By April MacIntyre Nov 14, 2011, 23:34 GMT
Texas testosterone served up with a side of modern day swagger; meet the Knights of Mayhem, National Geographic Channel's pretty wild new docu-series that brings the contact sport of yore into the limelight once again.
Enter full-metal armor professional jousting as a competitive sport. The former actors of past Renaissance fairs have taken a gamble that people will pay to see them gallop at full speed, hitting their opponents with long hemlock lances that can impale and even penetrate brains via the eye socket, one of the most common ways to die doing this. Good times!
Alpha bull Charlie Andrews leads the Knights of Mayhem, betting his farm (literally) on the medieval pastime that he hopes to turn into a professional sports phenomenon that will end his money worries.
The men, all Type-A alpha males, wear 150 pounds of metal armor; they mount huge meaty horses and charge at each other with these long lances which can splinter and break violently, causing all sorts of horrific injury.
This he-man sport series premieres November 15 on National Geographic Channel.
Andrews is matched by his Black Knight, Patrick Lambke, who is something out of central casting for a man who loves to dress like Black Bart. The two are like male walruses on a beach battling it out for the affections of all the sea cows.
Entertaining, eye rolling at times (the dialogue spit out by Andrews is excessively aggro), but never dull.
Side note: Years ago in the mid-1980's at University of Houston, I observed the Urban Animals who put on annual jousts with punks on roller skates in armor (mostly fabricated from boxes and leather) who did this without the horses. Perhaps Texas is an alt universe where jousting is part of the culture. Never saw it anywhere else.
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