Dear Roger: You Dont Know What You've Got Til Its Gone

So the entertainment world lost yet another one to the grinding self-abuse machine that is the cult of celebrity yesterday. I am not going to sugar-coat my opinion of what happened to her because she had been very open about her struggles with substance abuse. Its horrible and sad because she has a child, but what is worse is the entire double standard that allows people who have money and fame to escape entanglements that would call them to task for their fuckery and perhaps save their lives. I dont mean to say that the legal system is a great source of rehabilitation for someone with substance abuse issues, but its better than nothing, better than it being brushed under the rug or some high priced rep covering for them until the worst happens.
The regular news carries the celebrity nonsense now, so I see and hear about who gets yet another slap on the wrist for getting caught with yet more cocaine or crank, or busted for drunken driving and then spending maybe 80 minutes in some holding cell at lock up with their expensive bottled water and snacks while the pap rats bay for them outside.They walk out to their waiting 60k Suv's while poor kids are fed into the meat grinder of the legal system for the same charge and left to languish for weeks because they dont have the name or the hook of fame. I wonder how many of those kids watched those celebs get off time and time again and thought they would get the same deal? I remember being a campus cop in Northern AZ and being told not to stop certain cars or people because they were friends of the college president or visiting celebrities, and if they were drunk or behaving badly, we were supposed to just escort them home and maintain radio silence. You get the justice you can afford and sometimes that is a bad thing in both directions.
Artsy personalities are difficult folk, you and I both know that one in spades. Watching friends destroy their lives with drugs when I was younger is perhaps all that saved me from it. When I was in Dallas I ran with some rich and powerful people and I did some really fucked up things. It was a different life and a different time. I had access to things that I had never had access to before and let me tell you, I indulged and it was often pretty damn fun and entertaining.I do know that its possible to go over 120mph on Beltline at 3 in the morning with a car full of people. I know all kinds of places in North Richland Hills to hide from cops or where if you are in the right kind of vehicle, they just look the other way. I lived to grow up with minimal scars, some of my friends didn't.
I guess I really saw the cost of drugs in the mid-90's when I watched a boy I was friends with, a very talented guitarist, get hooked on heroin. Will lived in the small Arizona town I worked in as an Emt and he hated every minute of living there. He was biding his time until he had enough money saved to get out and then he was headed to L.A., but the problem was, he developed a habit. I dont know when it started, but the change that came over him was dramatic. He never had been a big guy and he was always pale, but when he saddled that horse, he got even more so. He stopped eating which was horrible for a diabetic and I ended up having to run on him as an EMT, that is how I found out about his habit. Drugs dont take long to eat someone who already has health problems and it only took about 6 months before we lost Will. A combination of too much heroin and too little insulin left him in a coma that he never came out of and he never left Arizona.
I've lost more than a few people to stupidity, killed either by their own hand or through the drunken/drugged insanity of others and it has left scars that will never heal. I've watched others struggle with it, and I know the signs well enough that I often watch for names on the news with trepidation. I was a huge Stevie Ray Vaughn fan, my baby girls name is evidence enough of that, she is named for him and my ex's best friend who was a Hells Angel so she we often say she was named for a Hells Angel and a helluva Texas Bluesman). I am not someone who names my kids after someone lightly, but he meant so much to me growing up. I can hear the first notes of anything he played and it takes me to memories that keep me going. I know he struggled mightily, and I was so proud to see him win and persevere and finally pull his life together. I was looking forward to seeing him in concert and then one day, I was sitting on my couch watching the news and he was just...gone.I admit it, I cried hard. I still cant listen to songs like,"Life By The Drop " without choking up some.
We lost so many so young, Freddie Mercury was another tragedy that broke my heart in many ways and still does as does Michael Hutchence and Kurt Cobain. Not all substance abuse, but struggles with a life that gets beyond control and overindulged. Sometimes too much of a good thing is too much and folks need a big ole adult time out to remind them that they belong in the real world and have real rules to live by, it just might save their lives. Kindness and compassion and understanding are important, not constantly demanding to know every little thing and maybe, just maybe , being grateful that when you see their name in the news its for life and not death.