Charlie Sheen Checks Into Rehab – What Year is This? (January 29, 2011)

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I feel like this same drama plays out every five years or so since around 1986, when Mr. Sheen caught my young eye playing the “Bad Boy in the Police Station” flirting with an otherwise unfriendly Jeanie Bueller in the great comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Little did I realize that Sheen was either the world’s greatest method actor or he probably looked coked out sexy because he arrived onset that way.

Charlie Sheen, born Carlos Irwin Estevez, is the father of five children: a 26 year-old daughter named Cassandra from a previous relationship with Paula Profit, two adorable little girls, Sam and Lola, produced during his tumultuous marriage with actress Denise Richards, and twin boys named Bob and Max, hardly more than babies. In between spreading his seed, Bad Boy Charlie made a tabloid name for himself by shooting then-girlfriend Kelly Preston in the arm in 1990. Puzzlingly, she ended the relationship shortly afterward. His name was heavily tossed around during the titillating events of the Heidi Fleiss scandal in 1995. That’s when we learned the man likes hookers – a lot.

In 1998, Charlie overdosed on an injection of cocaine, leading his beleaguered actor father, Martin Sheen, to issue a public plea for support before turning his own son in for a parole violation. I am sure it was a gut wrenching decision, but Mr. Sheen Sr. is obviously a caring father. He should have been rewarded with a post-rehab, together child.

But of course we know that’s not what happened. Back in the professional hot seat and richer than ever due to his starring turn in the long-running CBS comedy Two and a Half Men, Charlie picked up right where the party left off. Denise Richards has had the class (something I never figured her for) to stay quiet, but rumors abound that she dissolved her marriage to the actor for the same old reasons: drug and prostitutes.

A later marriage to the gorgeous Brooke Mueller seemed like Charlie might be settling down for good. Mueller was not involved in the Hollywood world and they stated their intentions to start a family as soon as possible. But then we learned, oops! Brookie likey the nose candy too, culminating in the Christmas 2009 arrest of her husband for domestic violence and second degree assault. The grapevine had it that both halves of the couple were in an alcohol and cocaine-fueled rage when Charlie held a knife to her throat.

Of course he received little more than a slap on the wrist from law enforcement, and voluntarily entered rehab in February 2010. Much good that obviously did.

During the early morning of October 26, 2010, Sheen was removed from his hotel room at the Plaza Hotel after causing damage to the room and admitting to having been drinking and taking cocaine. There was also a woman (you guessed it! a hooker!) locked in the bathroom. Did I mention that ex-wife Denise and his five and six year-old daughters were in another room across the hall?

Finally, just this week, Charlie was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Hospital “for severe stomach pains” stemming from a reported three-day coke binge and the usual harem of adult movie actresses. After the scandal, Sheen has once again entered a rehab facility. Is there any reason to believe it was work out this time?

His bosses at the network continue to pay him $2 million a week, not daring to take the chance of losing their #1 show. The court system has been unusually kind, rendering Sheen some sort of Teflon multi-felon. When there are no real consequences for one’s long running bad behavior, how can one routine trip to the emergency room finally bring the clarity needed?

Fat chance. I admire Mr. Sheen’s body of work, particularly from before 1995, but so what? He is a loser at life in everyway that matters: as a son, a husband, a father and a human being.

A Drug Company With Integrity? (January 27, 2011)

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Is it me, or in our cynical, “me first and only” age, does this question appear oxymoronically improbable? Yet here we have an example of drug maker Hospira Inc. not only refusing to profit from the death of others, but ceasing production of the item under discussion to be certain.

The back story is that state prisons have experienced a “national shortage” of the sedative, sodium thiopental, commonly used in the lethal injection method of executing prisoners on death row. Like any resourceful angels of death, the states, particularly Oklahoma and Ohio, went in search of a replacement. They settled upon pentobarbital, “a barbiturate used to induce comas during surgeries to prevent brain damage when blood flow is interrupted, and to reduce possible brain damage following strokes or head trauma. It is chemically related to the same product used to euthanize pets.”

So now felons in the “Big O” States can have the same kind of peaceful end as the cancer-ridden family dog. Sounds humane enough right? Well in an unforseen twist, the company that produces pentobarbital wants nothing to do with its product becoming synonymous with loss of life. Lundbeck Inc., whose U.S. headquarters sit right to the North of my beloved Chicago, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. “This goes against everything we’re in business to do…We like to develop and make available therapies that improve people’s lives….That’s the focus of our business.”

It is typically my business to believe that a corporation, particularly one in the racketeering-like game of prescription drugs, must have some other agenda. But faced with a sizeable loss of revenue due to their stance, Lundbeck appears to be merely (dare I say it?) articulating its reasoned moral position. Though the article admits that “Lundbeck does not sell the product directly to end users and has no way of preventing either state from using the drug,” I find it creditable that they chose to speak up rather than quietly continue to count money.

I have shared, directly in my profile biography, that I am in a surprising number of cases, onboard with the death penalty. Jared Lougher, the smug and unrepentant shooter in Tuscon, Arizona, is an individual who tends to bring out the more barbarous nature in me. However, nearly every belief I have lies on some sort of continuum and though I can be stubborn, I like to believe I am not completely inflexible.

I am reconsidering where I stand, day by day, as states like Illinois move to outlaw capital punishment. There seems to be too many weaknesses in our justice system to stand behind such a final solution. And when you have a drug company’s experts testifying in a court of law, “Because of these significant unknowns, and a lack of clinical history related to using pentobarbital to induce anesthesia, using pentobarbital as part of a 3-drug lethal injection protocol puts the inmate at an undue risk of suffering,” – well, that’s another good reason to take a pause. Because drug manufacturers have rarely been accused of humanitarian activism.

The Real State of the Union (January 25, 2011)

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Tonight’s much anticipated address by President Barack Obama, almost four weeks into the New Year, is a huge test for our Commander-in-Chief. However, unlike last year, the rub isn’t his ability to withstand peanut gallery heckling (House Republican Joseph Wilson’s famous “You lie!” sneer). Rather, a large section of the American public, myself included, is looking to assess Obama’s ability to keep it real – to look that camera straight in the eye and drop all the b.s. about the nation’s “exceptionalism” and “competitive advantage.” We need the President, struggling with staff overturn and the formulation of an agenda for the final two years of his term, to level with his constituents, to give voice to the hard truths that so many of us have experienced for too long.

We are a nation at a crossroads. Despite the amassing of record corporate profits during the last two years, unemployment numbers remain puzzlingly and consistently high. State governments continue to slide into insolvency, and once stable jobs in the public sector (teachers, first responders, etc) are vanishing in unprecedented droves. We don’t need a cheerleader to sell us the “everything’s looking up!” routine. Things are definitely on the upswing for CEOs, for the NYSE, but not for us. We want to know why this happened and we don’t want to hear it from Timothy Geithner. We deserve to know how to fix our structural weaknesses so we never find ourselves victimized by them again, and to experience comfort in the form of a solid plan of action. It’s not permissible to kick the can down the curb anymore, leaving the hard decisions to future administrations. It’s not fine to play the role of the soothing parent. We are adults and we know we’re hurt. I think Mr. Obama’s poll numbers ought to be the first hint that we don’t believe the “measurable growth” fairy tale.

There is still too much rightful insecurity on Main Street. Millions have been out of work for periods of a year or longer. Those of us who have been lucky enough to secure new employment often find it to be of the contract or temporary kind, transient and without livable wages and benefits. We have no idea if the health care overhaul passed last summer to such tremendous fanfare and Tea Party howling will be overturned before the close of 2011. This is not an exercise in political gamesmanship. There are real stakes involved. It’s hard to formulate a five month plan, let alone a five year one, immersed in so much uncertainty.

I am certainly no defeatist. There is a time and place in tonight’s address for a celebration of our progress, to acknowledge how far we’ve come from the days of late 2008 when it seemed entirely possible that American economic and political relevancy could go the way of the Edsel. However, keep that sort of self-congratulation to a minimum. This is the first generation to fare more poorly than the previous in terms of wage growth, home ownership and educational opportunity. Let’s talk about how we arrived here, and what we’re going to do in the next 24 months to help the once-thriving middle class get back on the road to dignity and prosperity.

Bearly Watchable (January 23, 2011)

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“Somebody needs to tell the Bears this isn’t a preseason game.”

– Terry Bradshaw, NFL Fox Analyst, 3:30 PM today

At the risk of alienating my rabidly “Bear Down” family any further (please stop the bitter posts on my Facebook wall!), I must acknowledge the Bears miserable play in today’s NFC Championship Game. But I will not say I told you so.

The final score of the home advantage matchup against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, 21-14, really doesn’t tell the story. If there are kudos to be handed around, they are reserved for the members of the Bears’ defense, who kept the tally board from reflecting the lopsided mess in play that really occurred. Pro Bowler Brian Urlacher had a particularly effective day. A solid golf clap is also owed to third string quarterback Caleb Hainie, who honestly got the Bears back in it when it seemed all but impossible.

Hainie’s surprisingly able play does not excuse the drastic mistakes in coaching that occurred, underscoring my season-long opinion that, division championship notwithstanding, it is time to show Lovie Smith the door. The inexplicable time-out call in the fourth quarter, on a huge fourth down and three yards? Also, by playing Hainie before the conclusion of the third quarter, benched alternatives Jay Cutler and Todd Collins lost their eligibility to return to the game. What if Hainie had been injured?

Not that we missed either one of the former sorry asses. I expected nothing from second stringer Todd Collins, and with two near picks in a matter of minutes, I was not disappointed. But you Jay Cutler – you. Everything Denver Bronco fans said is 100% accurate. You are a sissy, a quitter and a quintessential pouter. When you left the game shortly after a pathetic first half with the flimsy “knee” excuse, I wanted to call Jo the Super Nanny to slap the puss off your face before you sat for the rest of the game on the naughty bench. After two unbelievably lackluster seasons, I wonder if we were really not better off with Rex Grossman, the Bears’ 2007 Super Bowl QB. We had more money at least.

As a Chicago native, a passionate sports fan, and an adrenaline addict, I am deeply saddened by the Bears ejection from post season play, no matter what my critics may believe. In this case, if not others, I am terribly sorry to have played the Cassandra-like spoiler to the conclusion of the Bears’ idiosyncratic ascent.

But if I am being honest and gracious, the better team won. A couple less concussions for Rodgers and the standings in the NFC North may have looked very different. The Bears had the luckiest run of any organization this season. I will go to my grave saying it. I wish the Green Bay Packers well in two weeks. It may make today’s debacle sit easier if it was dealt by the hands of the Super Bowl champs.

Insomnity (January 20, 2011)

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I have had extra nocturnal time on my hands lately, so I started inventing new words. “Insomnity,” a combination of “insomnia” and “insanity,” pretty much conveys my physical and mental state. Feel free to use it.

It was a week ago that I wrote about finding the clarity needed to take myself less seriously. May I ask where that all that quiet calm went?

I am so frustrated. Back in December, I understood my sleeplessness when I actually had something to cry about. After being unfairly terminated, I went on interview after interview with no results. My father continued to weigh down my sister and I with increasingly odd and unlawful behavior. My husband disappointed his parents to an extent I found psychologically intolerable, and of course the holidays always bring a modicum of distress, no matter how ultimately enjoyable.

But the continuation of this now weeks-long battle to sleep just doesn’t make sense in the New Year. I am employed again. I secured a full-time temporary business writer position with a consulting firm located in downtown Chicago. Of course there is no guarantee that I won’t find myself back on the market at the conclusion of tax season, but I have a better than 50% shot at being asked to stay. I used to like those odds in my 20s. It brought out my competitive spirit. But now? I spend so much time worrying about the lack of security that I may ultimately render 2011 job seeking a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who wants to hire a strung-out looking curmudgeon?

I have had other blessings come my way in this new decade. Last Friday evening, I received a pleasant surprise in the form of being asked to edit the quarterly newsletter of the Illinois Woman’s Press Association. This is a board level appointment, and though no monetary compensation is involved, a job well and dependably done could open a wealth of doors for me. The association is largely run by female writing professionals of retirement age, and the current President made it known that selecting me represented a huge effort to engage young blood. It’s a terrific opportunity.

Yet five minutes after I accepted the appointment, I was on the verge of peeing my pants with anxiety. Apparently I have come to associate career openings with contingencies for failure. What if I flop? I do not even need to be told that this, to quote Al Franken’s legendary Saturday Night Live character, “Daily Affirmations” host Stuart Smalley, is “stinkin’ thinkin’.” But awareness that one is self-destructing and being able to control it are two totally different matters.

I have seen a doctor, several times in fact. Ambien was a nonstarter. Anti-anxiety meds seemed to help calm my system for awhile so I could get some shut eye, but I tend to grow immune to medications rather quickly. Rather than covertly up my dosage, I thought about Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson and gave it up altogether. A night or two a week I am managing six to seven hours with Nyquil or OTC sleeping pills, but really? This should not be necessary. My doctor recommended therapy, which is fine and all, but I’ve been there, done that and am not going to talk my way into a restful state. If that were the case, I’d be passed out at the conclusion of every blog post.

I am impatient and disenchanted with my own neuroticism. I am as bored with it as everyone else in my life is. Sunken eyes, blank stares at loved ones who wish to engage, and running behind on daily tasks is not sexy. Nor does this condition demonstrate a tormented artistic spirit in the style of Edgar Allen Poe (though come to think of it, some opium might be handy). It’s nonsense, and until recently, I never considered myself to be a frivolous person.