Ubuntu :: Using Crontab To Restart Pidgin?

Pidgin likes to randomly crash on me, and sometimes it takes me awhile to notice. So I thought why not make a script and cron job to see if pidgin is running and restart it if needed. Sounded easy but having all kinds of problems. Here's my cron line...
Code:
*/1 * * * * /home/justin/chkpdgn.sh >> /home/justin/test.log 2>&1
I run "tail -f /home/justin/test.log" to keep an eye on the cron output.

Here's the chkpdgn.sh script...
Code:
#!/bin/bash
SERVICE='pidgin'
if ps ax | grep -v grep | grep $SERVICE > /dev/null
then
echo "$SERVICE service running, everything is fine"
else
echo "$SERVICE is not running"
$SERVICE
fi

Running that works fine when I do it, but when cron does it pidgin never starts and I get this error...
Code:
pidgin is not running
error: line 15: bad flag alias index: 0
error: line 15: bad flag vector alias
error: line 16: bad flag alias index: 0
error: line 16: bad flag vector alias
That goes on for quite awhile up to like line 60000 and pidgin runs but doesn't show up in the me menu. Any way to restart pidgin when it crashes?