A Wrong Turn in the Road, Part II

By Robert Ringer

Every time I see Michael Jackson on television, I wonder to myself, "What has made this man-child so miserable?" As late as the mid eighties, he was a handsome young man with talent unlike anything anyone had ever before witnessed. Yet, he made a conscious choice to destroy his good looks and turn himself into a freak. Why in the world did he choose to start dressing like a clown and talking like a little girl? What caused him to take that wrong turn?

When I look at Michael Jackson, I see nothing but pain behind the choreographed scene of bodyguards, umbrellas, victory signs to his fans, and jaw-dropping babble about cookies and milk. Whether Jackson is eventually successful in resurrecting his career in Europe and Asia, it won't matter. He will still be miserable. You can bank on that. In fact, I would guess that his acquittal on child molestation charges only emboldened him to take his attention-getting weirdness to a new level.

I feel the same way whenever I see Liza Minnelli on television, making yet another slurring announcement that she is now clean of alcohol and drugs. Or that she has finally found the love of her life, and they are destined to live happily ever after. Of course, any casual Hollywood observer simply translates this to mean that her new marriage is going to last three-to-twelve months.

I vividly remember Liza's mom, Judy Garland, in her last appearance on The Tonight Show. It didn't take a doctor to figure out that Garland was either dead drunk, on hard drugs, or both. With all her fame and fortune, I recall feeling genuinely embarrassed for this multitalented woman. All her singing, dancing, and acting ability seemed to yield nothing but misery for her. With such a role model, it would have been a miracle if Liza Minnelli had grown up to be normal.

But when I think about meeting people in the hurt, Mike Tyson is the celebrity who most often comes to mind. Many people have a strong dislike for this hoodlum-turned-famous centimillionaire … turned felon … turned bankrupt … turned all-around broken man. But if you listen carefully to Tyson's words, you can feel the pain radiating from him. As a youngster growing up in Brooklyn, he knew no other life but that of a street thug. His wrong turn came at a very young age.

What Tyson has in common with untold millions of street people, drug addicts, the depressed, and individuals who just can't seem to win their battles against self-pity and misery is that he made a wrong turn in the road very early in life. But what's interesting is that, unlike a George Foreman, subsequent fame and fortune couldn't seem to turn him in the right direction.

Tyson also has something in common with the Michael Jacksons, Liza Minnellis, Elizabeth Taylors, Angelina Jolies, and other loose-screw celebrities whose lives have become too-good-to-pass-up monologue material for the likes of Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Jon Stewart. The nonmedical term for this problem is: too much money, too fast, too easy.

Richard Bach poetically summed it up in The Bridge Across Forever when he warned, "To be handed a lot of money is to be handed a glass sword, blade-first. Best handle it very carefully, sir, very slowly while you puzzle what it's for." The truth of his statement has been evident throughout history, which has repeatedly demonstrated that captains and kings can be as miserable as the most poverty-stricken among us.

A good lesson to draw from all this is that it's a mistake to spend your life yearning only for money. It's far better to seek the path leading to personal improvement and a meaningful, fulfilling life.

I have neither admiration nor respect for any of the people I've mentioned in this article, but I do feel their pain when I see them on television or read about them. I'm no Mother Teresa, so I do not have a desire to help them. In fact, if they even knew I existed, they would scoff at the idea that I have sympathy for them.

But when it comes to helping a guy sitting on the sidewalk and begging for a few coins, it's different. And in the final installment of this article, I'll explain why.

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