Everything is dark and disturbing and sad

[thistlechaser]

Seems like everything I've heard today has been really dark and disturbing. It started with the radio. I love love love This American Life. It's a show on NPR where they tell three stories all along the same theme. I listened between doing shopping and lunch, so I missed a few bits of it. The theme of the week was pets.

The first story bothered me a hell of a lot. David Sedaris told a "funny" story about how many pets his family had and how they kept dying. He told how his mother put a puppy in an oven to keep it warm after it "died" (turned out it wasn't dead). In a 150 degree oven. Story ("joke") after story about how all these animals of his died, all told in a way that was supposed to be "funny". It made me want to cry or throw up.

Then I went into a store and so missed the middle story (though looking at the website, it did look to be a lighter one). I also missed the first minute or two of the final story, which turned out to be a big issue. The story was about a man and his mentally ill brother. The two lived together because the brother couldn't live alone. Somehow the brother got an armadillo as a pet. The story told about how he took care of the animal (badly, scaring it on purpose and crap). The story went on, the brother died because he ran out naked in traffic. The healthy brother found the armadillo and took it into his own home. Then he described, in great detail, how he would hold the armadillo under water for minutes at a time, closer and closer to drowning it and in detail how it fought to get up to the air, how it reacted when he pulled it out of the tub. I wanted to throw up. In the end, the host mentioned it was a fictional story. At first I was relieved (I was so sick at the thought of someone doing that -- it was written in such detail I thought it had to be real, first hand experience). But then I got mad. Even fictional, the story made me feel so bad. So angry and hurt and sick and mad. Never before have I wanted to write an author to tell him he shouldn't have written about something. (Which I suppose means it was well-written, that it affected me that much. Still.)

If you want to hear the whole This American Life show, click here The armadillo story is Resurrection, the third one. I can't recommend it.

Then I got home and heard this song. I liked it a lot. I suggest listening to this version first, with just the lyrics and not the official video:

It's a sad but beautiful song with interesting lyrics. Then I watched the official video. Warning for hate crimes:

Oh my god, I could barely watch that! D: Knowing that that sort of thing happens in real life, that it happens now... gah. It's powerful, I think it's worth watching, but man was it sad and hard to watch.

After all that, I think we need a teddy bear to hug. This might not be the bear we're looking for:

Comments

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

I stopped tuning in to This American Life for that reason-- they mix up the fictional stories with the real stories and don't tell you. But that one, why would anyone put that on the air? that's fcuked up

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

It's possible they said it was fictional and I missed it because I missed the first few minutes. However, even if they had warned, I would still have been very bothered by this. I do not, DO NOT, need to read in detail what it's like to not even just drown an animal, but to repeatedly do it, bringing the animal closer and closer to death each time.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

That sounds horrible.
To me, even worse it is fiction. Who thinks of that sort of thing and then says "this should be published"?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Unless the intent was to disturb people, I have no idea why someone would.

[elo-sf.livejournal.com]

thanks for warning, I normally listen to This American Life but will skip this episode

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Good choice. I don't know if the middle story was okay (sounded like it, based on the website blurb), but the two on either end of it were just horrible.

[ashmedai.livejournal.com]

Oh man, those animal stories sound horrible! I can't listen to stuff like that. Even if it's fictional, I find it too upsetting.

LOL that poor bear, but he really does look freaking scary!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Same. If I had known going in it was about that, I wouldn't have tuned in.

Isn't that poor bear something else? :D

[ashmedai.livejournal.com]

Isn't that poor bear something else? :D

Really. I wonder how many calls the cops got from people reporting they'd seen a chupacabra? LOL

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

It does not matter, ultimately, if it is fiction or not. It is a story about animal torture. I cannot imagine what NPR was thinking!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I've never heard anything like this on NPR before. There have been rare first hand accounts about rape (in prison), but it felt like it was handled a lot better than this.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Years ago already I came to loathe This American Life, when first I liked it quite a bit.

It quickly turned deeply creepy while the host and his cohorts got ever more smugly self-satisfied with their superiority to the weird incompetents they featured ever more frequently.

Recently Ira (who I actually know -- though now haven't spoken with him in a long time) severed his production-financial relationship with NPR, to go indie, though his show is still carried on NPR affiliates -- and now in the UK too.

Love, C.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Huh, I didn't know that about Ira. It doesn't surprise me though, I could see the show succeeding on its own.

If they continue with subjects like this, I'll be joining you in the loathing.

[mayanas.livejournal.com]

Ugh. :(

What a sad post. That story may be fictional but it might have been true. There are some terrible people in the world.

And having said that I skipped the videos for the moment. I'm already too sad (I noted the titles though. I can go back and watch a day when I find my faith in humanity has gotten too high and needs a good shake... Urgh, people).

Somehow that bear didn't help cheer me up at all... Lol. It does look pretty scary!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was worried about that, too. He claims it's fiction, but what if he based it on fact? Personal "research"?

The first video, with just the lyrics, isn't sad. It's only when you see the video that goes with it do you realize what it was really about. (But totally skip it if you don't want to chance it! Much better to be safe than sorry.)

[teaandfailure.livejournal.com]

YIKES. I'm glad I missed it this weekend, that would have really upset me, too.

I understand that some people need to get their demons out, and I'd rather them get them out by writing about drowning a fake armadillo in graphic detail than actually do it. But PERHAPS THIS IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE SHARED WITH THE PUBLIC? MAYBE?

I think David Sedaris' are supposed to be funny oh no instead of funny ha ha sometimes; sort of "this was my life when I was a kid, it was terrible, if I don't laugh about it now I'll have nightmares," but damn.

I remember when I was at Governor's School (a summer program for high school kids in my state), they had some adult creative writers come do readings, and this one woman read a story she'd written about the stray dog her family found, and how she didn't want it at all and her kids loved it, and so they had to take this dog to the vet and she didn't WANT it and she certainly didn't want it in her CAR NO WAY, but her kids LOVED it, so she PUT IT IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK WITH A ROPE AROUND ITS NECK SO IT WOULDN'T JUMP OUT, and of course it jumped out because IT WAS A DOG, and she REFUSED TO STOP because they were in traffic, how could she stop we're in traffic, STOP CRYING AND BEGGING ME TO STOP, CHILDREN and DRAGGED THE DOG DOWN THE ROAD, and when she got to the vet it was seriously injured and "WHY DIDN'T THE DOG DIE?" Her kids were sobbing. I bet they were traumatized for life.

All the other adults on the stage were HOWLING with laughter. HOWLING. The entire auditorium of teenagers from Governor's School were sitting in petrified shock, like, how the hell could anyone ever think this is funny? YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON. One of us wrote a letter about it, and we all sent it to the class and the director of governor's school was all butthurt pissant about it, but seriously. There is nothing funny about that at all, and I don't understand anyone thinking it is.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

It's really telling when people find something like that funny. I bet most of them would have said "but it's just a dog!" as if dogs couldn't feel pain or fear. I just don't get some people.

I suspect the writer of the armadillo story has many, many demons. I was sitting here trying to put examples of that into words, but know what? I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT HIM MORE THAN TOO MUCH ALREADY. MR. FICTIONAL ARMADILLO KILLER, I SHALL ATTEMPT TO THINK NO MORE ABOUT YOU FROM NOW ON.

Though you know what? I lied. I decided to google to find dirt something that might explain him. I found this article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brady-udall/why-polygamy-on-writing-t_b_539220.html), in which he writes: "I want to say that I have no interest in defending or attacking polygamy and its adherents--I'll leave that to others. A fiction writer's job, after all, is not to buttress or to tear down, but to try to understand." So I guess that probably explains that. Maybe he wanted to understand what would make someone abuse an animal. But still, I did not want to hear about what he found.

[gaudy-flowers.livejournal.com]

Lots of my friends go on about how funny David Sedaris is and I don't get it. I read one of his book so hopeful and he just came off as sad and pathetic to me. My friend when she went to a reading of his got him to autograph Me Talk Pretty One Day with a personal message to me about one writer to another. I haven't read that one yet and even if I don't like it I'll keep for the autograph. However I've also heard he's funnier in person.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, his humor did nothing for me this time. I did hear another talk by him (about going to France when he didn't speak French, I think it was the Me Talk Pretty One Day book), and that one was more amusing to listen to. Not fall-down funny, but worth listening to when I had nothing else to do.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I do not think the bear is shaved. I think she has mange. I seem to remember reading about her. But she does look pretty terrible. I wonder if animals with fur think that we look like her because we are all bare and wrinkly?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I was wondering why in the world (and how!) one would shave a bear. That makes a lot more sense.

[mousewings.livejournal.com]

I've heard about This American Life, as CBC's WireTap has "exchanged" a few short stories with them. I thought it'd be similar to WireTap (mostly quirky and lighthearting with a few more philosophical and darker episodes thrown in). With this disturbing episode, it clearly isn't. I don't think I'll be listening. The fiction would not bother me, as I read horror, but the real life one would.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

While some stories are sad and dark, there are usually at least as many funny ones. I've laughed loudly at the stories multiple times. This week's was (thankfully) unique. They've never upset me like this before. I'd suggest giving some other week a chance. (This one's was titled Man's Best Friend, I believe.)

Wire Tap looks interesting! Thanks for the link, I'm going to check it out.