People We’ve Almost Killed
Today, however, I’m going to talk about that wonderful catharsis that just makes everyone smile when they’re done.
That’s right, I’m talking about killing people.
Now I am not talking about random violence or decades of pent up rage. No, the fun comes when it’s just kind of spur of the moment. Like a women deciding between pumps or heels. Do I or don’t I? Okay, let’s!
All right, now that we’ve set the parameters, let’s talk about triggers. It has to be something cops will understand. A reason courts will enjoy or, at least, not prosecute. Something deeply important like a Dr. Phil rerun.
Sign this student up for another session.
A woman in an anger management class stabbed her classmate in the neck during an argument about a “Dr. Phil” show, according to a civil suit filed in Oregon’s King County Superior Court.
Luna Oraivej, 37, is suing Court Services Institute, a company that provides court-mandated anger management classes, for doing “nothing to intervene or de-escalate the violent confrontation” in an Oct. 9, 2010 class that left her “terrified and bleeding,” according to legal documents obtained by Courthouse News.
Oraivej alleges that her classmate, Faribah Maradiaga, walked into the session late — despite Court Services Institute policies barring the admittance of tardy students — and began to loudly criticize a “Dr. Phil” tape that instructor Eric Leberg was playing.
When Oraivej defended the “Dr. Phil” video and asked Maradiaga to “give it a chance,” her classmate snapped, the suit alleges.
With Leberg looking on, Maradiaga allegedly approached Oraivej’s seat, pulled out a blade and “swung the knife four times … aiming for her neck.”
Oraivej says “instinctively shrunk back in her chair,” leaving her with stab wounds on her shoulders, according to the documents.
After the attack, Leberg walked the perpetrator out of the class, but didn’t tend to the victim or alert authorities, Oraivej alleges.
Police apprehended Maradiaga and charged her with second-degree assault, but she has not reported for court, the Seattle Press-Intelligencer reports.
Fearing she might not receive credit for the class — which she was attending in a deal that would lead to the dismissal of a malicious mischief charge — Oraivej says she did not immediately seek medical treatment, instead sitting through the rest of the class despite her wounds.
Her attorney says Court Services Institute is obligated to protect its students, according to documents obtained by the Seattle Press-Intelligencer:
With the extensive court and law enforcement expertise CSI advertises, CSI agents and employees are well aware that courts order individuals to attend anger management classes because they have a history of not being able to control their anger … anger that, in most instances, led to violence against others … Nevertheless, CSI has no security policies or procedures to protect its business patrons from one another. CSI takes no precautions to avoid allowing deadly weapons into its anger management classes.
Oraivej is seeking compensation for medical treatment, emotional distress and severe anxiety, among other damages, according to Courthouse News.
But what if you’re Alice Cooper? A Dr. Phil rerun isn’t going to cut it for the King of the Macabre. Not to worry kids, Alice had his skinny butt covered. He took some time out of his busy day to almost kill The King of Rock and Roll.
How cool would that have been? Alice kills Elvis!
Vincent Furnier (a/k/a Alice Cooper) has been recording music since the late ’60s and remains as relevant today as he did more than 40 years ago. There is no doubt that his image as a shock-rocker was hard-earned, but some tales about his past have been slightly embellished by overzealous fans and reporters.
“There was a different [rumor] every day with us,” Furnier said. “I would go from city to city — this was before there was the Internet and CNN — so anytime Alice did anything, it was blown way out of proportion. If I had a 5-foot snake, it was [said to be] a 25-foot snake.”
Furnier said people also have the misconception that he is the character he plays on stage in real life.
“It is fun to play a character that is mythical, [but] he is nothing like me,” he said. “He is a character that I play. I created him to be my favorite rock star and I created him to be a pretty dangerous character. So going from being a family guy like I am, with my wife and kids, married 35 years, go to church, play golf, I do everything that a regular guy does. Then at night, I play this character that is just beyond reprehensible.”
Throughout his career, Furnier became friends with many great legends in show business, including Jim Morrison, Groucho Marx, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan and George Burns. He was also friends with Elvis Presley and remembered one particularly bizarre incident that occurred between the two in a Las Vegas hotel room in 1971.
“Elvis liked his guns and he handed me a snub-nose .38,” Furnier said. “I know it was fully loaded because I checked. I am from Detroit [and] I always check a gun before I pick it up. He said, ‘OK man, I am going to show you how to kick this out of somebody’s hands and he did this karate thing. But before that, I was standing there with a loaded .38 on Elvis Presley and a little devil in the back of my head was going ‘shoot him.’ I first saw Elvis on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ when I was 6 and never thought I would be standing in his living room with a gun on him. When I left the place that night I was going, ‘Wow was that weird.'”
A few years later, Furnier was involved in another bizarre incident, this time involving country music singer Charlie Pride. Furnier said he was staying at a hotel in Knoxville, Tenn., when one of his beloved snakes disappeared.
“It went down in the plumbing and came up two weeks later in Charlie Pride’s [hotel room] toilet,” Furnier said. “I don’t know if he was sitting on the toilet at the time. That would have changed his life, but the fact that a 12-foot snake came out of the toilet, I would be in church the rest of the day.”
In addition to golf, Furnier said he enjoys watching the hit television show “The Walking Dead,” a frightful zombie drama that airs on AMC.
“I like Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus). He was in the ‘Boondock Saints.’ He seems to be a really natural guy [who is] trying to survive. There are no frills about this guy, he is just going to survive one way or another so I really like his character,” Furnier said.
In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Furnier referred to pop sensation Lady Gaga as “the female Alice Cooper.” When asked by The Huffington Post whether there is a chance they might collaborate on a project together, he replied, “I wouldn’t doubt that one bit at all. I have already worked with Kesha on something and I know Gaga very well. She really gets it.”
“She totally understands she is playing a character,” he explained. “She totally understands she writes for that character, the way I write for Alice. When I write a song, I am not writing it for me, I am writing it for that character. I know what makes him tick so I have to write lyrics for him and that is what she does. We both perform those songs on stage as the character, but when you see Gaga off stage, she is about as normal as any chick.”
Furnier added, “She definitely has a sense of style. I mean, I give her all the credit in the world. She has breathed a lot of life into the business. It is funny to me that all the young rock bands, the male bands, are very sedate. A lot of the bands you see on TV, you sit there and you go, ‘Geez, these guys are boring,’ and you see the girl bands and the girls are all the theatrics. I think the girls have stolen our testosterone somehow.”
“Ask him if he ever had any luck trying to teach a chicken to fly,” Adams asked.
Adams was referring to a 1969 incident in which someone threw a live chicken on stage at a concert in Toronto. Furnier, who later said he thought chickens could fly, threw it off stage and it plummeted into the first row, where it was killed. The following day, the incident made headlines around the world and rumors began to circulate that Cooper had bitten the head off of the chicken, a la Ozzy Osbourne and the infamous bat incident.
“Chickens don’t fly,” Furnier replied. “Apparently, they have wings, they have feathers and they should fly, but they don’t. They plummet and, in my case, when I went to throw it into the audience, they tore it to pieces, and the kicker to that story is the fact the first 10 rows in the audience that night were all in wheelchairs. They put all the people in wheelchairs in the front — they are the ones that destroyed the chicken.”
The No More Mr. Nice Guy tour has included ninety plus cities and covered five continents, including Europe and North America twice over, but it is unlikely that the longtime mischief-maker and committed heavy-metal singer will hang up his top hat anytime soon.
“My whole career has been based on using anything I could to make a song come to life,” Furnier said. “As far as I am concerned, if I say, ‘Welcome to my nightmare,’ I don’t just say it, I give [the audience] the nightmare.”
Well, since the seventh continent is Antarctica I really don’t see him, or anyone else, touring there. I don’t care how happy the penguins’ feet are, they can’t afford the price of the ticket.
That being said, wasn’t today fun? One lady almost got whacked over a Dr. Phil rerun and Elvis nearly bought the farm doing Elvis-Fu. Seriously, that was in the 70’s so that was his “fat Elvis” period. I doubt he could get that ham hock as high as his knee, forget about kicking out a gun.
Oh, why the sudden interest in killing people? Well, I recently quit smoking so you might want to give me a little room if you see me on the street.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMlpqOsc2BU&w=480&h=360]
Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!
