Don't Try This at Home

 

I thought I've seen it all on YouTube; after all, I watched a video of a guy swing his buddy around while he dangled from a rope attached to the bucket of an excavator. That's mere child's play compare to what came up in my YouTube search recently. It's a video of a guy, called "Wheelz," doing a front flip in a wheelchair. The stunt is part of Nitro Circus, an entertainment company that markets X-Game style events. I really didn't want to watch this guy rocket down a ramp in a wheelchair and launch over a fifty foot chasm. This dude must be thinking,

"You know, I'm just not paralyzed enough."

Not only does the guy wipe out hard, he face plants, but that doesn't stop him. He keeps going, trying one more time to stick the landing. His buddies think this is great, like the dude is a hero for trying such an awesome trick.

I'm built way different than this guy. I wasn't always a responsible husband and father. As an adolescent, I jumped my bike over ramps mimicking Evel Knievel who on TV specials destroyed his body while attempting to jump a motorcycle over a bunch of buses. One time I messed up the landing and rode my bike straight into a tree. That was it for me. I never jumped my bike again.

I spent most of my adult life avoiding anything that would disrupt the use of my legs. My advice to a guy attempting to flip his wheelchair is more along the lines of,

"Take up scrimshaw."

The real odd part of the video is that the guy's mother encourages him just before he attempts the dangerous stunt. I know this is a little like trying to explain abstract art to someone who is blind, but I really don't understand daredevils. The so called "adrenaline junkies" love what they do, the feeling they get for doing whatever they do on whatever they do it on. Bear Grylls is one of these guys.

Like me, Bear is a husband and father, but unlike me, he jumps out of planes that are perfectly capable of landing. He was a fixture on survival shows on the Discovery Channel until they had a falling out over something the network wanted Bear to do which crossed the line. I would love to know what that was since I saw Bear bite the leg off a live bullfrog and wash is all down with his own urine. He also climbs up trees during educational self rescue narrations.

Bear Grylls

Now, here is where I differ with Bear Grylls. If I survived a plane crash in the jungle, I'm staying with the plane. I'm not going to try to trek out of the malaria invested jungle. I'm not climbing a rocky bluff "to get the lay of the land." I'm going to sit on the emergency beacon transponder and wait for rescue. I'll be home in a few days, comfortably sipping Mountain Dew while I watch another rerun of Who's the Boss while Bear is alone, cold and wet in the jungle, eating a cave spider, and giving himself putrid water enemas to stay hydrated.

Bear does things that is just going to get himself killed. When he gets fit for a pine box, is anyone going to be surprised? I mean I'll be sad because I like the guy, but he's asking for a dirt nap. You don't have to look any further than Steve Irwin to see Bear Grylls's future. Irwin was the Crocodile Hunter who spent most of his life annoying wildlife. In his impossibly short kaki shorts, Irwin would dive in front of the camera, inserting his mug next to some poisonous reptile then scream,

"Look how bwha-utiful she is!"

into the animal's ear canal which is likely a thousand times more acute than his. Or he would pull an animal out its hiding spot to show us all how it's done. The animal undoubtedly thinks that something is going to dispatch it's ass for dinner. You know, animals hide to avoid the food chain and Steve Irwin. I especially liked it when he pulled snakes out of holes by the tail. The snake probably thought,

"I'm screwed now!"

Irwin fed an 800 lb. alligator while holding his infant son. In his defense, he said,

Steve Irwin

"I'm a pwha-fessional."

That goes against every instinct of parenting that even wild animals understand. You don't see Tony Hawk skateboarding with his son in his arms, or Jimmie Johnson thundering around the NASCAR track with his daughter strapped into a car seat. Irwin was not an educated zoologist. He was the son of a zookeeper. That's not to say he didn't have real knowledge of animals. It's just that he got bit in the face a lot. I avoid animal bites especially to my face with the same intensity as I do paralyzing collisions.

Finally, the Animal Kingdom had enough of this loudmouth's habitual intrusion into the wild and one of them took him out. With all the times Steve Irwin inserted himself into the food chain, it was no wonder that he eventually got killed. I'll bet when the crocodiles heard this they were embarrassed that they didn't think of it first. Irwin got too close to a seemingly docile and graceful manta ray, cruising in the Great Barrier Reef. I thought those things were more chill than that, but then again, they're wild animals swimming about trying not to get eaten while looking for their next meal, and hopefully in the spring, they'll get laid.

I'm sure the dude bros out there that make that one handed sign language thing with two fingers and a thumb while sticking out their tongue just before they skateboard over a hundred foot gorge, think I'm a boring, old guy who's most thrilling stunt involves mowing the lawn. In moments like that, the sage advice of Steve Irwin comes to mind,

"Don't try this at home."

Editor's Note: Originally published on July 11, 2017.