Streaking: (n) The act of dashing naked through a large crowd as a prank. Be honest now, who amongst us has not—at one time or another—at least pondered the idea? By a show of hands now, who amongst us…ah, you’re being modest, but I can see you’ve done far more than ponder. Be not ashamed, though, my fellow sons and daughters of Eve, you are not alone. After all, we are all born naked, so it would only stand to reason that—on occasion—we might feel the urge to revert back. In fact, it is my contention that streaking has radically altered the course of human history. The following report is the culmination of my life’s work and represents years of tireless research and field study, and more than just a few painful sunburns.
Please note that the proceeding presentation contains graphic accounts of what some may consider lewd and lascivious behavior. The squeamish and prudish may be wise to cover their ears—and quite possibly their eyes. This report will, once and for all, answer many age-old questions about streaking: Why doth man streak? Who streaketh first? When didst thou start streaking? Whilst thy ever accept streaking as normal? In the process of supplying those answers, I will strip away the mountains of myth and misinformation that surround this perfectly natural impulse. And in so doing, I will reveal the truth for all to see, and ultimately allow streaking to assume its rightful position in the annals of human history.
Naturally, one might ask what credentials I possess that would qualify me to perform such highly sensitive research. You may or may not be surprised to learn that I hold no advanced degrees. In reality, I possess only a B.A., but I have never been afraid to reveal this. And despite my lack of formal education, I am the foremost expert in this field, and I would be remiss if I failed to expose my own personal interest in this topic. You see, it just so happens that I am a lifelong sufferer from a rare disorder known as—Strippus Offus Yercrosis. Sadly, it’s a hereditary condition and tends to skip a generation. Thus, like my grandma, Galloping Gert, before me, and her great uncle, Benny the Blur, before her, we have suffered in shame-filled silence—save that occasional crowd roar when we would first take off out of the stands. No, believe me when I say, this meant far more to me than just plain research.
Without some written record, there is no way to know exactly how it arose, but through sound scientific reasoning and the recent discovery of crude prehistoric cave art in central France, it seems clear that streaking’s origins date back well over 30,000 years to our earliest known European ancestors. Based on these crude etchings, there appears to have been some—as of yet undetermined—link between the first incidents of streaking and early man’s discovery of fermented fruit juice. Coincidentally, these images represent some of man’s earliest known attempts to graphically depict human emotion—most notably surprise, jubilation, and amusement, as well as humiliation, disgust and regret. It is through those drawings and my own well-honed scientific insight that I have painstakingly pieced together the following historical record.
In search of ever more abundant game, better foraging grounds, and to avoid overcrowding, man has abandoned sub-Saharan Africa and migrated north into what is now Western Europe. With its much colder climate, he is forced to don the skin of animals to stave off hypothermia and allow him to hunt in more inclement weather. To better improve their prospects for survival—and most likely to increase their chances of getting laid—early man has banded together, forming Western Europe’s first known clans. It is not long before these nomads grow weary from life on the road, and slowly but steadily they begin to settle into well-defined geographic areas; the precursor to the modern day village, and if my theory is correct, the birthplace of streaking itself.
Now let’s venture into one of these settlements and explore the early communal behavior of man himself. Picture if you will, a large cluster of caves surrounding a spacious courtyard, where our ancestors have gathered to celebrate the end to a successful season of hunting and gathering. In the center of this courtyard there is a large fire pit, where flames dance and lick at a spit of wooly mammoth steaks slowly roasting. Throughout the courtyard, sitting atop the most comfortable boulders that could be rolled into place, can be found our forefathers—the very first cave people. Based on their hierarchical rank, they sit in concentric circles expanding out from the fire. Obviously, at the edge of the fire, in a place of honor, sits our chief—and beside him his triumphant hunters. Behind them sit the village elders, followed by the women who have been busily gathering for the coming winter. Behind them, towards the back, sit the clan’s future—the village youth, and beyond them sit the physically maimed, the mentally impaired and all those suffering from illness. And then—somewhere way out on the far edge—well beyond the disapproving eyes of the chief and the village elders, sit the world’s first two village idiots—Gorg and—for now let’s just call him—Steve.
Back in this primitive age, job duties, as you might imagine, were very gender specific—men hunt, women gather. However, Gorg and Steve are two of the few cave people who have performed every job in the village—not by choice, mind you. No, in fact, if they had their choice, they would perform no duties at all. Though the term will not be coined for over 30,000 years, they are the world’s first two—slackers. Very early on it became acutely clear to the clan that neither one of them would ever be a great hunter—or even a good hunter for that matter. No, their inability to follow a trail—or direction of any kind—their constant carrying on, their incessant giggling and the untimely fart noises, only served to repeatedly spook their prey and piss off the chief, which got them relegated to the ranks of the gatherers.
As it turned out, they were only slightly worse at gathering than they were at hunting, and when the chief’s main squeeze found them sleeping in a hollowed out tree trunk, drunk on Bunga-Bunga juice, and having consumed what little they’d collected for the day; well, they were again unceremoniously demoted. This time they found themselves cleaning up the village grounds with the elderly and the maimed. Amazingly, they screwed that up as well; along with water fetcher, cave sweeper, wood collector, fire stoker, and guano scraper. No, as turned out, much to the chief’s chagrin, Gorg and Steve weren’t much good at anything. Consequently, the Chief was forced to create a special job just for them, which they were told, in no uncertain terms, would be their last. The next step, he warned them, would be expulsion from the clan.
Their fear of expulsion, and more specifically self-reliance, petrified them, and thus, Gorg and Steve attacked their new roles with a vociferous enthusiasm. Subsequently, when they weren’t pulling each other’s hairy-knuckled fingers or cupping cave farts and tossing them at one other, Gorg and Steve could be found hauling heavy mammoth bladders—bloated with the Clan’s urine and shit—down to the river, where they would dispose of their contents, scrub them out by hand, and then return them to the world’s very first indoor cave crapper, the precursor to our modern day public restroom. As hard as they tried, this was one job that even Gorg and Steve weren’t too lazy or stupid to screw up. And though they didn’t much care for the job, it beat the hell out of self-reliance, and it allowed their perpetual two-man party to carry on unabated.
Speaking of which, back at our first ever Harvest Party, the clan is greedily licking mammoth grease from their fingers and recounting highlights of the last hunt. They feel very blessed to have fresh food and drink and stores that are well-stocked for the long cold winter ahead. They are also abuzz with excitement and anticipation, because they are only moments away from the start of the annual fire vaulting competition. Fire vaulting seems to have been an early forerunner to modern day pole vaulting, only, as the name implies, it involved fire as well. This also seems to have been mankind’s first ever creation of an organized spectator sport.
From the cave drawings, it appears as though the strongest and bravest of the clan would sprint down an open aisle and, using an 8-10 foot wooden pole, they would vault themselves up and over the fire, and then, having landed safely, they would sprint down the aisle on the other side. With each successive round, the fire would be stoked, raising the flames, and requiring them to jump higher and higher. The last man to cleanly jump the fire was declared the winner. They appear to have worn an extra thick animal hide, probably mammoth, to protect them from the flames. Needless to say, their fellow clansmen would raucously cheer their feats of bravery. Only the hunters were deemed strong enough and brave enough to compete, and to win was considered a great honor amongst the clan. This year was particularly special because, in addition to a one month’s supply of the Chief’s extra spicy, giant 3-toed sloth jerky, the top two contestants would also be betrothed one of the Chief’s two beautiful daughters, Ta-Ta or Gila.
All around the fire, as they await the big start, the hunters are stretching and practicing their form. Meanwhile, Gorg and Steve, who have contributed virtually nothing towards the Clan’s well-being, are up to their old tricks, again. Having crawled all the way up to where the cave girls were congregated, they’ve just been caught—for the second time— looking up a couple of saber-toothed tiger togas. These were not just any togas, either, these togas belonged to none other than Ta-Ta and Gila, the Chief’s lovely daughters. Since they were just cave kids, Gorg and Steve have sought the affections of Ta-Ta and Gila. And since they were just cave kids, the Chief has warned Ta-Ta and Gila not to go within a plesiosaur of either one of those two complete numbskulls. After several smacks in the face and a couple swift kicks in the rear, the boys have crawled back to the safety of the back row.
Despite their meager contributions, Gorg and Steve are actually in slightly better spirits than their fellow clansmen, thanks in part to the extra gourd of fermented Bunga-Bunga juice they lifted from the Chief’s own private stash. Although they are having a grand old time back there in the back; they feel a deep yearning for some form of female companionship. Looking back at Ta-Ta and Gila, Gorg sees an opportunity. It should be noted here that Gorg and Steve are the prehistoric world’s version of Mutt and Jeff. Steve is tall, hairy and thin and Gorg is short, hairy and stocky and though neither has ever exhibited any particular aptitude or adeptness at—anything really—Gorg, inexplicably, has the confidence of a warrior chief. Furthermore, their love of Bunga-Bunga juice is only overshadowed by their love of women. Casting Steve a wry smile, Gorg unexpectedly calls out to Ta-Ta. When she and Gila turn and see it’s Gorg and Steve, their look is one of disappointment, quite possibly bordering on disgust. Gorg being Gorg, ever the eternal optimist, sees this reaction as encouraging—a very “solid maybe”—and worthy of some additional effort.
Raising his stolen gourd, still half full of Bunga-Bunga juice, Gorg whistles for the girl’s attention, and then giving them a seemingly irresistible come-hither-and-share-my-hooch head bob, he flashes what he considers to be a very sexy smile—despite the many gaps. Without hesitation, both girls shake their heads side-to-side—emphatically, as if to say, “Not if you were the last caveman on earth, Gorg.” In one of the first ever uses of reverse psychology, Gorg moves over behind Steve, and then, attempting to appear disinterested any longer, he engages Steve in a feigned conversation. As he awaits Ta-Ta’s inevitable approach, Steve is struck right in the back of his extremely thick skull by a well-thrown bone, which drops him to the ground and renders him nearly unconscious. Caught off guard, the second—perfectly timed bone—hits Gorg squarely in his highly pronounced brow, sending him backpedaling into some prehistoric flora. As Steve gets to his feet, rubs his lump, and then helps Gorg out of a giant fern, Gorg says, “You see, I told you they liked us.”
Gorg decides that what the boys really need is a good brainstorming session. “Let’s take a piss,” says Gorg. As they stand there with their squirrel-skin togas hiked up over their hairy butt cheeks, they can hear the crowd erupting as one hunter after another vaults over the fire. As so often happens when one has consumed copious amounts of Bunga-Bunga juice, Gorg is suddenly struck by Divine innovation. Turning to Steve he says, “Hey, you know what would be really funny?”
Steve, who is a caveman of very few words, responds, “No, what?”
“If we stripped off our togas,” Gorg says, “and then ran naked through the middle of this fire vaulting competition.”
“Huh?” Steve replies, thinking maybe Gorg has had too much Bunga for one night.
“Just think about it a while,” Gorg assures him, “you’ll see.”
But Steve did not need to think about it. Even to his pea brain, even for Gorg, this was a monumentally bad idea—for lots of reasons—not the least of which was the Chief’s already low opinion of them. But, as so often happens, a couple big swigs of Bunga-Bunga juice later, Gorg had Steve convinced that this was the finest idea he’d ever heard.
And so it was that Gorg and Steve surreptitiously slipped off into the forest. Once out of sight, they took leave of their togas, and with one more big swig of Bunga-Bunga, they took off at a full sprint…wearing only their hand-made moccasins. As might be expected, upon entering the courtyard, they were greeted with a mixture of cheers, jeers, laughter, and disgust, which was exactly what Gorg had hoped for. Given to spontaneity and spurred on by the crowd reaction, Gorg calls back to Steve, “I’m going to jump it.”
“What!” cries Steve, startled by Gorg’s sudden change to their plan.
Without breaking stride, Gorg grabs a pole off the ground and again yells, “I’m gonna jump it!”
Steve, who suddenly feels angry and misled, and frustrated—and fully exposed—realizes he’s too far committed to turn back now, so he reluctantly grabs a pole as well. Ignoring their surroundings, singularly focused, the boys rapidly approach the fire. And just like he had practiced it a thousand times before, Gorg plants his pole and launches himself high into the night air. Steve could hear the crowd go silent as they catch sight of a naked Gorg flying through the night air. Mirroring Gorg’s motions, Steve launches himself into the air as well.
To the great shock of everyone watching, including Gorg and Steve, both men land cleanly on the other side. The crowd erupts. Pausing only momentarily to give Ta-Ta and Gila a good look, the two boys continue their sprint down the aisle and back into the forest. The chief, who is furious, and only narrowly missed hitting them with his staff as they flew by, immediately orders his men to apprehend them. Thus, a group of ten or twelve well-muscled warriors have taken off in hot pursuit of Gorg and Steve. Without the burden of extra thick mammoth hide armor, the boys, who may not have been the smartest cavemen, but were rather fleet of foot, have easily lost their pursuers in the dense forest.
Gorg and Steve are exhilarated and still feel the adrenaline coursing through their veins. They can hardly believe how well things have gone. Unfortunately, they hadn’t really thought their plan through much further than the actual act itself, thus they now found themselves standing in the pitch black forest, alone, cold and naked. “What do we do now?” Steve asked.
“We have to get our togas back,” Gorg replied.
“Yeah, but how?” Steve asked.
“Well,” said Gorg, “we’ll just have to circle around the village and come in from the backside.”
“Oh, great,” said Steve, regretting that he’d ever agreed to this stupid idea in the first place, “so all we have to do is circle two miles around the village in the pitch black, covered in mammoth grease, with no clothes and a forest full of wolves and saber-toothed tigers. That’s your best plan?”
“At least we have this Bunga-Bunga juice I swiped off a rock back there,” Gorg replied.
“Great,” said Steve, “so maybe we won’t feel it while we’re being eaten alive.”
“Don’t be so negative all the time,” Gorg said. “Just relax. Let’s take a piss.”
As they stood there relieving themselves, they could hear the cheering crowd in the distance, and they couldn’t help feel some sense of pride in their accomplishment. Turning to Steve, Gorg says, “Hey, you know what would be really, really funny?” “No!” Steve exclaims, “Don’t even think about it, Gorg!”
And thus, as so often happens when one involves Bunga-Bunga juice in the decision making process, a couple swigs later, Steve and Gorg took off at a full sprint, headed straight back into the clearing from whence they’d just come. Not surprisingly, as they emerged, they were met by hundreds of spectators in stunned silence. A moment later, as the shock of their incredible stupidity wore off, the crowd erupted—again. As the boys snagged a couple poles off the ground, Steve couldn’t help but notice that several rounds had been conducted in their absence and the flames were now 12-feet in the air. We’re going to die, Steve thought. “We’ve got this no problem,” Gorg yelled back encouragingly.
Just as before, Gorg confidently planted his pole and again launched himself into the night air. And again the crowd erupted. Steve was pretty sure Gorg wasn’t going to make it this time, and for a moment, he considered aborting his own jump, but, always being a bit of a follower, and figuring they were going to be killed anyways, he planted his pole and felt himself lift off. Time, which hadn’t been invented yet, seemed to slow down, and Steve enjoyed one of mankind’s first out of body experiences. He was looking down on himself from above. He could see the muscles in his body struggling to lift himself higher and higher. As his body passed over the flames, he could smell all the hair burning off his legs, and then his ass, and then his back—but—amazingly—he made it. Life is good, Steve thought to himself. And then time sped up again, and he was sucked back into his own body, just in time for his triumphant landing.
Gorg did not even see the chief’s staff coming, which caught him squarely in his unibrow, knocking him out almost instantly. As he collapsed in a heap, Steve had the misfortune to trip over top of him. Steve’s final thought before the warriors fell upon them was, “You dumbass, Gorg!” And so it was that only the second incident of streaking in the history of humankind came to an abrupt and unceremonious end. It would be many moons before a third streaking was attempted, however the legend of Gorg and Steve would live on.
The Chief resisted the overwhelming urge to have them both put to death; not by choice, mind you, but because his wise advisors had told him the crowd would riot and turn against him. As it turned out, Gorg and Steve had actually won the fire vaulting competition, setting new clan records for height and distance. The chief tried to have them disqualified because they were not hunters, but because they had actually been hunters for at least one week of the previous hunting season, they were technically eligible to compete. This infuriated the Chief further, and he had that rule stricken, but he had no choice but to allow them their victory.
Ta-Ta and Gila gave birth the following summer to the Chief’s first two grandchildren. Despite seeing bits of Gorg and Steve in them, the Chief loved his grandchildren very much. Over time…a great deal of time…why the Chief even grew to dislike Gorg and Steve a little less. Not much less, but a little. The girls actually grew to love them, and they forbid their father from disparaging the boys when he was visiting their cave at the holidays. Love as it turns out, was no easier to explain in caveman days than it is today. There is just no controlling the human heart. And thus the legend of Gorg of Steve lived on, passed down from generation to generation…at first orally, then in the form of pictograms, and now…finally…it’s on paper and available for digital download. A fact that would undoubtedly make Gorg and Steve extremely proud…if they weren’t shitfaced on Bunga-Bunga juice that is.
