Dear Mom & Dad,
I never really got along with the kids at my college television station. For starters, their idea of a wild Friday night out was a road trip to Walmart to search through the $5 movie bin. And mine, well, wasn’t. In hindsight, I’m convinced they were either Amish, home schooled or raised by sister wives.
When it came to their delivery on the station’s weekly live newscast, they were as angelically absentminded as the panel on “Fox & Friends.” While they were reporting on the health fair in the student center, I was reporting on stories I knew students would actually watch — like the time I did an exclusive on cardio pole dancing by joining a class or the time I visited a brewery to show the process of making beer. My reports usually had my fellow news team look at me like I was out of my mind, but it was my interview with drunk drag queens that really put their granny panties in a bunch.
“You have to go to this drag queen show with me tonight!” I told my roommate Eddie.
“That’s where I draw the line,” Eddie argued.
He was used to being forced into ridiculous situations with me — like the time I made him sit in the audience as I competed in the Black Student Union’s ” talent show — but this was even too much for him.
“I’ll look like some kind of pervert if I show up by myself at a drag show while holding a video camera,” I argued back.
A few hours later, I arrived at the show, which was in our school’s dining hall, with my video camera and my skeptical roommate. Since I wanted to capture b-roll of the event to accompany my interview, Eddie and I sat front and center.
We soon realized the drag queens were intrigued by their two favorite things sitting in the front: Straight boys and a TV camera! Thanks to the big camera on my shoulder the entire time, they left me alone. Eddie, on the other hand, was their target all night as they flirted with him and even tied him up with a rope. His face was never so red.
After the show, I instructed the one drag queen to remain put while I found the others who were drinking liquor from a bottle in the ladies’ room. When I returned, the drag queen I ordered to stay put was sitting in a baby’s high chair that was in the dining hall for the upcoming visitor’s weekend.
“Look! Drag queen in a high chair eating a bowl of chips! Let’s get this interview started!” he/she screamed.
I used that as the opening sequence in my news segment, which made my conservative news team, uncomfortable and pissed. That’s the day I learned people fear what they can’t understand and hate what they can’t conquer.
Love,
Justin
