Breakfast w/Greg: Adam Lambert’s “deliberately campy” album cover; Andre Agassi’s drug bombshell

Thursday already? The week is flying by!

Well, if Adam Lambert wanted to create a stir (ya think?) with his new album cover, he has succeeded. There has been all kinds of buzz – positive and negative – about the image chosen for his debut album For Your Entertainment due out Nov. 23.

It looks like something maybe David Bowie would have done in the 70s during his glam rock era.

Adam has addressed the reaction via Twitter: “Thank you to those who appreciate and understand that the album cover is deliberately campy. It’s an homage to the past. It IS ridiculous,” he wrote. “For those that don’t get it: oh well… Glad to have gotten your attention.”

“Androgyny. Rock n Roll,” he added.

The build-up to the release of Adam’s album has just been stupendous. Advance sales are huge and much is expected of this openly gay superstar who, we must remind ourselves, actually came in second on American Idol last spring.

ANDRE BIG SECRET: Everyone is reeling over retired tennis star Andre Agassi’s revelation in his new book that he used crystal meth in 1997 during the low point of his career then lied to tour officials to not be punished for a drug test that came back positive.

He writes that after ingesting the drug for the first time, “there is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness. Then comes a tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I’ve never felt so alive, so hopeful — and I’ve never felt such energy.

I’m seized by a desperate desire to clean. I go tearing around my house, cleaning it from top to bottom. I dust the furniture. I scour the tub. I make the beds…”

Then he shares how he avoided getting suspended from the tennis tour:  “My name, my career, everything is now on the line. Whatever I’ve achieved, whatever I’ve worked for, might soon mean nothing. Days later I sit in a hard-backed chair, a legal pad in my lap, and write a letter to the ATP. It’s filled with lies interwoven with bits of truth.

I say [his assistant] Slim, whom I’ve since fired, is a known drug user, and that he often spikes his sodas with meth — which is true. Then I come to the central lie of the letter. I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs. I ask for understanding and leniency and hastily sign it: Sincerely. I feel ashamed, of course. I promise myself that this lie is the end of it.”

That’s pretty juicy stuff and Agassi, the 1992 Wimbledon and 1999 French Open winner, two time US Open champ, four-time Australian Open victor and 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist, was absolutely right to include it in the book entitled Open which comes out next month.

What’s really surprising to me now is all the negative judgment that is coming in from many corners. Not from me. Doing drugs is stupid, let’s be clear on that. But the fault lies with tennis tour officials who let their biggest superstar get away with something few other players would have.

Agassi made the most of his second chance and went on to become one of the game’s greatest champions winning five of his eight grand slam titles after the drug incident and he also regained the number one ranking after falling to 141 the year he did the drugs.

He made the most of his second chance, married Steffi Graf and is the father of two kids who established a magnet school in his hometown of Las Vegas.

It’s definitely a story with a happy ending.