The Pros and Cons of Dwarf Tossing

Dwarf tossing is a painfully absurd idea, founded in Florida, the home of many more American embarrassments. I interviewed the director of a documentary about the sport, and then appropriately assumed the subject would vanish from my life, as seemingly irrelevant as it is. However, recently I got a mysterious email from a stranger that literally read YOU WANT TO DO A FOLLOW UP TO DWARF TOSSING? Immediately, my mind went to a very dark place, where I had accidently stepped into the seedy underworld of dwarf tossing and a complicated conspiracy with Russian dwarf tossing bookies. Was this the beginning of a sting operation surrounding the “real story” of Dave the Dwarf, the enigmatic spokesperson behind the sport? Would I be wearing a wire from this point on?

Instead, it turns out that dwarf tossing is a national issue, after Florida State Representative Ritch Workman’s proposal to revoke the law that prohibits the sport that, just in case you missed it, involves throwing human beings with a disease that makes them fragile and categorically smaller than most of the world’s populace. As one may have assumed, the Little People of America (LPA) have been very vocal about why they aren’t exactly pumped about this, and if you’re a decent, ethical human being, you probably side with them.

So did I, until I took my phantom email to heart, and called up Dave the Dwarf to discuss his opposing perspective. What follows is a serious political discussion about the civil merits of quite possibly the most bizarre sports bar gimmick in the history of inebriation.

VICE: Let’s get right to it: Why are you such a huge proponent of overturning this Dwarf Tossing Law in the first place? It’s kind of an odd thing to take such a defensive stance on.
Dave the Dwarf: Well bro, I didn’t do it because of dwarf tossing. I did it for my freedom of choice. Just because I’m three foot tall, don’t treat me like I have the brain of a three year old,and you have to tell me that it’s dumb to let someone throw me against a wall. You don’t have to tell me that it’s wrong, or that I might get hurt. You don’t have to protect me because I’m three foot tall. I mean, if you put a fucking hairpin in a light socket, you’re going to get electrocuted, but there’s no law against that!

Why is the LPA freaking out about this then? I feel like you have a pretty valid case here.
When the LPA came against me for it, I was just like, “Dude, every handicapped person in the world should be on my side. I’m fighting for the rights of everyone to be treated like a real person.” I’m not really fighting for dwarf tossing. I’m fighting for the freedom to choose what the fuck I want to do without the government trying to tell me! Dwarf tossing just happened to be the horse I rolled in on.

I take it that you aren’t actually a part of the LPA?
Well, when I was a kid I used to go all the time. I mean, Dave Flood is a card-carrying member. Dave the Dwarf though, well, they don’t know that the two are the same.

It doesn’t sound like you guys get along very well. Have you actually gotten into any bad public spats with them?
We don’t have spats, per se. I mean, I was on Maury Povich and Sally Jesse Raphael, and they did come and debate me. Well, not really debate me, but give their side. There was a lady who was like, “I have two daughters who are dwarfs at school, and you’re taking us back 50 years! Now they go to school and anybody thinks that they can pick them up and toss them.”  I was like, “Um, no ma’am, that’s assault and battery. When you have an event, and it’s sanctioned and there are rules, that’s dwarf tossing.”

So I guess that their argument then is that if it’s legal, anyone will think that they can throw little people and children whenever they feel like it? That doesn’t seem like a very well thought out stance.
I mean, I guess. They’re saying that it’s exploitation, and I’ve made this point many times. They’re confusing exploitation with capitalization. If I was seven foot tall, I’d be getting paid for putting a basketball through a hoop. I’m just playing the cards that I got dealt; you know what I’m saying? I’m a dwarf! I can’t work construction! I can’t reach the grill at McDonalds! I’m doing what I can do, and Dwarf Tossing is just one of those.

That’s a very interesting point. I know that it may seem ignorant, but on that point, what kind of occupations do the LPA mostly take up?
They’re doctors, lawyers, accountants, everything. There’s a show on now called The Little Couple, where the wife is a doctor and the husband is a stay-at-home dad. And then there’s that other one, Big World, Little People. Man, I hate that show; they cry about everything! “Oh, I couldn’t go to the prom because I’m a dwarf…”. What the fuck ever man! When I was in high school, I had 50 bitches to go to the prom with! I mean, I could go sit in the corner, cross my arms, and get disability. Or, I could be out there and have confidence.

There seems to be quite the contradiction in the dwarf community around that issue of sympathy and disability. Is there a lot of fighting within the group itself as well?
I really don’t know, man. I was in like seventh grade when I used to go to their meetings, and the reason I stopped going was because you’d go for the weekends and they’d be like, “Oh my gosh, there’s a little person like me, let’s get married.” I was like, “What the fuck? I don’t even know you!” I was getting letters all the way from “I got an A on my spelling test today” to “Hey, I remembered to take my Geritol,” just because I was a dwarf. They didn’t give a fuck if I was too old for their daughter, or too young for their grandmother. I’ve never—and not that I wouldn’t or anything, so don’t take this wrong—but I’ve never had a dwarf girlfriend in my whole life, and I get more pussy than a tampon!

I don’t know enough about the group in its infancy to make a firm judgment, but it seems like over time the LPA is getting much more conservative and very no-nonsense.
Totally, man. When I was in the LPA, we would go to these convention-type things in Holiday Inns or whatever, and they would party hard. People would get on each other’s shoulders and pull the fire alarm and shit, then they would like crack champagne bottles in the parking lot. Everyone would take me to bars, and I was like 12 years old! They were wild. They also used to have fashion and talent shows, and they’d have this tall people’s group come in and be the judges. I mean, how fucking weird is that?

In all reality, a lot of the allegedly “normal” populace doesn’t have much of a sense of humor either, so maybe they really don’t have to try to hard. But I guess the LPA just doesn’t see it that way.
Here’s the thing: I have no problem whatsoever with you laughing with me. Now you start laughing at me? You have a fucking problem. The LPA just don’t seem to understand that there’s a difference.