bush approval rating Brain Farts Brain Fart brain farts brain fart brain-fart brain-farts brainfart brainfarts LEO Louisville Eccentric Observer parody lampoon satire Louisville Kentucky Kevin Gibson kgramone@aol.com  kgramone humor cat's ass fart anna kournikova zeitgeist  bush approval rating

Brain Farts was a weekly humor column that ran in the Louisville Eccentric Observer from mid-2000 until the summer of 2002. It was, well, eccentric. And occasionally satirical. And sardonic. Some liked it, some hated it; some just didn't get it, and that's OK. There were times when I didn't get it either. I've compiled here some of the archives from Brain Farts for the enjoyment of friends, family and anyone else who happens by. I also have written some new Brain Farts, and added some links and other trivialities that you shouldn't be too concerned with.

Unless you're as bored as I am.

Brain Farts: Strength is as Strength Does
	By Kevin Gibson January 9, 2002

My fiancee and I were sitting around with some of our geeky friends the other night watching “The World’s Strongest Man Competition,” a Strongman event on ESPN XXVIII, when someone said, “I wonder who came up with this event, anyway?”

At that point, enormous men in tight shorts were hoisting huge stone blocks up facing sets of steps, one step at a time. The men would squat, grab the built-in handle on the block and lift the block with a grunt to the next step. The blocks were so big that, naturally, the men had to keep their legs apart so they didn’t rip off the insides of their thighs. First one to get three to the top was the winner, who usually collapsed in a sweaty heap. We laughed and laughed.

After we finished laughing, I revealed to my inquisitive friend the ugly truth: These games were invented by people like me, those of us who were geeks in high school, to make those people who picked on us look silly in front of their friends and families on national television.

Have you ever seen grown men haul huge blocks up stairs in Spandex? It is one of the silliest things you’ll ever see. I explained to my friend that the plan is to, in the very near future, insert a new rule into this particular part of the Strongman competition: With each passing round, each participant’s shorts must be a little shorter. We’ll tell them it is to remove support in their thigh muscles in order to make the feat a little more challenging; in fact, it will be to merely make them look a little bit sillier.

Another key event involves tossing a slightly smaller block over a wall — backwards. This is one of the most popular spectator events in a Strongman competition because of the prospect that the block won’t make it over the wall and will fall back down and land comically on the thrower’s head. As geeks who watched too many cartoons as children, we can already imagine little birds fluttering around the strongman’s head as he falls slowly to the ground.

We created sadistic events like “The Crucifix Hold,” which requires participants to hold weights horizontally out to their sides just above shoulder height for as long as possible. (It’s a riot when they go into the shakes!) And until you’ve seen a grown man pull a semi tractor down a runway or tip over a car with his bare hands in the name of sport, you haven’t truly laughed.

We geeks also made up events like The Tire Flip, The Log Press and The Farmer’s Walk to provide even more comic potential. Look for The Butt Squeegee, The Hot Wax Leg Glide and The Raw Hamburger Lift, coming soon.

E-mail the writer at kgramone@aol.com. Please don’t tell his secret, or those guys will beat him up after school again for SURE!