Friday, June 5, 1998
You, too, can be adventurous at home
COLUMN: Strange stunts, physical actions aren’t just for the
professionals
When I was a child, I caught more than a fleeting glimpse of Lee
Majors in his role as The Fall Guy. I used to stay up on weekends,
or was it Wednesday nights? I seem to remember that I would snuggle
close to Mom and watch Lee take hot tub sessions in his bath tub
outdoors.
Nowadays, we have to wonder what is so cool about stunt men.
They feel macho about doubling for the wussy actors in tough film
segments and maim themselves for money. (Actually, throw in some
black leather and it doesn’t sound half bad.)
However, I still remember the moments when 7-year-old me and
forty-something Mom would salivate over the sidekick, I can’t
remember his name. He wasn’t a stunt man. He was a really hot
bounty hunter, looking for criminals who had skipped the law. But
he seemed really naive. That made him cute.
Oh great, now my column about stunt men is turning into a story
about the random no-name actor with a hot bod who helped track down
embezzlers during episodes of "The Fall Guy," a cheesy mid-80s TV
hit.
But what do you expect at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday night, after my
roommate’s bachelorette party? Too much wine and not enough
meaningful sex. She’s in love, and here I am, concerned about 25
pages worth of English papers that I have to write in a week and a
half. How can I worry about finding a mate under such
circumstances?
Anyway, back to stunts. And men. Maybe even both at the same
time.
I know no stunt men, but I am in contact with quite a few people
involved in strange physical employments.
And they all hang out at my apartment, especially on Tuesday
nights, when the liquor’s flowin’. They need something to get them
talking about stunts. Though the conversation often swerves into
something else entirely.
Tom: I know how to run down stairs. (Or something like that. I
was working on a Chardonnay stunt myself. The writing became a
little blurry. My apologies.)
Jen: I used to jump from the top of staircases to the bottom. My
friend Ryan smacked his head on the ceiling and knocked himself out
doing that, trying to be a stunt man.
Tana: It’s the Evil Knievel syndrome, where men only want to be
more manly, screaming, ‘Yeah! I’m a real man! I walked away limping
from the accident! What is with that!’ (I pretend to be belligerent
as well, but can’t really get too into the cause. Meanwhile, the
champagne tastes strangely fruity. Quite delicious.)
Tom: This is the third time I’ve been kicked out of UCLA this
year! (How did we get into this? I can’t remember. Pass the
merlot.)
Tana: Oh, interesting. But what I want to know is why is your
chin blue?
Tom: It’s because of the striptease. (Makes some sort of weird
sense to me. I mean, watching him dance around the room in fishnets
and a cowboy hat didn’t really strike me as rational, but somehow,
I could relate.)
Reuben: "It’s stubble." (Oh, then I guess it’s OK to be blue?
Sure.)
Me: Do you want me to write, ‘I just jump out of windows and
disappear, but I am not a stunt man?’ (He jumps out of our windows,
"disappearing," on a regular basis.)
Reuben: Yeah, but let me rephrase this. I would rather not be
called a stunt man, even though I perform stunts. But the whole
thing behind my stunts is all about the art of disappearing.
Sometimes, you have to jump out of windows. But what I try to do is
disappear. (My best friend Susan once broke her leg from
"disappearing," if that’s what you call it, in the third grade. She
pretended to be a stunt girl. Jumping out of windows hasn’t held
the same mystique for me ever since.)
Tom: I got smoked out by Gangstas today. (Totally irrelevant.
How dare he.)
Jen: I think we need to talk about line dancing. I’m sure it
relates to stunt men. (No it doesn’t.)
Reuben: Whenever I jump out of the window, I listen to Mozart’s
Symphony No. 25 in G Minor. The first time I heard that piece, a
strange urge came upon me.
Me: You knew you had to jump out windows?
Reuben: No, I knew I had to be adventurous. Because of this
feeling that came upon me, every time I jump out of windows. I hear
the music and need adventure. (I wish Mozart could do it for me.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found the killer drive for physical
self-affliction yet. I enjoy sitting in my room, reading comic
books. Rather daring, I know.)
In any case, no one feels the connection to Lee Majors in "The
Fall Guy" that I felt all those years back. Stunt men just don’t
have the same appeal today that they did those many years ago. I am
not only feeling detached from other college youths, who cannot
comprehend my lust for hulking, dumb male bods, but find my
personal attraction to a 50-year-old man somewhat obscene.
I was 7. Perhaps my mother’s influence corrupted me. I will
never know.
Meanwhile, at a quarter to 3 in the morning, I hear Tana’s
peaceful snoring on the couch, Jen’s concern for what time Liz
needs to set her alarm, and dream like a sappy girl to Radio Head’s
"Pablo Honey." I reflect on Sam’s getting married in two days, and
realize that we pull enough crazy stunts around here to merit our
own crew of body doubles.
VanderZanden will be back next year to amuse people with her
pathetic life.