S.D.S.

Where did the month go?

No, really, where did the last month go? Not long after my previous post, I got what I heard the doctors call a “corncussion.” What’s a corncussion? It’s like shaken baby syndrome, but for grown-ups. I’ll tell you what, I’ve never envied a shaken baby any less than I do now. (Except for the shaking, I had always considered that to be a pretty decent gig.)

So… Yes, and no.

Yes, I got it from a fall in the bathtub. And no, I didn’t slip and fall while trying to put something up my, you know, butt. Why does everyone think this? (Ok, not everyone, just my mother.) Only one thing goes up my butt: thermometers. And sometimes I prefer oral thermometers, so it’s not even like thermometers are up there all the time.

It’s a health thing. You have to keep constant tabs on your temperature. Otherwise… who knows what could happen? That’s a mystery I’d rather not be the one to solve.

Who’s to say that the corncussion wasn’t heat-related? I don’t remember what happened, exactly, but it seems more than reasonable that I could have been taking an ice bath to compensate for an unexpected rise in my core temperature. Ice is, of course, the slipperiest element, and I probably stepped on a cube, took a tumble, and, viola, corncussion. If I had been monitoring my temperature more carefully, I probably wouldn’t have had to spend the last three weeks relearning which direction Mario is supposed to run. (To the right.)

On the plus side, while unconscious I had a wonderful dream about one huge rabbit with one huge eye (and one normal eye, but the big one was really the attention-getter.) The dream was thin on plot, but I think it could easily be fleshed out into a film, or at least one of those one-man plays.

Potter slips from the blazing world

I just ate a black grape sour jellybean. (Are those hierarchical adjectives? Fudge!) It was like eating the dark heart of a star. My mouth tastes like a chemical factory.

Speaking of the dark hearts of stars, let’s examine the recent behavior of one Daniel Radcliffe, a.k.a. Harry “the best boy” Potter.

The Boy Who Lived (and who eventually had sex with his best friend’s little sister) has been up to some distinctly un-Gryffindorish antics recently.

I’m not just talking about his nude scene in Equus, either. All the best wizards have to get buck now and again, probably to replenish their chi, etc. (I’m thinking of Gandalf specifically here, but no doubt Merlin, Dumbledore, Siegfried and certainly Roy all had their own NC-17 moments at some point.) No, I think we’re all mature enough to deal with a little exposed wand now and again. (I made that joke up in the first place, so keep all cries of plagiarism to yourself.) What first got me concerned, I think, was the arson.

We all bought the “er’buddy duz it in England” argument, I suppose, but now that he’s started with these hate crimes, I don’t think we can let that one fly. Who would have thought the little wizard could have so much hate in him? Wow. He sure does hate the physically disabled.

I don’t think we need to take it much further than that (and how could you?), but I did come across this probably-overlooked article (overshadowed as it was by “Boy Genius Sets Fire to Special Olympics”): it seems that D. Radcliffe, in his spare time, has been arranging “romantic” liaisons with older men through craigslist, and then publicly accusing them of pedophilia. When it was pointed out that, despite the outfits in his photographs, Radcliffe is well over the age of majority, he claimed that he was simply practicing a “shame spell.” He then indicated to reporters the finger-shaped bruises on his upper arms, and added “Abracadabra!” By and large, the journalists were not impressed.

What gives? What’s Lil’ Scarface up to? His agent claims that the behavior is simply a teaser for the plot of the next Potter film, but I had the book read to me, and I don’t recall any part in which Harry Potter tries to lock a blind couple in a freezer.

I’m more inclined to think that what we have here is yet another case of Gary Coleman Syndrome. The fading of childhood comforts is more than some personalities can bear, and the resulting anxiety is released in often violent outbursts. (It has been argued that Coleman was also mourning the loss of his career, but I disagree; anyone could see that he had a bright future of autograph signing and local television advertisements ahead of him.) Look at Mike Tyson, if you need another example. When The Dynamite Kid suddenly became The Strongest Man in the World, suddenly we were seeing ear-biting and children-eating.

I’m afraid that if we can’t somehow figure out a way to reverse Radcliffe’s aging (hormone therapy?), he will soon be on the road to punching women in shopping malls. That would be a tragedy, to say the least. Please write to your local Warner Brothers rep, and encourage them to take action.