Gary Busey still crazy after all those years

Gary Busey spent much of the 20th century altering his brain with cocaine. He once told Maxim magazine he snorted "three bindles" of coke off his dog Chili in 25 minutes.

Busey, 66, has been clean in the 21st century. But this weekend, sober Busey caused situations at the Wynn and Encore while promoting "Celebrity Apprentice" with cast mates Lil Jon, Playmate Hope Dworaczyk and NeNe Leakes of "Real Housewives of Atlanta."

Dworaczyk told me that during "Apprentice" filming, her Trump Tower suite (in New York) was between Busey's and model Niki Taylor's.

"He'd knock on my door at weird hours of the night. I'd hear him yelling at room service people that his chocolate sundae would be melted," she said, laughing.

"It was like: 'Is that Gary Busey screaming again?' It wasn't good. His bedroom was against my living room -- not good."

During a party Saturday at Society Cafe, celebrity writer Melissa Arseniuk walked up to interview Busey, and he immediately called her beautiful and dove in to kiss her neck. She blushed. He poured on the charm, suggesting he'd like to kidnap her but didn't have any rope.

I started a one-on-one interview with him, but he stared into the distance and proclaimed, "Too many people are talking to me!"

I told Dworaczyk that story. She joked that the "too many people" Busey was hearing were "the voices in his head." (Then again, was he confused by a new hearing aid?)

Busey grabbed a mac-and-cheese appetizer off a server's tray, spit it out and declared, "It's too hot to play with snakes!"

Next, he told People magazine's Mark Gray that he's not difficult to work with, since he's been off blow.

"I'm giving with love," he told Gray. "I'm really alive with love."

Oh, he's alive, all right, as are senior research monkeys.

PROPOSING TO HOPE

If you think Busey is charming, Dworaczyk told me a "very well-known jewelry designer" proposed to her after meeting her on a modeling campaign.

"We shot all day with these great, great jewels. And at the end of the shoot, he goes, 'Can I talk to you in the back?'

"He got down on one knee with a ring from his safe and says, 'Would you marry me?' And he was serious! I didn't know if I should cry for him, or laugh."

She told him, "This is really weird" and left. She wouldn't name him. (By the way, she said she has sold her Panorama condo for an acceptable loss.)

LIL JON: GIVE KIDS TO SHEEN

Rapper Lil Jon (who DJs monthly at club Surrender) told me plenty of rich and famous people party crazier than Charlie Sheen does.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Especially in Vegas. You see all kinds of stuff going on in the bathrooms.

"I stay away from all of that," he said. "I have my artist side, but I am a family man."

Lil Jon says drinking is his only vice, but he's good at it.

"I don't know if Charlie Sheen could hang with us. I mean, we go a little hard sometimes. No porn stars -- just the club, partying, DJing, drinking a lot of shots. I don't know if he can hang with me on the shots."

He thinks Sheen will turn out OK.

"They need to let that man have his kids back. He took a blood test. He wasn't on drugs (anymore). He's just enjoying life. You can't fault a man for enjoying his life."

Maybe, but I don't think that worked out spectacularly for Gary Busey.

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. E-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.