Twists of Fate

[brainpanhandler]

From a fascinating 2009 article in Salon titled, The Making of Glenn Beck:

Kelly not only gave Beck his first lessons in marketing and publicity, he also saved his life. During a softball game in the spring of 1983, Beck and Kelly were passing joints under their gloves in the outfield, beers at their feet. When a fly ball cruised out toward Beck, he ran for it and slipped. Upon hitting the ground, Beck swallowed his tongue and started to choke. "I had to reach all the way back into his throat to pull his tongue out," remembers Kelly.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/ ... lenn_beck/

Surely some unseen forces were at work that day.

[marycarnival]

From a fascinating 2009 article in Salon titled, The Making of Glenn Beck:

When a fly ball cruised out toward Beck, he ran for it and slipped. Upon hitting the ground, Beck swallowed his tongue and started to choke. "I had to reach all the way back into his throat to pull his tongue out," remembers Kelly.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

From a fascinating 2009 article in Salon titled, The Making of Glenn Beck:

Kelly not only gave Beck his first lessons in marketing and publicity, he also saved his life. During a softball game in the spring of 1983, Beck and Kelly were passing joints under their gloves in the outfield, beers at their feet. When a fly ball cruised out toward Beck, he ran for it and slipped. Upon hitting the ground, Beck swallowed his tongue and started to choke. "I had to reach all the way back into his throat to pull his tongue out," remembers Kelly.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/ ... lenn_beck/

Surely some unseen forces were at work that day.

Kelly should've charged him a couple of grand in medical fees. Beck would surely pay up, since he is such a model of ideological consistency.

[Nordic]

It's so weirdly and pervertedly apropo that it was his tongue.

For Beck to choke to death on his own tongue nowadays would certainly be poetic justice.

[brainpanhandler]

Yes, it is surpassingly strange. I don't think I've ever so vividly pictured someone choking to death on their own tongue, or in fact at all really. Further on in their careers Glenn Beck, engaged in a ratings war with his old friend, life saver and mentor Bruce Kelly, would make fun of the fact on air that Kelly's wife had miscarried, saying that, "(Kelly) apparently can't do anything right -- he can't even have a baby."

Despite his creative freedom, local star status and high salary, Beck's mental state was on a slide. By his own telling, he was drinking heavily, snorting coke and entertaining thoughts of suicide. "There was a bridge abutment in Louisville, Kentucky, that had my name on it," Beck later wrote. "Every day I prayed for the strength to be able to drive my car at 70 mph into that bridge abutment. I'm only alive today because (a) I'm too cowardly to kill myself ... and (b) I'm too stupid."

and (C): the dark lord must have had plans for you.

[IanEye]

.

People tell me it’s a sin
To know and feel too much within



I still believe she was my twin, but eye lost the ring



She was born in spring, but I was born too late
Blame it on a simple twist of fate

.

[brainpanhandler]

But for high drama, even a real bull and matador would be hard pressed to equal Francis's four-year struggle to finish his most ambitious metal sculpture — a life-size depiction of the matador Paquirri being gored.

It weighs more than 1,000 pounds and required more than 2,000 hours of work. At one point during its creation, Francis's sweatshirt caught fire and necessitated a trip to the emergency room. At another moment a horn of the bull slipped and gored the sculptor, causing stitches and a concussion.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/ ... 002e0.html

I am an acquaintance of both George Francis and Doug Moe. George is a fascinating man. Here's a link to his webpage with a gallery of his work:

http://www.gfrancis-sculpture.com/G.H.F ... lcome.html


As it turns out Doug doesn't really do this story justice. In George's telling the thousand pound sculpture slipped off the hoist it was on and one of the horns of the bull, Avispado, famous by virtue of killing Paquirri, a famous Spanish bullfighter, split his head open. George was knocked unconcscious. Three vertebrae in his neck and lower back were fractured. He was bleeding profusely and if he had not awoken he would have surely bled to death. In that condition he drove himself to the hospital. He was hospitalized for months afterward. Avispado nearly had another victim.