Schmuck Alert: Silent but Stupid

Audio be damned, I'm calling this one on looks alone. I mean, really, get a load of this guy! The beady eyes, the glowering scowl, that overly bowed-up posture... who wants to bet he's got a shiny Corvette waiting for him in the parking lot? But that's not fair... I don't even know the dude. Until now. For when Nebraska Defensive Coordinator Carl Pelini honed in on TexAgs.com photog Brandon Jones, he clearly appeared on the Lenslinger Institute's internal radar and earned himself the right to be called a Schmuck on and off the field. Even if the evidence isn't entirely conclusive...

It happened Saturday, moments after Texas A&M handed Nebraska their cornhusked ass. The score was 9-6, but judging from judging from some folks' reaction, it was a crippling defeat. Not for Brandon Jones, though. He took to the field with a fancycam of sorts. As co-owner of TexAgs.com, he was out to capture all the post-game action for his website. Boy, did he! No sonner had he made it about mid-field, Jones captured footage of little man Carl Pelini seemingly berating a man. I say 'seemingly' because Mr. Jones neglected to attach the microphone before running onto the field. Thus, everything he recorded from then on out was devoid of noise. Silent. Nada audio. Hey, it happens.

What followed is a classic case of pantomimed testosterone. Little Carl notices the opponent's camera pointing his way. Turning on the proverbial dime, the Defensive Coordinator makes a bee-line for the lens, with straight up offense in his eyes. At this point, cameraman Jones makes another tactical error: He lowers the camera to his side. Thus, the alleged attack was not properly documented. All we see is a jostling as the frame goes out of focus. According to Jones, though, what happened next was clearly uncool.

“There’s this awkward moment where we’re eye-to-eye with each other,” Jones told me. “And I say, ‘What are you doing?’

It was then Jones claimed the diminutive coach tried to wrestle the camera from his grip. Not able to best the absent-minded cameraman, Lil Carl then breaks the eyepiece in several pieces, throws them into the surrounding crowd and storms off (no doubt to berate the nearest waterboy for some imagined slight). The viedo - while strikingly quiet - is avail;able on the web in glorious slow-mo.

I've watched it several times now and have come away rather convinced it happened just the way Brandon Jones said it did. There's simply no other explanation. Neither is there any good reason for an almost fully-grown man in a polyester uniform to act like such a child. A pox on you, Carl Pelini. You took a simple loss on the gridiron and turned it into a showcase of your own shortcomings. Is that what you teach all those corn-fed youth? No wonder you lost.

Schmuck...

Schmuck Alert: Just Spray It!

Just when the Schmuck Alert was growing passé, some tool in Connecticut breaks out the bug spray. Meet Sean P. Quail, loving husband, t-shirt enthusiast, irrational dill-weed. How else do you describe a guy who grabs a can of insecticide out of his handy-dandy dashboard insecticide-holder and aims straight for the Fourth Estate? Oh, I know - SCHMUCK! NOt to mention Defendant, as this sensible gent now faces reckless endangerment, third-degree assault, and a few other charges. It all started when Quail and his beloved exited an Enfield Courthouse after she faced charges of receiving stolen beer. A waiting scrum gave chase; what happened next would be hard to believe, were it not captured on videotape.

(But that's the funny thing about camera crews: they tend to record stuff. Bear that in mind the next time you reach for the RAID, America.)

Reporter George Colli and photographer Alan Chaniewski caught the worst of the wasp and hornet spray. While they rushed next door for first aid, police pursued the would-be Exterminator, arresting him a short time later. It's unclear whether Quail will be rewarded with his own reality show, but we here at the Lenslinger Institute wouldn't be all that surprised. We're just glad members of the media escaped serious injury, for no matter how annoying that logo'd lens might be. no one deserves a face full of distilled bug-death, except maybe Sean P. Quail - who remains a danger to his community and a most repugnant schmuck.


Schmuck!

Schmuck Alert: Paper Goon!

Proving you don't have to break a sweat to get charged with assault, a mustachioed brute went all 'periodical' on a Texas photog and came away with a court date. It happened in El Paso. KFOX photographer Rudy Reyes was hunched over his camera outside a federal courthouse when the father of an accused judge walked by with an unidentified family friend. Apparently, the swarthier of the two men took offense at being videotaped, for as he passed Reyes' lens, he swatted the photog on the head with a rolled up magazine! Apparently, this bruiser takes more than fashion tips from those old Sopranos reruns. If only he'd caught the show in its initial run, he'd know that even the most conflicted goon wouldn't strike a cameraman with a rolled up copy of Playgirl. Damn those basic cable edits!

To make matters worse, the heavy in question totally blew his HBO audition with a badly acted denial of the videotaped wallop. Chances are Reyes will recover, but it doesn't change the fact that the veteran photographer was within his every right to record the duo waddling up the courthouse steps. No doubt the still-unidentified man thought he saw a mosquito on Reyes' dome - or else he figured a harmless thwack from his dog-eared issue of Playgirl would be received as a show of respect or at the very most, an unrequited love tap. Not so, Asshole! Shortly after the son of the man he accompanied to court was convicted of corruption, police moved in and arrested the well-read troglodyte. It's impossible to know if the assault charge will stick, but I for one hope this thug pulls actual time - if only so he'll have to tell his new cellie how a magazine full of shirtless Chippendale dancers landed him in the poky. Say it with me...

Schmuck!

Schmuck Alert: Tripodicide!

Hey, wasn't there a Stephen King movie where all the old people turned into homicidal whack-jobs? If not there should have been - for it's a highly cinematic scenario. Just ask Jim Morrison. No, not the allegedly dead Lizard King - the Univision photojournalist who was recently accosted by a deranged maintenance man outside an Albuquerque warehouse. Apparently, the elderly fellow didn't want his picture taken (lest the lens steal his soul). How can I be so sure? Morrison's video clearly shows the unidentified man expressing his rancor with a flagrantly displayed middle digit - before taking issue with the sticks. Look out! He's got a collapsible camera stand and he's not afraid to use it! Sorry, I just get a little jumpy whenever someone mistreats a three-legged beast. Which is just what this apoplectic elder proceeded to do: first slamming Morrison's tripod on the ground and then running it over with his pick-up truck. C'mon, Gramps! Someone slip a steroid in your Metamucil? Wheel of Fortune get pre-empted by another Obama presser? Still pissed about the whole horseless carriage thing? Whatever the reason for your rage, one would think a man of your vintage would maintain some level of decorum - or at the very least act like you got some damn sense. Instead, you display the kind of behavior that would send a fifth grader to Detention. That's no way to treat the media, Sir. Nor is it a proper example to set for the younger generation of custodial engineers who don't yet decide how they feel about passing camera crews.

Schmuck!