We Need Our Fixes Of Celebrity Junkies

Every time I see Robert Downey Jr.'s face in the newspaper, I stab it with
a fork. No, I don't know the man. This is simply my way of achieving some
much needed relief from what has become a virtual avalanche of celebrity
drug chronicles, of which Mr. Downey's is only the most egregious example.

How many times, Oh Lord, must we hear about Mr. Downey's drug-taking, Mr.
Downey's latest bust for possession, Mr. Downey being hauled up before the
judge, the conditions of Mr. Downey's latest sentencing, the implications
for Mr. Downey's role on Ally McBeal (I admit it; I'm a fan), Mr. Downey's
violation of said parole conditions, Mr. Downey's next hauling up before
the judge, and so on, ad nauseum? The answer apparently is: indefinitely.

I'm not saying the celebrities involved don't bring it on themselves.
Melanie Griffiths' Internet blow-by-blow of her prescription drug addiction
and subsequent cure last year was certainly not the only, nor even the
worst, example of the phenomenon. These days, it seems like each and every
minor celeb who once spent a couple of nights on a NyQuil bender is eager
to tell the media exactly how he or she made it through the hell of drugs
and into the weak light of recovery.

No, no, celebrities are a law unto themselves, they just can't help it, all
press is good press, even if they do have to trot out the trauma to get it.

But it's us I'm blaming. Why do we aid and abet, we of the great and
glorious public?

You over there, turning away. You say you had nothing to do with it. You
say you don't even read the stuff. Don't blame me, you shrug. Matthew Perry
in rehab? Matthew who?

But I do blame you, by extension, because the fact is that if nobody read
those stories nobody would print 'em. Are Mr. Downey's award nominations
leading to tacit acceptance of his reiterated drug taking?

I want to say, Who cares?, but obviously somebody does, because there it is
in the paper, a whole think-piece hypocritically hand-wringing over the issue.

Everyone tsk-tsks about those reality shows, but I'd rather see ordinary
folks becoming celebrities than celebrities becoming ordinary, which,
believe you me, is what's happening every time some etoliated modelette
checks herself into a clinic for "exhaustion." These people have money,
fame and good looks, and yet they demonstrate a distressing propensity,
much like lesser mortals, for repeatedly screwing up.

Must we witness? Does there need to be a sideline for the painfully common
spectacle of someone throwing it all away?

Even worse is what's known in economic circles as the trickle-down effect,
although in these cases I can't help but speculate that another bodily
production is what's involved. Hollywood TV writer Jerry Stahl, whose fame
at the time extended only to those in the industry themselves, wrote an
entire book detailing his descent into heroin hell (there's a particularly
poignant scene where Mr. Stahl totes his infant daughter to a crack house
in an attempt to score: Parenting 101). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it became a
bestseller. Can't get famous any other way? Spill all about your narcotics
horror and find yourself well-known for that, if nothing else.

I'm not saying the drug-hell memoir doesn't have a storied history, only
that it seems to have exploded lately. Drew Barrymore made People magazine
with her teen excesses some years ago, but is known now more for her film
projects: more wisely than most, she shut up about her various ingestions
once she'd bagged a front-cover story. I'd wish for others to follow her
example, if only I didn't know in advance that it was futile.

It's tempting to blame the good old United States, home to far more drug
hypocrisy than Canadians could ever stomach, for the glut of celebrity drug
chronicles. Tempting but essentially untrue. Don't forget that we have our
own tell-all celebrity: that Maritime fiddle player with the big mouth and
self-confessed onetime crack habit. Every time I think he's going to
finally shut up about it, some United States wannabe journalist brings up
the subject all over again. Sigh.

Still, Ashley MacIsaac and the other drug tell-alls pale before the ongoing
saga of Mr. Downey Jr., who apparently can't keep out of the stuff even at
the threat of being hauled before the judge in that fetching orange outfit
over and over again.

I don't blame him: after all, it's an addiction. What I object to is us,
sitting there waiting for news of the latest bust, tongues hanging out, all
ready for our next fix.