She made her debut in 1986 at the age of 16, as she and Tiffany Darwisch dominated the music scene at that time. Both have already appeared in Playboy. Darwisch is pretty much out of the biz full-time; but Gibson has become a star as a Broadway actress and part-time recording artist.

Anyway, the bottom line is very simply, enjoy life, but don't overdo it. Life in the fast lane can and will come back and bite you in the you-know-where.

Goodbye, Vickie Lynn...

As most of you already know, Anna Nicole Smith (real name Vickie Lynn Hogan, later Vickie Lynn Smith) has passed away of unknown causes at the age of 39. A very sad story indeed, especially with the you-know-what she went through over the past five or six months, including the death of her son Daniel Smith last September.

Just sad. A five-month-old daughter is now without a mother. And Anna Nicole leaves behind a fan following; some of which were around since she made her debut 15 years ago.

This truly ranks up there in the same category with Marilyn Monroe's untimely death back in 1962. It's just sad when you see these familiar faces, not just in Hollywood but in sports, or life in general, and suddenly, they're gone.

I was hoping, as I wrote a while back, that she would have the strength to live on after the death of her son, as was the case with Doris Adkisson, the matriach of pro wrestling's Von Erich family. Sadly, Anna Nicole was unable to overcome her demons and subsequent emotional distress.

What a shame. Is it true that the good die young? Well, with the list I've seen, from Linda Sobek to River Phoenix, from Chris Adams to Gino Hernandez, from James Dean to Kurt Cobain; it's beginning to look that way.

My prayers go out to her family. I am sure they are truly devistated by this loss.

RD

* A tense situation in progress as I am writing this. About 10 PM this evening, LAPD officers exchanged gunfire with three street gang members not far from where I live, which I will not divulge here for safety purposes of course. I was going to head out with a friend until I heard numerous gunshots to the east of where I am -- on Figueroa Street near Vernon Avenue -- that were shades of North Hollyood from 1997. Once I turned the scanner on, I heard one unit request help, and shots fired. Yikes. As you might expect, about a dozen LAPD officers and two air units raced to the scene, with four suspects involved, one of them shot and the other three fleeing the area and hiding at an apartment complex. LAPD as a result had to shut Figueroa down at Vernon for Southbound traffic and at 47th Street for northbound traffic. CHP also had to run a traffic break both directions of the Harbor Freeway between MLK and Slauson, so that caused major headaches for the commuters on the freeway.

Now, at 11:16 PM, over an hour after the shooting, it appears that LAPD has two guys apprehended which may have been involved in the officer-involved shooting. One other suspect was shot and taken to a nearby local hospital; condition unknown at this time. There is still an Air unit flying overhead, and K-9, SWAT and Gang-unit detectives on scene as well. So far no changes. Well, it's still going as of 11:27 PM, so this situation is gonna last for a while I'm afraid.

Now 11:31, I have just heard on the CHP frequency that a SigAlert has been issued on the 110 Freeway between MLK and Slauson for four hours due to the police activity going on at Vernon and Fig. So this is gonna last well into the early morning hours.

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You have to feel for the folks on the San Diego Freeway. Earlier today, a crane smashed right onto the freeway near Mulholland Drive, which forced the closure of the entire freeway for a time, and the northbound lanes were out for a good four or five hours. As of this writing, traffic on the 405 is STILL very slow, under 15 MPH. The surface roads nearby such as Sepulveda Blvd, Beverly Glen, Laurel Canyon and Coldwater Canyon are slammed, as you might expect. Laurel may be the lesser of the two, since that road is near the Hollywood Freeway. Glad I wasn't there.

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Birthday wishes go out to a longtime friend whom I've known for the past 25 years; Shawn Hutchings. Shawn and I were classmates at Eldorado High School in Las Vegas (she was known at the time as Shawn Arnold, the eldest of the five Arnold siblings), and became very good friends over the years. Shawn is among that special group of people who were given a second chance to live. Back in 1985, on my 18th birthday of all things, she was involved in a near-fatal car accident in Henderson when someone blew a stop sign right onto Boulder Highway...in oncoming traffic. Shawn was out of action for a year as a result, yet good people like her now-husband Alan, her sister and brothers and everyone else in her family, were there for her in that difficult time. I didn't know of this until a year later; and to this day I have no clue why nobody told me about this when it occurred. I drove by this accident when I was going to a basketball game at Basic High School.

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Super Bowl predictions? Gonna go with Chicago. Not a fan of the Colts, either the Baltimre Colts or the Indianapolis Colts, yet I admired Johnny Unitias and the leadership he had with the Baltimore Colts, and was very vocal about the team's sudden decision to move to Indy.

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Enjoy the Super Bowl weekend, everybody!

RD