I have a bone to pick with celebrities who try to deny their responsibility as role models. That is what celebrity is...role modeling. We bestow it on our most talented, gifted or lucky as a kind of collective mirror in which we can reflect and imagine the very best part of ourselves. That is primary reasons they get our adoration, dedication and money.

So excuse me if I leave the room when I hear a nineteen year old starlet complains to Letterman or Leno that her meal at Spago was interrupted by an adoring fan with the temerity to ask for an autograph.

How much worse then, the case of Robert Downey, Jr.?

Even his severest critics will admit that Downey is a very talented young man. When he works he makes incredible amounts of money. He could date the most beautiful and eligible starlets in Hollywood. He would seem to have won the lottery of life. Handsome, talented, the fortunate son of a celebrity. By almost anyone’s standards he has the world by the tail. What does he do with it? Snort it up his nose.

There is, of course, nothing funny about people with drug dependency problems.

But I have a question for the hapless Mr. Downey.

Son, have you EVER used drugs when you DIDN’T get caught?

Downey has to be either the stupidest or unluckiest person I’ve ever heard of in that regard. Maybe both. He keeps getting caught in places that he must know he will be recognized. Palm Springs, Los Angeles...why doesn’t he make his way to Keokuk for a wild weekend? Maybe he would fare better.

As a kid I grew up in Los Angeles. I worked in Hollywood and Beverly Hills daily and in all those years I saw no more than half a dozen stars out and about. Aside from Peter Falk who shamelessly walked Rodeo Drive in his Columbo raincoat, they shunned coming out in public. Downey keeps being picked up wandering the streets in a drug induced state. He might as well wear antlers and a fur coat on opening day of hunting season.

His lack of self control is disappointing to his fans but it is a real slap in the face to anyone who has ever strived for the kind of success that is his to enjoy. I know people who would kill for one-tenth the opportunity that young man has squandered.

How many producers have dusted him off and given him one more chance? How many more will do so before they realize it is a losing proposition? How far down can this guy go?

Smart parents will use the Downey trevails to demonstrate to their kids just how destructive drugs can be. The sad and ironic truth is that the one bit of good Downey may do on this earth is to serve as a role model...a walking textbook on how to destroy your life.