morton on fire

we had an incredible week with marian and kevin. can't say enough how much fun it was to be on ko phangan with them. possibly the best moment of the week was captured on film. or 2 of the 3 best moments: on hat rin on ko phangan they like beach parties. the thais do their full moon parties here every month. and it seems on nights that are not the full moon, they still get the party atmosphere going, primarily by using fire.

one bar at the southern end of the beach unleashed a huge flaming jump rope for the night... the thais stand a good 20-25 feet apart on platforms head height, and start swinging the rope. laura, morton, and i are about two buckets of whiskey in at this point and time (marian, unfortunately, had food poisoning and was stuck watching pirated videos in their room) and morton gets real excited about the rope. real excited. as only a kid from tennessee could. here's his first attempt.


mortononfire1 from kevin smith on Vimeo.

now, given the circumstances (moderately inebriated, unlevel sand, firey rope of death rapidly twirling towards you), you can excuse his lackluster performance. its a giant firey rope afterall. and if you've ever met kevin morton, you know he's not going to let that mediocre performance stand. he had a second attempt which, unfortunately, was not recorded on film and there is no evidence that it ever took place. i'd like to say it went grandly.

here's his 3rd attempt in all its glory.

mortononfire3 from kevin smith on Vimeo.

he was perfectly fine.