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You know what parkour is, right? You probably do, but if not: Parkour is the sport where guys do crazy things. Get it? Like jump from one building to another building that seems to be too far away, or walk on their hands for a while, or do lots of flips from high places and then land perfectly. “I get it now.” Good. After the jump you’ll see a video of a guy doing one of those things (the flips thing) and it’s kind of crazy and might give you a heart attack. But rest assured that I would not be sharing this video with you if it ended badly. This isn’t horribleaccidents.com. We’re all just trying to have some clean, safe fun, so he does a bunch of flips and it’s kind of crazy and then we all take a deep breath and forget about it. Then, also after the jump, I’m going to share with you my personal parkour story, which involves the world parkour champion (if that’s a thing, which it certainly may not be) and Oreo cakesters. Can you even wait??? Ahhhhhhh:
That was kind of crazy, right? I will never let my children do parkour. It’s not worth it. Freestyle walking, maybe, talk to your father Britt Daniel about it, but definitely NOT parkour. Ok, so here is the story:
One day about a year and a half ago, I was walking with some friends through a park in Brooklyn, New York. As we pass by an area of the park that has a long set of stairs — the kind of set of stairs that you would see, like, going up to a museum, but smaller. You know? Are you picturing it? — we are stopped by three men. One youngish guy who kind of looks like Jesse Eisenberg (not Jesse Eisenberg though), one oldish guy who kind of looks like that TMZ guy (not that TMZ guy though) and one other guy who kind of looks like a tank (not a tank).
“Hi, do you know what parkour is?” the TMZ-looking guy asks me.
“Uhh…yes?” I respond, because I did know what it was, because I think they had already done the parkour joke on the Office at that point and pretty much everyone knew what it was from that.
“Do you like it?”
“Uhhh…”
“Haha, well, you see that guy over there? [Tank guy.] That’s the world parkour champion. [I think this is what he said. It may have been a lie to make it sound more exciting, but at the time I believed him because who cares either way. Not to be jerky about it! But kinda to be.] We’re shooting a commercial for Oreo Cakesters that’s going to air on MTV. Would you want to help us? It won’t take very long.”
I say yes, even though my brain is screaming “Noooooooooooooooooooo!” This is because I have a hard time saying no in face-to-face interactions like this, and also because no doy I’m going to do it. So we head over to the steps.
“So what’s going to happen is [name of parkour guy] is going to walk down the steps on his hands and when he gets to the bottom of the steps you’re going to feed him an oreo cakester, and then he’s going to do a flip and sit down next to you.”
“Oh yeah, ok.”
It required an incredibly limited amount of acting on my part — I had to smile at him I think? — and I could not really pull that part off. It’s hard for me to act like a normal person in real life when fake Jesse Eisenberg and fake TMZ guy are NOT filming me shoving oreo caksters into the mouth of a guy who is standing on his hands, let alone when they ARE. So my inability to be perceived as a normal human, combined with parkour guy’s inability to not spit out the oreo cakesters almost immediately after they are shoved into his mouth, led to us having do this roughly one million times. The parkour guy was clearly having a very rough time. Lots of walking on hands, lots of flips, LOTS of oreo cakesters. So after the 1,000,000th take, Jesse Eisenberg and TMZ decide that we’ve probably gotten it and we can all stop now and go to sleep and never think about this again.
They all gave me their cards and told me to look out for the commercial on MTV during the airing of the Ultimate Parkour Challenge or something, which is a parkour show that was on MTV for some period of time. I think I forgot to watch for it and I don’t think there was ever anything done with it, actually. We almost certainly did not get the shot.
The End
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I think I might have a parkour story of my own. I’m not really sure. It’s not much of a story. Basically, I got real drunk, and lost my friend I was with, and when I started to sober up and figure things out, I was on the roof of the train station. I never figured out how that happened, but I’m thinking it either involved drunken Parkour or me being bitten by a radioactive spider.
Be careful out there, facetaco.
So what you’re saying is, you’re Peter Parkour.
So did you get to eat an oreo cakester? Don’t bury the lede
Seriously. Oreo cakesters are actually delicious. #nopromo
Ugh, really? I feel like they would taste like Devil Dogs. Oh, also, spoiler alert: I dislike Devil Dogs.
Give them a try, but they may be more of a winter cookie. I just imagined dipping an oreo cakester into some hot chocolate and it made me wish I was at some sort of lodge.
I thought the lede was that Britt Daniel has ties to the creation of the freestyle walking fad?
Although googling “Brit Daniel freestyle walking” just brings up this page…
Hmm, I had never heard of freestyle walking before, but according to that Wikipedia article it was started in my high school cafeteria? Seems like something just pointless enough to have come out of that place.
Kurt Loder didn’t introduce you to freestyle walking in the mid 1990s? I have a strangely clear memory of thinking is was stoopid, even as lil bitty baby monster.
Sadly I wasn’t allowed to watch MTV until the late 90s. Just watched the MTV segment on Youtube though, and it was totally filmed at my school. It’s nice to know that the swamp behind the cafeteria has been on national television.
Isn’t Wheaton a “dry” town? Or didn’t it used to be? See how creative the kids get when there is no access to alcohol?
Wheaton used to be dry, but I don’t think it is anymore. I know there’s a wine tasting place, at least but probably still no bars.
Free Style Walking will never go out of style.
This is weird because just yesterday I was trying to explain what Parkour is to somebody and I’m positive that they left with the impression that Parkour is a word I made up for a sport that doesn’t exist and also that I’d never spoken English before.
My explanation definitely ended with “they do it in one of the newer James Bond movies with the guy from Cowboys and Aliens” at which point I rested my case, dropped the mic, and just walked right off the stage to thunderous applause and deafening chants of my own name.
Better explanation would have been “That lady from all the Christopher Guest movies.”
This seems like an appropriate place to ask for the end of Planking? can we end that?
Also: Oreo cookies are the #1 most sold cookie in the U.S.
#2? Chips Ahoy
#3? THIN MINTS! THEY”RE ONLY SOLD 3 MONTHS OUT OF THE YEAR
One month. And it does not matter, because Girl Scout cookies are fucking magical, and you SHOULD buy as many as possible for that one month out of the year.
Hey @Facetaco. I only play stupid on the internet. Speaking of data, how many of your Samoas are you doing month verification on?
See, this is why I am happy about Chris Hansen getting busted. When I went over to that girl’s house, I really did just want to buy some tagalongs!
As a dedicated member of Team Samoas, this news saddens me.
I have a similar story that has 100% less parkour. I’ve told this story i chat, but if you’ll let me indulge:
A few years ago, we had a company outing in Central Park and a camera crew cam up to a few of us.
“Hey, do you guys know the show Home Improvement?”
Of course we did.
“Hey, do you guys know how Tim Allen grunts on the show?”
Of course we did.
“Nick-at-Nite is going to be airing Home Improvement and we want to get some people doing Tim’s hilarious grunt. Can we get a few of you to do it on camera?”
Most of my co-workers did the typical “ROH-Oh-oh” thing he did in the show, but being a jackass, I decided to to that one where he goes up like a question at the end (the one that ends the shitty theme song).
Ha. Ha. Funny FLW. Yet, a few months later, they ran a promo with the theme song running as a music bed and guess who big, fat, pale head caps the end of the promo. Me. being a dick.
Yay, FLW’s claim to fame is being on a Home Improvement promo for Nick-at-Nite. Mom must be so proud.
Links or it didn’t happen.
*Sets DVR*
I did a parkour biography of Robert De Niro’s acting career.
I rode an escalator up and then I rode one down.
Reading this story I was at first convinced that these guys were full of it and that they were merely getting their mack on. But then I realized they had no reason to lie about Parkour championships and MTV when they already had the nuclear option of pickups – The Oreo Cakester!
Soooo….what your saying is if I buy a Britt Daniel mask, move to Brooklyn and confront you in public with a marriage proposal you will be incapable of saying ‘No’?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhtweKIvBSM
NO STALKO
!
Whoa. Uh. DEFINITELY stalko!!
Thank you, though, I forgot that this existed. This is exciting.
I was actually part of a Parkour club for a while. I even bought a pair of these special K-Swiss Parkour shoes. I wonder what ever happened to that club….and those shoes….
http://youtu.be/_WGBALARNdc
our cats do parkour all the time. i bet they got some awesome stories.