jackassworld

Today’s “re-run” jackass segment, “Slide and Slip,” is being pulled up, dusted off, and dedicated to one JimbonesCword and his morning cup of coffee. Best of all, there’s even a big “shitty nonsense article” to go along with it.

The following account of “Camp Pain” was originally written in 2001, when I was contracted by MTV to write and compile a book dedicated to the jackass television series. Ultimately, the final work I submitted fell into a controversial black hole over at MTV and the project was kicked to the curb like a whore with AIDS (although some of the material did later make it into the jackass the movie companion book released in 2002).

Despite our generally heathen antics, God must be a diehard fan of jackass because he literally provided us with an angel in the form of Tim Payne, a man known far and wide throughout skateboarding for his legendary ramp building expertise. During a chance encounter with a jackass crew filming on-location in Florida, Tim offered up the services of Team Pain, the working title for his carpenter operation that has built wooden skate parks and ramps around the globe. To our good fortune, he even went so far as to extend the hospitable invitation to transform a secluded portion of his lakeside property in Orlando into a “blunderland” of plywood structures dedicated to wrecking oneself (including a “human slingshot” that he promised would work).

Needless to say, we were genuinely intrigued and Jeff Tremaine set to work on planning an elaborately devious experiment where the whole cast would be assembled together for the first time ever, the idea being to create a highly competitive nucleus and generate fodder for the second and third seasons of jackass.

Around the same time as this extraganza was being planned, professional BMX legend and medical oddity Mat Hoffman contacted Team Pain regarding the possibility of building a gigantic loop. We’d been looking to incorporate Mat into the show in some hazardous BMX fashion, so we contacted him with the offer to pick up the tab on the construction of the loop if he would join us in Florida. Well, Mat not only agreed to give the loop a whirl in conjunction with our own plywood hi-jinks, but he one-upped us by offering to do it in a chicken suit. I guess Mat figured that if he was going to be on jackass then he might as well look the part, too.

Thus the stage was set for an event that would be nothing short of the Olympics (were the global jock fest left to the wide-eyed minds of those branded by the immortal stunts of Evel Knievel during the decade of the daredevil in the ’70s). Now all that remained to be seen was if our cast would cooperate with this bold vision. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the mass gathering at Tim Payne’s compound—sounds like a great place for a “Jim Jones Kool-Aid Challenge,” doesn’t it?—so at my request Dimitry Elyashkevich provided a firsthand account of the gay old time had by all the cast and crew at Camp Pain:

“On January 16, 2001, the entire cast was assembled in Orlando, FL. Master ramp builder Tim Payne had created what cast members referred to as “Death Camp,” but for standards’ sake we decided it would be best to change the name to “Camp Pain.” The site was complete with a full plywood loop, a giant roll-in ramp, a teeter-totter, and a human slingshot—all of which were aimed into a lake. So if there was a body available, there was a way to get that body into the water (and hopefully in one piece).

“We were at the site for three straight days with the first being dedicated entirely to the loop. Only a handful of skateboarders have negotiated a full loop successfully, the most popular and media-friendly being Tony Hawk, but this time around it was built especially for BMX rider Mat Hoffman. Mat is the closest thing to the Terminator as any human would want to be, since he’s half comprised of metal as a result of breaking every bone in his body at least once. And just in case Mat didn’t get hurt trying the loop, we had Johnny Knoxville, Ryan Dunn, and Steve-O working the drop-mats that were supposed to cushion Mat’s slams but instead were used to drop on top of him or sandwich his head against the loop.

“The next day was devoted to rolling down a big wooden ramp into a lake. Everyone had their own unique way of getting from the top of the ramp to the bottom of the lake: Chris Pontius as “Chief Roberts” on a horsey, Dave England as the “Human Tricycle,” Steve-O in a red wagon, and so on. Knoxville was determined to make it down the ramp on a skateboard, but we all knew that wasn’t going to happen because a raw piece of bacon has a better chance of standing on a skateboard than he does. Guch showed everyone up, though, by going down on everyone else’s ride in perfect form doing flips and spins, but the cast did a great job of breaking themselves just trying to reach the lake. Besides, what’s funnier: some guy doing a 360 on a toy horse into a lake, or some guy in leopard print Speedos losing half the skin on his ass after falling off a red wagon? In this business, slams are way better than makes.

“After a full day of launching into the lake and nearly wiping out the entire cast, we decided to call it quits…only to return the next day and give it one last shot. The limits of heterosexuality were once again tested when the ramp was turned into a giant slippery slide and various cast members took turns sliding down on whatever props were lying around. When they tired of that, they simply rode each other down while holding hands. This was a very dangerous and demanding shoot, but at the end of the day everyone was proud of a job well done and that much more familiar with each others’ bodies.” —Dimitry Elyashkevich

(photo by Dimitry Elyashkevich; Orlando, FL; 2001)