NOTES FROM THE ANNUAL EASYMIDGET CREATIVITY RETREAT

	Juergen Schrempf administers his Flaming Paddle of Obediance during one of his famed creativity seminars

Every August EasyMidget rents a little yellow bus from the local Sanatorium for the Criminally Insane. The whole staff piles in and we head up to a twelve-acre “creativity retreat” on the outskirts of Gary, Indiana, owned and operated by a stern German fellow by the name of Juergen Schrempf.

Schrempf is the unrivaled master of unleashing one’s creative juices. Mr. T., Celine Dion, the Duchess of York, Johnny Cochran, the Tae Bo guy…. they all wallowed in mediocrity until meeting Schrempf.

(Schrempf admits to only one failure: Al Gore. “I’d say ‘Hey Al, why don’t you make us a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.’ But this would frighten him. Gore kept saying ‘Like this? Like this? Does this look natural? Like this? Does this look American? Do I look American like this? Does this look like an American president making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Do I look working-class? Would it be more natural if I wore a chef’s hat? Maybe I should wear a plaid shirt.’”)

The creativity exercises began the very moment we reached the retreat. Juergen Schrempf and his jackbooted staff were waiting at the door of the bus. “Strip down you worthless pukes!” Schrempf screamed as we descended from the short-bus. We quickly stripped down. “You might be hot shit where you come from, but here you don’t even have a name!”

First, our heads and pubic regions were shaved. We were then led into a dry-cellar where we were forced to crawl through mattresses charged with electrical current. Several of the first-timers objected; they were tied to trees, pelted with stones and forced to eat rotten eggs. One of our mouthier young hires (with an Ivy League education) accused Juergen Schrempf of being a “crypto-Nazi”; he was sent running through an obstacle course of flaming gasoline with a cracker between his buttocks. He was then shackled and tossed into a river.

Schrempf's inspiration: his subscription to Pledges & Paddles magazine

As the week wore on, the creativity training grew more intense. We were locked in car trunks and forced to consume toxic levels of Jagermeister. We wallowed face-first in the mud while grunting like pigs. Our pants were sprayed with a chemical substance and lit. We swallowed live goldfish.

On the last day we underwent a process known as "bringing the knowledge" wherein we were struck on the head with a dictionary.

Schrempf was there through it all. Encouraging. Screaming. Mandating the wearing of strange apparel. He even led an alcohol awareness seminar.

It was a difficult week. Many of us fell unconscious, vomited blood, or suffered lacerated spleens. I, for example, lost a testicle as a result of a wedgie. But I am a better, more creative person for it.

A few weeks later I returned to the retreat to interview Schrempf. I had one pressing question on my mind: How and where did he develop his technique? To this question he simply responded, “Pledges & Paddles.”