(sic)ening

I got this e-mail yesterday:

YOU START A BLOG (sic) YOU GET FOLLOWERS (sic) YOU DROP THE BALL(sic) WE GET NOTHING................HOW FUKED(sic) IS THAT ....ASSHOLE!

Can you believe it? I HAVE FOLLOWERS!! It's an actual fan letter from an actual (albeit angry) person! Tell mom I told her so, I am worthy of someones attention!! No more therapy - no more imaginary friends - just smooooth sailing!

Yesterday I'm walking down 6th Avenue in beautiful midtown New York, and behind me, I hear this scream. Well, not so much a scream as it was a high-pitched whirring sound. I honestly thought it was mechanical until I hear a lady scream, "Why did you do that?!?!" At that I turn around and there is a middle-aged woman screaming and pointing at a young thug who has continued to walk on. I'm thinking that maybe he just walked by and hit her or something. So I'm all ready to head him off (he's coming toward me), and then she continues, "He just HIT THAT BIRD!!! CALL THE POLICE! 911!! HE'S A MONSTER!!" And she keeps repeating, "YOU MONSTER! YOU'RE A MONSTER!!"

OK, now anyone that knows me knows my feelings about animal rights and the ASPCA commercials make me cry every time, and I stand outside circuses and protest animal abuses (Ringling Brothers HATES me! Well, if they knew me, they would surely at least roll their eyes towards me), I have spoken to groups concerning dogfighting and abuses in the entertainment industry, I volunteer when I can at the ACC in Harlem walking and cleaning up the runny stools of abandoned dogs. I am big into animals.

That being said, have you ever tried to hit a bird? Don't they just move out of the way faster than you can throw a punch? And how do you even throw a punch at a pigeon? And, no defense of this guy, but the bird in question was just on the curbside pecking at the sidewalk, seemingly oblivious to the broo-ha-ha of which he/she was in the middle. I'm a big believer in survival of the fittest (like the old ladies getting hit while crossing the street: if they're too slow or too stupid to use the crosswalk with the light, maybe this is nature's way of weeding out the ones that our modern science has kept alive with pills and treatments. I'm just saying.), so was this slow dumbassed bird just in the process of making way for the quicker smarter pigeons?

And as for calling 911 - I've tried that for real animal abuse and abandonment. They were not exactly responsive.

This thug ultimately turned around and started yelling something in his defense, so he obviously did do an awful thing and I had to stop and compose myself, as I realized that I did witness a man who has treated an animal probably the same way he treats his baby mama and kids and I did nothing.

AND THEN, this other guy on the street - mid-20s, groomed and wearing a sleeveless t-shirt exposing arms that probably measured the same as his IQ (it's mid November in New York - what kind of idiot is wearing sleeveless?) stopped and waited for the original thug to catch up to him so they could laugh at the lady together is some sort of caveman brotherhood. And they didn't even know each other!

I don't get straight guys. In every sense you can take that sentence. I'm all about respect and tolerance (not in that order) for other cultures, but really? I thought that kind of thing only happens in B movies with the 2-dimensional high school bully who gets a milkshake thrown in his face at the burger joint for the climax of the movie. Why is hitting a bird the bond of straight brotherhood?

Maybe survival of the fittest can't be applied an all situations.