Bear Grills vs. well, Bear Grylls (With Crohn's Disease, etc.)

Raw writing during early morning....



It may have a Mark Twainesk origin...

When I first heard about the cheeky UK Survival enthusiast I had no idea he was just the mouth full I typed.

J. would tell me about this show Man vs. Wild and then somewhere in it I would hear Bear Grills and imagined a Grizzly Bear as the logo of the show with gold grills on his fangs.





Not kidding.

So over the break I finally got watching episodes with J. about this young man, who is now older, by the name of Bear. Last name, Grylls.

Me: Hey! I thought Bear Grills was a brand.




J: "It is."


Me: I mean a person.


is."

J: "He is!" and "He does! [have his own brand of.... stuff}


Me: I'm lost. (I needed Bear Grylls right then to help me get my bearings and direction!)

I then learned that Bear Grylls, the person, was finishing up his time in the army when he broke his back from a parachute landing, then at 23 he climbed Mt. Everest. Geez, did he have to make me look that bad? But I found out from his bio that he grew up mountaineering and earned two black belts in martial arts under his father's tutilage and where they lived; a remote area.

No wonder he bounced back quickly and had time to think of a name brand for his survival stuff.

J: "His brand of cool survival gear is 'Gerber'."

Me: Wow. (Does he know that is a baby food over here in the U.S.? Maybe he says: "Grr-Bear" when pronoucning it.

To be honest, all the survival hallaballoo of him climbing up freezing cold water falls in Alaska, scampering over moss covered rocks was exciting and a highlight of J and I's vacation. Along with lounging on the bean bag and watching movies, and Kid Snippets on Youtube. And reading. And talking. And looking at the lights..... Sigh.




Anyway, during those moments of watching Net Flix episodes of Man vs. Wild,  I logged away some of his tips. The cogs in my brain got me wanting to write him a letter on survival and how he could apply it to younger boys. And older boys.



One of his books, or one written about him, said he climbed Everest on his own accord. Paraphrasing of course. I wanted to say that we all came to earth on our own accord and, while amazing, I want

 him to do an episode on surviving with disease, infections, his body attacking itself and trying to stay hydrated when you are on your own in the wild world of working out your salvation. Or something like that.

 Or even doing this in the confines of your bed or house whilst on prednisone.



After watching Will Ferrell do a two day jaunt with Bear and then decide on the side of a cliff during the snowfall that he had to go... really go. As in the number 2 version, and Will said:

"This is more like Man vs. Bowels," I was hooked.

I still don't know how they got Will's bowel movement to take place without falling to the bottom of a sheer cliff. But hearing him call out: "Mommy!" as he climbed and held onto a ladder dangling


from a Swedish driven helicopter; I could relate.. relate.
Above is Will and Bear on a very steep slope with limited time to reach the point where they build a fire and let the smoke tell the heli to pick them up.
Will was amazingly insightful on one of the breaks they took. He said that the stress and bustle of Hollywood is exciting but just sitting there on a mountain side as snow fell on him it was peaceful.

That is the difference between a lot of us- peaceful moments. And not doing crazy bravado stuff for money on TV. Like eating the head of a deer for dinner the night before on this episode.

Will still managed to be funny at points which made me laugh and you knew that they were at least not REALLY stuck in the middle of no where if cameras were all around.





In the end, Discovery channel had to cancel the show.

That was a downer because I had another show idea:

 Insert English accent:

 "Man vs. No Woman in the Kitchen"

His new episodes are called: Worse Case Scenario.

Can you think of anything worse? Me neither.

I have seen first hand men who have been through scouts, war, and a number of survival classes come to their knees when the "One who Cooks dinner, lunch and breakfast" is not around.

Bear would come upon cupboards full of weird things like baking powder, flour, and salt.
Not knowing what to do with these exotic things he would open a pantry with canned soup; open a drawer with pots and pans in it along with some identical thing but it reads: Pampered Chef.

He grabs the microwave only Pampered Chef pot and tries to re-heat tomato soup from the fridge.
The smell of melting plastic permeates the room and ruins the missing woman's favorite pot for steaming vegetables in a hurry.

It could teach men, the world over, how to not open the freezer and instead of thawing hamburger for a meal, eat crystallized  ice cream from the last birthday party.

Bear could add to his personal line of survival gear, Gerber, placing his signature to pots and pans, can openers, and kitchen ware. Which would make the young survivalist playing/pretending the excitement of getting his name on a pocketknife or something.

This would be a huge hit with the women absent who would be present and proud of their men for surviving.