SOUTH AFRICA
BEYOND THE ORDINARY
SWAZILAND’S BUSHFIRE FESTIVAL
Kicking up some serious dance dust over the border
“WE ARGUE ALL THE TIME”
ALASKAN COAST GUARD, the toughest rescue swimmers on the entire planet
9 772079 428009
48 hours with the
READY, FIGHT!
Compton’s console Street Fighter king
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ROUGH SEAS
The Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ recipe for success
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THE WORLD OF RED BULL
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PEAK PERFORMANCE
Long-distance runner Karl Meltzer is on a mission – to break the speed record for the Appalachian Trail
WELCOME
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“The most beautiful thing you can wear is confidence”
JUSTIN BASTIEN (COVER), SCOTT G TOEPFER, SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT
This month, The Red Bulletin is all about getting in tune with your environment, whether that’s extreme or isolated, peaceful or pounding to the beat of EDM. We send writer and pioneer for social change Niren Tolsi to Swaziland’s Bushfire Festival for a different kind of party, members of Alaska’s Coast Guard reveal how they take on the world’s most brutal seas, and US ultrarunner Karl Meltzer tells us about his third record attempt on the arduous Appalachian Trail. On a more chilled tip, actor Aaron Eckhart explains how he tunes out by taking things to backwoods basics, while in Cannes we go access-all-areas on the film festival’s party scene. As ever, it’s about location, location, location. We hope you enjoy the issue.
BLAKE LIVELY, PAGE 23
THE RED BULLETIN
SEPTEMBER 2016
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AT A GLANCE GALLERY
SAFE HANDS
Becoming a US Coast Guard rescue swimmer is gruelling. Then comes the really hard part
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GOOD SHOTS! Photos of the month
BULLEVARD 21
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INSPIRATIONS Unique talents
FEATURES 26 US Coast Guard rescue
Braving Alaska’s icy waters with the heroic swimmers of Air Station Kodiak
42 eSports’ most wanted How two pro gamers virtually punched their way to the top
64 JUSTIN BASTIEN, SYDELLE WILLOW SMITH, DAVID YELLEN, RICK RODNEY
FIRED UP
Swaziland’s Bushfire Festival: not just three days of great music and partying, but a movement for social change
50 Heroes of the month
Bass-playing legend Flea, actor Aaron Eckhart, UK rapper Lady Leshurr and actress Kristen Stewart
THE POWER OF ZEN
He may be known for playing intense, challenging roles, but Aaron Eckhart is an actor with a taste for the simple life
56 Karl Meltzer
The ultrarunner making a third attempt to break a 3,500km record
64 Bushfire Festival
There’s no party on Earth quite like Swaziland’s three-dayer
ACTION! 73
42 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON
As eSports revs up for total world domination, we sit down with two of America’s top Street Fighter players THE RED BULLETIN
79 COOL RUNNINGS
Offering both sporty thrills and comfort, the new McLaren 570GT may just be the supercar you can use for everything
SEE IT. GET IT. DO IT. The best travel,
gadgets, innovations, watches, wheels, films, music, games and events. Plus what’s on Red Bull TV this month, our cartoon, and how to never get lost 93 SPORT CUTS Athleisure essentials 98 FLASHBACK Shreddy salted BMX
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CONTRIBUTORS INSIDE THIS ISSUE SEPTEMBER 2016
WHO’S ON BOARD
NORA O’DONNELL
Meltzer will be making his third record attempt
Catching up with the running man A trail runner himself, writer Josh Dean has always been fascinated by ultrarunners. So he jumped at the opportunity to meet Karl Meltzer somewhere near Roanoke, Virginia, for the story on page 56. “He seems completely laid-back and undaunted by doing this ridiculous thing,” Dean says of Meltzer’s record attempt on the Appalachian Trail this August. Dean likes the runner’s chances – if he doesn’t get hurt. “He’ll be one stupid accident away from catastrophe basically every minute of every day.”
Airborne: Justin Bastien (left) in Alaska
The deputy editor of The Red Bulletin USA explores the explosive growth of eSports with Darryl Lewis and Alex Valle, two of America’s best Street Fighter players, who beat the odds and found success. Page 42.
NIREN TOLSI
A co-founder of theconmag.co.za, journalist Tolsi’s areas of expertise include social justice, protest, the constitutional court and, every so often, music and culture. He reports on the Bushfire Festival on page 64.
THE RED BULLETIN AROUND THE WORLD The Red Bulletin is available in 10 countries. This cover, featuring B-Boy Damien Demon, is from this month’s French edition. Read more: redbulletin.com
IN FOCUS BEHIND THE LENS
“I hammered my kit. But it was worth it” JUSTIN BASTIEN, PHOTOGRAPHER Los Angeles-based adventure photographer Justin Bastien has a background in rock climbing, but we sent him off to the waves of the North Pacific to board a helicopter and shoot the US Coast Guard’s rescue swimmers in Kodiak, Alaska. See his work on page 26.
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THE RED BULLETIN
Editorial Director Robert Sperl Editor-in-Chief Alexander Macheck Editor-at-Large Boro Petric Creative Director Erik Turek Art Directors Kasimir Reimann, Miles English Photo Director Fritz Schuster Production Editor Marion Wildmann Managing Editor Daniel Kudernatsch Editors Stefan Wagner (Chief Copy Editor), Ulrich Corazza, Arek Piatek, Andreas Rottenschlager; Contributors: Muhamed Beganovic, Werner Jessner, Martina Powell, Clemens Stachel, Florian Wörgötter Web Kurt Vierthaler (Senior Web Editor), SchinSu Bae, Christian Eberle, Vanda Gyuris, Inmaculada Sánchez Trejo, Andrew Swann, Christine Vitel Design Marco Arcangeli, Marion Bernert-Thomann, Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Kevin Goll, Carita Najewitz Photo Editors Rudi Übelhör (Deputy Photo Director), Marion Batty, Ellen Haas, Eva Kerschbaum, Tahira Mirza
THE RED BULLETIN South Africa, ISSN 2079-4282 Editor Louis Raubenheimer Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Country Project and Sales Management Andrew Gillett Advertisement Sales Andrew Gillett, andrew.gillett@za.redbull.com Printed by CTP Printers, Duminy Street, Parow-East, Cape Town 8000 Subscriptions Subscription price R228, for 12 issues/year, www.getredbulletin.com, subs@za.redbull.com Mailing Address PO Box 50303, Waterfront, 8002 South Africa Office South Wing, Granger Bay Court, Beach Road, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town 8001 +27 (0) 21 431 2100
THE RED BULLETIN Austria, ISSN 1995-8838 Editor Ulrich Corazza Proof Reading Hans Fleißner Country Project Management Thomas Dorer, Lukas Scharmbacher Advertisement Sales Alfred Vrej Minassian (manager), Thomas Hutterer, Corinna Laure, anzeigen@at.redbulletin.com
Illustrator Dietmar Kainrath Publisher Franz Renkin Advertising Placement Andrea Loprais Creative Solutions Eva Locker (manager), Verena Schörkhuber Country Management and Marketing Stefan Ebner (manager), Thomas Dorer, Manuel Otto, Kristina Trefil, Sara Varming Marketing Design Peter Knehtl (manager), Simone Fischer, Alexandra Hundsdorfer, Mathias Schwarz
THE RED BULLETIN France, ISSN 2225-4722 Editor Pierre-Henri Camy Country Co-ordinator Christine Vitel Proof Reading Audrey Plaza Country Project and Sales Management Leila Domas Advertisement Sales Cathy Martin, cathy.martin@fr.redbulletin.com
Head of Production Michael Bergmeister Production Wolfgang Stecher (manager), Walter O Sádaba, Friedrich Indich, Michael Menitz (digital) Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia Heis, Maximilian Kment, Karsten Lehmann Office Management Kristina Krizmanic, Petra Kupec IT Systems Engineer Michael Thaler Subscriptions and Distribution Peter Schiffer (manager), Klaus Pleninger (distribution), Nicole Glaser (distribution), Yoldas Yarar (subscriptions)
THE RED BULLETIN Germany, ISSN 2079-4258 Editor Arek Piatek Proof Reading Hans Fleißner Country Channel Management Christian Baur, Sophie Herkommer Advertisement Sales Martin Olesch, martin.olesch@de.redbulletin.com
General Manager and Publisher Wolfgang Winter Global Editorial Office Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna Phone +43 1 90221-28800 Fax +43 1 90221-28809 Web redbulletin.com Red Bull Media House GmbH Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Directors Christopher Reindl, Andreas Gall
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THE RED BULLETIN Ireland, ISSN 2308-5851 Editor Ruth Morgan Associate Editor Tom Guise, Justin Hynes Music Editor Florian Obkircher Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Advertisement Sales Deirdre Hughes, redbulletin@richmondmarketing.com
THE RED BULLETIN Mexico, ISSN 2308-5924 Editor Luis Alejandro Serrano Associate Editors Marco Payán, Inmaculada Sánchez Trejo Proof Reading Alma Rosa Guerrero Country Project and Sales Management Helena Campos, Giovana Mollona Advertisement Sales Rodrigo Luna, rodrigo.luna@mx.redbull.com Humberto Amaya Bernard, humberto.amayabernard@mx.redbull.com
THE RED BULLETIN Switzerland, ISSN 2308-5886 Editor Arek Piatek Proof Reading Hans Fleißner Country Channel Management Antonio Gasser Product Management Melissa Stutz Advertisement Sales Marcel Bannwart, marcel.bannwart@ch.redbull.com
THE RED BULLETIN South Korea, ISSN 2465-7948 Editor Jung-Suk You Deputy Editor Bon-Jin Gu Publishing Director Michael Lee Advertisement Sales Hong-Jun Park, hjpark@kayamedia.com
THE RED BULLETIN United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894 Editor Ruth Morgan Associate Editor Tom Guise, Justin Hynes Music Editor Florian Obkircher Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Country Project and Sales Management Sam Warriner Advertisement Sales Mark Bishop, mark.bishop@uk.redbull.com
THE RED BULLETIN USA, ISSN 2308-586X Editor Andreas Tzortzis Deputy Editor Nora O’Donnell Copy Chief David Caplan Director of Publishing and Advertising Sales Nicholas Pavach Country Project Management Melissa Thompson Advertisement Sales Los Angeles: Dave Szych, dave.szych@us.redbull.com New York: Regina Dvorin, reggie.dvorin@us.redbullmediahouse.com
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GALLERY
ISLAND LIFE SANTORINI, GREECE PHOTOGRAPHY: RONNY SKEVIS
When BMX rider Panagiotis Manaras invited his friend and fellow BMX pro Sergio Layos to join him on an island-hopping tour of his home country, Layos jumped at the chance. This is Layos riding a ramp in the middle of a vineyard on Santorini for Manaras’s 247 project. “To ride a bike with a top rider like Sergio, is in itself really awesome. When you do it on four of the most beautiful Aegean islands, it simply becomes a dream come true,” says Manaras. instagram.com/panosmanaras
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RONNY SKEVIS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
WET, WET, WET DEAN TREML/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
LE MANS, FRANCE PHOTOGRAPHY: DEAN TREML
June 2016 was one of the wettest starts to a European summer since records began, and France didn’t escape. After a deluge 30 minutes before the start, the 84th Le Mans 24-hour race got underway behind the safety car for the first time in it’s history. More rain and safety cars followed (pictured is a procession winding its way through the Descente Chapelle), until one of the most dramatic finishes imaginable. With three minutes to go, it looked like Toyota were set to take their first victory at Le Mans. Then a power loss sidelined the TS050 Hybrid, leaving the way clear for a record 18th overall win for Porsche. lemans.org
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SWELL GUYS HAWAII, USA PHOTOGRAPHY: BRIAN BIELMANN
Outrigger canoe paddling places emphasis on teamwork, courage and tradition, qualities the men of the Red Bull Wa’a Hawaiian outrigger canoe team know all about. To prove their mastery of the sport, they recently took first place at the Hawaiian Airlines Liberty Challenge in New York. “It’s always different out there, with the swells, the wind, the currents. You never know what you’re going to see,” says Daniel Kekua Chun, the team’s steersman. redbull.com
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BRIAN BIELMANN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
© Red Bull Content Pool
BEYOND THE ORDINARY
SOUTH AFRICA
BEYOND THE ORDINARY
THIS IS NO TAKE-OFF IT’S A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME LANDING
SWAZILAND’S BUSHFIRE FESTIVAL
Kicking up some serious dance dust over the border
“WE ARGUE ALL THE TIME”
48 hours with the
ALASKAN COAST GUARD, the toughest rescue swimmers on the entire planet
READY, FIGHT!
Compton’s console Street Fighter king
00816
„IT‘S THE THRILL OF THE CHASE.“ 9 772079 428009
ROUGH SEAS
The Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ recipe for success
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THE HOME OF PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE, ENTERTAIN, EDUCATE, INNOVATE
STAR POWER EDGAR RAMÍREZ HAS RISEN TO BECOME KING OF THE HOLLYWOOD RING WITHOUT SHOWING EGO OR FORGETTING WHERE HE CAME FROM
JOHN RUSSO/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES
Acting was only meant to be a hobby for Edgar Ramírez, who turned down film offers to complete his studies and pursue a career in international diplomacy. But his true passion won out, and a series of roles in thrillers and action movies – Domino, The Bourne Ultimatum, Vantage Point, Zero Dark Thirty, a terrific lead turn in Carlos, and upcoming releases The Girl On The Train and Gold – have kept him busy. There’s more to Ramírez than muscle and menace, though; he speaks five languages and uses his fame for good, raising awareness of humanitarian issues in his birthplace of Venezuela and elsewhere. In new movie Hands Of Stone, he stars as Roberto Duran, the boxer who was reported to have quit a title fight with the words, “No mas” (no more). We can, however, expect much more from this 39-year-old with a talent for tackling big-screen roles and real-world problems.
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BULLEVARD 2016 The animal-loving, genderfluid 23-year-old is a pillar of modern pop culture: top 20 on Instagram, top 25 on Twitter, 55th on Facebook, a committed social activist. Next up is a role in Woody Allen’s Amazon TV series and, possibly, marriage to long-term lover Liam Hemsworth. The former child star has survived – and thrived – on her own terms.
2001 When your father is country music star Billy Ray Cyrus, your godmother country music megastar Dolly Parton, and your birth name Destiny Hope because your parents predict big things for your future, it’s no surprise that a theatre trip to see Mamma Mia! ends with you telling Dad that you want to be an actress. So begins an eight-year-old (born November 23, 1992) girl’s journey to stardom.
2015 “As long as you’re not hurting anyone, your choices are your choices,” Cyrus tells Paper magazine, for whom she is pictured nude. A fifth studio album, the experimental Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz – made for just $50,000, outside her contract – is released online for free. Critically divisive, it reflects her refusal to curb her creative impulse.
2003 Little Destiny Cyrus bags a small role in the Tim Burton movie Big Fish. Far from moulding another identikit child star, singing and acting lessons have tapped a source of natural talent and charisma. The following year, while trying out for a TV show, Cyrus – nicknamed Miley by her family, from ‘Smiley’ – proves she has a killer work ethic, too. “I auditioned forever. At first, they said I was too small and too young,” she later says.
2014
HOW I GOT HERE FROM WINSOME CHILD STAR TO HARD-TWERKING, FLESH-BARING SOCIAL ACTIVIST: MILEY CYRUS HAS BECOME A TRUE POP ICON BY WAY OF SHEER SELF-BELIEF AND FEARLESSNESS
How to top last year’s Twitter-twatting twerking? Send a homeless man to collect your VMA for Best Video (Wrecking Ball, of course). Unfortunately, the man has a probation violation outstanding; Cyrus bemoans the media ignoring the youth homelessness issue. Elsewhere, colleges start offering courses in her.
2012
That show, Disney’s Hannah Montana, in which Cyrus plays a regular(ish) girl who’s secretly a pop idol, is an instant success. Cyrus becomes tabloid fodder, but somehow keeps her focus, saying, “Right now, I want to be my own person.” It’s around this time she tells her mum she’s pansexual. A decade on, LGBT youth charities are among the many causes she champions on social media.
Four seasons of Hannah, three studio albums, two Hannah films: Cyrus is the number one teen star on the planet – arguably of all-time – with reported earnings of $120 million. Child performers have always had to grow up in the public eye, but in the age of social media it’s doubly hard. Following tattoos and break-ups (ie, normal teen behaviour), the knives are out: will Cyrus ‘do a Britney’ or, worse still, ‘a Lindsay’?
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2013 The year of the hip-hopinfluenced album Bangerz; nakedness in the Wrecking Ball video and on the cover of Rolling Stone; twerking with Robin Thicke at the MTV VMAs (which prompts a record-breaking number of tweets); smoking a joint at the MTV Europe Music Awards; saying weed and MDMA are “happy” drugs. But this is no meltdown. “I know what I’m doing,” she tells Rolling Stone. “I know I’m shocking you.”
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TIM MÖLLER-KAYA
2011
SONY, GETTY IMAGES(3)
2006
Videos of acoustic covers showcasing terrific vocal skills start appearing on YouTube, and a haircut changes everything. “There’s something about having no hair that screams being confident,” she says. “People think short hair, they think tomboy. Everyone said that I was a lesbian… [but] being a lesbian is a compliment more than what else they call me.” Haters keep hating, Cyrus keeps on winning.
BULLEVARD
GO HARD
COLUMBIA PICTURES
BLAKE LIVELY FORGET GOSSIP GIRL’S HANDBAGS, IT’S THE TOUGHEST ROLES THIS 28-YEAR-OLD WANTS Blake Lively, former star of TV series Gossip Girl, is a versatile actress, having played complex roles for directors Oliver Stone, Ben Affleck and Woody Allen. This coming month, she can be seen in Allen’s Café Society and, more impressively, The Shallows, in which ‘surfer trapped on rock battles great white shark’ isn’t just the pitch, it’s the entire movie. Lively was inspired by husband Ryan Reynolds’ solo turn in man-in-coffin thriller Buried. “That was one of the reasons I wanted to take on this movie,” she told Entertainment Weekly, “because I know how tough it was for him.” Deadpool v Lively in the water – a very 21st-century battle of the sexes.
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“IF YOU HAVE SELF-CONFIDENCE, GOOD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU” 23
BULLEVARD
6.1
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MICHEL BOUREZ
THE TAHITIAN PRO SURFER WAS GIVEN HIS NICKNAME, ‘THE SPARTAN’, BY FELLOW PROS IMPRESSED BY HIS HEROIC PHYSIQUE. BOUREZ’S FITNESS PHILOSOPHY IS SIMPLE: USE THE WATER, THE BEACH AND THE LOCAL DELICACIES AVAILABLE
THE HEIGHT IN METRES OF THE TALLEST WAVE HE’S CONQUERED Bourez encountered this giant wall of saltwater – “easily a 20-footer” – in Mexico. But the most dangerous wave is the one he faces most: Teahupo’o, off Tahiti, where he lives. “An eight-footer there could be as strong as a 15-footer elsewhere,” he says, “so surfing it requires a change of mind-set.” The 30-year-old copes with challenges by viewing them as hurdles to overcome, and sees his sport as a “long, slow race” best run by constantly learning new things.
THE NUMBER OF TIMES HE EATS EACH DAY: THREE PROPER MEALS AND TWO SELF-MADE FRUIT SMOOTHIES “In Tahiti, we eat a lot of veggies, rice and fruit, so that’s automatically healthy,” says Bourez. His nutrition plan has one rule: listen. “To get better, you have to listen to your body. My body tells me what it wants, and I give it exactly that.” This usually means eating a “super-light” breakfast, a big lunch and a light evening meal, with smoothies in between, so that “the goodness goes into my system quicker”.
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VITAL STATISTICS Discipline Surfer Age 30 Height 1.75m Weight 75kg Roll of honour WSL (formerly ASP) World Championship Tour since 2009; highest overall rank, fifth, 2014. Two event wins, at Margaret River (Australia) and Rio (Brazil). ASP European Champion, 2006
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THE NUMBER OF TURNS HE MANAGES ON THE LONGEST COMPETITION WAVE “Competition surfing isn’t about standing on a board for the most time,” says Bourez, “it’s about how many turns you can do on a wave.” At Australia’s Rip Curl Pro, he performs up to eight turns on the long, low wave (elsewhere, three is standard). To build up the agility to whip through the moves, he sprints on the sand and does stretching workouts: “A lot of pushing and turning the body, so it can move quickly and in balance.”
THE NUMBER OF HOURS OF JU-JITSU HE DOES EVERY FEBRUARY BEFORE COMPETING In February, before the WSL World Championship Tour begins, Bourez does three hard weeks of training, including two-hour ju-jitsu sessions every evening. “I see a lot of similarity with surfing,” he says. “When you’re in trouble, you need to remain calm and look for an exit. It’s the same in ju-jitsu.”
FITNESS TRACKER THE HOTTEST THINGS IN HEALTH
THE APP SLEEPCYCLE
You can only start to live well if you sleep well, and stats say we generally don’t. This app monitors sleep patterns (sound and movement) to wake you with an alarm only during light sleep, so you feel most rested. sleepcycle.com
THE TECH KITO+
A phone case/health tracker that measures blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, heart rate, breathing, and gives you an ECG. There’s also an app to analyse the data. Downside: for iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s and 6s Plus only. azoi.com
THE WORKOUT MAN-MADE MUSCLE
One of 2016’s trends is building strength and muscle without equipment. Pilates, calisthenics and bodyweight routines are back; next month’s Battle Of The Bars 16 in Las Vegas are the unofficial no-kit fitness world champs. worldcalisthenics.org
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TREVOR MORAN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
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SAY WHAT? DON’T BE BEATEN BY NEGATIVE THOUGHTS: MAKE YOUR FEARS AND DOUBTS YOUR SECRET WEAPONS BY HEEDING THE WISE WORDS OF THESE POSITIVE THINKERS Venus told me the other day that champions don’t get nervous in tight situations. That really helped me a lot. I decided I shouldn’t get nervous, and just do the best I can” SERENA WILLIAMS, QUEEN OF THE TENNIS COURT
“In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better”
MUHAMMAD ALI, BOXING LEGEND. RIP
TAYLOR SWIFT, POP MUSIC PHENOMENON
“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. It’s not the absence of fear, it’s overcoming it. Sometimes you have to blast through” EMMA WATSON, GRADUATE WIZARD AND ACTRESS
DWAYNE JOHNSON, ROCK-HARD ACTOR
NIKE, SARAH BARLOW, PICTUREDESK.COM, GETTY IMAGES (5)
“A lot of people live in fear because they haven’t figured out how [they’re] going to react when faced with a certain set of circumstances. I’ve come to terms with this by looking deeply into whatever makes me fearful – what are the key elements that get the hairs up on the back of my neck – and then figuring out what I can do about it” CHRIS HADFIELD, THE REAL-LIFE MAJOR TOM
EXPAND YOUR NETWORK FOLLOW, LIKE AND RETWEET YOUR WAY TO A SMARTER MONTH
YODA, JEDI MASTER
CLICKHOLE twitter.com/clickhole
“All that ever holds somebody back, I think, is fear. For a minute, I had fear… [then] I went into the [dressing] room and shot my fear in the face” LADY GAGA, POKER-FACED SINGER
“I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today”
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“ I hated every minute of training, but I said [to myself], ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’”
“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering”
From the makers of The Onion, the funniest thing on Web 1.0, comes this hilarious parody of the clickbait on Web 2.0, including lame listicles, over-promising headlines, dull videos (eg, ‘Adorable! Watch This 8-Year-Old Slowly Realise His Dad’s Not All That Special’) and unrevealing surveys ‘Would A Horse Think Highly Of You?’).
VISUBAL instagram.com/visubal
See football at its finest – or certainly its bestlooking – in a collection of the beautiful game’s most beautiful images and moments. From high-gloss portraits of top pros to fan-shot match footage, the stream of eye candy here is steady and impressive. The training videos could help you improve your game, too.
THE WIRECUTTER facebook.com/ thewirecutter
Incredibly thorough analysis of tech and gadgets, geared towards an active lifestyle. To discover the best waterproof camera, for example, The Wirecutter enlisted a National Geographic cameraman. If you’re thinking of buying new kit for your next adventure, you need to spend some time here.
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THEY BATTLE WAVES THE SIZE OF A HOUSE TO SAVE THE LIVES OF THE SHIPWRECKED, AND FLY MISSIONS IN FEROCIOUS STORMS OVER THE BERING SEA. BUT THE RESCUE SWIMMERS FROM THE ALASKA COAST GUARD HAVE LEARNED HOW TO BREEZE THROUGH EVEN THE MOST TESTING WORKING DAY WORDS: ANDREAS ROTTENSCHLAGER PHOTOGRAPHY: JUSTIN BASTIEN
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Rescue swimmer Jon Kreske off the coast of Kodiak Island, Alaska: “Even the best training is only a pale shadow of what’s to come”
TRAINING AT RESCUE SWIMMER SCHOOL IS MERCILESS: IN SOME CLASSES, EVERYONE FAILS The quickest way to get to the scene of the action: a Coast Guard rescue swimmer leaps from a helicopter
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“THE SHIP HAD ALREADY SUNK. ITS CREW WAS SCATTERED OVER A MILE OF OCEAN” A flight mechanic (right) onboard the MH-65 Dolphin. The rescue teams fly hundreds of kilometres out into the Pacific
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THE RESCUE SWIMMERS IN KODIAK COVER AN AREA THE SIZE OF EUROPE Training off Kodiak Island: a US Coast Guard flight mechanic and his colleague in a dinghy check the guiding line
laska, 8am: it’s a chilly May morning, and rescue swimmer O’Brien StarrHollow stands in front of the US Coast Guard base in Kodiak, squinting at the sun, which sits low in the sky. Survival training is due to start in a few minutes. “We’re practising the Star Run,” says the 42-yearold, who is dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. StarrHollow is a man with the face of a boy, but the physique of a triathlete. The Star Run is a mountain course that all the Kodiak rescue swimmers must tackle. A gravel path with spruce trees on either side, it winds its way up Old Womens Mountain in narrow turns. The course ends at the town’s memorial to fallen military personnel – a five-pointed steel star. The rescue swimmers must run 400m, gaining 115m in altitude, four times in a row as a drill. It’s not uncommon to see one of the runners vomit by the time they reach the monument, yet Starr-Hollow has brought along an item of fitness equipment to today’s training session that will increase the challenge further. “It’s a mooring line,” he says, holding the frayed end in the air. “We use it to tie a cutter to the landing stage.” The rope is as thick as an anaconda, 15m long and weighs 50kg. Starr-Hollow plans to lug it along as he runs uphill. “The point of the exercise is to not give up,” he says. Starr-Hollow lifts the end of the rope up onto his shoulders and dashes off past the spruce trees, trailing it behind him like an animal’s tail. It leaves a drag mark in the gravel. This is just a morning workout for Starr-Hollow, which says a lot about the demands of his profession. As an Aviation Survival Technician with the US Coast Guard, his will and stamina might determine whether or not he makes it to the end of the day. His job is to descend from a helicopter hovering above the ocean and save all those who have got into difficulties in American waters and ended up shipwrecked. 33
Coast Guard rescue swimmers have to lug fishermen weighing 100kg and wearing slippery dry suits into rescue baskets, and battle through waves the size of a house during Arctic storms. The training that rookie rescue swimmers go through is as tough as anything else the US military has to offer, with 18 weeks of water drills at a swim school in North Carolina, followed by a seven-week course in emergency medical services. The dropout rate at the swim school is more than 50 per cent; not many can cope with the combination of endurance swimming, psychological stress and little sleep. In some classes, every recruit fails. On the hill overlooking Kodiak, Starr-Hollow is lugging his mooring line up to the monument for the second time. He’s now clutching the end of the rope in both hands, his gaze frozen on the steel star. Behind him, five other rescue swimmers are torturing themselves as they make their way up the mountain. Many of them are wiry and tenacious; some have a wrestler’s physique. Up on the hill, you have the best view of the US Coast Guard base. The white roofs of the hangars reflect the rays of the morning sun, and the dark grey ocean starts just beyond the airstrip. The water stretches as far as the eye can see. odiak Island is an hour’s flight from Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, in the North Pacific. It is a mountainous island with thick coniferous forests. Fat pick-up trucks with bull bars trundle up and down the few roads. The sportswear store in the capital, Kodiak, sells pepper spray to ward off attacks by brown bears. The Coast Guard Air Station occupies one whole bay on the east of the island. There are three hangars for helicopters and transport planes, and a huge, wood-panelled central command building. The airstrip runs right alongside the ocean. It’s the gateway to the most dangerous waters in the US. From Kodiak, rescue helicopters fly north to the Arctic Ocean, where ice floes the size of football pitches can be seen floating in the water. To the west, the Coast Guard watches over the Bering Sea, where Arctic storms transform the waves into dark blue walls. Air Station Kodiak covers an area of some 10 million km2; it’s such a large expanse that on some days there are two different weather systems within its confines. It’s 11am. Starr-Hollow heads through the helicopter hangar, having just got out of the shower. He finished his workout half an hour ago with some chin-ups. Oh, and he had the mooring line round his neck the whole time. This life suits Starr-Hollow. The son of a Navy SEAL, he grew up in Montana and studied natural resources management. While at boot camp, he played the saxophone for the Coast Guard band. He has now been flying out into the Bering Sea for eight years, longer than any other rescue swimmer on the base. The Coast Guard crews respond both day and night. If human life is on the line, they’ll go out in 34
THE BOSS ON BOARD: HELICOPTER PILOT JOHN D HESS TALKS FLIGHTS OVER THE BERING SEA, AND ANTI-PANIC MEASURES the red bulletin: How do you stay cool when you and your copter get caught in a storm over the Bering Sea? john d hess: You need at least four years’ experience as a rescue pilot to fly at Kodiak. That helps.
And if it doesn’t? Start your inner stopwatch and count to five, if there’s time. That will calm you.
How does your crew prepare for tricky missions? By critiquing each other. Even after simple manoeuvres, like recovering empty rescue baskets. Anyone who can’t take criticism puts others at risk. Can you really assess the risk in your job? Partly. We go by ‘risk vs gain’. If lives are in danger, you can take more risks. What kind of risks? Like taking more people on board. The record number is 26.
the worst weather imaginable. Pilots talk of whiteouts, where it’s snowing so hard that all the search lights will reflect is snow. From the cockpit, it looks like you’re flying through a snowball. The standard crew onboard a Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter consists of a pilot, co-pilot, flight mechanic and lifeguard. The pilot steers the copter, the co-pilot calculates fuel use, and the flight mechanic operates the rope winch at the door on the right-hand side. The lifeguard hangs on the end of a steel cable that’s as thick as a finger. “Good communication between all the members of the team is vital for survival,” Starr-Hollow explains. So, how does good communication work? “You have to treat everyone with respect. Look your colleagues in the eye. Give honest feedback.” Rescue teams operate according to a ‘just culture’ principle, a system of trust and accountability that is also used in the world of medicine. The aim is to create an environment where you can comment on mistakes without fear of punishment, in order to improve the performance of the whole team. “I recently noticed after a mission that my flashlight was broken,” StarrHollow says. “I hadn’t checked before we took off. Nobody knew of my mistake. But I brought it up at the debriefing. Admitting to a mistake is a weight off your mind. And at the same time it reminds all your colleagues to always check their flashlights.” Just culture is a great system for improving at whatever job you do, says Starr-Hollow. “Say you’ve annoyed a client because you’ve used the wrong form of address in an e-mail. If you keep silent about your mistake, the same thing might happen to your colleagues. But if you share it, then the whole team profits from the gain in knowledge.” These are the fundamental Coast Guard principles that Starr-Hollow quotes: always be ready to make demands of each other every day. Perform every task, however small, with care. Like sewing a harness, for example. “Every rescue swimmer is trained how to use a sewing machine, because we maintain the cargo parachutes for the Coast Guard,” says Starr-Hollow. And, true enough, there are four sewing machines on workbenches in the studio on the first floor of the hangar. Each of these machines has a crimson cloth cover. The bravest men in the Bering Sea have tailor-made the covers and sewn on US Coast Guard logos. THE RED BULLETIN
Rescue swimmer Jon Kreske in the training pool at the Coast Guard Air Station: “They want to see if you crack under pressure”
Pool fitness A US Coast Guard rescue swimmer has to be able to pull a person through heavy seas for 30 minutes, then get them out of the water. To ensure they’re at peak fitness, the rescue swimmers train twice a week in the pool, as well as working on their endurance.
Crash course: rescue swimmers in Kodiak show a pilot how to get out of the helicopter cockpit underwater
THE RED BULLETIN
The most valuable and important exercises for a rescue swimmer are: towing colleagues playing the role of a victim (known as ‘buddy tows’), swimming with equipment (flippers and a snorkel), and using rescue holds on survivors in a panic.
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Night shift at the Kodiak hangar: flight mechanics do maintenance on the tail unit of a Jayhawk
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KODIAK AIRBASE IN FIGURES
8,300 kilometres The distance a C130-Hercules transport aircraft can fly on a full tank. Four of them support the rescue missions
6helicopters The squadron fly MH-60T Jayhawk helicopters. They search for survivors using infrared cameras
115 metres The length of Kodiak’s Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Munro. Smaller rescue helicopters, such as the MH-65D, can land on it
187 people The number saved in 136 rescue missions in 2015
Rescue swimmer O’Brien Starr-Hollow (left) on a training run in Kodiak, carrying his 50kg mooring rope
ARE YOU PACIFIC OCEAN FIT? The minimum standards the rescue swimmers have to achieve in their monthly fitness tests are:
Outdoor fitness: the Kodiak rescue swimmers do chin-ups on the iron ladder on the side of a water tank
push-ups, 50 with arms shoulder-width apart,
in two minutes sit-ups in two minutes chin-ups (five gripping the bar from below, five from above). yard (457m) crawl in 12 minutes yard (22.8m) dive, four times in a row, with 60-second intervals yards (182m) carrying another person through water
60 10
500 25 200
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THE RED BULLETIN
own in the Air Station Kodiak pool the next day, training is taking place. Rescue swimmer Jon Kreske is sitting on the edge of the 5m dive tower, preparing to jump into the water below. He’s practising free fall from the helicopter, the quickest way to get to the scene if the rescue mission is happening in calm seas. Kreske stretches his legs out in front of him and pushes himself off the side forcefully with both hands. He lands in the water feet first. Although pool training isn’t ever going to be as extreme and potentially hazardous an experience as a real-life sea rescue, it’s still far from easy. Kreske, who is nine years younger than Starr-Hollow, still remembers swim school well. “They wake you up at 3am and make you work out for four hours,” he recalls. “Then you have to rescue six people playing accident victims in a pitchblack swimming pool. Two have stopped moving and the other four are flailing about.” A scout and competitive swimmer in his youth, Kreske has broad shoulders and an incredibly gentle voice. Despite his obvious strength, he instantly comes across as caring. How did he cope with the brutalities of rescue swimmer school? “It’s 90 per cent mental,” says Kreske. Turns out you don’t need to be a bodybuilder or be able to swim particularly fast to become a rescue swimmer. “The people training you have just one aim: they want to see if you crack under pressure.” One exercise they’ve developed to help answer this question is the “bullpen”, which is essentially a panic drill in the water. The recruit swims, with his eyes covered, towards a group of trainers, who have formed a circle at the deep end of the pool. Once the blind recruit reaches the circle, the first instructor forces his snorkel down into the water. He then throws himself on the recruit, like a panicking, drowning man, clutching his arms and pulling him down to the bottom of the pool. The recruit has to free himself from the instructor’s tight grip and then get them both safely back to the surface. Once the recruit surfaces, the next instructor ambushes him and pulls him back under the water. The attacks are repeated. Three times. Five times. Seven times. There’s no set end to the drill. “They want to see if you’ll give up,” says Kreske. Kreske didn’t give up. Instead, he developed a strategy for the long days of basic training. “I divided my working day up into sections,” says Kreske. “During the morning drills, you don’t think further ahead than breakfast. You block everything else out. At breakfast, you only think as far ahead as the end of breakfast. “After that comes your first sub-goal: getting through the first pool session. This method of dividing the days helps you complete huge tasks that, if they were tackled together, would put too much pressure on you mentally.” THE RED BULLETIN
THE EYES: MECHANIC JAYSON MARRERO TALKS ABOUT TEAMWORK IN EXTREME SITUATIONS the red bulletin: What does a flight mechanic do? jayson marrero: He’s the helicopter engineer and the pilot’s eyes at the accident site. We also winch down the rescue swimmers. That’s a difficult job here in the North Pacific.
What makes your area of operations so difficult? The remoteness and the extreme weather. In Florida, a 90kph wind is a tropical storm. In Alaska we call that a bog-standard working day. How does the extreme weather affect the teamwork on board? It means that you have to take each training session seriously. We drop rescue swimmers onto boats that are rolling on 10m waves. You need to be as well prepared as possible. Do the swimmers always want to get into the water? Of course! They’re adrenalin junkies. They bust their asses in training, week in, week out, to be fit in case of an emergency.
Kreske says his strategy works for elite training, too, and for working days that include four-hour meetings. “But even the best training is only a pale shadow of the reality,” explains Kreske. “Ask Starr-Hollow about what happened to him.” t 3am on Easter morning 2008, Starr-Hollow was asleep in a camp bed in barracks on St Paul Island, a Coast Guard outpost in the Bering Sea, approximately 1,100km west of Kodiak, when he was rudely awoken by a rescue pilot. Starr-Hollow was part of a team keeping watch from the base during the crabbing season. Eight minutes earlier, a trawler, the Alaska Ranger, had put in an SOS call. There was a leak at the ship’s bow. The Alaska Ranger was sinking 370km south of St Paul Island. Starr-Hollow leapt out of bed. “I knew right after the briefing that the situation was going to be serious,” he remembers. “In most cases, we’re rescuing crews of just three to five men from small fishing vessels. But the Alaska Ranger was a 58m trawler; there were 47 people working onboard.” Starr-Hollow had his things packed within minutes, and he and his pilot dashed to the airstrip in an SUV. It was a pitch-black night, snow was falling, and the temperature was -24°C. Once in the hangar, the pilot and co-pilot climbed into the cockpit of the Jayhawk helicopter and put on their night-vision goggles. Starr-Hollow squeezed in next to the mechanic in the hold at the back, which is no bigger than the interior of an SUV. The Jayhawk was hovering over the scene of the accident just after 5am. But there was no sign of the stricken vessel, the Alaska Ranger. “The ship had sunk,” Starr-Hollow explains. “The crew were strewn a mile wide across the ocean. All you could see were the flashing lights on their life jackets in the water. They were like the lights on a runway at night.” Starr-Hollow donned his equipment: dry suit, life jacket, radio, flares, GPS, flippers and snorkel. The Alaska Ranger’s sister vessel, the Alaska Warrior, and the US Coast Guard cutter wouldn’t arrive at the scene until an hour later. The helicopter crew were on their own and there were 47 people stranded below them in the 39
“WE’RE ALL ONLY HUMAN. WHEN IT COMES TO LIFE AND DEATH, WE ALL REACT THE SAME WAY“ Tricky work: depending on the conditions, the copter hovers between 3m and 60m above the rescue scene
RUSSIA
ALASKA
Kodiak
10 million km
CANADA
USA
2
Air Station Kodiak has the largest area of responsibility of all 17 US Coast Guard districts. The crews fly west as far as the maritime border with Russia, north into the Arctic Ocean, and as far south as the 50th parallel north. Typical missions include answering SOS calls from the fishing fleet off Alaska, and rescue operations on the high seas.
water. According to the instruction manual, there’s enough room in the helicopter’s hold for five survivors. Or, in case of an emergency, as many as you can somehow squeeze onboard. The mechanic started the winch and clicked the metal hook at the end of the rope into the steel ring on Starr-Hollow’s chest harness. “He pointed to a flashing light,” says Starr-Hollow. The mission began with the man who the current had taken furthest away. The rescue swimmer descended into the ocean. He was waist-deep in water as he grabbed the survivor. He attached the fisherman to his chest harness. He gave a thumbs-up to the helicopter, the signal the flight mechanic had been watching out for. Both men were winched onboard. Starr-Hollow helped the survivor into the hold. The mechanic then pointed to the next flashing light in the water. tarr-Hollow would pull 16 men out of the Pacific that night. The crew onboard the Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Munro and the Alaska Warrior saved another 26. Five seamen didn’t survive the night. The Alaska Ranger mission remains one of the largest rescue assignments in the 226-year history of the US Coast Guard. “The mission went on until mid-morning,” recalls Starr-Hollow, sitting in the classroom of the Coast Guard base. Outside, flight mechanics are pushing a Jayhawk onto the airstrip. Snow-white mountaintops glisten at the other end of the bay. “You function like a machine during a rescue mission,” he says. “You keep on going. You can’t give up. It’s like when you’re carrying a mooring rope up a mountain.” How has his job changed him? “You understand that we’re all only human,” says Starr-Hollow. “It’s changed my view of people. Anybody can get into a life-or-death situation, and no matter their place in life, their life matters. They all have somebody who will miss them. We all have that in common.” To find out about current missions, go to: uscg.mil
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S T E E R T S TERS H IF G ON E OF TH E WORLD’S TOP STR EE T FIGHTER PLAYERS COM ES FROM COM PTON . H IS M ENTOR WALKED A SIMILAR PATH TO ESPORTS SUCCESS. DARRYL LEWIS AN D ALEX VALLE ARE WHAT HAPPENS WH EN YOU R M OTH ER TELLS YO U TO STAY I N S I D E AN D PLAY M O R E VI D EO GAM ES WORDS: NORA O’DONNELL PHOTOGRAPHY: RICK RODNEY
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As children growing up in Southern California, Darryl Lewis (right) and his mentor, Alex Valle, found playing video games was better than the alternative: joining a gang
O ne by one, the hoodie-clad enthusiasts stream into a brick warehouse and plunk down a $10 entrance fee. The cavernous space is bathed in a cobalt blue emanating from scores of neatly placed video monitors. It doesn’t take long for each terminal to fill up with participants ready to battle to the death. Welcome to Wednesday Night Fights, a weekly video game tournament in downtown Santa Ana, California, where serious gamers compete in brackets for a chance to win the evening’s prize pool. On this particular Wednesday in April, a diverse group of several hundred collegeaged men (and a smattering of women) mill around the floor, lugging messenger bags and monstrous stick controllers as they wait for the competition to begin. Others are simply here as casual players or spectators, watching the games projected on a massive screen while sipping on an IPA from the bar. And at home, even more fans are tuning in for the live webcast of the proceedings. Enter 27-year-old Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis, one of the top Street Fighter competitors in the world. When the tall and hearty kid from Compton glides into the arena, a human perimeter 44
forms around him, like he’s the Rocky Balboa of control pads. Tonight Lewis is playing Street Fighter V V, the latest instalment in Capcom’s iconic franchise, which has been enthralling fighting-game lovers for nearly 30 years. The incredible success of Street Fighter has spawned a staggering 72 tournaments worldwide that lead up to the Capcom Cup in December and the chance to win thousands. And that’s not the only place to compete. Evo – short for the Evolution Championship Series – is the granddaddy of fightinggame tournaments. Each year it brings the best players in the world together in Las Vegas. The prize pools at these events continue to skyrocket, so much so that players like Lewis can earn a nice living doing what they love – punching, kicking and crushing adversaries in a digital realm. “Tech money is running the world,” says Alex Valle, the founder of Wednesday Night Fights. “And the new entertainment is eSports. All the young billionaires, the ones who are barely 30, are gamers. ESports is where everything is headed.” At the ripe old age of 38, “Uncle” Valle is a seasoned eSports veteran and a legendary Street Fighter player who started in the days when the game was played in noisy arcades in strip malls. A top competitor for more than 20 years, he is also a mentor to Lewis and other players in the local fighting-game community. And now that a new version of the game is on the market, with new characters and countless new moves to memorise, every competitor is back at square one. Players like Lewis and Valle are back in training mode, attempting to regain their skills, with endless hours spent practising and studying their opponents.
For both men, this obsession with Street Fighter began when they were children growing up in tough neighbourhoods, where playing video games was a way to stay out of trouble and stay focused. And in that focus, Valle and Lewis found strength in their patience – and the ability to overcome their frustrations when it felt like winning was impossible. Valle remembers watching his teenage uncle (and babysitter) play Super Mario Brothers at his local 7-Eleven in Westminster. “I’m just there drinking a Slurpee,” Valle says, “and he had a crowd of people watching him win this game with an infinite life trick. It was awesome.” When the NES console came out in America in 1985, it marked the beginning of Valle’s lifelong
Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis is one of the top Street Fighter players in the world and the best Zangief player on the planet. The imposing Russian character is known for his bear grabs
W H EN TH E H EARTY KI D FRO M C O M PTO N ENTERS TH E AR ENA , IT ’ S LI KE H E ’ S TH E RO C KY BALB OA O F C O NTRO L PAD S
‘‘ LO S I N G M EAN S TH ER E AR E M O R E TH I N GS TO LEAR N ,’’ SAYS VALLE . ‘‘ I N EED TO KEEP PU S H I N G MYS ELF TO OVERC O M E O BSTAC LES ’’
Alex Valle has been one of the best Street Fighter players in the world since the 1990s. Today he hosts weekly tournaments and mentors a new generation of players
fascination with gaming. “We played whatever we got our hands on,” he says. His father encouraged his competitiveness, but it was his uncle who had one of the biggest impacts on how he played. “My uncle helped me keep a positive outlook because if I lose, I can always just play again.” And Valle lost a lot in those early days. He knew the basics of how to win at home on his console, but the strategy was different at the arcade, where humans played humans instead of a computer. When Capcom released Street Fighter II in the arcades in 1991, Valle met players who forced him to up his game. “When I lost, I set goals for myself,” he says. “I went back to the drawing board, tried to mirror what my opponents did and I tried to make it better. A lot of people rage when they lose. They’re in a completely negative mindset. But for me, I know I can
play the game over again. Losing means there are more things to learn, and I need to keep pushing myself to overcome obstacles.” With the growing popularity of Street Fighter, tournaments started popping up everywhere – in arcades, liquor stores and pizza parlours, all advertised through word of mouth. When Valle realised winning tournaments could be a source of income, he started to take them more seriously. “I was taught that you have to work in order to survive,” says Peruvian-born Valle. “Coming from an immigrant family, I wasn’t a citizen yet. I had no free rights. I was trying to figure out how I could make money at such a young age.” Growing up in the 1990s, Valle explains, the kids in his neighbourhood had three options: play sports, play Street Fighter or get sucked into gang life. “I had some friends who were gang members,” he says, “but I didn’t think that it was cool to get into trouble. I just stayed in the arcade and played games while my friends were getting locked up. I knew where the good life was and I minded my own business.” His formula worked. By the time he was 15, Valle was winning money at tournaments. “My dad noticed that I was getting extra income and he didn’t believe it at first,” Valle says. His father encouraged his playing, but his mother had reservations. “She just wanted to make sure I had a good life. My dad had to convince her that what I was doing was better than the alternative.” By 1998, Valle was the best Street Fighter player in the United States. In November of that year, he competed in the Street Fighter Alpha 3 world championship in San Francisco. In the final round of competition, he came up against Japan’s national champion, Daigo Umehara – the world’s best Street Fighter player. Valle lost that match, but he continued to be a top-ranked player through his young adulthood. In those early days of competitive gaming, the prize money was a nice perk for a
teenager, but not enough to earn a living as an adult. “I didn’t have a picture of me being a professional player,” he says. “I still wanted to play Street Fighter, but what opportunities are out there for somebody who’s good at playing video games? I was getting older and I had to start thinking about what I wanted to do.” Valle started taking sales jobs to pay the bills. Then around 2006, he realised that his status as a seasoned player could work to his advantage. The up-andcoming players in Southern California wanted to learn how to play the older versions of Street Fighter, so Valle stepped in as their trainer. Soon the players under Valle’s tutelage were becoming some of the best players in the world, and those training sessions became the genesis of Wednesday Night Fights. When Street Fighter IV came out in 2008, it was the perfect time for Valle to ramp up his training sessions. The arcades had almost entirely disappeared and players had moved online, but major competitions like Evo still happened in person. Playing at home alone felt abnormal. “Fighting games were born offline, in the arcade,” says Valle. “It feels far more natural when you can play against someone and see their reactions.” Valle sent out invitations to come and practise at his apartment. Before long, more than 50 people were bringing their consoles to the garage and chipping in money to pay the electricity bill. By 2010, Wednesday Night Fights had moved to a bigger venue, and it added another layer of expansion: web streaming. Now thousands of people were tuning in every week to watch Wednesday Night Fights, and Valle was repositioning himself to make web streaming and the production of fighting-game events a full-time gig as the president of his new company, Level Up. Valle was winning tournaments and finding a way to work in the industry he loved. Today Valle’s presence at Wednesday Night Fights feels like 47
‘‘ W ITH VI D EO GAM ES , EVERYO N E HAS A C HAN C E TO B E GO O D,’’ SAYS LEW I S . ‘‘ TH ER E ’ S N OTH I N G TO H O LD YO U BAC K ’’ that of an elder statesman. He strolls along the concrete floors of the arena, shaking hands and giving hugs before heading upstairs to the balcony. As he looks down on the lively scene he has fostered for two decades, he smiles and folds his arms. In 1988, around the time Valle was hitting the arcades with his uncle, Darryl Lewis was born in Compton. Lewis’s father was largely out of the picture, so he was raised by his mother, who worked as a custodian at a college while taking care of six children on her own. “I saw how strong she was all the time,” says Lewis, “and it made me feel like I could be a strong person, too. It made me realise I shouldn’t be getting tired from the things that I did because she was doing so much more.” Like Valle, Lewis learned that playing video games was better than the alternative: gang life. One day while he was walking home from school, Lewis thought he heard the sound of firecrackers. But they were gunshots. Someone was shooting at him from across the street. “I just ran,” says Lewis. “I found out later that the guy who was shooting at me was one of my friends from elementary school. And he thought I was someone else – a rival gang member. Why would he shoot at me without even knowing who I was? After that, I didn’t really hang out on that street anymore.” Instead, Lewis found a safe haven playing video games 48
indoors, and he spent time with friends who liked to do the same. One friend in particular, Dave Douglas, brought out Lewis’s competitive side. Douglas, who’s five years older than Lewis, showed no mercy to the younger player. He beat Lewis constantly. One day, Douglas was up 30 games in a row, and he turned to Lewis and asked, “Why aren’t you quitting yet? Aren’t you getting tired of losing?” “Dave showed me that it takes a lot of losing before you get good at a game,” says Lewis. “If you play basketball, depending on your height, you have certain handicaps. With video games, the only thing that’s naturally beneficial for you to have is a good reaction time. But the thing is, you can improve your reactions with practice. I feel like with video games everyone can have a chance to be good. There’s nothing that can hold you back – unless you can’t play that often,” he adds with a laugh. Lewis realised that in order to win, he needed to change his strategy from offensive to defensive. The Street Fighter character that clicked with him the most in this regard was Zangief, an imposing, barrelchested Russian who looks and moves like a professional wrestler. As Zangief, Lewis would shuffle back and forth like a boxer, patiently waiting for his opponent to make a move. As soon as the other player was within close
enough range, Zangief could just bear-grab him and pound him into the ground. It was this technique that helped Lewis win his first match at his very first tournament, when he faced Valle and came out on top. That victory caught Valle’s attention and it introduced Lewis to the fighting-game community in Southern California. Lewis started attending Wednesday Night Fights and his career flourished under Valle’s coaching. Since 2012, Lewis has been one of the top-ranked Street Fighter players in the world. Today he travels everywhere from France to Japan, living the life of a professional gamer. He now lives in a three-bedroom house in Torrance – a comfortable city in the South Bay just 10 miles from Compton. He shares the house with two other gamers and his girlfriend, Denise Tan, who manages his busy schedule. Back at Wednesday Night Fights, Lewis sits down for his first webcast match of the evening. As Zangief in Street Fighter V V,, he quickly eliminates his opponent with a flurry of moves. After his win, he lets out a small yawn and returns to a row of folding chairs where he waits for the next game in his bracket. Winning at WNF has been easy for Lewis, though that might not always be the case as more competitive players move up the ranks. For now he’s focusing on his performance at the major events coming up this year, such as Evo in July and the other tournaments that will help him qualify for the Capcom Cup in December. Last year, Lewis came in 13th at Evo and fifth at the Capcom Cup, but that was before Street Fighter V hit the market. The game, literally, has changed, and that means Lewis will have to keep practising to stay at the top. While Lewis awaits his next round, another gamer sits down next to him. It’s Christopher Gonzalez, one of the top players
of Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. Lewis and Gonzalez launch into a lively dialogue about Super Street Fighter II Turbo – a game that came out in 1994, when both of them were barely out of preschool. They’re chatting about which character is considered the “cheapest”, meaning a fighter who can deal damage more easily than the rest of the cast. They agree that T. Hawk, an indigenous Mexican warrior, is the absolute cheapest character in the game, but surmise that T. Hawk would have a hard time in a match against Sagat, another “cheap” character hailing from Thailand. As if to test that theory, the two players head over to a station with an old CRT TV that just so happens to be hooked up for the very game in discussion. Lewis selects T. Hawk; Gonzalez, Sagat. This time it is a close match, with Gonzalez meeting Lewis with every punch and kick. And then it happens: Lewis loses. But there’s no smashing of the controller or stomping off in a huff. Both men are chuckling and having fun. After all, this is just a video game – even if it has become a form of high-level competition. Losing is just a part of playing. “It’s not easy to become a pro gamer,” Lewis says later. “I had to go through countless frustrations and it took me a very long time to reach this level. I can get nervous in front of a crowd, but I’ve been shot at before. It’s not the same. I’m not going to die from playing this game. When you look at it that way, you begin to feel calmer. It showed me that I can do almost anything.” For more Street Fighter action, go to redbullbattlegrouds.com
HEROES
“YOU NEED CRACKLE AND SMOKE!” FLEA The Aussie rock god that is the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bass player tells us why conflict with other band members is grist to the creative mill
the red bulletin: You and Anthony Kiedis are bound together by a 40year friendship and 33-year career. Do you ever argue? 50
flea: All the time! Over any tiny little thing. I’m not sure that there’s anything we don’t argue about. Really? Sure. But I admit we don’t argue now the way we used to in the past. In our 20s we’d often be so pissed at each other that we wouldn’t talk for days at a time. Now we’re more reasonable. We don’t take things so personally any more, because we know that we’re there for each other when push comes to shove. Don’t all those tensions affect your working relationship?
In his autobiography, Kiedis calls you his soulmate. How do you see your friendship? In the same way. We’ve been through so many firsts together: stealing, fun with girls, taking acid. When we’re together there’s this energy that makes everything possible. But if I’m honest, I’ve never read his book. I was afraid to. Why? I flicked through it a couple of times. There were bits in it that flattered me, but there were other parts that really annoyed me. Like, ‘That’s not true at all!’ Everyone remembers things differently, that’s true. But I didn’t want our friendship to suffer as a result.
“WE FEEL THIS INCREDIBLE HIGH WHEN WE’RE CREATING MUSIC. IT’S BASED ON FRUSTRATION AND ANGER” On the contrary. Anthony and I have felt this amazing high ever since we’ve been creating music together, and I think that high is based on frustration and anger. What do you mean by that? It’s easy to say something to someone that you know is going to make them happy. Criticising a friend isn’t a nice thing to do, but it’s all the more important so you can both move forward.
OK, but how do I find my polar opposite? You can’t plan for it. Do you want to know how I met Anthony? At a fight. I was 14 years old and I was beating the crap out of this annoying guy in my class at school. Anthony appeared out of nowhere and roared at me, “Leave the guy alone!” We had this huge fight that ended up with us hugging and laughing. And not long after we were friends.
Did you stumble across the passages about your sister? You mean that he had sex with her? I knew all about it. I was in the next room that night. Some male friendships have ended over less... If my sister’s screwing anyone, then let it be my best friend. I was actually pleased that she liked him as much as I did. Marcel Anders New album: The Getaway; redhotchilipeppers.com THE RED BULLETIN
JAY L. CLENDENIN/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES
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hey’re the most infamous twosome in the world of rock ’n’ roll after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards: Anthony Kiedis and Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary, the two longeststanding members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Between them they have sold 80 million albums in the last 33 years, and earned themselves a place in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. Of course that’s down to musical talent, but over the years there has also been plenty of authentic rock ’n’ roll behaviour. The history of the band is littered with members coming and going and – until the late 1990s – well-publicised and excessive drug use. But they’re still going. Somehow, through it all, their creativity has managed to survive the drama. How? According to Flea, who’s now in his 50s, it comes down to facing, rather than avoiding, the inevitable conflicts.
What makes for a productive creative relationship? It needs to crackle and smoke. Look at the great pop duos. Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, for example. All eccentrics individually, but together they created amazing music. So if someone wants to be successful, then they should find their polar opposite to work with? Exactly that. Find yourself a sounding board! And, just as importantly, live out your contrasts. You can’t fit in or do yourself down if you want to get the best out of yourself and your partner. That would get boring pretty quickly, like in a marriage.
Flea, 53, bass player and relationship adviser: “Don’t do yourself down, otherwise things will get boring pretty quickly”
Aaron Eckhart, 48: “In Hollywood, the person with the biggest balls wins the biggest prizes�
“I STILL HAVE A LOT TO SAY” AARON ECKHART The serious-minded actor explains how living the simple life gives him a much greater sense of self
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DAVID YELLEN, ALEX DE MORA
t the age of 48, Aaron Eckhart has built a career playing good men on the edge of darkness. At the end of this year, the California-born actor costars in two biopics: in Sully (in cinemas from December), he plays Jeffrey Skiles, the co-pilot who assisted Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) in the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549, and in Bleed For This (out in the US only from November 4), he portrays Kevin Rooney, the trainer of professional boxer Vinny Pazienza (Miles Teller), who returned to the ring 13 months after breaking his neck in a near-fatal car crash. Both are challenging, intense roles in which Eckhart faces the heavy responsibility of playing men who hold the fate of other people’s lives in their hands. But, in reality, he is naturally Zen, a trait he attributes to his maturity and the quiet life he leads outside the spotlight. the red bulletin: You once said, “The simpler life is for me, the better life is for me.” Why is that? aaron eckhart: I am a simple man in the sense that I don’t have a big life. As you become older, the most important thing is to know thyself. Earlier in my career, I would try to be everything to everybody. I don’t do that any more; I’m just me. Having a ranch in Montana helps me do that. THE RED BULLETIN
How so? When I get there, I just stare at the water in the creek for hours. I move rocks, I clear the brush, I make fires and I look at the clouds. It obviously has a very soothing effect on a person, and it makes all the bullshit go away. I’m happy just leading my life and being an easy, simple person. Do you feel satisfied with what you’ve accomplished? No. I feel I still have a lot to say, and I need to say it in a different way. I’m very blessed to have had this career, but it’s not enough yet. I have to take more control of my message and who I am. Who do you look up to? I’m a huge Sean Penn apologist. He’s got courage, he’s got convictions and he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is. He’s also an activist. Do you have a political message? I look at things more as a whole. When I do movies, I want to see how we all come together instead of how we’re all different. That is where my energies go, whether it’s race or religion or politics. I don’t like all the fighting. I like the message that we’re all the same. Has there been any role where you felt the power of that message? [Long pause.] No. [Laughs.] But there’s still time! Hey, I’m not dead yet. I think after this interview, I’ll maybe have two years left to live. Nora O’Donnell sully-movie.com sully-movie.com; bleedforthisfilm.com
Iron Lady: the haters on YouTube are no match for this 23-year-old
“TURN NEGATIVITY INTO CREATIVITY” LADY LESHURR The feisty wordsmith is tipped as the UK’s next rap sensation. Here, she explains how Snapchat can boost your confidence the red bulletin: You avoid rap clichés like violence and drugs, yet your Queen’s Speech Ep.4 video had 29 million YouTube views. How did you do it while staying authentic? lady leshurr: I’ve never even sworn in my lyrics! Promoting violence isn’t an option, because I don’t live that life. I use silly jokes and cultural references instead – things I’m happy with. I’d already proved my technical abilities, and on the Queen’s Speeches I put the real me into my music for the first time. What empowered you to do that? It sounds corny, but Snapchat has given me a lot of confidence. I feel I can show my silly side, and people really appreciate it. But with success comes negativity, too. How do you cope? In Queen’s Speech Ep.4, I say, “How could you talk my name and you ain’t even brushed your teeth?” That’s my reaction to a hater’s early-morning tweet. The trick is to turn negative comments into creativity. Florian Obkircher See her live at Bestival (Sept 8-11) or watch the live stream on redbull.tv
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Kristen Stewart, 26, gets satisfaction from working with people who keep her on her toes
“I LIKE PEOPLE WHO SHOCK ME” KRISTEN STEWART The actress is proud of her
Twilight years, but now she shoots with Woody Allen – and dreams of being a tree on wheels
K FABRIZIO MALTESE/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES
risten Stewart made her name in the multimilliongrossing global hit Twilight when she was just a teenager. Since then, the LAborn actress has achieved what few manage: to combine financial success, mainstream popularity and critical acclaim. It’s clear she has a strategy, but it doesn’t seem to involve a management team and endless meetings. Stewart follows the people who keep her interested, sweats off the bad times and ponders life’s big questions… the red bulletin: Now you’re 26, how do you feel about the Twilight Saga film trilogy that made you a teenage superstar? kristen stewart: I’m proud of those movies. I don’t want to distance myself from them, if that’s what you mean. From the outside, it looks as if you’ve consciously altered your career trajectory: since the Twilight Saga, you’ve done acclaimed art-house features, won a French film award. For your upcoming THE RED BULLETIN
movie, Café Society Society, you worked with Woody Allen… But I’ve brought the same energy and emotional investment to every project. So, what makes you say yes to a film? Money? Fame? People. I want to work with people who get me going. In what way? There is this addictive energy that passes through a group when you all love the same thing. When you share that, you’d have to be a sociopath not to let it touch and affect you. I have so much faith in
“I’m not as cool as I could be, or as smart or challenged. I need to meet people who can help me achieve that.” That’s not easy… Of course not. Which is why, in high school, I was friends with people who others didn’t want to be friends with. Who did you avoid? I’ll give you an example: years ago, I went to a party with some friends – they were still in high school – and I felt so uncomfortable. It was just a room of people not speaking. I mean, they were talking, but they weren’t saying anything! Do you still get socially uncomfortable today? I get uncomfortable when
helps you hit reset when you can’t get out of your head or you’re having an anxiety attack. It’s like, “Dude, go outside and take a run and I guarantee you that your body is more powerful than your mind.” That’s so true. So adrenalin always works? Not necessarily. I write poetry and play guitar, too. Someone once asked whether I identify more with a tree or a car… And? Neither exclusively. There are positive and negative things about both. The tree has roots and doesn’t change on a whim. Then again, times change, so ideas should, too. Life moves forward constantly. The car
“IT’S LIKE, ‘DUDE, GO OUTSIDE AND TAKE A RUN AND I GUARANTEE YOU THAT YOUR BODY IS MORE POWERFUL THAN YOUR MIND’” that feeling, I’ll always follow it, even if it means missteps. What kind of people have that effect on you? I like to surround myself with people who can shock me, which is true of all my friends. They’re not lazy or complacent; they’re demanding, but also ready to give. When did you first start going after those types? At 14 or 15, which was the stage when I started thinking,
I feel I’ve been misinterpreted. I’m not saying that anyone’s perception of me is necessarily wrong, but what I strive for is to be understood. I want my points to be understood, which means I have to be clear on what they are. I’m comfortable as long as that feels true. Do you have an antidote when things are going badly? Physical activity is the best way to feel connected and alive again. Just sweating. It
never stops moving, but it doesn’t stop to think about things. To cut a long story short, I’d like to be a tree on wheels. Or an electric car that has to plug in once in a while. I’m not necessarily ‘born to run’. You can’t keep searching endlessly; some days, you need to just walk in the sun. Rüdiger Sturm Café Society opens on September 2; facebook.com/cafesocietyfilm
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Karl Meltzer can peel off an 80km run before you finish your granola. Now the long-distance running legend will take on his biggest nemesis: the speed record for the 3,500km Appalachian Trail. words: josh dean  photography: scott g toepfer 56
Meltzer’s career has included two Appalachian Trail attempts, one of which he finished despite a case of trench foot
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arl Meltzer has his choice of raised hands among a crowd seated in Fleet Feet Sports, a shiny, airy, wood-floored space just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Roanoke, Virginia. The 48-year-old Salt Lake City resident, as lean and sinewy as a rawhide chew, with a burntan and a wispy goatee, has just finished a brief talk about his upcoming mission – to break the Appalachian Trail speed record, on his third try – and he chooses a young woman in the front row to ask the evening’s first question. “What happened on your first and second attempts?” the woman asks. Meltzer smirks, as if he knew that was exactly what was coming. “That’s a great question,” he says, “with a long answer.” In short, his first attempt in 2008 was doomed right from the start. It was one of the wettest months in Maine history, so his feet were frequently immersed in water. “I got trench foot, which makes your toes burn,” says Meltzer. To ease the pain, he ran with his toes scrunched, which caused his shin muscles to tense, which resulted in tendonitis. He had no choice but to take a few days off. But Meltzer pushed on and finished anyway, with the fourth fastest time in history. “I considered it a successful journey,” he says. On his second attempt, in 2014, he pulled the plug after 32 days, went home and swore he’d never go to the trail again. Cut to 2016: “This time, I’m going back at it with more recon, more time on the trail and more knowledge,” he says. To break the current record of 46 days, eight hours and seven minutes – set by his friend Scott Jurek just last year – Meltzer will need to average almost 80km a day for 46 days. “It’s ridiculous,” Meltzer tells the crowd. “And probably the last time I’ll try it.” He laughs as soon as the statement is out of his mouth. “I say that now.” There was a time when Meltzer routinely won the world’s hardest trail races, but as he approaches 50 he recognises that his goals need to change. “Now, it’s more about being out there,” he says. “I need to go further and longer.”
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eltzer is one of the best and most accomplished ultrarunners on Earth, a man whose specialty – the 100-mile (160km) race – requires him to run the equivalent of almost four marathons in succession. These races often involve running on rugged terrain, up and down mountains, while covering thousands of metres of elevation gain. Courses for ultras differ dramatically, meaning “good” times do, too, but Meltzer has run a 100-miler in just 14 hours and 17 minutes, which equates to an 8:38 mile (5:23 kilometre). But the 3,500km Appalachian Trail is something else entirely. To break Jurek’s record, Meltzer will need to average 77km a day, jogging the flat and downhill parts, and hiking uphill as fast as he can – which in the case of many stretches, especially in the brutal northern sections of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, can often mean scrambling uphill over slick boulders on hands and knees. For a little over
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EDITOR
ILLUSTRATOR
THE RECORD, SET IN 2015 BY SCOTT JUREK, IS
Meltzer, who turned to running as a break from skiing, has won 38 100-mile races, a record that may be unbeatable
46 DAYS 8 HOURS 7 MINUTES
a month and a half, Meltzer will wake up at 5am, throw down a yogurt and start moving, pausing only briefly a few times a day to snatch and devour whatever food his small crew has ready for him at prearranged meeting points. He won’t actually sit down until he quits for the day, 14 to 18 hours later, at which point he’ll eat a hot meal, maybe check some emails, then crash out on a double mattress in the back of his white Ford Econoline van, ready to start the whole miserable adventure again the next morning. “My goal is to be lying down in bed within 30 minutes of quitting each day,” says Meltzer. In 2010 he became the first person ever to run the Pony Express Trail, completing 3,322km in 40 days to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the legendary route from Sacramento, California, to St Joseph, Missouri. During that trip, he wore various sensors, including one that monitored his sleep and taught him something very important: 59
Montreal CANADA
VER
MICHIGAN
NEW YORK
Albany
Chicago
New York PENNSYLVANIA INDIANA
OHIO Philadelphia
APPALACHIAN TRAIL RUN THE TRAIL RUNS THROUGH 14 STATES AND3,537KM, CLIMBING 156,972M OF ELEVATION IN TOTAL.
MARYLAND Washington DC
WEST VIRGINIA
NEW JERSEY
DEL
VIRGINIA Roanoke
KENTUCKY
Knoxville
TENNESSEE
Charlotte
FINISH SPRINGER MOUNTAIN, GA
SOUTH CAROLINA
Atlanta ALABAMA GEORGIA
FLORIDA
NORTH CAROLINA
CLINGMANS DOME, NORTH CAROLINA 3,198KM FROM START
Highest point on the trail (2,025m) and has two of the longest unsupported sections (51-55km each). “Also, the land of many bears.”
START MOUNT KATAHDIN, ME
RMONT
NOVA SCOTIA
MAINE MAHOOSUC RANGE, MAINE 452KM FROM START
Just a week into the run for Meltzer, it’s the toughest section of the trail. “They say it’s 10k of climbing, but it feels more like 15k. It’s ugly.”
NEW HAMPSHIRE
MASS
HARPERS FERRY, WEST VIRGINIA 1,878KM FROM START Site of a historic slave rebellion and near the halfway point of the trail. “The ambiance of the place feels like 1776.”
if he slept only seven hours, he’d be grumpy in the morning, but if he got even seven and a half, he’d wake up feeling happy, refreshed. “It was one of the most valuable things I’ve ever learned,” he says. And feeling as happy and refreshed as humanly possible after hiking nearly two marathons a day up and down mountains will be vital to Meltzer’s success. “You can’t really afford to have an off day because if you do you’re in trouble,” says Dr David Horton, a professor of exercise science at Liberty University and the one-time Appalachian Trail record holder. (He did it in 52 days, nine hours, 42 minutes in 1991.) “There will be bad weather and rough terrain. It’ll be hot sometimes. It’ll be cold sometimes. It’s windy a lot of the time. It’s just unending. Think of a person running a marathon – they’re wiped out and annihilated and they’ve run three to six hours in a day. This is 14 to 18 hours over 46 straight days.” That, Scott Jurek says, is the real challenge. He calls it “the grind – waking up each morning and thinking, ‘Oh shit, I have to do 80km and I just finished a hellacious day.’ ” As a guy who runs 100 miles in a day at least a few times a year, Meltzer may be accustomed to seemingly endless journeys, but even that doesn’t prepare him for what he’s trying to do, Horton says. “The hardest 100-miler takes 56 hours. Speed hiking the AT is mind-boggling and feels like it’s never going to end. I think Karl has the physical ability to do it, but a lot of things have to go right. One wrong fall or horrific day and you’re history.”
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ind you, this isn’t even remotely fun, not even for Meltzer. Many days, he says, the thought of quitting alights on his shoulder, like a little devil whispering in his ear: “The van is close. I’m tired of this. I can make up the three miles tomorrow.” Meltzer shakes his head. “In reality, you can’t. Or you can, maybe. But it’s hard. And more than a few of those days can cost you the record.”
MELTZER WILL HAVE TO AVERAGE
14 -18 hours & 77km PER DAY TO BEAT THE RECORD
THE RED BULLETIN
Running was never something Meltzer planned to do this seriously or for this long. He ran cross-country in high school, but then fell in love with skiing after he dropped out of college in 1989 and moved to Snowbird, outside Salt Lake City. He worked in a bar at the resort and only took up running again to keep busy in the skiing off-season. Three weeks later he won a race to the top of Snowbird. In 1991, he entered the Pikes Peak Marathon and finished 36th, but made it to 15th the next year. When a waitress friend suggested he enter the Wasatch 100 in 1996, his first reaction was “Why would you do that?” but he did anyway, was in the lead at the 65km mark, “then sort of blew up.” He walked much of the way, finished 28th and swore he’d never do it again. The next year he finished seventh, and the year after that, he won, setting a new course record in the process. From that point on, says Meltzer, “Running became my obsession.” And ultradistance races, in particular, were his sweet spot. That was clear after the 2000 Wasatch 100, which he entered after having run just once in three months because of a bulging disc in his back. “My whole goal was just to go,” explains Meltzer. “I wasn’t really sure if I was ready or not.” You can guess what happened next: he won. Something about the slog is just comfortable for Meltzer, which is why he isn’t worried about the misery he knows he’ll face this August. He spent two weeks with Jurek late in his record attempt on the trail, and he saw up close the punishment the AT will put on a man, even one who is accustomed to long-distance suffering. Jurek, says Meltzer, was a complete wreck by the end. (Jurek finished in July, but says he didn’t really feel completely normal again until October.) Because he lost time early to injury, the only way Jurek could possibly set the record was to walk through the night during the final week, with friends carrying his gear and periodically setting up his tent and bug net in the middle of the trail so that he could grab, say, two hours of sleep. “But Scott was so good at staying positive. That was inspiring to me,” says Meltzer. “Sometimes you don’t want to go further. Sometimes you just want to quit and go sleep in the van.” But when Jurek was dragging, Meltzer kept reminding him that enduring those lowest moments – “these horrible miles” – is what would get him the record, and he’s going to try to tell himself the same thing. Horton thinks that Meltzer has “a very good chance” at setting the record – as long as he can manage to “keep his head”. 61
MELTZER HAS THE MOST 100-MILE WINS IN A YEAR
(SIX) HE ALSO WON FIVE TWICE, IN 2007 AND 2009
“I
Meltzer isn’t one to check his pace, or think too hard about what he’s attempting: “You go stop to stop. You don’t think about the whole distance”
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love the woods, man,” says Meltzer as he crosses the road and steps onto the Appalachian Trail just outside of Roanoke, Virginia. “I can’t run on a road. It drives me crazy.” Overhead, a half moon is still visible, even as the pinkish blue of dawn breaks over the mountain. Meltzer spies something under a log, reaches down and picks up an opened package of peanut butter crackers; two of the original six are still in the package. This, he says, is intentional; it’s an example of what thru-hikers call “trail magic”, snacks that are left along the way to help them power through. “You know someone’s a thru-hiker because you can smell them when they walk by,” says Meltzer. “That becomes my stench, too.” Underfoot the dirt trail is rocky, rutted, ankletwisting terrain. “This is typical AT right here – pretty gnarly,” says Meltzer. “And when this stuff gets wet, it sucks. It’s slippery as shit!” To deal with the footing requires a kind of unconscious vigilance that makes trail running entirely different from its road equivalent. As much as a runner might lose himself in the act of moving forward, his mind must be alert, taking in the data from his eyes – which scan three to four steps ahead – and processing it into signals and warnings for his feet and legs.
Meltzer pushes his over-ear headphones into place and taps at a pink iPod Mini that his wife, Cheryl, pre-loads with music, mostly with jam bands, but also banjo country songs and even some nostalgic ’80s rock. His worst fear, aside from an injury, is the loss of this iPod. “If I have no music my life is over,” he says, only kind of joking. In 2014 his iPod died, requiring that he survive an entire day with only the natural world as his soundtrack, until a replacement overnighted from Utah arrived. Now there’s always a spare, just as he wears an extra light on his wrist as a backup to his Black Diamond headlamp. The remainder of his gear is simple: a waist pack with two water bottles and a light harness pack with front pouches for the gels and bars he’ll devour along the way, as well as a packet on the back for his third water bottle. Meltzer will average 5.5-6.5kph on the trail, depending on the terrain. At times that will mean a swift hike, more or less the pace you walk when you’re running a little late for the train. On flat sections he’ll run with a gait that’s a kind of hopskip-bounce. His elbows point outwards, arms slightly akimbo, and his gloved hands are closed but not in fists, with the palms pointing down. THE RED BULLETIN
He’s comfortable in that gait, hour after hour. By week two, he says, his body will have adapted to the grind and any soreness will have passed. He’ll feel tired often, but rarely out of breath. Meltzer has learned how to adjust his “comfort zone” to the terrain, and one cue that he’s pushing too hard is if he’s out of breath. “If you get out of that comfort zone you’re probably going too hard,” he says. More than anything, though, it’s his mind he’ll have to overcome. “The monotony and the boredom can kill you,” says Meltzer. “The pain is one thing – the physical misery. But the mental misery can be worse.” It’s hard to articulate exactly how he occupies himself for all those hours, explains Meltzer. “I just zone out,” he says, letting his mind wander wherever it wants. “I might think about this conversation. I might pass a guy and think, ‘I wonder where he’s going.’ ” One thing he doesn’t obsess over is his distance and time. He’s run so much that he doesn’t need to wear a GPS watch to know how fast he’s moving or how far he’s gone. “I know how long it’s going to take to go 13.4km,” he says. “I’m constantly looking at my watch, but I don’t care what my pace is.” Unlike a race, there’s no one to catch, nor is there anyone on his heels. The only thing that matters is reaching the next road crossing by a certain time. “Then I have three more stops, then I have two more stops, then one. You go stop to stop. You don’t think about the whole, long distance.”
D
uring his spring recon on the trail, in which he mapped rendezvous points, chose campsites and checked out places where his crew can resupply, Meltzer divided his days between training runs and playing golf. He is, as much as it’s possible to be, a top competitor in the nascent sport of Speedgolf, in which the winner is the person with
HE HAS RUN A 100-MILER IN JUST
14 hours & 17minutes
WHICH EQUATES TO AN 8:38 MILE (5:23 KILOMETRE)
“The monotony and the boredom can kill you” the lowest combination of score plus time required to complete 18 holes. Not surprisingly, he’s even better at Ultra Speedgolf, and the world-record holder for playing the most golf holes over a 12-hour period. But he’ll stop all distractions well before August: “I’ll just focus on this.” And what if Meltzer achieves this elusive goal? He ponders that question one evening over pints of Yuengling at a restaurant in Roanoke. “If I do this and I break that record, what’s going to happen? I’m going to sit back and say, ‘Damn, I finally got it. Do I need to do anything else?’ When I first do it, I’ll say no, but I guarantee you three months later I’m going to be right back doing something else.” Meltzer says he’s been competitive since he was a kid, but as he’s aged, the way that fire manifests itself has changed, too. “I think when we are competitive when we’re young, it sort of trains us for our future – to continue to push limits and find what our bodies and minds can do,” he says. “When I realised I was not going to win shorter, faster races, I decided to focus on the 100-miler because there are more strategies involved. It’s just in my blood, my genes and my head that I need to be good at something. I think I’ve found that now. And as I age, I can accept the fact that I am slower, but I’m a lot smarter, so it helps me keep up with the younger talent.” As for what comes after his Appalachian Trail attempt, Meltzer says he might try to break the record for most golf holes played in 24 hours. That number is 401. He also has his eye on the Empire State Building, with the idea of setting the record for most vertical metres climbed in a single day. He would walk up and take the elevator down, over and over, for 24 hours. “I think I could do 1,524 vertical metres an hour,” says Meltzer. He thinks it’s possible that someone, someday, could do the AT in 44 days. “Here’s an idea,” he says. “Let’s say I do beat Scott’s record. Hypothetically speaking, if I beat it, and Scott were interested in doing it again, he could go southbound, and I would go northbound.” They’d intersect, somewhere, and then… Jurek laughs at that notion. The painful memories are still too vivid. And he’s hoping Meltzer does beat his record. In fact, he’ll spend the last two weeks – the home stretch – as part of Meltzer’s support crew. “If he breaks it, that’s what records are for – to push your mind and body farther than you thought they could go,” says Jurek. “For me, the record is a placeholder, but it’s not everything.” Meltzer agrees. He and Jurek might be rivals in races, and they both obviously want to win, but that’s never the only factor driving them. Over long distances, he says, there’s a group camaraderie that transcends self-interest. He smiles. “It’s like, ‘All right, man. Here we go! Enjoy this journey!’ ” Meltzer’s record attempt headquarters: redbullatrecord.com
THE RED BULLETIN
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BUSH FIRE WORDS: NIREN TOLSI PHOTOGRAPHY: SYDELLE WILLOW SMITH
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FAIRY TALES THE RED BULLETIN HEADS FOR THE HILLS OF SWAZILAND AND THE BUSHFIRE MUSIC FESTIVAL, WHERE AN ECLECTIC GROUP OF PEOPLE PARTY THE NIGHTS AWAY AGAINST A BACKDROP OF A COUNTRY RIDDLED BY UNEMPLOYMENT, HIV AND UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYE OF AN EVERINCREASING MILITARY PRESENCE
T he sun has just dipped behind the Mdimbe mountains in Swaziland leaving the sky orange and blue, and creating blackened silhouettes on the horizon. It is Sunday evening, on May’s final weekend, and the 10th edition of the Bushfire Festival is drawing to a close at Malkerns. Malian four-piece band Songhoy Blues are winding down their set, and have just broken into Ai Du, their homage to fellow countryman and blues-guitar god, Ali Farka Touré. The band’s rhythm section is driving upwards. Guitarist Garba Touré is wailing out a ghost’s wind on his strings as frontman Aliou Touré weaves his voice between the song’s notes. The crowd has been kicking up a dust storm all afternoon with their dancing and hip-shaking. But the dust settles during the ache of this song. The lyrics hauntingly demand a generosity of spirit towards one’s fellow human beings. “You must know yourself before you know others,” sings Aliou Touré. Glancing around at the assembled audience – all with happy, smiling faces; youthful and the young at heart; black and white – one is reminded of Aliou Touré’s belief that music imparts a joyful optimism into the world. He describes a world without music as being “a world without soul, because everything in this world happens around music”. These words are especially profound coming from a man who fled his home in the north of Mali because he refused to stop singing and making music, following the 2012 occupation by the jihadist group Ansar Dine, which had outlawed music and destroyed instruments while imposing their brand of sharia law. In the warm glow of a sunset, at the arse-end of a music festival, after 66
THE CROWD HAS BEEN KICKING UP A DUST STORM WITH THEIR HIP-SHAKING Left: The rhythmic beats of South African music royalty Ladysmith Black Mambazo Right: Artists like Kenyan afro-pop band Sauti Sol help add to the event’s continental feel
“EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD HAPPENS AROUND MUSIC”
The Bushfire music festival is an opportunity for both Swaziland locals and foreigners to express their passion for African tunes
three days of carousing, loving, tripping up, and reimagining the world over campfires, the Kool Aid always tastes better. Sometimes it’s so good that it strips away the cynicism and makes sense of Antonio Gramsci’s observation that, in imagining a better world, intellectual pessimism is allowed for, necessary even, but it must be balanced by an optimism in the human will. Bushfire is the sort of festival that makes you want to live in that way. It exhorts festivalgoers to “Bring your Fire!” to dance, but to also “ignite a collective response for social change”. The festival’s social responsibility extends to donating its profits to the Young Heroes, a non-governmental organisation, which supports more than 1,000 HIV-Aids orphans in a country where, according to the 2012 HIV Incidence Measurement Survey, 31 per cent of the population between the ages of 18 and 49 are HIV-positive. The festival also donates all profits from its merchandise sales to the Gone Rural boMake (Gone Rural Women) community development initiative, which, among other things, helps create
The perfect place for a good old-fashioned stomp in the mother land’s dust
“OUR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY WORK IS THE ESSENCE OF BUSHFIRE” Temporary manmade structures contrast magically with the African sky
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jobs for women in the artisanal craft sector. Much needed in a country where the economy is moribund, unemployment vertiginous and which is surrounded by South Africa, from which it receives 90 per cent of its imports. It is something that festival founder and director Jiggs Thorne is especially proud of. “There have been musical highlights over the past 10 years, seeing some of the greatest artists from the continent on a Swazi stage,” he says. “But I get the most satisfaction from what we have achieved through our social responsibility work. That is the essence of Bushfire.” The Bushfire Festival’s Pan-African programming draws on a continental pop sensibility, but also extends beyond, to singular musicians such as the late THE RED BULLETIN
Left: Art and artistic expression are as much a part of the festival as the music
Below: Bushfire has attracted some of South Africa’s biggest musical stars like Mafikizolo
The crowd are young, hip, multicultural and have a social conscience
“THERE IS ENOUGH ON THE MENU TO MAKE THE JOURNEY WORTHWHILE”
A heady mix of traditional African jams is also part of a truly indigenous mix
genre-defying South African newmaskanda vocalist, Busi Mhlongo, or Zimbabwe’s elder statesman, Oliver Mtukudzi. There are also added left-field touches, like academic Coleman Barks reciting the work of 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi, which provides a more refined taste for festival palates. The music means Bushfire draws a very different crowd to that of its behemoth counterparts in neighbouring South Africa. “You don’t get the hordes of young white Afrikaans rock-kids projectilevomiting all over the place, as you would at places like Oppikoppi [a festival in northern South Africa which regularly sells out over 20,000 tickets a year],” says Markus Blank, a veteran of five Bushfire festivals, self-confessed hedonist and purveyor of Tanzanian rhumba. 70
“YOU DON’T GET HORDES OF YOUNG AFRIKAANS ROCKKIDS PROJECTILE-VOMITING ALL OVER THE PLACE”
Bringing the heat. A carnival of madness in the dark
“That’s definitely a major drawcard because there is no alcohol-induced aggression here. While the music on offer is mainly Afro-pop, there is enough on the menu to make the journey here every year more than worthwhile.” Blank looks like he has slept fewer hours than an insomniac on a coffee-binge, but he is manfully marshalling a breakfast THE RED BULLETIN
crew in a sprawling camping site filled with friends from Johannesburg. Theirs is an easily mixed crowd – an academic here, a dance instructor there, all colours of the new South Africa – happily working together on a fry-up while giggling at a bunch of corporate types in the campsite across the road who are wearing matching dashikis so as to “find each other at night”. The crew’s 10x15m campsite feels like an autonomous republic in the middle of Swazi King Mswati III’s absolute monarchy. But there is a realisation that this party is held in a country without a constitution to protect and advance rights, but, instead, with a supposedly divine leader who would appear to be the only person with any real freedom. The realisation becomes weirder given the number of non-governmental organisation types and gap-year-dogooders from Europe and North America at the festival. Their large presence, whether it’s Americans blow-drying their hair at the ablution block or others more overt in their saviour-complexes, lends a cosmopolitan feel to the party, made stark by the reality that this is a country in crisis. “I really like the festival and I love the music, especially the Swazi artists,” says Julie Tirtiaux, a first-time festivalgoer from France who has been working as a law clerk in South Africa’s Constitutional Court. “I have never seen so many interracial couples before during my time in southern Africa. There is certainly something beautiful about it.”
The various stages offer an eclectic musical mix deep into the night
“WE NEED TO PLAY MUSIC TO SHOW WE DON’T HAVE TO BE FEARFUL” But there is a caveat. Tirtiaux says she is uncomfortable with some of the patriarchal aspects of what is deemed “Swazi culture”, like the role of women in society and the polygamous king’s annual Reed Dance where the country’s virgins gather to be inspected, certified, and then wait upon Mswati’s whim: as to whether he will choose another wife to add to his current total of 15. That sort of patriarchy is evident in some of the conversations and hook-ups on a frenzied Saturday night where more than 15,000 people get down. “Its difficult because you get accused of viewing the country through Western eyes,” Tirtiaux says. “But culture is dynamic and always shifting. It would be fascinating, if one considers the stats around Aids, to start a conversation about the need for culture to evolve so as to consider the interests of others.” Every year, it feels that the state’s presence at Bushfire increases. There is certainly a larger police presence at this year’s festival than in the previous editions. Swazi police can be seen patrolling the campsite late into the night, while police in riot-gear marshal some of the thoroughfares. Their brief appears not merely to be stopping crime: on a Saturday afternoon, one of Blank’s camp comrades is accosted by a policeman while chilling at the campsite having a drink. The party-animal looked at the
copper “squiff”, the latter charges, before demanding a bottle of whisky, a bottle of wine and some orange juice. The cop then tries to sell the campers some marijuana. He leaves with some wine donated to ensure the peace. On Sunday afternoon, Joburg-based architect Sarah Calburn sits in an alcove on the edge of the amphitheatre she designed, after Thorne and his family decided to alter what was essentially a bed-and-breakfast operation into a place that would include a shop, studio space and performance areas. The crowd flows by, strangers and old friends stop to shoot the breeze, hang out in the shade for a bit or to trade war stories from the weekend. There is a warm, fuzzy feeling of community and Calburn, who has been commissioned to redesign and enlarge the amphitheatre, which is the festival’s second stage, is making mental notes: of the buzz and the sense of family engendered by the space itself, and the festival. “I must remember this atmosphere and how useful these pockets of shade are in getting people connected,” she says, adding that the original amphitheatre was considered too big in the festival’s first year, but actually proved too small as it filled with the heaving masses. In terms of revenue and visitor numbers to Swaziland, Bushfire is arguably the biggest thing to happen here each year. It feels like a welcome pocket of shade in the scorching sunlight of a country in crisis. Where the music still plays and the people still smile. And where Aliou Touré’s words echo: “It is important for us to keep playing music to show to the younger generations, to everyone, that we don’t have to be fearful. If we are fearful, we can’t keep living.” bush-fire.com
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SWAZILAND’S BUSHFIRE FESTIVAL
Kicking up some serious dance dust over the border
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See it. Get it. Do it.
AC T I O N ! TRAVEL
DEPTH CHARGED
Welcome to freediving school. Head to the bottom of the class
PETER PLATTNER
The human body is a fragile vessel – if you disagree, take a dive in the ocean. If the cold doesn’t kill you, the pressure might, and the lack of breathable oxygen will. Unless, that is, you reawaken a reflex from our aquatic prehistory.
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EVENTS
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TRAVEL He should know: before Mayol Sr passed away in 2001, he passed his knowledge on to his son, who in turn, wants to pass it on to us. At a bay hidden by rocks lies Mayol’s training centre. At this spot, Jean-Jacques learned freediving from his father, and it’s where he now teaches his students the art of apnoea. “I want you to go naked into the ocean,” he tells a mortified group of four, all clutching freshly purchased dive equipment.“No fins, no suit, no mask.” Gingerly, they dive down to pick up heavy stones and use the weight to perform an underwater moonwalk for as long as they can with only one breath. Half a minute later, they’re all back up, gasping for air. Sea sure: master freediving and find a whole new world
The isle of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany, has a large history for such a small place. Napoleon spent 300 days in exile here before escaping to reclaim Paris. And in its crystal-clear seas in 1976, another man escaped the land, reclaiming mankind’s dormant connection to the ocean. Jacques Mayol dived 100m on a single breath, shattering records and expectations about his survival. Physicians predicted the pressure at that depth would kill him. Instead, blood shifted from his extremities to his vital organs, and his heart dipped to 24 beats per minute. He was experiencing the dive reflex – a phenomenon previously only observed in dolphins. “My father survived because humans have the same reflexes as maritime mammals,” Jean-Jacques Mayol explains.
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Elba, ITALY Marina di Campo Take a deep breath and dive in at teammayol.com
Breathing calmly as you surface is vital, or you risk blacking out. This is the single greatest danger freedivers face and more commonly occurs in shallow water as pressure decreases and oxygen stores are depleted. Just an arm’s length from the surface, divers can disappear into the ocean without regaining consciousness. This is why freedivers should never operate alone and must watch out for each other. Controlling breathing patterns is also essential. “Exhale twice as long as you inhale,” says Mayol, performing THE INSIDER an enigmatic belly dance. Doing this, the Surfacing can be students can double dangerous if you have low levels of their time beneath the surface, enabling oxygen. “Never activities far more hyperventilate,” daring than the paltry says Mayol. “You lifting of stones. won’t take in Two days later, enough air, and this could cause the four stand on you to black out.” the small beach of Pomonte, ready for their final trial – a dive to the sunken wreck of the Italian merchant ship Elviscot. “The baseline of freediving is mental discipline,” says Mayol. “Our mind behaves like a monkey; it has to be controlled.” Selecting one student, he runs through the checklist: fill the lungs with oxygen, take one last breath, equalise the ears while dropping to a depth of 8m. For the next 30m, there’s no chance to surface. “If you switch into panic mode, you’re in big trouble.” Mayol’s son Michael, also an experienced freediver, leads the student down and into the wreck. Nearly two minutes pass. As they resurface, relaxed and without haste, Mayol grins. “It’s all about the aquatic memory,” he says. He takes a deep breath and rolls over gracefully, disappearing into the sea, never to return. Well, for at least three minutes.
SUNKEN TREASURE
More breathtaking apnoea spots
Jaws academy
Head to Shark School in the Bahamas. The fearsome predators don’t learn much, but you will as you swim with them and leading shark behaviourist Dr Erich Ritter. sharkschool.org
Get wrecked
Passenger ship SS Yongala sank off Queensland, Australia, in 1911. Ever since, it’s been one of the world’s most popular diving sites, visited by tourists and marine life alike. yongaladive.com.au
Divers’ cemetery
The 94m-deep Red Sea blue hole near the town of Dahab is considered one to be of the world’s most dangerous freediving spots, ensuring it also remains one of the most popular. freedivedahab.com
THE RED BULLETIN
PETER PLATTNER(2), GETTY IMAGES, IMAGO(2)
ACTION
ACTION
GEAR
FUTURE RETRO
Tired of endlessly upgrading your old tech? Then don’t. Vintage gadgets are back in a big way – dial back the clock with the rebirth of these classic contraptions
Kodak Super 8 The film format Spielberg, Tarantino and Nolan cut their teeth on is enjoying a renaissance. Kodak is celebrating the revival with this camera from industrial designer Yves Béhar. kodak.com Kodak’s first Super 8 camera in more than 30 years sports a digital viewfinder. Send in your film for processing and you’ll receive a digital scan, too
Sony Walkman A27
Star Wars Hologram Vinyl
With 64GB of storage, the legendary portable music player can carry your music in almost every format except, ironically, cassette tape. sony.com
Star Wars and vinyl – does it get any more nostalgic? Yes, it does: when you spin the LP, a hologram materialises. disneymusicemporium.com
VNYL TRNTBL
Punkt MP01
737 Cowling Chair
What this record deck lacks in vowels, it makes up for in music recognition, detecting what you play and adding it to your Spotify playlists. trntbl.co
Crafted by British designer Jasper Morrison, this ‘dumb’ phone lets you call, text, and rediscover the lost art of dinner conversation. punkt.ch
Fallen Furniture has salvaged aircraft parts dating back to the 1960s and transformed them into jet-set seating. fallenfurniture.com
THE RED BULLETIN
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ACTION
GEAR “Air is drawn through hidden vents on the sides, to cool the computer and batteries”
“With no driver, geometric fenders lead a spectator’s eye to the centre of the car”
behaviour will be like seeing petrol cars on steroids. Watching a car go past at 300kph with unbelievable aerodynamics and no driver is a hell of an experience. Inevitably, there will be collisions. From a cost point of view, no one will want that, but it’s a part of motorsport.”
What is Roborace?
INNOVATIONS: THE NONHUMAN RACE
Meet the Robocar, the world’s first driverless racing car in a sport where humans are mere spectators THE IDEAS MEN Daniel Simon, 41 & Justin Cooke, 35 Want to see the future? Daniel Simon can show you. The German automotive concept designer envisioned the Light Cycles for Tron: Legacy and the Bubbleships in Oblivion, which made him the go-to person when Justin Cooke and the Kinetik team needed a new kind of car for what could be the future of motorsport. Roborace is about to begin. roborace.com
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Justin Cooke: “It’s the world’s first driverless electric racing competition, with self-driving racing cars similar in size to those in F1. Inside is a brain – the Nvidia Drive PX-2 – capable of trillions of operations per second, and each competing team has to program it. We’re giving them a blank canvas, and the only competitive advantage is their code, making it a truly level playing field. It’s not about how much money you can spend in a wind tunnel, it’s a competition of intelligence. This is about who are the smartest engineers in the world.”
So the cars can think for themselves?
JC: “You’ve got two options. There’s artificial intelligence, where you tell the car, ‘Here’s a set of circumstances,’ scan the track and give it all that information. Then there’s machine learning, where it goes round the track, getting better and better: ‘That last turn took 0.61 seconds, but I think I can do it in 0.59 if I cut the corner, which will be 6kph faster.’ It depends on the teams and what they bring from a technological point of view.”
Without the fatality risk, will the racing be more extreme? JC: “Absolutely. The acceleration and
Talking of unbelievable aerodynamics, how much of the car is pure style?
Daniel Simon: “This can’t only be a tech exercise, because no one would pay to see that. It has to be emotional, but we took out one of the biggest emotional factors: Hamilton and Rosberg kicking each other’s ass. The intention was to create something sleek and beautiful that still creates incredible downforce and driving dynamic. Put a team of engineers on it and the outcome is like designing a moon rover. We want to entertain and excite. We want a reaction like, ‘What the f--k, this is awesome!’”
How will the cars evolve?
JC: “Our ambition is to accelerate driverless electric technology. What’s the one thing that would really grab people’s attention and be the most exciting spectacle in the evolution of sporting competition? Google’s driverless car has driven however many zillions of miles, but most of that has been at 18kph. We’re going at 300kph, which changes everything. “When we started, we looked at birds and fish – natural objects created to go faster and do incredible things. We could have been much more crazy and sci-fi and wild, but if you go too far, people become confused and scared, and you lose what you’re trying to do. The purpose here is to demystify the fear that ‘the robots are coming’. I think you’ll see an amazing evolution over the next few years. Daniel has some incredible thoughts on how to do that.”
THE RED BULLETIN
HERI IRAWAN
“The floor is a huge factor, creating more downforce and adding battery space”
ACTION
GEAR
WATCHES
Edited by Gisbert L Brunner
FINELY ROLLED
Zenith El Primero Chronomaster 1969 Cohiba Edition
Unlike the cigar that inspired it, the Chronomaster 1969 Cohiba Edition is waterresistant to a depth of 100m
The Cuban Cohiba is a benchmark in craftsmanship. Here is the cigar that Fidel Castro himself, upon encountering a blend made by artisan Eduardo Ribera, ordered into production at a heavily guarded mansion, for the enjoyment of himself and his closest comrades. To this day, every Cuban Cohiba is hand-rolled and finished at that glorious 1920s-built house – now El Laguito cigar factory – with an attention to excellence that is comparable to the Swiss watch industry. Luxury watchmaker Zenith has noted this connection and created a timepiece to mark 50 years of the Cohiba. Its dial is a rich tobacco-leaf brown and features the cigar brand’s yellow and black polka-dot livery. Inside is Zenith’s El Primero automatic movement, born in 1969, just three years after El Comandante demanded his first stash of Cohibas. Quality and luxury aren’t the only traits the watch has in common with Fidel’s favourite smokes: with a steel edition limited to 500 pieces and just 50 in rose gold, it’s also exclusive. A revolutionary idea worthy of Che Guevara himself. zenith-watches.com
TOTALLY SMOKIN’
They may not be good for your health, but tobacco and chocolate look great on a watch face IWC Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition “Antoine de Saint-Exupéry” The aviator and author of The Little Prince is honoured with a 1,000-piece run of this 44mm stainless-steel chronograph, which has a split second hand. iwc.com
Montblanc Heritage Spirit Date Automatic Sometimes, perfection is born of simplicity. This 39mm wristwatch forgoes fussiness with its elegant brown dial and rose-gold case, though a transparent glass back reveals inner complexity. montblanc.com
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Swatch Schoggi The Swiss are most famous for two things – great timepieces and excellent chocolate – and this is what you get when you combine the two. Schoggi (it means cocoa) has a 34mm sun-brushed dial, with a scarlet second hand to add some punch to all that sweetness. swatch.com
THE RED BULLETIN
ACTION
WHEELS
MOTOR MERCH
The McLaren 570GT has a 3.8-litre twinturbo V8, delivering 562hp, and a sevenspeed gearbox
Adding acceleration to your accessories
iXOOST VuOTTO An F1 exhaust manifold makes a perfect amp for your iPhone tunes. The base of the system is milled from a single block of aluminium into a Cosworth V8 replica. ixoost.it
ICE MACHINE
Shmee150 finds his sportscar heart melting for McLaren’s cool GT I’m absolutely boiling. Driving in Tenerife, the sun is beating down on me through the panoramic roof of the McLaren 570GT. It would help if I had the air-conditioning set right, but while I’m overheating, the drive itself remains remarkably chilled. The 570GT joins the 570S in McLaren’s Sports Series. But while the latter is sportfocused, this, as the name suggests, is the grand-touring counterpoint. And that means comfort. There’s the hatchback, which adds 220 litres of luggage space, and a slightly enlarged rear spoiler to compensate for the downforce lost from its change in shape. Softer springs soak up Tenerife’s bumpy roads, and a minutely slower steering rack makes it less pointy than the 570S – but not much. Opening it up, though, McLaren’s Active Dynamics Panel has the full range of sports and track modes, stiffening the suspension and increasing throttle response. I’m a 570S man – I like a hardcore driver’s car – but what surprises me is quite how much fun this is; nothing is lost from the basic ride of the S. This may just be the one supercar you can use for everything: intensely exciting when you push it, but with a softer, quieter ride that won’t leave you exhausted. And that’s what you want from a GT – a great drive best served chilled. mclaren.com
Senturion Key
Tim Burton, aka Shmee150, is one of social media’s mostfollowed supercar connoisseurs. Now he brings that expertise to The Red Bulletin. Watch Shmee’s full video review of this month’s cars at redbulletin.com
Koenigsegg intends on taking the supercar throne by force
THE RED BULLETIN
Superleggera RS-9.1 The new racing suit at the top end of Sparco’s range is an ultra-light, three-layer design featuring Eagle stretch fabric on the floating sleeves and back panel for increased wear-resistance and breathability. sparco.it
ALL THE KING’S HORSES In Swedish, Regera means ‘to reign’, and Koenigsegg’s well-named first hybrid appears to have the power to do just that. The Swedish manufacturer’s luxury megacar offers horsepower that climbs into the purely theoretical, via a 5-litre, twin-turbo internalcombustion engine that mates 1,100hp with an electric motor offering 700hp for performance that should be mind-blowing. It’s capable of 0-100kph in 2.8 seconds and can reach speeds of 400kph in under 20 seconds. It’s a plug-in hybrid with the charging socket tucked away at the rear, above a cooling vent designed to mimic an exhaust. It’s also gorgeous, and I can’t wait to see one on the road. koenigsegg.com/regera
Beat your Apple Watchowning friends with this supercar-opening wristwear. Made from a combination of titanium, rose gold and even diamonds, it uses radio-frequency ID to control entry and ignition. Supercar not included. senturionkey.com
The Regera weighs just 1,470kg, and the roof stows in the bonnet
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ACTION
CULTURE TV
“Won’t wear a hat, won’t grow a beard… Do you wanna be in this gang or not?”
SWEET CHRISTMAS! That’s the catchphrase of Luke Cage. Luke who? Read on…
Cage fight
MAGNITUDE OF MAGNIFICENCE
Remaking The Magnificent Seven is not a task taken lightly. Director Antoine Fuqua explains how he found his seven and made it all happen So, how magnificent is it compared with the 1960 original? Pretty magnificent. It stays true to the DNA of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai [the 1954 Japanese film on whose screenplay The Magnificent Seven was based], that tale of the underdog. I kept the style classic, shooting it on film but with a modern tone – there’s no ‘western speak’ and tobacco spitting. Also, the characters are more diverse; we have Denzel Washington in the lead, along with Lee Byung-hun [South Korean], Manuel GarciaRulfo [Mexican] and Martin Sensmeier [Native American]. How did you find your seven? It was tough. First, there was getting Denzel in a western, on a horse. Then we had to find a Steve McQueen [and we got] Chris Pratt, who’d had many offers, but loves westerns. I’d been trying to get Ethan Hawke [and Washington] together again [they had co-starred in Fuqua’s Training Day], and when Ethan heard about it, he said, “I don’t care what role it is, I’m in.” When is this film at its most magnificent? When 200 horses are storming down a hill towards town for the finale. Looking at all my cameras, that was magnificent. But for me, it’s when the guys are walking up the street, planning how to protect the town – I’m looking at the Magnificent Seven. And then there’s James Horner’s soundtrack – his last ever… James played a big part in me making the movie. When I was struggling to put it together, he said, “Antoine, you’ll be remaking history.” When he died, it was crushing. Then I was told he’d left me a surprise gift: seven songs based on the script. I played them to my entire crew, which fuelled everyone. It’s amazing, and to this day I don’t know how he did it – he didn’t see an inch of film. The Magnificent Seven is out on September 23; sonypictures.com
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COWBOY JOBS
Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai inspired some far less magnificent creations…
Battle Beyond The Stars (1980) Billed “The Magnificent Seven in outer space” by executive producer Roger Corman, the film starred original cast member Robert Vaughn, with a soundtrack by James Horner. Directing the special effects was newcomer James Cameron. ¡Three Amigos! (1986) The same story, but with seven magnificent warriors replaced by three idiots, played by Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Steve Martin. Has spawned its own actors-mistaken-for-heroes subgenre (Galaxy Quest, A Bug’s Life, Tropic Thunder).
Pulp friction In the early ’90s, Quentin Tarantino almost made a movie based on his love of the Luke Cage: Hero For Hire comicbook series from the ’70s. His dream casting choice? Morpheus himself, Laurence Fishburne. When it fell through, he made Pulp Fiction instead.
The Ridiculous 6 (2015) An Adam Sandler comedywestern that succeeds as neither. Most reviewers would have chosen a less flattering adjective for the title too, it seems. Has a zero-per-cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Nic the name When aspiring actor (and comic fan) Nicolas Coppola – nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola – changed his surname to prevent claims of nepotism, he chose that of the superhero. As Nic Cage, he went on to play Marvel’s Ghost Rider and, almost, Superman. New series Luke Cage comes to Netflix on September 30; netflix.com
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FILM
Over the years, a number of actors have campaigned to play the Marvel superhero, whose powers include unbreakable skin. None more so than Isaiah Mustafa – aka the guy from the Old Spice ads on US TV – who made a fan trailer with himself as the star, and appeared in a Marvel-produced spoof.
p ro m ot i o n
Must-haves! 1 oakley green fade Oakley is proud to release its new Green Fade Collection! Oakley, a brand with a deep rooted heritage of innovation and performance in sports, has launched a special-edition eyewear collection, Green Fade – made for today’s world-class athletes who demand the very best. Oakley is bringing back the vibrant green color that was featured on the brand’s first performance product 1980 for this exclusive one-time collection. Combining the brand’s iconic 80’s Green color of performance with the 21st century of Prizm lenses, Green Fade is a rare edition in sports eyewear and will be worn by all of Oakley’s athletes in top competitions within their respective sports this year. From July 15th 2016, the Green Fade collection will be available for all fans that wish to show their support for the top athletes and celebrate performance and excellence. RRP R2 890.
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www.oakley.com 2 Huawei P9 The P9 brings together best-in-class technologies. By integrating the design values and engineering excellence of Leica and Huawei, the two have transformed smartphone photography into an experience that enables users to capture the highest-quality pictures. The P9’s ground-breaking dual-camera, specialises in capturing vivid colour and acquiring precision imagery through the camera’s monochrome capabilities. With the P9 dual-camera, users can become expert photographers and capture images with superior detail and depth. The P9 will be available at all local operator networks on contract and prepaid packages. RRP R11 999. RRP R13 499 for the P9 Plus.
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http://consumer.huawei.com 3 SwatcH irony cHrono Destination Barcelona, part of this year’s Fall Winter collection, offers a sun-brushed blue and white dial with orange print and a 6 o’clock date window. The case is brushed stainless steel with a brushed bezel engraved and filled in blue. RRP R2 550.
www.swatch.com 4 enduro SPort S SHortS ort ortS VaporRize™ woven fabrics place an emphasis on durability and moisture management, leaving you dry, comfortable, and protected out on the trail. Fixed liner shorts with Body Geometry Mountain Chamois are lightweight and breathable, while the chamois adds plenty of comfort and support. Two hand pockets and one zippered pocket provide ample, secure room to house your trail essentials and electronics. Side waist adjustment tabs ensure that the fit of the shorts is easily customizable and dialed-in, even when your pockets are loaded. Deflect® UV 50+ protects your skin from harmful, ultraviolet rays. 12“ inseam (size 34“ waist) falls low and loose near the knee, allowing plenty of room to run pads. RRP R999.
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www.specialized.com
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5 Puma red Bull racing diSc Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of PUMA shaking up the industry when the laceless system was first introduced, PUMA has introduced the Red Bull Racing Disc within the Red Bull Racing lifestyle collection. The shoe has a grey perforated leather upper providing a premium and contemporary feel, while the full bootie construction and DISC technology offer the ultimate fit and comfort. The new DISC system is quicker to turn and the smooth internal wire system that wraps and secures the upper is faster to tighten. Additional design features include PUMA‘s iconic Formstripe on the outer side of the shoe and subtle Red Bull Racing branding on the heel. RSP R1 899.
www.puma.com
CULTURE
THE PLAYLIST BEARTOOTH
GET BACH Led Zeppelin may have won ownership of the Stairway To Heaven riff in court, but classical music fans hear Johann Sebastian Bach. And his influence goes further…
Beartooth gigs are not for the faint-hearted: plastic beer glasses sail through the air as an adolescent horde pogos wildly. But, says Caleb Shomo, mastermind of the US hardcore band, that’s just how he likes it. Shomo has been driving his contemporaries nuts for the last eight years – first with his former metalcore band, Attack Attack!, and then in 2013 when he formed Beartooth with the goal of sounding even harder and more extreme. To celebrate the release of the band’s second album, Aggressive, the 23-year-old reveals five musical energy bombs that get him pumped. beartoothband.com
Rage Against The Machine
Slayer
Guerrilla Radio
Repentless [from the album of the same name]
“When I was a kid, I mostly listened to classic rock music, because that’s what my parents would play at home. But that all changed when I got a Tony Hawk video game with this song on the soundtrack – it blew my mind! The guitar riffs are so heavy, and the energy is mind-blowing. I could feel the adrenalin rush through my body. Every time I sit down to write a song, I try to recreate the energy contained in this tune.”
“What I admire about Slayer is that they never try anything innovative, they never mess with their formula. For 35 years, these thrash-metal gods have been delivering the most energetic head-bang music ever. Take this masterpiece from their most recent album. It starts with an epic guitar riff, which then powers through the entire song. There’s no letting up, it’s just yelling and musical mayhem. I love it!”
AC/DC
Motörhead
Whole Lotta Rosie
Love Me Like a Reptile [from the album Ace Of Spades]
“When you’re talking about highenergy bands, you have to mention AC/DC. Angus Young is 61 and he’s still running around the stage, head-banging like a madman. His live presence has informed my performance a lot. I’m not sure if Axl Rose [who stepped in to replace singer Brian Johnson on tour] can do justice to classics like Whole Lotta Rosie, but I’d still love to see them live. They’re my favourite rock’n’roll band ever.”
“The first time I heard this song was six years ago when we were on tour and our guitar tech played it to me. We ended up listening to the track every night before the show. With Lemmy’s harsh voice and his distorted bass guitar, this song gets you pumped like nothing else. Lemmy was the ultimate rock’n’roll badass, and he played shows right up to his death late last year. He loved what he did, which I find very inspiring.”
Slipknot People = Shit [from the album Iowa] “This song is so pissed off! Superfast parts alternate with slower head-bang riffs, and in the chorus the whole band yell, ‘People equals shit,’ over and over. Their lyrics are so raw and uncensored. I love it. I’m not sure if we would incorporate masks and fire [two of Slipknot’s trademarks] into our live shows – we’re more about raw energy – but musically and lyrically they’ve been a big inspiration on the Beartooth sound.”
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PROCOL HARUM A WHITER SHADE OF PALE This 1967 classic – named one of the greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone – strongly echoes Bach’s Air On The G String. Compare the descending chord figures in the intro – they sound almost identical to the German composer’s work.
THE BEACH BOYS LADY LYNDA Head Beach Boy Brian Wilson has said that Bach’s music inspired the hit single California Girls. On Lady Lynda, the band went even further, opening the song with a harpsichord melody based on his movement Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring.
THE GADGET Nura
Created by an Australian start-up, these headphones deliver a listening experience tailored precisely to your hearing. By playing a series of tones that generate an aural response in your cochlea, the device detects how you perceive frequencies. This data then determines the best possible audio setting for your ears. nuraphone.com
MUSE PLUG IN BABY The intro of Muse’s 2001 breakthrough single has been named one of the greatest rock guitar riffs ever. Few people know, though, that it’s not purely Matt Bellamy’s brainchild, but a bastardisation of Bach’s organ piece Toccata And Fugue In D Minor.
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MYRIAM SANTOS
ACTION
CULTURE
ACTION
CAN ART
DIETMAR KAINRATH
Dietmar Kainrath’s pointed pen
SOUTH AFRICA PLAY MAURITANIA ON SEPTEMBER 2, IN AN AFRICA CUP OF NATIONS QUALIFYING MATCH
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KINGJAMESII 257 KINGJAMESII 257
ACTION
CULTURE
MY LIFE IN GAMES MARK NAUTA
CLONE WARS
The game designer helped create one of this year’s biggest turn-based strategy titles, XCOM 2. Here, Nauta reveals the influences that led him to the gig THE GAME THAT MOST INSPIRED ME: MASS EFFECT
“I already knew I wanted to be a game designer before I’d played these games, but the Mass Effect series really showed me how powerful the medium can be. It evoked this amazing sense of wonder and adventure, which was backed up by interesting characters and solid momentto-moment gameplay.”
“XCOM 2 is actually the first title I’ve worked on in the gaming industry proper. Pretty good start, I’d say. Before this, there was a swathe of student and gamejam [independent] projects, such as the cooperative, top-down shooter Tetrapulse and Groovy Tuesday, a music game where you’re a rollerskating elephant. It was a fairly natural transition to start working on hardcore strategy games.”
THE FIRST GAME I PLAYED: WORLD OF ILLUSION STARRING MICKEY MOUSE AND DONALD DUCK
NAUTA’S TOP TIP “In XCOM 2, it’s important to be tactically aggressive. The enemy aliens have scary, powerful abilities, so if you get the chance to make a risky move and deal with them sooner than later, it might just be worth that risk”
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“I used to play this game with my sister; we’d work together to explore and solve puzzles. I loved the Sega Genesis [the Mega Drive in Europe] and ate up stuff like the Sonic games and Road Rash. This was all happening when I was only five, but video games have been a huge part of my life ever since.”
Sega Mega Drive Arcade Ultimate Portable Old-school gaming on the go. This console has a 2.8in screen and rechargeable battery, and comes preloaded with 20 classic titles, including Sonic The Hedgehog.
MY CURRENT FAVOURITE: ROCKET LEAGUE
“I play mostly multiplayer games – anything from a quick round of Rocket League to a Civilization V marathon – to keep in contact with friends all over the country. I still love single-player games, but who could turn down the chance to play with friends?”
THE GAME I’D TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND: SUPER SMASH BROS MELEE
“I’ve been playing this game for 15 years, and I haven’t got tired of it yet. As evidenced by its still-thriving competitive scene, there is so much room to improve and evolve your gameplay in Super Smash Bros Melee. Hopefully there’s someone else trapped on the island for me to play against.”
Atari Flashback 6 The console that helped popularise home gaming in the ’70s is reborn in this plug-andplay system, complete with two authentic controllers and 100 games, including Space Invaders and Centipede.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega+ Based on the home computer that defined ’80s gaming, and crowdfunded by ZX Spectrum inventor Clive Sinclair himself, this handheld has 1,000 pre-installed classics and lets you install more.
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GETTY IMAGES
THE FIRST GAME I WORKED ON: XCOM 2
Go vintage with these officially licensed retro game systems
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ACTION
“I remember every rock and turn of every course” Three-time World Cup champion Aaron Gwin The downhill course in Andorra starts smooth, but soon gives way to challenging sections
RED BULL TV
BATTLE THE ELEMENTS
This month’s TV is filled with the thin air of Andorra’s peaks, rugged Welsh soil, some South African surf and blazing live music
UCI MOUNTAIN BIKE WORLD CUP LIVE SEPTEMBER 3-5 The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup returns to the Andorran ski-resort of Vallnord, promising a fast, tricky course for the downhill round and a high-altitude challenge for cross-country competitors. Sept 3, 14.30 SAST – DHI Women and Men; Sept 4, 11.00 SAST – XCO Women; Sept 5, 14.00 SAST – XCO Men
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CULTURE RED BULL TV HIGHLIGHTS
BESTIVAL MUSIC FESTIVAL
LIVE SEPT 9-11, 18.00 SAST Started on the Isle of Wight in 2004 by legendary DJ Rob Da Bank, Bestival is the fitting backdrop for this stop in Red Bull TV’s Season of Festivals.
RED BULL HARDLINE
WATCH RED BULL TV ANYWHERE Red Bull TV is a new global, multi-platform channel that features inspirational and entertaining programming beyond the ordinary. Available across devices, watch Red Bull TV anytime, anywhere. To learn more, visit redbull.tv
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SVEN MARTIN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL(2), BARTEK WOLINSKI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, STEVE STILLS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, BARTEK WOLINSKI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, ERIK VOAKE/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
LIVE SEPT 18, 21.00 SAST The world’s greatest downhill mountain bikers return to Dinas Mawddwy in Wales for the toughest course on the calendar.
LET’S BE FRANK
PREMIERES SEPT 19 For five months every year, South African big-wave surfer Frank Solomon goes missing. What does he get up to? This film shows that he will let nothing, even reality, get in the way of his dream.
AUSTIN CITY LIMITS MUSIC FESTIVAL
LIVE SEPT 30-OCT 2, 21.00-05.00 SAST The city of Austin, Texas, is renowned for being the live music capital of the world. Tune in to this incredible event in Zilker Park and you’ll see exactly why that is.
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ACTION
EVENTS SAVE THE DATE
Red Bull Music Academy graduate Black Coffee is one of the main drawcards at RBMA Weekender
More sporting and music highlights coming your way this month
1-4 September Hippy style
Woodstock, one of SA’s most iconic festivals, named for its very famous big brother, which took place in the US in August 1969, is back. There’s a new venue, in Hartbeespoort, but the same commitment to good, local tunage. woodstocksa.co.za
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September 1-4 Jolling in Jozi various venues, Joburg The progressive sound of Red Bull Music Academy Weekender will be staging a takeover of Joburg’s inner city and some of its legendary music venues. Prepare for massive artists, including global superstars Fat Freddy’s Drop, RBMA’s most famous alumni, Black Coffee, and scores of house-music heroes from home and abroad. redbull.com/za
September 18 Mother City marathon
August 27 Alternative dancing
Cape Town
various venues, Joburg
Cape Town’s sights provide a fitting backdrop to this race, which, while still finding its feet as a city marathon, has made some giant strides in global prominence. Expect some of the planet’s finest long-distance athletes and some serious sidewalk spirit from the city’s passionate inhabitants. capetownmarathon.com
If dancing till dawn like a loon is your thing, look no further than Joburg’s Grietfest, the city’s biggest alternative music party. The line-up is pumping with veritable talents, including the UK’s Dimension, heavyweights Sibot and Toyota, Grimehouse, Lektrique, Killer Robot and Pop Art. grietfest.com
SuperSport Park, Centurion
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October Run Wallaby
September 30 Six and out The Proteas have had a hard time of late and are going through a rough transition. Some of the old faces that took South Africa to the top of the world rankings are gone and the disappointment of last year’s world cup still lingers. They’ll find stern opposition in Australia, who they take on in a One Day International. cricket.co.za
You know spring is well and truly in the air when it’s time for radio station 94.7’s annual Joburg Day celebration. This year’s stellar line-up includes Mi Casa, Matthew Mole, Kwesta, GoodLuck and AKA. 947.co.za/joburgday/
Grimehouse: lords of the dance
Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria plays host to what, hopefully, won’t be too titanic a clash between the Springboks and the Wallabies. Expect big hits, noisy fans, grumpy Australians and crisp Highveld air. sarugby.co.za
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YUKITAKA AMEMIYA/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, CHRIS HITCHCOCK, GETTY IMAGES
September Jozi’s sound
ACTION
HOW TO
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Study plants, even in a desert
“If you’re crossing land and you come across a wet area, look at the plant life. Get to a spot that’s drier and look at the plants again. Based on these plant patterns, you’ve got a moisture map. So now you can say, ‘If we go that way we’ll be up to our waists, if we go that other way we’ll get wet boots, but this way is going to be dry all the way up that hill.’ It’s also useful to remember that trees grow more horizontally on the southern side of a hill and more vertically to the north.”
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Read signs left by the elements
“I learnt from the Tuareg nomads that when the wind blows over sand, it creates asymmetric ripples, shallow on the side the wind comes from, deeper on the other. The same happens on a beach, where these ripples reveal water flowing from the shallow side to the deep side, but not back. Asymmetric ripples with a flat top are a sign of tidal waters; symmetrical ripples show where the waves break. So whether you’re going for a swim, sail, surf or kayak, you can quickly build a map of what the water has done and is likely to do.”
NEVER GET LOST Digital maps are a wonderful thing, but when your smartphone battery dies, the world can seem like an impenetrable wilderness. At this point, it’s time to forget Google and turn to Gooley – that’s Tristan Gooley, explorer and author of The Natural Navigator. Bored by the predictability of modern travel, the Brit looked to the likes of the Inuit, the Saharan Tuareg and Borneo’s Dayak people for traditional methods of navigation. Gooley has since led expeditions across five continents and is the only living person to have both flown and sailed solo across the Atlantic. His know-how won’t only lead you home, but help you find yourself: “A two-mile journey using stars, animals and trees to show the way gives me the same thrill I had as a kid in a dinghy.” naturalnavigator.com
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Learn how to look
MARK THOMAS
“Your brain has evolved to spot motion, because it indicates threat or opportunity,” says Gooley. “We then notice shapes and colours. But you can override the software in your head. Scan from left to right and your brain is on autopilot – reading has made us used to this – but go right to left and you become more observant. Your eyes feed information to the brain in a slightly different way, so it knows it needs to pay attention to something.”
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Now stop looking
“Sight is a bullying sense: when judging wind direction, your eyes will veer to that lone conifer 10 degrees off target. To tune in, close your eyes and turn your head so the wind feels equal on both sides of your nose. If it’s strong enough, you’ll hear a buffeting in each ear. Eyes still closed, do a karate chop into the wind; your hand should feel cool on both sides. Become orientated like this and you’ll never be caught out by a change in weather.”
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Navigate rough waters
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Avoid night expeditions
“The reflection of the setting sun on water is known as the glitter path. The width of the path tells you how rough the water is: the wider it is, the steeper the waves. An uneven width or signs of bulging reveal a rough patch of water or an area more exposed to the wind. This technique works for everything from moonlight on the high seas to a streetlamp shining onto a village pond.”
“The Tuareg don’t travel at night. To show me why, they took me on a short walk and got me to find my way back. I struggled, even though I followed basic principles. I knew where north, south, east and west were, and I knew we’d walked a certain distance for 20 minutes, then west for another 20, but the angle of moonlight changes the landscape dramatically. The moon only has to shift 15 degrees and the desert looks completely different.”
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THE FLAVOUR OF TROPICAL FRUITS. THE WINGS OF RED BULL.
THE RED BULL SUMMER EDITION.
ACTIVE WEAR
POWER DRESSED From workwear to military fatigues, much of our everyday clothing has evolved from practical origins. Now, as sport becomes ever more technical, so its fabrics and designs are transforming the way we live and dress...
US skier Ed Scott invented the aluminium ski pole in 1958, spawning the sports brand that gives us the 25 Icon Hoody. scott-sports.com
A surf top that’s saving the sea, the Ocean Crew Sweat’s ‘bionic yarn’ is made from recycled plastic found on beaches. oneill.com
From golf knits to socks to this Men Originals Tennis Tee, argyle pattern always adds a casual sporty look. adidas.com
Despite the name, the polo shirt was created for tennis players – but this Olymp Polo would work for everyone. olymp.com
TOPS A sun-protective collar and breathable, quickdry fabric make this Dry Pique Designed Polo Shirt a cut above the rest. uniqlo.com
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Just as no one remembers the T-shirt was once a lowly undergarment, so the sweatshirt – created and named for its simple purpose as an exercise top – has long since broken free of the gym. Be seen wearing these everywhere from the office to the street to a night out on the town.
Athletic grey is a colour associated with military gym wear, but it brings class to this Mont Blanc Raglan Sweat. howl-london.com
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ACTIVE WEAR
TROUSERS Jogging bottoms and track pants have long been fashionable, but thanks to the athleisure explosion you don’t have to be Kanye to get away with wearing these to a fancy restaurant.
These Levi’s Skateboarding Collection Work Trousers typify the company’s perfect mashup of workwear and youth subculture. levi.com
The Traveler Slub Twill Pant – so named for its irregular cotton weave and the climber’s style cut of its leg. obeyclothing.co.uk
Trefoil Football Club Track Pants, with their tapered fit, bring the style of classic football kits to the new wave of athleisure. adidas.com
Featherweight, storm-resistant Alpine Houdini Pants protect from the elements, while remaining breathable. patagonia.com
Made in terry fabric in the timeless style of US military athletic wear, Eden Sweat Pants show that army life can be comfy. finisterre.com
The Todd Snyder X Champion Classic Sweatpant looks too comfy to wear anywhere fancy – which is why you must. toddsnyder.com
The Belvidere Pant is billed as mission-ready loungewear for the home, on the go, or packed away in its own side pocket. burton.com
Moto Sweatpants – so called for their ribbed kneepads and fitted legs. The fabric is already ‘broken in’ for comfort. aviatornation.com
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ACTIVE WEAR Adidas demonstrates its mastery in shoe tech and branding with the Ultra Boost Uncaged. The Primeknit Sockfit upper is snug and flexible, and the Stretchweb outsole boosts footfall energy. adidas.com
The Air Huarache Ultra is a revival of Nike’s 1991 classic, with its elastic heel strap and rubber cage, perforated foam and mesh upper, and lightweight midsole doubling as an outsole. If it ain’t broke… nike.com
The DynaFlyte sounds more like a bullet than a shoe – with good reason. Asics’ Impact Guidance System uses linked components to enhance the foot’s natural gait from heel strike to toe-off. asics.com
SHOES From the original Converse All-Star to the Nike Air Jordan, the design and performance of sneakers has driven fashion and sporting achievement. With revolutionary materials and engineering, today’s sports shoes are taking style and success to the next level.
The first Vans Sk8-Hi came out in 1978. Almost 40 years later, this classic of skateboard culture remains nearly identical, with the same canvas upper and rubber waffle sole – only its reputation has grown. vans.com
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Sports-shoe progress is rapid, but 20 years on from its initial release the Instapump Fury OG still looks cutting edge. Go back to the future and pump up these babies for comfort and retro cred. reebok.com
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ACTIVE WEAR
ACCESSORIES The surge in popularity of stylish and functional activewear extends far beyond mere garments. From fitness watches to sports sunglasses and adventure bags, your accessories should be every bit as action-ready as you are.
Julbo has made sunglasses since Chamonix crystal hunters demanded protective eyewear in the early 20th century. These Beach shades with Spectron 3 polarisation show its dedication hasn’t waned. julbo.com Take the robust Woodford Daypack with you, whether heading to the office or off into the great outdoors. jack-wolfskin.com
The Fitbit Blaze takes all that great fitness tracking and heart monitoring, and packs it into a smartwatch that looks sharp. fitbit.com
As sportswear turned fashion goes, the baseball hat is the one of the most enduring staples – especially in this timeless grey. soliver.eu
Sensoria Smart Socks are really smart. Comfy pressure sensors relay your footfall and cadence to a mobile app. sensoriafitness.com
The Adidas Trefoil logo sits as coolly on street style as it does on pro sportswear. Now it lends cred to this iPhone SE case. adidas.com
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Few labels combine extreme sports and highend style as well as Nixon – its Enamel Icon II Belt being a case in point. nixon.com
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ACTIVE WEAR
For an anorak, the Keb Eco-Shell is pleasantly stylish. And with three wind-and-waterproof layers, it’s practical, too. fjallraven.com
The Versaclime Shell lives up to its name – with sealed seams at the hood, collar and shoulders, it keeps out the elements. eu.lululemon.com
The Series One is slim cut for practical reasons – exercise and mobility. It just happens to look good, too. reebok.com
Filled with premium synthetic insulation, the Xenox X Hoodie is built for alpine activities, but designed for urban life. rab.equipment
The Legacy Insulator features bonded fleece under PrimaLoft insulated panels for serious warmth in a casual style. hellyhansen.com
JACKETS The Golis Polartec Jacket combines weather resistance and comfort with an impressive warmth-to-weight ratio. buffwear.com
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The anorak was originally conceived for the most practical of reasons: warmth and protection from the elements. Now, cutting-edge fabrics and a modern aesthetic have given it a new lease of life as one of the most stylish of active garments, while making it more functional than ever before.
You may not snowboard like X Games medallist Seb Toots, but with his jacket you’ll survive the elements just as well. oneill.com
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MAKES YOU FLY
What does a five-time X Games BMX champion do if he’s in search of new inspiration? He builds his own bike park. And what if said champion is Venezuelan superstar Daniel Dhers? Then he builds a park made of salt. At Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat, which covers an area of 11,600km² in Bolivia, he found more than enough suitable construction material. instagram.com/danieldhers
BMX pro Daniel Dhers, 31, tests a quarterpipe made of salt at 3,600m above sea level
THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE RED BULLETIN IS OUT ON SEPTEMBER 13 THE RED BULLETIN IS AVAILABLE AT THE FOLLOWING STORES AND OUTLETS: PICK N PAY | SPORTSCENE | DUE SOUTH | MUSICA | BILLABONG | VANS | QUIKSILVER | AIRPORTS 98
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CAMILO ROZO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
SALAR DE UYUNI, BOLIVIA APRIL 11, 2016
“My lungs and eyes are burning, and my throat is sore… what a great day!”
TRAVIS RICE, Snowboarder
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As seen on DStv
The World’s Best Leagues and Cup Competitions. Unmissable, Unrivalled, Undoubtedly The Best.