RINGY DINGY

He says he threw the phone but not at the hotel employee, who, unfortunately, was cut about the cheek by phone shrapnel.

Not excusing the explosive phone spear-toss by Russell Crowe, but the story was picked-up by nearly everyone, FOX News included (by this morning, however, not so much as a mention of Crowe on FOX's site): the jump-shot rendition of the incident, that Crowe "threw (a) phone at the head (of a hotel clerk)." We'll have to wait out the news from and about the video footage of the phone shattering moment inorder to reveal, hopefully, what occured, but I am thinking moreorless intuitively that Russell Crowe descended to the lobby not with a weapon but with a statement (didn't have intent to assault anyone, and did not carry a phone as a weapon but to illustrate his problem) and then lost control impulsively (and, I am also conjecturing that no one up to that point comprehended that the phone wasn't working, or if they did, they didn't acknowledge that to Crowe, and that once Crowe was at the lobby with the phone to prove his point, they declined to acknowledge even moreso and that was the flash-point). Crowe is said to theorize and perceive in sporting, competitive terms and perhaps the entire episode was one of challenge run amok. In the realm of the impulse, without reason or someone else there to act as reason, you get the explosive point. And, a-whatever-thrown-against-a-wall a point does make. And did.

Desk clerk, a cut requiring stitches, brought about by a man with many millions of dollars, and from there a lot of complications spring. And have.

I read a transcription of MSNBC's HARDBALL with Chris Matthews for the first time in many years so as to read what Crowe said on his visit there Thursday (06/10/05) (it's an interesting read) -- because, otherwise, I wouldn't be reading or viewing Chris Matthews, nor reading MSNBC copy. That Matthews remained calm with Crowe was proof to me that Crowe remains the draw -- that and that I'd devote time to actually watch a Matthews' broadcast and read the transcript afterward.

I feel his primal angst. Not the clerk's, not Matthews' but Crowe's. Meaning, I comprehend the flashpoint. Not to excuse it, mind you. But he sure does make for interesting copy and great presence on screen. These are not simple things.

Life for most of us is not about screen presence, however. And, people weary of the news about some who occupy the screen yet fail the heroics off-screen that they sometimes enact on. Or, maybe more likely, what is available to be read is most often about failure, while the good things, good events, go quietly anywhere but to print. And, thus, the strange circle of perception that draws us again to the screen, to hope and eager for another, perhaps good reality.



Wizbang's CARNIVAL OF THE TRACKBACKS, XV
...because, "what we do in life, echoes in eternity"

GLADIATOR: EXTENDED EDITION, August 23, 2005 three-disc release with Russell Crowe audio commentary, from Director Sir Ridley Scott and Dreamworks/Universal.