Yes, I’m that guy. But I can’t really talk about it.
Posted by - admin : Category - Finger rehabIf you’ve read my first post, some of the details may seem familiar to you. Perhaps I can jog your memory… Magician, hand model, banjo player and an incident with a lawn chair. If that doesn’t do it, then congratulations. You have been spared the parade of craziness that has surrounded me for the last several months. If you want to know what that craziness has been about, then read on.
Last summer, while helping my (at that time) future mother in law with some yard work, I sat down in a chaise lounge chair to put on my work boots. The poorly designed chair ended up severing the top half inch of my index finger. The recovery and healing process are what this blog addresses. The thing I can’t talk about is the ensuing legal action that was taken.
Although I cannot discuss the specifics of any law suit, I can address the media circus that came with it. You see, the parties involved are not what you would call ‘low profile’. So, when my attourney filed the case in our local court, his phone rang less than an hour later. It was the newspaper lookng for a comment. Evidently, they check in regularly with the courthouse to see if anything interesting was filed that day. My case was interesting. They grabbed a few quotes and put the story up on their website an hour later.
By late that evening, the Associated Press had picked it up. It had all the elements for entertaning reading; a guy with an unusual profession, a big name store and a bigger name behind the product. Plus, the headline they had written was catchy: “Magician has slightly less hand to use for sleight of hand”.
By the afternoon of the next day, my phone was ringing. TV and Radio stations all over the world wanted an interview. By the time I had caught up with it all, many of the details had been altered or made up. had I read the story without knowing the facts, I would have thought it was weird too. And, being a guy who ocassionally fills in on the local radio station, I would have wanted an interview with me too.
Suddenly, a Google search for my name would bring back hundreds of thousands of matching pages! And many of the pages had places for comments, so I was able to see what the world thought of me. Not much it turns out! I read some pretty vile stuff. I would say one out of every fifty commentors actually said that people should wait until the facts are known. That person would then be ravaged by the next fifty commentors. It was pretty odd I must say.Especially when my mother got around to reading some of them. She took it qith a great sense of humor. She assured me that I was not the “problem with America”.
The TV show TMZ called next. They wanted me on. Since I didn’t respond within the allotted time (my guess is that they gave me about twenty minutes) they put me on anyway. Holy moly! I have to admit, the piece they did was hysterical, but it took some serious swipes at me. Fortunately, I had inherited my mothers sense of humor. If you want a good laugh, here is the youtube link.
That is when my phone really began to ring. Mostly it was long lost friends wondering what had happened to me. But it also got the radio shows yakking up a storm. Jonathon Brandmeier, Adam Corolla and quite a few others talked about it, and many tried to get me on to discuss it. Dr. Phil even called. (Well, one of his people did.) I finally ended up on Fox and Friends. Here is that link.
It took about a week for the furor to die down. What has taken longer is dispelling the “facts” that came out of the craziness. The opinion that was formed is that I was a fat, drunk, moron who didn’t know how to sit down in a chair. Well, I’m of average weight, I don’t drink, and as far as I can recollect, this is my first incident with any kind of chair. And, thanks to the press feeding frenzy, we have been contacted by quite a few others who had the same thing happen to them.
Anyway, I will reveal more of the details as this case goes forward. Until then, enjoy a few laughs at my expense. I can take it. If it didn’t bother my mother, I won’t bother me.
Patrick
p.s. Just for the heck of it, I’ve included a photo of my finger 3 weeks after the incident. It’s pretty gruesome even after three weeks of healing. Banjo playing was going to take a while…
Tags: Finger rehab, lawsuit, patrick albanese