{"id":618,"date":"2015-01-29T06:58:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T14:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=618"},"modified":"2015-01-29T06:58:10","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T14:58:10","slug":"insane-leisure-sports-brief-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=618","title":{"rendered":"Great Moments in Insane Leisure Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Insane<\/a><\/p>\n

By Jack Edwards<\/strong><\/p>\n

People choose leisure activities for a variety of reasons, including family history (golf), continuing their school sport (swimming), regional popularity (log rolling), and, in certain cases, severe and untreatable mental illness. Let\u2019s take a hard look at that last category.<\/p>\n

We all love an adrenaline rush. That thrill of excitement. For example, I get an \u201cadrenaline high\u201d that makes me feel truly alive each time I sink a ball during a heart-pounding game of bumper pool. (It\u2019s called living on the edge people!) But to each his own. Others find their excitement elsewhere. But that still doesn\u2019t make up for the pure insanity of several \u201cleisure activities\u201d which are less pastime, and more a desperate cry for psychiatric help.<\/p>\n

Consider skydiving. I have to assume the first person who ever jumped out of a plane without a direct order from a military superior was an ex-paratrooper bogged down by tax problems and looking for a way out. Fast forward and maniacs are jumping out of airplanes like lemmings off a cliff. Teams of them – gliding into formations which are as dull as paste, but which seem to impress the daylights out of \u2026 themselves (Oooh! A snowflake pattern!) It\u2019s mind boggling.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s bungee-jumping. Only one answer here. Dreamt up and promoted by the International Chiropractors Association. Have you noticed that some of the most boring cities in the world have latched onto this activity like a drowning man latches onto a life preserver? The conversation goes like this:<\/p>\n

Boring City\u2019s Local Chamber of Commerce President to his board of directors: \u201cI\u2019ve given up on promoting tourism here. Go ahead and fire me. Please! Or heck, I might just quit. Even I wouldn\u2019t consider vacationing here. In fact, I don\u2019t even like living here.\u201d
\nGeneric Director raising his hand: \u201cWe have a bridge. We could secure an elastic band and urge people to hurl themselves off.\u201d
\nChamber of Commerce President with an evil gleam in his eye: \u201cBrilliant! And we might even get a little kickback from those chiropractic charlatans! Pure genius, Mr. Generic Director!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bull riding? I only know one thing about the origin of bull-riding. And of this, I am absolutely certain. It involved alcohol. Have you ever heard of a bull rider who hasn\u2019t been hospitalized 20 times and broken every bone but his stupid bone (the one that keep his stupid in place)? Of course, on the upside, there\u2019s all that prize money. (Rodeo Daily reports that this year, nearly half of all bull riding winning purses will cover the entire co-pay). And how about those clowns? I know, I know\u2026. They\u2019re the \u201cbest of the best.\u201d And very brave (code for insane). But the thought of strapping on one of those red ball noses and meeting my demise face down in a cow patty with a hoof print at the base of my skull is one glass of Kool-Aid more than I\u2019m willing to drink.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got to think that the American Psychiatric Association has a DSM number for these people. They deserve one. A long one. Something that merits its own rehab clinic. Like the Betty Ford Clinic \u2013 except where they serve alcohol. The life insurance companies would gladly fund it. They\u2019d save a bundle.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I\u2019ll continue to live in the fast lane. As I write this, I\u2019m getting ready to begin a new game of bumper pool. But get this, I\u2019m stepping it up. I\u2019ll be playing this<\/em> game on the edge<\/em>. I\u2019ve decided not to use cue chalk. Yeah, that\u2019s right. Time to make room for me at the clinic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jack Edwards People choose leisure activities for a variety of reasons, including family history (golf), continuing their school sport (swimming), regional popularity (log rolling), and, in certain cases, severe and untreatable mental illness. Let\u2019s take a hard look at that last category. We all love an adrenaline rush. That thrill of excitement. For example, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[458,457,464,466,465,455,454,462,18,532,450,451,33,459,461,460,456,453,452,463],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","tag-bumper-pool","tag-bumperpool","tag-bungee","tag-bungee-jump","tag-bungee-jumping","tag-bungy","tag-bungy-jumping","tag-chamber-of-commerce","tag-funny","tag-humor","tag-insane","tag-insane-sports","tag-laugh","tag-leisure","tag-leisure-activities","tag-leisure-sports","tag-pool","tag-skydive","tag-skydiving","tag-tourism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}