Rest in Peace, Mike Starr

Mike Starr dead: Former Alice in Chains bassist pleaded for drugs in voicemail hours before death

BY SHARI WEISS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, March 10th 2011, 11:44 AM

Evidence that Mike Starr's unexpected death may have been drug-related is continuing to mount since his passing earlier this week.

The former Alice in Chains bassist, who was found dead in his Salt Lake City home Tuesday, made a desperate plea for drugs shortly before he died.

"If you could score me an eighth, quarter ounce, half ounce or bud or whatever," Starr said to an unidentified friend in a voice mail message obtained by TMZ.com.

"I need it so bad," the musician pleaded before hanging up.

He reportedly died hours later.

Starr's roommate also revealed to TMZ that the former "Celebrity Rehab" participant was "mixing" anti-anxiety medicine with methadone on Monday night.

The chief investigator of Utah's office of the medical examiner told the Daily News on Wednesday that toxicology reports would not be completed for 8-12 weeks.Dr. Drew, who worked with Starr on the VH1 reality show, already seemed convinced that the rocker's drug addictions caused his death.

"Devastating to hear of Mike Starr succumbing to his illness," he tweeted Tuesday.

Starr was arrested last month for felony possession of a controlled substance after he was reportedly caught with several painkillers.

"Mike was a beautiful person who was fighting to stay sober," his roommate told TMZ. "I am going to miss him greatly."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2011/03/10/2011-03-10_mike_starr_dead_former_alice_in_chains_bassist_pleaded_for_drugs_in_voicemail_ho.html#ixzz1GQcCYI8k

Ex-Alice in Chains Bassist Mike Starr Dead at 44

Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011 3:34pm PST by Caryn Ganz in Amplifier

Former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, who played on the band's first two influential albums and was one of the last people to see singer Layne Staley alive, has been found dead in a Salt Lake City, Utah home, TMZ reports. Starr, who was 44, was arrested earlier this month in Salt Lake City and found to be in possession of six Xanax pills and six Opana painkillers. According to a police report, Starr asked an officer if he'd heard of Alice in Chains, and said he was in Utah with a friend to put together a new band. "It's a terrible shock and tragedy," the rocker's father told the website today.

Starr played on the Seattle band's 1990 album Facelift and cowrote "It Ain't Like That" and "Confusion." He also performed on 1992'sSap EP and Dirt LP, which featured the band's breakout tracks "Down in a Hole," "Rooster," and "Would?" which also appeared on the soundtrack to the film Singles (the band also briefly performed onstage in the movie, too). Starr exited the band in 1993 and later admitted he'd been booted because his drug problem was out of control.

The musician, who appeared on VH1's Celebrity Rehab and Sober House in 2010, displayed erratic behavior while battling a vicious heroin addiction on TV. He wore headphones most of the time, and said, "My singer dies, and the only way I can hear him is through this... It takes me back to when Layne was alive." In a pivotal episode of Rehab, Starr spoke with Staley's mother and apologized for not doing more to help her drug-addled son. "I wish I would have called 911, he told me if I did, he'd never talk to me again," Starr said. "I was too high. I got mad at him, I said, 'I'll just leave' and his last words were 'not like this.' And I just left. I can't believe that. I'm so ashamed." Staley was found dead of a lethal mix of heroin and cocaine in his Seattle apartment in 2002.

When Starr first appeared on Rehab, his onetime bandmate Jerry Cantrell criticized the show for sensationalizing drug recovery: "[Mike is] a friend of ours, and we wish him the best. But that show's not really cool." Starr seemed to have kicked his dangerous addiction, and appeared on an episode of the following season's Rehab to demonstrate his progress. He was six months sober at the time of the taping.

I stood next to Mike a few times back in the early 90's. I remember standing against the back wall of a Long Island club while Extreme played; Alice In Chains was standing right next to us, in a row. My boyfriend and I looked at them and made some silly comments, because they were all grunged-out, and it had yet to hit anywhere else but Seattle. It was probably 1990, or close, because no one recognized the band at all. Not even us. I remember my boyfriend saying "Holy crap! These dudes need to take baths!"

I then stood right next to Mike, dying to say something, in the back of Roseland. I can't remember who was on stage at the time, but Mike stood there and watched the entire set, and I stood there, realizing Mike Starr was next to me and I couldn't get a word out of my mouth. Back then, I was far too shy. Had it been years later, I've have said hello and tried to talk to him. :::sigh:::

The oddest memory of AIC and Mike was the Van Halen tour, or rather Van Hagar. I went, and to get backstage, my friend tossed me a lanyard with the All Access pass. I had no idea it was Mike's. My dumb ass friend borrowed Mike's laminates and gave them to me so I could go backstage. The problem was that everyone knew they were Mike's and not a guests, so I got told NO (and went and slept through Van Hagar, how sad!) and Mike supposedly got reamed for just giving his laminates "for a few minutes" for someone to get in the back. After, we went to the tour bus. Layne was totally out of his skull, cursing, spitting and pissed off at my friend (who I was embarrassed by this point to be connected to) so I said I was leaving. The friend I was with wanted to stay! I said no way, I'd already felt bad that mike got "in trouble" and basically was told he was "grounded" for that night, for the stupid laminates incident. 

Wish I'd said "hello." He was taller than me, obviously, wearing long johns, shorts and almost the same boots as I was, and so good-looking. He was quiet. He wasn't trying to be a rockstar at all. he was just listening to the band. I'm sure he was a really cool guy. I'll miss him.

Rest in peace, Mike Starr. Say hello to Layne.

Kids can thrive on a vegetarian diet, but parents need to pay close attention

By Carolyn Butler

Monday, December 13, 2010; 6:18 PM

Both of my sons have been voracious carnivores from the get-go, devouring baby beef and chicken purees with gusto before graduating to gnawing spare ribs clean, inhaling full pots of meatballs and downing two to three hot dogs in a sitting. Over the past several months, however, my 4-year-old has started to reject nearly all forms of animal protein, one by one: First, steak was declared "too tough," then chicken "yucky," and on and on, with pork, sausage, ground beef, fish of any sort and even, last week, his once beloved franks.

Hence, the macaroni-and-cheese marathon at our dinner table of late.


While Eli's distaste for meat may just be a brief spurt of picky eating, a small but growing number of children and adolescents are consciously opting for a vegetarian diet. Earlier this year, a nationwide survey of 1,258 8- to 18-year-olds found that 3 percent never eat meat, poultry or seafood, up from 1.4 percent in 1995. That's an estimated 1.4 million young vegetarians today, says Reed Mangels, nutrition advisor for the Vegetarian Resource Group. (That Baltimore-based organization commissioned the online survey, whose findings cannot be considered as reliable as polls using more traditional methodology.)


Mangels points out that two-thirds of these meatless kids are vegan, meaning that they also forgo animal products such as dairy and eggs. Vegetarianism "is definitely a more mainstream choice than ever before," says Mangels, whose family, including two teenage girls, is vegan.


Research on adult vegetarians suggests that a plant-based diet provides many ongoing health benefits, including a lower incidence of obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and possibly certain types of cancer. (One of the latest studies on the topic, a small sampling published this summer in the peer-reviewed Nutrition Journal, suggests that vegetarians may be less depressed and have better mood profiles than meat-eaters.) Lalita Kaul, a nutrition professor at Howard University College of Medicine and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, says eating a well-planned, well-balanced vegetarian diet "can be healthful and appropriate at any age."

Naturally, it didn't take long for my concern about Eli's de facto vegetarianism to morph into grand visions of a super-fit preschooler, fueled on broccoli and Brussels sprouts. But avoiding meat and other animal products doesn't automatically ensure good nutrition.


" 'Vegetarian' is not synonymous with 'healthy'; you have to be making good, healthy food choices and avoiding junk food," says Hemant Sharma, a pediatrician at Children's National Medical Center. In fact, he points out, parents of a young vegetarian often need to be extra-vigilant in monitoring their offspring's diet: "It's important to pay special attention and to plan different factors of a plant-based diet out carefully, to ensure that growing children get all of the nutrients they need."


Sharma notes that typically, the more strict the kid is about being vegetarian (i.e., the more foods avoided), the more oversight is needed. "Flexitarians," who occasionally eat meat, and "pescatarians," who consume fish, are on the less worrisome end of the spectrum, and true vegans, who don't touch milk, eggs or even honey, are at the opposite end.


Experts agree that getting enough food overall is key. "In plant-based diets, which tend to be very high in fiber, children often get a sense of fullness before they really ingest enough calories as they need, or eat enough food to provide adequate energy," says Sharma, who recommends three meals and three snacks a day for his vegetarian patients, all filled with such energy-dense options as nuts, seeds and avocado, as well as such high-protein foods as tofu and other soy products, beans and, for those who aren't vegan, low-fat dairy and eggs.


The main sources of concern about vitamins and minerals that meat-eaters get but that vegetarians might not are iron (particularly for teenage girls) and, for vegans, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12 and calcium, says registered dietitian Mangels. Still, she emphasizes that it is entirely possible to get the proper levels of all nutrients with some planning and a multivitamin if necessary.


My own finicky foodie aside, many kids choose to eat less meat or to become all-out vegetarians for perfectly valid, even admirable, reasons, from taste and moral objections to family preferences. But Sharma counsels that parents of older children who opt for a plant-based diet try to suss out whether their motives are entirely pure.
"It's important to look for clues and assess whether this choice to be a vegetarian might reflect an underlying eating disorder . . . which can sometimes present with just a restriction in what an adolescent will be willing to eat," he says.


Looking ahead, I'm thrilled that my son is eating mostly fruits, veggies and whole grains. We're working on adding such foods as tofu, edamame and a variety of beans to his daily diet, even if we still have to sneak them into quesadillas for now. But that doesn't mean that my husband and I have reconciled ourselves to an entirely meat-free life or that we're excited about preparing two meals for every breakfast, lunch and dinner.


Happily, cooking for a lone vegetarian or two doesn't have to be stressful or take much more effort, says Mangels, who suggests focusing on the meatless meals your family already eats, such as the aforementioned macaroni and cheese, a hearty minestrone or lentil soup, or bean burritos. From there, "it's all about looking at foods that you can make vegetarian or not quickly, like stir-frying a whole lot of vegetables and offering both tofu and chicken, so that everyone can mix what they like," she says, noting that giving up meat is positive for the environment and can be much less expensive. "Just try seeing it as an opportunity to help the whole family eat healthier."

Tommy Lee's Response to SeaWorld

Tommy Lee's Response to SeaWorld December 10th, 2010

As if Tommy Lee's original letter to SeaWorld about the park's disturbing orca-breeding practices weren't high-five-worthy enough, it gets even better!


A SeaWorld rep responded, "The process of collecting semen for [artificial insemination] doesn't differ in any meaningful way from the techniques employed in managing livestock or other species for zoological display. … [O]ur trainers do not now nor have they ever entered the water with Tilikum for this purpose."
But Tommy is standing his ground and has sent the following response to SeaWorld:

Terry W. PratherPresident, SeaWorld
Dear Mr. Prather,
SeaWorld's PR line about the breeding of Tilikum falls flat, given statements PETA has from SeaWorld's own former employees, and it doesn't explain how exactly SeaWorld collects Tilikum's semen without having anyone get into the pool with him.
Former SeaWorld scientist John Hall says in this article, "Early in the morning, the animal-care crew would take hot-water-filled cow vaginas and masturbate the males in the back tanks." In this YouTube video, SeaWorld trainers demonstrate semen collection by standing in shallow water next to an orca and grabbing his penis until he ejaculates into a plastic bag. Linda Simons, SeaWorld's former health and safety director, confirmed to PETA that trainers are in fact in the water with Tilikum when masturbating him. When she asked about safety concerns with this, the response was, "This is how we've always done it."
It doesn't matter if trainers are ankle deep or totally submerged in the pool during this masturbation. Orcas commonly capture prey by leaping out of the water, grabbing the animal, and dragging him or her beneath the surface of the water.
To settle this, how about PETA and I come to SeaWorld and videotape the process, and then people can decide how natural it is? It might make your dramatic news releases about a new orca pregnancy or birth less appealing, but the public deserves to know. And they've undoubtedly never seen a sex tape like this.
Sincerely,Tommy Lee

Please back Tommy up—and speak out for all the whales at SeaWorld, too.

Just keepin’ it real,Sunny

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NOTE: I am NOT a fan of PETA, though I agree with some of what they stand for. I feel they are hiding a lot, and I am not happy with their avoidance of the SEAL SHEPHERD issue. It only made me, and others, realize that they were involved, and they did discuss working with a man with a serious mental illness. NOT COOL. Sorry PETA, but I think your PR people are full of shit. I'll be posting your correspondence with me within the next few weeks. Once you stopped replying, I knew what I'd asked about was FACT. Your organization was getting ready to support a sociopath who was asking for violence towards an entire providence. Your people were asking Seal Shepherd, aka Michael McDade "just how far he was willing to go" without getting busted. Don't even try to weasel around this one. Too many of us have already caught PETA in the LIE.