Porter Wagoner is dead

In my previous life I had the opportunity to put several episodes of Da Ali G Show on DVD. These included the episode that featured Borat trying his hand at country music, and performing a stirring rendition of "In My Country There Is a Problem (Throw the Jew Down the Well)" for an Arizona honky tonk open mike night.

Earlier in that episode, the Borat character sought advice on how to become a country and western singer from Porter Wagoner. While much of the Borat schtick is based on testing the limits of politeness when individuals are confronted with a bizarre and offensive foreigner, I believe Sacha Baron Cohen (the man who is Borat, Ali G, and several other characters) more than met his match in the unflappable Mr. Wagoner. Borat's numbskulled offensiveness dashed itself on the rock of Porter Wagoner's perfect Southern gentlemanly manners. In the end, I think Cohen simply gave up, and a twinkle in Wagoner's eye suggested that he had not, in fact, been taken in at all.

Gone now. There are other people who knew him or his work better, who can pay more fitting tributes to him. But I will remember him for the time he got the better of a British shock comedian.