Teamwork builds character!

Isn’t delving into deep nature a feast for the soul? Yeah, sure it is! Except when it becomes more like ‘Lord of the Flies’. Here’s a new yarn from Tetsuhiko Endo on that all-American rite of passage, the Outward Bound adventure, and what happens when the counselors think you’ve reached a higher plane and  leave you to your own devices, lost in a giant bog. Enjoy — Ed.

In the summer before my senior year of high school, I went on a canoeing and climbing trip, with Outward Bound, in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Minnesota. I was seventeen, and had just spectacularly bombed out of a 10-year junior tennis career with a very public burnout. Suddenly finding myself without the usual summer of traveling to tournaments around the country, trying to smite other stressed out 17 year-olds, it seemed like an opportune time to go on a bit of an adventure.

Before choosing the trip, I had never heard of the Boundary Waters. It is a vast region of wilderness between the border of Minnesota and Ontario that was home to roughly 1,200 interconnected lakes. The pictures were pretty and I had just gotten into rock climbing, so, why not? What I failed to notice about the pictures was that they were all taken from the air. That’s because the Boundary Waters is a far nicer place to look down of from a bush plane than to slog through with a canoe. But more on that later… (more…)

(2 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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Experts only? Esta bien!

You know when your friends are out there having a complete, unhinged blast and they email you from the road, fired up on life, making your workday feel even blander? (OK, OK, guilty as charged). Here’s a letter I got from my old college housemate Josh Boulange of Bozeman, Montana, who excels at making his old friends jealous whilst adventuring around the globe in search of untrammeled snow, uncaught salmon, and other delicious things generally beyond the reach of any cubicle. But things don’t always go according to plan. For one, down there, liftlines can resemble riots. Here, the intrepid Boulange on his experience of skiing in Argentina. — Ed.

Greetings,

            I write you all from an upstairs locutorio (internet outpost) from Bariloche, after a liter of quilmes and un hamberguesa completa (ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato). I arrived this afternoon after a hellacious bus ride. It was supposed to be 22 hours, but it was only 23. In the middle of the night the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere for about an hour, stuck in a line of traffic. I could see fires by the roadside ahead; everyone was talking about it, but I could not understand anyone. When we finally passed, there were dozens of men throwing logs on the fires and waving long branches at the bus—it seemed like a protest or strike—but I might as well have been in Timbuktu and I could make no sense of any of it. I was also too tired to really try and figure any of it out. There was a one-legged man sitting in front of me with a deep voice who kept going up and down the stairs (double decker bus) all night, like every 30 minutes…. (more…)

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I don’t currently own a pair of Tevas, but everything about this ridiculous spoof of Man Vs. Wild made me want to buy some. Yes, it’s sophomoric, but it’s also dead on.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Here’s a yarn from the writer Bill Gifford: Eight friends went hot-air ballooning in the Poconos on a perfect spring day. What could possibly go wrong?

      I’ve done plenty of stupid stuff that could have killed me, everything from backcountry skiing after a snowstorm without avalanche gear (or knowledge), to riding a moped on the island of Mykonos after consuming some sort of blue drink, without lights and late at night. Bad ideas, all. But the worst it ever got, the closest I’ve ever come to starring in one of those two-inch stories buried in the back of the New York Times, happened in the Poconos. In the basket of a hot air balloon.

If you’ve ever been ballooning, then you know that there’s basically nothing less extreme—and nothing more peaceful. You ascend silently, borne up by the power of warmed gases, and then you drift along with the wind, in perfect relative stillness, high above the world and its busy little tangle of people and problems. Cars slow to watch, the people inside pointing and going, “Look! A hot-air balloon!” Many people seem to get engaged on balloon rides; perhaps you did, too. This is the story of a balloon ride gone wrong. (more…)

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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In early May 2009 TheAccidentalExtremist.com traveled to the Scottish Highlands to follow the Drambuie Pursuit, a one-of-a-kind, two-day, nine-stage adventure race open to teams of amateur athletes from around the world. Hundreds of weekend warriors applied, but only 13 four-person teams made the cut. Among the racers were dot-com desk jockeys, landscapers, and even an online poker player (but not yours truly, except for the mountain climb stage. I was too busy sampling the fermented Highland wares and gawking at amazing old castles). There were also hard-core adventure racers ready for serious battle. Some of them weren’t exactly prepared for the experience that ensued. But that didn’t stop them from going all out—and having a great time. We did, too. Watch and enjoy!

The Accidental Extremist: Drambuie Pursuit ‘09 from Christian DeBenedetti on Vimeo.

Feel like you’ve got what it takes? Applications are being accepted now. If you win, it’s an all-expenses paid trip to Scotland (and back, unless it kills you, and there are sections that just might) and a chance to rub shoulders with the likes of Seann William Scott, a.k.a. Stiffler, last year’s celebrity contestant.

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This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.

Here’s another yarn from the fearless Tetsuhiko Endo, who laughs in the face of reefs and big waves, even when they laugh right back in his face, with bloody results. — Ed.

“How was the sunrise church service?” My mom asked over the phone.

“It was gweat,” I replied through a mouth full of broken teeth and one severely swollen tongue. 

“Were there a lot of people there?”

“A foo people,” I thought quickly.  “Pwobably mo’ than usual because it was Eastuh, but it was jus the wight amount.  We had a gweat time.”

“That’s good.  And, honey: what’s wrong with your voice?”

“Well…” (more…)

(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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   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

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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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.

(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

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Slip Slidin' Away!

To explain why the lifeguard at the Aquapark Tatralandia in Liptovský Mikulas—a small town near Slovakia’s High Tatra mountains—was screaming at me to get out of the pool, I have to explain why I was wearing Pete’s long underwear. And to explain that, I have to explain why Xenia was making out with her Czech boyfriend in the hot tub instead of driving me and Pete straight to said High Tatra mountains—where we were supposed ski around and find a legendary and elusive hutkeeper named Viktor Beranek. The skiing part was my idea: I’d pitched this random story to a magazine, something about Viktor being an environmentalist and a womanizer and a brute and something about the High Tatras being a rugged, legit, and bad-ass place to ski. (All true.) What wasn’t my idea was this: getting coughed out of a waterslide into vaguely green chlorinated water, dragged to slowness by neck-to-ankle polypro, blushing at the sharp words of the pool police: “You can’t swim in that! Tebe dělostřelectvo plavat ježto!” (Or something like that.) (more…)

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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