Don't Try This at Home

As everyone has now learned, the actor David Carradine did not lose his life by suicide, as early reports from Thailand, where he was working on a new film, seemed to suggest. No, it turned out that Carradine, 72 years old, was most likely engaged in an act of autoerotic asphyxiation at the time of his death, an activity that ought to be considered an unsafe sexual practice, according to The Stranger columnist Mistress Matisse, a professional dominatrix whose specialty is, of course, edgy sex play. In her latest column, aptly titled Control Tower, MM reminds us that "self-bondage can be risky in itself, but any time someone's oxygen is restricted, death becomes a possibility." She quotes Jay Wiseman, author of SM 101 and an authority on breath play, who clarifies the risk: "I know of no way whatsoever that suffocation or strangulation can be done that does not intrinsically put the recipient at risk of cardiac arrest."

So there you have it: death by cardiac arrest resulting from an elaborate masturbatory practice involving ropes, suspension, and cut-off breath. What a way to go.

SEALing the Deal

In the wake of the daring rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from the Somali pirates who hijacked his merchant ship, the Maersk Alabama, in the Indian Ocean, taking the captain hostage, I suggest a new promotional slogan for the US Navy SEALs, whose snipers' chilling accuracy--in 3-foot swells, no less--brought the episode (and the pirates' lives) to an end.

Here's the slogan: 3 bullets, 3 bodies. US Navy SEALs: We get the job done.

SEALs may be the best-trained Special Operations Forces in the world. Their completion of this mission reminds us to be grateful they're on our side.

Faint Praise

We often see the term fulsome praise used to indicate abundant approval or admiration. The problem is, fulsome doesn't mean that at all. Rather, the word means "flattering to an excessive degree," according to the Oxford American Dictionary. Thus, fulsome praise "isn't a lavish tribute," explains Bill Bryson in his excellent Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors, "it is unctuous and insincere toadying."

Good Deed, a Short Story

We were half-way through our third drink when the old guy at the end of the bar toppled off his stool onto the floor. He lay there for several minutes, his face turning gray, and no one tried to help him. So we called 9-1-1. The ambulance arrived quickly, and two EMTs loaded the guy on a stretcher and carted him off. An hour and a half later, he walked back in and said something to the bartender, who pointed at us. He nodded and headed our way. “Probably wants to buy us a drink,” I said to my friend. But I was wrong. “Next time,” the old guy told us, “mind your own fucking business.”

New Yorker Brouhaha

While the gathering media storm over The New Yorker's cover illustration of the Obamas might fog up Eustace Tilly's monocle, I'm betting Tina Brown, the magazine's gutsy former editor who published many controversial covers during her reign, is pleased. As Bill Maher put it in today's New York Times, "If you can't do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you do it?"

"There's been this question about whether he's [Barack Obama] black enough," Maher continued in the same Times article. "I have this joke: What does he have to do? Dunk? He bowled a 37--to me, that's black enough." Case closed.

Bursting BS Balloons

Just when the effusive outpouring of claptrap over the death of TV news celebrity Tim Russert threatened to choke us in a cloud of sentimental exhaust, a breath of fresh air arrived on June 23 in a column by Chris Hedges at truthdig.com titled "The Hedonists of Power."

"We were instructed by the high priests on television over the past few days to mourn a Sunday morning talk show host, who made $5 million a year and who gave a platform to the powerful and the famous so they could spin, equivocate and lie to the nation," Hedges writes. "We were repeatedly told by these television courtiers, people like Tom Brokaw and Wolf Blitzer, that this talk show host was one of our nation’s greatest journalists, as if sitting in a studio, putting on makeup and chatting with Dick Cheney or George W. Bush have much to do with journalism."

Quoting the great muckraker I.F. Stone, Hedges reminds us that all governments lie, and it is "the job of the journalist to do the hard, tedious reporting to shine a light on these lies." It is the job of TV courtiers, by contrast, to "feed off the scraps tossed to them by the powerful and never question the system."

These courtiers, Hedges continues, "including the late Tim Russert, never gave a voice to credible critics in the buildup to the war against Iraq. They were too busy playing their roles as red-blooded American patriots. They never fought back in their public forums against the steady erosion of our civil liberties and the trashing of our Constitution."

Letting Go

Nick Gallo, one of the best friends I've ever had, died in October at the age of 57. He had fallen ill on a flight to Athens, Greece, where he was headed to write an article for a magazine. He died a few days later in an Athens public hospital. Pericarditis and pneumonia were given as the cause of death.

I'm having a hard time letting him go. It's only now that I can write this entry, which already seems hopelessly inadequate. In recent years, we talked several times a week and usually got together at least once a week. Before that, we had offices across the hall from each other for 10 years.

I keep coming across things that Nick would be interested in and I think, "Oh, I've got to tell Nick about ..." or "I'll get this book for Nick."

Time, they say, is the great healer. But I'm not so sure. My life's a little darker now.

Goodbye, Old Friend

Walt Crowley died Friday evening, September 21. He was 60 years old, three years younger than I am, and he was a friend of mine. The best article about his life appears on the website historylink.org, which he co-founded in 1997. The warmest personal remembrance of Walt was written by Seattle City Council member Jean Godden, a former newspaper reporter and columnist.

I met Walt when he and I worked at the Weekly (now called Seattle Weekly) in the mid-1980s. We had neighboring desks in the open newsroom and soon became friends. I enjoyed his keen intelligence, playful sense of humor, personal integrity, and compassion. He knew a lot of people, some of them movers and shakers, and had a lot of friends.

Walt believed in engagement. He was not one to withdraw into cynical detachment in the face of appalling official injustice and cruelty. He sought to do something about it.

"As we know from any reading of the morning papers, liberty is never at a loss for ambitious enemies," said Lewis Lapham, former and longtime editor of Harper's magazine, in a salute to Molly Ivins last year. "But the survival of the American democracy depends less on the magnificence of its Air Force or the wonder of its fleets than on the willingness of its citizens to stand on the ground of their own thought."

Walt Crowley was more than willing to stand on the ground of his own thought. I'll miss him as a friend, and I'll miss him as a model of what a citizen should be.