Our social feeds over the past week or so have been a veritable carnival of celebrities taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge — pop stars, former presidents and actors gleefully dumping freezing water over their heads in the name of fighting Lou Gehrig’s disease.
By now, you might be a bit sick of all the fanfare, but if you watch one more ice bucket video this week, you should probably watch Anthony Carbajal’s.
26-year-old Carbajal’s contribution to the trend begins with disarming silliness — the man cavorts around in a bikini, writhes on a car, and sports a pair of pink booty shorts bearing the words, “Kiss My ALS.”
That’s right, MY ALS.
The bizarre hilarity of the first section of the video belies what’s to come, which is a heartbreaking speech by the young man about the horrors of the disease, which killed his grandmother, afflicted his mother and, recently, took hold in Carbajal himself.
Carbajal is already suffering from the effects of ALS — having trouble starting his car and buttoning his shirt. “Eventually I won’t be able to use my arms or hands at all. Eventually I won’t be able to walk, talk and breathe on my own,” he says in the video. “That’s the real truth of what ALS is. It’s devastating. It’s costly … I apologize for my rant and my tears, but if I don’t — if I simply dump ice on my head I don’t think you’re really going to get the point.”
He goes on to thank everyone who has taken the challenge, though, and emphasizes that everyone who has taken it has made a difference — more than a $40 million difference since the movement began, according to The New York Times, reporting on the massive amount of money that has been donated to the A.L.S. Association in less than a month.
Brenna Ehrlich
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