by Nick Fierro
“We did this spinal faucet factor two days earlier than duct taping me to that billboard in Hollywood. There was no good motive to load up my week like that. I may have had one thing actually horrible occur with this 4 inch needle going into my backbone, after which two days later I’d seemingly be in jail for duct taping myself to a billboard.”
Yeah, properly… How did you anticipate an interview with Steve-O to start?
Images by Troy Conrad
Just a few months again, on a sunny day in an undisclosed yard in California, Stephen “Steve-O” Glover, accompanied by a cameraman, his producer Scott and an unnamed medical skilled disguised as a clown, got down to do the unthinkable—insert a 4 inch needle into his backbone, inject him with sufficient chemical compounds to paralyze his legs, and earlier than the chemical compounds took impact, set him off on a dash whereas carrying a helmet digicam. It went barely higher than anticipated.
“I used to be fully paralyzed for 45 minutes,” Steve-O recollects. “I used to be below the impression that it could immobilize me from the waist down, however as soon as I collapsed mid run I couldn’t really feel something all the best way as much as my neck.”
Not one to overlook a chance for never-before-seen footage, Steve-O saved the digicam rolling. It’s not like he actually had a selection.
“Whereas I used to be laying there, fucking depressing, everybody’s simply capturing up my legs with paintballs, level clean,” he says. “I couldn’t really feel something. It appeared like they had been simply capturing a lifeless snake. They had been holding a lighter to my foot, no response. They even zapped my leg with a stun gun.”
What might be thought-about a waking nightmare for many stood out as one thing particular to Steve-O, one thing that he had been chasing for a protracted, very long time.
“For my part, what we simply shot represented such an elevation of what I had been doing, and that’s a troublesome factor to do after 20 years of my profession,” he continues. “To provide you with new concepts which are actually authentic and lift the bar for craziness, that’s powerful.”
The factor is, this is only one of many stunts carried out for Steve-O’s Bucket Record Tour, a multimedia extravaganza that’s true to its title: stand-up, storytelling, stunts and photographs of the form of stuff that even a seasoned daredevil like Steve-O himself didn’t suppose would ever be doable.
“I had a basic sense of what I needed to shoot, and I referred to as it the ‘Bucket Record,’ simply backside of the barrel concepts,” Steve-O says. “[These are] the form of concepts that you just say simply to get an increase out of individuals, like, ‘I’m gonna jack off and cum in every single place whereas I’m falling out of an airplane.’ Simply saying that to folks was all that was ever meant to be, after which I made a decision to really do it.”
Spoiler alert! That section known as “Sky Jacking” and it delivers precisely what it guarantees.
Images by Troy Conrad
However to Steve-O, these aren’t simply stand-alone bits or stunts. As loopy as that spinal faucet section sounds, the wildest half is that it had been within the works for properly over a decade, with various outcomes.
“That bit goes all the best way again to the ‘WildBoyz’ days,” he explains. “I believed it could be a very loopy thought to do a foot race versus one in all my buddies. , it begins with a gun going off, however in our case the gun can be a tranquilizer dart gun. They’d shoot it into our butt cheeks to start out the race and we’d have these darts in our butts and begin sprinting. The aim being whoever makes it the farthest with out collapsing can be the winner.”
Finally the celebrities aligned and he had every little thing at his disposal to make this imaginative and prescient a actuality. Sadly, even for Steve-O, there are some traces that simply can’t be crossed.
“We appeared it up and located a man in Alabama who had a tranquilizer dart gun and advised us that he had a veterinarian who would fortunately fill the darts with the medicine mandatory for it to occur,” he continues. “That will’ve been an entire go, besides that it got here to mild that the darts would comprise ketamine. Now, being a drug addict who particularly loves ketamine, that was an enormous downside. Man, was it powerful for me to again out of that one.”
The thought acquired shelved for years, however the wheels by no means stopped spinning. One thing in Steve-O’s mind couldn’t flip off, the gag was too rattling good to desert. It was only a matter of time earlier than an answer to the tranquilizer dart dilemma landed in his lap and ended up in his bloodstream.
“I figured that I’ve had so many surgical procedures, so many procedures that required basic anesthesia with out challenge, that I modified the concept to getting basic anesthesia administered via an IV whereas I used to be using a bicycle,” Steve-O explains. “By conversations with a variety of medical professionals we discovered a few drug referred to as Etomidate, which works equally to Propofol. [The difference is that it] makes you nauseous and it burns moving into your veins, so nobody would ever use it for enjoyable.
“So we acquired our fingers on some Etomidate,” he continues. “They had been going to attempt to give me sufficient to knock me out with out stopping my respiratory. They by no means acquired it proper, so I simply wound up using the bicycle round all on medicine. It was upsetting. Humorous, however as a sober man, it was form of a letdown. I imply, I nonetheless included it in my present.”
Steve-O toured with the fabric as a part of his act, however by no means felt fully glad with the footage. There was a voice inside telling him that he may at all times push it one step additional. Or perhaps that voice wasn’t from inside, however from a fan at a meet-and-greet.
“It was at one in all my reveals that somebody got here as much as me and mentioned, ‘Hey, I’ve acquired a means that you would be able to end off that bit with out jeopardizing your sobriety. It entails a spinal injection,’” he says. “And that simply sounded so loopy and superior that I took the man up on it.”
You’d suppose that’s the place the story ends, in a yard within the blistering solar, motionless and lined in welts and burns after a back-and-forth dialog from 15 years prior. A collection of more and more harmful, semi-supervised stunts that may ship most individuals into retirement, or worse. However not Steve-O. The unique thought for the dart gun stunt was truly supposed to be a touch upon animal poaching, with Steve-O semi-seriously advocating for giant recreation hunters to tranquilize their prey, take a photograph, after which let the animal go. It didn’t take lengthy for him to study this was an thought that appears higher on paper than in actuality.
Images by Troy Conrad
“We truly reached out to those animal rights organizations in South Africa,” Steve-O says. “We mentioned, ‘Hey, we wish to come on the market and promote tranquilizer darts.’ We had been just about met with disgust. They had been like, ‘We like to advertise leaving animals the fuck alone! Tranquilizer darts aren’t very pleasant or protected, and that sounds terrible.’
“Finally, one in all these animal rights teams mentioned that whereas that they had little interest in tranquilizer darts,” he continues, “they did routinely go on sting operations to nab individuals who had been doing dangerous issues to animals and so they organized for us to do a ride-along. Effectively, we jumped throughout that.”
Initially, the South African police had been alleged to observe the crew on a mission to apprehend poachers who had been illegally trafficking turtles. Nevertheless, as soon as they discovered that they’d be accompanying a member of the “Jackass” crew with a video digicam, they understandably backed out.
“They referred to as us to say, ‘The police are out, however we’re gonna do it anyway,’” he says. “So principally, it’s not a ride-along anymore as a result of there have been no cops. They had been speaking about us being deputized. It was as much as us to apprehend the dangerous guys, and we’re gonna movie the entire thing!”
Fortunately for all events concerned, Scott Randolph, Steve-O’s producer and right-hand man, had been taking Jiu-Jitsu classes for a number of weeks, and was more than pleased to help within the unarmed, unsupervised apprehension of a turtle poacher, in the midst of a busy road in Cape City, South Africa, in broad daylight.
“Scott was like, ‘If I come up with the man’s wrist, it’s carried out,’” Steve-O recollects. “He’s oozing confidence about utilizing his Jiu-Jitsu expertise to overpower and apprehend these turtle poachers. As soon as we spot the man, Scott busts the automobile door open and grabs him, and so they’re tugging backwards and forwards for like…perhaps two seconds, however most likely much less. This dude very simply breaks away from Scott and runs off, however Scott provides chase, and as quickly as he does, he journeys and lands flat on his personal fucking face, within the dust.”
What transpired grew to become recognized among the many crew because the “Tortoise Tussle,” an occasion that each Randolph and Steve-O would immortalize via a pair of matching tattoos. Effectively, considerably matching tattoos. Randolph can be tattooed by Steve-O, principally serving as apply pores and skin in preparation for Steve-O’s massive date tattooing Put up Malone the next month. Whereas he has been licensed by the County of Los Angeles as a Physique Artwork Practitioner, let’s simply say Steve-O isn’t fairly as proficient as Mike Santa Fe, the artist who not solely inked the turtle design on the comic however who has additionally schooled him on the ins-and-outs of tattooing. The design can be a turtle, carrying a cape with a white belt—the bottom doable belt to be awarded in all the martial arts.
The factor is, when you take each occasion that’s occurred on this story and laid it finish to finish, it most likely solely takes place over the course of some hours right here and some hours there, positively lower than a day. Steve-O has been working at this tempo for over twenty years, by no means slowing down, by no means banking on previous success to hold him additional. He’s at all times making an attempt to push the envelope, increase the bar, get a pores and skin graft, no matter it takes. He’s a pioneer in a style he helped create, with a resume even longer than his rap sheet. Yow will discover Steve-O wherever, skating alongside Tony Hawk, browsing subsequent to a glacier in Alaska, or in your hometown, both touring with the Bucket Record, or roaming the native campgrounds in his cell tattoo studio. There’s not a lot to say in regards to the man that hasn’t already been mentioned, so we’ll depart it at this: thanks, and Yeah, Dude!
Images by Troy Conrad
