Wednesday, March 2, 2011

What Would Morgan Shepherd Say to Charlie Sheen

If you can forget for a moment his five innocent children, Charlie Sheen’s televised national meltdown makes for riveting entertainment.

(How absolutely nutty must wife number three be if CHARLIE gets custody of the kids? He admits to ingesting more drugs than humanly possible and claims to be an extra-terrestrial warlock with an extraordinary brain, Adonis DNA and Tiger blood. And the crazier wife more dangerous to the kids? What must she be like? Extra-extra terrestrial?)

Now, one of my all-time favorite movies is NETWORK. As today's major networks suck on Charlie's teet for unpasteurized Rant Milk that translates into easy ratings, you can see a lot of Martin Sheen's son in Peter Finch’s stark-raving-mad television character.

Charlie, too, is mad as hell; at what, who knows, because surrounded by his "Goddesses" in an oversized home filled, he says, with peace and love and good food, he also claims to be a winner. In fact, a bi-winner! (Charlie’s answer when asked by ABC's 20/20 if he’s bi-polar.)

I’m glued to all of it, checking Twitter by the hour to see if @CharlieSheen has posted.

I need a break, and a shower, and something to uplift my spirit and restore faith in all that is decent and good in people who are of this world and have human blood, and go home to one woman, and won't likely be carted away to the hospital any time soon for ingesting a briefcase full of cocaine with half the cast of Debbie Does Dallas.

I got what I needed, and it came from an unlikely source, NASCAR driver Morgan Shepherd, who is the polar opposite of Sheen, most notably in his faith and humility and charitable nature.

Morgan went to Sin City and put on his Superman outfit.

I'm going to rip the story right from Faith Motorsports, because they tell it so well --

“Shepherd catches shoplifter: Most NASCAR drivers don't come to mind when you think of Las Vegas crimefighters, but then again, most NASCAR drivers aren't 69-year-old Morgan Shepherd.

The veteran of 44 NASCAR seasons was getting out of his rental car in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store Monday evening just minutes away from Las Vegas Motor Speedway just as three men burst from the store's entrance with security forces trailing behind. Thats when Shepherd, a daily jogger and fitness perfectionist, sprang into action.

"I just got out and took off after them," Shepherd said. "I caught one of them just as they were getting ready to hop a little wall at the end of the parking lot. I yanked him down and got on top of him."

Shepherd said in a matter of seconds a Las Vegas police officer pitched the ageless NASCAR driver a pair and handcuffs and continued pursuit of the other two suspects, along with the store's security force.

"I cuffed him and sat on top of him," Shepherd said. "The police department officers showed up and asked if I could hold him a while longer while they ran down the others. I told them he wasn't going anywhere."

Shepherd said while the young shoplifter pleaded with him to let him go and about the possibility of going to jail, Shepherd used the time to lecture the youth about his poor choices.
(Faith Motorsports)(3-1-2011)

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