I’m a bit young to remember his days of greatness, but…the Snake River canyon? Daaaaaaamn. I have go to Twin Falls to do some of my shopping, thereby driving over it. How did I never hear about that particular feat of…um…insanity?
As a youngster, I remember watching one of his failed jump attempts, and his body flopping like a rag doll. Can’t say for sure what jump that was, but the owie was certain.
Damn, now I have to try and find myself some Chuckles.
Ceasar’s Palace. or more likely WWOS
You weren’t the only one who misread it. I had a brief moment of panic before I noticed the “l.”
Not wishing IN ANY WAY to diminish the man’s achievements and all… but now and again I see ads on TV for the Krusty Demons (SP?) live show and, at a guess, they seem to make Evel’s stunts look a little, I don’t know, quaint I guess. But what would I know?
Is it because he was the first, or is it because he was the best? Wherin lies the legend?
Evel Knievel was very big deal when I was a kid. We used to play Evel with our bikes, we would take a cinder block and a piece of wood for a ramp and jump our bikes across obstacles. We survived but nowadays our parents would probably be arrested for child endangerment.
RIP Evel
I wonder if you even have to.
I’m not old enough to have seen any of his stunts, but I just read the LA Times article about him, and I’m a little puzzled. It seems that, after a series of unsuccessful careers, his only success in life was to be able to ride a motorcycle fast enough so that it could go up a ramp and then reach a certain distance before landing. That, and landing without crashing, which he seemed to do only half of the time anyway. Somehow he became rich by hyping this rather uninteresting talent.
For some reason, everything he did had to be on a “motorcycle,” and I put that in quotes because for his more sensationalized leaps he used modified vehicles with special engines and parachutes. You know, if he really wanted to go over that canyon with a special vehicle, he could have used a helicopter. I wouldn’t have found any entertainment value in someone trying to do it with a “motorcycle.”
It reminds me of street boarders who spend (waste, if you ask me) hour after hour of their free time trying to do ollies (and falling on their faces over and over again, much to my secret amusement). If one ever succeeds (which is rare), my response is: “So what? You’ve spent your whole summer vacation trying to do that?”
It must have been because people were bored. But then, Knievel had a loftier opinion of himself:
Yes, Evel. You redeemed the country from Vietnam and Watergate by donning your tight-fitting red-white-and-blue jumpsuit. That and putting your image on Halloween candy.
And this isn’t an accomplishment? What planet are you from? There’s an entire section of the newspaper devoted solely to people who are idolized for their ability to move small objects around or get hit in the head repeatedly. Ultimately, the hyping of rather uninteresting talents forms the basis for practically all art and culture.
Edmund Hillary managed to wangle a knighthood out of his ability to walk uphill. Charles Lindbergh won global acclaim for being able to sit in an aircraft cockpit by himself. And whatever else Neil Armstrong may have accomplished in his life, he’s only in the history books because he rode a giant explosive device into space. If he’d designed a robot to do the exact same thing, no one would have cared.
Knievel was a performance artist, whose motif was “risking life and limb for no goddamn good reason.” If only more of today’s public figures would follow his example. Who among us wouldn’t pay ridiculous sums of money to watch (for example) country music legend Charlie Daniels attempt to cross Death Valley by catapult?
Once upon a time, not too long ago, the American people’s belief in their country as a beacon of truth and bravery was shattered as it had never been before. In that dark hour, one man stepped forward to declare: “If it’ll make you all feel any better, I’m willing to dress in a gaudy outfit and perform outrageous stunts that may very well leave me dead or crippled. Seriously, I’m not fooling around here. I’m honestly going to risk my own life just for the hell of it.”
Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends.
There was no mention of him in the papers this morning. That made me sad. Well, I’m not all the way through, maybe in the A&E section. He should have made the celeb. obits.