Earlier today actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his home of apparent drug overdose.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01222008/news/regionalnews/heath_ledger_dead_916418.htm

I still have to wonder why sucess, more money than God, etc, causes "celebrities" to do drugs to the point of overdose. Is there something in their past, DNA, what, that causes that? I can assure you that if I suddenly became rich, I would not suddenly start doing drugs, or even booze, to such an extreme...

"I still have to wonder why sucess, more money than God, etc, causes "celebrities" to do drugs to the point of overdose."

A woman who used to work behind the TV business said that she thinks that the same mental/emotional issues that often drive them to acting are often their downfall. The need for attention, admiration, etc, often makes them unable to handle it when they get it, they fear that it won't last, and have trouble dealing with it on many levels.

It makes as much sense as anything.

Sue

"...they fear that it won't last..."

Nicole Simpson once told me that OJ had that fear, unfortunately he handled it a different way...

I was thinking about this and how similar the situation is with winning a lottery, esp a big one.

You have the people who are compulsive manic spenders, who think money can buy anything, and once they get their hands on that big money, nothing changes.

Then you have the "normal" people (whatever that is), who grew up knowing the value of money, and what it won't buy. They think before they spend, and live within their means. They tend not to change, either.

Of course, the show business people live in a goldfish bowl, too, and I'm sure that can't make it any easier.

Sue

"...the show business people live in a goldfish bowl..."

Yup, and that is what they want, to be rich and famous. They should know that in todays world you can not be a "celebrity" and not have cameras in your face all the time...

It is a shame. When I read it, I had to google his name, never heard of him. I don't get out much either....

I felt it in my craw but couldn;t visualize it.....not until this morning, when one of my favorite radio talk show hosts put it in perspective. I goes something like this:

The media swoons and fawns over the death of a "celebrity".... camping out on his doorstep as if they're first in line to buy tickets for a return of the real Elvis. Why? Heroes are dying in Iraq....volunteers....people who want to accomplish something for the good of their culture. Heroes are dying on American streets.... trying to rid them of scum who would rob, rape, maim, or kill us. Who is a Hollywod "celebrity"? A person who makes millions of dollars a year to pretend.... to play doctor.... to "act" as if they're somebody with a real life... to create an illusion. Why is he treated like a heroe? Whi is a spoiled brat like Brittany Spears, who is out to please no one but herself... fawned over and glamourized? Why do we devote hours and hours of media time to the death of someone who did nothing but create an illusion while the real heroes get a back-page obit in their local town paper?

Are we really buying in to anything more than a man passed away?

not me. some guy - along with quite a few other people, probably much more noteworthy in their own right than him - died that day. my condolences to the families of all. i'm moving on.

I love it...

? Heroes are dying in Iraq....volunteers....people who want to accomplish something for the good of their culture. Heroes are dying on American streets.... trying to rid them of scum who would rob, rape, maim, or kill us.

Kudos Stretch, I said basically the same thing to my DW this evening. Why do people continue to be obsessed with the "celebrities"? There is a world full of real genuine heros. You don't have to look beyond the nearest police car or fire truck to find one. I can assure you they don't make millions or get their picture on TV unless the press can find something negative to report.

It seems like many of the problems that we have in this country have evolved from too many people having too much money AND too much time on their hands. Just my opinion of course!

More and more, I am leaning my intake of media towards those programs which actually enrich my life by providing me with valuable information, perspective, or advice that will actually help me improve my life or avoid problems. That includes filtering a good amount of news programming for real content, and not stories about some jock getting shot or arrested over drug related issues, or some actor or musician(if you can really call them that anymore) heading back to court or rehab because of drug related issues, or getting divorced/married to another prime time loser. Weather, finances, state of the union, foreign policy, but not politics or who is saying what about whom. I am almost at the point where another hundred movies in my DVD collection and I can nearly match the programming content for most premium movie channels on cable now, only without the endless slew of commercials every ten minutes.

History channel, Outdoor channel, military channel, etc, have good programs on at least once in a while, but why must I pay for 30+ QVC type dedicated channels that I purposely exclude from my channel repertoire?

TV Rots your brain like crack cocaine

Hi Hacksaw,



This statement reminds me of the late seventies in the UK when TV consisted of 3 channels, which began transmitting at 9:30am and finished at 12:30pm. There was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. BBC2 was considered to be the intellectual channel for serious TV programming. There was early morning and afternoon programming called Open University on BBC2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrbxYrMmOc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEFd4tCWtvk&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bak28KYLIgc&NR=1 (Dr Gregory House in an earlier life)

The really weird thing is that I seem to remember the TV being better in those days despite the hundreds of TV channels available today. Your right, TV today does rot the brain. Thats why a really good Hi Fi is essential. (I'm listening to Atom Heart Mother as I type with a glass of Shiraz, sad I know but it better than the anything on TV at the moment.)

Sir Ian McKellen on the skills required of an actor ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43sbtkQM6zc

Yes, when I was growing up, we had three channels, no remote control, rabbit ears on the set, and the TV went off the air somewhere around midnight. We weren;t bombarded with senless, irrelevant "news" over and over and over again, and again, 24 hours a day. Heath Ledger's "accidental" overdose wouldn;t have even been the subject of controversy (simply because it wasn;t worthy of controversion [is that a word? who cares]) let alone would he have received more than a passing mention on the news. In fact, could he have made it back then as an "actor"? I don;t know. Movies about gay cowboys weren't in vogue back then.

I kindly suspected that he may have died of a drug overdose or something, but I didn;t want to speculate on that in my first post. The more selfish and irrational the behavior, the more the media swoons....

The fact that anyone AT ALL cares about this guy or Paris or Brittany or any of the other people of the same ilk shows the general intelligence level of the American public. When people are concentrating on garbage like this, you know they're not paying attention to much of anything else, like what the government is doing, what their kids are doing, etc.

I had to pick up a RR crew at 3 a.m. the other morning, and there was a group of kids hanging around downtown that looked to be about twelve to fourteen years old, male and female. The only adults I could see was a homeless guy and a hooker headed to or from a job.

Sue

The point being that you don't pay for them. They actually subsidise your bill and you pay less because of them. I'd rather they add a dozen more that I lock out than to raise my bill.

And if they didn't have the commercials you'd pay even more. Not saying they get all their money from the shopping channels (or commercials). It's just an extra revenue stream. The fact is the carrier makes actually gets paid to show those shopping channels and if they dropped those channels they'd have to make up that revenue some other way. Rate increase?