A few years ago, at the 2010 session of the (incredible) Everything Is Festival at the (awesome) Cinefamily establishment here in Los Angeles, they had something called a “Found Footage Battle Royale.”

Now what that means is that the entrants had to submit two minute clips and then they’d face off against each other with the audience “applause-o-meter” deciding the winner of each round, who’d then move on to the next. The winner was a fellow named Uneven Eagle who presented clip after clip of an enigmatic Wausau, Wisconsin cable access fitness instructor named “Jim.”

Once “Jim” was unleashed, no one else stood a chance.

There is next to nothing about this cinch-waisted fitness guru on the Internet, just a brief listing on the local cable access station’s website. The show is aired there, amidst Lutheran and Baptist televangelists, the teachings of “Eckanar” (with Living ECK Master, Sri Harold Klemp) and The LaRouche Connection. Even in that company, Jim must stand out, as you can see from the following clips.

For over 20 years, “Jim” has hit record and videotaped himself brandishing a scimitar, his monological musings on having a “little body,” “fat farm boy hands” and the price of magazines, pork chops and apples, as well as his thoughts on the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Because “Jim” edits his show “in camera” (i.e. starts and stops the camera between scenes) he has to hold still for several seconds after each set up to avoid the camera preroll erasing the previous scene. So he just stares into the camera. The winner of the contest had a final clip of these moments all cut together. Maybe it was the free beer, but the entire audience was shrieking in hysterics. The clips below are pretty much arranged in the order that the audience saw them in.
 

 
Above: “We can pretend we’re Hercules and we’re crushing…something. Something evil.”
 

 
“You almost gotta have a full-time job to buy a magazine.”
 

 
And here’s the final clip real of the in-between moments. Genius!
 

 
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