I had my knee operated on last week from a hoops injury earlier in the summer.  Instead of going the route of “traditional healing” I felt the need for something more.  Thankfully I was listening to the Howard Stern Show a few weeks ago and Howard’s sidekick, Robin, went to visit Braco The Gazer.  Braco is a pseudopsychic who heals people by gazing at them….  Who am I kidding?  This whack job fucking stares at a room full of lunatics for 5 minutes and people pay $8 to to go see this shit.  I could not think of a better way to spend my Saturday afternoon!

With my gimp leg I needed a ride to this bullshit and I convinced Fancy to drive me.  Braco travels around the world and does gazings on Saturdays and Sundays, every hour on the hour from 10am-6p.  I coughed up the $8 a ticket and we headed to Rosemont.

We got to the O’Hare Marriott at the last-minute and the “Guardians” (ushers), rushed us into seats.  The gazing was conducted in a conference room that held about 200.  We were unfortunately seated in the 2nd to last row with the entire row behind us reserved for the Guardians.  It was going to be tough for us to get any photos or videos with these kooks looking over our shoulders.  Plus, Fancy is like 4’10” so she wasn’t blocking shit.

There were about 150 other $8 suckers in the room and first impression was that we had accidentally walked into a post-apocalyptic movie remake.  It felt like we were extras on the first Planet of the Apes.  (The Charlton Heston one with the humans that have no thoughts and just stare wide-eyed at each other.)  As I looked at the faces of each person, the first thing that came to mind was, “There’s just something off with that person.”  Each one of these people has their own special brand of crazy.  It was like being stuck in a room playing “Guess The Serial Killer.”

Right away Braco’s sidekick came out to prepare us for the phenomenon we were about to experience.  He asked who had been there all day for gazings and around 100 of these crazies raised their hands.  People had actually shown up early that morning to make an entire day of being gazed at for $8 a pop.

One thing that I always take away from these freak shows is how someone can talk for 10 minutes and manage to say nothing.  (It’s like every conversation with Fatoo… Zing!)  If you’ve ever watched videos on Scientology or cults, they never tell you what the hell they are about.  This guy was NO different.  “What is it that Braco does? He does something.” Seriously… exact quote.  It was 10 minutes of talking in circles about how Braco has inspired people, he has an energy and “He could change you if you open your mind.”

They asked us to all stand up and Braco finally came out.  He stood at the center of the stage and simply stared at the crowd.  I had never been more underwhelmed in my life.  I fidgeted for 5 minutes while he oddly looked out and smiled with this crazy look on his face, like “I can’t believe you idiots are paying $8 for this.”

After 5 minutes, Braco walked off stage and the Guardians asked the crowd to share their experiences.  One guy said some shit about how he broke a rib 20 years ago and he felt a hole where his rib used to be?  Then some old lady, whose husband looked like he wanted to hang himself, took the mic. “It was a shadow.  In his shadow.  This is very unusual but in his shadow I saw Jesus crucified.  I saw Jesus not crucified but I saw the crown of thorns of Jesus in his shadow.  That’s what I saw.  In his shadow it looked like the Lord was standing and a crown of thorns were on his head.  In Braco’s shadow.”  I should check the obits from Sunday’s paper because her husband probably drove head first into traffic.

On the way home I asked Fancy if she thought Braco even believed this shit?  Her take is that Braco is probably sitting backstage drinking beer, smoking cigs, watching college football and waiting for them to tap him on the shoulder.  He walks out for 5 minutes and then goes back to playing The Legend Of Zelda.

Shockingly, today I feel no significant improvement in my knee and will probably stick to a steady dose of ice for the swelling.