Sunday, September 14, 2003  

I know I promised people that I wouldn't post links to the Reuter's UK story about Sam on the Thursday Night Fight, but since it's gotten picked up by the Boston Globe, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Winnipeg Sun, the Hindustan Times, and the New York Post, I figure the cat's kinda outta the bag.

Read the links above for a crash course in journalistic spin. We go from the original story:

Walters' tribute involved decorating his penis with stars and stripes and showing it at the appropriate moment. Audience members laughed, but Walters lost the contest.

"I don't think my penis has ever been more embarrassed or looked so small," the comic told Reuters on Friday. "You would have thought the vertical stripes would have made it seem longer."

But the Post takes it off the wire and changes it thus:

Comedian Sam Walters was battling for laughs at a comedy club in Cambridge, Mass., when he unzipped his pants and exposed his penis - painted red, white and blue like the American flag.

The audience wasn't impressed.

"I don't think my penis has ever been more embarrassed or looked so small," he said.

Tha's the ENTIRE story as run in the New York Post, whose own agenda is pretty obvious.

On the other hand, the picture the Hindustan Times attaches to the story is downright surreal. I assume someone knew what they were doing when they put the "enlarge" button under it.

Oh, man, this is going to get weirder before it gets better. For his part, poor Sammy is shitting proverbial bricks. And not entirely without reason. He lives in Southie, not exactly the home of lovers of genital-oriented satire. He could end up blugeoned to death with a side of corned beef. However, I've seen his apartment, and it really looks like an IRA safehouse, so would-be "critics" may shy away.

The stories above totally leave out the context (and MY NAME, harumph) and make it sound like some sort of defiant, Sinead-ripping-up-a-pic-of-the-Pope moment, and it wasn't that at all. It was a totally self-deprecating-I-can't-believe-I'm-doing-this kind of thing, and in the context of the whole show, came off both hilarious and surprisingly not offensive. It was just funny, man, but you can't explain funny, and I think Sam and I are both worried that at some point, he's going to have to try to do just that.

So for the record: it was funny, it was appropriate, and it was by-god good satire.