My mother grew up with The Beatles.

By “grew up with The Beatles,” I don’t mean she had super cool parents with super cool taste in music who let her jam to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on an old hand-me-down record player.

That was me.

Neither do I mean she went through the typical Beatles phase in junior high and high school and tried to bribe her own mother to let her hang the four mint-condition photos from The White Album on her bedroom wall.

Again, that was me.

Thank God she said no.

Yahoo! Health recently posted a slideshow about celebrity weight change, 25 Shocking Celebrity Weight Changes.

The Health.com-licensed article notes that such drastic weight changes – whether quickly losing or gaining weight – can wreak havoc on a person’s health.

Some of the celebrities featured lost drastic amounts of weight for acting purposes or health or vanity reasons; others packed on the pounds for movie roles or because they – for whatever reason – couldn’t or didn’t keep off the weight they lost after dieting.

Among the 25 celebrities are Jennifer Hudson (one of Weight Watchers’s super successful spokespersons), Christian Bale (who got down to 122 pounds for his role as a chronic insomniac in The Machinist), Oprah Winfrey (whose decades-long tale of weight gain and loss ended in 2010 when she announced she’d never diet again), John Goodman (the former obese Roseanne star has lost more than 100 pounds and now works out six times a week), and Kevin Federline (the once super-fit backup dancer has struggled with weight gain for the past several years).

As you can see, the article represents all sorts of scenarios.

Psych Central’s very own Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. (Mindfulness and Psychotherapy) released a new book a couple of days ago: The Now Effect: How This Moment Can Change The Rest Of Your Life.

Dr. Goldstein advocates an approach to mental health that considers all areas of health – mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual. He promotes mindfulness as a way we can do away with anxiety and negativity and achieve self-acceptance, inner peace, and ultimately freedom.

I was able to talk with Dr. Goldstein about mindfulness and how this practice can help us get to the space of awareness he calls “The Now Effect.”

While on stage at Clive Davis‘s annual pre-Grammys party earlier this month, award-winning singer Tony Bennett noted that legalizing drugs would reduce the desire to use drugs.

Bennett has had his fair share of drug-related experiences. He struggled with a cocaine habit in the Seventies, and like the rest of us, has watched extremely talented people like Amy Winehouse (whose last known recording was with Bennett) and Whitney Houston (for whom the pre-Grammys show became a memorial) crumble under addiction.

Later, while backstage at the Grammys, Bennett told Rolling Stone he sticks by his comment, stating drug legalization would:

[...] get rid of all the gangsters that make people hide. One thing I’ve learned about young people, when you say ‘Don’t do this,’ that’s the one thing they’re going to try and do. Once it’s legal and everybody can do it, there is no longer the desire to do something that nobody else can do.

Of course, Bennett’s idea isn’t new, by any means. Lots of people – yes, even those who don’t use drugs – feel drug legalization in America is the way to go.

As you can tell from the title, I’ve done this sort of post once or twice!

Not too long ago, Nicole Polizzi, a.k.a Snooki of Jersey Shore, tweeted a picture of herself without makeup. Naturally, the picture sparked a lot of interested because, you know, Snooki’s kind of known for wild hair and lots of makeup.

Among other things.

Anyway, people seemed to really like Fresh-Faced Snooki and maybe-or-maybe-not in response to the positive feedback, omg! Yahoo! published Celebs Unmasked, a quick slideshow of several celebrities without makeup including Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Jessica Simpson (not buyin’ it), Katy Perry (totally buyin’ it), and Nicole Scherzinger (The Pussycat Dolls).

So ladies, I’ve asked before and I’m asking again:

How does seeing celebs without makeup make YOU feel? Does it have any impact at all on your own makeup-less self-confidence? Or could you not care less?

Image Credit: Nicole Polizzi via Twitter

Got a few bucks and nothing else to do this weekend?

You might want to check out the new Courtney Love tell-all, Courtney Comes Clean.

Courtney Comes Clean isn’t your traditional celebrity biography.

The first in what will be a monthly series of addiction-related topics called “The Quick Fix Series,” Courtney Comes Clean was constructed from a series of interviews that took place over a one-year period with TheFix.com’s Editor-in-Chief Maer Roshan.

After a variety of media outlets picked up on the story, Sterling (a division of Barnes & Noble) decided to turn the interview into an e-book – one that, according to TheFix.com, provides “a rare look into the manic mind of a musical icon, a grieving mother, and a struggling addict.”

Roshan uncovers a trove of never-revealed information, including previously-sealed depositions from Frances Bean Cobain, a rare interview with Love’s mother, and details about her upcoming plans to auction off Kurt Cobain’s estate.

As of February 14, 2012, the Associated Press reports we still don’t know an exact cause of death for Whitney Houston; thus, I am not claiming Houston’s death was an overdose or drug related. However, Houston battled addiction for years, was found underwater in the bathtub, and there was evidence of alcohol and prescription drug use (including Xanax, Valium, and Lorazepam).

So, while I’m not claiming she overdosed or died due to some other drug-related cause, I am saying making that assumption wouldn’t be too far a stretch.

With that being said, I admit, the death of Whitney Houston shocked me. Truly. I thought the “R.I.P Whitney Houston” hashtag was just another Twitter scam.

These days, Vanilla Ice spends less time rockin’ a mic like a vandal and more time flipping houses on his DIY Network show, The Vanilla Ice Project.

(Everything about that sentence is weird.)

Anyway, back when he was rockin’ mics, Vanilla Ice (pictured right with MC Hammer), the pop icon dealt with his fair share of celebrity stalkers.

Ice recently stopped by the Rolling Stone studio and talked about the time one girl followed him around the globe, flashing him at concerts and sharing Satanic literature in an attempt to get him to convert to her religion.

Guess the girlies were on standby to do more than just say hi.

OKAY! No more “Ice, Ice Baby” references, I swear. Head over to Rolling Stone’s “Vanilla Ice On Being Stalked By A Satanist” for the story, and don’t forget to check out Celebrity Or Not: Resources For Dealing With Stalkers.

Image Source: Wikipedia

As part of his Goodbye Tour, country music star Glen Campbell will perform with Blake Shelton tonight at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.

Perhaps best known for hits like “Rhinestone Cowboy” and his role in the 1969 version of True Grit, Campbell recently went public with his Alzheimer’s Disease diagnosis and announced one last tour before retiring from the country music business.

The Country Music Hall of Fame inductee’s final album, Ghost On The Canvas, features artists like Chris Isaak, Billy Corgan, The Dandy Warhols and is available for purchase now. Head over to Campbell’s official website for more information.

“A lot of people glamorize this lifestyle, and only choose to look at the glitz and the glory, but the cold reality of this world is murder, and that is not something people think about when they romanticize the Mafia. Looking back, families of the Mafia pay the consequences for actions they had no part it.” – Karen Gravano

Karen Gravano’s long-anticipated memoir, Mob Daughter: The Mafia, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, and Me! is to the bookshelf what “Mob Wives” is to television: A scandalous, voyeuristic glimpse into a notorious lifestyle so guarded, it may as well be fiction to most of us.

The thing is, it’s not fiction, and Karen Gravano – along with her mother and brother – certainly have paid the consequences for Sammy’s actions. They lost homes, friends, and even family members over the lifestyle that Sammy chose to lead…

…and eventually turn his back on.