Paul Simon spoke for all the neurotic, psychotic and misery-prone peculiar people when he quipped the song line, "we get better but we never get well."
That's why the Illfolks poster-girl for mental problems, Mindy McCready, titled her newest "I'm Still Here" not "Cured."
Mindy was last covered here exactly a year ago April 29, 2008 when the news of her affair with steroid-assed ballplayer Roger Clemens coincided with her release from prison and a download-only album release.
Now? A new album. But that's not why she's been on "The View." She's become a talk show fave because she starred on "Celebrity Rehab," sharing a room with Mackenzie Phillips. In the show's highlight moment, Mindy grotesquely fell off her bed, collapsing with a seizure. A giggling MacKenzie suddenly paled and ran for help while the camera crew simply stood and filmed it all.
Adding to McCready's full can of trashy scandals, Mindy supposedly stealing and leaking a nude home video involving rival Kari Ann Peniche and celebutard couple Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart, and on April 19th Vivid Video's release of an amateur sex tape, which Mindy's lawyer threatened to block.
[Update, May 9th]: Turns out Mindy's ridiculous lawyer fired a pathetic "cease and desist" misspelling "dissemination" as "decimation." Vivid was not scared by this; they simply re-checked their signed document to confirm the signature on the model release. Yes, Mindy signed it, authorizing the release, indicating she was being compensated. The lawyer later grumbled that Mindy must've unaware of what she was signing when she signed. The hour-long show is now at forumophilia and other free download sites where one can see that Mindy knows she's being recorded, and even holds the camera when her man goes down on her.]
Fortunately misery sparks legit interest, and Mindy's got a new album out. She's thanked her fans via a YouTube video telling everyone they can go to her website for a free gift...the title track below. (Her site has all cuts from the album in streaming audio.)
Mindy remains one of the best singers in the country-crossover field. She's got all the throb and lilt she needs to sell a ballad, and all the Shania sass for the skunky line-dance sleaze, and songs such as "I want a Man" that put a toothless grin on any smelly lazy rebel's freakish kisser.
McCready knows her demons well by now ("It goes back to my relationship with my mother and father, and what it was like to grow up in the household that I did…"). She believes she suffered brain injury due to the beatings given her by ex-lover Billy McKnight (father of her son), so her main drug of choice lately has been Depakote. On "The View," March 17th, Mindy attributed her heavy drinking to "one bad relationship after another…whether a record company relationship or with a man…it escalated and got worse and worse. When there would be some kind of crisis or painful thing happening to me, it was readily available to go drink too much…it didn't ease the pain. It made things worse."
McCready's own website is trying to take the worst things and making them better. How about this for a spin: "Mindy's latest brush with fame resembles that of legends like Cash, Paycheck and Jones— not a bad fraternity." Whoever masterminds her site adds: "it is said that any publicity is good publicity…[Mindy] has managed to stay relevant or at the very least, in the public eye. Not for gold, platinum, or Top Ten sales, but for mug shots, felony arrest and reality show roles, for being abused and as an abuser (prescription drugs)."
Perhaps Mindy and her management would be foolish not to use all the bad-girl and sad-girl material to grab the spotlight from the Kelly Clarksons and Tift Merritts of the world. Her message is "I'm Still Here," and that she's getting it done, rather than being done to or done in. It's the audio version of the sopping tear-filled paper napkin clutched in a closed fist.
Click this link! It's her again. Exactly a year after her last mention on the Illfolks blog: "I'm Still Here!"
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