Blame It on the Germans

Sexual reproduction was begun 900 million years ago in the steamy swamps of Africa when life evolved beyond the cheerless existence of the single-celled, self-fertilizing protozoa. Modern public nudity was begun about 100 years ago in Germany as a protest against the rigid moral attitudes of the 19th Century. We’re still trying to figure out how they correlate. Which brings us to Burbank.

I approach the subject of sex, nudity and Burbank with some trepidation due to an uneasy feeling they have never been mentioned together in the same story in the L.A. Times. However, I feel there is a need to bring them into the open today in order to explore the deeper meaning of Burbank’s new ordinance making it illegal to appear unclothed in public for any reason. The law takes effect March 3.

To begin with, I am not one of those preoccupied with either sex or nudity, having progressed beyond basic function into an age bracket that includes something other than an endless quest for erotic gratification. Mama convinced me years ago that sex gives you pimples, and although I later discovered it was fried foods that was the problem, I’m still nervous about it.

At any rate, Burbank’s law was inspired by a lone man who ran naked down an alley last year, which demonstrates with what efficiency municipal government responds to any form of public nudity. Had there been a hundred starving, fully clothed homeless families in the alley they’d still be there. But because a streaker exposed his genitalia, we’ve got a new law on the books. That’s the way it goes in a town that once seriously considered adopting Mickey Mouse as its logo.

The streaker was arrested and then released when it was determined by methods not mentioned that his run was meant to be, well, fun-loving and not sexual in nature. State law controls nudity with sexual intent but says nothing about running around sans clothing for the sheer jolly hell of it. Hence the Burbank ordinance.

I discussed all of this with the town’s No. 1 booster, a kinetic ex-rock ‘n’ roll disc jockey who calls himself Mr. Burbank. His name is Don Baroda, and he runs a shop that turns out Ollie North T-shirts and “I Love Burbank� bikini panties, among other cultural artifacts. The business keeps Baroda almost perpetually on the phone with people named Steve-o-reeno and Lenny-baby, but he somehow always manages to talk about what a swell city Burbank is.

Baroda sells Burbank the way Jimmy Swaggart sells God, with a passion difficult to convey in nonvisual form. He’ll tell anyone willing to listen that Debbie Reynolds once lived in Burbank and loved the town, and then sing a hymn to the weather.

“Sometimes,� he said the other day, “I call a customer in Minneapolis in the middle of winter and talk about our balmy breezes and the sun kissing my face.� He hasn’t done that lately because of our own inclement weather, but you get the idea. The man is a walking travel brochure.

When I finally edged him away from an oral dissertation on Burbank as a metaphor for America, we discussed nudity. Mr. Burbank is for it.

“I’m outraged by the law,� he said in between phone calls. “Does this mean I can’t pop naked into my hot tub if the old lady next door can see me through the lovely birds of paradise in my yard? Exactly what is public nudity?�

In the next instant Baroda was on the phone to Mayor Al Dossin (“Al-baby�) demanding to know whether his naked dips were illegal. Mr. Burbank had even obtained a copy of the ordinance on which he had underlined words employed by the city to clarify what not to expose along Magnolia Avenue. Assured by Al-baby that his dips would not even be noticed much less halted, Baroda thanked the mayor but continued to insist he was going to test the law.

I tried to engage him in a more profound discussion of nudity as it related to sex but that only reminded him of the elderly lady from Glendale who stole a prototype flasher doll he was planning to market. “Why would she do that?� he wondered. “That’s Glendale for you.� One can only guess how the flasher doll would have related to his “I Love Burbank� campaign.

My conversation with Baroda didn’t add much to the current dialogue on public morality, but it reveals there is at least one prominent citizen willing to engage in civil disobedience to test a law he doesn’t agree with. Keep watching for a kinetic Burbank-booster streaking in puris naturalibus down a back alley when the weather warms and the sun once more kisses the face of the city Debbie Reynolds loved.