 |
|
|
|
|
By Randolfe Wicker
Of course, they initially promised me that it would only take "an hour or an hour and a half". It would take nearly five hours. My dilemma was whether I should "play" along with them. They assured me that they just wanted to make fun of those people who would stop at nothing to stop my later-born twin from being born. Now, that sounded good to me. But, then again, I am a born sucker. I believe almost anything anyone tells me. So, when I told them yesterday that friends had told me I shouldn't cooperate, they put on the hard sell. They didn't want to be "cruel". But they did want to have "fun" with the subject. I would soon find out what "fun" was like to a Comedy Central news crew from the Daily Show. They arrived early. Immediately, taking advantage of the hottest December 5th on record in NYC, I accompanied them to the playground just a few blocks north of my antique deco lighting store. First, they wanted me to throw a baseball a few times. Next, they wanted me to catch a baseball a few times. Well, baseball was never my best sport. I told them we should have gone to a Chess parlor and had me playing Chess with myself. But you know comedians have their minds set on what they think is really funny. I threw the ball and I caught the ball. Actually I caught the ball on about the fourth try. An old lady sitting on a bench a few feet away told them that she hoped that I didn't hit anyone on the head because if I did they would be facing a law suit. That sounded good to me. "Yes," I could confess under oath for the right amount of money, "I maliciously and purposely threw that baseball with 'Mickey Mantle' (not a real signature they assured me) at that poor little old lady's head." But it didn't work out that way. Guess I blew a fortune right there.
Now, I have done many things in my campaign for human cloning. Until today, I considered doing the "disco duck" dance as a warm-up for the Forum to have been the lowest point. The trouble with "lowest points" when dealing with the media is that they can always find a deeper depth to which you can sink!! Today, with my unfulfilled dreams of being a stand-up comic echoing in my head, I plunged to depths I had never even envisioned. The trouble with media folks is that they hypnotize you and lead you on and on and on until you are somewhere you would never dream of going. So, after pretending to play "catch" with myself-an exercise that I would never undertake in real life-I would find myself sitting on a bench, walking in various directions so I would almost bump into myself. I even ended up waving at the chair where, with the magic of photography, I would be sitting. So, there I was - out with a crew of four "adult children" playing these television games. It couldn't be any worse than being taken out of context by ABC National News and all the other abuses I have endured. And, amazingly, all the friends who advised me NOT to participate were avid Daily Show fans. The question arises: is any publicity better than no publicity. Obviously, my media whore instincts lead me to answer that question "yes". Well, we will get a partial answer to that question next Thursday night. The show will be broadcast on ThursdayDecember 13th at 11 p.m. and two hours latere on Friday, December 14th at 1:00 a.m. and again at 10:00 a.m. and 7 p.m. The following Monday (December 17th) it rebroadcasts at 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m So, next they entered the playground. First, I was to be the frustrated cloner pushing an empty swing. Then I was to be a clone of myself pushing myself. Now, this was offensive to me. Utter nonsense. However, the park guardian didn't think so. She tried to stop the entire endeavor and the producer had to fly into action to get permission to continue. Of course, he did. They always say "the Daily News Show" when dealing with the Police since if you say "Comedy Central" the cops lose their sense of humor. A curious note was that The Daily Show that makes fun of news stories didn't broadcast for two weeks after 9/11 since there wasn't anything in the news to make fun of. Well, after I swung on the swing and pushed the producer on the swing and all that other nonsense, we returned to the shop where we locked the doors and sat in sweltering heat in what was "supposedly" a serious discussion of the cloning debate. Finally, I had a chance to make a few serious statements - that cloning was the greatest discovery in medicine and science not just for reproductive reasons but because of the promise of stem cell research, etc.. For the next two hours, there was a spirited exchange about ideas, misunderstandings, etc. But, after all, this was the comedy channel, so I had to sit and give my later-born twin advice on life. Some of it he accepted and other suggestions he rebelled against. All of this was staged according to script. One thing I have learned in dealing with the media is that they will simply do with you as they wish. You are just putty in their hands. They will make of you whatever they wish. I talked about the "American Taliban" which I said was headed "Bin-laden" style by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. I showed them the ThomasPaine.com ad, which featured them as such. Actually, these guys seemed like intelligent thinking decent folks so I worked with them. For some reason they focused on the fact that I had this unique American art deco lighting shop in West Village. They had me give the street address and the web address. However, then they had me telling my "later-born-twin" to "price it at $1,250.00 and sell it for $1,000.00" which will cause me no end of haggling in the future. Maybe this will be the greatest free ad I ever got or the most expensive. That is what is like dealing with the media.
At one point they asked me: "If cloning didn't work, would I consider opening a shop selling mirrors? I told them that: "After the age of sixty, people should remove every mirror in their house. My mother told me, after cataract surgery, that she realized how wrinkled and old her friends looked." Then there were those strange moments when they wanted to know why I just didn't find a woman and have kids the old fashioned way. At one point, they got my "bisexual gander" up and I told them I actually was a bit bisexual. And actually enjoyed sex with women when I couldn't find a feminine male. They weren't ready for this one. In the exchange that followed, I told them how I worried I was destroying my credentials as a famous gay activist the first time I had sex with a woman and asked the interviewer if he enjoyed sex with women as well.
What a stupid question! I told them that there would be a 60-plus age difference to begin with and I wasn't a Strom Thurmond (who had his first child at age 71) or Tony Randall (who had a child at 69 or 70 or the actor (you supply the name) who died at 59 and never lived to see the child he sired be born. I told them that that was a "question that was beyond the pail". Wonder if they will respect that. So, dear friends, these are the notes I make today about working with the Daily Show for a newscast on Comedy Central which will be broadcast next Wednesday night and then again all day Thursday. Yes, we had all the exchanges about "playing God" etc. My fate is in the hands of the editors at Comedy Central. At this time, I tend to think everything might work out very well and we will get many more hits at www.reproductivecloning.com and I might even get some more business at www.amerticandeco.com Being a cloning activist involves taking chances. Today I rolled over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Watch next Wednesday and/or Thursday to see if I survive. As always, I played the game and did my very best.
Cloningly yours, |
Randolfe Wicker, right, with the head of the Raelians, a pro-cloning group 
Daily Show host Jon Stewart 
Other media outlets -- like Wired and Time -- have covered Randolfe Wicker and the cloning movement, but never quite the way The Daily Show did 
© 1997-2002 BEI