The High Price of Living

HEATH LEDGER
(1979 – 2008)

Well, this sucks.

I learnt of Ledger’s death from my copy of the Sun this morning, as my tired eyes pored over the day’s news on my way to work. It’s kind of a morning ritual of mine, to sip my Red Bull while I digest the Tabloid’s daily dose of depressing stories.

I heard he got pretty messed up over the Joker role for the new Batman film, even suffering from chronic insomnia as he got into the mid-set of the homicidal lunatic. Did all of this lead to the drug overdose? Who knows, maybe time will tell. It’s just such a fucking waste, he was a talented actor – and he had a good four decades of roles left in him.

His premature death was a little unexpected, but isn’t that always the way with celebrities? Those fuckers who dance with the devil every night, taunting the Grim Reaper with their over excessive life-styles, well they always live to be 100 years old (though Keith Richards doesn’t count, because he’s a vampire). It’s the quiet achievers who seem to slip off this mortal coil with unsettling ease.

Ledger was always special, because unlike most of our “Famous Aussie Imports”, he was actually born in Australia* (Perth to be exact). His surprising death reminded my of an equally surprising near-death story from last year, namely Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt.

Owen Wilson for fuck’s sake. The actor so laid back he couldn’t play a Cowboy without coming across as a Californian Surfer. Who would have seen that suicide attempt coming?**

After Owen was released from hospital, he spent time recuperating with his brother Luke and best mate Woody Harrelson.

These are the guys Owen hangs out with. The two most care free stoners in the history of Hollywood. I can imagine these guys getting together to smoke weed, and eat breakfast cereal at four in the afternoon while watching Spongebob Squarepants. I can’t imagine depression and suicide coming into the equation at all.

To make matters even stranger, the chick Owen decided to kill himself over was his ex-lover Kate Hudson:

A chick so scrawny that her front, looks like a ten year old boy’s back.

Stranger still, Owen was sick with grief because Kate had found new love with this Shit Nuts Dax Shepherd:

Whose main claim to fame, is acting on Ashton Kutcher’s reality TV show Punk’d. A show so god-awful, that most people would rather watch their families burn to death, than a single episode.

And my, what a fairy tale couple they made:



Hollywood is god damn bizarre.


* I’m not saying you have to be born in Australia to be considered Australian, I just always found it ironic that our "greatest exports" didn’t originate from the home land. Eg – Mel Gibson (New York), Nicole Kidman (Hawaii), Sam Neill (Northern Ireland), Russell Crowe (New Zealand), Hugo Weaving (Nigeria), Guy Pearce (England), Christ even our most beloved Race Horse, Phar Lap, was a kiwi.

** Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt surprised everybody, especially Online Gambling Services which didn’t even offer him as a "Celebrity Suicide bet" (like they were with Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and Katie Holmes).

*** And just to complete a trifecta of side notes, check out this story. It seems the Westboro Baptist Church will be protesting at Ledger’s funeral, because he played a gay man in the film Brokeback Mountain. The Dickheads.