Monthly Archives: May 2009

Football

Michael Vick: “I’m Gonna Take This Not Killing Dogs Thing One Day at a Time”

vick.jpgMichael Vick, the ex-NFL quarterback recently released from prison, has promised to turn over a new leaf and is already making great strides to do so. According to sources close to Vick, he did not kill a single dog during his first 24 hours of freedom.

Reporters camped outside Vick’s Hampton, Virginia home, hoping to get a glimpse of his first hours of freedom. Vick was seen greeting family and friends, eating dinner, and watching television. No muffled canine screams were discerned, nor did Vick repair to his backyard to dig any shallow graves by the light of the moon.

“It’s hard to get used to life back on the outside,” said a family friend who wished to remain anonymous. “He just got out of the joint. He’s gonna wanna do all the things he used to do. He told me that when he walked in the front door of his house, the first thing he wanted to do was sit on his couch and watch a doberman get electrocuted.

“Before he went away, he totally woulda done it, too. I really think he wants to change.”

“Some people can kill just a few dogs a day and stop,” another friend told reporters. “But if Mike’s around people who are killing dogs, he’s gonna keep on killing and killing. So we can’t be bringing our terriers around here to get their throats slit no more.

“He can’t even throw a dachshund down a flight of stairs. That’s gonna take some willpower.”

Publicly, at least, Vick has vowed to curb his impulses. “I must admit, I tried to bargain with myself,” he said at his post-release press conference. “I thought that I’d be okay if I just killed one dog a day, or if I restricted myself to killing only smaller dogs, like chihuahuas.

“But I realized that if I did that, I would wind up back in prison again. Not a prison of iron and concrete, but a prison of constantly killing dogs. That is not a prison I want to go back to. And I’d probably wind up in real prison, too, which is no picnic either.

“I can’t think of it as ‘Oh no, I can never kill a dog again.’ I have to say, ‘I’m not gonna kill a dog right now.’ When I walk down the street, I have to say to myself, ‘I won’t crush that pitbull’s skull with a cinder block’. One not-killed dog at a time.”

Cinematics, NYC

Please, Share Your Thoughts with Mr. Jarmusch

jarmusch.jpgI met up with a friend for some post-work drinks last night (it was two-for-one choco-tini night at our favorite spot!). He told me that, on his way to the bar, he saw Jim Jarmusch “on the sidewalk” in the Tribeca.

First, I asked if he was okay. The phrase “on the sidewalk” implied that maybe he was passed out drunk, or injured, or down on his luck and begging for change.

But once it was established that the man was okay, I asked if he was being approached by strangers and critiqued. Much like the mighty buffalo once roamed the plains of this great land, so is Manhattan overrun by uber-hip cineastes. The type of people who, despite a professed love of movies, have a dismissive opinion of every single film and director that’s ever been.

So I had the mental image of the famous indie director being mobbed by effete artsy types who couldn’t wait to tell him how little they thought of his work. People literally lining up to prove how sophisticated they are by giving him faint praise and back-handed compliments.

“Mr. Jarmusch, wow, really great to meet you! I just want to say, I love Down By Law even though it’s completely overrated!”

“Hi, Mr. Jarmusch. I’ve always wanted to ask you this: What was the deal with Coffee and Cigarettes? I mean, the RZA/Bill Murray sequence was funny and all, but is this type of fluff the best use of your talents?”

“Wow, Jim Jarmusch! You know, when I was in college, Mystery Train and Stranger than Paradise were, like, my two favorite movies. Of course, my tastes have progressed far beyond that point by now…”

Yes, these are the little playlets my brain devises to amuse itself. If you don’t like it, you’ll have to take it up with the brain.

Life In These United States

“We’ve Tried Nothin’, and We’re All Outta Ideas!”

I have no idea what to think about this AP article, which covers Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old boy stricken with Hodgkin’s lymphoma who refuses to get chemotherapy. In fact, he refuses to the point that he “vow[s] to resist chemotherapy by punching or kicking anyone who tries to force it on him“.

This is a folk remedy that’s been practiced for generations, known as Punching Therapy. Once you find out you’re sick, you start punching things indiscriminately. It proves to the Hoary Disease Gods that you are very, very upset with them. Researchers have yet to determine its effectiveness, because the big pharmaceutical companies are afraid of alternative medicines! And also because anyone who approaches a practitioner gets clobbered.

At least this young man has some level-headed parents who will no doubt steer him towards a more reasonable…

“The kid says he’s not sick and the mom says she’ll treat it if it’s an emergency,” [his doctor] said of the Hauser case. “With cancer, if it’s an emergency, it’s too late.”

“Why act one second before you have to?! I also like to park on train tracks and pull away just before I’m crushed by a freight caravan!”

But these parents aren’t endangering their son’s life for the fun of it. No, there’s a totally reasonable explanation for this insane decision (and by reasonable, I mean just as stupid).

His family belongs to a Native American spiritual group that “advocates natural healing.” Unfortunately, it’s not one of those cool peyote cults that goes on mystical journeys into the farthest reaches of consciousness. Nope, this is one of those groups that wants you to become one with Mother Earth by dying as slowly and painfully as possible. Which just goes to show that even one of the most oppressed peoples on the planet can have colossally moronic religious views.

The family’s attorney says, “The Hausers believe that an injection of chemotherapy into Danny amounts to an assault upon his body, and torture when it occurs over a long period of time.”

Sure, chemo’s no fun. But you know what else is assault and torture on your body? CANCER.

I’m not sure I buy the religious excuse. The article says Daniel had one chemo treatment, then stopped. If the family objects so strongly to Western medicine and is so committed to “alternative treatments”, why’d they go to a doctor in the first place? If you keep kosher, you don’t pop a slab of bacon in your mouth, chew it, then spit it out; you just don’t touch bacon.

My suspicion: Daniel went in for a chemo treatment but didn’t like it (not that anyone does) and refuses to go back. On top of this, everyone’s freaked out about the dire reality of their situation. So the family’s decided to hide under a pile of coats and hope that somehow everything works out okay.

My 2-year-old has had two ER visits already. They were for relatively trivial things, but in both cases I had to hold her down while doctors poked and prodded her. It’s heartbreaking. I think I understand at least a glimmer of what this family going through. What I don’t understand is why they’d stick their heads in the sand and figure that cancer (CANCER!) can be cured by echinacea and an Enya CD.

But if that’s what they want to do, and it harms no one else outside of the family, then fine. Why bother getting the justice system involved, or putting doctors in arm’s reach of a punch-happy teenager, if they all clearly have a death wish? That way, valuable tax dollars are saved, no doctors are hurt, and the family’s happy because their wishes are respected.

Or they’re all dead. You know, whichever.