Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Friend: cries for blood

Robert Aaron Vineburg got off today. I’m usually pleased when this happens, and I’m pleased this time, although it’s never for the reason I want. They always get off because they can’t be gotten, not because anyone acknowledges the freedom of the junkie.

So often, when a celebrity dies, there’s this big howl for blood. Who did this?! Who can we make suffer for taking this person from us?

Courtney Love. Conrad Murray. Nancy Spungen. Cory Monteith’s/Heath Ledger’s dealers. Now Vineburg. There’s always this witch hunt.

All these celebrities were hardcore users, at least at some point in their lives, if not immediately before their deaths. But they’re pretty aware of how things go, and I can’t imagine anyone one of them blames their dealer/supplier/girlfriend for how things turned out.

The dealer is simply a role someone enters into, and it is in that capacity that they engage with the junkie. For the most part, I haven’t seen many too predatory or uncaring. If you want out, they’re usually supportive.

Even if you don’t, they’re just engaging in the market. It’s far too easy to heap the blame on them.

For some reason, we don’t apply this emotional reasoning to the cigarette or liquor vendor. We acknowledge that they are simply playing a part. Nothing personal.

I haven’t overdosed, but I’m certainly a junkie, and there’s a distinct causal element there. The guy that introduced me, my sire, so to speak. But I see him as the inevitability, or at least the mercurial actor, that he was. I’m sure some people might resent him – probably more when I was cute, and young, and blond – but I don’t. And I would appreciate the respect  for my autonomy to view him how I view him.

And I think the ghosts of these celebrities would want the same. Acting as though their dealers are the sole reason they are dead is an affront to them. We should give them their due.