Hey, wanna buy an extra helicopter or maybe some robot dogs?

I was reading something on the Internet this afternoon when I came across something else.

"Fifteen celebrities who declared bankruptcy."

It isn't as if I'm obsessed with celebrities, but at one point about 10 years ago, three of my four closest friends in the world had declared bankruptcy and I had only slipped through by the grace of God once or twice myself.

I had also read that 50 percent of state lottery jackpot winners declare bankruptcy within five years. That never surprised me, because I figured that old statement about a fool and his money hadn't become a cliche because it wasn't true.

Larry King caresses Trump's toupee.

So I read the article, which wasn't really an article at all but one of those photo galleries with captions. Much of it was hardly surprising. This celebrity declared bankruptcy and had to work retail before she made it. That one had some bad investments. My buddy Trumpers the Comic Insult Human, aka Donald Trump, had three business bankruptcies. No big deal.

There were a few interesting ones, though. Actor Wesley Snipes actually went to jail because he didn't file tax returns for six years, a period when he owed $12 million in taxes.

Actress Kim Basinger, who was apparently doing even better than I would have thought, got into trouble in 1989 when she spent $20 million to buy the town of Braselton, Ga. I wonder what the purchase entailed. I'm pretty sure she couldn't have purchased the 7,511 people of Braselton as part of the deal.

Anyway, it didn't work out. She sold at a big loss.

Hammer copters

Rapper MC Hammer, who was famous for a day or two in the early 1990s, made good money but pretty much pissed it all away. One of his more inexplicable purchases was matching helicopters.

See, that's the real tragedy of all the suck-ups and sycophants who hang around when the money is rolling in.

Nobody with the nerve to say, "Hey, Stan? What about buying just one helicopter?"

The best one in the gallery was someone who didn't actually declare bankruptcy, although he had well-documented financial problems. And anyway, who could do a story about wacky celebrities without including Jacko?

Before he was Jacko

Most of you have heard about many of the goofy things Michael Jackson spent his money on, including trying to buy the bones of the Elephant Man. The man invited Elizabeth Taylor over for dinner and put two chimps -- yes, real chimps -- at the dinner table with her.

Actually, the purchase mentioned in the gallery tops Hammer and maybe even Basinger.

Jacko reportedly at one point purchased 10 robot dogs with artificial intelligence. It's only a rumor, but I heard one condition of the sale was that the dogs had to be more intelligent than Tito and Jermaine.