byLarry Eder
It is just like any other Wednesday evening in marathon season. I plan on working late, download a few new tunes from I-tunes (Wang Chung’s “Dance Hall Days”, a new master of the Faces, “Stay with Me”, Butthole surfers, “The Shame of Life”, and LeRoy’s “Good Time”.
I work late the nights before I travel, as no one is in the office and I tend to get more done. I get a chance to catch up on emails and voice mail. I then get my packing done, and if I am lucky, get a little time with my son, Adam, as he heads back from work or recording with the band, and we catch up before my early flight the next morning. He drives me to the airport for most trips. We are denizens of the night. It is a gene pool thing…
But, I have digressed. As I am listening to “The Shame of Life”, a new email arrives, with a the subject: Feet on Head. Curious, I turn on the video.
The story is, this guy is running through Central Park and he has two feet coming out of his head, real feet! The guy looks pretty normal, well, except for the feet coming out of his head. A taxi driver gives a curious side glance. Two guys look at each other as the four footed runner continues his run. The look from the park service crew is priceless. You have a tinge of sympathy when the guy attempts to use a water fountain, but the feet on his head do not allow him to satiate his thirst.
It is kind of Franz Kafka meets John Waters (but, alas no Johnny Depp or Patty Hearst). The runner with the feet on his head makes a change of direction and heads to a hospital’s emergency room entrance. In the hospital he is put on a gurney, and rushed to surgery…..
And this, dear readers, is where is really brings the viewer in. You see a set of clamps, a saw, a foot measuring device and you think, dear God, is this a slasher film? Au contraire, mes amis…..
Both the viewer and the feet on the head have a sense of deja vu all over again: the viewer winces as the feet cross each other, fearing the worst. All of sudden, the saw is being used to cut off another brand of running shoes. The surgeon says, ” 758, size 11 D”. You see nurses rustling through a wall of NB shoe boxes and the 758s in size 11 D are found.
The camera pans the legs, with new shoes, and moves up to the runners face, which is now all smiles, and the feet on the head are missing. The runners gets up, and one of the medical staff muse, “When will they ever learn?”
The runner then exits the surgery room, but not before we are teased by a room full of runners with feet protruding from their foreheads….
The final tag line is, Think About Your Run, Not Your Feet.
Nicely done! A good sense of humor, some well done video, and a nice way to differentiate oneself from the running crowd!
Nice job, New Balance, thanks for not giving us one more loneliness of the long distance runner story!
For more on NB, check out http://www.newbalance.com
For more on the sport of running, please click on http://www.runningnetwork.com
