I'm Peach

I was just reading my previous post in which I wrote about Tom Tancredo calling Sonia Sotomayor "a brown woman" who thinks she's better than "white men" like himself, and I commented that Sotomayor's skin is actually whiter than Tancredo's. This got me to thinking...

I think it is so absurd, this system we have set up describe people by color. Whites and blacks are of course white and black, even though neither are white nor black.

Latinos and Asians? Brown and yellow.

Asians, yellow? Last week I met a Korean with skin as white as milk, and last night, I met a Filipino with skin and brown as a caffe latte.

Latinos, brown? First off, Latino isn't even a race. It is simply the Spanish (and Portuguese and Italian) word for "Latin", and while the peoples of Latin America speak languages derived from Latin, and are a part of a culture which is highly influenced by Latin Europe, a great many of them have no Latin ancestry at all (especially when you consider that Latin comes from the Italian peninsula).

Latin America is a place with people of many different races... Amerindian (Aztec, Maya, Inca, etc.), African, European, Asian... some people are of 100% Amerindian ancestry, and even speak the native language at home and in the towns where they live. Some are of 100% African ancestry, some are of 100% European ancestry... and so many are a mix of some or all of the above, which is where the Spanish words "mestizo" (mixed Amerindian and European) and "mulato" (mixed African and European) come in.

To call Latinos "brown" is insulting to me, NOT because there is anything wrong with being brown, but because to say that Latinos (or Hispanics or whatever euphemism you prefer) are all one color, is to ignore the racial and ethnic diversity of Latin America. It's like saying that everybody in the USA is white, just because they speak English and are raised in an Anglo society and culture.

I am not brown. And here's how I know:

When I was a child, I used to love to draw pictures of myself with crayons. I remember one day, maybe I was 6 or 7-years-old, I was trying to find the right color to color in my skin in a drawing of me. The paper was white, and so it was too light to be my skin, and had to be colored in. I tried the color brown, it was too dark. I kept testing colors on the paper and then putting my arm next to it, to see if the color matched the skin of my arm.

Finally, I found the closest color to my skin tone: "Peach".

I'M PEACH, I thought.

And from that day on, I always colored my skin in with the peach crayon. If I was at school, and the box of crayons I was using didn't have a peach crayon, I would walk around and ask the other children if I could use their Peach.

So this has given me some inspiration.

People always ask me where I'm from. I always say, "Originally from the suburbs of Houston, Texas, although I was born in Newark, New Jersey." I say this, because the look on their face afterwards always betrays their disappointment at my answer. What they reeeally want to know is what my ethnic background is.

They want to know this, because there is a weird curiosity in this country of trying to discern what is the ethic background of an otherwise "white" person who has black hair, brown eyes and dark skin, as if having dark features throws a boomerang into the Caucasian race.

After all, this question is rarely asked of an American with blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin. It's not as if blond Americans are always asked, "Where are you from? Because I can't tell if you're Dutch or Swedish or German or Estonian or Polish..."

Well, I'm always asked this "where are you from" question, and after I throw them for a loop by telling them where I was raised, I often say, "Oh, you want to know why I have dark hair and skin! Okay. It's because my family is from Cuba."

Then they usually say, "Ooooh! Because I wondering. I didn't know if you were Hispanic or Italian or Greek or even Middle Eastern..."

(Did you give a shit where he/she "was from" the last time you saw a blond?)

Sometimes, I am even asked this: "What are you?"

What AM I?



And this is where my inspiration comes in; the inspiration that I draw from the simple wisdom that I had as a child.

From now on, the next time somebody asks what I am, I'm going to proudly say,

"I'm Peach."

"Hispanic Chick Lady": RACIST!

In my previous posting I wrote that I suspect that some of these Republican talking heads on the TV are really paid Democratic operatives.

I wrote that they are either that, or they are being supremely stupid by belittling the academic and career achievements of the first Hispanic nominated to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor (or, as Glenn Beck referred to her, "Hispanic Chick Lady").

I wrote that the GOP desperately needs to improve their numbers with Latino voters to remain a viable national party, and for them to say that a Puerto Rican woman who graduated as the top undergrad at Yale, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from there AND Harvard, and ran the Yale Law Review, and is one of the most renowned and esteemed appellate judges in the country.... to say that she was picked because she is Hispanic, is basically like saying to Hispanics, "Achieve what you will, but no matter how impressive it is, if you get a great gig, it's because your ethnicity, not your accomplishments".

This is not the way to get a greater number of Latinos to join the Republican bandwagon.

In recent days, the right-wingers have been becoming even MORE moronic, if that were possible. Now, she's not just unqualified, she is also A RACIST!

HISPANIC CHICK LADY ES UNA RACISTA!

Here's the Judge Sotomayor quote that has the right-wingers calling her a Latin American version of a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard:

"I would hope that a wise Latino woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Wow. That comment is so flagrantly racist, that I can't help but imagine her with a little square moustache under her nose, speaking to rally full brownshirts, in a room bedecked with swastika-covered bunting.

Seemingly everybody on the right is right is calling her comments racist, or calling her a racist herself... Tom Tancredo, Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, G. Gordon Liddy, and the grand poubah of them all, Rush Limbaugh.

Rush Limbaugh compared the Democrats nominating her as being as outrageous a nomination as the Republicans nominating David Duke, the notorious former KKK member turned aspiring politician. He called her a "reverse racist" and "a bigot". He also said, "How do you get promoted in the Obama administration? By hating white people."

Really? Sonia Sotomayor hates white people? Rush was able to glean that from that one quote? Hmm. Like George W. Bush was able to do with Vladimir Putin, Rush is able to get a sense of Sonia's soul, without the help of any concrete evidence.

Tom Tancredo, a total whackadoodle, started to stir up the ethnic pot by morphing his belief that Judge Sotomayor is a racist, to implying that the members of the popular Latino political advocacy group La Raza are racists, because he considers La Raza to be, "a Latino KKK without the hoods or nooses".

G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate whackjob, said basically the same thing. In addition to saying that he hopes that she won't be participating in any key conferences while she's menstruating, he also said, "Miss Sotomayor is a member of La Raza, which means in Illegal Alien, 'The Race', and that should not surprise anyone, because she's already on record with a number of racist comments."

So La Raza means "The Race" in Illegal Alien. I never knew that I spoke Illegal Alien. All these years, I thought I was speaking Spanish, that romance language that comes from the Castile region of Spain. Huh. So my mother and father's native language is Illegal Alien! I had no idea. King Juan Carlos of Spain speaks Illegal Alien. Miguel de Cervantes spoke Illegal Alien....

Oh wait. Sorry. I got side-tracked by my offense of hearing the language of my ancestors referred to as "Illegal Alien". Back to Sonia Sotomayor.

So now not only is SHE a racist, but the members of La Raza, and those who like and support that group, are racists too. That's a wonderful way to get Latinos into the Republican fold, Tom! And re-naming their lanuguage in a really insulting way will really win them over. Smart move, G.!

Hey Tom, another bit of advice, you should keep calling her "a brown woman", too. Her skin is whiter than yours, Mr. Perpetual Fake 'n Bake Tan, but keep calling her a person who thinks she's better than you white men because she's a "brown woman".

Keep it up! I WANT a permanent Democratic majority in Congress.

But anyway, let me wrap this up by showing why her comment was not racist.

"I would hope that a wise Latino woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

She said, "with the richness of her EXPERIENCES" not of her race or ethnicity. She was not saying that a Hispanic is superior than an Anglo by nature. If, for the last 232 years, black males had been at the top of the political and social hierarchy instead of white males, then she likely would have ended the sentence with, "a better conclusion than a black male who hasn't lived that life".

It's about hierarchy, not race.

But since I did bring up black males, let me end with this:

In the notorious 1857 Dred Scott case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that African slaves and their descendants, whether they were freed or not, were not legal human beings and could never be citizens of the USA.

They were chattel under the law.

Now: do you think that case would have been ruled in same way, had the members of the Supreme Court been 9 black men, instead of 9 white men?

"The richness of experiences"

I REST MY CASE.

"Hispanic Chick Lady" and Other Offensive Comments

Sonia Sotomayor is President Obama's first Supreme Court pick.

It is my hope that she will be his first pick of many (because it is my hope that Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts and Samuel Alito will all retire within the next four years. Please please pleeeeeeeease...)

"Sonia Sotomayor". Do you find that Spanish name difficult to pronounce? That's okay, because you could always call her, "Hispanic Chick Lady". After all, this is what Obama calls her, according to Glenn Beck. He reduced Obama's choice of a new justice to this: "Hey! Hispanic Chick Lady! You're empathetic. You're in!"

She has worked as a district attorney, a corporate attorney, a district court judge on the federal bench, and as an appellate court judge, but according to Glenn Douchebag, she got picked because she's an empathetic Hispanic chick lady.

Pat Buchanan made basically the same assertion, albeit not with such douchebag language as Glenn Beck. Pat called her "an affirmative action pick", and compared her to Harriet Miers.

Remember Harriet Miers? Wasn't she George W. Bush's secretary or something? a person who had never studied Law? a person so unqualified for the job that her nomination had to be withdrawn? someone who was chosen just because she admired her boss and supported him adoringly?

Judge Sotomayor has 17 years of experience on the bench, but she's another Harriet Miers. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton and Yale, but she's another Harriet Miers. She ran the Yale Law Review, but she's another Harriet Miers. She has as much, or more, judicial experience as anyone ever nominated to the top court, yet because she is a woman of Latin American heritage, she's another Harriet Miers... or another Anita in West Side Story.

"I want to be in Amer-i-ca, I go to Yale in Amer-i-ca, I be a judge in Amer-i-ca, on Supreme Court in Amer-EEE-ca..."

If that weren't insulting enough, on top of being a personal favortism choice, a la Madame Miers, she is also "an affirmative action pick".

Pat Buchanan is not the only Conservative saying this about her. Rush Limbaugh, Fred Barnes, Bill Bennett... all of them said she was an affirmative action pick, with Bennett going so far as to say that she got into Princeton by affirmative action.

Do you want to know who really DID get into a prestigious Ivy League University via affirmative action? George W. Bush.

That slacker George Dubya only got into Yale because he was a legacy. "What's 'a legacy'?" you may ask. Well, a legacy is AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR RICH WHITE DUDES.

Then, in addition to belittling her achievements by calling her an affirmative action pick, they also doubt her intelligence!

Let's hear again from Mr. Douchebag extraordinaire, Glenn Beck: "She's not that intellectually bright, she's almost a bully; she just likes to hear herself talk."

Karl Rove didn't say she was not intellectually bright, but he did say that she was not "intellectually strong" and doubted that she had the "broad, intellectual powers" to be an influential Supreme Court justice.

I wish Karl Rove had cared so much about a strong, broad intellect when he shoved the mediocre-minded Texas governor George W. Bush down the country's throat.

I'm starting to wonder if people like Limbaugh, Beck, Bennett, Barnes, Rove, et al, are paid Democratic operatives. Here's why...

Republicans these days are looking with worry at the statistics. They are way down in the polls with Latinos, Blacks, Women and Youngsters. But it is the Latino numbers that should really have them crapping in their pants, because Latinos are the fastest-growing minority group in the USA. It is my belief that by the end of this century, they may be the majority. Unless Republicans can improve their numbers with Latinos, they are "jodido". Do you know what that means in Spanish? Go look it up: "Jodido". I'll give you a hint: in English, it starts with an F.

The GOP desperately needs to improve its image with Latinos. So what do these geniuses do? When the first Latino Supreme Court nominee makes history by BEING the first, they say she's an affirmative action pick BECAUSE she's Latino. She was picked just because she's Puerto Rican... or from whatever of those countries to the south.

Her qualifications? Screw those. She studied her ass off at Yale, graduating as the top undergrad in the entire university? So what. Harvard, too? So what. Phi Beta Kappa? Taco Burrito Enchilada. Ran the Yale law review? "No importa para nada".

What these old elephants are saying is, no matter how hard you study, no matter how you excel, no matter what your impressive accomplishments are, no matter what hurdles you jump over... poor immigrant family, father dead in childhood, raised by a single mother, raised in a housing project in the Bronx... yet you become the top student at the Ivy Leagues, then later a nationally renowned, esteemed appellate judge...

None of that matters, because you are a Latino. A Hispanic. THAT's why you got picked.

Arrrriba! Ole! Ay caramba!

No matter WHAT you achieve, if you get picked for something really important and prestigious, it is because of your ethnicity, NOT your accomplishments.

Wow. This is quite a way to win Hispanics over to the Republican party, amigos. You guys are muy inteligentes. As a person of Cuban heritage, you are reeeeeally tempting me to become a Republican. Muy muy mucho.

IDIOTAS DE MIERDA.

It Wasn't a Booking

That on avail that I wrote about yesterday... well, I was right. It wasn't a booking. Today's the 28th. I found out what I predicted I would find out: it wasn't a booking.

Is my name Larry, or Cassandra?

Once again, the on avail was just that: an on avail.

See? It's not that I'm a pessimist. It ended up being exactly what I thought it was... what it ALWAYS is... which is why I was happy, but not excited. Smart me.

On Avail

Oh, that word: on avail. Actually it's two words. Actually it's a word and a half, because "avail" is half of the word "available".

For those of you who are wise enough not to be in the entertainment industry, "on avail" means that you, the actor, have virtually booked the job, but you haven't YET, or you may not AT ALL.

Confused? Okay...like, it's between you and another actor, and they want you, but not totally (because you might be the back-up choice) OR totally (because you could me the primary choice) OR you could be the back-up choice and they change their minds and make you the primary choice. Make sense?

As usual in biz, you are powerless in this choice, and you just have to wait for a call from your agent. You're on hold to actually book it. I think it should be changed from "on avail" to "limbo".

TELEPHONE limbo. You need the phone to ring, and to tell you that the avail has become a job. As usual with actors, you are powerless, and all you can do is wait for that PHONE to RING.

I am writing about this because today, I got a call from my agent telling me that I was an on avail for a commercial that I auditioned for yesterday.

When I first started to audition for commercials, I thought that getting an on avail was good news. Well, it IS good news. It's more than a callback. It means that you booked the job (but you haven't yet or you may not at all).

However, I have never had an on avail that has turned into a real booking. Every commercial that I've ever booked, I had the callback, and the next day or the day after, my agent called me and said, "You booked it!" they've never said, "You're on avail" and then I get the job. So perhaps it's just an illusion that has been created by my own experience, but an on avail doesn't excite me, because it's not a real booking.

A real booking. You know... me getting fitted by wardrobe... showing up on set... sitting in the makeup chair... killing time in my trailer... pigging out at the craft services table... shooting the actual commercial... waiting and waiting to shoot some more... shooting some more... and then hopefully in a month or so, I'll realize that I haven't been edited out of it, or that the spot has been dropped... rather, I'll discover that it had aired, with me in it, and, the grand hope of all, that it airs nationally.

I have had many on avails, and my agent gives me the avail date, which, hopefully, is not too far off in the future, so that you won't be left hanging and hoping for too long.

I'm lucky. My avail date for this most recent on avail is May 28. That's tomorrow. At least I won't be in limbo for long.

I'm not remotely thinking that I will actually film this commercial. I'm not the only one who feels this way...

Last night I was at a protest march in West Hollywood with my friends Jana and Matt, both actors. I told them that earlier in the day I had had an audition which was a callback, and Matt, who has booked many commercials, brought up on avails.


"Have you ever had an on avail, Larry?"

"Have *I* ever had an on avail? Uh, ya. Quite a few. Whoopee."

"They never become real bookings, EVER!"

"I knooooow!"

"You too? I've never had an on avail that meant me getting the job. Ever. I don't even care when I get them anymore."

"Matt, you're preaching to the choir. Believe me, if my agent calls me tomorrow and tells me that I'm on avail for this job, I won't get remotely excited. I'll be happy that I got it, but I won't get excited."


So imagine my surprise when my agent calls me today and tells me that I'm on avail. What a coincidence, after last night's conversation. And what excitement. Whoopee.

But please don't think that I'm bitching, or that I'm a "glass half empty" kind of guy. Even though I'm 98% sure that tomorrow I'll be released from avail with no job actually booked, I am glad that I got another on avail.

I'm happy because I got called in to read for this commercial by people at a casting office that I really like. I like the people that work there, because a dear friend of mine used to work there, and I've seen them socially, at parties outside of work, and they are really terrific people. The fact that THAT casting office called me in to read, and I got an on avail from it is great. I want them to be glad that they called me in to audition, because I have such a high regard for them.

An on avail also shows to my agent that I am auditioning well, and that's never bad.

So I'm happy. I'm just not excited. I think it's good that I'm not excited, because if tomorrow I discover that I actually booked it, it will be a pleasant surprise, and if I don't actually book it, it will not be a let down.

"Memorial" Day

Today was Memorial Day, and it was a long day. First I went to a barbeque in Sherman Oaks, then I went to another barbeque in Los Feliz, then I went to a dinner in Koreatown.

Not once, at all these social events, were the fallen men and women of our armed forces ever mentioned. No one mentioned the troops, no one mentioned anything armed forces-related, including me.

There was nothing "memorializing" about this day, at least not from what I saw and did.

I'm not being judgmental, I'm just making an observation. I had a really fun day, but it dawned on me when I got home: "Hey wait, WHAT was today about?"

I wondered if anyone I hung out with today knew that today was about our troops, and not about having the day off and eating barbeque.

I knew, but I also forgot.

To Catch a Predator in the Colosseum

Today I wasn't feeling very well, and spent most of the day lying around watching TV. While channel surfing, I caught on MSNBC, an episode of Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator". Lucky me, it was a To Catch a Predator "marathon", and I could watch hour after hour of men's lives being ruined before my very eyes.

I didn't watch hour after hour, though. I watched for two hours only. I wouldn't have watched even 20 minutes, because I have seen the show before and many of the men whose lives were being ruined, I've seen before.

"Oh, that's the rabbi who tried hook up with a 13-year-old boy, the one with the desperate, horrified eyes", I thought, "And look, I know that guy. He's the Baptist minister of tried to make it with a 14-year-old girl, the one who wept like a baby... Oh, there's the Iraq War vet who thinks he's gonna do it with a 15-year-old girl, the one who got on his knees and begged to be forgiven..."

It was like catching a rerun. Well hell, it WAS a rerun. The Best of Predator! I imagine what these busted men must feel, knowing they will be playing in perpetuity via reruns, as though they were Lucille Ball or Dick Van Dyke.

The reason I watched two hours' worth was because I became fascinated by how this show is so successful. When I say "successful", I don't mean in catching online predators (which it eminently is). I mean successful as a popular TV show, as entertainment.

I'll first make it clear that I am all for catching men who try to hook up with young kids online. There should be more sting operations, because the more there are, the more men will think twice before driving out to some 14 year-old girl's house to commit statutory rape.

I just have an issue with the public spectacle of it, the idea of being entertained by seeing some man realize, as he's confronted by Chris Hansen on camera, that his life as he knew it is basically over. This country does not tolerate sexual offenses towards minors. Once you've done it, it's the scarlet letter that you wear until you die.

I think that To Catch a Predator is a form of public entertainment that is somewhat reminiscent of the Colosseum in ancient Rome.

Granted, it's not bloody and savage. Nobody is being fed to lions, but they are being fed to the viewers, who can then say, "Oh, look at that pathetic pervert. He's sick. What a loser." In an off-hand way, I think the appeal of this show is that it makes the viewers feel better about themselves: "I may not like my job and be trapped in an unhappy marriage, but hey: at least I'm not driving 3 hours to hook up with a 9th grader and get busted on national TV for it."

I cringe watching this show. Sure, I don't cringe as dramatically as I would were I watching two gladiators slicing each other open, but I cringe just the same. It's a slight cringe, but it's a cringe. Often I have to look away from the TV set, because I feel so embarrassed for these men.

If you've never seen the show, the set-up is basically this:

There's a group called "Perverted Justice" and they chat online in certain chat rooms where men looking for hookups are usually found. The decoys pretend to be a girl (and sometimes a boy) who is between the ages of 13 and 16.

These decoys chat with men and let them know that they are willing to have sex with them. They give the men the address to their house. The house is actually a house which is loaded with hidden cameras, as well as a full camera crew from Dateline NBC, and Chris Hansen, the show's host, and also, an armed police squad at the ready.

The always unattractive and often butt-ugly man then shows up at the house, usually carrying condoms and alcohol, and sometimes with porno DVDs, marijuana and lube. A young-looking 19-year-old actress is there at the door when he arrives, holding a laundry basket full of clothes and saying the same line almost every time in an innocent, girlish voice:

"Hi! I've got to put these clothes in the dryer, otherwise they'll get all wrinkled! Come on in to the kitchen! I made you some sweet tea! It's on the table! Pour yourself a glass and I'll be right out!"

I'm actually surprised they keep using this line, because this show has been on TV for a long time and many people have seen it, and if I were one of these guys, the moment I see a girl holding a laundry basket and offering sweet tea, I would run away like a gazelle.

However, the man never suspects, and always goes directly into the kitchen and heads straight for that pitcher of sweet tea. As he pours his glass, Chris Hansen comes out and says, "How's that sweet tea?" or "How was your drive?" or "Making yourself at home, huh?"

The men always look at Chris with a look of complete and total shock. They don't think he's the host of a TV show (the cameras are hidden). They almost always assume that he's a police detective, and sometimes, the girl's father. The moment they see him instead of the girl come out of the supposed laundry room, it almost always looks like their life is flashing before their eyes. It's actually really hard to come up with words to accurately describe the expressions on their faces, because the look of humiliation and fear and realization, and DREAD, is so complete and palpable, that it often makes me look away in embarrassment.

So Chris asks, with a fraternal yet paternal tone, "What're ya doing here?"

The man will feebly reply, "I came to meet ____."

"What for?"

"Just to meet her. Hang out. Maybe watch some TV and talk."

"Really? Because I have your chat log right here. Didn't you say, 'Babe, I'm gonna spread your soft legs wide, get out my strawberry-flavored lube and---' "

"PLEASE. There's no need to keep reading it. I know what I wrote."

"...it may hurt the first time, but I got experience with virgins, I'll soften you up 'til you--"

"PLEASE. You don't need to keep reading it. Please."

What then follows is the man trying to convince Chris Hansen that having sex with the kid was not his intention. Some platonic reason is always given for the visit, to which Chris will say,

"Then why did you bring these condoms? Trojans. EXTRA SENSITIVE..."

The excuses continue, and they are always so ridiculous, such blatant, desperate attempts to win clemency, and so often spoken with such a plaintive voice, so feeble and imploring. Many times what they implore is that nobody else needs to know about this, to which Chris will say,

"Well, there's something you should know: I'm Chris Hansen, the host of Dateline NBC's 'To Catch a Predator' "

At that moment, the camera men come out, pointing their cameras to the pervert, who gives a look of utter horror or humiliation and covers his face, ignorant of the fact that he's been already filmed on hidden camera.

Chris asks, "Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

"No."

"Then you're free to go."

At which point the man high-tails it out of there, thinking he's free with just the humiliation as his punishment, but nope, because the police squad is out there ready, pointing their firearms at him, and shouting, "FREEZE! ON THE GROUND! FACE DOWN! HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK!"

As the man is face down on the grass being handcuffed, you can often hear him wailing with utter despair.

But that's not the end, because the on-camera questioning continues with the police detective asking things like, "Why did you write in the chat, 'I want to pop your cherry'?" and "Why did you bring this: AstroGlide Lube?"

Then after that, we are treated to seeing the incarcerated guy in his striped jail pajamas, sitting before a widescreen TV, on which is a judge who is in another room, charging him with his crimes.

One pervert charged, cut to the NEXT guy approaching the house and being offered sweet tea, and the whole process begins again, man after man, show after show. Another man enters the arena of the Colosseum, to be destroyed for the audience's entertainment.

Yes, destroyed. Many of the men are married. Their marriage is over. Many of them have kids the same age as the supposed girl they are going to meet for sex. Their relationship with their kids is damaged. Many of them have jobs which they will now lose. A couple have been school teachers.

I'm not saying that it's bad for them to lose their job if they are a school teacher, but I do think it's wrong for these men to be put on TV if they have kids. I remember what it was like to be in Intermediate school. School is tough enough without having your dad on TV starring as a pervert.

As I mentioned before, today on the show, I saw a married man with a daughter, an Iraq war vet, ON HIS KNEES before Chris Hansen. He literally kneeled before him, and the whole interview took place with this man pathetically on his knees as though Chris were the King of Siam.

We don't need to see this.

We don't need Chris trying to understand these men later, saying to the camera for the umpteenth time, "This man drove three hours for this encounter. Why?"

BECAUSE HE NEVER GETS ANY SEX! LOOK AT HIM. THE GUY COULDN'T BE UGLIER!

"Here's a man with a good job and a stable life. Why would he risk so much for this encounter?"

BECAUSE NO WOMAN WANTS TO TOUCH HIM! LOOK AT HIM. HE'S REPULSIVE!

And what is really repulsive, is this show, because it's about schadenfreude, it's not about justice. If you want justice, then do the sting without it becoming a reality TV show. Why have the spectacle of it on TV? So that we can delight in the misfortune of others? So we can feel better about ourselves? So we can be like the crowds in the Colosseum, feeling superior to those condemned men in the arena?

That truly is "Perverted Justice".