Sep 21, 2005

For cripes sake, keep your shirt on

And your pants, too. These nudie fund-raising calendars are getting boring. They've jumped the shark. It was amusing enough when the original ladies made the calendar in 2000, though I'm not sure it rated a full-length feature film, but now it's gotten out of hand.

A couple weeks ago on the local news in Baltimore, they did a story on some Eastern Shore community that made a calendar (this one was coeducational) to raise money for the volunteer fire department. A week later, in Boston, the evening news did a lengthy feature on a ladies club--all octogenarians--who posed for a calendar. All the calendars are the same: The gals pose with some prop carefully draped over any offending body parts. One will cover up with a guitar; another will be carefully posed behind some exotic perennial in her garden; the most disturbing Boston pose features a woman holding a giant cat with a thyroid problem on her lap.

And I'm not the only one who's perturbed. You can hear the desperation in the voices of the local anchors as they strive to maintain their perky yet coy chatter--insert a mild double entendre here; then turn and ask your co-anchor when we can expect to see him/her on a calendar; follow it up with a gushing tribute to the oldest of the loveable old bats who doffed her clothes. It's painful to watch.

Next time some garden club wants to raise money for their cause, might I suggest a different approach? Something new and fresh, yet tasteful, like biting the heads off live chickens.

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