Giving the daredevil his due

Day Two into the new finds us “Celebrating a Deathday,” for ‘twas on January 2, 2019 when death- defying stuntman Super Dave Osborne left our earthly orbit. Born the son of a car park attendant and actress mum on November 20, 1942 in Indian Wells, California, Stewart David Osborne began defying death as a young lad, leaping from tall buildings—flat-roofed grammar schools—in single bounds. He was later university bound to ply his roundball skills but, alas, discovered white men cannot jump without the aid of a proper catapulting device. After college, Super Dave entered a fast lane of a different sort, enjoying—which is to say, enduring with great shame—a foray into advert copywriting—before Chuck Tayloring it all and turning briefly to law enforcement as a traffic patrolman, where he discovered his talentry for handling a motorbike at great speed. He partnered with ball-capped impresario Fuji Hakayito and commenced to placing himself in all manner of dangerous situations at the Super Dave Compound, where flip-flopped, tank-topped audiences held their collective, menthol-cigarette-tinged breath whilst the great one was dropped from cranes, shot from cannons, pile-driven into the pavement, harpooned in deep water, mauled by circus animals, smashed by trucks, set aflame and Whammo’d in the nutsack, yet he would unfailingly prevail with his trademark “thumbs up,” a mark that Mark Zuckerburger conveniently hitched his sin wagon to. Super Dave was briefly upstaged by one Evil-Eyed Knievel—who appropriated the star-studded red, white & blue ensemble, ‘long with many a high-flying antic—but there would be no equaling ole’ SD, who was idolized ‘round the globe. Whilst we have it on authority, sadly, that the great one left building on this day in history, we take comfort in our undying belief that we’ve not seen the last of this crash-helmeted survivor and remain hopeful for an encore performance. Until then, GodSpeedo, Super Dave Osborne. Gone with Dispirit at 76.