Getting mugged

While my close friend and personal life coach Rich Siegel is busy over at Round Seventeen writing about issues of the day like Islamic clerics, Israel and Palestine, the Holocaust and the sorry state of advertising, I notice he has yet to tackle a vital subject that affects us all on a deeper, even more visceral level.

Of course I'm talking about celebrity mug shots.

It's always good, wholesome fun to have a laugh at someone else's expense. So let's start with one of the classics: Nick Nolte. Now the go-to choice would've been to contrast and compare a glamour boy shot of Nolte from the Rich Man Poor Man days with his now infamous Don King-esque, "Have you ever heard of conditioner?" hairstyle mug shot.

Instead, I chose an earlier mug shot of Nolte as a counterpoint to the one we all know and love. In fact, as you'll see, I've pretty much restricted all my choices to celebutards who have enjoyed the luxurious accommodations of an 8x6 holding cell more than once.

It's hard to know exactly what's more embarrassing about this early Tim Allen mug shot. The '70's stache? That he was busted in Kalamazoo (which coincidentally is the word magicians use when they forget "abracadabra"), or the fact people kept mistaking him for Geraldo Rivera?

Clearly his success from Home Improvement and voicing Buzz Lightyear is reflected in the more recent, more styled shot on the right. You can tell he's aware of the lighting, as well as his best angle. It could almost be the head shot his agent sends out for roles on shows like, you know, Oz or Prison Break.

Unfortunately for Tim, thanks to the interwebs these mug shots will be around to infinity and beyond. (See what I did there?)

                                        

Ladies and gentlemen, the man who's single-handedly putting the glamour back in anti-semitism, the one and only Mel Gibson.

This suitable-for-wallet-size mug shot on the left is from Mel's drunk driving episode a few years back on Pacific Coast Highway. Clearly, Mel still has plenty of alcohol in his bloodstream. You can see the sly smile, the sparkly eyes - the look that says "Hey, I know Jews run the business, but guess which ten-year old, independently financed film shot in a dead language grossed the most money in history?"

I'll give him this: it was a good film, even if I did know how it ended.

But see, you can't smack talk the people who run the business and still expect to have a career in it, as an older, paler and jowlier Mel knows judging by the photo on the right.

I suppose everybody's human and nobody's perfect. But sometimes stupidity just rules the day, and the mistakes we make have a way of sticking to our shoes.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I was going to post Lindsey Lohan's mug shots. But even on the internet, there just wasn't enough room.