Croaky!

Steve Irwin, “The Crocodile Hunter,” was killed by a wild animal yesterday at the age of 44, meaning the bastard cost me my under bet.

I had seen his show a few times, but I wasn’t what you could call a fan, mostly because I’m not twelve years old and I don’t smoke a lot of pot. However, since yesterday was a slow news day, I followed some of the TV-related Web forums, and the overall reaction people are having is that his death was a “shocking tragedy.” Now, tragedy, okay; he had kids, and he seemed like a nice enough guy on his show, but shocking?

Steve Irwin’s job was to find dangerous, often poisonous animals, and poke them with a stick. If he’d been killed by a falling chandelier during a gunfight with renegade ninjas, that would have been shocking. However, finding out that he was killed by one of those dangerous, poisonous animals is about as shocking as finding that hookers get the clap. It’s not a freak accident; it’s an occupational hazard. Getting mauled by something is the carpal tunnel syndrome of crocodile hunting.

The other sentiment that people seem to be hanging on to is that he’s some kind of a hero because he was killed “doing what he loved.” Yeah, maybe, but I doubt it. After all, the guy died at work. And on an infinite timeline, anything that you have to do every day will eventually suck.

I know this, because I worked as a disc jockey, which is the coolest job in the world… for about six months. After that, I was cursing the fact that I had to go tell jokes and listen to rock music for money again. So I’m reasonably certain that, had you asked Steve if he wanted to be killed by a stingray, he’d have said, “Sure… provided I’m driving it at around a buck-ten with a supermodel blowing me, right after a big steak dinner and a couple bottles of Cristal.”

Part of my problem is, if we’re gonna start calling celebrities “heroes” when they get killed doing what they love, then where’s the memorial statue for Michael Hutchence? After all, autoerotic asphyxia’s not something you just dabble in; you need to really have a yen for it. And if this is where we’re setting out bar for heroism now, I guess I can expect my official US Post Office Bob Crane stamp any day now.

Look: the fact that Steve got killed by a dangerous animal is a bummer, but it’s no more a heroic death than John Belushi’s. What he did was dangerous, and you can’t spend eight hours a day dicking around with crocodiles, cobras and tarantulas and expect anything good to come out of it. Sure, it’s tragic, but on an infinite timeline he was bound to lose his saving throw versus poison.

So while I feel for Steve’s family, let me point out that things like this are why I never go outside. I stay behind locked doors with cases of beer and cartons of cigarettes. You know, so nothing bad can happen to me.

[tags]Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter, stingray, Animal Planet, Michael Hutchence, Bob Crane, dark humor[/tags]