A non-writing post, but I feel it necessary. The following concerns Lenny Dykstra, former baseball player and current victim of mental instability and a lack of help:
Why hasn't someone stepped in to help Lenny Dykstra? I just saw him on another interview today, for NBC, and once again he seemed mentally unstable. He still speaks with that slurred speech, as if he were always drunk, or drugged up, or on some meds that make him sound that way. Once again he was denying his financial reality, saying that he lived in a $30 million home, but yet was on the streets for two years. Again he says that he has all this money that he doesn't have; that his homes are not in foreclosure; that he hasn't been swindling anyone. Why hasn't someone stepped in? He seems confused, taking forever to come up with Gandhi's name, and then comparing himself to him. Again he sounded paranoid, saying that bankers would assassinate him. Again he had flights of fancy, saying that he could not be killed--after he said bankers would assassinate him. He has a persecution complex. I don't doubt he believes that he hasn't cheated anyone; I believe he believes he really does have all this money. Why hasn't a friend or loved one stepped in and institutionalized him for his own good, especially when he was living on the streets for two years?
And why are they still putting him in front of a camera? So we can see that he's still nuts? So we can see that he's in denial, and slipping even more? Why are they parading him instead of helping him? I saw another clip on tv--some kind of program on Paris Hilton--and some guy said that we, the public, just want her to continue screwing up, that we want her to take drugs, get arrested, and say stupid things for our amusement.
There's truth to this. We are schoolyard bullies parading the clueless for our enjoyment, watching their self-destruction for our self-esteem, for giggles. Instead of helping them, we jab them, prod them, tie them to the stake. People like Dykstra clearly can't defend themselves, and rather than help them, we tie them to the media stake, unleash the media and viewer dogs, and watch for our own amusement as they get eaten alive.
Call it Britney Spears/Charlie Sheen Syndrome, call it whatever you want, but it says more about us than it does about them. They are, or were, messed up, in the head, or as addicts. But we sit at home, watch it all on television or the internet--more the latter now--and we laugh and jibe as they suffer and self-destruct. We call them names, often really bad ones, which was even more unforgivable when it's someone like Spears, who was in her late teens and early- to mid-twenties during most of her self-immolation, still mostly a kid, in terms of life experience and wisdom. But that didn't stop us from calling her horrible names, and puncturing her rather than helping her. Maybe it's a mob psychology, that many of us are decent people on our own, but as a media saturated public, we become sharks and frenzy-feed on the helpless when they injure themselves.
Sickening. And it's more us then them. When did we start putting the popular in cages and prodding them for our own amusement? Watch this clip, http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/Lenny_Dykstra_s_Winning_Philadelphia-117532508.html, and see what you think.
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