Just as I was leaving the house for work on Thursday morning, my roommate Steve Lutsk showed me a video on his iPhone. Some girl had strapped a camera to her butt and trolled Los Angeles trying to catch guys stealing glances. Alas, 1:12 into the video, I saw that I had been caught.
To make matters worse, I had my arm around my girlfriend Ashley Brown when Camera-Butt passed by! We had just finished a nice day of shopping as a couple and were headed to Whole Foods when BAM....
...I'm on the Internet.
When I saw the video (below) I couldn't believe it. I felt betrayed. For 26 years, I've had a silent understanding with butts: I'll look at you, if you don't look at me. Now all of a sudden I have to watch out for Big Brother's brown eye sizing me up from between girls' butt cheeks? I don't think so. We had an agreement!
After watching the video a few more times at work (and getting increasingly nervous with every 100k hits), I noticed that I barely even look down at the camera. If anything I mostly look away as we turn the corner. Still, I can’t deny that I’d ignore someone who’d flaunt their stuff so obviously—kind of like this fat man riding a bicycle in a bikini I saw on Santa Monica. But then I started to remember the day, and I swear that I remember seeing something...
It hit me. I remembered looking at a girl's behind that day as she crossed the street because it looked like she had a battery pack strapped to her belt. I even remember saying to Ashley, "Hey, that looks like a battery pack strapped to her belt." Praise the lord I had found my alibi! The ass in question wasn't even all that interesting—certainly not as provoking as the twice-than-life-sized Victoria Secret posters that dot the area. This would surely blow over in no time.
Then the emails came.
Roommates. Friends. Former coworkers. College buddies. It was on Barstool sports. My buddy’s little sister posted on my Facebook wall. The video was nearing a million views. My world was crumbling. Texts came in from people asking if I was okay, if Ashley had seen it (her coworker showed her that morning). I sat at my desk all day dreading a call from Time magazine or worse... People magazine! Not all scandals turn out bad, right?
Right?
As far as scandals go, there are really only two kinds: the ‘so-wrong-but-kinda-classy’ JFK/Monroe scandal, and the ‘what-was-he-thinking’ Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. While the differences are significant, all high profile scandals share the same quality—they are easily swept under rug and forgotten about. Good news for me.
Take former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer’s (right) frequent rendezvous with prostitute Ashley Dupré. Facing certain impeachment, Spitzer resigned and made a half-hearted public apology. His wife was forced to stand next to him as he confessed his sinful ways to the media. His penance? He gets an offer to host his own show on CNN with Kathleen Parker. More good news for me! (If it’s any consolation to the rest of you, the show bombed.)
Most guys caught in scandals don’t really get away with it, but lately nobody seems to care. Remember South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (left)? Exactly. That guy flaunted his Argentinean affair in front of the state legislature and what did he get in return? Censure. Granted his wife and sons left him because he's a dick, but CENSURE? They didn't even impeach the guy! I'm certainly in the clear.
But Last week the whole game changed when NY congressman Chris Lee (right) got caught sending a topless photo of himself (right) to a woman on Craigslist. The ad was "Will someone prove to me not all CL men look like toads?" Their spicy exchange included the following tidbits:
- “Hope I'm not a toad. :)”
- “So when was your last date. And how did it go”
That’s it? No sleazy prostitutes, no international rendezvous, no abuse of taxpayer dollars. Just a stupid guy who thought no one would notice when he went all Miley Cyrus on his Blackberry. If scandals were steaming piles of horse dung, this would be the fly's fart. The surprising thing is that he willing resigned with an earnest apology as soon as Gawker made the exchange public.
If this is the new state of scandals in our nation, I’m screwed.
Taking a tip from Lee, I've decided to issue my own public apology for my widely publicized misstep. An excerpt:
"To my family, I am deeply sorry. To my country, I am a disgrace. To planet Earth, you should just swallow me up in a fissure. To God, strike me down with a thunderbolt and damn me to an eternity of mauling by rabid wolverines. And to my girlfriend, Ashley, I swear she was wearing a battery pack."
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