YHC may have done this theme before, but if so, it’s been long enough, and we were overdue for a romp through one of the greatest movies of all time, O Brother, Where Art Thou? In no other movie can you find a script made up completely of quotable one-liners given by the most interesting and entertaining characters in an unpredictable plot with every element coming from nowhere but left field, keeping the viewer in rapt wonder from start to finish. And, because of this, it’s the only movie YHC knows that doesn’t get old no matter how many times you watch it.
Six adults and four 2.0’s gathered in the bright summer “gloom”, and YHC figured the leader of this outfit should be the one capaable of abstract thought, so he started the warmup with some SSH and moved through the usuals, adding some WMH and Good mornings since there would be some atrain on the back early on.
We grabbed the blocks, and it was time to R-U-N-N-O-F-T. We made it to the playground, or the chain-gang work site, and YHC began reviewing the plot: the movie starts with three men chained together, running through a cornfield to escape from a chain gang. One of them, Ulysses Everett McGill, promised the other two share in the treasure he had buried, and they were running to try to catch a box car on a train. The treasure ended up being his wife and children, and he was on a time crunch because she was scheduled to get married to another man (“Mama says he’s bonafide.” “He’s a suitor!”)
The exercise at this point would consist of two groups of three men, the first group, arms around each other, would lunge walk four steps together before dropping to the ground to avoid being caught, and there doing four Merkins before continuing to lunge walk four more steps, and moving in this fashion to where the “train tracks” were, the far playground area. The other three men stayed put, and acted as the chain gang, doing repeated sets of 10 grave diggers and 15 overhead presses with the block while Bose’, Sr. belted out Po’ Lazarus and Big Rock Candy Mountain. Insights about where to put your arm for the lunge walks and comparisons to high school dates at the movies were shared by our resident mid-beatdown philosopher, Lil’ Cuz.
After a successful enough escape, we grabbed our blocks and moseyed to the Thunderdome. This would act as our rural radio station, where our newfound partner, Tommy (Suckle?), who sold his soul to the devil in return for guitar lessons, would give us what we needed to sing into a “can”, record a record, and make $10 apiece, unwittingly becoming major celebrities in the process.
Bose’ rocked “Man of Constant Sorrows”, which rocked our lower abs in the following manner: hold 6 inches for the duration, and leg raises on every non-possessive pronoun that refers to the singer (I, me, he, him).
In order to stay ahead of the pursuing lawmen, it was time to R-U-N-N-O-F-T again, this time along the road. But, about halfway to the chimney, one of our party demanded that we pull over immediately. He had heard something so irresistable, so heart-rendingly attractive, he, and then we, couldn’t not investigate. We discovered three beautiful women doing laundry in the stream singing the most intoxicating song in perfect bluegrass harmony. We also discovered an abnormally large number of people waliking the park that day and judging us as we completed the following routine (AB’s wearing of The Fire Within may have absorbed most of the rays of judgment aimed at us, but certainly not all.):
11’s–run instinctively to where the Sirens are (a tree about 10-15 yards away), do 10 J-Lo Pickle Pounders, or Afflecks (as Delmar said, “We was fxin’ to fornicate!”), then like Pete, we was turned into a toad and had to frog-hop back for 1 American Hammer and so on in typical 11’s fashion. The American Hammers were reflective of the two remaining friends who weren’t transformed, but were beat with a tree branch by the Bible salesman, Big Dan.
The frog-hops were brutal, but that’s justice for you, and on we traveled. Soon, we stumbled into a KKK riitual gathering led by none other than the favorite in the upcoming gubernatorial election, Homer Stokes, the “Friend of the Little Man” who was gonna “sweep this state clean” of “rascalism, nepotism, croneyism,” etc., not to mention “all them people say we come from monkeys”.
The routine would be a stationary Flora where we partnered up, one partner representing Stokes while the other represented the “Little Man”. They split duty on 100 Coupon Swings (sweeping the state clean), 100 tricep presses (emphatically brandishing the broom overhead) , and 100 curls (lifting up the little man). While one partner worked through 10, then 15, then 20 reps of these, the other, the “Little Man” did Smurf Jacks, then Mission Impossible plank, then LBC’s (all nice and little, or low to the ground).
This is where we finally lost all pride. If the Sirens or park walkers didn’t defeat us, Stokes and his Little Man did. But we stuck it out, driven by the undying desire to save our wife and children from the clutches of Vernon T. Waldrip, Mr. Bonafide himself. So, in an unexpected turn of events, Stokes was revealed for the man he was, his constituency rode him out on a rail, and the three men were given bonafide jobs in the governor’s cabinet.
We moseyed with the blocks back to the flag for what the Pax hoped would be a happy ending, but instead were met with sinister authorities, who were ready to exact the highest (or lowest) level of justice. The PAX dropped to their knees (10x, in cadence, as genuflections), and Providence smiled on them as a wall of water came rushing in and swept them all away in a cleansing tide as the valley was flooded by the TWA for the new power plant. 10 Scuba Steves, in cadence, brought us to the surface, where we discovered the roll-top desk in which we found Everett’s wife’s original wedding ring.
But, of course, his wife had one more heroic task for Ulysses/Everett to complete–YHC won’t spoil it here , bu suffice it to say, she made her mind up (“counted to three”), so we finished with 10 static wife pleasers (hold for 3-count at the top).
COT, and The Fire Within was bequeathed by AB to Maneater for his timely recitation of some one-liners from the movie, and he immediately squeezed into it like a wet six-year-old putting on pajamas after a bath. Prayer requests and Cuz prayed us out.
That was a fun one, and a solid crew. Thanks for posting! “I’m with you fellers.”
SYITG,
Goose
