Two Wheels To Paradise
Just like riding a bike!
A few years ago my girlfriend and I decided to take a trip. We’ve been together off and on since high school, being from the same town in Texas, but we hadn’t taken the big plunge by getting on a plane together. It was our first big vacation, so naturally we went for a romantic destination: Paradise Island, in the Bahamas. It’s one of those places where the hotel rooms seem to float above the water on little stilts. And the water is the color of Windex. It looked absolutely ideal.
On the first day we were feeling adventurous, like we wanted to get absolutely everything out of this trip. We saw some tourists blasting by on scooters, and before long we were standing in a dingey little shack with a local staring at a release form. Not even stopping to read it, I scrawled my signature and told the guy we wanted a two-seater—she’d ride on the seat behind me. I was picturing it: the wind in our hair, we’d blast down to some open-air cabaña on the beach and sip rum and eat conch all afternoon. Perfection.
”You ever ridden one?” the kid asked. I lied, saying I had. My girlfriend didn’t know better, so he grabbed one of the bigger bikes. “We better take a test ride here in the lot,” she said. We saddled up, and weaved wobbily across the asphalt. She grabbed my sides. “I’m getting off. Why don’t you just try it by yourself,” she said. She stepped off, gave me a reassuring look, and I gave the thing some juice.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground in a pool of my own blood, the bike on top of me, burning hot. I’d rocketed across the lot and hit the curb, then endo’d ass-over-teakettle. Somehow I’d severed my Achilles tendon halfway through. I spent the rest of the trip hobbling around in bandages, doped out of my gourd on pain killers.
We’re still together and we’re really happy. There’s just one small problem. She’s obsessed with buying a new toy for some reason. First thing in the morning the other day she goes, “Do you want to come with me out to Westchester? I’m going to buy a scooter, and there’s one I want to look at.” The jury’s still out on that one. —Anonymous in Brooklyn
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And Then It Flew Into Space [LAUNCH PARTY!]
it seemed like a good idea at the time
THE ACCIDENTAL EXTREMIST and LOADS OF PROSE LLC PRESENT:
THE DIRTY LAUNDRY SERIES
Volume 18: True Dirt from Far and Wide
We’re joining forces! On Thursday night, May 21, please join us in New York’s East Village as we officially launch the H.M.S. Accidental Extremist into the stormy seas of new media.
We’re grateful to Emily Rubin and her much-loved reading series for the invite. Previous readers include Roy Blount Jr., Rob Brezsny, Will Leitch, Susan Shapiro, and too many others to list. They’ve got an illustrious past we can only hope not to tarnish forever.
We’ll have a reading (about one hour, tops) in a very special location (keep reading), then relocate to a nearby bar to keep the stories going strong.
When: Thursday, May 21st, 2009, 8-9pm, followed by an after party
Location: Avenue A Laundromat (yes, really.)
97 Avenue A between 6th and 7th Street, NY, NY
AFTER PARTY: ARROW BAR, one block south on Ave. A. 9PM - very late.
http://www.arrownyc.com/
Drink Specials and actual DJs, which may or may not include members of AWESOME DUDES, GENIUS STEALS, and THE FOGGY MONOCLE
FEATURING the READERS:
KATE DAILEY’s travels have taken her to Dublin, Ireland, where she wrote for The Dubliner magazine; Berlin Germany, as part of a Gordon Grey fellowship in international reporting; and to a very shabby motel room in Cleveland, Ohio, for a long weekend involving a bottle of tequila and a male stripper (but not the way one might think, she assures us). She’s written for numerous publications, including Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, MediaBistro, NYMag.com, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. She now works for Newsweek, where she runs the Human Condition blog.
JAED COFFIN is the author of A CHANT TO SOOTH WILD ELEPHANTS (Da Capo, 2008), which chronicles the time he spent as a Buddhist monk in his mother’s village in Thailand. As the 2008 Resident Fellow of The Island Institute, Coffin researched his next book, ROUGHHOUSE FRIDAY, which documents the year he spent as a the middleweight champion of an Alaskan barroom boxing circuit. From Brunswick, Maine, he teaches at University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing.
A New York-based writer who grew up on a hazelnut farm outside of Portland, Oregon, CHRISTIAN DEBENEDETTI founded The Accidental Extremist in early 2009. Previously he has worked on the staffs of Outside, National Geographic Adventure, and Men’s Journal magazines. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, FOOD&WINE, and others. A Contributing Editor to National Geographic Adventure and a Correspondent for Outside, he once spent an entire year traveling alone to study ancient methods of making beer in 14 European and West African nations, a journey which resulted in—among other things—malaria, a fall into a Togolese drain ditch, bribery at gunpoint, and an arrest for defiling the musical legacy of Bob Dylan on Prague’s Charles Bridge without a permit.
PLEASE COME, and SPREAD THE WORD!
MORE INFO:
http://dirtylaundryreadings.com/html/main.html
http://www.theaccidentalextremist.com
This event is funded in part by Poets and Writers, Inc. and The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with public funds from the York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
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