G’Day Steve

I’m really bummed. Like really bummed. Steve Irwin is dead. I’ve always been a fan. I liked that guy. He was passionate and weird. Say what you want about the cat, he was genuine. He was cool. And now he’s gone. Crocodiles everywhere have nothing to look forward to now except to be turned into Gucci purses.

I was shocked to hear the news. But I first heard about it from NBC’s Today Show. I didn’t know how he had died. They were re-running an interview that Matt Lauer did with Steve a few years ago after the incident when Steve turned his month-old baby Bob into the world’s youngest Croc Baiter.

In the interview, Matt Lauer was on his high horse, baiting his own croc, firing all kinds of righteous indignation at Mr. Irwin. “How could you do something like this?” “Doesn’t it seem irresponsible?” Palaver like that. Steve sat there defending himself. Getting very defensive. He probably didn’t like some yahoo telling him how to act around crocodiles. After all, Steve Irwin was one of the foremost authorities on the animal. Steve probably wanted to yell out to Matt “Matt, do you know the history of crocodiles?! ‘Cause I do!” But he didn’t. He stayed cool. Well, as cool as he ever was. He was a bit high strung.

Anyway, I’m watching this whole thing. I knew that Steve Irwin had died because it said so on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. I couldn’t wait for Matt to get done belittling Steve so that I could find out what had happened. But no. They played the entire interview. I had to hop on line to find out what had happened.

A stingray?!

Kinda’ cool really. Not many people get killed by stingrays.

But here was a man who did a lot for conservation and zoology and the only tribute NBC could slap together was a 2004 interview of Matt Lauer reading the guy the riot act?! Nice work NBC. Very classy.

Jerkasses.

Why did NBC choose such a bizarre clip? Because it was NBC’s only exclusive interview with Steve Irwin. Sure, they had other clips. Steve’s been on the Today show a few times. But this clip was an “exclusive” and NBC wanted to remind everyone just how cool they were.

Self-serving jerkasses.

I’m getting mighty tired of NBC. And Meredith Vieira hasn’t even started yet. I was going to save most of my rancor for after she started, but I’m not sure if I can hold out that long.

Good-bye, Steve Irwin. You will be missed.


Fun Fact: We have stingrays here in Southern California. Which means that now we have to hear all about the dangers of Stingrays. How deadly are they?! When will we all be killed by them?!

Like about .00001 people a year die of stingray attacks. But now that one killed Steve Irwin, every news outlet everywhere has to wonder if Stingray attacks will increase. Could there be a Stingray conspiracy that has finally come to a head?

More people were killed by Stingrays on the Sunset Strip than ever were by Stingrays in the ocean. But you can mostly blame Chevrolet for that one, for marketing sports cars to rich drunken idiots.

Hopefully the Stingray crap will end soon. Please tell me it will end soon!



Watch, now a Stingray’ll probably kill me. Damn you irony.