Naked Running Man

I've been buried in writing a seemingly endless essay, and so apologize to my fellow synchonized bloggers for this overdue post, on Katie's topic: Nudity.

Back in my undergraduate days, at Indiana University in Bloomington, I lived in the “Collins Living and Learning Center,” better known to frat boys and others as, “the hippie dorm.” Indeed we had our share of artists and philosophers, comedians and revolutionary thinkers. One day in the cafeteria, I found myself sitting in a group with a guy named Bart Everson, who it turned out, was having some legal woes.

“Why?” asked we.

And he told how he had had a brilliant idea to streak across campus, running au naturale from Ballantine Hall to his dorm. This he set out to do, I believe with camera man in tow—as at the time several people I knew (including myself) would occasionally make programs for the local cable access channel—to film the segment “Naked Running Man.” The only problem was, he had not thought to do a test run, and halfway to his destination realized he could not actually run across campus, and had to stop and walk.

As he was walking back to his dorm, he was arrested for exposing himself in public, and at the time of our conversation was embroiled in some negotiations regarding the ramifications of this. I believe that “Naked Running Man” did show on the access channel, but not having a TV, I never got to see it.


Addendum: Telling this story made me think fondly of Bart, and wonder how and where he is now. So of course, I googled him, and found he has quite the web presence. He apparently stayed around Bloomington after graduation and had a series on cable access with sufficient cult following to warrant its own Wikipedia entry, with references to articles in Wired and Time magazines. I think he now lives in New Orleans, seems active in his community and he has a blog. And I found his own rendition of the naked running man story here, from which I stole the picture above. (If you follow the link be sure to hit the media pop-up window for a QuickTime clip.) Here’s to you, Bart!