Beds of nails, gator rasslin': My stunt stories

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The way you hear our president talking about the “dishonest media” you’d think he’d want us fed to the alligators, heaved from airplanes, shackled, made to lay on beds of nails and smashed with sledgehammers.

In my case, it’d all be redundant.

Been there, done that.

Of course, I’m no longer part of the actual media. I’m some kind of oddball hybrid. I write, but mostly it’s for myself, so it’s like a presumptuous sort of hobby.

It’s been more than 25 years since I did any real reporting; i.e. covering council meetings, checking police reports, using deliberately enigmatic Latin abbreviations like i.e.

But all but one of those adventures befell me during the 10 swashbuckling years I wrote for National Enquirer, back before it become so political.

I was reminded of them the other night when I had drinks with a former student of mine.

You didn’t know? Yes, I from 2006-2010 taught creative non-fiction at Point Park University. They canned me when they realized — experience be damned — I was less credentialed than the grad students I was teaching.

It’s a pity. Many told me I was an outstanding professor and I enjoyed the opportunity.

Many of them have gone onto stellar careers in journalism, not an easy feat in these tumultuous days of shifting media outlets. Many are working at newspapers, some at magazines, some at feisty startups.

I’m proud of the guy who told me he’d recently been tased!

We met for drinks last week. He’s a truly great writer/reporter and the recipient of the only “A” I ever bestowed.

He just scored a book contract about how tasers are affecting law enforcement and as part of his research agreed to be a victim.

Spoiler alert: It hurt!

His tale had me recollecting all the foolhardy experiences I endured for the sake of a story. To say I did it to earn a buck (usually $1,000 of ‘em) would be untrue. I did it all because I knew I’d one day want to be the kind of person I was destined to become.

A really swell bullshitter.

I guess the first true stunt story I did was skydiving for the Nashville Banner. I remember the jump master being this big mean dude, a U.S. Ranger who’d served two tours in Vietnam.

It’s scary being in a perfectly good airplane cruising at 3,000 feet when they open the door and tell you to step outside and stand on the strut. But disobeying Sgt. Slaughter after a day of drills was scarier.

When he said jump …

Geronimo!

I clearly remember two sensations: silence and testicular agony.

It’s shouting loud being in a plane when the door’s open. But it becomes instantly and completely quiet when your static-line chute deploys.

As for the pain, they’d cinched the ball harness super tight, assuring me it was all procedural. I imagine they were cackling about it because for the entire two-minute descent I sky danced kicking my legs right and left trying in vain to find an illusive comfort sweet spot.

It hurt so bad I didn’t get to enjoy the jump.

So went a second time. And it was spectacular.

Would I go again?

Probably. I did the Skyjump in Vegas in ’13 and it was a similar thrill.

What I won’t do again — ever — is lay on a bed of nails and have an Ohio mystic put 50 pounds of concrete on my chest and smash it with a sledgehammer.

That was an Enquirer stunt story supposed to demonstrate the power of the mind over pain. The mystic was Komar the Great. He in 1997 was in the Guinness book of records for various feats of strength including longest barefoot fire walk, ascending knife-edge ladders and having 825 pounds placed on his chest while laying on a bed of nails.

His real name was Vernon Craig. He was a Wilmot, Ohio, cheesemaker and for a guy renown for hot feet, he was pretty cool.

I once had my leg broken in three places on a high school hockey breakaway. That hurt.

But nothing in my life hurt like the bed of nails. Now, the point of the story was to demonstrate the power of the mind over pain. So I’m either really smart or really stupid because it hurt like hell.

I remember praying the photographer wouldn’t screw up and demand an encore.

The story became the only Enquirer feature I did that was totally false. The headline: “I lay on a bed of nails and took a sledgehammer blow — but I felt no pain!”

I later complained to the editor about the lie.

“Well,” he said, “it wouldn’t be news if we wrote, ‘Enquirer reporter lays on bed nails — and feels incredible pain!’”

So in their eyes it was a victimless crime.

The alligator wrestling is a fun one to knock off the bucket list. I had a keen interest in gators ever since the Miami Herald ran my story about a blind Everglades gator wrestler. 

So my buddy George and I were one day day-tripping across central Florida when we saw signs for Gatorland. We pulled in and I asked the office if I could do a story about the attraction that had been around since ’49.

Well, they couldn’t have been more accommodating. A mirthful guide took George and I on a behind-the-scenes tour, even taking us on a field stroll amidst all the big monsters, some as big as 12-feet. It was exhilarating although I never felt we were in danger.

The gators had no menace and behaved like they were sedated, which was only fair because I’m sure George and I were.

The picture above is from later in the day when they put me on an island pen in front of a group of spectators and let me “wrestle” a feisty 7-footer. I snagged it by the tail and struggled to keep it from dragging me into the moat. They’re very strong.

The match didn’t last long and critics will point out it wasn’t true wrestling, but for story purposes I was in a pen with a real gator and only one of made it back to the parking lot.

I’ve worn kilts through construction zones, been shackled to my wife for 72 hours to test our love, and once gained 20-pounds in one week eating just like Elvis.

It’s been a lot of fun. The best part wasn’t so much what I did, but with whom I did it. Writing stories has led me into the lives of a carnival of characters and that includes all the ones who were characters in carnivals.

That’s what I’d tell journalism students if I was ever asked to advise those interested in the art of storytelling.

Being part of what is being derided as the “dishonest media” is both fun and noble.

It sure was for me.

Honest.

Related …

Enquirer Greatest Hits!

Teaching at Point Park: Justice & John Grisham

Eats like Elvis

The summer I ran away with the carnival

What happened when I spent 72 hours handcuffed to Val

In odd we trust

Everglades City: The blind alligator wrestler

Enjoying a good long jump with Playboy Playmate Claire Sinclair

An old Banner colleague hails "Last Baby Boomer"

I’m thrilled with all the 5-star amazon reviews “Last Baby Boomer” has earned. I’m posting this one in its entirety because it’s so carefully crafted — not to mention flattering — and because it’s from one of my many old friends from my Nashville Banner days. I was so lucky to have been tutored in writing and life by these vibrant men and women who coincidentally were great, lively journalists. I couldn’t have as a writer been treated to better formative years for what I hoped to one day become.

And that’s a storyteller.

5-stars

Live and Let Die

By William C. Hudgins on January 6, 2017

Format: Paperback

Disclosure: I’ve known Chris Rodell, author of The Last Baby Boomer, for around 30 years, starting when we were reporters at the late, great Nashville (TN) Banner. Neither of us owe the other money, though I think I owe him a couple of beers. I’d hoped to liquidate that debt at the tavern above which he had his office for a number of years, but the bar closed, and its resident wit had to find other accommodations.

This was also a loss for the community—by which I mean the regulars who occupied the barstools and hashed out the world’s problems with Chris. It seems likely that many of the quips, puns, jokes, shaggy dog stories and absurdities in The Last Baby Boomer were distilled from those companionable afternoons and evenings. And that more than a few of the characters, including the hero, the ancient Marty McCrae, sat a few places down from the author.

The Last Baby Boomer is funny meditation on life—and like life itself, there are bittersweet moments softened only by our ability to laugh at some random absurdity. And there is a central tragedy that is slowly revealed, which, like so much in life, leaves only questions.

The plot is deceptively simple—at age 117 Marty is the last Baby Boomer on earth. Despite a life of carousing, multiple marriages, making and blowing piles of money, and even being shanghaied to a distant planet, Marty seems to blunt the Grim Reaper’s scythe. A chance encounter with a stranger leads to what—before reality TV—would have seemed absurd: Marty agrees to be the focus of a ghoul pool on when he will die.

Installed in a specially designed suite in a museum, Marty welcomes an unending line of visitors who each get precisely 14 minutes and 59 seconds in his presence. The ghoulish guest who’s present when Marty kicks wins the ever-growing jackpot.

Marty doesn’t need money himself—he agrees to star in this macabre event so he can have a captive audience for his yarns and social commentary. As the timer counts down, Marty chats up each visitor and takes aim at tempting targets like politics, religion, technology, big Pharma, marriage, divorce, the entertainment industry, and, of course, the Baby Boomer generation’s narcissistic pursuit of perpetual youth and eternal life.

The Last Baby Boomer is a droll sketch of our media- and youth-obsessed culture, one that’ll have you laughing out loud between chuckles (and maybe the occasional pun-induced groan—though like Rodell I’ve never met a pun I wouldn’t take home to meet my folks). It wouldn’t surprise me if something like Marty’s ghoul pool does happen in a couple of decades—I just hope they give Rodell credit (and a big check).

Related . . .

How to review “Last Baby Boomer” on amazon

Someone stole my book! A “Use All The Crayons!” update

Typo total in my book is . . .

Someone stole Buck’s book from Tin Lizzy!

This book is NOT free! My new novel is for sale

Check out www.ChrisRodell.com!

The decline of newspapers & death of Mike Pigott

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The newspaper industry took another big hit last week when it lost both me and Mike Pigott as regular readers.

My wife and I agreed it was time to cancel our Pittsburgh Post-Gazette subscription because the paper had become too expensive ($1.50-a-day), delivery too erratic, and the paper too strewn with sloppy errors.

Mike’s readership ended for more concrete reasons.

He died in Nashville at the age of 62.

For me, it’s like one of the faces of Mount Rushmore cracked and fell down the mountain.

It’s funny, but 23 years after drawing my last regular paycheck from a newspaper, I still consider myself a newspaper man.

It’s all I ever wanted to be.

After graduating from Ohio University with my journalism degree, I went to visit my brother in Nashville.

I’d already acquired a stack of rejection letters from much smaller community newspapers. But I was plucky and called the Nashville Banner seeking an interview.

“Can you be here this afternoon?”

I could.

But because I was pessimistic about my prospects, I showed up in shorts. It was hot in Nashville and I didn’t want to wear anything that might later curb that day’s recreations.

The editor was Joe Worley (he’s up there on Rushmore, too).

He sat there and read all my clips without cracking a smile. After about five awkward minutes he asked in a Southern accent so thick I could barely understand, “How long were you on the school paper?”

One year.

Then with a sneering edge, “What’d you do the other three years? Drink beer?”

Yes, sir!

“Good. I did it for four!”

He hired me on the spot. It was a great day.

Little did I know it would ruin my career.

Starting out at the Nashville Banner in 1985 mistakenly led me to believe every newspaper job — every job — would be as exuberant and filled with such lively and engaging characters, each so distinct.

My favorite Pigott story happened after I’d left. I read about it on Facebook.

A new guy, a self-confessed rube, admitted he’d never taken a plane ride before and was nervous about an assignment that would take him out of state.

Pigott asked if his parachute was packed.

Parachute? No, why?

“Well, you’re going to need a parachute and you’re going to need to know how to use it.”

The day before his flight the reporter got a call from the airline’s customer service department. The woman wanted to confirm the flight and make sure he had his parachute.

With Pigott as ringleader, the whole newsroom was watching. I guess it was hilarious.

He left the Banner shortly after I did.

He quit because the sleazy publisher had suggested he do something that offended his ethical sensibilities.

I quit because Nashville at the time didn’t have any decent pizza joints.

He started a public relations firm that bore his name and eventually claimed as clients Nashville’s mayor, Tennessee’s governor and the Tennessee Titans. His death left the state in mourning.

I guess the reason Mike’s passing is hitting so many of us so hard is because he was before our eyes becoming what Tom Wolfe called “a man in full.”

He’d become a grandfather. He was taking ballroom dance lessons. He was traveling the world.

And everywhere he went and everything he did found him with an equator-wide smile. 

I’d sent him a copy of my book and he sent me note saying how much he loved it.

That’s the polite thing to do. But he kept sending notes. Months would go by and he’d send another one. He wanted to make sure I knew he meant it.

It’s funny, because we weren’t what you’d consider at all close.

We were just two guys who’d worked three years together in the same building about 30 years ago.

Maybe it was just all of us being in that building together.

Or maybe it was just Mike. He was the kind of guy who’d without fail treat people who weren’t so special in ways that made them feel like they were.

The Banner folded in 1998. I’m sure Mike was revolted by what The Tennessean, the surviving Nashville paper, has become. 

They’re Exhibit A in why I for the first time in my life am living in a home that doesn’t get the daily newspaper. 

It dismays those of us who love newspapers to realize the people most responsible for saving newspapers think the only way to do so is to make them less like newspapers.

So, yeah, the newspaper industry took a real hit last week.

The world took an even bigger one.

Related . . .

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My history of drinking at/near work

On old girlfriends & great pizza

Expense accounting the National Spelling Bee

In praise of rock’s double albums

Taking my BRF (Bitchy Resting Face) for a walk

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I was in the middle of a 1.5 mile forced march along a desolate stretch of highway when it occurred to me I really ought to be smiling even though there was no real reason to smile.

It was humid. Sweat was pouring off me. I was on the way to retrieve my car from the repair shop which was charging me $246 to repair the brakes and rotors and I was internally grumbling that the busted AC was going to remain busted after the mechanic told me it’d cost $770 to repair.

“It’s the condenser and those things aren’t cheap,” he said.

Then we are at AC loggerheads because even though condensers aren’t cheap, I am. I can’t see paying that much for AC as long as the windows roll down and my barber excels at bestowing nice tight haircuts that appear presentable no matter the weather conditions.

So why was I thinking I ought to be smiling?

Because my friend Jim does.

He’s an old buddy from my Nashville Banner days and he runs marathons. That’s not unusual. Many of us are familiar with fitness buffs who endure extreme conditioning.

But Jim makes sure he does it with a smile on his face.

He posted a picture of himself smiling at mile 22, a marathon benchmark when many other runners are either vomiting or appearing miserable.

He said he was doing something he enjoyed and wanted observers to know by the look on his face that he was having fun.

“I have to remind myself to do it, but I think it sets a good example.”

I’m reminded of Jim every time someone sees me in public and says I look really pissed off.

Happened again last week when I was crossing the street to come into the bar. 

Now, when I walk into a bar, especially The Pond, I’m usually approaching peak happiness. My cares dissipate. I’m looking forward to laughter. People are happy to see me. I’m often surprised my entrance isn’t accompanied by showers of confetti.

That’s why I was surprised when one of my buddies said, “What’s wrong with you? We saw you crossing the street and you looked like you were ready to kill someone.”

“No, I’m fine, really,” I said. “I was just lost in thought.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“About how finding, securing and putting a rabbit into a hat requires just as much if not more magic as pulling it out of one.”

It’s something to think about next time you see my wife and wonder how come she’s not smiling.

I’ve heard what I guess is my condition sardonically described as BRF (Bitchy Resting Face). It started out as a “Funny or Die” video, but it’s now an appearance disorder being heralded by plastic surgeons eager to find another way to enrich themselves by preying upon the ever-descending self-image pop culture inflicts on us all.

They’re doing “expression surgeries” so BRFers like myself can appear more sunny when we’re standing at places like bus stops.

I was conflicted about grinning on my walk. It was no metaphorical walk in the park. It was down a desolate stretch of highway littered with trash and raccoon roadkill. I passed only one lone pedestrian and he wasn’t smiling either. He wasn’t exactly friendly, but he was at least informative. He said, “Watch out, there’s a bunch of needles up near the cloverleaf.”

So this was no barefoot tiptoe through the tulips.

I considered smiling and deemed it inappropriate.

I imagined people would see me and say, “Well, lookee there. It’s Rodell, on foot and grinning like an idiot. I guess he finally got his DUI. He’s probably already drunk right now and it’s only 2 p.m. ... Jackass.”

But it’s also different for me because I’ve authored a book that purports to be able to make readers happy.

Maybe someone sees me walking down the street with my BRF and says, “Would you look at that miserable bastard. That’s the guy whose book is supposed to teach ME how to be happy? I was going to buy one of his stupid books just to be nice, but I think I’ll just take that $15.95 up there to adult book store and splurge on some cheap porn.”

I’m proud of my book and believe in its message, but I’d have a real difficult time arguing the point if it’s ever put to me the way it is in that hypothetical.

I guess what I’m saying is if you see me trudging along some mean stretch of hypodermic-strewn highway and all you notice is my bitchy resting face, know I’m grinning somewhere deep inside

And if under those same conditions you see me beaming sunshine, you can surmise I’ve taken the admirable advice of my good friend and decided to let all the world know I’ll meet all its many marathon challenges head-on and with warmth and cheer.

Either that or I’m already good and drunk.

Related . . .

No AC making me cool

The vanishing stigma of typpos 

Honked off about Egyptian nose jobs

My one-man neighborhood trash crusade

Results of my weekend crashes, my computer/my car

Cliven Bundy & my last Klan rally

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For reasons pertaining to the preservation of my sanity, I’ve pretty much ditched watching either of the opinion news networks on the right or the left. I’m convinced the only way they thrive is to keep their viewers angry and stupid.

Stupid I can do all on my own. In fact, what’s truly surprising is that I’m not by now my own cable network. There’s an enormous appetite for televised stupidity and I’ve for years been at it 24/7

And I have no desire to import disruptive anger. So I don’t need Sean Hannity nor Rachel Maddow to nourish my outrages. But I do my best to remain aware of national news and whatever is causing the minds of the political extremes to fester.

That’s how I became aware of Cliven Bundy’s desert defiance of the federal government. He’s become a right wing darling for, in effect, putting his own Tea Party spin on what Woody Guthrie said nearly 70 years ago when he so joyfully proclaimed, “This land is your land! This land is my land!”

For purposes of grazing his cattle for free on federal lands upon which his neighbors willingly pay taxes, Bundy seized on just the second half of the couplet and sang, “This land is my land! This land is my land!” and kept repeating it over and over until Fox and the lunatic right began to hum along.

We should have seen what happened next when it was reported that Bundy is from Bunkerville, Nevada.

More like Archie Bunkerville.

Because weeks after Hannity, Rand Paul, Rick Perry and other leading Republicans feted Bundy for his embrace of liberty, Bundy revealed he’s a bit picky about to whom he extends those God-given liberties he so reveres.

He said “the Negro” should be returned to slavery again. For their own good!

Oh, boy, I’d pay to watch Fox News if they’d sponsor a town hall meeting of Bundy making those remarks on any street corner in South Central L.A.

The GOP is struggling to connect with blacks. Who would have thought some of their members think applying stout shackles are the wisest way to do so? In fact, Bundy said he often wonders if African Americans were better off picking cotton and enjoying simple down home plantation family life.

I think if Fox were really interested in extending the reach of Rupert Murdoch’s favorite party it would give its hardcore viewers an opportunity to watch all of Alex Haley’s “Roots” for a fresh perspective.

Bundy has drawn militia patriots who enjoy Ted Nugent music for reasons that have nothing to do with melody or lyrical cleverness and who often exceed Bundy in their zeal to “help” blacks, Mexicans, Jews, Catholics and other non-rednecks find their place in America. 

Hint: it ain’t no where near America.

They are the faces of hate.

It’s a face I most vividly recall from being about an inch from mine back in, I think, 1987, when I was covering my last Klan rally. That was back when I was a reporter for the once-great, now-gone Nashville Banner.

I’ll never forget asking this great big, robed Bubba if he’d answer some questions about why he was there.

He wheeled on me like a rabid Rottweiler. He got right in my face and just began screaming profane hatred at me.

I remember thinking, man, this dude must be color-blind. I mean, hey, I was white!

Still am!

Maybe he thought I was a Jewboy. Or maybe he insightfully sensed I’d one day years later write about happy little book advocating using all the crayons when if I cared at all about racial purity my book would be called, “F••• All Those Other Colors! Just Use The White Crayon!”

It was very disturbing. It wasn’t even because I was a nosy reporter.

I think it was just because he knew I wasn’t one of them.

Of course, the faces of hatred aren’t all that rare and that’s not why I remember his so well.

I remember this particular Klansman because mere moments later I saw on him the face of pure rapture.

The transformation was stunning. You’d think he’d have just seen Jesus wink at him. But, no, it was all because he was hearing the Grand Dragon amplify his hatreds to the crowd. He was just overjoyed, beaming, to hear someone talk the kind of talk we this week heard from Bundy. He looked as happy as any man I’ve ever seen.

I remember thinking, man, I’ll bet I don’t look that happy when I have a ready erection and a nearby woman who might give the thing some attention.

I do not dispute that men like him and Bundy share a genuine love for America, but men like them will never be able to temper what is in essence a love-hate relationship.

They do indeed love America.

It’s just that simultaneously hate the part of America that stipulates they must share it with lousy bastards like you and me who disagree with them and their mangled interpretations of what it all really means.

Related . . .

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Sarah Palin & the zombies

Farewell, Sarah, America’s flirt