Pete Doherty sells more drugs than Pfizer

This is a video of rock star and famous junkie Pete Doherty shooting drugs in a Thai hotel room. Before the video begins The Sun, a British tabloid, runs the disclaimer "anyone thinking of taking drugs should watch this video to see the damage drugs can do to your life."

Then the video disappoints mightily, if you're into proper depictions of the damage drugs can do to your life. Instead you see Doherty methodically doing his thing in a clean, crisp hotel room as two girls, who are cute for girls with digitally removed faces, move about. Later Doherty speaks on the phone with his girlfriend, long-time icon of international beauty Kate Moss. You hear the smooth sounds of Gorillaz in the background. Briefly, Doherty sings along.

Not to be outdone by the hysterical disclaimer, the video ends with this printed messaged: "To help avoid the horror you’ve just seen call __."

It is possible horror means something different in England than it does in the United States. Something more casual and less horrible -- like the way the Brits use the cringy word "cunt" when our Yankee sensibilities call for a simple "bitch."

But that doesn't really explain it. The only way there could have been a less horrific depiction of heroin use is if, at some point, an overeager puppy romped with a playful baby chimpanzee.

Full disclosure: I am wrestling with the possibility the horrible and pointless death of my favorite race horse has temporarily altered my perspective on all things horrific.

Death Watch: Barbaro RIP

Barbaro was a horse. Now he is a dead horse.

Death watch update

Word that Fidel Castro might be at the end of his state-owned rope couldn't have come soon enough for this death watcher. Previously, I had only Barbaro on my death watch radar. I found this highly unsatisfying because Barbaro is a horse.

Fidel Castro, on the other hand, has ruled Cuba for forty-seven years and is a bona fide historical figure.

He is revered by some and reviled by others. My own feelings on Castro have softened over the years.

I'm not denying he made some poor ideological choices or isn't every bit the thief and murderer those rather rabid folks who live in South Florida claim him to be.

It's just Castro harkens back to a time where the enemies of America didn't do things like fly airplanes into buildings and hate us for our freedom. Sure, Fidel would get grumpy and throw retarded people at us, but at least we got the movie Scarface out of that.

Let's face it, an old man in a uniform is cute. (Which was why the otherwise profane Tommy Lasorda was such an effective pitch-man.)

And when that same older, uniform wearing man starts taking spectacular tumbles in front of large audiences he enters into the rare territory where cute and funny have converged -- like a puppy chasing its tail or a Sarah Silverman.

In fact, on the sad day I am forced to remove Fidel from my death watch list, an attractive comedienne is how I would like to remember him.

Barbaro will be remembered for being a horse.