If you go to the web site The Smoking Gun, Charles Barkley is one of the leaders in celebrity mug shots. Only rapper DMX (five) and O.J. Simpson (four) have appeared on the dubious list more than Sir Chuck, who is tied with convicted rapist Mike Tyson with three official mug shots posted for posterity.
The difference, of course, is in the crimes (of course). Barkley, by virtue of his personality, had a way of making his notable arrests sound funny. Clearly if Mike Tyson or DMX (not O.J.) handled the situations the way Barkley did it’s doubtful any would laugh and say, “Oh, that’s just DMX being DMX. He’s so silly.”
After all, Barkley is the guy who spit on a little girl during a game when he was playing for the Sixers, and was pretty much forgiven. How does that happen? Spit on a little girl (OK, his aim was off, but still…), spread some money around and everything goes back to the way it was?
Barkley, of course, was arrested in Milwaukee in December of 1991 when he punched some dude named Joseph McCarthy in the nose. Apparently McCarthy and his pals saw Charles hanging out in a Milwaukee bar early one morning and yelled, “Hey Barkley, show me how tough you are.”
That was followed by an invitation to fight which was RSVP’d with the right to the nose.
A few hours later, Charles was arrested and held in the local holding pen for four hours before posting $500 bond. Eventually, the case went to trial before Barkley beat the rap because of self defense.
Milwaukee isn’t the only city where ol’ Chuck mixed it up, either. There was that time in Orlando in 1997 when he picked up a guy and tossed him through a plate-glass window at a bar. Maybe it was Mickey Mouse? That joker Goofy? Either way, Barkley pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest and was sentenced to community service and ordered to pay $320 in fines and court costs.
That’s less than tip money on a random Tuesday night for a man of Barkley’s appetites.
But that doesn’t mean Barkley didn’t have regrets from that incident in Orlando.
“I regret we weren’t on the second floor,” he said.
See, that’s funny. After all, anyone who has ever been in a little dust up or traded some minor fisticuffs at a bar around 2 a.m. also says they would have preferred to throw a guy through a picture window or smacked him with a trash can Sonny Corleone style, but can’t. Just before the fists fly and the hold-me-back muscles flex, the thoughts of lawyers, jail cells and reality always rears its head.
But with Charles Barkley nothing ever rears its head. Instead, he gets to act the way we all want and all he has to do is pay a fine, cool his heels in the drunk tank for a few hours and moves on to the next little adventure.
It’s like some sort of night-life fantasy camp and Chuck is counselor. All we get to do is watch and laugh as he brawls, racks up crazy gambling debts, orders up everything on the menu and picks up all the checks while good-naturedly complaining about all the “freeloaders.”
And we laugh through it all because who doesn’t want throw around betting chips like confetti and still have enough to pay everyone’s tab? When most of us have to show restraint in nearly every aspect of our lives, Barkley has always been the opposite. We diet, he eats. We show temperance, he drinks. We save and count our pennies and Barkley gambles and wastes.
Sometimes even the regular folks get caught up in his wake. Even in tired, old Lancaster, Pa. where the Sixers used to hold their annual training camp, Barkley found all the hot nightlife spots. Needless to say that’s no small feat. Still, Barkley stories are rivaled only by Harrison Ford sightings from when he filmed the movie “Witness” back in the early 1980s. Barkley was (and is) the celebrity without the velvet ropes around himself. Everyone is granted access, though certain people are granted more/better access.
It’s kind of hard not to like a guy like that.
But has Barkley gone too far this time? And if so, what makes this time so different?
As most people who follow these things know, Barkley was arrested last week for suspicion of DUI in Scottsdale, Ariz. But that alone isn’t the shocking part even though, frankly, it’s pretty damn stupid. Bar fights, spitting and gambling are one thing, suspicion for DUI is something else altogether. If Barkley spits on a girl or rumbles in a bar, there is very little in the way of collateral damage, but DUI… sheesh, that’s bad.
Suspicion of DUI makes Barkley a potential menace to society. No, he’s not a bad guy and he’s no less interesting because of his many faults – faults for which he makes no apology nor hides. However, it seems as if the hand-wringing isn’t about the potential seriousness of the crime, but instead the trivial tabloid nature of the arrest report.
See, ol’ Charlie told the arresting officer that he was on his way to get… well, let’s just say he was in a big hurry. At the same time, Barkley may or may not have been traveling with a car filled with wine coolers, bear claws and Steve Urkel.
Because when you’re dashing off to do what Barkley says he was going to do, wine coolers, bear claws and Urkel are the top three things you need.
So is this the end for our man Chuck? Is someone going to finally put their foot down and tell him to clean up his act? Will TNT drop him from the NBA telecasts? Or could the good people of Alabama really elect him governor now?
No, of course not.
If anything Barkley might be more marketable now than ever before. People are talking about him and writing about him all over the country and asking the very same questions posed here.
What they seem to miss though is that we enable guys like Barkley because he is the clown. Charles may have tons of faults, but the role of the party guy with the lampshade on his head has paid off pretty well. Sure, the people around him might need years of therapy and the patience of Job to deal with their meal ticket, but to the rest of us – those watching from afar as if his life were nothing more than a sitcom – he’s just the clown.