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So, everybody saw this nut job bouncing around on a rope during the halftime show. It was freaking awesome. Probably the only awesome part of the show (no, MIA flipping off the camera was not awesome… it was dumb). So, who the hell is he? To answer that, we must first answer who we have discovered he is not.
Bob Ross.
Will Ferrell.
Richard Simmons.
Napoleon Dynamite.
Art Garfunkel.
Ok, now that’s out of the way. Who is he? Andy Lewis, aka Sketchy Andy. So, what the hell was he doing? It’s called slacklining, or, technically, tricklining. According to California’s Adventure Sports Journal, it was invented by two rock climbers in the 1980s :
While rope walking has been around for thousands of years, the familiar art of slacklining along a taut length of tubular nylon webbing was invented in the early 1980s by two Yosemite rock climbers, Adam Grosowsky and Jeff Ellington. The pair picked up on the idea after walking along loose chain fences on rainy days in the Valley. Hooked on the challenge, they strung up old climbing webbing between trees around their campsites at Camp 4, the traditional campground for Yosemite climbers for over 40 years. Voilà! The slackline was born.
Well, I’d never heard of slacklining or Sketchy Andy before… so I guess I should say thank you to Madonna. Thanks, Madonna…for bringing in one act that didn’t suck as part of your show.
-bp