NAKED MAN VISITS RESIDENCE
A local woman received a strange visitor around midnight on Sunday claiming that the apocalypse is imminent. According to a police report, the resident stated that she heard a noise coming from her front porch and opened her front door to find a naked white man, approximately 20 years old, 200 pounds and 6 feet to 6 feet, 3 inches tall with blond hair, who was wearing only a pair of white socks, the report states.
The woman called to her son-in-law, who also lives at her home, and when he spoke to the man the visitor said “The world is ending,” and “I’m sorry if I scared you.” The male then proceeded to run from the home, smacking himself on the buttocks with his hand, the report states.
In the interest of accuracy, as our proofreader pointed out, this guy is really Almost Naked Man, given the white socks. But for the purposes of this blog post, we’ll give him the benefit of the Fully Monty.
Creepy though it sounds, Naked Man is a pretty popular character in the police logs and beat reports of weekly newspapers across America. I first realized this more than a decade ago, when a professor at a college I worked at in New Hampshire – who liked to spend summer nights wandering the streets around the campus in the nude – was caught by police one evening hiding in the bushes a few blocks from his home. I was the college’s news director at the time, and the professor begged me to keep his name out of the paper. I told him I had no control over that, but he had control over whether he put his pants on when going out in public. At any rate, I discovered that the professor was merely one of countless numbers of Naked Men out there, roaming the cities and suburbs from sea to shining sea. Some are ideological naturalists. Some are closet risk-takers. Some are curious or chronic streakers. Some are bombed or stoned out of their gourds. Some have a screw loose. Some are no doubt perverts. At the end of the day, it takes all kinds to be a Naked Man.
But outside of any disturbing aspects of Naked Man’s behavior, he may yet have some value beyond providing brief amusement in the police beat sections of weekly papers. I give you the Naked Man News Headline Game. Here’s how it works: Read the headlines of an actual newspaper then replace one of the words with Naked Man. As an example, here are some real headlines from recent editions of The New York Times:
House Republicans Discover a Growing Bond with Netanyahu
Dodd-Frank Act a Favorite Target for Republicans Laying Blame
Qaddafi Calls New Libya Government a Propped-Up ‘Charade’
Greece Nears the Precipice, Raising Fear
Turkey Predicts Alliance with Egypt as Regional Anchors
Strauss-Kahn Concedes ‘Error’ in Sexual Encounter with Maid
Paint Creek, the Town Perry Left Behind
Facebook to Offer Path to Media
Tumult of Arab Spring Prompts Worries in Washington
Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Millionaires
Now for the Naked Man versions:
House Republicans Discover a Growing Bond with Naked Man
Naked Man Act a Favorite Target for Republicans Laying Blame
Qaddafi Calls New Libya Government a Propped-Up ‘Naked Man’
Greece Nears the Naked Man, Raising Fear
Turkey Predicts Alliance with Naked Man as Regional Anchors
Strauss-Kahn Concedes ‘Error’ in Naked Man Encounter with Maid (Some of these actually work for real!)
Paint Creek, the Naked Man Perry Left Behind
Facebook to Offer Naked Man to Media
Naked Man of Arab Spring Prompts Worries in Washington
Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Naked Man
As you can see, it really doesn’t matter where you put the Naked Man. He works in nearly every editorial situation.
However, given that I write for a family-friendly newspaper, I’m going to limit this week’s question to: What is your favorite all-time newspaper headline?
(Mine comes courtesy of The Boston Herald, after a man carrying a few tons of timber traveled an overpass he wasn’t supposed to during the morning commute. The road collapsed, his truck overturned, spilling wood all over the highway, causing epic traffic delays and costing millions of dollars in lost productivity and repairs. The Herald’s cover that afternoon featured a photograph of the forlorn driver with an inset of the damage he caused under the headline: LUMBER JERK.)
