Alec Baldwin is Like Cancer

Yeah, you heard me, Alec, you big grungy teddy bear you. Listen up:

I used to think Alec Baldwin was a good actor. But now he's no longer good. He's like cancer.

Maybe you're reading this, and you're a fan of Alec Baldwin. Maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about. Maybe you think I should get cancer for talking about Alec like this.

But maybe you didn't see today's IMDB news story on Alec Baldwin's custody battle with ex-wife Kim Basinger. Here is what he said:

"It's like being diagnosed with cancer. Something I realize I have to live with. But I'm keeping things in perspective. Not letting it consume me and eat me up with anger as it used to. I stopped that when one late night I was on the street so unhappy and filled with rage that, in a fit, I smashed my phone against a lamppost. A black lady walking by said to me, Alec Baldwin,' you got to get hold of yourself.' So I have."

I've got a couple questions for you, Alec. I'll give you that your custody battle consumes you and eats you up. I know how it is; I can actually identify with this feeling. I never smashed my phone, but I'm sure many a lamppost has felt the extent of my rage. But that's where the similarities between your custody battle and cancer end, old boy.

Tell me, does your custody battle spread and kill people? Might this be the same kind of cancer that is in my mom's body? Maybe the same kind of cancer that indirectly landed her in the hospital yesterday and has her bedridden at the mercy of painkillers today?

Before you made that comment, Mr. Baldwin, did you stop to think that maybe somewhere, some cancer victim suffered a blood clot caused by the catheter inserted into her neck, which was supposed to make it easier for the chemotherapy drugs to kill her tumor? When you're having it out with Ms. Basinger's lawyers, is that kind of like the pain and Percocet battling it out in her body? Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I doubt it's that serious...am I right?

Let me ask you again, Alec, and this time, give it to me straight up and lose the act. How can a custody battle be like cancer? Answer me that question with a straight face, and I'll tell everyone you're the Greatest Actor Alive. You have impeccable timing with your tactless evocation of the c-word just before my mom starts her treatment. Unless you want a scathing public indictment, you'd better stick to the script from now on. That black lady was right. You got to get ahold of yourself.

So dear Alec Baldwin, if your child support ordeal really is like cancer, then you're like cancer to me. From now on, you spread around good movies and remind me of what you said. I'm not discrediting your Baldwin clan's history with the disease; in fact, that's why I find this comment so alarming. You may have the big bucks flowing into a cancer charities, but this doesn't give you license to publicly turn this disease into a badly worded, pseudo-offensive metaphor.

Cancer can be an effective metaphor, and I'm sure your child support battle is quite difficult, but before you bring it out again, please stop and think about all the people (now it seems like every other person I meet) who are or have been affected by this disease, and maybe select another word (preferably an adjective) that may more fittingly describe your ordeal. Not everyone is as sensitive as I am, but there are some who may be more sensitive. I'm looking out for them here.

Maybe this wrathful Alec-Baldwin-is-a-cancer feeling will subside, because I really enjoyed watching your performance in The Aviator and I would like to be able to enjoy many more Baldwin performances to come. And I sincerely hope your custody battle resolve itself...without the cancer metaphor.

Thank you kindly,
Delia True