Naked Reporters Sweat, Flog Each Other
February 14, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Conan O’Brien thinks he’s breaking new ground by visiting Finland. Well, Extreme Mortman has the late-night comedian beat by nearly four years. Lloyd Grove wrote this in June 2002 when he was the Washington Post gossip columnist:
Washington writer Howard Mortman phoned us yesterday from Tampere, Finland, to file this report on the activities of the Finnish news media during this week’s political convention of the ruling Social Democratic Party: “About 20 Finnish print reporters and TV people — their version of Howard Fineman and Sam Donaldson — just got through taking a group sauna on the edge of Lake Hangaslahti about 10 kilometers from town. It was a traditional smoke sauna, like an oven, with burning wood, and the smoke was let out and then 20 naked men — the top political journalists in Finland — were all sweating and flogging themselves with birch branches. I also saw flogging of one person by another. Then they all jumped into the lake.” All we can say is: Don’t get any big ideas, Don Rumsfeld.
Brokeback Mortman Finnish Line Give Em Helsinki Lloyd Grove fan club Birch Branch Birch Bayh Bayh Bayh Birdie
