I wanna be wanna be wanna be Jim Morrison

I am loathe to admit any nation is superior to ours in any way, and I hate to bring this up during the week of our declaration of independence from the crown 230 years ago, but there are a couple things the British do really well.

For starters, the whole music thing. Rock and roll came from America, but the British quickly surpassed us and forty years later they still dominate -- kind of like the Japanese with the computers, only the Brits never bubbled out and stopped practicing their chords because they'd rather spend their time on the subway groping school girls.

I'm also beginning to realize the British are much better than us at the celebrity gossip. This is not a big surprise, since the British were having sex scandals when we were still airbrushing belly buttons from department store catalogs (and now we gaze at and contemplate the navel, ha-ha-ha.)

This is not intended to be a knock against our current celebrities, who do crazy things like marry each other and have babies -- sometimes in far away lands, to keep the masses entertained.

Not to mention Lindsay Lohan's fascinating breasts (big again!) The Hohan's cup size fluctuates, if by will-power, for no other reason than to distract the guy or gal in the supermarket checkout line, or surfing the web, from the painful minutiae of a life destined to be boring, predictable and long.

It's just the British celebrities try even harder. I bring to you the curious case of one Peter Doherty. I'm sure the British are sick of him by now, but most American's have never even heard of Pete Doherty even though he is a talented singer* and a practitioner of antics that would make even our most attention-starved celebrity blush. Here are a few of my favorites;

* In 2003, when his band the The Libertines were being touted as the "Next Great British Band," Doherty was arrested for burgling the flat of bandmate and song writing partner Carl Barat. Doherty was sentenced to six months in jail. To put this in perspective this would not be unlike Keif going to jail for robbing Mick, or John for robbing Paul, in the mid-sixties. The band reunited after he served his time.

*Earlier this year, Doherty was videotaped injecting an unconscious young woman with a syringe. Given Doherty's inclination towards drugs and reckless behavior the worst was feared. Yet, Doherty was able to clear his name with the strangely effective alibi that he was collecting paint for his "blood painting" hobby.

*Most recently he was caught shooting up in a airplane bathroom. He was not prosecuted, but has been banned from all Easy Jet flights.

He also has a long list of the behavior typical to an oft-inebriated celebrity -- each a little gift to an empire long in decline. Doherty is also the on-and-off paramour of waif-like super-model Kate Moss, and I thought her own recent, highly publicized drug controversy (in Italian) would finally thrust bad-influence Pete to his proper spot in The American Gossip Pantheon.

It was not to be.

Luckily, due to the power of the internet, I can follow Doherty on sites like these.

I recommend you do the same.

*Hear Pete sing with the Libertines and Babyshambles (NSFWish.) Plus, a bonus video from the post's title!