Honestly, who doesn’t love Stevie Nicks?

In a recent Riff City interview, the award-winning songstress opens up to Jessica Pilot about her latest album In Your Dreams, working with former flame and Fleetwood Mac member Lindsey Buckingham*, and why quitting touring would be a “nightmare” for her (she’s been doing it since 1975!), even though it’s tiresome.

Nicks also talks about how she finds her inspiration for writing:

So you can be inspired by anything [...] So you go back to your beautiful hotel room and write a great poem, and maybe there’s a piano and you can put it to music. Or, you can be in your house, or in a car, driving to San Diego for two hours and think of something and get paper and pencil. People who schedule writing dates and say, ‘Okay I’m going to sit down and write with this person from 2 to 3 and then 4 to 6, and then I’ll have dinner and work from 9 until…’ Well, I just could never do that.

Head over to New York Public Media’s Arts & Culture Riff City for the full interview.

In the meantime, whether it’s writing a song or making a life change, how do YOU find your inspiration?

* Lindsey Buckingham recently released a new album of his own, Seeds We Sow. Visit Rolling Stone for a free download of the album’s title track.

Image Source: Wikipedia

The Facing Us Video Contest 2011 is well underway, once again giving you the chance to become a celebrity in your own right!

Whether you have a flair for song, poetry, or acting, if you can find a way to tell your story of mental illness and recovery with it, you can enter the Facing Us Video Contest.

Since 2007, the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) has provided consumers with a chance to tell their stories of mental illness and recovery via the Facing Us contest. Past winners and honorable mentions have varied from artistic videos featuring personal stories told with musical accompaniment to monologues amid natural scenery.

(Here’s a bit of trivia for you: Fellow Psych Central blogger Chato B. Stewart of Mental Health Humor was the 2009 winner!)

(UPDATE: 10/26/2011: Coroner Suzanne Greenaway has ruled Winehouse’s death “accidental alcohol poisoning.” “The unintended consequence of such potentially fatal levels (of alcohol) was her sudden and unexpected death.”)

(UPDATE: 8/9/2011: Memorial Matters now has an Amy Winehouse memorial for fans and loved ones. Also, Amy’s parents, Mitch and Janice Winehouse, are moving forward with the Amy Winehouse Foundation and will receive a bit of financial assistance from the proceeds brought in by Amy’s “Body and Soul” duet with Tony Bennett.

(UPDATE: 7/26/2011: According to ABC News, Amy Winehouse will be cremated later today, following her service this morning. Given the lack of drug paraphernalia in her home, and her clean bill of health 24 hours prior to her death, some doctors have noted other related health conditions that could have contributed to her death, including poor diet, pulmonary disease, respiratory arrest, asthma, and emphysema. Winehouse’s father told reporters she was diagnosed with early-emphysema in 2008. An autopsy can fail to pick up respiratory conditions. Amy Winehouse’s official cause of death will not be released until October 2011.)

(UPDATE: 7/25/2011: Metropolitan Police confirmed with Us Magazine that Winehouse’s autopsy did not provide a conclusive cause of death, and a toxicology report, which can take up to four weeks, will be necessary to determine why the singer died. Winehouse’s representative says Amy will be laid to rest on Tuesday, July 26.)

Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London apartment over the weekend. The award-winning British singer, perhaps best known for her sophomore album, the five-time Grammy-winning Back to Black, was 27 years old and is now said to have joined the 27 Club, a collection of artists including Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin, who’ve died at 27.

Well…related to her body, that is.

Here’s a just-for-fun Weekend Reading for you: For its Summer Double Issue, Rolling Stone interviewed pop star Katy Perry, and, among other things (politics, money, and aliens), the “Teenage Dream” singer talked about her physical endowments.

Specifically, her well-known chest (that’s right – the one that got her and Sesame Street in trouble with parents), and the fact that she resorted to taping it down until she was 19 years old.

Perry assures RS that although she didn’t understand her body growing up and endured typical adolescent name-calling and euphemisms (like “over the shoulder boulder holder”), she’s fine now:

How long did I tape them down for? Probably until I was about 19. And, no, I don’t have any psychological pain because of it.

Great!

Feel like sharing one of your own teenage dream nightmare stories?

Image Credit: Devon Christopher Adams via these Creative Commons License Attributions

When actor Daniel Baldwin filed for divorce from his wife former British supermodel wife, Joanne Smith, he cited Smith’s problems with substance abuse as the reason for the couple’s split – and the restraining order he obtained against her just one day before filing for divorce.

Baldwin, who had been married to Smith for nearly four years, is no stranger to problems with alcohol and drug addiction. The actor has battled his own problems with drug and alcohol abuse, including legal troubles that stemmed from his addictions, and appeared on four episodes of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew back in 2007, and has stated he knows firsthand how “difficult a position she is in.”

His experience might be why Baldwin was able to make such a quick and decisive move regarding his wife’s addiction and the well-being of the couple’s two toddlers, Avis Ann and Finley Rae Martineau. He’s been there and done that, so to speak.

Yet, not every loved one of an addict has that kind of experience to draw from.

In reality, many family members, significant others, and other loved ones and friends of people addiction to drugs and alcohol don’t have a whole lot to go on in terms of making the best decisions for everyone involved. Often, they don’t have the experience helping addicts or themselves – or they’ve had a type of *co-dependent experience which – if they want to make safe, healthy choices now – isn’t going to provide much help.

After the jump, find five resources that can help you as a loved one of someone with substance abuse problems.

Dear J.K. Rowling,

Nearly two decades ago, you finished the manuscript for the first book in a series that I – staying true to my nature – snubbed (hey, I have issues with hype – I can’t help it!) until one day, several years later during my junior year of college, my Children’s Literature professor forced me to do more than breeze by the Harry Potter section at my local bookstore.

I actually had to stop in front of it.

I had to find a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, purchase it, and read it.

During that class, one of my classmates, who clearly knew only slightly more than I about your Boy Who Lived, warned me the book was “strange.”

“It’s about a boy who’s aunt and uncle make him live in a closet,” she said, her nose wrinkled.

At the time, I remember meeting her wrinkled nose with wide and rolling eyes.

These days, I look back on the memory as a bittersweet one. It was my introduction to the world of Harry Potter. My invitation to escape Number 4, Privet Drive. My Hogwarts acceptance letter. My chance learn magic in a centuries old castle, to sit by a cozy fire in Gryffindor’s common room, to chase a snitch around the Quidditch pitch.

It was my chance to solemnly swear I was up to no good.

If you received an Alzheimer’s Disease diagnosis, what’s the one thing you’d want to accomplish before the disease completely took over your mind?

Well, if you’re anything like country singer Glen Campbell, you’d want to create one more piece of art, one more compilation of something you love.

Shortly after publicly announcing his Alzheimer’s Disease diagnosis (which Campbell received roughly six months ago), he also announced Ghost on the Canvas, his new and final album.

Ghost on the Canvas, which will include penned and original material by Jakob Dylan (The Wallflowers) and Paul Westerberg (The Replacements), will showcase guest performances from the likes of Chris Isaak, Billy Corgan, The Dandy Warhols.

I have an idea. Let’s not assume every single person who overdoses on drugs is trying to kill himself.

We can even take it a step further and, oh, I don’t know, avoid reporting such suicide attempts as news, too.

Late last month, the ridiculously hot (sorry) Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors, From Paris With Love) was rushed to Central London hospital after being found slumped over on his floor. Paramedics were called, but it took police backup to escort the uncooperative Meyers to the hospital. Apparently, the 33-year-old actor (who’s had substance abuse problems and completed rehabs in the past) had overdosed.

Immediately, The Sun ran a story about the “suspected suicide attempt.”

In addition to talking about her experiences with motherhood, the odd phase her six-year-old son Milo went through during which he was against music (odd, because – well, look who we’re talking about! But at least he’s obsessed with Queen now), and her intense new move, The Ledge, Liv Tyler recently talked with late night talk show host Conan O’Brien about her father’s new autobiography.

See what Steven Tyler promises with his autobiography, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?

Liv admitted to Conan that although she wants to know more about her father as a man and as a human being, there was some anxiousness about getting the book (from Amazon, mind you – not Steven).

The first couple chapters are… I mean, it’s, I, I know his mind so well that I understand but there’s a whole opening part about like a fox coming and taking him from his playpen and taking him into a hole and no one can find him when he was a baby and I was just like, ‘Whoa, wait…’ That’s my dad!

Check out the whole interview over at Team Coco.

How would YOU feel to read a parent’s autobiography? Would you like the chance to get to know your mother or father in a way you otherwise don’t? Would you read it, or would you rather keep your current understanding of them intact?

Image Source: Wikipedia

Seems like “Sookeh” isn’t the only female True Blood actor Stephen Moyer gets to sink his teeth into!

Moyer, who plays vamp Bill Compton in the HBO hit series True Blood, is in-real-life married to Anna Paquin, the actress who also happens to play Sookie Stackhouse, Compton’s human love interest on the show.

Let’s just get that straight, shall we? Moyer and Paquin: Married in real life. Compton and Stackhouse? On-screen romance.

*whew*

Now that we’re caught up, apparently – as long as Paquin gives the go-ahead, of course – Moyer can give the ladies a little nip here and there:

I get to sign boobs a lot. I get to bite boobs, occasionally, when I’m allowed. If my missus is there and she approves of the person I get to bite boobs…and necks. (People)

Ah, the couple that bites together, stays together.

What’s the oddest thing you and a romantic partner have gotten away with that might be deal breakers for other couples?

True Blood Season 4 premiered late last month. Catch up on HBO, or if you’d rather read, check out The Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris, the books on which the show is based.

Image Source: Wikipedia