Flying Solo

Very often people confuse Hollywood movie stars with the characters they play.

For example, I'm fairly sure Christian Bale isn't Batman. James McAvoy doesn't have twenty-three different personalities. Tom Hanks doesn't sit on park benches eating chocolates. And apparently Harrison Ford isn't quite the pilot Han Solo is.

In his second publicized airplane event, Ford mistakenly landed on the taxiway instead of the runway at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. In the process, he flew dangerously close over an American Airlines 737 that was on the taxiway waiting for clearance to take off.

Contrary to popular belief, after airport officials questioned him, his first question was not, "You mean this isn't Alderaan?"

Landing a role isn't like landing a plane. And unlike his Star Wars aircraft, there was no chance his old biplane was going to make the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs.

Instead, it just sputtered to a bad landing, which may cost Ford suspension or even revocation of his pilot's license.

This incident comes on the heels of bringing his plane down for a hard landing on a golf course in Santa Monica a couple years ago, and being seriously injured in the process.

Commercial pilots have a mandatory retirement age of 65. Ford is 74. And even though there's no such age limit for recreational pilots, and while he's an experienced, respected one, there does come a time when reflexes, vision, concentration, memory and alertness just aren't what they used to be.

For me that time is in status meetings.

Anyway, in the same way I believe drivers of a certain age should be required to regularly prove their abilities before they get behind the wheel, pilots should also have to be tested to see if they're airworthy.

My guess is that Ford will just get a temporary suspension of his license, and then be back in the air. It's one of the perks of being one of the biggest movie stars in the world. And naturally, however long that suspension is, at the end of it he'll be even older than he is now.

Or as Han would say, "Here's where the real fun starts."

Riding the news cycle

If you've been anywhere on planet earth this week, you know Harrison Ford crash landed his vintage plane on Pen Mar Golf Course in Santa Monica. As you'd expect, the farce and con that is social media ran rampant with Han Solo, Millennium Falcon, Chewie, Indiana Jones and Brian Williams jokes. I've included a couple of my favorites.

Fortunately Mr. Ford survived the landing with a cut head, broken ankle and fractured pelvis.

He's a big star so it's a big story. But here's the thing: is this story about his wife racing to the hospital to be at his side news?

Obviously Calista Flockhart has read the celebrity wife manual, which states very clearly in section 4a, paragraph 3.1.1, that a wife must race to her husband's side if he's been in a plane crash.

It's a good thing she has the manual, because how else would she have known what to do?

It's sad when something so natural and decent and expected becomes a news story. It exploits their pain, and even though they're public figures I believe they have a right to privacy - such as it is with the interwebs - just like the rest of us.

Besides, if the news uses headlines to report on a wife going to her husband after an accident, it means I have to look harder for the story about Kim Kardashian dying her hair blonde.