Bizarre story of the day: Keifer head butts designer over Brooke Shields

Keifer wasn't trying to headbutt the man, he was trying to extract stem cells from the guy's skull. To hell with the Bill of Rights. He needs them, dammit.

Are we sure that Keifer didn't confuse this guy for a Christmas tree?

I for one think Kiefer Sutherland should have a licence to headbutt whoever he wants at any time.

Money will change hands and life will go on.

The man has saved the world countless times. He's a hero. This is a witch hunt, I say! A witch hunt!!!

... We're running out of time!!!

This made me picture a TMZ "reporter" with some skanky LA socialite duct-taped to a chair, pulling out their fingernails one by one in order to extract questionable intelligence about a possible head-butting incident involving 2 movie stars of the 80s. Then think that if I was asked to describe the state of 21st century America in 50 words or less, I probably couldn't do any better than that.

When I first read the story, I thought it was funny. Then I thought about Kiefer's alcoholism and I got sad. Then I remembered he did this to a small fashion designer over Brooke Shields and I found the humor in it again.

Pretty soon "kiefer" is going to become a slang word, as in "That motherfucker totally just kiefered me in the head!"

Yeah, this doesn't bode well at all for Keifer. Head butting is not an action of a sober man.

What? The Junkyard Dog was always sober.

I dream of bumping into Kiefer as he's ready to hit the town and I get to tag along. The anticipation of what street corner I'll wake up on and whose blood is on my shirt would be thrilling.

That guy has an injury I would describe technically as... an owie.

The lesson is: do not invite Kiefer to your event if it is open-bar.

Maybe Kiefer saw an out of season Christmas tree and the guy was just in the way?

Jesus could you imagine Keifer and Charlie Sheen reliving old times with a night out on the town?

There'd barely be a town left by the end of it...

Me too, man. Drunkenly jumping into Christmas trees and headbutting fashion designers? Jack Bauer knows how to have a good itme.

Why was brooke shields lying on the ground?

I'll get my coat

I just caught a news scroll on CNN that said he turned himself in. Maybe the next season of 24 should be giving Keifer 24 hours to break out of real prison. If he can make it past White Power Bill.

The fashion designer pushed him. Self defense headbutt.

This makes me smile

Look lets all lay of him for a second.

He was running out of time and he needed to know who the designer was working for. No one else has the stomach for this sort of thing.

...yeah...right.

Don't forget Warden Broills. That guy is a tough son of a bitch.

The fact that you can't just deck people anymore in this country without getting arrested pisses me off and is probably the reason that we always hear people wondering aloud why all our "real men" stars are coming from nations with pub cultures (i.e. places where people can still punch each other a lot). Say what you will about whether or not low-impact violence is ever morally correct, but the ability to punch an asshole in the face in public has been extolled as a cool virtue by American storytelling since its beginning, creating an annoying double standard. If we've been raised seeing regular-guy heroes casually punching jerks in everything from to Mr. Smith Goes To Washington all the way to Beethoven, why the hell did it suddenly become such a big deal in the last twenty-odd years?

Hell, Darryl F. Zanuck once punched Michael Curtiz right in the face just for disagreeing with him, turning the guy's cigar inside-out in his mouth, and nothin' happened. When did this suddenly become such a big deal?

Jack Bauer will...Brooke no interference with his favorite...Shields.

So, did Kiefer stand on a ladder to headbutt him?



This Jack Bauer's a really small guy.

He also has T-Rex hands.

Good point from Stormin. This is why we can't make Westerns with our own actors anymore (Sirs Harris and Mortensen excepted). Somebody put Keifer in a goddamn western. He's got the goods.

Maybe you could let us know about some of the fist fights and head-buttings you've dealt out in the last twenty-odd years... and how well that's worked out for you, with or without involvement from the police.

Let's talk about the root of all this.

I'm a child of the 90s, the era of political correctness, but even in my case I'm incredibly relieved I didn't grow up now. The shit we pulled back in the day could easily get a kid expelled or arrested these days. (A school in my home state recently outlawed ANY physical contact between ANYBODY). Some of it was normal fighting, some of it was the assholeish unwarranted one-sided jobs that you only do when you're of cruel elementary school age (see: Young Lonergan), some was just good old-fashioned bringing in dangerous objects without seeing the harm.

Fights used to be seen as part of kids establishing themselves as independent human beings, standing up for one's self against bullies, etc. I bet just about everyone here has at least one if not both parents who'd proudly tell stories of getting their licks back in the day. But that was their generation. When my brother, however, was growing up he was tormented by one wiseass on our street eternally making fun of him and convincing most others to as well.* My brother could never lay a finger on him for fear of getting in severe trouble, and because mediation is bullshit it went on from 1st grade through to 5th grade. In 5th grade one day at the bus stop the wiseass made one comment too many and my brother just wiped the floor with him. He almost got expelled, but only got off because it had happened outside of school property. But for most other kids they never get that lucky break, they simply have to endure the bullshit, and after being conditioned into never raising a hand they're now growing up and giving us the current wimpy crop of Americans.

* Full Disclosure: I'd get picked on as a kid too, but I'd also mercilessly bully other kids below me on the food chain far more undeserving.

If you went through your school years never having to take or dish out violence, it was just plain luck on your part. Violence is part of growing up male. The current cultural climate is forcing something on us that isn't natural.

I spent most of my childhood being picked on and bullied, and it didn't stop until junior high. And the reason it stopped wasn't because I ignored it, or because I won the bullies over. It was because I started hitting back. Like it or don't, call it sick and perverse, but that's reality. The human male is an aggressive animal. Modern American culture refuses to accept that.

The simple answer to your question is that hitting back has generally worked out pretty well. Sorry.

Amen.

I was in the same boat as Greg and Stormin's brother. I was picked on, bullied, smacked around so often it was like I was part of a daily schedule. It stopped for awhile in grade school when I snapped and beat the shit out of one bully with my Scooby Doo lunch box (lots of head shots - dented the fuck out of it, but God did it feel GOOD). I got hassled a bit here and there, but all bullying finally stopped when I was in high school and I stared down the wrestling champ in front of a huge crowd of students (helped I was a full head taller than him and was in a very bad mood that day, and in no mood for any bullshit).

Of course, nowadays, fights aren't the same, especially since you hear more about kids snapping and bringing guns and shit to school. Yeah, I used a metal lunchbox once, but that kid was going home with a wicked headache, not lying on a slab somewhere.

Still, the guys on Scottish Soccer Hooligan Weekly send Kiefer their support.

Maybe I'm way off base, but I think that part of the reason guys are flipping out and shooting up schools is that they're continually expected to keep taking the shit that's dished out every day, and school staff refuse to do anything about any of it. Teenagers put up with crap every day that would result in lawsuits in the adult world, and nobody deals with it because "boys will be boys". Then, when the victims lose their shit, the culture at large tries to figure out what was wrong with them, or what video games made them that way, and never examine the fucked up high school culture that pushed them to the edge.

And forbidding students any physical contact is not the answer, by the way.

There's less school shootings now than there were back in the first two thirds of the 20th century, which probably has to do to some extent with decline in gang activity (seriously!) in many areas and the fact that schools in violent neighborhoods have turned into fortresses with metal detectors. But these high-profile psychotic attacks in suburban schools stem in all probability from the fact that by cracking down on fighting there's no pressure release. As long as schools understand where to properly draw the line, most kids would be able to settle these things between themselves, and these types wouldn't slowly go nuts over the course of twelve years.

What Greg, Tim, and Stormin said. I got made fun of a lot as a kid - broke white trash who lucked out with a scholarship to a swank Christian school, fat, socially awkward, etc. I got endless amounts of shit until the day I snapped and started screaming at this one kid who always gave me grief...I'm sure it was pretty funny watching this pre-pubescent chubby dweeb yelling shit at a bigger kid, voice cracking, the whole nine yards, but my subsequent act of kicking him in the balls and punching him did the trick. I got a month of after-school detention and constant haranguing from the headmaster, but man was it worth it.

Then I transferred to public school, lost my virginity to a (quite) charitable and slightly homely young lass, started lifting weights, and the rest was history. Hooray for sex and violence!

This reminds me of when I got into a fight in high school, a huge crowd gathered around, I still remember someone telling me all I have to do is make the other kid bleed and it'll all be over, the other kid just wouldn't bleed and eventually stopped fighting.

Well, when you go to Catholic school like I did, the kids don't hit each other.

That's what the nuns are for.

I bet they spanked you with rulers for being a bad, bad girl...

Nice.

Unfortunately for your spank bank, I was a model student. I never took a beating, but I saw some kids get their asses TANNED by nuns. Those broads don't fuck around.

See, the only time I ever got smacked by my dad was for lying to his face, even though there was proof I was lying, and on top of that I smacked him back as hard as I could. I can't imagine being beaten by a stranger and not fighting back.

Even if fighting back earned you a prime spot in HELL?!

That's why there are confessionals, that's a get out of hell free card right there.

I stopped being afraid of hell at the rational age. 5.

It would be ironic if you went to hell and were tortured by a Marlon Brando impersonator.

It would only be for 40 years though.

Looking back on human history, it doesn't look like the fear of hell has really stopped anybody from doing anything, ever.

That Young Gun's a loose cannon!

Gotta agree with the consensus in here, especially because I was bullied most of my childhood. The older kids stopped picking on me when I gave someone a bloody nose after the bus dropped us off. One of them even took me back to his house to help me get cleaned up so my Mom wouldn't freak.

I'll echo the fighting consensus as well. I got bullied by some kids for a few months in junior high. It finally ended when one of them caught me on a very bad day. Even though he was a good head taller than me, I absolutely kicked his ass (it helped that my first shot surprised him and broke his nose). That ended the bullying from everyone at that point; once they realized that I WOULD fight back if pushed, they moved on.

Bullies count on you being too frightened to fight back. You have to make them move on to easier prey.