Blogging Under the Influence and Other Bad Ideas

Aug. 8, 2007 — -- Some recent posts on actress Roseanne Barr's MySpace page created a minor stir in the world of celebrity gossip. While extolling the virtues of spam and cursing George Bush, the messages seemed to indicate that Barr was drunk out of her mind while writing them.

"i need to stop drinking, but i do not wish to ... i am in Hawaii on the beach drunk," read one message. Another said, "when you are old, you pee your pants more it seems."

It appeared to be an open-and-shut case of BUI (blogging under the influence), but now Barr has posted a message on her official Web site (www.roseanneworld.com) denying that she wrote those MySpace rants. Instead, she says an intern, who has since been fired, hacked into her MySpace page to post them.

And in a bizarre follow-up message on her Web site, Barr claimed the same intern has also stolen a sex tape from her, and she is willing to pay $25,000 for its return. "Unless someone would like to distribute it — then I am willing to deal," she added.

Barr also said that celebrity blogger Perez Hilton knows who took the sex tape — an allegation he denied.

"I think she's being funny," Hilton said. "I hope there's no sex tape! Or maybe I do, I don't know."

Hilton finds the whole intern story suspicious. "Does Roseanne even have an intern?" he said. "I mean, who interns for Roseanne?"

An e-mail message to Barr's Web site was not returned.

Whatever the truth, Barr's online messages highlight both the dangers of blogging under the influence and the complicated world of celebrity blogs.

Mark Twain said to "write when drunk, but edit while sober."

On the Internet, editing can seem like a quaint relic of the past.

And it doesn't help that blogging under the influence is so darn easy. You can do it anywhere, anytime — at home, alone in your underwear, clutching a bottle of vodka.

Lowered inhibitions, plus an inflated sense of importance, usually equals terrible and embarrassing prose.