News From Hell #2

 


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News From Hell is a series of satiric verbal collages made from words excised from New York Times headlines. These new headlines depict a world where all sorts of hilarious and unsettling things happen. Whether witty, absurd, or philosophical, each of these reconstructed headlines reinterprets the events of our times. Each entry is a thought worth pondering in itself – but when read collectively, News From Hell functions as wry poetic commentary and a socio-political critique on the state of our civilization, and the horrors and humors within it.

The Product Placement Bible #1

phillippians-413

As featured on www.productplacementbible.com

The Product Placement Bible questions what we really worship,  lampooning consumer society and organized religion in equal doses, using the format of scripture to blend the two realms into one very entertaining, unsettling read.

Sting Shits His Pants

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sting: vb 1 : to prick painfully: as a: to pierce or
wound with a poisonous or irritating process

Forget Ursa Major. Forget the Big Dipper. The old constellations, the old patterns of alignment, are dead, replaced by newer, sleeker gods; perfect salient beings who dazzle like diamonds across our pulsing mediated skies. Arnold. Madonna. Britney. Prince. The list goes on and on. . . while the clueless masses, the Us-fed cathode-coddled couch taters plot their every move.

But hey, they’re just people. After all the lights go down, after all the bullshit and bombast, the famous are just like you and me. They are not gods. They are not heroes. They are people. Living organisms, bags of protoplasm that breathe and eat and function like the rest of us. Or, as we shall see, malfunction . . .

His real name is Gordon. Gor. Dun. But it’s been years since anyone’s addressed him by those hateful, ungainly syllables. He’s no Gordon. Gordon’s the guy down at the Firestone shop who slaps a retread on your El Camino. Or the loam-loving T.A. from Geology lab junior year. Gordon, hideous caterpillar, long ago blossomed into a new sunshine being. A glorious being, an angel really, who’s delighted the free world with his soporific musings for years. A being known only as “Sting.”

But names are irrelevant here. Being “Sting” may help him slide past the mutants to the V.I.P. lounge at Suede, where he’ll bump chests with “Bono,” “Puffy,” and the other monomonikered darlings, but it’s not going to help him now. Because right now, “Sting” has to endure a bodily function like all the rest of us. To put it crudely, Sting must drop a load. And celebrity means nothing, absolutely nothing, to biology. Let’s watch:

He stands with viced buttocks, shifting from one black-booted foot to the other, staring at the bathroom door. Hoping, praying, it will open. He glances at his Rolex. The seconds click by.

He watches thirty. Sixty. And then it happens-something stirs and comes alive, clawing towards daylight, wiggling inch by gruesome inch out of its tight canal, its rugged holster.

Sting arches up on tippy-toes and lifts. The hairless nates tuck inward, knotting around the wrinkled grommet. He holds for thirty seconds; the rising sinks away. He exhales. Paces. Wipes the sweat from his receding hairline. Phew, that was close.

A mushroom-headed woman, all mouth, running at him.

“Y-you’re Sting! Oh my god!”

“Aren’t we perceptive?” The thing inside lurches again. He grits his teeth.

“I just loved “The Dream Of The Blue Turtles!” God! I can’t believe you’re at the Power Station! What are you doing, recording a new album or something?”

“Or something,” he mutters, shuffling away. She moves with him, making up the space.

“Will you sign my arm? Puh-lease? Oh please Sting?”

He is going to burst. Any second now an explosion that would humble Krakatoa will rip through his lower G.I. He feels the pressure building, the magma rising, ready to shoot.

“No!” Get away from me! I’ve got to . . .” He snaps, dashes to the door. Tugs the knob.

Mushroom-head darts away, around a corner, stunned at the temperamental display. She won’t buy any more albums. She’ll move on, farther down, to Kenny G.

Sting bounces up and down to a bass track in his head and stares at the door. Who in bloody hell is in there? Some stupid wank wiping up an enchilada spill? A couple of engineers sniffing in a stall? He bites his lip. The thing twists again, aching, begging to be released.

He vaults to the door, bangs his fist. “Open up! Please! This is Sting! The pop star!” I’ve got to . . . uh . . . get back to a session! Please! I beg of you!”

Pain stabs into him. The thing is moving again, kicking, thrashing, a terrible fetus waiting to be born. The sudden movement, the mad dash has upset the balance. The center cannot hold.

Sting hobbles back to his waiting place. His buttocks are iron sentries, locked together, tight as fists. Here it comes . . . oh Jesus . . . ohhhh . . .no . . . hold it . . . please . . .oh god . . .and the thing, somehow, against all odds, is beaten back to its nesting place.

“This the line?”

He turns his head a few centimeters. A body. Hair. Keys jangling.

“Hey, how’s the session, man?”

“Good, very uh . . . good.”

“You likin’ the place? How’s the vibe?”

“Nice. Very nice.”

“Cool. Let me know if you need anything, if you want to order food or something.” The body tramps down the hall, whistling.

“Idiot, he thinks. And then it comes. The next wave, rippling through him, watering the bright blues that so many lonely housewives have longed to gaze into. He can’t hold . . . fight it . . . think of something else . . . refuse . . .no no . . . use . . . yoga . . . yoga . . . suppress it . . . concentrate . . . yoga . . . yoga . . .

The thing sees its shadow and retreats to its burrow. Order is restored. For now.

His thoughts turn to the mansion in Highgate. The classic roadsters, the Aston minis. Dugal, the butler. The trout stream. Thrashing around the loch with Hector, looking for wild partridge. Waking to fingers of mist filtering in through silken windows. Smoking Joel’s Afghan hash in the marble tub, sipping a glass of red, listening to Charlie Parker. Making love to Trudie, hour after hour, in fields of rain, the cool goldenrod towers fanning over them, foolhardy supplicants of Nature. He’s gone now, back to the estate on the Thames, far from this Yankee vulgarity, this hideous studio where he brave auteur, has been denied defecation.

A sound-the sound he’s been waiting for! The metal cha-chink of a door opening. A door! There it is! Gleaming tile! Swirling gurgling whirlpooling toilet! The bathroom! The door creaks on its hinges, beckoning.

The second he moves, the colon remembers its task, and pinches inward. Pain soars, oscillating through walls of flesh, and the bent torpedo slides on to meet its destiny.

He’s inside. Hopping to a stall. Fumbling with belt. Ripping trousers open, yanking them down. He better hurry . . . here it comes . . . oh no . . .get those boxers down . . .come on . . . oh God . . .oh God no . . . OH GOD NO . . . just one more second, one more bloody second . . . please . . .

And then it comes, finally, terribly, in a zenyatta mondatta cloudburst. Acrid. Stinging. Sputtering, bouncing, falling to the tangle of pant legs and shorts, onto the smooth dark tile. Screams. A faucet. Desperate scrubbing. A pair of silk boxers, buried in the ash can, a lot souvenir you won’t find at Hard Rock.

Ten minutes later the door of Studio B swings open.

“Where you been,” from Kim, his personal manager.

Sting sits behind the console of blinking lights and knobs. “Sorry, Kimmy boy. Just shit me pants.”

Everyone in the control room laughs-Miles, Jerry, Aidan-everyone. Ha! Sting! So clever. What a good geezer. Always kidding around, that Sting.

Sting lights a Silk Cut and stares at the wall, brooding, sulking, retreating to that lonely world where only he exists.

-As published in Uno Mas

(illustration by Jack Hornady)

Catfish Lessons

 

channel-catfish-painting

One day in the fall they tried to haul a catfish of gigantic size. But when they reeled him in they did him, in no matter what anyone tried.

Jim caught his best on a twenty pound test and it weight one forty-two. Enough to rate best in the state, number one in ‘ole Mizzou.

In the mud the big cat hud and Jim hunted him like no sissy. He pulled for miles then he had to smile, the cat was mighty and Mississippi.

Jim knew he’d caught what can’t be bought, greatness for which he did not strive. He knew right then what he had to do, which was keep that cat alive.

Above all cost the fish can’t be lost, Jim cried, dragging it to shore. It’ll bring me green on the exhibition scene, I’ll have a double-wide no more.

On the dock it was a shock, Jim yanked it in a tank. He heaved and hoved and then he drove, thinking money in the bank.

But he only got a few then things fell through, the big cat’s gills could take no more. It was too huge to deluge in a tub that Bud is for.

Jim saw that cat’s fins turn flat and had his pay day muffed. But he paid no mind, because he’d signed a deal to have it stuffed.

With its dead they mounted its head, making whiskers stiff instead of squirmy. When they were done and had their fun, the big cat was taxidermy.

Jim kept it for awhile then it seemed out of style, so he got a crazy thought. He’d sell the brute for a little quick loot, that’s how the fish was bought.

What’s true and blue and indispu, is where the big cat can be seen. He’s on a wall in a strip mall, surrounded by TV screens.

Now Jim had to do what he head to do, that fish was worth some dough. With it stuffed it fetched enough, so he could not just say no.

But over the years and over the beers, Jim gradually regretted it. Cashing in the fin seemed like a sin, and he wished he could forget it.

Now the nature of fishin’ is the nature of wishin’ and Jim hoped for too much glory. But now when Jim fishes all that he wishes is for nothing more than a story.

-from Donuts & Wine, demo forthcoming

 

Five Other Hitlers

 

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The puppy bounded over the bright green grass, his tail swishing to and fro, breath coming in quick, excited gasps. “Come here, boy, come on!” Hitler cried, clapping his hands. A second later, in a blur of brown fur, the little dog leaped into his arms. Hitler laughed, cuddling the puppy closer, as the loving dog, grateful to be in the arms of its master, slathered his nose with his tongue. “Awww, that’s a good boy,” cried der Fuhrer, as the adoring dog licked his face, “I love you! Yes I do! I love you!”

 

There was one male dancer at Chippendale’s who everyone loved. His name was Hitler, and although his physique was on the smallish side, he made up for his lack of stature with a highly seductive dance
routine.

“And now, straight from Berlin,” cried the stage announcer, “. .

Aaaaaadolf Hitler!”

The velvet curtains slid open and a short man in a G-string, with hair slicked sharply over his forehead and a tiny square of a mustache emerged from the shadows. As the crowd of female secretaries who had assembled to wish Connie LaRenta a happy 40th birthday whooped and hollered, Hitler sidled forth, undulating out of the darkness with a snake-like insouciance. The women gaped as his pale, jack-booted form danced up to them, entirely mesmerized by the sheer nudity of his maleness, and soon Hitler felt an army of hands stuffing crisp one-dollar bills into his G-string.

“Happy birthday, Connie!”

“Whoo-hoo! Thanks, Denise!”

 

A rich sugary aroma filled the entire kitchen, a smell so delicious it made Hitler’s mouth water. He closed his eyes and breathed in, savoring it for a long, wonderful moment, and then the timer buzzed.

Finally, the corn muffins were ready! Hitler slid his hands into a pair of lime green oven mitts and approached the oven. He could practically taste them now. He flung open the door and as the blast of hot muffin-filled air bathed his mustachioed face, he slid the tray out of the heat.

Hitler knew better than to bite into the muffins right away. They had to cool down a bit first, otherwise he might burn his mouth. Patiently, he waited, watching the little pats of butter he spread over their rounded tops melting slowly into each muffin, and soon they were ready to eat. “Mmmm,” gushed Hitler, as he bit into the piping-hot treats. “These muffins are delicious!”

 

“Man, I suck at foosball,” said Hitler, as he heard the distressing sound of another little plastic ball plunk into the goal he was trying to defend. “Don’t worry about it,” cried Keith, taking a swig of his Bud,

“You’ll get better.”

“Yeah,” said Tammy, “Just have fun.”

“Alright, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

“Okay, Hitler,” announced Keith. “Last ball. Whover gets this in wins.”

He put the tiny little yellow ball into the hole as the four friends gripped the metal handles. And a second later the game was on. The ball flew back and forth as the players batted it around. Finally, Keith got control of it. He quickly lined up his shot. Hitler maneuvered his men, but Keith was too fast. With one expert flick of his wrist, he smacked the ball into the goal. “Yes!” cried Keith. Hitler sighed heavily, shaking his head in dismay. “Man, I suck at foosball.”

 

No one played the saxophone quite like der Fuhrer. His notes were silky smooth, as sweet and fluid as molasses, and as soon as they floated out of his instrument a feeling of tranquility came over the entire nightclub. Even the waiters stopped serving to listen to his soaring melody.

“That cat can really play,”

“His name is Hitler.”

Bathed in the soft glow of the spotlight, Hitler played on, his fingers flying over the keys, his smallish mouth clenched tightly on his bright brass organ. He closed his eyes, blowing note after sweet note, and it was like the whole room took off and flew into the sky along with him for the next ten minutes as he improvised what can only be called a jazz odyssey.

But that was Hitler, you just never knew what he was going to do next.

 

Fish Wish

Menacing, fleshy planaria hoods

like overcoats lilt and cobra

through filters, manacled and grasping,

crab fingers and muscled valves

adhere to walls of grasping, snorkeling cells,

intertwined, slithering

and yours.

-As published in Brutarian, part of Carnivorous Wishes,  a poetry collection

Helping Hand

dubvwaf

I was never meant for this nocturnal stage, this sickening sabbat spun out of control. I am a creature of the daytime, engineered to delight housewives, to charm the Oprah-fed minions with my engaging deformity. Only through cunning have I insinuated my way here, become part of your “Super Bowl” as you so reverently and ridiculously call it.

I am one of a thousand apparitions passing by you tonight. Commercials, you call us. Crafted mendacities, million-dollar playlets evil in our intent: to hoodwink, unsettle, connive. Here, at this foul pageant, we assemble: sneakered slam-dunking giants, soda-crazed polar bears, alcoholic frogs, interrupting bunnies, all of us. Each year the festival swells, growing more bloated; each year we revel in sheer glorious excess.

But I care nothing for your spectacle. If possible, I would hide my hideousness from all of you. No, I have journeyed here for a reason.

Revenge against Gittis, the smug adman from whose feeble mind my monstrosity sprang. Tonight, like his partner before him, he shall die at my hand.

I am a grotesque, a wan sea anemone-like appendage with fingers sprouting skyward in a gross Gorgonian parody. My mouth, frozen in a carved smile, is a tight slit, a puckered gash. Anchored beneath my middle digits, under slanted brows, are two black, pupil-less eyes that burn with unmitigated hate. Most humiliating of all is the red bulbous clown nose-no doubt a snickering afterthought-planted solidly in the center of my palm.

I am the Hamburger Helper Helping Hand. A minor deity, but surely you have seen me. Among certain demographics I am quite popular.

I was born to sell, to dance and sing in degrading productions, to peddle carton after carton of noddle mix, a pandering, pathetic oaf.

For this I have Gittis to thank. Smug, preening Gittis, master hack, the bane of my existence. I was born in the ruts of his imagination, conjured without regard, as if my life were but a trifling amusement. DeFozio-his partner, his art director, the pony-tailed poser who sat snickering as I took my first timid steps at the animation house. . .

At first, I was cast in the image of a human hand. I had five svelte digits. My eyes were ripe, happy. Then Gittis, that blundering philistine, took up his sketchpad.

With the sickening godliness so typical of his profession, he changed me, engineered me into what he thought I should be. Gittis amputated my pinky and plumped my remaining fingers until they resembled four fat phalli. He hacked out a mouth, stuck on a schnozz, and soon I was a beady-eyed claw suitable only for derision. Gittis smiled. DeFozio smiled. Even Whitslaw, their client from General Mills, smiled. After McGee the media planner figured my demographics, I was ready for the airwaves.

My inaugural performance ran during Days of Our Lives. I waddled before my co-stars, a wide-eyed domestic and her two foolish offspring, who marveled as I sang “Hamburger Helper helps your hamburger” in my cartoon voice, and packed their faces with fatty noodle.
As the years passed, the campaign turned more humiliating. Gittis swaddled me in ponchos, stuck a mustache on my lip, assigned stereotypical ethnic guises to hasten the sale of spin-off products like Hamburger Helper Beef Taco and Zesty Italian, even-I gag-Tuna Helper. My rage grew, and I sank further into self-loathing.
Then one day, enlightenment. I looked at the beings around me, the M&Ms, Toilet Ducks, and morphing Lifesavers, and I realized none of us were here by choice; we all existed through some grand, infernal design. We were not to blame for our fates; we were only pawns, automatons controlled by multinational forces. Slowly, over time, my anger shifted from myself to the race of men who had ushered me into this foul life. I resolved to strike back.

But only when I closed my eyes and saw his accursed face-that fat chin and set jaw-did I know the target of my rage.

Gittis.

In the land of image there is no substance. We flit about, spirits riding static skies, dashing from one porthole to the next in the billion-screened Panopticon surrounding all things. We glare at your world, at your sedentary hell.

Each day I saw you; each day it was the same. Your families sitting mesmerized, sunk into couches. Your bleary eyes, glazed with obsequiousness. I saw you suckle the glass teat and slurp its banal milk; I saw you feed at the electric trough. I saw it all, and I hated you for your weakness.

The more I hated the more my powers grew. With each pathetic human I saw, another part of me strengthened, another limb tightened, until I pulsed, throbbing with energy. I knew then that your photon shackles could never hold me. Already I could feel myself loosening. It was only a matter of time.

As my powers mounted, I hunted Gittis, confident that the sight of him would spring me from my electronic prison. I searched, all the while plotting his demise, with no success. Then one day I found not Gittis, but his partner in crime, DeFozio, snoozing on a sofa, surrounded by snotted, balled-up tissue! Somehow, I’d stumbled onto him.

Fury rose until it seemed I would explode. And in the full force of my rage, I hurled myself from the phosphorescent sea. (My presence would not be missed-I had fifteen seconds until my next on-camera shot.) I landed on DeFozio’s sofa. Stealthily, so as not to arouse him, I scaled a nearby shelf, where I seized a heavy gold figuring: his precious Clio statue. Seconds later I loomed over him.

“With this foul trophy, I defile you!” I screamed, echoing the late night gladiator epics I’d seen on WGN. Before he could stir, I smashed the Clio into his brow. He kicked and flailed; I struck again and again, blind-mad, and finally, after a last penetrating blow, he moved no more. I dropped the Clio on the floor.

“Best Consumer Package Goods: Hamburger Helper-1993,” it read.

I dove back to the screen, howling with delight.

Gittis though, proved an elusive foe. For months I searched, gazing into your living rooms and bedrooms, your squalid apartments and rotted duplexes, every crutch where humanity dwelled. I scanned the vast arena of faces, but not once did I see him.

Then I realized the root of my failure: I only ran during the day. For me to find Gittis, he would have to watch daytime television, an impossible scenario given the office duties required by his conniving craft. As long as I aired during mornings and afternoons, I would never find him. I n fact, the only reason I’d found DeFozio was because he had called in sick! I considered waiting for Gittis to fall ill, but left that for a more dastardly solution.

I reasoned that if Gittis would not come to me, I would come to him. But how? Despite my ability to shuttle between realities, I could not break free from the chains which bound me to specific programming-the brainless reruns and soaps McGee had figured. To find Gittis I had to deliver myself to another program, one during the nighttime.

But which one? Seinfeld? SeaQuest? And how would I know he’d be there? The only solution was to pinpoint the precise show he’d be watching. I racked my brain, but only as the foul event drew nearer and I heard others of my kind discussing it like some vile prom they hoped to attend, did I realize where I’d find him.

The Super Bowl! That shitstorm of media hype and chip-crunching idiocy! Yes! Of course Gittis would be watching-as an adman the event was sacred to him!

But there was only one more hurdle: how would I , a lowly package goods creature, reach that lofty stage? The only way was through a subversion of the Hamburger Helper media plan, the document that determined my placement on the networks. I would have to find and alter it, no easy task since I knew nothing of the intricate schedules.

No, some flunky must do the deed. I knew instantly who. McGee-the media man who sold me to the airwaves. Quickly, I concocted a plan:

I was fortunate enough to recall that on occasion, McGee left a television set on in his office, to be lulled by its soothing blather as he went about his figuring. All I had to do was wait until the set came on, and hope no one saw me.

When it did, I leaped forth, ducked a secretary, and rifled through the papers atop McGee’s desk. Hurriedly, I scrawled a note:

Bob-
What about Ham Helper on the Super Bowl? Lots of single men will be watching.
-S.W.

“S.W.,” of course, referred to none other than Stanley Whitslaw, the General Mills client for whom McGee, Gittis, and DeFozio worked. I knew that McGee, like all agency drones, would do anything to appease the whims of his queen bee client. He immediately wrote the plan, and bureaucracy did the rest. No one changed it, n one questioned it, the whole deal went undetected.

All that remained was the grisly denouement.

So here I am, on this vast, limitless plane, this shimmering vale of static and light, this mediated Elysia.

Clearly, I do not belong in this august assemblage. The creatures here are different from me: they are icons, slick celebrities, super-athletes and techno animations, beings of pure image. My deformity is a throwback, a reminder of simpler, less manic times. Now it is all ego and showmanship, mirror and smoke, glitter and braggadocio: chip-dipping politicos, sky surfers, beer bottles with tiny football helmets rammed onto their necks . . . it is insane. What have you done?

We straggle on. One by one we reach the stage, acting our splashy dramas. After the Bud bottles it is to be my turn.

Shaq dunks. A chimp swills cola. Innocuous young people bond inexplicably over a malted beverage called Zima. The bottles stage their contest; an announcer speaks, a log rises. I scuttle forward, my heart soaring.

Metallic rays splinter into tubes of gray and gray-blue and I take the stage, all of America gazing upon me.

“Have I got a meal for you!” I sing, over the homey hamburger theme.

Then I see that fat chin, and pounce.

-As published in The Baffler.

Pentapus

pentapus

12″ x 12″ soapstone

Inspiration: I was revising a short story once, and was chipping off a word every half hour, polishing it for days. As I kept winnowing this pile of words down, I made the realization “this is like sculpture.” So I hit The Compleat Sculptor in NYC and bought a hunk of soapstone, a hammer, chisels and a few rasps. And a few hundred hours later, “Pentapus,” my first sculpture, was born.

As for the story, it remains unpublished. But I’m grateful for my failure, as it led to a whole other form of expression, and more sculptural efforts in clay, wood and stone.

Ode to Evel

evel-knievel2

When was the last time you went for it? Took a chance? Killed your fear and did something crazy? No, something not just crazy—something death-defying, where one tiny miscalculation, one misstep, could result in your instant removal from Planet Earth?

Chances are it wasn’t when you refused to return your shopping cart at Kroger. Or when you cut through that corner gas station to dodge a red light. No, we mortals rarely tempt fate. We might bend the rules, or let our adventure-starved hearts tremble with excitement as we double down on a ten buck blackjack hand, but usually, it’s more about bills than thrills.

But some people need more than these trappings of the everyday. More than Val-Pak coupons and a Cinnabun. They need adrenaline. Thrills, risk, danger; above all, they need to feel the raw, molten joy of existence. These rebellious souls need to go full throttle, all cares, worries, and concerns left in the dust as they look the Grim Reaper in the eye, scoff, and growl, “not today, pal.” And as sure as a sunny day in Daytona, there was no one who thumbed his nose at Death, or flipped the bird at The Man, or drained a bottle of 100-proof bourbon, cursed louder, rode faster, or lived larger, mightier, and madder than the immortal Evel Knievel.

I say “immortal,” because the name Evel Knievel, as well as the things that Evel Knievel did, will live forever. Things like jumping over a twenty-foot long box of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions, which was his first jump in 1965. Or jumping 13, 14, 15, 16, and up to 22 cars over the years, until mere cars didn’t cut it and then the obstacles became 141 feet of backbreaking, coma-inducing fountains at Caesar’s Palace (his fee: $4,500), ten Kenworth trucks, thirteen Mack trucks, or fourteen Greyhound buses, and so on, until it all culminated one infamous morning on September 8th, 1974, when this insane daredevil actually convinced us he would jump across the mile-long Snake River Canyon in Twin Falls, Idaho. And not just on another souped up dirt tracker, but on something he called his “Skycycle,” a steam-powered, glorified bottle rocket that looked like it was built with Erector set rejects and spare sheet metal from your shop class. Because at that point, what he rode had to be as outrageous as he was.

So let us now salute this man, no, this showman who invented reality TV decades before the hoarders, faux swampbillies, monosyllabic Jersey Shoreans, transgender jocks and pampered celebrities with chick pea-sized brains would go on to dominate our screens. In an age before Twitter, before smart phones, Facebook, SnapChat, FourSquare, Instagram, before all that social networking blather. Before a hundred of your so called “friends” gave a hearty thumbs up to the ham sandwich you had for lunch, there was Evel Knievel, right there on ABC’s Wide World of Sports on Saturday afternoon, or at your local drag strip, (or at the Okalahoma State Fairgrounds, where this article’s images are from), balanced on one wheel, front tire aloft, gunning it up and down the raceway. Or doing another wheelie while standing on the seat, and generally performing other stunts that made our eyeballs remain riveted on him until we almost forgot to blink. Stunts so outlandish, so ill-advised, so absolutely foolish that they made every person in America—except your mom—love him unconditionally.

What wasn’t there to love? He wore white leathers emblazoned with red and blue stars and stripes, a towering, Elvis-like collar, and a flashy belt buckle the size of a dinner plate showcasing his initials. His pants flared out in bell bottoms, revealing white, kick-your-head-in boots, and a long, flowing, baronial cape—the kind of thing a comic book hero would wear, and he definitely qualified—draped from his shoulders. And, as time wore on, as the bones cracked, the ligaments snapped, and the stitch-count grew, the man eventually walked with a cane. But not just any cane—a cane encrusted with diamonds, whose top unscrewed to reveal an interior storage compartment that held eight shots of what else, Wild Turkey.

Did you think Evel Knievel would roll any other way? After all, this is a man who, when asked why he did what he did, said, simply, “Life is a bore. That’s why I jump through the air.” It makes total sense. Jumping through the air is a lot more exciting than selling insurance—which happened to be the job he had for the Combined Insurance Company for most of 1964, if you can comprehend that. (Highlights included selling 110 policies to employees, as well as residents, of the Montana State Mental Hospital). Shortly thereafter, in addition to being an arm wrestling champ, elk hunter, amateur hockey player, brawler, and entertaining people outside a saloon by riding his motorcycle up a 500-ft slag heap, he became a salesman of something he was far more passionate about: motorcycles.

Soon, when he was selling them in Spokane, Evel got the idea to build a quarter mile oval racetrack to promote the bikes and the dirt track scene, which he’d competed in since he was a teenager. To amp things up further, and get even more attention for the dealership, he convinced a coworker to ride his Harley-Davidson through several walls of flaming particle boards. The stunt was an instant success, and the crowds ate it up. A few weeks later, not wanting to be outdone, Evel one-upped his co-worker by offering to jump over a cage of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions, a distance of nearly 50 feet. Evel didn’t clear the jump, slammed his back tire on the box of snakes, and several hundred of the angry rattlers slithered out towards the 300 fans, who all fled in terror. Laughing, Evel was already plotting more entertaining jumps. A boat. Two cars. Four cars. Buses. Trucks. Shark tanks. Canyons. You know the rest.

Evel’s ill-fated Snake River Canyon jump remains his most well known stunt. And what an epic stunt it was, for it captured the imagination of the entire nation in late 1974. I was a Midwestern boy of ten years old then, with my Evel Knievel lunchbox, Evel Knievel stunt cycle and action figure, posters, comic books, and of course my red, white and blue Free Spirit 20-inch BMX bike with the chrome fenders and knobby tires. All the kids in the neighborhood had the same type of bike. These were used for trail riding, but, very often, were also used for a more urgent purpose: to be jumped into the air, as high as possible, to carry us away from all earthly bounds, from all cares, responsibilities and chores, just like they carried our hero.

Of course we lusted after motorcycles, salivating over Evel’s stripped down Harley-Davidson XR-750, the bike that he used on his jumps. But we were ten. And mom hated motorcycles. So after religiously following every new distance Evel jumped, we began building our own ramps, much smaller, but made of the same no nonsense materials: plywood, two by fours, cinder blocks, whatever we could pinch from dad’s garage and neighborhood construction sites. These ramps were built to jump ten to twelve garbage cans, and one by one, each of us would pedal furiously, aiming at the ramp, attain peak velocity, pull up on the bars, and sail away, into that glorious realm where gravity was suspended, where we soared on like our hero soared on, if only for a brief second. But it was during that second, that brief moment, where we, too, had gone for it. Had taken a chance. Killed our fear. And done something crazy, ill-advised, mad, irresponsible, foolish, and utterly stupid. Our mothers hated us, but we loved it.

Because it was fun. Oh, god was it fun. And luckily, unlike Evel, none of us ever paid the price that the real daredevil paid. Sure, there were skinned knees, sprains, ripped Sears Toughskin jeans, road rash, and gashes requiring the sting of Bactine. But nothing like what Evel went through: the breaking of every bone in his body, myth had it; the terrifying footage of his body rag-dolling down the landing ramp at Caesar’s—the prepubescent Zapruder film that we never tired of marveling at—or the Cow Palace jump, the Wembley jump, all of the horrifying spectacles where Evel crashed, wrecked, binned it, and went Johnny Shithouse over the bars into what surely must have resulted in death, and an agonizing one at that.

But, miracle of miracles, it never happened. Evel never died on any of his jumps. “Color me lucky,” one of his many unofficial mottos, was true. His body, zippered with scars, and containing more metal plates than a Bradley armored vehicle, had held up. Only when his liver crapped out—that poor defenseless, utterly abused organ—did he finally shuffle off this mortal coil at the ripe old age of 69. A man who sailed into history. A man who went for it. A man, quite simply, who didn’t want to sell insurance.

So here’s to kicking it up a gear. Here’s to going balls out, screaming into the wind, to twisting the throttle until it won’t twist any more. Because as Robert Craig Knievel said, “If a guy hasn’t got any gamble in him, he isn’t worth crap.”

Thank you, Evel.

-As published in 1903 Magazine