Some men display the strength of their special purpose

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/04/2018 (3045 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every once in a while I write an educational and entertaining column that I later wish I hadn’t.

Today is one of those days.

This is because today I feel compelled to write a column that focuses on a medically sensitive area of the guy anatomy we don’t normally discuss in family newspapers unless it’s to refer to a professional athlete being walloped by a hockey puck and sustaining what we like to call “a lower-body injury.”

For the purposes of today’s column, we are going to steal an iconic phrase from the 1979 Steve Martin comedy classic, The Jerk, and refer to this medically sensitive area as, and I will quote Steve directly, the “special purpose.”

What I am trying to get at is that, by sheer accident, I stumbled on a spate (possibly a gaggle) of online news reports about a disturbing global trend wherein holy men, in an effort to demonstrate their great spiritual strength, pull heavy objects using only their (ahem) “special purpose.”

If you are anything like me, after reading that last paragraph, your brain has probably formed the following journalistic thought: “Huh?”

That is pretty much what I was thinking when I read a report in the Daily Star about how huge crowds had gathered last week in Bihar, India, to watch as a holy man known as… OK, let’s call him “Special Purpose” Baba… towed a car armed only with his medically sensitive area and, quote, “the power of devotion.”

According to the Daily Star, Baba wowed the crowds by attaching a tow rope to his “special purpose,” which was hidden under his flowing robes, and then staggered back, pulling the car and declaring: “It is not art. It is… the power of devotion.”

I do not wish to be overly graphic, but the report was accompanied by photographs and all you could see was the tow rope disappearing into the Baba’s flowing robes, so it is entirely possible that he had some kind of motorized winch hidden in there. Att least I hope he did.

I kind of assumed this story was a bizarre one-off, but then, with a few more clicks of my mouse, I stumbled on Story No. 2, a report in the British newspaper The Mirror describing how another holy man, a Hindu monk who has “renounced the worldly life,” was photographed pulling a large van with his “special purpose” at a religious festival in India.

This story also had photos showing the monk dressed in sandals, beads, a beard and pretty much nothing else. I am not overly prudish, but these were the kind of photos that are hard to unsee once the image has been burned into your retinas.

I probably wouldn’t be telling you about any of this if I had not stumbled on Story No. 3, a report in the Mirror that began with the following paragraph, one no one expects to write during a career in professional journalism: “A kung fu master who dragged seven cars with his (special purpose) has become a new world record holder — by towing a helicopter even further with his (special purpose).”

This story described in painful detail how, last April in China, a fellow named Ye Hongwei — who goes by the stage name “Ye Wei” — towed seven Audis weighing 12.6 tonnes using his (you know what), dragging the vehicles for a total of eight metres, thereby breaking his previous record of pulling five cars.

Then, in May, with several hundred people and official adjudicators looking on, Ye summoned the inner strength to drag a heavy military helicopter over 10 metres, beating his intended target of eight metres. He did this trick in a medically sensitive area, by which I mean Beijing.

“I don’t know why I struggled in the beginning. I felt a bit nervous and unsure,” is what he told the newspaper after being handed a certificate by the World Record Academy. “But I mustered up the energy needed and started the helicopter moving. I will continue practising so I can break new records in the future.”

Well, good to know there’s something to look forward to. The thing is, these guys are considered superheroes in their home countries, whereas we are forced to make do with more traditional heroes. I can’t imagine they’d have much to chat about at a meeting of the heroes union.

Superman: “Yeah, hi, my powers include flying, super strength and X-ray vision.”

The Flash: “Um, OK, well, I can run faster than anyone on the planet.”

Ye Wei: “Cool! I pull stuff with my (special purpose).”

Before we run out of space, I need to mention one last story I found on the Swedish news site TheLocal.se describing how a Swedish artist had painted a five-storey-high “special purpose” on the side of an apartment building in Stockholm.

Seriously, artist Carolina Falkholt created the massive dangly bits mural on a legal graffiti wall established in Stockholm by the art organization Kollektivet Livet, which means they didn’t need residents’ permission.

“They should consider what it is they are so upset about and then talk about it,” the artist said, explaining the mural would force people repulsed by her art to think twice.

In conclusion, I would just like to say that if anyone has car trouble in the near future and needs a tow, please, don’t call me. Because I’ll be hiding under my desk curled up in the fetal position.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca