Stefan Fatsis to Muchnick: ‘Go Fuck Yourself’
Unbelievable Story of SF 49er Super Bowler George Visger, Brain Damage, and NFL Callousness
September 9, 2011Duerson Apparently Did Not Review Andrew Stewart NFL Disability Claim
September 10, 2011The following email exchange on Friday evening refers to the article published today at Beyond Chron, “Duerson Lite: NFL Brain Injury Agony Continues With Death of Hall of Famer Lee Roy Selmon,” http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Duerson_Lite_NFL_Brain_Injury_Agony_Continues_With_Death_of_Hall_of_Famer_Lee_Roy_Selmon_9500.html. The full text of that piece will be published on this blog as soon as it clears the front page of its original publisher.
TO: Irvin Muchnick
FROM: Stefan Fatsis
[No Subject]
Hey Irv,
Just read your piece on the San Francisco alt weekly website. “Breaks wind”? I was going to tell you to go fuck yourself. Instead, I’ll just suggest that before you slag other writers – and willfully take their words out of context – you might want to familiarize yourself with their work.
Best,
Stefan
***************
TO: Stefan Fatsis
FROM: Irvin Muchnick
[No Subject]
Stefan,
You were “going to tell [me] to go fuck yourself”? Uh, I think you just did. And that’s not very nice at all.
Maybe Slate, Deadspin, and Concussioninc.net should conduct a joint readers’ poll to see which is considered meaner: criticizing a piece of writing upon perceiving that it constitutes verbal farting; or telling someone (or not telling him, as you would have it) to go fuck himself.
I am familiar with your work. Falsely accusing otherwise does not advance your argument, whatever it is.
Here is the full paragraph from which I pulled the quote about “an absence of headline-grabbing negativism in the NFL right now”:
North Korea moving its border fences five yards south wouldn’t generate as much media attention as the NFL’s kickoff shift has. That’s partly because, for the first time in several years, there’s an absence of headline-grabbing negativism in the NFL right now. Labor peace is guaranteed for a decade, Alan Schwarz has left the concussion beat at theNew York Times, and the league’s biggest-name bad boys are getting married, signing “$100 million” contracts, and having fun on the field again.
If you would like me to publish even more of your context-clarifying words on either side of those quoted in my piece, then send them along and I will publish them immediately – as I am publishing this exchange.
Best,
Irv
1 Comment
Ahh,
I love it when experts with absolutely no experience or training espouse their views as factual. I would love to speak to all as to educate my living with Post NFL Condition. I developed hydrocephalus, water on the brain, during the 81 Super Bowl season with the SF 49ers and underwent emergency VP shunt brain surgery. Two more brain surgeries 4 months after we won Super Bowl XVI followed, and I was forced to sue for Workers Comp. Five wonderful years later battling creditors, and undergoing two additional knee surgeries on a knee the 49ers orthopedic surgeon butchered (he was successfully sued by 4 of my former team mates from that year for malpractice), I won my Work Comp case and brain surgeries #2 and # 3 were finally paid for.
Fast forward to today. Age 52 and have now survived 9 emergency VP Shunt brain surgeries, (Dr. Rich Ellenbogen, the head of the NFL’s Head, Neck and Spine Injury group told me personally it’s a miracle I can even function as the have a 50% failure rate with shunts.)
Stefan, tell me again how qualified you are to espouse your views?
George Visger
SF 49ers 80 & 81
Survivor of 9 NFL Caused Emergency VP Shunt Brain Surgeries
Benefactor of ZERO NFL Benefits