Lisa and I watched Ray on Sunday. I feel like we were watching Walk the Line again. Different talented, tortured singer, different skin color, same struggles with pain, addiction, and hopelessness. The movie ended with Ray Charles’s alleged recovery from his drug addiction. Like Johnny Cash’s story in Walk the Line, the postscript claimed that they all lived happily ever after, implying that he was drug-free for the rest of his life. I don’t know Ray Charles (apart from his wonderful music), and I can’t comment on the veracity of that statement with any authority. But I have a tendency to suspect men who lie to their own families and even themselves about the depth and nature of their addiction when they claim to be clean.
Lord, may I never be famous enough to live like that. The more of these movies I see, the more I come to see fame as a curse, and not a blessing.
Enjoying relative anonymity,
Andrew