Friday, July 11, 2008

The New Me

Reading the NYT this morning, I found myself swept away in unbridled enthusiasm for a new sport... no, a new way of living.

In Adrspach (an area in the Czech Republic) there is a long history of real men living real lives... and the way they prove this to each other is not through the purchase of the latest technical gadget, nor through an ability to spawn numerous copies of biological self from the beleaguered wombs of their women folk, nor in the more typical fashion of participating in carefully modulated and commercialized and homogenized sports traditions like basketball, football(soccer), baseball, jai alai, football americano, cricket, etc. 

No... these men prove their truth by taking rock climbing to the next level... they climb to the top of tall rock towers, and then jump from one to the other, always striving to find the most difficult and most dangerous jump to perform... they jump, that is all, just jump. But take a look at this jump....





They jump when the situation is most dire, when the possibility for injury and death are most pronounced. This is no elfin-dance Triple-Jump like they perform at the Olympics... this is a jump of manhood. 

Boys climb the rock towers, and Men jump...

So... who wants to put their life on the line to prove themselves to a bunch of Czech adrenaline junkies and death-wish afficinados who have nothing better to do with their time than get drunk and dare each other into life-threatening situations? Will you risk it all to gain the socially constructed concept of "manhood", so that you can affix that title to the masthead of your personalized stationery/webpage for the rest of your life?

I'm on the next flight to Adrspach... are you with me?

 

3 comments:

Fix said...

Sorry, I'd love to, but I can't do that kind of thing and risk leaving my biological spawn copy fatherless (although he's not a very good copy of me...much more like his mom, and really not too much like her either).

Have fun jumping! I'll just stay here and let those guys call me whatever they will. I'm pretty sure I'm not a woman, so I think all that leaves for me is to be a man.

Jason Fix said...

Those guys are real men?!? I see ropes in that picture!

Pussies.

Let me know when you're ready for a REAL adventure...

fisherdm said...

I echo Jason, ropes mean the worst that could happen is they knock out all their teeth. Personally, I'd rather do it w/o the ropes and die, then walk around w/o teeth for the rest of my days.