Shooting for Borat

Back in July of 2005, I publicized my love for a certain journalist from Kazakhstan - to which many of you said, "Who?" ... What a difference a year and a half makes. Now, you can't pick up a grocery list without seeing a picture of Sacha Baron Cohen's offensive correspondent staring back at you from behind one seriously obscene moustache. Borat, it seems, has arrived. Of course, those with HBO have known about British comedian Cohen's twisted brilliance for years now - his Da Ali G Show has been splitting sides and confounding sensibilities ever since he got too popular in the U.K. to pull off his pioneering schtick. Now that Borat's dominating domestic multiplexes, his cover in the states is blown as well. But I didn't log in to extoll the virtues of this comic daredevil; I came to talk about his photog.

Now, I haven't a clue as to shoots for Borat - be it his TV show or currently ubiquitous 'movie-film'. But I do know a thing or three about TV cameras and the weirdly hypnotic effect they have on some people. Though I've never accompanied such a reckless satirist as Cohen into the Great Unknown, I have escorted most every personality type into situations both somber and silly. Along the way, I've had more than one interviewee cut glances my way, as if to say "Is this for real?". Sadly, it has been and I've had to feign credulousness long enough for my partner to stop asking any number of inane questions. What it must be like to bite your lip and keep rolling while this badly-accented goofball utters the most God-awful things to gladhanding tight-asses, I. Simply. Cannot. Imagine. So, here's hoping some enterprising entertainment reporter will profile the brave folks who make up Borat's camera crew. Until then I offer these anonymous souls a respectful Dip of the Lens - or as Ali G himself would say, "BOOYAKASHA!"