People are always decrying rock star drug use and mourning those poor unfortunate souls who rode the contents of a needle into the great beyond – hell, the rock star drug overdose death is perhaps the most clichéd kind of death there is – but no one ever celebrates those intrepid souls who overdose and manage to cheat the Reaper. And that’s where we come in. The following nine rock stars all overdosed yet lived to tell the tale. Sure, some died later on due to their self-destructive ways but it wasn’t the drugs that took them to the great gig in the sky.

Now there are a lot of people who could have been on this list, people who probably (okay, almost definitely) overdosed once or twice or twelve times, like Ozzy Osbourne or Iggy Pop, but this list is reserved for those who didn’t “probably” overdose but those who definitely overdosed. These are the ones who ended up with a needle full of adrenaline shoved in their chest. These are the ones who literally died and then came back to life, sort of like Jesus. Does this make them holy? I don’t know. You’ll have to look within for those spiritual answers.

9 Eminem
Back in 2007, Eminem overdosed on methadone and ended up in the hospital, only hours away from death. According to Eminem himself, his doctor told him that he had ingested the equivalent of four baggies of heroin, which, uh, that’s a lot of heroin. Eventually, Eminem cleaned up and found Jesus, or at least Rihanna, which is sort of the same thing. Well, at least if you assume that Jesus had Sideshow Bob hair and a killer ass. He walked a lot so he probably did. Anyway… methadone? Really? The next thing you’ll tell me is that Demi Moore was hospitalized after stroking out from doing too many whippets. Oh. I see.

8 Elton John
If you look up “cocaine” in the dictionary there will probably be a picture of Elton John in a giant duck costume playing the piano, so it’s really no surprise that he overdosed back in 1975 while in Los Angeles. The best part is that the overdose occurred during the middle of Elton John Week in L.A. I mean, let’s be honest, if the entertainment capital of the world had suddenly declared a whole week in your honor, you’d probably carry on like some degenerate Roman on spring break too. Still, there’s no excuse for that duck costume.

7 Phil Anselmo
Following a show in Texas in 1996, Phil Anselmo, the combative singer for Pantera, overdosed on heroin, which caused his heart to stop beating for almost five minutes. Eventually he woke up in the hospital to the sound of a nurse welcoming him back from the dead, although I’m guessing Phil would have rather hung out with the Reaper for a little while longer rather than have to face the wrath of his bandmates, the Abbott brothers. But hey, he did recover and everyone lived happily ever after. Right? Right???

6 Vanilla Ice
On the 4th of July in 1994, Vanilla Ice tried to kill himself with a heroin overdose. Like everything else in his life, it didn’t work. He was revived by friends and later went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the Large Hadron Particle Accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland. Or they revived him and he marked his second chance by getting a tattoo of a leaf on his stomach before becoming a jet-ski racer and a Juggalo. Either one. I’m just glad he found a purpose in life. As long as he never speaks into a microphone again, we’re good.

5 Steven Adler
Steven Adler, former drummer for Guns ‘N Roses and current fuckup reality star, has never had that widely publicized overdose most people would call rock bottom. No, instead, Steven Adler has had no less than 28 of those rock-bottom overdoses. 28. Basically, his whole adult life has been one extended overdose. He has overdosed so many times that it has pretty much become his career. Then again, I’m guessing having to deal with Axl Rose on a regular basis would drive anyone to madness and the warm embrace of a needle so who am I to judge? Besides, with bandmates like Izzy Stradlin, Slash and Duff McKagan, heroin addiction was pretty much a prerequisite for being in the band. In fact, it’s kind of amazing that they’re all still alive. So, uh… congrats, fellas?

4 Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain and “heroin” go together like Kurt Cobain and “grunge” or Kurt Cobain and “depressed.” He is almost the stereotype of the heroin beset sad panda rock star so it’s no surprise that he’s on this list. Among Cobain’s more infamous overdoses (Yes, there’s more than one. Surprise!) is his 1993 overdose just before a concert. Instead of, you know, calling an ambulance, his wife, Courtney Love – more on her later – jabbed him with a needle Pulp Fiction style, bringing him back from his heroin cloud so he could perform the show. His most famous OD, though, was probably his 1994 overdose in Rome, an apparent suicide attempt which saw him almost die from a combination of champagne and too much Rohypnol. Yes, Kurt Cobain tried to Roofie himself to death. Of course, he survived and returned to Seattle where he eventually overdosed on shotgun pellets – after doing a shitload of heroin. Naturally. But hey, at least the heroin didn’t kill him. After all, Kurt Cobain isn’t a cliché. Oh wait…

3 Courtney Love
Where there’s Kurt, there’s Courtney, and this list is no exception. While Kurt may be the poster-boy for the angst ridden, heroin addicted rock star, Courtney Love is basically one big living, breathing drug punchline. The two things that define Courtney Love’s life more than anything else – at least to the general public – are her husband’s suicide and her own rampant drug use over the years. She’s basically what Lindsay Lohan would see if Doc Brown showed up with the DeLorean and offered to show her the future. So, naturally, it’s not surprising that Courtney Love has survived an overdose – specifically, a 2003 overdose on painkillers, an overdose which came after she was arrested for trying to break into her ex-boyfriend’s home. That incident saw her lose custody of her daughter, Frances Bean, whose best bet is to probably move to an ashram in the Himalayas or something. Today, Courtney Love is apparently clean and the only thing she overdoses on is insanity. Oh, and terrible, terrible plastic surgery.

2 Slash
Like I said in the section on Steven Adler, it’s amazing that Slash is still alive. He basically spent his entire time in Guns N’ Roses staggering around in a Jack Daniels and heroin induced haze. I’m not even sure how he got his fingers to work to play the guitar given that he could barely stand up most of the time. Still, nobody is cooler than Slash and today he’ll tell you all about his various overdoses just like he’s telling you a story about going to the grocery store. He’ll tell you about the time he died in a San Francisco hotel room after overdosing, frightening the poor maid before being brought back to life and then checking out of the ER that same night. He’ll tell you all about the time that he shot up so much coke at a resort that he saw tiny little Predators who then chased him all over the resort, bleeding, before he hid behind a lawnmower in a shed until they faded away and the cops came to arrest him. He’ll tell you it all, and that’s because somehow the dude managed to survive it all. Sure, he has a damn pacemaker in his chest now thanks to his years of insane drug and alcohol abuse but he’s friggin’ Slash, man, and you’re not. So there.

1 Nikki Sixx
Someone from Mötley Crüe almost had to be number one on this list, right? No band has ever been more synonymous with wild excess and random overdoses than that collection of misfits. Naturally, the band’s leader, Nikki Sixx, is the one with the most infamous overdose story. It’s pretty much the king of all rock and roll overdose stories. In 1987, Sixx shot up a huge batch of heroin and did what most people would do as a result – he died. He was revived via adrenaline in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and once he arrived at the hospital, he then ripped out all the tubes that were, you know, keeping him alive, and fled on foot, where he caught a ride home with two teenage girls. He then shot up a huge batch of heroin and passed out but not before recording a new answering machine message that said “Hey, it’s Nikki. I’m not here because I’m dead.” Now that’s rock and roll. And that’s why he’s number one this list.

Men are kind of like Johnny Appleseed: they have the urge to roam the lands, planting their seed wherever they go. The only reason that most of us don’t do this is because we eventually end up feeling connected to a certain special someone. This woman has the power to make us go from boner-wielding nomads to family men. But along the way, there are certain hurdles that women tend to want their man to clear…

7 Making it Official
This is when you switch over from dating to being in an actual committed relationship. You’re exclusive now and boy will you have to show it. Get ready to do lots of boyfriend things like giving her extended periods of your free time on the weekends and not looking at other women.

6 Meeting Her Family
Not long after this, it will be time to meet her family. This is meant to disarm her father (who may literally be sitting, armed in a dark corner petting his double-barreled sawed-off flip-action shotgun) who may not yet approve of you. This also gives her mother the chance to agree with her that yes, you are cute and your career is perfectly decent enough. Work on your handshake skills for dad and your complimentary remarks skills for mom.

5 Moving in Together
Hefty chunks of bathroom and closet real estate will be hers and there will, in fact, be too many cooks in the kitchen. This should always be a way to capitalize on a great relationship, not apply a bandage to a suffering one. Co-habitation (even without marriage) is actually quite healthy, so if you’re both happy with this, be ready for her to start hinting at the next steps…

4 Engagement
Pick out the biggest blood diamond (the price of which falls directly on a month’s salary or whatever the recession’s equivalent is) you can find and slap that bad boy on her awaiting finger. It’s time for you to show your commitment to her… with precious metals.

3 Marriage
You’ve made a promise and you can’t back out now. If you’ve survived the hellish ordeal that is the wedding planning process, then you’re basically made for each other anyway. So why not get married?

2 A Baby
After you get hitched, you’ll go on a honeymoon and then have an excellent few months of exuberant newly-wed awesomeness. (Read: fuckin’ like bunnies.) But after that, there’ll be the question: what about a family? It’s time for your wife to transform herself (with your aid) into a baby making machine. Nine months and a boatload of crazy later, you’ll have your family.

1 Another Baby
Seriously!? The little guy just learned how to projectile vomit and is using our drapes for target practice. You want another baby, already? It might be hard to wrap your mind around how you got here, but you’re neck-deep in it now and what’s left but to shrug and realize that this is what you’ve been aiming for your whole life anyway. Isn’t it?

Believe it or not, famous people had lives before their fame came to claim them. Some of these lives were even interesting. Indeed, not all famous people were grown in a lab (like Tila Tequila) or sent from hell to be harbingers of the coming Apocalypse (like the Kardashians.) Most of them grew up, went to school and did the same things most of us do – or try to do anyway – things like playing sports. And some of these pre-famous people were even good enough to legitimately call themselves “star athletes.” And it’s to this select group that this list is devoted. The following nine famous folks all have one thing in common – before they were famous, they were star athletes.

9 Mark Harmon
It makes sense that Mark Harmon was a star athlete, given that his father was Tom Harmon, who won the Heisman Trophy at Michigan in 1940, but it also makes sense that he became a movie star (well, television star and occasional movie participant, but let’s not split hairs here, okay?) since his mother, Elyse Knox, was a model and movie star in the ‘30s and ‘40s. So I suppose it was destiny that Mark Harmon managed to do both, first as a star quarterback at UCLA and then as an actor. I’m pretty sure that this means that Tim Tebow is destined to star in something called NCISCINCSCI on CBS in the year 2052, chasing bad guys, throwing tight spirals (well, maybe not if it’s Tebow) and checking corpses for semen stains all within a neat 60 minute window. Truly, Mark Harmon is a trendsetter. His parents would be so proud.

8 Joel McHale
We’re stretching the definition of the term “star athlete” a bit here, since Joel McHale was only a walk-on tight end at Washington in the early/mid ‘90s, but still, that makes him more of an accomplished athlete than 99% of the population. Even before McHale managed to play his way onto the football team, he was recruited to be on the rowing team at Washington, which is sort of like being a football star, only nobody cares and people think you’re an enormous douche-bag like the Winklevoss twins or that other dude with the giant rowboat, Noah. But thankfully for McHale, he managed to escape first into the world of football, where he spent two years getting bashed in the head by 300 pound men, and then into the world of stand-up comedy and then acting, where he has made a name for himself first as the host of Talk Soup on E! and then as the lead in NBC’s Community, which is basically the fame equivalent of being a walk-on tight end at Washington. By the way, hosting a show on Bravo is the fame equivalent of being a member of the rowing team, just in case anybody was wondering, and I know you were.

7 Elsa Hosk
Elsa Hosk, Swedish Victoria’s Secret model was once a professional basketball player in Sweden. I’d say something interesting or funny here but I know you stopped reading and began picture hunting after the phrase “Swedish Victoria’s Secret model.” Don’t ever say I don’t understand how your mind works, you degenerates.

6 Matthew Fox
Long before Dr. Jack Shephard was stranded on Lost, he was stranded on one of the worst college football teams of all time. Yes, while playing at Columbia, Shephard (well, Matthew Fox, but in my mind, they’re the same dude, just like we know that Khloe Kardashian is actually Hurley) was a member of a team that lost 44 straight games at one point. That’s a lot of losing. I guess the Smoke Monster must have played linebacker for Princeton. Who knows?

5 George H.W. Bush
Following his service in World War II, the elder Bush enrolled at Yale, where he soon found himself the captain of the baseball team. A left-handed hitting first baseman, Bush, Sr. found himself leading his team into appearances in the first two College World Series. Some historians speculate that this is where the first Gulf War actually began since everyone knows that Saddam Hussein was a flame-throwing pitcher for Harvard around that same time and a vicious bean-ball incident in 1947 triggered a massive brawl which saw Bush and Hussein wrestle on the pitcher’s mound until they were separated by teammates. Hostilities lingered for years. Some might call me a liar and note that Saddam was only ten years old in 1947, but what can I say? The man was a child genius, like Wormser in Revenge of the Nerds. And some might say that it was undignified for George Bush, distinguished war veteran and captain of the Yale baseball team, to brawl with a ten year old, but I say it just proves that patriotism runs deep and had his teammates just let him finish the job, we could have all avoided some nasty business years later.

4 Burt Reynolds
Long before he became the coolest dude alive, Burt Reynolds was a college football star at Florida State. Indeed, way back in the 1950’s, when Bobby Bowden was only in his third decade as Florida State head coach, Reynolds was a star halfback and the roommate of future ESPN analyst/weirdo/imbecile Lee Corso. Sometimes, I like to imagine a world in which Lee Corso went on to star in Gator and Smokey and the Bandit while Burt Reynolds went on to a career arguing with Kirk Herbstreit on ESPN. Okay, not really, but I’m definitely going to start thinking about it now. At the very least, I’m guessing Burt would have been fired once or twice for going on the air drunk, missing his pants. And he definitely would have been fired after sexually harassing Erin Andrews. I’m sure we can all agree on this. Also, you can now picture in your head Lee Corso making out with Sally Field and posing nude in Cosmo. You’re welcome.

3 Randy Savage
Did you know that the Macho Man, Randy Savage, played minor league baseball for four years? Ooooooooh yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh! Ahem, sorry. I had to do it. Anyway, long before he was dropping elbows on Hulk Hogan and slapping around Miss Elizabeth, the Macho Man was a middling baseball prospect, signed by the St. Louis Cardinals out of high school. Over 4 seasons, Savage managed to hit .254 with 16 home runs and 66 RBI, so… yeah, maybe it was for the best that he went into another line of work. Then again, he’s dead now, just like 96% of the professional wrestlers from his generation (an exact scientific figure) so, uh, maybe not. After all, being a mediocre and alive baseball player is probably better than being a dead man best known for fighting other men in his underwear. Probably, anyway. Then again, it’s worked out okay for the Undertaker, so who knows?

2 Ed O’Neill
You bet your ass that Ed O’Neill is on this list. Not only did he score four touchdowns in a single game for Polk High as Al Bundy, he also was a star defensive lineman for Youngstown State in the 1960’s. He was good enough to even get signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969. Sure, they cut him during training camp but that’s all for the best. Otherwise we might have been robbed of the Al Bundy experience, and I for one shudder to think of what our culture would be like without institutions such as NO MA’AM or the inspirational Bundy creedo: “Hooters, hooters yum yum yum. Hooters, hooters, on a girl that’s dumb”, which has inspired many of the best and brightest of America’s young minds and which I understand is being considered for Illinois’ new state motto. So let’s all be thankful that Ed O’Neill’s football glory was confined to his college days and didn’t go any further. After all, scoring four touchdowns in a single game for Polk High means a hell of a lot more than winning Super Bowls with the Steelers, right? Right.

1 George S. Patton
That’s right, not only was George S. Patton a badass general who strangled Hitler with his own belt (If I remember my history correctly and I think I do.) he was a bona fide Olympic athlete. And not just any athlete, but a pentathlete. That means he competed in five different events in one race. Take that, you pansy Triathletes. During the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Patton finished fifth overall in the Pentathlon. He placed 20th in shooting, 7th out of 37 in the 300 Meter freestyle swimming, 4th in fencing, 6th in the cross-country steeplechase, and 3rd in the 5 Kilometer footrace. That means that he shot some guns, jumped in the water, swam faster than a bunch of Eurotrash, got out of the water, fought a dude with a sword, jumped on a horse and did some tricks before running a 5K. He then kept running all the way to Berlin where, as I said, he strangled Hitler with his own belt. Now that’s an Olympian. And that’s why, for badassery on the field of battle and on the field of play, General George S. Patton is number one on this list.

Besides helping you pick out clothing, giving you the chance to hone your spider-killing skills and occasionally baking you cookies there are loads of other things your platonic female friends are good for. One of the best examples is their ability to help you with your love life. But they can’t just wave a magic wand and have a trio of Swedish cheerleaders drop in your lap. No, it’s a far more subtle magic they work.

8 Hanging Out With You
Say you’re out and about with your female friend. You’re talking and laughing and other women happen to see that. They’re seeing that you can easily get along with women because they find you desirable to be around. The ladies are also drawn to men who are taken, so just by being in the company of a woman helps you become more appealing. The only thing that can top that is if you have on a wedding ring.

7 Being Your Wing Girl
Although this brings to mind visions of pig-tailed waitresses bringing on endless, steaming platters of chicken wings, what I’m talking about is a lot closer to a Top Gun reference. Having your friend at your side and willing to help will net you a wealth of interesting information that only women can tell you about your surroundings, the females in the room and the way you come off and are put together. Think about it like Neo actually seeing the Matrix for the first time.

6 Talking You Up
Talking about yourself in flattering ways doesn’t have a fraction of the effect it has when someone else does it for you. In fact, it could even work against you. When you have a friend (especially one of the opposite sex) telling other women how awesome you are or telling cool stories about you, it can make a real difference.

5 Giving You Confidence
Sometimes all you need is a little confidence boost from a caring friend of the female persuasion. This can come in the form of complimenting you, giving you empowering advice, relaying some insider information you should know about or just being understanding.

4 Giving You a Reality Check
Then there are times that you’re riding high on false confidence, hollow aspirations or misinformation. Sometimes the female perspective is exactly what you need to get a firm grasp on reality and adjust your goals, expectations or attitude.

3 Introducing You to Her Friends
Ahhhhh, the friend of the friend introduction. This works as long as she has at least one acquaintance, friend or co-worker that isn’t a psycho-stalker, marriaged up or a stone cold lesbian.

2 Showing You What the Definition of a “Red Flag” Is
Sometimes you like to hang out with crazy chicks, right? These are the ones you’d never seriously date, let alone bring home to mom and dad. These girls play an important role, though, in showing you who to stay away from. Learn well and dodge those bullets.

1 Giving Herself To You
What if your female friend is the one you wanted all along? Though difficult, you can get out of the friend zone. It just takes time, patience and an attitude adjustment. Go for it. Just be forewarned that many a friendship has been ruined this way.

Since we crank out so many stories each week some really good ones get lost in the cracks. And since so many new people visit Guyism every day (thank you), we thought we’d take some time on the weekends and holidays to share a few classics that many of our newer readers may have missed.

Making a good Super Bowl commercial is hard. It takes months, if not years, of planning and research to make people remember your company’s ad. Conversely, 30 seconds of awfulness can make people remember you too, but for all the wrong reasons. Here are seven ads which definitely fall into the latter category.

6 Christopher Reeve walking – Nuveen Investments, 2000
In 2000, paralyzed former Superman star Christopher Reeve “appeared” in this commercial. The message was that in the future, a whole lot of crazy crap is going to happen. Including, apparently, Christopher Reeve’s head being grafted to the body of a giant.

The goal of the commercial was to touch the hearts of Americans everywhere. Instead, everyone just kind of went, “Uh, that was creepy” and awkwardly took a bite out of their chicken wings. Oh also no one had any clue what Nuveen Investments did either because the commercial was really vague and almost made Nuveen Investments seem like an evil corporation from the future. Probably like the one that made Robocop.

5 Meet the official Holiday Inn transsexual – Holiday Inn, 1997
The gist of this commercial was that being a man getting a sex change was basically what Holiday Inn was doing to their hotels. Why this would make you want to stay there, no one was really sure, but if it’s good enough for Seinfeld’s Kenny Banya, it’s good enough for me.

The commercial was universally disliked and even resulted in some boycotts from various gay/transsexual/transgender groups. Probably not even for the hurtful depiction of their people, but rather for the tremendous slap in the face of being compared to a Holiday Inn.

4 White guys hunt down Kenyan, give him shoes – Just for Feet, 1999
There are few situations in which white men hunting down a black guy is going to make for a nicely received ad. This ad falls in line with that bold theorem on my part.

The premise if you’re too lazy to click: A Kenyan guy is walking around, being barefoot and Kenyan when some white guys in a Hummer drug him, capture him, then put sneakers on him. Eventually, he gets up all wobbly and runs, trying to free himself from these strange objects on his feet. The ad was so poorly received that it got a feature story on how bad it was on Salon.com, got the ad agency behind it sued (Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency in question, would countersue for Just for Feet’s ineptitude), and had a hand in Just for Feet’s bankruptcy later that year. So yeah, that turned out well.

3 Lemmings – Apple, 1985
In 1984, Apple had what some have called the most amazing commercial ever with their cleverly titled ad “1984”, a name which no one has ever been able to decipher the meaning of. Amidst pressure to possibly match that ad, they came up with another artistic bizarre ad that, well, sucked. Hard.

The commercial was so poorly reviewed that Apple stayed away from Super Bowl ads until 1999. And to make the indignities suffered to viewers worse, this is the one Apple commercial that has a bunch of people dying gruesome deaths, yet Justin Long and his smug Mac-loving face are nowhere to be found. Bastards.

2 Salesgenie.com and their racist panda bears – Salesgenie.com, 2008
After a 2007 Super Bowl ad universally rated as the worst one of the year, Salesgenie.com came back determined to make more awful ads that would stick with viewers for being so awful. Seriously, they even distributed a press release about it. Well they can wipe their hands thusly because this certainly proved to be a job well done.

It may shock you to learn that this ad never ran again amidst protests from Asian groups for A) Being racist and B) Finding a way to make pandas seem utterly annoying (do you know how hard that is? Look at this guy!). Also I fail to see how pandas could be running a profitable business, particularly when it’s a business selling furniture made of their favorite food. I’d find myself wholly incapable of selling Hamburger Chairs so it wouldn’t be fair to expect more from my cartoon pandas.

1 Fred Astaire dances with vacuums – Dirt Devil, 1997
I don’t think this was the first in the tacky “Dead Guy Sells Product” type of ads, but it was definitely one of the earlier ones. And what better way to honor probably the only masculine dancer ever than by putting a vacuum in his hands.