From Borat to Sharath

We temporarily interrupt this program, about the Thich Nhat Hanh retreat last June, to bring you, direct from Mysore, more reports about my strange life.    Last Thursday I was with my client, "Borat," at the White House and the Kazakhstan Embassy.  The next day I was on a plane to Mysore, for my fourth year of attempting to learn the Ashtanga Primary Series.  I landed in the crazy climax of the annual Dasara festival, celebrating the triumph of Good over Evil.  This is accomplished by, among other things, smashing pumpkins (now I know where the band got the name) by the tens of thousands all over the city.

But back to Borat for a minute.  His upcoming comedy, "Borat:  Cultural Learnings of America Make for Benefit of Glorious Kazakhstan," has upset the dictatorial leaders of that country so much that not only have they threatened to sue for libel, but they also arranged a meeting with President Bush, and even with Bill and Hilary Clinton, to complain.  Of course Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen's second most famous character after Ali G, had to be there, to hold a press conference at the Embassy, and to try to crash the White House.

The entire front entrance of the Embassy was blocked by a swarm of national and international news media surrounding Borat, who announced to the world that the recent massive Kazak publicity campaign, including, for example, reports that women are fairly treated in Kazakhstan, is a despicable lie, engineered by Uzbekhistan to defame the glorious nation of Kazakhstan. He announced that  Kazakhstan would launch a military strike if necessary to stop this libel of his beloved country.

The media people tried their best to act professional, but this did not work. Just about everyone was laughing, except for all of the dark-suited Kazak officials lurking about on the street, in parked black vehicles, and behind Embassy windows.

Borat escaped arrest, first thanks to the delay caused by our offering of a film permit, and then by Borat moving the whole mass of reporters with him to the White House, after the police realized that nobody except the press were actually filming anything. As the police quickly began to realize that we had no authority to be there blocking the Embassy, Borat announced, "Now I go to the White Houses for to meet Premier Bush. Can someone tell me where are these White Houses?" Someone pointed the way, and Borat briskly walked off in that direction, with the throng of media in tow.

My favorite scene was that of "Senior ABC News National Correspondent" Jake Tapper running down the street like this was actually a news story.    A few dozen feet behind him was the ABC News cameraman, yelling "hey, stop running. I'm not being paid enough for this bullshit! "  Jake had to put his arms around the guy and beg him to keep running.

At the White House, Borat tried to get in, telling security that it was a matter of urgent international importance, and that "Premier Bush" was waiting for him. You had to be there. If somebody begs, I'll post pictures.

After that, he basically started wandering around Washington, with much of the media still following.

Needless to say, I have never seen this kind of press promotion of a film ever, and certainly nothing even close to it over a month before the release date.

This blog post was supposed to be about lovely Mysore.  Oh well, I''ll try again tomorrow.

Comments

[susan]

Sacha Baron Cohen is a fucking genius...PLEASE POST A PICTURE!

[Ash]

Hilarious. What a great story. I'm begging for pictures man! Borat showed up to the Toronto international film festival in a donkey cart drawn by four faux Kazakhstani women. The donkey was sitting next to him in the wagon! I couldn't stop laughing.