America’s Crazy Celebrity Mug Shots (Part 1)

“Do I look crazy enough?  I want this shot to look REAL crazy.”

~Nick Nolte, 2002

America loves a good Mug Shot.  The photograph taken by police officers as you’re booked for a criminal charge truly proves the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” which is a term that we at AFFotD enjoy because reading hurts our brain, and you can pretty much figure out the plot of Yertle the Turtle without having to read the damn “story” anyway.  With a Mug Shot, we can see the whole series of events that led to that singular low point, all summed up with a smug look that says either, “I’m so making bail,” or, “Busted,” (depending on how rich and famous you are.)

Yes, seeing an average schlub like Johnny Half-Beard up there in cuffs being photographed by cops can afford us hours of entertainment.  The Smoking Gun is able to find enough people with butterfly face tattoos being arrested that they can populate the hell out of their site just by posting these things for everyone to point and laugh at.  But for every mug shot of a man making his face look like a shrunken head or moustache-tattoo-saying-“Ladies Love It” there are literally thousands of mug shots that are either boring, neutral, or actively depressing.  If Mug Shots of regular people were a football player, they’d be Rex Grossman- when they work, they’re glorious, but most of the time you’re just wondering why they’re on the field at all.

But Celebrity mug shots?  Of Americans?  Now that never fails to inspire.  When you see a celebrity’s Mug Shot, you know the following things.  A- the picture is going to show someone either incredibly smug, or incredibly wasted.  B- They are going to pay bail shortly after that Mug Shot is taken, so they really don’t give a shit.  And C- they’ve done far worse shit and gotten away with it.

Celebrity Mug Shots combines watching Americans embrace their status as above the law, while giving non AFFotD writing Americans a nice sense of Schadenfreude.  Actually, we’re not going to use that term, because German is not English, so we’re going to call it “The sense of Ha Ha You Fucked Up.”  Or HHYFU.  True famous Americans embrace the Mug Shot as the most public way to flaunt your fame and wealth this side of making it rain during the President’s State of the Union address.  Which, oddly enough, is how half of the AFFotD staff ended up getting their own Mug Shots (apparently chucking money and shouting, “Where my bitches at?” is not allowed in that setting.  Who knew?).  So, with that in mind, let us look at…

America’s Best Celebrity Mug Shots (Of Americans Who Clearly Don’t Give Two Shits)

Of course, no list of Americans celebrating their Americanness through the subtle art of a Mug Shot can be complete without a few reliable stand-bys, such as…

–          Nick Nolte

What do two Oscar nominations look like?  Apparently a Jimmy Buffet fan who sleeps on Miami beach benches for a living.  We’ve seen Skeletor action figures that looked like they were more actively in thought than Nolte in this picture.  You remember when you were in college, and your friend passed out from drinking too much, and you sort of had to prop him up against a wall to make it look like he was awake when the RAs came knocking?  This is what that guy’s going to look like in his 60’s.  You could tell us the following about this picture, and we’d absolutely believe it.

o   “After this picture was taken, Nolte vomited on a female police officer.”  Sounds about right to us.

o   “After this picture was taken, Nolte asked a female police officer for sexual favors.”  That one sounds even more right to us.

o   “After this picture was taken, Nolte slumped to the ground and began snoring loudly.”  We’re pretty that already happened, and this is the picture of it.

o   “After this picture was taken, Nolte’s skin cracked open, and a winged tentacled monster sprung forth from the pictured husk.”  We for one welcome Cthulhu to our dimension, and would like to remind him that we have a lot of influence over most American citizens.

If someone ever dressed like this for Halloween, they’d have to tell their friends that they were dressed as, “Giving up.”  If you had to guess what Nolte was arrested for before taking this picture, just about the only crime you could rule out would be “suicide bombing” (it was a DUI).  Possibly the funniest thing about this picture, and most American, is that Nolte has still appeared in over ten films since this happened, because America just straight up doesn’t give a shit, and neither does Nolte.  And that is glorious.

–          James Brown

This picture is the definition of contradiction.  James Brown is American, being arrested for Domestic Battery is not.  James Brown is the fucking SEX MACHINE, yet here he is doing his best “Homeless Streaker” impression.  The great thing about being an epic American, as Brown was, is that if a normal 70 year old man went walking around with wild hair and an open bathrobe, they’d be put in a home.  When James Brown does that shit, it gets on the news.  The true mystery in this picture is not question of, “How long of a bender did he go on before taking this picture?  Two weeks?  Three years?” it is, “What do you think he was in the middle of saying when this picture was taken?”  There’s so many possibilities.  He is clearly mid-word, was he speaking out of turn, or was he answering a question?  The below are some of the more realistic possibilities.

o   “My dick, yes.”  Said in response to, “Wait, hanging out of your boxers, is that…”

o   “Whiskey.”  Because true Americans say “Whiskey” instead of “Cheese” when they smile for the camera.

o   “AFFotD.”  Said in response to, “What is your favorite purveyor of American ideals?”

These two are used for more cheap jokes by bloggers than the cast of The Jersey Shore and Lindsay Lohan’s junk combined.  And speaking of Lindsay Lohan, that brings us to the second category of American Celebrity Mug Shots.  Upstanding Americans with hilarious and surprising mugshots…which we’ll get to tomorrow in part two of the AFFotD Mug Shot series.