Last week, my friend CJ and I filmed my neighbor making a complete idiot of himself as he danced blackout-drunk to ‘It Ain’t Hard to Tell’ by Nas. If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then this minute-long video, of a pasty white, shirtless dancer doing a stumbling combination of ballet and a gay striptease, is worth its weight in gold.

You see, even when you’re trying to embarrass your friend, it’s incredibly hard to come away with a humiliating story about them. Usually you have to trick them, bribe them or drug them, and even then you’d be lucky to have a witness or low-quality cell phone photography of the incident.

In this case, not only did my neighbor willingly shake his tail feather in front of several witnesses and a camera, but he was so plastered that the next morning he had no knowledge of his quasi pole dance, let alone the video footage of it on my roommate’s laptop. It was as if the Holy Grail of ball-busting fell from the heavens directly into my lap.

Now, when you come across such a comedic gold mine, you can use the leverage that comes with it in a number of ways. For example, you could keep the footage among your inner circle of friends and spring it on your buddy whenever you get into an argument:

‘See, I would agree with you, but you lost all credibility that night you dry-humped a desk lamp while belly dancing to Nas.’

This method may not cause enough public humiliation for your taste, but it ensures that your friend will become and forever stay a joke among the people you hang out with.

Or, if you’re cruel enough, you could show the video to your friend and then negotiate a settlement in exchange for not releasing the tape to the public. It’s not all that creative, but a tough negotiator should be able to strip him of his dignity. Or his BlackBerry. Whichever’s worth more.

If you’re like me, however, you’d rather humiliate your friend in public than blackmail him in private. After all, what are friends for, if not to show every attractive girl on the Eastern Seaboard how their buddy dances after downing his height in beer cans?

Some people disagree with this philosophy. They believe that public humiliation is wrong. They claim that real friends don’t punish each other for doing stupid things like getting blackout-drunk and removing their shirt to help ‘get their swag on.’

The way I see it, it’s my right-nay-my duty as a man to punish him for attempting these things while a camera filmed his every move.

So, with the help of my three roommates, as well as Facebook, YouTube, e-mail, Instant Messenger, telephones, fax machines, telegrams, my old elementary school’s PTA listserv, etc. I did everything I possibly could to spread the footage of my dancing friend to the far reaches of Earth.

And then I wrote a column about it.

Danny Fersh is a sophomore broadcast journalism major and his columns appear every Wednesday. He strongly recommends that you search ‘White boy dancing, Long Island douche bag’ on YouTube, and then click on the first link. While you’re at it, check out The Fresh Squeeze at dailyorange.com. Danny can be reached at dafersh@syr.edu.