Comeuppins anyone?

I have been out of town for several days attending the Bumbershoot music festival in Seattle, sorry for the recent lack of updates.

So I am sure all of you have heard that Mr. Steve Irwin, the infamous Crocodile Hunter, has been killed by a stingray in Australia. The stingray, according to news sources, was startled and stabbed Mr. Irwin through the heart with its toxic-barbed tail in an act of self-preservation. The Crocodile Hunter, being the hard case that he is, actually pulled the stinger from his chest.

There are many news articles that are mourning the death of Mr. Irwin, so this will not be a continuation of the same. For many years I have wondered how the ol' Croc Hunter has survived for as long as he has. I am not saying that he deserved to die. However, I am sure everyone can agree that at one point or another you have seen Mr. Irwin perform some feat with a wild animal that makes you think "What the fuck is this guy thinking?" The fact is that this dude created a persona for himself and part of that persona turned him into a disrespectful risk-taker that fucked around with animals for the sake of entertainment. Early Steve Irwin clips show a more subdued, run-of-the-mill nature show host who kept his distance and informed the audience. I believe that only after his show "The Crocodile Hunter" took off did Mr. Irwin decide that the way he was going to differentiate himself was going to be the high-energy animal handling that he became famous for. The problem is he was fucking around with real, live animals and he probably started to forget that. Take one look at the film Grizzly Man and it becomes less surprising to see that Steve Irwin suffered a similar fate.

Think about it this way. Steve Irwin, with all his entertainment value, had a method of animal handling that 1) must have been highly abrasive to the wild creatures he was interacting with and 2) required him to take unneccesary risks for the sake of television entertainment. If someone randomly ran up to you in the street, tackled you to the ground, and begain to examine your molars with a magnifying glass you would probably go nuts and start beating the shit out of your assailant. Steve Irwin did this to wild beasts under the guise of "educational television" when all he was really doing was making a spectacle out of himself and the creatures he violated on a regular basis.