What arthritis can do. I feel sorry for this guy.

[dwasifar]

Not sure what sub this belongs in, so I'll put it here and if the mods want it somewhere else, great.

I feel so sorry for this guy:



People mock him and abuse him, but it's just a guy who doesn't want to give in to losing the use of his fingers to arthritis.

I think a lot of us can sympathize, can't we?

[dodge]

Kieth Richards fingers are bad also. Hasn't stopped him from playing.

[Br1ck]

I have a friend who is down to .010s on some acoustics so he can play.

[dwasifar]

Originally Posted by dodge

Kieth Richards fingers are bad also. Hasn't stopped him from playing.

Well, Keef was never a shredder. And there may be some mental illness involved here as well. But still.

[Sax Player Guy]

That is heartbreakingly sad.

[mherrcat]

Look up some images of the actor John Carradine's hands in his later years.

[rstaight]

James Coburn's hands are also in bad shape arthritis.

[Tube Sound]

I feel sorry for the people throwing stuff at him and the crowd laughing at him. I know these types exist, to each his own and all..... but that is sick. A lack of humanity, as I see it. There is no cure for his arthritis but I hope Richard is doing better.

[Shepsdad]

I'm at work, so can't watch the video, but I think I've seen it before, I've seen that guy for sure. One of the vids I watched seemed very poorly scripted, so I'm not sure if this is real or not (never looked into it further than a few youtube vids). But yeah, if it's true, it's very sad he would be treated like that, beyond sad, actually.

Edit: I googled him, apparently he's real.

[Backpocketnj]

I remember seeing him on YouTube a bit in the past. I always thought he was aiming at being a satirical version of Michael Angelo Batio and that he was engaging in some version of performance art. I guess I'm not so sure anymore.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Tube Sound

I feel sorry for the people throwing stuff at him and the crowd laughing at him. I know these types exist, to each his own and all..... but that is sick. A lack of humanity, as I see it. There is no cure for his arthritis but I hope Richard is doing better.

My sister is a mezzo-soprano and was a member of the Chicago Lyric Opera chorus for more than 25 years. She's sung at La Scala in Milan on a number of occasions. While she herself has never been part of any performances there that were heckled or had the performers pelted with rotten vegetables, she's witnessed it happening at other opera performances in Italy.

It's not a myth, it's not a legend and some Italians seem to be perversely proud of it, in much the same way as some hockey fans relish the fistfights and sometimes downright thuggery that takes place on the ice some times.

To me and I think most of us who've watched that video, what we saw on it was the incredibly cruel and sadistic treatment of someone who's both physically and mentally feeble as entertainment, nothing less. The fact that there are non-performers standing by to wipe off the garbage being thrown but not trying to stop the abuse itself shows me that it's expected and might even be part of why he got asked to play in the first place. He obviously knows to expect it, however much it might enrage him.

When I visited Magadan in the Russian Far East as a member of a cultural exchange group from Anchorage, I stayed at the apartment of a hockey coach and history teacher named Volodya. When I mentioned the violence that routinely breaks out at North American hockey games, he was appalled and mystified that it was allowed to continue.

"You mean, nobody gets into fistfights at Russian hockey games?" I asked him.

"Of COURSE not!" he told me, halfway offended that I could even ask him that. He couldn't believe that the league officials in charge would tolerate any of that violence for even a minute.

So the National Hockey League could easily stop on-ice mayhem if they wanted to, simply by making it against the rules and cause for the automatic disqualification for any team that had players engaging in it. Naturally, it would take a while for the message to fully sink it, but it's an easily attainable goal.

They don't want to, because it's a moneymaker for the teams and for the league itself. To me, the toleration for such horrific treatment of substandard performers in Italy must have its origins in the same base impulse: it's FUN to shout horrible things and throw garbage and flour and liquids at a performer you don't respect.

At least in that culture.

I suspect that those opportunities for sanctioned abuse are the only reason that some of those audience members even show up in the first place. So in that sense the promoters of these events are operating on the same logic as the NHL: hey, it helps fill the seats!

To me it's appalling, but the gladiatorial contests tolerated at professional hockey games in our culture should be equally appalling to us. We don't even think about it, though, because - hey, it's hockey! Whaddya expect?!?

I know I had never examined my own attitudes about the violence at professional hockey games until I witnessed the bafflement and (yes) outrage towards the idea by a Russian hockey coach named Volodya...


Wade Hampton Miller

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by dwasifar

Not sure what sub this belongs in, so I'll put it here and if the mods want it somewhere else, great.

I feel so sorry for this guy:



People mock him and abuse him, but it's just a guy who doesn't want to give in to losing the use of his fingers to arthritis.

I think a lot of us can sympathize, can't we?

This is beyond my comprehension.
I find it offensive to the point of obscene.
Obviously I couldn't watch it all.
I detest that kind of "music" and I see it as obscene as watching cruelty to animals.

[Mr. Paul]

Wade, it's apparent you are not familiar with the NHL rule changes that have significantly limited fighting. Duking it out at center ice is rare these days. The conversation you had with the Russian coach must have happened quite some time ago.

[Wade Hampton]

You’re correct that I don’t follow professional sports and that the conversation took place a while back - I was in Magadan in March, 1992. Thanks for the correction and update.

The reason I wrote the post the way I did was that I was trying to find a parallel in our society rather than just criticize the Italians for the appalling way that they treat that poor man.


whm

[Mr. Paul]

I think a better analogy would be if fans at a hockey game started throwing food at the couple on the KissCam.