Phillip Seymour Hoffman, RIP

Thanks for posting the article, firefly.

I'm a little out of the box in that I was raised in a Hollywood family, both sides of it. I didn't idealize actors, except maybe Fess Parker when I was twelve (egads). I also gave them space - they were all around our area; a girl in my first grade class became a big tv star. edit - no, she was in the movie. They get to go look at the shampoo aisle in our closest pharmacy too. I'll give a slight nod if that seems fitting, but won't bother them. Unless they ask me about shampoos.

On acting - I've read a fair amount about it, read a zillion reviews, early memories of Pauline Kael and so on. I've liked a lot of 'foreign' films; not against american film, just intrigued more re more global stuff.

A friend later in my life, a landscape architect and artist, has had a lifetime long major scoliosis problem, plus what I take as a rather cruel mother; she later took acting classses from a well known teacher, and I think it benefited her life greatly.

So, that's me, I'm interested, but not ga ga.
I haven't seen a movie in quite a while, but I still read up, being bred on reading The Reporter and Variety when young. If I get Netflix again, I'll check out Hoffman's films, since the just about universal take is that he was an excellent actor.

I should have just said, in less words, that I don't think people who appreciate good acting and have some interest in who the actor is are easily named as celebrity crazed.

GB: I don't know how much of the reporting is accurate, the press doesn't seem to wait for verification, they hear something and spit it right back out.

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And then GB spits it right back out.

And that mens exactly what? We shouldn't care for beggars?
American Theater has had a history of highs and lows . People associated with theater , looked on as prostitutes, were still popular and the theater companies (from our beloved Walnut STreet Troupe to the Savoy and even the Forrest and Booth family) have always been the center of a love hate relationship, often based upon actions of the actors off stage (like John Wilkes).
Weve always had a need for celebrities and theater folks have given us many celebrities through our history.
I get more of a kick at the "Anti-theater" laws put in place by several of the NEW England or mid ALtlantic states in the mid 1700's. Theater was considered a "moral weakness", but nonetheless, weve created cults of personalities cause its what we do.

But there are other pleasurable drugs that aren't the death sentence heroin is.

I'm not sure people that are (or who become) addicted to heroin are seeking pleasure. I think many of them are attempting to numb themselves and/or reduce pain...either physical or psychological pain.

Well, there are other drugs for that too. Like narcotics. Which are highly addictive but cause far fewer od's than heroin.

Of course, the mind of someone who is lost in pain is a strange beast.

On it face he is an idiot with the world by it tail as far as his career and with his young kids that needed him and yet he ended up dying with a damn needle in his arm!!!!!!!

This is a full grown adult man of 47 years not a kid and he knew what such drugs could do from his past.

RIP my ass after leaving his children without a father.

He had nothing to do with it, his addiction did it.

You really suck at being a liberal ......

You do have a point concerning some of my short comings at least.

But what a stupid stupid way to go with a damn drug needle in your arm.

It is not that unusual for middle aged adults to fall into despair. Suicide is up in numbers in middle aged males. Sometimes people revert to coping mechanisms that provided an escape in youth. In the case of this actor drugs. Some destroy their relationships with an affair..so many self destructive ways exist. There are so many maladaptive ways to cope. In the end, it is nothing but a lapse in judgement that buried it's claws into him and destroyed him.

But what a stupid stupid way to go with a damn drug needle in your arm.

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If I'm not mistaken, that's the preferred method for all those forward thinking death penalty states. Kill one person - you're gonna die , Son!

Kill millions like USA prezes do and you get a pension.

This middle age male have young children that needed a father and the resources to get any level of help needed.

He also had gone down the drug path once many decades ago so he could not be under any false idea that drugs would be an aid in addressing his problems.

Once more it is a stupid stupid way to die.

Oh yes FM that's exactly what it means.

He was so cute as the Big Lebowski's man-in-waiting so to speak, his personal assistant. He's had better roles, but he had some scene stealing lines. One of our favorite actors.

My dude liked him best in Punch Drunk Love - a tiny but memorable role. I gravitated toward his ridiculous silly performances like Along Came Polly and State and Main.

I was miserable to lose him so soon. Drugs, particularly heroine, are just a bitch. Some problem with calibrating dosages has been dropping them like flies in Hollywood. So many wonderful people, too.

Using heroin is not a death sentence.

Everyone who has used heroin isn't dead, and everyone who will use heroin will not die from that use.

Heroin is an addictive drug, but it is a myth that if you use it once you will become addicted.

Even addiction isn't a death sentence, although it's a pretty nasty state of being.

I don't know what Hoffman's personal life was like anymore than I know if there is life on Mars, but I'm willing to bet a fair amount of money that he wasn't Jack Armstrong All-American Well Adjusted Boy, until he snorted the stuff or spiked his arm.

You can take heroin or other opiates to escape your pain or to seek pleasure.

A single minded pursuit of pleasure, whether through drugs, sex, power or anything that causes your brain to be flooded with certain "pleasure" chemicals, will always be ruinous if not interrupted.

This doesn't mean, however, that drugs must always lead to ruin.

Unfortunately, it is the weak willed who partake of drugs and then find themselves on the road to ruin.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with pleasure and opiates are a great source of what we consider to be pleasurable. All things in moderation of course, but some people have no ability to moderate. Perhaps this makes them great artists, but it makes them foolish consumers of drugs.

These drugs, in one form or another, have been used by mankind since our earliest awakening to sentience. Hell, lemurs and monkies get high eating millipedes, and they go back for more.

One can view them as a forbidden fruit that once tasted will spell ruin or... something else.

Puritanism is a self-preservationist state of mind for humanity because people, generally, have a hard time dealing with pleasure, and a tendency to go overboard. Perhaps this is a valid reason to outlaw drugs, but we should be honest about it. Drugs are not evil and neither is pleasure.

Heroin is a narcotic

please add to my timely thread






Started Thu 9 Jan, 2014 05:36 am

http://able2know.org/topic/230991-1