So I been fucking with Bear Grylls for a little bit now, and dude's real ill. Yea, that's him drinking turtle blood. Rad. But every time I bring up Man Vs Wild in conversation, people tell me that Survivorman is sort of sonning the game with his camera work and all that. To bring those up to speed:
"Man Vs. Wild" with Bear Grylls -
The show always opens with Bear sky diving into some fucked up place that you don't want to be in without really high tech survival blah blah....tent, the proper attire for the climate, cooking gear, matches, toilet paper (or baby wipes for those who know what time it really is). It's interchangeable each time sorta - he either assures us "all I've got is a knife, canteen, and a flint for making fire" or "all I've got is a knife and canteen." Basically he's always got his knife, but not always a flint. Then for two days and two nights, he rolls around trying to make it back to civilization explaining how he's finding his way, what vegetation he can eat, do's and don'ts, etc. Highlights are when he finds dead animals that he'll either eat if they're newly dead, or skin and use the fur for warmth if he's in a cold climate. I was sold when he drank his own piss, when he shaved down a stick to make it more aerodynamic so he could throw it at a rabbit's head,
and, of course, when he held elephant shit over his face to let the moisture run down into his mouth to drink. Impressive. All the time - he's doing it in a charming english accent - making it really awesome every time he says "diarrhea" - which is a lot. And dude's amped! Every time he finds fresh drinkable water - you'd think he just walked into the Victoria's Secret Choose Your Own Blowjob Room. Needless to say - I'm a fan - dude's got my vote. But then, on the other hand, there's...
"Survivorman" with Les Stroud.
Les will get things rolling by being helicoptered in to some remote ass place - eg the top of the mountain with an elevation of 6200 ft. My man's carrying some heavy shit too - a bag full of camera equipment, pocket knife (or multi-tool), and one new piece of survival equipment that he experiments with every show.... yada yada yada. Big difference, though, is that Les is going to be wandering around for a week rather than two days - and that's the case for every episode. Along the trip, Les stocks up on berries and shit like that, from what I've seen he's not into hunting too much. Thing is it's just Les up there - he doesn't have a small camera crew with him. So every shot is one that Les has set up for himself, walking away from the camera into large pastures, scaling down mountain sides, etc. Pretty impressive, as in some cases he'll maybe have to climb down a large pile of rocks, set up the camera, climb back up and then down again just to get the shot of his descent. Pretty ballsy. When he's made a sufficient camp somewhere, he'll go through his supplies and maybe do something sort of cool like break a spare camera and use the lens to start a fire or smash a video cassette and use the tape to bind together logs for his shelter. During this time he'll keep a signal fire going so the chopper that dropped him off seven days prior can find him and pick him up.
AND METHINKS:
Bear is sonning the living shit out of Les. Sorry. Bottom line. Camera work shmamera work - I'm not looking to give a guy a props for doing everything twice because he's on his own. Fuck that. Drink your own piss or eat the meat off a freshly killed emu carcass and give me a ring. Bear's simply got it on lock. He's got the ill English accent, dude's psyched all of the time, he'll rip off material from his shirt, piss on it and then wrap it around his head to keep cool, I mean come on....
Les talks non stop about his camera gear, eats way too many berries and doesn't talk about it in a charming fuckin accent.....yea I said it - I think dude's accent is mad charming and shit.....the shelters he builds suck, and to top it off the whole time I'm watching I'm thinking to myself 'this asshole looks a lot like DJ Shadow' and that shit bothers me.
And the guy's name is Bear Grylls. Come on. Really?!?!?
