The Needle and the Spoon

Posted on | February 2, 2014 | 46 Comments

I’ve seen a lot of people
Who thought they were cool,
But then again, Lord,
I’ve seen a lot of fools . . .
Don’t mess with the needle or a spoon
Or any trip to the moon.
It’ll take you away.

When I was a long-haired freak back in the 1970s, everybody knew heroin was a bad drug. There are no “recreational” heroin users, and a junkie will sell his soul to get another taste of slow-motion suicide. Somebody forgot to warn Philip Seymour Hoffman:

Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead of an apparent drug overdose late Sunday morning in his New York City apartment, a law-enforcement official said.
The New York Police Department is investigating, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is working to determine the exact cause of death. The official said Mr. Hoffman, 46 years old, was found dead at his apartment on Bethune Street in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan.
The actor was found in the bathroom of his fourth floor apartment in the Pickwick House around 11:15 a.m. by screenwriter David Katz, who called 911, the official said.

TMZ reports that he was found with a needle in his arm.

Category: Celebrities

Comments

46 Responses to “The Needle and the Spoon”

Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 2nd, 2014 @ 4:09 pm

What a waste. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was a very good actor. But unlike Robert Downey Jr., he lost in this game of Russian roulette. RIP.

Downey hinted that he was somewhat like his Tony Stark character in being more conservative after going through the process of kicking drugs.
RKae
February 2nd, 2014 @ 4:10 pm

Suicide by cliché.

I got fed up a long time ago. I will not “speak kindly of the dead” when they die by absolute stupidity. They’ve had every warning possible and they laughed in our faces.
Mike G.
February 2nd, 2014 @ 4:10 pm

Yeah, you think you’re using “Smack” when in reality, it’s using you. Had a Nephew who learned the same lesson as Phillip Seymour Hoffman just learned, last year.
Oscar-Winning Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman Dead at 46 (Video) UPDATE: Fans Gather Outside Apartment (Photo) - Lowering the Boom
February 2nd, 2014 @ 4:17 pm

[…] Related: Breitbart News: NYPD: Academy Award-Winning Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman Dead The Other McCain: The Needle and the Spoon […]
robertstacymccain
February 2nd, 2014 @ 4:19 pm

Few are so wise as the ex-fools who learned their lessons the hard way, and lived to tell the tale.
Becca Lower
February 2nd, 2014 @ 4:31 pm

According to Breitbart News, “last year it was revealed that Hoffman had left a detox facility after a drug abuse problem. He had reportedly admitted to snorting heroin and taking prescription pills.” So he apparently found another way to get his fix.

Fans are flocking to his apartment to mourn his loss.
Jason Lee
February 2nd, 2014 @ 5:17 pm

His 3 kids are the real victims.
Anyone Remember Heroin Chic? | Blackmailers Don't Shoot
February 2nd, 2014 @ 5:26 pm

[…] so what? Everyone knows that heroin is a dirty-ass drug. It hardly compares to marijuana, and will never have the same kind of mainstream acceptance. The […]
Bob Belvedere
February 2nd, 2014 @ 5:52 pm

Angel of darkness is upon you
Stuck a needle in your arm [You fool you!]
So take another toke, have a blow for your nose
One more drink fool, will drown you

Ooooh that smell
Can’t you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you
Bob Belvedere
February 2nd, 2014 @ 5:53 pm

Funny…the Missus and I watched a Skynyrd concert we have on DVR last night.
Socialism: Organized Evil
February 2nd, 2014 @ 6:02 pm

Boo hoo.
tlk244182
February 2nd, 2014 @ 6:32 pm

Years ago I was infatuated with a beautiful sociopath who took a fatal overdose of heroin in ’06. It was just as you say. She’d had a million chances and scorned them all. She left a five year old daughter, whose father is serving life without parole. I promised to pray for all three daily for the rest of my life. I’ve missed a few days in seven and a half years, but not many. Knowing the circumstances of her death, I have reason to hope that she made an act of perfect contrition before losing consciousness.
Taxpayer1234
February 2nd, 2014 @ 6:36 pm

My BFF is one of those. She said, “When I die, I won’t be afraid to go to hell because I’ve already been there.”
Zohydro
February 2nd, 2014 @ 7:08 pm

Neil Young did the definitive exposé on this crap…

I denounce myself!
Bob Belvedere
February 2nd, 2014 @ 7:10 pm

I’m one of those few, brave souls who like both Skynyrd and Neil Young.
Zohydro
February 2nd, 2014 @ 7:11 pm

Every junkie’s like the setting sun…
Bob Belvedere
February 2nd, 2014 @ 7:14 pm

I denounce myself before Stacy.
SJ Reidhead
February 2nd, 2014 @ 9:50 pm

A drug overdose is tragic. Addiction is an illness, not a personal weakness. We have a tendency to forget that at times. Dealing with illegal substances are one thing, but when you know people who have legal addictions to various medications and are allowed to get away with not only doctor shopping, but have pharmacies who repeatedly fill prescriptions is another. As much as I would like to see major drug dealers locked up, forever, I would like to see the same thing happen to therapists and physicians who prescribe certain psych. meds for people, knowing that it basically cooks their brains, turns them into zombie addicts, and they must go through withdrawals and drug treatment the same way a heroine addict would. I have seen so many lives ruined – legally, by therapists who constantly push legal medications on people that those are the ones I want to see locked up, under the jail! And – everything is legal. You get an overdose, and oh well, the person had psych problems. No one bothers prosecuting the monster who turned the person into the addict.
DumbCons
February 2nd, 2014 @ 10:00 pm

Why do conservatives always seem to take a certain pleasure in someone’s death if it’s caused by drugs? Yes, heroin is a dumb choice, and he should have gotten clean if only for the three children he left behind, but some people are just tortured souls, artists especially, and let’s just leave it at that.
DDD
February 2nd, 2014 @ 10:01 pm

Some people just think life is a big absurd joke, and simply don’t care. End of story.
Dianna Deeley
February 2nd, 2014 @ 10:33 pm

Not alone.
Zohydro
February 2nd, 2014 @ 10:41 pm

Never was much of a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan…

I’d heard that song, The Needle and The Spoon before… Thought it was Molly Hatchet!
Cassone
February 2nd, 2014 @ 11:09 pm

“To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face,” – Alcoholics Anonymous p.44
Yes, he had a disease but he also had a choice. Let the canonization begin.
The Daley Gator | What a waste! Actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman dead at 46
February 3rd, 2014 @ 12:25 am

[…] The Other McCain has the news. I heard someone at work talking about Hoffman, but I was shocked to hear the news tonight. Heroine overdose? […]
Adjoran
February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:11 am

Like Stacy, I hung with those in the popular culture in the ’60s and ’70s and there were all sorts of drugs around and available. But heroin was always in a different class.

Junkies were different, a completely different animal from even the worst coke-heads. And their families and (former) friends were usually the first to know, as they would steal them blind first.
Kirby McCain
February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:22 am

Rush Limbaugh gave Downey hell for his various public failures. This is so common for actors it’s almost like they feel undeserving for all they have. I enjoyed many of Hoffman’s performances and he will be missed.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:25 am

It is an illness and a moral failing combined, because unless you address the moral issues involved…you can never cure the illness.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:26 am

And the pusher should always be treated harsher by the law (and when caught often is). But how many victims they do leave in their wakes.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:27 am

You completely miss the point.
SJ Reidhead
February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:44 am

I can’t call it a moral failing, not when you ‘re dealing with someone who has a genetic tendency to addiction. Then, if a person is dealing with a genetic tendency toward depression, bi-polar, and are pumped full of medication they don’t need, I don’t call that a moral failing. With illegal substances, there is a criminal issue, but I don’t see it as a moral failing. I see it as a weakness. Once the addiction takes hold, nothing is going to stop that addiction until the person decides, themselves, to get help. The reason I say this is because I know individuals who are alcoholics, have problems with prescription meds. It’s very much not moral. It’s also a matter of hitting rock bottom and the person involved finally wanting help.

You just don’t know how much I loath licensed physicians and therapists who turn their psych patients into addicts. I don’t think they are much better than a cartel leader. They may even destroy more lives that way, legally. It’s very much a soap box to me. I’m not free to tell life stories, but trust me, we’re not talking a moral issue with the people who managed to pull their lives out of the gutter. I swear there’s not much difference between some of the psych drugs and cocaine or heroin – other than begin legal. They’re just as destructive, just as expensive, and just as lethal. At least society has some pity for the junkie. But, the person who has stumbled into a pill-pushing therapist’s clutches is considered a ‘moral failure’. They are given no consideration or benefit of the doubt as the medications destroy more and more of their lives – legally.

Big Pharma makes big bucks. The therapist makes big bucks. The pharmacy makes big bucks. It’s all perfectly legal. After what I’ve dealt with this year, I even consider some of the meds that are given to medicate and placate Alzheimer’s patients in the same league. So are meds for ADHD. My father was being turned into a zombie, tired, out of it, not comprehending the world around him. Sure, he’s Stage 5 AD, but, when I had a melt-down over the extreme cost of the meds, and began researching what he was taking, we pulled him off everything for the AD. Within 3 days he was far less lethargic. He was ‘with it’ as well as he could be, engaging in life. Sure, he’s in a different orbit, but once in awhile it connects with ours. I am still sickened over the fact that the meds robbed him of several years that he could have been more engaged.

The same family of meds are being given for ADHD, bi-polar, sleeping disorders, depression. They are addictive, and – in my opinion – pure evil. We recognize illegal substances as evil – but not the legal ones.

Sorry for the rant.
RKae
February 3rd, 2014 @ 4:46 am

I disagree. It IS a moral failing. Addiction as an illness? No. Heroin is addictive to pretty much EVERYBODY who shoots it into their arm. So why would anyone do it the first time? What is the “illness” that makes a person do it the first time; BEFORE any illness of addiction has a chance to exist?

I had a woman say to me years ago, “I don’t know why anyone WOULDN’T do heroin. Aren’t you curious what it’s like? Don’t you want to experience everything in life?”

THAT is a moral failing. That is idiocy.
SJ Reidhead
February 3rd, 2014 @ 5:01 am

Do you know anyone dealing with depression or bi-polar disorder and trying to deal with addiction to prescription medications for the problem? Have you ever met a young woman who was raped, her therapist keep proscribing medication to help her deal with it? Sorry, that’s NOT a moral failing. I don’t give a rip if someone burns their mind away with illegal substances. Just let them have at it. My concern is for people who have become addicted to medications proscribed to them, by someone they trusted. I just hope you never know the heartache of dealing with this sort of thing.
Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman Found Dead With Needle In Arm | The Lonely Conservative
February 3rd, 2014 @ 8:38 am

[…] The Other McCain notes that there are no recreational users of heroine. Unfortunately, use of the drug doesn’t seem to be slowing down. […]
Freddie Sykes
February 3rd, 2014 @ 11:43 am

I met a guy once who had a 3 inch long, 1/2 inch wide scar on the side of his neck. He had shot up, lite a cigarette and nodded off as it burned down while held against his neck.

What fun!
Quartermaster
February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:19 pm

Prescribe. To Proscribe is to forbid.
Quartermaster
February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:22 pm

The rant is, by and large, legit. Many of the meds given to people supposedly mentally ill are worse than what they put up with from the disease itself. I saw it in my daughter and a kid at church.
Most of the kids on things like Ritalin just have the problem of being energetic kids. The real problem is with the staff doesn’t want to deal with normal kids and those with chemical lobotomies are far easier to deal with.
RKae
February 3rd, 2014 @ 2:33 pm

I have an entire family of alcoholics. I chose not to drink. What a simple decision. If you never go down that road, it’s never an issue. If alcohol or drugs are never part of your life – for recreation or “social” experience – you will never turn to them in bad times and wind up overdoing them.

The only response to drugs and alcohol is “NEVER!”
RKae
February 3rd, 2014 @ 2:36 pm

I don’t take pleasure in it. I just don’t fawn over them, nor do I ignore it and talk about all their “great acting” or whatever. I’m tired of people poeticizing drug deaths. Recreational stupidity overwhelms and crushes someone, so we eulogize them. No.
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February 3rd, 2014 @ 4:07 pm

[…] The Pervert Rights Movement The Needle and the Spoon […]
cmehusky
February 3rd, 2014 @ 6:13 pm

I’m just glad they don’t make 714s no more!
Bob Belvedere
February 3rd, 2014 @ 6:26 pm

What is you major malfunction?!?

Here…try this:
http://thecampofthesaints.org/the-official-tcots-theme-song/
Bob Belvedere
February 3rd, 2014 @ 6:29 pm

In my Experimental Days [to coin a phrase], Heroin was on the other side of a line only fools crossed, just like free-basing.
Zohydro
February 3rd, 2014 @ 7:38 pm

I’m not really a great fan of southern rock, never was…
Zohydro
February 3rd, 2014 @ 7:53 pm

So isn’t Samantha Gailey…
Hoffman Planned Heroin Binge? : The Other McCain
February 3rd, 2014 @ 9:28 pm

[…] Sunday’s deliberately unsympathetic notice of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death — millionaire celebrity junkies don’t qualify for my pity — I hadn’t […]
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