No State Funeral For "Ordinary Bloke"

"The father of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin mourned the loss of his "best mate ever" yesterday but declined the offer of a state funeral, saying it wouldn't be in keeping with his son's Outback style.

"The state funeral would be refused because he's an ordinary guy, he's just an ordinary bloke," said Bob Irwin, 66, who taught his son how to wrestle giant crocs.

"He was just like a guy in the street, and he had this ability to get through to people," he said. The Australia Broadcasting Corp. reported that Terri Irwin, Steve's wife, also had decided against a state funeral.

Steve Irwin, 44, was killed Monday in a stingray attack. The elder Irwin said he was proud that his son died doing what he loved.

"That's a lot better than getting hit by a bus," the father said."

Depends. What if you love buses? What, people aren't allowed to love 'em? Never been in a big city, eh, Bobby?

Seriously, dead is dead however you get there. Being taken so young because you never learned to leave big dangerous animals alone is something that should have went out along with Neanderthal. When that idiot Tomothy Treadwell who loved Grizzly bears was at long last eaten by one, the same clarion call echoed from loon to loon. He died doing what he loved. Forget the fact that he made so many bears unafraid of humans that they had to be destroyed. Forget the other attacks on humans because the detweiller proved how safe we are to trifle with. No. He died from love. Fuck that. Dying in the sack atop a leggy blonde, now THAT'S going out doing something loveable. And making $44 million real dollars...as oppossed to Aussie money that's worse than Canadian coinage...from snookering the rubes into believing that poking giant reptiles in the eye with a sharp stick was cool is far from an "Outback Lifestyle". Irwin was a barker for the Yak woman. A Carny. No more, no less. Modern media made him popular but never forget that the man was killed because he tormented one animal too many. And like Treadwell before him, showed big beasts that we were food providers, irritating, but a source of sustenance, and how many Crocs had to be put down because of him?

But he left a lesson, a damned good lesson for all animal-torturing wannabes, from little boys who shove firecrackers up a frog up to grown men who fuck with nature's baddest. One day you won't be as quick, as nimble as before, and something's gonna own your ass.