Warning: screed ahead.

I confess up front that my husband has a soft spot for Sandra Bullock. And I also confess that I hoped, once, that I had a little of her (dare I say it) “spunk” that was charmingly on display lo’ those many years ago in Speed.
So, that’s all out there, now.
Where I’m going with this is that even if you didn’t have a nice thing to say about the woman (or even though I do), the video below is nothing that anyone should ever have to deal with.
Ever.

Full confession now—the history:
When I was at UCLA I was the guest speaker at a fund raiser held in the previous iteration of Beverly Hills—Hancock Park. A lovely, old, mansion-ridden neighborhood (it was the BH of Chaplain’s day) of large lots and verdant front yards. None of the pink stucco, faux marble warehouses that the nouveau go for today, know-what-I’m-sayin’?

So there I was at this huge shin-dig, surrounded by (and I mean that literally—they were like bodyguards) Robert Wagner, Linda Evans (this is back in the Dynasty days—ooh, I’m dating myself!) and (gasp, bite the index finger knuckle) Mark Harmon.

Now, I was in between my first and second year at UCLA—which you may also know as the alma mater to college football legend, Mr. Harmon—so we had a little to talk about. And yes, I was totally enamored of him—and he was even more charming and genteel in person than you could imagine. (I am so jazzed that he and Pam Dawber are still married! They should be happy and live long lives together. Nice people! Mwah!)

So. You have the picture in your head, right?   Nice guy. Lotsa famous folks with lotsa big bucks to donate to an important cause.
Check.

So Mr. Harmon says he’ll walk me out to my car—or at least to the valet stand. (I can’t remember clearly. Something must have been clouding my brain. Oh! That’s right! It was Mark Harmon!) I don’t think he offered to walk with me because I was so hot. I think he just knew what was coming and didn’t want me to be scared.

We walked through the gate to the sidewalk and BLAMMO! Flashbulbs and insanity! Or it seemed insane to me at the time. Since then I’ve been in the presence of a few other super famous people and you do get inured somewhat. This was shortly after Sean Penn got all that flack for punching a paparazzi jerk.
And yes, I say jerk. (I’d say more and not as nicely if you got a couple of drinks in me.)

Since that day, when Mark Harmon was so polite and kind to the buzzards, I have always (a) been amazed by that man’s graciousness, and (b) defended Sean Penn for his “assault” because—let me say unto you right here and publicly—I guarantee the first assault came from the camera vultures.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know actors are “public figures”. But that’s their job. No one’s taking pics of you when you get in your car to go to work biting a piece of toast and swigging your coffee not so gracefully—and that moment is just as much you being a “public figure” as it is for them. Work happens WHERE you work, it’s not your life. And, I’m sorry—dinner with the family isn’t a public moment.
Nor is a fund raiser to which the press wasn’t invited.

So.

I get a little irked by these guys.

And I get more irked by those who defend them. What the camera sloths do is sick and it’s all about money and it’s crass and disgusting and I’m willing to bet that if everyone in the country knew how ugly it looked when the wolves took the “candid” pics that show up on the covers of magazines, they might just stop buying those very same magazines.

You want to know how ugly it gets?

Just.
Watch.

I dare you not to be sickened. (And honestly, if you’re not sickened, you might be missing an empathy gene. Perhaps that should be looked at by a nice calming professional. Or perhaps some Harper Lee?)

No one deserves this.
No one.
Not even Jesse James (and those who know me personally know that typing that was hard.   Doesn’t mean it’s not right).

Here.
You might want to have a bucket next to you (and potential hypocrisy alert: it did occur to me that embedding this might just make me as bad as them, but I felt better knowing that you won’t see Ms. Bullock anywhere here. What you will see, however, is boys whose mothers didn’t raise them right).

You can see “before the horror” footage and the above horror side-by-side at this link. The camera guys are just as sick in the “before”. Listen to the shutters clicking and the whispering at the end of the footage.
Sick.

Sigh.
Sorry for the rant. I know you’re not the problem, but Good. Ness. That poor woman doesn’t need any more grief. It’s enough to have your life put through a shredder privately—to have the rest of the world enjoy it is just too, too much.