Some wisdom from the Kama Sutra
The following women are not to be enjoyed:
· A leper
· A lunatic
· A woman turned out of caste
· A woman who reveals secrets
· A woman who publicly expresses desire for sexual intercourse
· A woman who is extremely white
· A woman who is extremely black
· A bad-smelling woman
· A woman who is a near relation
· A woman who is a female friend
· A woman who leads the life of an ascetic
· And, lastly the wife of a relation, of a friend, of a learned Brahman, and of the
king
___________
06/04/03
I often spend mornings sitting in the courtyard outside Peet's coffee. It's a nice long walk to get there (my almost daily exercise) and there's always plenty of people to watch until I can think of something to write, or someone leaves a newspaper behind.
Today I observed some young healthy-looking homeless sort going from table to table asking for spare change. His request was simple, non-threatening, and he took refusal without any grief and moved on.
This process I thought, is not so different from auditioning. Indeed, success in both endeavors requires a combination of endurance and charm that can persuade the public to open their purses and wallets.
For a bum, endurance is a given, but when it comes to charm, there's a noticeable scarcity among the ranks.
For an actor of course, charm is seldom lacking, but as to endurance, well there's always distractions like rent, groceries and the DMV.
The comparison of auditioning to panhandling may seem cynical but it's fair. The real difference is only in the degree of ambition, and of course the absence of any professional instruction for bums.
Most of us don't really worry about the homeless anymore than we do about actors. So the proposal I'm about to make should not be misconstrued as charity but rather a business model with a socially laudable side effect.
For the time being I'll just refer to this idea as Headshots for the Homeless(HH).
With the growing popularity of "Reality" shows, and the phenomenal return on initial expenses, I'm imagining a contest of three rounds of elimination.
Round one: After a careful screening of contestants for personality and intelligence, 15 homeless people are posted on a web site. Each has a headshot along with a notable quote/insight on being homeless, and a one or two minute "on the street interview" to give the public a sense of the character. The visitors to the website are invited to vote for their favorites by making a donation for each vote of fifty cents to a charitable foundation. Promos can be run anticipating the eventual airing of round two on television and would actually qualify as public service announcements. The idea is to make celebrities out of people on the very bottom of the socio-economic scale while raising money for worthy causes.
Round two: After a month or more of the promotion and voting, the top five contestants are to appear in a real-time event as each hustles as much spare change as they can. This money is also to be given to the charity. And let's suppose that during this same time period, anyone can make votes on the Internet sight as well. Each contestant is rigged with a hidden camera and microphone (wireless) and we cross cut between all the players as the time counts down.
Round three: The finalists are the two who've raised the most money. We then take these two, dress them up make them the maitre'de in some place like Spagos in Beverly Hills. Again the object is to raise money by hustling handouts or in this case "gratuities".
Just a thought, and maybe a poke in the eye of the asinine viewership of network television. In any case, it's my idea and if somebody out there makes it I expect a producers credit and several points of the gross.
