Pete below suggests that the inventor of Free Running – that smashing idea of running around the rooftops of a city jumping between buildings in a stylish way – was David Balle. What is more he also suggests that Mr Balle has the misfortune to look a lot like Shakin’ Stevens. I would have drawn the logical link even closer by suggesting that it is because of his lookalikee status that he keeps throwing himself off of buildings. All of which would have made excellent logical sense IF IT WERE NOT A COMPLETE FALSEHOOD. What is more remarkable is that it comes so close to the actual truth.
The inventor of parkour, aka Free Running was none other than multi-instrumentalist, studio boffin/billy-no-mates Sufjan Stevens. As this photo displays, Sufjy spent many of his formative years jumping quite high indeed, often to try to escape bully’s who found his habit of singing a bit like a happy Elliot Smith frankly unpalatable. Later he realised that jumping in the air on its own was not going to help him escape the big boys, and he also started running as well. As it stands his main reason for running from state to state of the US is because people keep chasing him, trying to shut his choral nonsense and stupid song titles up.
I like this photo because clearly as Sufjy is up in the sky with the clouds, he may well soon plummet to his doom. I also like to wonder what the I on his chest stands for. Idiot? Imbecile? Inherently Untalented? Irritating Twat Who Suckered All The Broadsheet Music Critics By Merging The Frankly Horrific Sound Of The Bee Gees – Polyphonic Spree and Modest Mouse into one deadly package?
Could be any of these…