When the gods go slumming

"I suppose that's one of the ironies of life-
doing the wrong thing at the right moment."

--Charlie Chaplin


Fig.1 Robert and Charlie, two of the Universe's best hits

In high school English class, we were once given a special assignment: read up on a VIP in history and write epistles as if we were acquainted with that person. This glorified book report affected my life right then, and the aftershocks still rumble today. At that stage of my impressionable teen years, I was watering the seed of my current passion for classic cinema, so the person I chose was that king of the silent screen, Charlie Chaplin.

Sir Charles is unquestionably a complex and fascinating person, and by many accounts, the most famous person to have ever lived. There was a time when no creed, culture, geography or language was a barrier to his celebrity. Everyone who had ever seen a motion picture knew who he was, and still do. Watching his films and studying his life, one comes to realize that his creative genius was a force of nature, as inherent and apparent in his being as the curl in his hair. I have since read four biographies on the man, viewed every surviving film he ever made (80+), collected photo essays and other books related to his life, and even visited his now historically preserved old studio in the heart of Hollywood, which was nothing less than a religious experience for me.

The day came when I couldn't put off watching Richard Attenborough's biographical film, Chaplin, with Robert Downey Jr. in the titular role. I was never a fan of Ally McBeal, and at the time, the only perception I had in my mind of Robert was of his being in that show which I despised. He was persona non grata by association. I had no faith in the guy, even before he went on his now infamous shame spiral.

Fig.2 Good riddance?

But when I finally saw Chaplin, I was completely baffled by what I saw. Robert had resurrected Charlie, a luminous star who had been crucified by his exile from America in 1953, reborn and re-appreciated in all his glory and flaws through this young, idiosyncratic upstart actor. Robert was essentially Dead To Me, but after seeing him as Chaplin, I moved him to the On Notice board in my mind. There was potential there, and I couldn't ignore that. I was ripe to change my mind entirely... eventually.

Time passed, I read more and watched more, occasionally stumbling upon news of this crazy Robert Downey character's debauched antics. Pooped out on the other side of self-imposed exile, he did a few roles in low-key movies, the best of which, in my opinion, was Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. I soon found that I was pleasantly surprised to see him involved in David Fincher's Zodiac, and then came along Iron Man, which finally shoved this middle-aged Phoenix out the ashes. Now he's working on a big-budget sequel and doing a wonderful job as Sherlock Holmes, one of my favorite literary characters of all time. He's definitely off the boards and written into the "Gotta love this guy" column now.


Fig.3 It's a good thing that people (and minds) can change

The couple of interviews he gave in Esquire magazine in the past few years contributed to his appeal in my heart. He had a mature and candid attitude toward questions of his stupor-addled years, often describing his thoughts in curiously metaphysical terms. He has an uncanny ability to express his spiritual concepts in metaphors so deceptively simple they float in space, dense as a neutron star in their mystical concision:

"It's something that I struggle with--the embarrassment at being on the side of the coin that no one else had a problem with when you were tails-down."

"I'm in this rarefied air... and it has a shelf life--and then it goes stale."

"There is a bumping up of infrastructure so when the plan makes itself known, it doesn't fall through the cracks--I honestly don't know what the next marching orders are gonna be from the good-guy Cosmos."

"I can't hit my ass with both hands tryin' to figure this mystery. I just know that it winds up coming back to all that old-time religion stuff, except you add science and physics and all of a sudden, faith."


Fig.3 Are you a cog or a mechanic to your own machine?

When you come up with gems like those, you've definitely traded the coke for something... else.

One interviewer noted that Robert has a little Buddha on a spring glued to his car's dash. Reading his words, I see that now, Robert is the spring-loaded Buddha on his own dashboard, speaking life's wisdom so jostled by starts and stops. He's especially suited to spouting such circumspection because of his past, and could never have come to those conclusions had he not hit bottom and then crawled back. He probably wouldn't be as good as he is now if he didn't get chewed up a little.

We all love an underdog, but why is it some people who seem to have all the brains or the talent or the charisma seem prone toward personal catastrophe?

Charlie once said, "The human race I prefer to think of as an underworld of gods. When the gods go slumming they visit the earth. You see, my respect for the human race is not one hundred percent."

In Buddhism, there are dozens of levels of existence: heavens, hells, animal realms, human, god, bacterial, hungry ghosts, etc. Karma determines where a soul is incarnated, and oftentimes, one makes it to the highest god realm. This realm is just short of nirvana, so even the gods are still subject to karma. When all the good karma that got them into the god realm burns off, they sometimes get dumped back into a human realm. The gods go slumming, and they are so acclimated to the creature comforts of the higher realms that they freak out a little when they come back to the suffering of Earth. They're higher-functioning humans than most, but they get frustrated in this lifetime.

Charlie, with all his ego, recognized his own fall from the god realm into this one. He was at once respected for his art and maligned for his controversial personal problems.

It's no mystery why Robert portrayed Charlie so perfectly in the biopic--they're from the same stock. Both great artists in their own manner, so equally inspired and troubled by superhuman foibles, and redemption is a significant part of their stories. The same might be said for Michael Jackson or Tiger Woods--supreme talents with issues, redemption on the horizon.

When the gods go slumming, the horizon is theirs for the taking. They long to go back to it somehow; their home is that place where Heaven meets Earth. How they walk off into it is up to them.


Fig.4 Even a poor Tramp is entitled to some happiness