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Rafe and Phil spent an entire year in an RV traveling
the U.S. and all they brought back was ...
Tales from the Tiltboys:
Today’s adventure: The Ultimate Sports Adventure
starring: rafe furst and phil gordon
A few years ago – I think it was in 2001 –
Phil Gordon and I were traveling the wilds of darkest
Africa. It was a tempestuous time in our lives, both
of us braving the wilderness in the name of adventure,
unaware where it would take us. Somewhere along that
crooked and unmarked path, perhaps near the mist of
Victoria Falls, Phil turned to me and said, in an ominous
tone, “If we make it out of Africa alive, there
will be nothing left to conquer.” While I was
reflecting gloomily on this prospect, Phil said something
that I will never, ever forget. He said, ‘Rafe…
unless… of course… we do what no man has
done since the beginning of history… we take an
RV across America!’
“Alas!” said I. “I believe we are
too late. From the days of covered wagons, people without
jobs, and those unwanted wherever they called home,
have been making that journey.
“An RV. Yes. Indeed a noble trip to stir our
loins after conquering the African continent, but not
a trip that will exalt us to the ranks of Lewis and
Clark,” I thought.
But what Phil was about to tell me, I swear, I would
not have dreamt if I had dreamt 1,000 dreams under the
stars that shine on the lonely Serengeti. He said, “But
Rafe, we will attend every sporting event across the
country!”
It struck me like a shitszu fired from a cannon –
Eureka! “Sporting events! All across the country!”
YES, this was the adventure I was looking for all my
life… Sports, sports betting, right there in front
of me, but so close I never saw it! Maybe it was the
chill of the African night; maybe it was the cheap African
beer, but at that very moment, I stared Phil in the
eye and said, ‘Yes brother, Sign-Me-Up!’
During the hours that followed, we toiled to devise
our plan. We drank more beer and we schemed; dear God,
did we scheme! The plan would include a tricked-out
motor home, a vehicle worthy of “Pimp My Trailer
Park”. We would whore our Kentucky condo in logos,
and get sponsors to pay for our gas and our beer! Yes,
a plan: free gas and beer – oh what a plan!
Next, we needed a name for our adventure. A name that
could be said in many tongues for many generations.
What would we call this ultimate sports adventure? …Another
can of beer …and as if by divine inspiration…we
would call it… The Ultimate Sports Adventure.
Our preparation began immediately. We were up against
the pending deadline of Super Bowl 2002, hovering just
nine months away. Getting an RV would be no easy task.
Childbirth takes nine months too, but this wasn’t
a mother’s job. We had to get an RV, buy enough
African beer for the journey, and learn to use a teeny,
tiny, porta-potty while driving 90 miles per hour in
our pimped-out hillbilly hotel. We needed to train,
and train we did. For months we took turns squirting
into an 8-inch porta-potty, ducttaped to the back of
a quad bike. Morning and night we toiled, trying not
to pee on the seat. Frustration took hold and rattled
our nerves as we peed on the seat, on our shoes, into
our underwear and onto each other. But finally, we achieved
the highest level of Zen urination, the black belt of
toilet training.
With the toilet conquered, it was time to take on a
different Bowl – the Super Bowl in San Diego.
Super Bowl 2002 will be forever known as the historical
home of our 50,000-mile tailgating adventure. We spent
360 days and nights living the American Dream. We attended
every major sporting event from ocean to shining ocean,
eating only the food on our back, or that which we could
run over; drinking only beverages that came from tin
cans, or were imported from African breweries; and,
most importantly, meeting every overly enthusiastic,
belly-painted, twobeer- can-hat-wearing, banner-just-to-get-on-TV
sports fan that called the vast expanse between the
Atlantic and Pacific his home. The Super Bowl, the World
Series, the World Series of Poker, the Stanley Cup,
the Masters, the NBA Finals, the Little League World
Series, the National Ping Pong Championships and the
World Free Diving Championships were only just a few
tolls and hundreds of gallons of fossil fuels away.
And we drank them all in like sweet Milwaukee wine.
Don’t for one minute think that this trip was
easy, and for the love of God, please never take on
an epic journey like this without years of training.
The deck is always stacked against you when you go from
stadium to stadium. You can rely on no one, not even
the family that suckled you from infancy. That’s
right dear reader, even our families bet the under –
taking odds that we would ultimately be found in a Nevada
desert, either passed out with only our stolen Bellagio
bath towels to keep us warm; or worse, in Alaska, eating
one another’s flesh and sharing Eskimo wives –
all within a scant three months. Yes, it’s true
- our families all took the under.
But we persevered. The secret to our sanity was found
through the lessons of hard knocks. Truth be told, the
madness of those that we met kept us going. While you’re
on the road, you don’t meet people that use a
supermarket, go to Bed, Bath and Beyond, or drink Caramel
Frappacinos. No… you meet the others. The people
that steal women’s dirty underwear from coin-op
laundry mats, outcasts, those that cheat at poker…
and you can never, ever, get too close, or you’ll
risk an eternity of frostbite, chopped up in one of
their basement freezers.
“What?” I hear you ask. “What be
the moral of your tale?” The truth is that work
may stink, living in a trailer doesn’t smell very
nice after a few months either, but free African beer
makes life worth living.
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