I'm watching "Absolute Evel" on history channel. A documentary about Evel Knievel. He was one bad motherfucker.

RIP Mr. Knievel.

I was watching as well.

Badassmotherfucker.

Arrogant tosspost with little skill. He had balls though.

Who said anything about skill? He was and remains an icon. He was a fucking trainwreck but the dude was cool as hell. There is no one cooler. Not Elvis, not Morrison, no one.

He is still the best interview Jim Rome ever had.

I'm going at this by memory. It may not be an exact quote but it is close enough.

Rome: If you knew beforehand that you had a 50/50 chance of dying on that jump why did you go ahead and do it?

Evel: Do you know who the hell I am?

Here it is, and you were close:

Jim Rome: So what did you think your chances [of jumping the Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered bike] were?
Evel Knievel: Fifty-fifty.
Jim Rome: Fifty-fifty?
Evel Knievel: Fifty-fifty. The rocket had been designed by Bob Truax Jr., an egotistical know-it-all little bastard who was one of the engineers at NASA who was there when they burned Gus Grissom to death on the launch pad. He built the parachute so that it absolutely would fail under the G-load. But the way I see it: If I had made it, no one would've cared. If I'd died, they would've said, "Well that's what's supposed to happen to daredevils." Here it is thirty years later and I don't see no bunch of Daredevils lining up to take a shot at it.
Jim Rome: So if you had a fifty-fifty chance, a coin-flip's chance to survive, why did you do it?
Evel Knievel: ...
Evel Knievel: Do you know who the hell I am?

That last line is the only one that matters. I hope they put that on his tombstone.

Evel was a bad ass for his day. But nowadays people jump farther on skateboards than he did on a motorcycle. So it's lost some of the appeal.

Could you please jump the Grand Canyon on your skateboard?
On behalf of many, thanks!