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A local news segment segment called "People Behaving Badly," raises certain expectations for a viewer: gang members pushing old ladies under buses; people teasing squirrels; at least some egregious littering, right? What we're saying is, you reasonably expect--nay, demand--some heinous shit.
(Digression: "Heinous Shit" would be a good name for a band. EOD.)
Imagine our anticipation, then, when the anchorman announced an installment of "People Behaving Badly" this morning. We practically salivated when the reporter, Stanley Roberts, informed us he was going to expose badly behaving people targeting hapless San Francisco tourists. This would be good! We had visions of Amish farmers accosted in the Castro and dragooned into usher duty at gay nuptials!
No such luck. The extent of the bad behavior consisted of hustlers--quite possibly homeless people--who offered their services as "guides." Their major offense was hoarding copies of the free San Francisco "City Guide" and then selling them to people for a buck or two. Dishonest? OK. But in the annals of grand sleaziness, we don't think this makes the cut. Frankly, in a capitalist society, this sounds rather like entrepreneurship.
Now, of course, we prefer our homeless to be flat-out beggars, asking for spare change in return for nothing--and if they're mentally unbalanced, smelly, and overbearing, so much the better. So insofar as these folks belie our image of the indigent, we suppose you could say they're "behaving badly." But in a city where WOS once saw a man pleasuring himself in the middle of Market Street, you would think Stanley Roberts could do better.
In our lovely capitalist country, we can admire the same antics if the rich do it, while berating the same behavior in the poor and/or homeless. AND since the demise of the show "Girls Behaving Badly", nothing else has quite lived up to the promise of what it means to behave badly. My favorite skit the bad girls did was when one of them dressed up like she was about 9 months pregnent and went to a bar. She sat and smoked and drank and was hitting on guys--it was hilarious. Now THAT was "behaving badly."
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