Cohen Stole My Idea

I never saw Borat. Although I am generally open minded and I am trying not to become an old fuddy duddy, I just really had no interest in being grossed out, which is the thing you most often heard about that movie.

 

So I really never understood who Sasha Baron Cohen was. The next time I even gave him a thought was watching the MTV movie awards which was my effort at trying to keep up on how the young people are managing things these days. With Melanie off to college I am left to my own devices for such things. Unfortunately the show was nearly unwatchable and I was just about to switch it off when Eminem came on. I happen to like the guy and so I stuck with it a while longer. Shortly afterward Bruno, the latest Cohen incarnation made an appearance in from a gang wire dressed as Icarus in a thong and he lit upside down on poor Eminem's lap. It was so absurdly ridiculous and I am now tortured by the image of Cohen's bare ass just under Em's nose. How could you stand 2 hours of that nonsense?

Then I saw Cohen on Letterman. I must say I was shocked at how normal he seemed. I mean when Mel Gibson gets interviewed as Mel Gibson I always think to myself "That man is crazy" yet he seems like he would be so normal. This was the opposite--a guy I was expecting to be way far gone was just a regular joe; a seeming nice and approachable guy. I must say, this is a much more palatable image.

Cohen was relating to Dave how the scene with the cage fighting thing was filmed and how the people who were not actors mind you reacted and performed even more wildly than hoped, to the point of making SBC think for a moment that he was in physical danger.

 

It was at that moment I realized that this guys entire schtick was once mine. He stole my idea! Now before you think I am the crazy one.....

 

I was in a pretty avant garde theater arts class at Prescott High School in the early 70's. We did some amazing children's theater and I remember playing a witch and wearing red and white stripped stockings under my black dress that absolutely freaked the little tykes out. Very early versions of portable film cameras had come out and we got an assignment to make a movie.

 

My best friend, Tani lived with her mom above what is now the Palace Bar on Whiskey Row. Where the Jerzey Lilly now roosts was her mom's suite in what was the Palace Hotel, something of a flop house really. Tani and I had to think of a movie idea and being the 70's and all we did not even consider giving it a plot. Instead, we got the idea to borrow the wooden leg her mom was holding as collateral until a tenant caught up on his back rent and take it around town and film people's reactions to it. We did the same with those birthday candles that keep relighting. We did some other wacky stuff that I can't fully remember (it has been a while). I still have the tape in a can around in my office here somewhere but I don't think I could find the right kind of machine to play it on anymore.

 

Although tame by comparison to the Sasha Baron Cohen films, the basic idea is exactly the same. I shudder to think where I would be now had I been more of a success with that first film. But back then the concept was way too edgy and they didn't even know what edgy meant. I don't remember what kind of grade we got, but if the teacher had liked the film I would think I would remember that.

 

The funny thing is I still have no desire to see these films; mine or Cohen's.