insurgent49

December 15, 2006
The Tao of Waitressing
by Lindsay Luckey, insurgent49

The Brilliance of a Borat, Part One

Hyello! Mah name a Lindsay. I like making waitress, I like hiking time and I like a Borat.

Scratch that, I am LOVE Borat.

I don’t see movies in the theater very often, and I rarely see movies more than once. I had friends who went to see Titanic seventeen times in the theater and hung pictures of Leo on their wall. I fell asleep.

I’ve seen Borat three times (at the time of this writing). Once on opening night and twice one day a few weeks later. Borat is my Titanic.

When I was a junior in college, I was on a road trip with a few girls to go visit a friend stuck at her house with a broken leg. One of my good friends leaned over and said, “Hey Lindsay, are you going to be uncomfortable if we’re drinking around you?”

This baffled me, as I was no stranger to alcoholic beverages.

Confused, I replied, “No … why would I be?”

“You know, ‘cause you’re Mormon.”

I am not Mormon. So that is what I told her. She was really surprised.

“Really?!”

“Who told you that? Why did you think that?”

“Really, you aren’t?? But I was sure …”

We were all confused, but found the situation hilarious. A couple of other girls in the car admitted that they too thought I was Mormon and had even made a conscious effort to not say offensive things around me.

My friend insisted that I had told her that I was Mormon. “Why would I have done that?”, I thought to myself, “and not at least said I was joking afterwards?’

She recounted the situation and it came back to me. My freshman year, I had been sitting in a common room with a bunch of others and overhead a group of girls talking loudly about how weird and/or backward the Mormon religion is. I know quite a few Mormons, some who are still practicing and others who have rejected the religion in whole or in part (Dr. Pepper proved too tempting for them). I remember thinking how offended I would be if I were Mormon and listening to them. So I said something to the effect of, “You guys should be careful about how you say things, you don’t know who’s around and can hear you.”

They got quiet and looked embarrassed. I went on with my work and forgot about the entire exchange but, apparently, I was a marked Mormon from then on. Two whole years passed before the truth came out and the rumor (a pretty nice rumor compared to many I heard and helped spread) had spread so that a whole community of people thought I was not only a Mormon, but one who defended it wholeheartedly in the face of criticism.

I never said I was Mormon, but I suggested that if I were, I’d be offended and in fact was offended, on behalf of my friends.

On to my man Borat/Sacha, the clueless/brilliant, Kazakh reporter/English comedian extraordinaire, butcher/master of the English language. He, in all his forms, definitely has the ability to polarize. You love him or he makes you feel uncomfortable. I laughed so hard my abs hurt the next day, my best friend felt awkward and wanted to leave the whole time.

Reason one that he’s both funny and insightful. He uses poor grammar and choice of words. He makes singulars plural and vice versa. He leaves out important prepositions. He uses English words and phrases incorrectly. He says outrageous things.

When asked by Vanity Fair’s Rich Cohen who his favorite celebrity is, Borat replied,
“My favorite celebrities is dancing Negro Michael Jackson’s, singing transvestite Madonna, and, of course, fearless anti-Jew warrior Mel Gibsons. We in Kazakhstan agrees with his statement that Jews started all wars, and also have proof that they were responsible for Hurricane Katrina and also killed off the dinosaurs.”

Hmm … funny … not PC … funny … uncomfortable … awkward … outrageous … funny. Okay, how can you offend so many different groups in so few words? You cannot take this guy seriously. But you kind of want to.

Isn’t that what art is supposed to do? Make us angry, make us cry, make us laugh, make us feel something, make us talk about our feelings, make us THINK?

Whether you love Borat or you hate him, don’t forget about him. And let’s laugh a little more … especially at ourselves.

Lindsay Luckey is a waitress and aspiring Renaissance woman. She lives and works in undisclosed locations in downtown Anchorage, and can be reached at lindsay@insurgent49.com..

- Columnists -

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The Tao
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by Lindsay Luckey

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December 8, 2006

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The Tao of Waitressing