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He walks to a nearby computer to play his all-time favorite eBaum video, "The Prank." It begins with a guy on a toilet who takes his freshly baked ammo and smears it on a sleeping friend. The friend retaliates, fluidly. Bauman, a lifelong prankster, mouths the dialog by heart. Asked where he got the video, he shrugs between laughs. "I don't know," he says. "I stole it from someplace."
Viacom ? owner of Stern's content ? sent out a cease and desist letter, claiming copyright infringement. Scared silly, Bauman brought the letter to his dad, who simply said: "We gotta work this baby!"
T'S THE CLOSE of the workday at eBaum's World, and Bauman is showing me a few more of his favorite clips. Click. A polio-ravaged transvestite dances in a clown hat like a freak out of a David Lynch flick. Click. A filthy doofus crams mashed potatoes into his face by the handful. Bauman enjoys this stuff as much as ever, but the years have chastened him. "I may have made mistakes early on," he says. "Maybe I could have done a better job of tracking down authors.
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