Getting "Yankee Naked"

If you're a fan of the TV show "Seinfeld," you know that there are generally two kinds of naked: "good naked" and "bad naked." Good naked was represented by Seinfeld's beautiful girlfriend, who, as a practicing nudist, liked to sit around the apartment in all her naked goodness. While I'm not entirely sure what the difference between a practicing nudist and one who does not practice is, trust me, this was good naked. Bad naked was demonstrated when Jerry (who should be called Hairy Jerry Seinfeld) decided to join in the naked fun by belt-sanding the floor in the buff. The mere sight of his bad nakedness was enough to drive his girlfriend screaming for the Gap.

While Jerry Seinfeld is not a bad looking guy, the point of the show was this: when it comes to naked, there is a not-so-fine line between the good, the bad and the ugly. A nude Marilyn Monroe lounging on a red velvet spread would be considered good naked. A naked Bill Clinton chowing down on red velvet cake, bad naked. A nude Demi Moore on the cover of "Cosmopolitan Magazine:" good naked. A naked Rush Limbaugh on the cover of "The Conservative Chronicle:" bad naked. Very bad naked. Very, very bad...

Shortly after the good/bad naked episode of "Seinfeld" aired, Black & Decker, Craftsmen and Ronco began putting warning labels on all their products advertising the dangers of combining power tools and salad shooters with bad naked.

What "Seinfeld" failed to mention is that naked, be it good or bad, comes in many different forms. For example, there's just plain "naked," which means you're not wearing clothes and you're not making a big deal about it. We enter and leave the world in this state of nakedness. It's the other states in between coming and going that usually get us into trouble.

Next, there's "Buck Naked" which means you're not wearing clothes and you're pretty danged proud of it. Toddlers and young children are the biggest practitioners of buck naked. Who doesn't remember stripping off their clothes and running naked through the living room like a white-tailed banshee whenever company dropped by? Who can forget streaking for the benefit and amusement of their old man's boss? And who can forget jumping naked out of the closet whenever the preacher stopped by for a cup of Sunday afternoon coffee and a slice of mama's apple pie? You never did that? Uh, me neither.

And finally, there's what Granny Boozie Weinstock used to call, "Buck Dang Naked," which means, not only are you not wearing clothes, but you're up to no dang good, as well. For the sake of common decency, I won't offer examples of BDN here, other than to say that we've all been there at one time or another and would probably pay to go back there again.

Naked can also be defined by geographical boundaries. For example, when a northerner gets Buck Dang Naked with a bunch of his friends and they all run across a college campus, that's called "Yankee Naked." And it was being practiced to the hilt last week by a bunch of college kids as a bunch more spectators looked on.

The Naked Mile, as those zany Yankees call it, is an annual event held on the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus. This year, over a thousand naked runners participated, streaking merrily across the campus green in full public view. I'm certainly no prude, but I found this shocking! I had no idea they had colleges in Michigan.

While I'm a big fan of naked, I have to ask: what's wrong with our youth these days? This is what we send our kids to college for? So they can run around naked in public? Whatever happened to the time honored tradition of getting snockered and throwing up in the dean's car? You never did that, either? Man, you really need to lighten up.

About 1,500 runners let it all hang out last Tuesday night as the run got underway a little after ten pm. Oddly enough, it wasn't all the naked college students running around that made the event controversial, it was the crowd of 10,000 clothed persons who gathered to watch. It seems a lot of the runners were upset by some of the athletic supporters on the sidelines who brought along video cameras to capture the event for posterity.

"People with their cameras exploit it," said Rachel Freedman, a junior whose mama and daddy must be very proud. "If they're videotaping, they better run it themselves." What Rachel doesn't seem to understand is that when there are 1,500 buck naked people amassed in one place and there is no admission fee or cover charge, there are going to be people taking pictures.

While there were several confrontations between the runners and people with cameras, all in all the Naked Mile ended without a hitch. There were no arrests for nudity, but several people were cited for RNUI (Running Naked Under the Influence) and one unhappy motorist was arrested for trying to drive through the crowd.

Looks like we found the dean.

A naked footnote:
No column on the many states of naked would be complete without some mention of what's known in the south as, "Stupid Naked," so here it is, in this summation of a recent story from the "Mobile Register."

Rookie firefighters James Harper, 22, and Eric Creel, 23, were injured last week when they attempted to slide down a water-soaked fire pole while in a definite state of Stupid Naked. The mishap took place during a party for graduating recruits at Mobile's Central Fire Station. Both men suffered severe slide burns, but are expected to fully recover.

Hmm, wonder if these boys ever spent time in Michigan?

Nakedness is no longer a word that is self explanatory. There are just so many variations of this word with each having a different meaning that an explanation of the braod categories is necessary. This is just what this article sets out to do!

Tim Knox, Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker, Radio Host Founder, The Insiders Club, Giving You The Power To Start Your Business Today www.theinsidersclub.com Bestselling Author of: "Everything I Know About Business I Learned From My Mama" www.timknox.com

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