Posted by April 24, 2007 13:40PM
The animals called and they'd like their skin back.We interviewed Dan Mathews, VP of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals otherwise known as PETA because of his memoir "Committed" which is a romping read. Anyway, he dropped by The Oregonian when he was in town.
Most authors have fluffed up pictures of themselves on their book jackets. Mathews is more handsome in real life than in his book which, granted, shows him in a giant bunny costume.
Anyway, Tommy Hilfiger, Kenneth Cole and Ralph
Lauren stopped using fur following pressure from PETA and now they hope John Galliano is next.
Seems last summer, Mathews was swimming in St. Tropez and
literally bumping into Galliano and Penelope Cruz. Maybe Mathews was a little too enthusiastic with that backstroke.
In the May issue of British Elle, Galliano describes the encounter 'You know these animal-rights people say they
can get you anywhere? Well, there I am in St Tropez with Alexi [his
in the sea, having avoided the paparazzi who are out in force for Pamela
Anderson's wedding on this yacht, and suddenly, out of the blue in the
middle of the sea..
. blubblubblub..
. it's Dan Mathews, the vice
John!' It was such a shock.
Pen nearly had a heart attack!'"
Mathews obviously swims in better circles, deeper waters or fancier seas than we. The only people we bump into while swimming is our neighbors at Grant High School pool.
In his memoir, Mathews wrote about his first encounter with Galliano, ten years
ago: "John Galliano invited me to his stately abode in Paris, where we
had a very urbane chat in a dimly lit room. He explained, with those
ever-bleary eyes and raspy voice, that he wasn't really a "fur person,"
but that Bernard Arnault, the money man behind his luxury company,
insisted he use real fur to keep prices high. John's next collection
included an outfit featuring not just fur, but a cap made of the entire
face of a skinned silver fox, the animal's lifeless eyes sloping down
just above the model's lifeless eyes.
Priceless."
Few, if any, can make the same claim as Dan Mathews. As an awkward teen, he was bullied for being gay.
As an animal rights activist he once dressed up as a carrot and got pelted with bits of bologna by meat eaters.
"I guess you could say I've courted hostilities for being both a fruit and a vegetable," he writes in "Committed: A Rabble-Rouser's Memoir" (Atria Books, $24, 272 pages).
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals aren't known for their humor, but Mathews, their vice president, takes a party boy approach to activism.
Besides the root vegetable, he once dressed as a parish priest and carried a "Thou shalt not kill" sign to disrupt a fur-favoring designer's runway show.
"I'm someone who likes to have fun. You don't have to become a bore to be committed to a cause," he said.
And he does have fun. Waltzing with Pamela Anderson at a ball in Vienna, introducing his kooky mom to drag queens, getting nearly naked in public despite freezing weather --all for the love of animals.
If he's not working to protect animals from human harm, he said, "I can't go to sleep at night.
"
He answered questions on his work in a combination of phone calls and e-mail. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: You wrote some of this in the library reading room in Portland.
Why Portland? There wasn't a more convenient library?
A: My boyfriend, Todd, lives in Oregon so I came out from Virginia on many holiday weeks to write by day and see him by night.
He found the Sterling Room for Writers (at Central Library) for me --it's a glorious, quiet chamber where you can concentrate and write. It's actually credited in the book. And there is such great vegan grub in Portland --even doughnuts!
Q: Animal rights protesters were partially responsible for closing down a local fur store. Do you think it makes more sense to educate consumers rather than simply put one independent shop owner out of business?
A: I think you must do both.
I always cheer when there is one less purveyor of cruelty on the block. I wasn't involved in that effort but applaud those who were.
Q: As a kid, you and your mom took in multiple stray cats when you couldn't afford to pay basic household bills.
Do you think bouncing checks to do so is ethical? Do you think breaking the "no pets" lease agreement is ethical?
A: It's all about priorities.
There is always someone more downtrodden than you, and I think by helping those less fortunate, even if you are a mess yourself, it can help you both. Destitute as we were, we actually felt lucky to have what we did considering the violent plight of animals in the 'hood.
Q: But when you're broke, taking a stray cat for chemo treatments sounds, I want to be polite here, um, misguided at best.
Death is a part of life. Why not simply accept that?
A: Getting our beloved cat a feline leukemia shot, which prevents the disease from ravaging them, was more rewarding than being able to super-size a meal at McDonald's, which in those pre-veg days is where we often ate.
Q: Can't PETA acknowledge that while some animal testing is frivolous and funded by companies competing for dollars, other research is crucial in developing treatments for people?
A: New treatments can ethically and easily be tried out on those animals who are dying without hope. That's the real test and gets us to the end point quicker than taking healthy animals, artificially inducing a simulation of the condition in them and then trying things and killing them.
When Rock Hudson couldn't get a new AIDS pill because NIH (National Institutes of Health) was trying them out on mice and beagles, he went to France. It was too late for him, but in this country, people who are dying beg to have new cancer treatments tried on them, for instance. Same is true of people who have dying animals with no hope and who want to give their own cat/dog a chance to try something new.
. . .
There are wonderful neuroscientists and neurologists fighting against animal experiments, believing them to be a total waste of time, resources and lives . . .
no worthwhile research has ever been held up or back by PETA protests. We have exposed wrongdoing, helped the government do its oversight, and exposed waste and fraud.
Q: Would you refuse medical treatment for yourself or a loved one knowing the cure was the result of animal research?
A: No, it would be just like refusing to use the roads in Virginia because they were paved by slaves. We can't get caught up in the icky past, we've got to move into the future and stop these bad habits some industries have fallen into.
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