"What was the biggest complaint?" Stern wanted to know. The son could not itemize, in fact, he couldn't even stand by the assertion, in his movie script, that his father was an asshole. He took the blame onto himself: "I was a little bitch. I just complained about everything."
Howard keeps trying: "But was he not there enough for you, in your opinion?" Nick answers with exasperation: "No, he was there."
Howard restates the question, as something of a joke: "He should have not been there?" Robin echoes: "He was there too much." Howard: "Yeah, big pain in the ass."
And the conversation moves on to the next topic. I can't find the full episode, but there is this contemporaneous (2016) written recap at Stern's website. I was interested in Rob Reiner's rejection of medical professionals and embrace of the idea that the parent know what is best for his child:
“I had no experience as a father what to do with your child who was struggling with these things,” Rob said. Even medical professionals and experts’ opinions offered little help with what Rob called their “cookie cutter approach.”...
Once he completed the script for “Being Charlie”.... Nick put it in front of his father to simply get his feedback. It was Rob who then pushed Nick to add an “emotional hook” to reflect everything he had gone through.
“The first draft was like, 190 pages and the father [character] was a complete asshole,” Rob told Howard. After convincing his son to tone the dad’s assholishness down a notch, Rob agreed to help develop the movie with Nick. Though the two Reiners revealed that they would get into fights on set, they agreed that making this movie together has brought them closer together.
“What I learned through the experience of making [‘Being Charlie’] is what I kind of always knew,” Rob told Howard. “You know your child better than experts know your child.”
Posts
84 comments:
We need more insane asylums.
There's a reason that doctors are discouraged from treating their own children. Most times it takes a disinterested third party to see the problems clearly.
I guess Rob had an assholier than thou attitude.
Should have listened to the doctors and gotten his child the needed medical treatments. Sad. I wish this story would drop from the news cycle. Stop exploiting a tragedy and respect the family's request for privacy and respect? They're dead. Mistakes were made. If only they'd listened to medical science, instead of trying to make entertainment off the the need for medical care.
Stop exploiting the kids.can you? Find healthier things to focus on? It's never too late to emulate Christ and respect science. He loves us all as He made us, ann. Humble yourself and accept you are not smarter than God? God bless the family.
I am musing that we - or at least many of us - think we "know our child better" than anyone (or understand people from an entirely different culture to be more or less just like me, which was my son concerning Iraq). Basically people are good at self-delusion. Constant checking against reality is the only prescription that comes to me. But that's very hard to do sometimes, where reality versus perception is not clear-cut, or where frankly one really doesn't want to know if reality and perception are not the same.
We are facing the prospect of a relative with Alzheimer's - still early-stage, but we know what's coming. We know there is a possibility, down the pike, that he'll get violent, and he's married to a very small woman, and now I'm wondering if we'll recognize the point where he needs to be no longer in a house with her unsupervised. Let the reality checks begin.
Sorry, my SIN concerning Iraq. It seems that autocorrect doesn't encounter the word "sin" very often.
Sometimes talking about stuff really doesn’t help. It just makes you dwell on it even more. Maybe making the film just pushed him farther away. CC, JSM
Recalls that raylon givens line
Children that are excessively parented seem to have anxiety and independence issues. These kids can't handle stress. I know that Nick Reiner's sudden and berserk behavior is something much worse, but the over parenting stuff is still kind of bad.
What’s surprising is how much he looks like his dad now. Same body type. Same beard.
Friends of ours (a couple) had a daughter late in life. A great couple. Daughter got caught up in drugs. They tried everything. She was walking zombie. Had a fight with her parents. Sound familiar? Stormed off. Took her own life in a motel room.
The son refers to himself as a “little bitch”?
Parents do know their own children better than doctors or "experts" and the professionals very often take a "cookie-cutter approach," and very often it doesn't work. But as someone said up thread, there is a reason why the tradition evolved that doctors should not treat their own children.
I am a very good teacher. I have won awards. I have had students come back 25 years later and credit me with their success. I could see all the things that his schools and teachers were doing wrong when my son had crisis after crisis. And everything I tried--the non-cookie-cutter approaches--failed and failed just as miserably as the things the "experts" were trying.
The tragic fact is that we don't have consistently successful ways of treating addiction--or for that matter most other serious mental illnesses.
I coached Little League for a few yearswith a man who I will call L. He had his son, a talented ball player, take extra practice after the rest of us were done. He did this after every practice.
I told him one day that I don't push my own talented son that much because I'm afraid he'll kill me in my sleep...meant as a joke. Four years later, Junior took a machete and sliced up his dad to death. The body was found in a shallow grave in the forest that surrounds us.
I don't make that joke anymore.
Is anybody on this thread familiar with fetal alcohol syndrome? Does Nick sound like someone suffering from that syndrome? I know only a very little about but what little I know lines up very well.
He was in rehab at age 15. I keep coming back to that. Means he was doing drugs at...13, 14?
Middle School. Can't envision that scenario. But it happened.
Earlier this morning I was thinking, how does a man who kills his parents fall asleep?
I imagined Nick in his cell falling asleep, and it hit me. Nick may suffer from a journeyless (not a word) aimless? dreamless existence. I can see it in his eyes, in every picture of the guy. I know we maybe not supposed to talk like that... unscientific or whatever.
YouTube: Werner Herzog: Outcasts, Religion, and Penguins
@Goetz von Berlichingen, I knew a similar case that went a different direction. It had to do with academics, not athletics, but one of my son’s best friends from middle school committed suicide during his senior year in college after his Chinese-American parents played “Tiger Mom” all the kid’s life. None of the boy’s accomplishments was ever good enough, he could have done better, and one day the boy broke.
Nick was an addict, and that has to be solved first. The Reiners kept helping Nick, bad move. They should have cut him loose, completely. I've read there were times he was homeless, but that seemed temporary, then back in the house, and financial support. Even making that stupid movie. Nick needed to hit rock bottom...surrender. Step one...surrender. Until then nothing will work.
Step two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Nick didn't need to get closer to his dad. He needed to get closer to god.
Lem: “ how does a man who kills his parents fall asleep?”
It may be the first peace and quiet he’s had in his life. CC, JSM
And don’t worry: I was thousands of miles away when my dad got run over by another old guy. And my mom’s pancreatic cancer was fully documented. CC, JSM
Beverly Hills problems…
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSbhg74lPLU/?igsh=Mzc3ZTVlOWMwZA==
(It was just 2 random old guys leaving a casino after the early bird buffet. Would have been better if they were fighting over a Keno girl, but nope.) CC, JSM
Mother knows best:
“Angela Lansbury’s problems with her son, Anthony (born 1952), began in the late 1960s, when he was a teenager. Both Anthony and his sister Deidre became involved in drug use during that era in California, starting with cannabis and progressing to heroin. Lansbury described discovering this in the 1960s, noting that Anthony and Deidre had fallen in with an “unsuitable crowd” heavily involved with drugs.
The issues escalated amid the counterculture scene in Malibu, where drug use was rampant. Anthony’s addiction became severe—he later admitted starting marijuana at age 12, moving to LSD and then heroin, and friends of his died from overdoses. Deidre’s involvement with a crowd influenced by Charles Manson added urgency, though the drug problems affected both children independently.
These concerns prompted Lansbury and her husband Peter Shaw to move the family from California to a rural farmhouse in County Cork, Ireland, in 1970. Lansbury explicitly stated the relocation was to remove her children from bad influences and help them recover, with Ireland chosen partly for its simplicity and distance from the drug scene (and her mother’s Irish roots). Anthony recovered relatively quickly there, while Deidre took longer, but both eventually overcame their addictions.
Lansbury paused her career for a year to focus on family during this time, and she credited the move with saving her children.“
the creep is a demon. A spoiled hollywood loser with a drug problem - fed the demon.
Big Mike: L was like that with everything his son did, including academics. Jr. found solace in alcohol and pills, it turns out.
AFAIK, Jr. has been judged to be insane and unable to face trial. He'll be institutionalized forever, it appears. L once shared with me that his Dad put a lot of pressure on him as a child and nothing L did was ever good enough. L then went on to be just like his Dad.
I never understood that. Not really. I guess damaged people raise damaged people. But it doesn't have to be that way, does it? Self-awareness is a gift, not a weakness.
It took a couple decades, but my nephew finally kicked opioids. One of the destructive side effects is that the addict it does not mature into an adult but remains essentially a teenage child. This is a nightmare scenario for any parent. My nephew is 40 now and he has the maturity of about a 30 year old, given where he came from this is a huge accomplishment.
There but for the grace of Odin, go I.
I have a difficult time feeling sorry for addicts.
Sorry - not sorry.
I know the AA steps have worked for many people, and that is great, but the notion that everyone needs to hit rock bottom and then surrender and all the rest of that nonsense is a bit silly. I went to meetings for a few months when I was a very heavy drinker and found the daily companionship useful, but the program as a whole left me cold after a while. Surrender to my higher power? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? At any rate, I no longer drink or do drugs, but it was I who quit, no higher power had anything to do with it.
CJ: “ Middle School. Can't envision that scenario. But it happened.”
Boomers grew up worshipping juvie delinquents. Road death songs, west side story, The Outsiders, etc. Rob Reiner was part of the Garry Marshall family by marriage for a while- the guy who brought us The Fonz. So they brought their kids up like JDs. Think of Polanski’s victim. Or Brooke Shields. CC, JSM
OTOH, as other commenters have pointed out, you can also helicopter your kids to death. So who fucking knows. CC, JSM
Howard: “ There but for the grace of Odin, go I.”
Careful - the Vikings used psychoactive fungi. Probably fueled the Berserkers. CC, JSM
It's interesting John Mosby. You can use the psychoactive fungi to go berserk and then later use it to overcome your PTSD.
32 years is a long time. It's easy to boil that down into a single, simple narrative, but it's not always accurate. Did the Reiners reject all professional help or did they seek it and in the end consider it ineffective and worthless? Did the Reiners refuse to cut Nick off or did they try it and then find it hard to stick to their resolution when he kept coming back?
Given what we know about Rob Reiner, it wouldn't be wildly off-base to consider him opinionated and unwilling to admit that he might be wrong or uniformed (quite like Archie -- and Mike -- in "All in the Family"), but some details, all the twists and turnings through the years, can be lost in that assumption.
We are living in "All in the Family's" world now. One difference may be that our Glorias and Edith are as opinionated and strident as our Mikes and Archies.
addictions to pain killers - I do have sympathy. Living with chronic pain sucks.
"Sorry, my SIN concerning"
And...what is a SIN?"
The difference between Lansbury and Reiner is that his roots were in Los Angeles. He just didn’t see the dangers the same way an outsider saw them.
I saw a few seconds of the father menacingly ranting in the Reiners' film while the son was silenced. I find it hard to believe Rob allowed it to become public if it didn't have some basis in the truth. There may have been parts when the son was just as bad.
There's something to be said for the WASP/Nordic emotional reticence Hollywood scorns.
Son in law
Don't bring your fucked in the head loser issue to my Christmas party.
I have known a couple of beautiful families with strong, values-driven parents who raised strong, values-driven children, only to have one of them fall prey to addiction while the rest of the children thrived. To witness such a thing is to understand life is mysterious, there are no easy parenting answers, and there but for the grace of God go I.
I guess making a film together or even having a live-in yoga instructor is not the panacea that the Reiner's hoped for....There are many thousands of addicts in America who live just at the edge of their family's forbearance. I wonder how this murder will effect them and their families. Will it motivate recovery or further despair? It seems to me that if the Reiners, with all their resources and sophistication, ended up in this absolutely worst case scenario, then it is not a cheering moment for them.
Every commenter here who has done drugs know people from the old days who : Od'd , incarcerated, functional addicts, casual users, overcame addiction, lost interest in drugs.
And, know familes of multiple kids who had one addict loser and the others were normal/successful.
Howard - Hah! CC, JSM
"addictions to pain killers - I do have sympathy. Living with chronic pain sucks."
Serious addicts are no longer doing drugs for fun. They are doing drugs to temporarily kill the pain.
The History Channel Vikings TV show had an interesting bit about a guy who becomes a berserker. In an earlier battle, he gets an arrow wound in the arm, which becomes infected. He asks his mates to cut it off (with typical Scandi humor - "I never liked that arm anyway.") But the infection has already spread too far. So he becomes a one-armed Berserker. IIRC the show depicted the usefulness of the tactic (making the enemy break formation to deal with this crazy guy) pretty well. No ergot tripping, though. CC, JSM
"Ralph L said...
I saw a few seconds of the father menacingly ranting in the Reiners' film while the son was silenced"
Yep. Seeing that makes it easy to imagine nice guy Rob going off the deep end, and on and on and on about other stuff while arguing with others.
Nick Reiner is 32 years old. He has (or had) access to significant wealth, as well as to powerful people and outlets like Howard Stern--and Rob Reiner--to say whatever he wanted to say, and to live however he wanted to.
At some point Nick's problems are no longer Rob Reiner's fault, if they ever were. None of his other kids ever tried to kill him.
"about why he had written a script portraying his father as an asshole"
Think of the millions who could have written that script.
Rob Reiner has been my target over the years. For very good reasons. But I will say that he seems to have tried his best when it comes to his son Nick. Maybe he could have done more (doing less Hollywood stuff and more Dad stuff, less public politicking stuff) though that's a criticism that could be leveled at most of us.
Reiner like most Liberals/Leftists wasn't a "War on drugs" type. Quite the opposite. But standard for Beverly Hills. Had Nick Reiner been 32 in the 50s its doubtful he would've been a drug addict. Too hard to get drugs like H. Too many barriers and disincentives.
Its possible (anything is) but not likely.
We'll probably find out during the trial (assuming there is one) that Rob Reiner was a raging asshole. That might be the defense.
Decriminalization of drugs makes it easier for people of weak character and the mentally ill to destroy their lives. And those around them. But hey...freedom. Just don't say the wrong thing in public - or you'll get fired.
Ocean: "Had Nick Reiner been 32 in the 50s its doubtful he would've been a drug addict."
In Hollywood? I thought the 50s were the high point of doctors prescribing all kinds of crap to actors and their hangers-on. Marilyn Monroe, for instance. CC, JSM
“None of his other kids ever tried to kill him.”
Always look at the bright side. Only one outra three.
“If you read between the lines . . .” - Rob Reiner
Robert mitchum went to prison for a small amount of pot in the 40s
33% of his kids wanted him dead. Less than 50%. I’d say that was damn fine parenting.
It’s interesting to me no one is talking about the mom. He killed her too.
One parent I get. But both? Isn’t that being a bit too critical?
As the old joke says - now he’s an orphan.
They always go over the top in Hollywood.
https://www.ksl.com/article/51421718/very-chilling-mia-bailey-sentenced-to-50-years-to-life-in-prison-for-murder-of-parents
BREAKING: Mia Bailey, the trans woman accused of shooting both parents and attempting to shoot brother in Southern Utah, was sentenced to two consecutive 25 to life sentences Friday morning.
Autism, schizophrenia, transgender.
Regardless of his issues with drugs, failure and his parents, I doubt it would have happened if he hadn't gotten totally wasted that night, or if when he did, he was far away. He was in a drunken drug-fueled state of rage and delirium to do that. You got to keep people who get that way out of your life, even if they are your kids. You probably can't help them from the position of a parent anyway.
If you get on a NY subway or many a Chicago street, there is one looking at you with dozens of prior assaults under his belt.
Simulant?
Nick Reiner was (is?) a drug addict, and drug addicts oftimes do very bad things.
NY post.
Schizophrenic and drug abuser. For now.
The outlet stated that Nick's substance misuse exacerbated his schizophrenia and that he had just received treatment at a costly rehab centre in Los Angeles that focuses on mental illness and drug abuse.
He had been receiving treatment at a ritzy Los Angeles mental health and substance abuse facility favored by the rich and powerful that charges an eye-popping $70,000 per month, according to the outlet.
If this was the case why did they ask that he be invited to the party?
Because they are assholes.
were
We'll probably find out during the trial (assuming there is one) that Rob Reiner was a raging asshole. That might be the defense.
Well, since neither Reiner nor the person who knew him best (his wife) will be able to testify, it might work.
These concerns prompted Lansbury and her husband Peter Shaw to move the family from California to a rural farmhouse in County Cork, Ireland, in 1970.
Two separate branches of my husband's family left LA in the 1970s to move to quieter and safer climes for exactly this reason: someone(s) in the family was in the grip of addiction and in a crowd that wanted the person kept that way.
One branch made it out, ultimately, though there were some rough times. The other branch - all but one member retained that LA attitude, even in the absence of the coke, and they are all (except the one, who left via divorce) a hot mess to this day.
Page six
Conan O’Brien reportedly stopped guests from calling 911 on Nick Reiner at his holiday party over the weekend.
“They got in an argument, the father and son [at the party]. It got so bad and loud [that] someone wanted to call the police to report it,” an insider told the Daily Mail Friday.
“But Conan stepped in and said, ‘It’s my house, my party, I’m not calling the police.’ He talked them out of calling the police.”
A second source echoed those statements, noting that some guests worried that Nick needed to be placed on a psychiatric hold due to his behavior.
“When the s–t was hitting the fan, somebody said, ‘We need to call the police.’ The conversation was about getting this kid put into a mental-health hold,” the source told the outlet.
Your being an a-hole is not sufficient to justify your murder. It's not a defense. If it turns out to be, if it works as a defense, that's a terrible thing.
The main defense used by the same lawyer, and still hoped for by the Menedez brothers, is that they were abused by dad, and mom didn't help. Even if true that should never justify murder.
"Your being an a-hole is not sufficient to justify your murder. "
Thanks. I was getting worried.
"Your being an a-hole is not sufficient to justify your murder. "
Sorry, but I no longer believe this to be a Universal Truth.
I am Laslo.
Stunned: "[Nick Reiner is a] Schizophrenic and drug abuser."
That made me think of something no one has brought up - not even Gutfeld, who is big on this issue:
So are most of the chronic homeless. If someone like Nick R, in a family with all those resources, can't be made harmless, what do you think is the destructive potential of all those mentally ill addicts pooping on our sidewalks? Do we wait until a guy slashes a couple of throats before intervening, or do we take drastic action now?
We're so distracted (me included) by the love/hate Rob Reiner's politics that we're missing how Nick exemplifies the ticking time bombs in our urban centers.
(Gutfeld's idea is Homeless Towns - put them in distant settlements, like closed military bases or some of the defunct mill towns, give them access to their drugs and also access to help if they want it. The only people they'll hurt are each other.) CC, JSM
"Gutfeld's idea is Homeless Towns"
When driving the endless open areas here in Nevada, some with nothing for as far as you can see in any direction, I thought of this too. A huge government program (at a fraction of what homelessness is costing us now) could build infrastructure and supply basic needs in a remote area with very low cost housing. Legally, it would be voluntary as an alternative to jail, and if drugs were allowed, it would be an easy choice or them. Even have specialized police to intervene in the case of serious violence, or spontaneous tyrants emerging. It would not be any worse a place than skid row in L.A. or similar places we support and maintain now, which already have all the negative this would have.
If he thought he was a little bitch before, just wait 'till he hits the Big House.
All of a sudden, he’s a schizophrenic? I have my doubts. If true, that changes the whole ball game. Schizophrenics are the most tortured souls you’ll ever see. It’s very unsettling to behold. So I temper my sympathy with extreme caution.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia several years ago and was treated with medication. Doesn’t mean he was taking that medication. Most likely off meds and on street drugs, meth.
He comes across as profoundly delusional—someone undone by his own incompetence and inability to function socially. Despite being handed every possible advantage, he still managed to ruin his life, and at some point seems to have realized how empty and embarrassing that failure was. Rather than reckon with it, he chose the most monstrous path imaginable simply to feel seen or talked about. I don’t buy the excuse that drugs “made him do it.” This isn’t some misunderstood victim — this is someone with a deeply warped ego, a serial killer in the making who chose violence as a way to matter.
Apparently Rob Reiner told someone at the party he is afraid of Nick. He should have been hospitalized, committed to a mental institution, not paraded around the Christmas party. He could have killed some innocent person there. The parents played the ultimate price for not committing him to a mental facility.
Peachy said it best in the first comment. We need insane asylums. The Supreme Court said in the 1970s that a person's freedom is the guiding principle when it comes to mental health.
I think that is crazy.
I have a 75-year-old sibling who says she is diagnosed as bipolar but her behavior fits Narcissistic Personality Disorder. She would like to me about her diagnosis. She has cheated everyone in her life. Family, friends, even some who are barely acquaintances.
I have no legal standing. Agencies tell me they can't force her to accept services. She has to cure herself, apparently.
We recently watched the movie "Gifted". It seems apropros to this topic of the Reiners. Should watch and reflect if you have children or grand children yourselves.
Very good movie with great acting by child actress Mckenna Grace. It is about the subject of the struggles of raising a child who has special talents (gifted in math). The mail thrust was how do you help the child develop into a healthy human being, balanced with how do you nurture/support and cultivate their gift.
Helicopter parenting? Stage mother syndrome pushing the child beyond their limits? Using the child for your own ego? Neglecting their gift? Isolating the child from normal children and stunting the child? Separating the child from childhood things so she can be "special". SO many things to consider.
A back... black hole... whore h/t NAACP is a necessary, but nut required condition. An inconvenience is sufficient cause to justify aborting a "burden" in the modern ethical model. Was it Planned?
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.