Brian: sad, but hillarious story. You should tell them to ascertain whether or not their marks are heterosexualists before enlisting them in the production of cheesy heterosexualist trash like that! Gad.

Cheers for your dad for Candid Camera. A couple of years ago sitting in a park outside a bookstore in Boston, Candid Camera tried to put me in a “skit” and the politics of it were disgusting. A very pretty much younger(20+ years)woman sits on the bench with me and proceeds to ask some questions about Boston. I answered them thinking she was visiting the area. An older woman who is dressed as if she may be homeless then sits on the bench and starts feeding the birds which gather around in large numbers. The younger woman says to me “can’t you get rid of her, I so enjoying talking to you.” At this point I am thinking the whole situation is odd so I get up to leave. As I leave I am approached by a Candid Camera person with a release I am asked to sign, though I am told I did not react as I was “suppose to react”.

Of course how I was suppose to react was based on a number of assumptions: 1) I am heterosexual (I am not); 2) Even if I were straight, I would hope I would not be tempted to pick up a woman who was barely out of her teens; and 3) I was to suppose to get angry at the older homeless woman for daring to interfere in the seduction that should have been taking place had I reacted as I was “suppose to react”. i

I was raised by a father who wouldn’t let us watch “Candid Camera” because it placed people in situations not of their own making and made them dupes stripped of dignity and privacy (yes, even if the subjects, after the prank, signed a waiver). What happens now is that cable and network news and reality shows strip us of our dignity and privacy.

If the poor kid had been in that balloon, there would have been some “reward” to the extensive coverage for the media and for the viewers. Now that the public has been “fooled,” we’re looking for the man behind the curtain to blame. The media that exploited it will now not take responsibility for it.

BTW, yesterday I proposed to my U.S. History survey class a history-based reality show called _HistoriCribs_. The members of the First Continental Congress show up in Philadelphia. When they realize they can’t (and really don’t want to) be tenants of the Pennsylvania Assembly in the State House, “Dependence Hall,” they rent a crumbly union hall a block a way. Chaos ensues. The kids liked the idea, and if the just-optioned four teaser episodes fly, I’m outta here!!

Jammies: a key part of the insidious plot to feminize American men.