2005 February - Clay Edgin's Strongman Show - Hubgeezer

[Hubgeezer]

This is going to be a long post, and I apologize in advance for the length. I am going to try to articulate the invisible, which is a challenge. Clay is such a good guy that he deserves a nice write up, so that is my motivation. I will let him chime in on the technical/bending side of things.

THE SHORT VERSION IS:Clay performed as a guest at my Church's annual "follies", a mostly low level talent show on Shrove Tuesday(Mardi Gras night, the night before Ash Wednesday) and was a huge hit, especially with the children, and pulled off some awesome feats. His mom took video. I got some pictures from someone with a digital camera, but only around 5 were of Clay. I'll eventually get them to Clay for possible posting. END OF SHORT VERSION.

Okay, that's it in a nutshell. READ ON FOR THE LONG VERSION.

In July, as a "Rotary Program", I had a Rolling Thunder contest. Two years earlier, I had one to a very skeptical audience. It was 3 of my club, including me, versus a gym owner and 2 of his employees. We were 15 years older on the average, and our total was almost 100 pounds more than theirs. The gym owner tore a bicep in the process trying to pull 173 without a warmup.

Two years later, I had another "contest". This time, the audience figured that it was another Hubgeezer trick, even when the two-man-team this time was myself and a 160 lb puller vs the "Salinas Swordsman", which consisted of Clay and his father. Before the contest, I was taunting Clay, he and I were the only ones in on the joke, and I had a frying pan in my hand, holding it like a sword. "What would you do if I came at you like this?", and Clay responded by taking the pan from my hand and rolling the pan. The audience, which I thought would laugh, instead responded with a giant "group gasp", as if they all swallowed a fly at the same time. We had the contest, such as it was, The Edgins won by around 30 pounds, and since there was a little extra time, Clay then bent some nails(he was in a pre-red nail phase at that point) and tore some cards. Folks in the club still talk about it, and have described it as "awesome". These are middle-aged businesspeople, not your typical strongman fans.

So, in November, when my club had its annual silent auction, I asked Clay if he wanted to donate a "30 minute Strongman Show". He said sure. We put a value of $95 on it, which is about the price of a clown at a children's party, and there was only 1 bid on it, for $30, from me. I told Clay up front that I hoped to buy it for my Church's annual Follies, and I was willing to pay whatever it took for it. Even though I had made up a pretty flyer with a color photo of Clay bending at our July "contest", all 200 attendees passed on the item. There were about 400 items at the auction, and most went below retail. Folks, you have to understand, this is a cult sport, which may change after the Tonight Show tonight, but there are not many people interested in this stuff.

Clay knew several months in advance the date of my church's annual event, the St. Paul's Annual Follies and Pancake Supper, February 8. It is a fundraiser put on by the high school age kids in the church(all 12 of them), the kids work the kitchen, and after the pancake supper, there is "the follies". For the most part, it is a goofy low level internal "talent show", with a goofy mc(yours truly) who introduces little kids as if he was a circus ringleader or Michael Buffer. The younger the kids, the more fun they have. If you took the best act from each year for the last 15 years, it would be enjoyable, but for the most part, it is polite applause. Our minister is a clown and magician(talent-wise, about a 2.8 on the gripper scale) and it was obviously his invention years ago, it is done in fun, nobody is made fun of, and those who come have a good time. There would be middle-aged lawyers playing the piano, senior citizens telling bad jokes, a woman doing tricks with her dog(now that was good), a fellow in his 80s playing the harmonica(until he went into the old folks home, he was always the annual crowd pleaser), but over 50% coming from young kids. Got the idea, right?

Well, the attendance had been dropping at this thing year after year. The attendees were mainly the parents of the young kids, and the die-hard senior citizens who go to everything, but people between 20-30 and 45-65, none, zip, notta. Since Clay was going to be there, I thought I had something worth watching, and if I explained what it was, no one would come. Did you see what I just wrote? I mean that. Perhaps that will change tonight with Big Steve on Leno, but folks, if you explain this stuff, people DO NOT GET IT. THEY HAVE TO SEE TO BECOME BELIEVERS. So, my plan was to be coy about it.

I normally would just "show up" and do the mc thing. Whatever acts were there, I introduced. This year, I hawked, I sold, I promoted. I made flyers. I made money back guarantees if satifaction was not delivered. I stood up in church making announcements. My line was "I have hired a professional, at a cost of FOUR FIGURES(including the numbers after the decimal points) to perform, and he is the BIGGEST ACT St. Paul's has ever had". I did not tell a soul what the act was, except on one flyer I sent out to a 30 something year old ex-NFL lineman that said "this will feature a 24-year-old from North Salinas High(he attended a rival local school) who I will bet you $100 that no NFL player can duplicate any of his strength feats". Calling out a 6ft 4in 300 lb monster by a middle-aged accountant, hey I was confident...

So, the audience size was double what it had been for the last couple of years. I would say around 85. Whether Clay was there or not, it was a success, but about Clay, which is the point to this...

The audience didn't know what he was going to do. I introduced him as a guy that I found out was a member of the Salinas Swordsman, and I was going to do hand-to-hand battle with an implement of my choosing, which was the frying pan. So back to the "what would you do if I came at you like this?" line, and Clay, being way more relaxed in public this time, way more confident and comfortable in front of an audience and what he could do this time, just sort of stood there and stared at me, which was funny in itself, because of his size, and then talked about it not being an effective weapon, and then casually took it from my hand, bent it, handed it back, and explained that it was a better weapon now that it was more compact. I tossed the pan onto the stage, said, "showoff", and then we shifted gears. Clay started doing feats, I would explain who he was, a little about the sport, and he would say a little in the way of what he was doing. It was low key, and what he did sort of spoke for itself. I had now stopped my silly showman schtick, and was respectfully explaining or talking a little as he did things.

The first thing he did was to tear a thin phone book. He handed the two pieces to me, and with all the children seated in the front(we did not plan that), I handed one half to two different kids. The kids caught on quickly, so as Clay bent or tore, he would hand me the items, and each time the kids would be more excited, holding their hands out eagerly reaching for more loot. They were polite, but absolutely squealing, it was like the bars, nails, bolts, cards, etc were $100 bills! Damnest thing I ever saw! I am talking about the kids, not Clay's feats! They were more excited than a 1950s movie where Santa Claus had showed up. Wholesome, happy, excited kids! What planet was I on???

When he pulled out a soda can, they knew what was coming! When the can exploded, soaking more than a few people, including the priest who was 5 feet behind the kids, they got even more excited, if that was possible. For his finale, Clay brought out 150 pounds of plates on a loading pin, put it on a headstrap, put his head back, and a young volunteer handed him cards, bars, and phone books that he was tossing aside with both hands in a more-agressive-discard fashion as opposed to the earlier polite hand-to-Hubgeezer manner.

There were 3 acts after Clay. At first they were getting disrupted by the commotion that Clay was causing by continuing to bend things for the kids coming up to him by the side of the hall. Clay stopped doing it so they could sit down and be quiet while the follies ended.

After everything was over, he was surrounded by all the children, and kept bending and handing little bars and bolts out to them. I saw cute little 9-year-old girls clutching half phones books in their arms like they were holding and protecting a baby, macho 12-year-old boys walking cockily with scrolled bars over their shoulders like it was a animal they just wrestled and were going to take home to their cavewoman, and 4-year-olds running off with nails in their hands to show to their mothers. I could not make this stuff up, it was the damnest thing I ever saw! I already said that, didn't I? It was! I wish I had a photo of the circle of kids around Clay after the show, because it was like he was the Pied Piper or Santa Claus.

The Follies were the biggest success in their history. The next day, my wife said to me that her favorite part was the scene after it was over, where Clay was surrounded by all the kids. His "groupies", as she called them.

One middle-aged lawyer, normally one of the more cynical of the congregation, sputtered to me after Clay finished, "That was unreal".

My theory on the kids? In today's world, everything is so electronic, so orchestrated, so fantasy, so much seen-it-all before, but this was completely unique. This was real life, Clay was real, this is not something fake. Our governor is an action star who is almost 60 years old. There is no Santa Claus. This was different.

I think Clay has an advantage with children over John Brookfield and Dennis Rogers. His size: he is so big and tall, he is quite a physical sight if you are under 4 feet tall. He is younger than the other fellows, which makes him more popular to kids. He is also a gentle touch with kids - - I don't know John or Dennis, but Clay comes off as a sweetie pie to kids, which is, I would venture to say, probably not the disposition of the majority of our Board members.

I better stop or I will get banned from the Board. He was a huge hit, and lots of people had a real treat. THANK YOU CLAY!

And if you have read all of this, thank you, too.

Hubgeezer

[gamidon]

Great Story! I got to see some of the warmups for this online when Clay was practicing some of the feats. I am very impressed with Clay, I dont think there is much he can't do when he sets his mind on it. Powerful dude and great sense of humor. I can see why kids would like him.

Greg

[pdoire]

Thanks for your wonderful report Hubgeezer...

Nice job Clay with the kids!

[t_rex]

Great post, I loved it.

[rawrin]

What a great story!! I guess you have yourself a new celebrity

[Dan Cenidoza]

Great write up!

And nice job Clay! Do you see now what you have to show for the last 2 years?

[Todd Kartchner]

Awesome, Clay. Those kids will probably remember that for their entire lives.

[HAMMERHEAD]

Great writeup!!!

Clay is great and has a wide variety of feats to preform. Wish I could have seen it.

-HH

[EricMilfeld]

Uplifting, wonderful true story! You did good guys!

[Clay Edgin]

Even though I had made up a pretty flyer with a color photo of Clay bending at our July "contest", all 200 attendees passed on the item.

They all passed because my picture was on it!

Thanks for the great write up. I had the best time! I'm still flying high today. I was really surprised how much the kids enjoyed it. I don't know, I figured maybe they would think it was lame or fake. One of my favorite memories was that I bent a 5/8" bar into a fish shape and gave it to a little girl, who proceeded to run around the auditorium with it, making it "swim" in the air. Then she and her friend tried to pull the ends of the bars apart and couldn't budge them.

[twig]

I enjoyed every word of that! And it reinforce my theory that the bigger and stronger a man is, the more of a sucker he is for a little girl's smile.

[LAHotSauce]

Awesome story!

Enjoyed reading every bit of it.

Its those kinda things that those children will ALWAYS remember. Good wholesome fun.

Good job.

Edited February 10, 2005 by LAHotSauce

[ryaneverk2]

I enjoyed every word of that! And it reinforce my theory that the bigger and stronger a man is, the more of a sucker he is for a little girl's smile.

←

Great writeup, Hugbeezer. And nice goin' Clay!! Sounds like those kids loved you.

[kerbjr]

That sounds like a great time, good job Clay and Hub Geez, those folks will remember that stuff the rest of their lives....I assume this means you are on the schedule for next year right???? Brett

[Bill Piche]

Great writeup. Thanks for sharing it.

[Tom of Iowa2]

Great write up.

Nice thing to do.

I would guess Clay has a great 'presence'...and that kids would like him.

[Geo]

sounds like a real good time.

Well done Clay! Those kids will be talking about you for decades.

[mobsterone]

Good story, good work done for the best reasons.

[underdawg]

Nice write-up. Clay, you're just a great big ol' teddy bear.

[Clay Edgin]

Jonathan, SHHH don't tell anyone that! Clay Edgin is no teddy bear. Clay Edgin is such a superstar that he refers to himself in the third person!

[sigmfsk]

Really enjoyed the writeup; good job Clay and Hubgeezer. thanks!

[bballdad]

Great writeup and great job Clay!!!

[Sybersnott]

I read every word of your LONG VERSION and enjoyed every bit!

Know you know why I wanted to meet Clay at the last AOBS. Nice job, Clay!!

[nagual]

This thread made me smile.

What a great thing that you could make those kids world a bit more magical.

[Steve B.]

No he is the Claymanator hidden in the gentle gaint known as Clay.Metal bends at his will.

Thanks Geezer for the report.