Monday, August 3, 2015

World's Worst Toys R Us Spokesmodel

Updated below

So among the many jaw-dropping, gorge-raising articles I read today about the necro-decorative fun hunter (trophy, as opposed to subsistence) or "funter", Sabrina Corgatelli, was this Salon piece by Scott Eric Kaufman, which offered a wealth of tone-deaf quotations:
Corgatelli told Today’s Carson Daly that when she posted the image of her and the giraffe — which she captioned, “Such an amazing animal!! I couldn’t be any happier!! My emotion after getting him was a feeling I will never forget!!!” — 
Note: it's possible that Ms. Corgatelli didn't actually mean these astonishingly sociopathic and bone-headed vocalizations, but had a permit to cull the moron herd, and was simply blowing on her hand-carved Duck Dynasty-brand Idjit Call™ in order to bring the game into her crosshairs.
she never anticipated that the photograph would be commented on more than 13,000 times, or that she would become a flash-point in the discussion about the legitimacy of big game hunting. 
Because who could possibly gaze upon this anodyne image: 
...and feel anything but happy!! about this amazing animal!!
“To all the haters, stay tuned, you’re gonna have so much more to be p***ed about,” she wrote in response to some of those comments.
Oh oh...Sounds like she's already booked her next safari to the Most Dangerous Game Dude Ranch!
She was much more measured with Daly, saying that “everybody just thinks we’re cold-hearted killers, and it’s not that. There is a connection with the animal, and just because we hunt them doesn’t mean we don’t have a respect for them.”
You know who else feels a connection to the things they kill? Serial killers. And they also tend to take trophies from their victims, so maybe this giraffe murdering is just a phase she's going through, a chrysalis form as she transitions from John Wayne into John Wayne Gacy.
She added that she was, in effect, doing a public service, because despite being herbivores who mostly congregate in national parks, “giraffes are very dangerous animals” and “they could hurt you seriously very quickly.”
As opposed to a bow hunter, who can also hurt you seriously, but slowly and exquisitely over a two-day period. But Ms. Corgatelli is correct, giraffes can be dangerous. Between college and grad school my sister Katy worked at the Santa Barbara zoo, and her duties included tending to the giraffes. One day, an obnoxious African Crown Crane started hanging out in the exhibit and making vaguely mocking noises at the ungulates. The next day, Katy found the bird's headless body sprawled in the middle of the enclosure; forensic evidence suggested a giraffe had finally got fed up and decapitated it with a single kick, sending the crane's head tumbling into the next exhibit and scoring a badly needed extra point.  So, yes...Giraffes have evolved to become nature's perfect killing machine, assuming you're a douchebag bird.

But there's another part of this story that has received less scrutiny, and typically, it was Sheri who first noticed it, writing on Facebook:
This woman has Utah roots (from Portage, I believe) and she graduated from USU. Her boyfriend is reportedly from Logan. She works an accountant at an Idaho university. How does she afford her big game hunting "hobby"? ... [T]rips to Africa, guides, thousands of dollars in fees, etc.
That's a very good question. Dr. Walter Palmer, the Dentist of Death, paid $55,000 to kill Cecil the lion; do Idaho institutes of higher education really compensate their accountants that well? Because if so, this makes me think, for about the ten thousandth time, that I made a serious misjudgment at that high school Career Day Fair.

Update: And Sheri, as usual, breaks the case:
Well, the answer to the funding mystery is what you all thought: she hunts children and sells their hair to use as stuffing for Build-a-Bears. 
No, actually her new boyfriend is Aaron Nelson, professional lion killer. She goes along on the trophy hunts to add a woman's gentle touch to the slaughter. Here's Aaron's bio from his firm's web page:
"Since 1995 Aaron Neilson has specialized in hunting the African Lion. He has personally taken 11 trophy lions of his own. Not to mention, he has accompanied numerous clients and friends on some of their lion hunts around the African continent. He has personally hunted Lion in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia. Over the past 16 years he has spent over 350 days pursuing lion in Africa, an accomplishment not matched by any other hunting consultant. When trusting your highly expensive, and long-awaited trophy lion hunt to an agent. Look no further than Global Hunting Resources, we have the experience and knowledge to back it up!"
And when the game population is finally exhausted thanks to these assholes, Aaron and his high calibre helpmeet Sabrina can diversify into the business of guiding actual serial killers on safari. Imagine helping Richard Speck to hunt the wily student nurse -- notoriously difficult to track at night because of their noiseless crepe shoes --by teaching him how to build a "nurse blind" out of hospital modesty screens and then hunker down by the watering hole -- or at least the vending machines in the breakroom -- and wait.

Deep in the night shift, their white uniforms and caps are softly luminous in the faint glow from the Bun-O-Matic Coffee Maker light, making it obvious that you're performing a public service, and that nature wants you to take these girls and get their heads, because student nurses are "very dangerous" and "they could hurt you seriously very quickly," especially if they're taking a blood sample and happen to miss the vein four or five times.

16 comments:

KB said...

"Respect"
I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Li'l Innocent said...

What gets my deepest wells of combined befuddlement and contempt seething about these creature-killers is the attitude displayed in their photos. I read these photos as being statements of superiority. "Look what I can totally control. Behold this great beast dead at my hands, and gasp in wonder at the total hot-shitness of me."

I don't get how killing an animal with modern weaponry and/or with the kind of cheating methods used by our Minnesota dentist friend makes you superior. I don't get how they can be unaware of how they look in their photos, grinning and glorying over a dead body.

Also, what can be understood about these people from their use of expressions like "getting" or "taking" the animals? Those are possessive verbs on the one hand, on the other they're euphemistic substitutes for "kill". It sounds as if the animals have something that the hunters want for themselves - some power, some quality - and they think they can get it by killing them, although apparently they aren't comfortable coming right out and using that word.

Scott, you mentioned serial killers - I think you're right. On a more commonplace level, I think these trophy hunters, male and female, are similar to the kind of man who pursues women in the Casanova/Don Juan style. As long as the woman remains an independent actor, undominated, he'll track her obsessively. It's her separateness, her difference from him, that he wants to "take". If he has sex with her, the moment of entering her is the moment of vanquishing her, the equivalent of the happiness you see on the funters' faces in their trophy photos. "I couldn’t be any happier!! My emotion after getting him was a feeling I will never forget!!!”

As soon as the Don Juan type finishes that one encounter, that hunt is over along with his interest in that particular woman. He can brag to his buds that he screwed her, which I guess is the equivalent of the head mounted on the wall. But this kind of theft from another being is notorious for being unsatisfying. The funter will be on the prowl again.

Sad and bad.

Carl said...

Imagine helping Richard Speck to hunt the wily student nurse

The orderlies will be easier to hunt...just leave a trail of Snickers...

Carl said...

I'm with L'il. Let this bitch put on a loin cloth and craft a spear out of a branch and a rock, and go hunt like her low-browed forebears did. THEN she's earned the right to be a smug schmuck.

Carl said...

As soon as the Don Juan type finishes that one encounter, that hunt is over along with his interest in that particular woman.

Excuse me....del Frisco's was it? I'm sure we've dated...

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Outsourcing all my trophy hunting comments to Li'l Innocent.
~

Meanie-meanie, tickle a person said...

So among the many jaw-dropping, gorge-raising articles I read today about the necro-decorative fun hunter

Google gives zero returns for #NecroDeco. Trend that motherfucker!

scripto said...

Killing a lion with a spear like the Masai is impressive. The rest of this is just bullshit.

Kathy said...

I suppose they believe it gives them very high status amongst their killer-pals, many of who belong to the 1% or even .01%. Killing seems to be a terrible thrill.

grouchomarxist said...

they could hurt you seriously very quickly

Giraffes have long had a reputation as relentless killing machines -- which is no doubt why they're known in some quarters as the "Jaws of the veldt". What with their height, plus those keen ears and eyes and sense of smell, there's no way to hide from them. Once they've marked you for their prey, it's either you or them.

Good thing she had that spiffy rifle with the telescopic sight that's hanging on a tripod next to her trophy. In fact, the tripod itself -- which has a cradle mounted on it -- is a giveaway that she made that shot from a very safe, very long distance.

A genuine profile in courage is our Ms. Quatermain.

Maybe it's just the light, the way it makes her look like she's got empty eye-sockets, or the way she's got her right arm resting possessively on her kill, but there is something distinctly totenkopf-ish about this lady.

Kathy said...

She likes to thing she's Ayla, living alone in the middle of a vast continent... making her first 'kill' because if she failed, she'd DIE! It's exactly the same: Ayla dug a hole, chased her prey into the hole and then killed the prey (horse) with a bone-club! Ms. Quatermain used a high powered rifle with telescopic sight on a tripod, after (probably) having her trophy-prey lured into her sights by her lion-killing boyfriend'd paid minions. Yep.

Li'l Innocent said...

Carl, if you were that cute Brit engineer on his way to Australia I met back in 19-ought-mumblemumble at that hotel eatery in downtown San Francisco, all I can say is you hid your Juanishness superbly, and all would be forgiven *anyway*… (\my well-spent youth)

Thanks, Thunder. I saw your interchange with the guy who writes the Consider the Source blog, both of you trying to stay fact-based and cool of mind, and coming at the subject of hunting from almost diametrically opposite directions - or so it seemed to me. Very frustrating.

Scott, that nurse hunting scene is creepily brill and reminds me oddly of old MAD Magazine parodying "Field and Stream" in the dim past (with cover showing square jawed sportsman facing the onslaught of an enraged gopher, IIRC). Too bad we can't bring back Wallace Wood or somebody to illustrate it.

Scott said...

Thanks, Li'l. And YES, Wally Wood for the win!

Doc Logan said...

When better drawings are drawn

They'll be drawn by Wood

He's real gone

D. Sidhe said...

"big cat specialist" especially makes me want to vomit, for some reason. You want to hunt these things? Get within claw and tooth range. Don't pretend you're tough because you did something you could have done from another fucking country with an adequate remote control setup. For all the risk you assholes take and involvement you have in the hunt, you might as well have stayed home and let the guides pull the trigger and send you the fucking trophy.

We'd all have been better off, I think, if we hadn't invented guns. We'd have a lot more wildlife and a lot fewer dead kids.

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Francis Macomber! Thou shouldst be living at this hour!

...but seriously, "asshole" is far too kind. These people are evil if the word means anything at all. What makes someone so broken inside? I wish I knew. The comparison to serial killers is frightening, 'cause it's accurate, the mindset is the same, and yet these people walk free among us. I mean, you might not exactly approve of the likes of Hemingway and T Roosevelt, but at least they had a cultural excuse. These ladies and gentlemen are just nakedly depraved.

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