Being a jackass is cool.

I'm hoping that most of you have seen the new show, Jackass, on MTV. You know, it's that show starring Johnny Knoxville in which the actors do crazy, stupid stuff. I'm talking really crazy, stupid crap, like riding bikes into trees, swimming in the remnants of a porta-john, and drinking a live goldfish just to throw it back up again.

That's funny.

Jackass is co-produced and created by Johnny Knoxville, Spike Jonze and Jeff Tremaine. The three of them realized that if you pour honey all over your crotch, and let a bunch of bees crawl all over it, film it and make a show out of it, people are going to watch.

But of course, since some of the stunts are actually sort of dangerous, they make sure to periodically display the note "MTV insists you don't try this at home. These are professionals." That's why we try these stunts at our house. Well, not the exact same stunts, but similar pranks and selfless acts of stupidity. And we have them all on tape.

I know, I know . . . it's really immature. But that's what's so fun about it. There's just something entertaining about one of my roommates running and jumping into a bush, while a half hour later another one climbs up a tree about two stories high just to jump out and land on the solid pavement in pain.

Did any of you see someone with a big afro-wig running down Beaver Avenue last Saturday night with just a sock over his you-know-what? That was us.

Let me backtrack. See, it all went downhill when my brother bought a video camera. We'd take it out with us to parties, tape dumb drunks doing things that only dumb drunks do. We'd even try to get girls' phone numbers, you know, just what you'd imagine a bunch of college guys would do with a video camera.

Everyone seems to love it. It's pretty basic — you just stand on a chair at a happening party, turn on the video camera, film the middle of the biggest group you can find, and then yell really loud. Instantly 10 other people will all yell really loud back at you and the camera, wave, flick you off, or whatever. But it's great!

Sometimes we got creative and came up with little skits to pull off in K-mart or somewhere outside in the woods. But then, then we saw Jackass. We decided to raise our standards to another level. It made perfect sense for MTV to pick up on the idea. I'm not really a big fan of Tom Green, but some of the stunts that he pulled off were pretty funny, and basically, these guys just took all of that, the weird, gross, and sometimes painful acts, and turned it into a whole show.

I haven't really heard anyone say that they hate the show, actually, most people that I know really enjoy watching it. It's a conversation piece. "Hey, have you seen that new show Jackass?"

"Yeah. . . did you see the one where they had that hardboiled egg eating contest and those two guys both puked after eating more than two dozen eggs each?"

But it makes me ask myself, is there a bigger reason for why people watch it?

And I think the answer is yes. I think that it's the whole idea of doing dumb stupid things that brings out the kid in us. I mean, those guys are basically just out playing around. It's like "OK . . . we've got a video camera, let's think of something really stupid we can do." We all watch it, cause well, it's tempting to think "Are these guys actually going to do that?" and then to see people's reactions to the prank . . . hysterical.

The thing is that it's fun to do some dumb, stupid things, and having a video camera gives you the excuse to do it.

So if you haven't seen Jackass yet, make an attempt to watch it. I guarantee you'll have stitches in your sides and you'll start thinking to yourself, "Wow . . . that looks sort of fun, I wonder if . . ."