TRUTH BE TOLD, I had been rock climbing only twice before. That did not stop me, however, from suiting up in a harness and climbing Moab’s infamous Devil’s Golf Ball, a lonely red-rock hoodoo that rises 4,000-feet above the Utah desert for an episode of the European hit, “The Moaning Life” (aired 10/27/2015 on the Sky Network). My role was to teach the ropes of Extreme Ironing to British actor Karl Pilkington.
Karl “moaned,” in clear view of the ten-member camera crew, upon our first sighting of the giant sculpted ball of sedimentary rock that rested perfectly on a weathered golf tee-like stem. In another hour, he and I planned to press the wrinkles from our laundry after scaling up its rounded-up wall. I, too, wondered what we were in for. The chasm below was deep.
We carried full-size ironing boards in our hands probably five miles to reach this spot. Looking down into the abyss that separated our ridge from the Golf Ball was intimidating. The rock climbing company guides that joined us so as to set up our climbing ropes shared with us the fact that people had died here. Despite my unease I volunteered that we were in fact there to “extreme iron,” and that looking out in front of us was in essence the very definition of extreme. Karl moaned again.
As Karl and I walk across the rock ledge to make our way to the access point for the Devil’s Golf Ball, an entourage of 23 people follow. There are the TV producers, cameramen, drone operators, rock climbing guides, as well as my cheerleaders, Stephanie and Will who drove up from Arizona to join me for this adventure. I received the invite two weeks ago via a phone call from England where “The Moaning Life” is produced asking me to lead Karl in extreme ironing. As an American, I was flattered in this role since the sport had originated on British soil two decades before, and the sports’ fanbase is mostly concentrated on the European continent. Although I established the first American chapter in 2013, extreme ironing is still largely unknown in the United States.
Karl tells me he travels the world to experience life and culture in a British reality show. He has just come from Colorado where he joined a 90-year-old woman who finds meaning in life by jumping out of airplanes. Skydiving, as it turns out, was too daunting for Karl. He hopes that extreme ironing might be more his speed. Seeing the precipice from afar makes him second-guess.
I share with him that although Extreme Ironing International has no philosophical bent, that my embrace of the sport has its roots in the Existentialism of French philosopher Albert Camus. For Camus, true meaning in life is found in the “absurd.” By adding a twist or flavor to the ordinary, we are able to transform the mundane into the memorable, a lesson I taught my philosophy students each college semester. Rather than just hike a mountain, I unfurl kites on their summit. Rather than just polar bear swim in the winter months, I do so in a superhero costume. In like mind, by adding the absurdity of an iron and ironing board to the challenge of an extreme sport, deeper meanings – and memories – are formed. Karl liked this explanation so much that he asked me to repeat it later in the day for the cameraman (albeit it did not survive the editing process).
Karl askes whether John Wayne or Zorro of the American Wild West ever ironed their wardrobe before a shoot-out. I quip back that I never noticed a wrinkle in their stir-ups. He says he bought his ironing board at Walmart earlier that day. I told him I borrowed mine from the hotel room where we stayed.
The dry desert air is masked by a whipping wind, so strong that the producers question the safety of Karl and I climbing the Golf Ball at the same time. The sphere’s surface has limited room. Instead, it is decided to keep a climbing guide stationed on top and for each of us to climb separately. I climb first to demonstrate. With the large ironing board strapped to my back, I clip into the rope and begin my ascent.
The shape of the rock requires a challenging start. I reach back over my head to grip the rock with my gloved hands. My feet scramble up. Cameras film me from various directions making me nervous about my form. While I am comfortable with heights and in a harness, rock climbing has never been my forte. Karl yells some questions my way. I answer back with spontaneity, keeping my attention on the rock. Once passed the initial curve, the climbing is easier.
Once on top I clip a carabiner from my harness to the safety ground line that that guide prepared. I take a look around. The view is just as good as before, except now I am at the epicenter. My cheering squad is across the way on a red ledge slightly lower in elevation. All eyes – and cameras – are on me. I raise both arms, hands in the thumbs up position, and let out a yell of glee. Behind me on three sides is the deep ravine whose far side we stood on earlier. The valley below is far, far below. I glance down for a quick peak but do not allow my eyes to focus lest fear creep in. A drop would be fatal. Instead ,I glance to the far side where a high ridge capped with orange and burgundy-hued domes contrasts against a sapphire sky. I want to savor the view, and the moment, but cameras are rolling.
I unhitch the ironing board from my back, snapping out its legs. The hired guide stands at one end of the board, gripping it to prevent the wind blowing it into the abyss. I unclip the iron from my harness and ready my shirt while the iron heats. I fight gusts of wind in laying the shirt flat against the board. After pressing the front breast in long even strokes, I adjust for the back, taking extra time with the collar.
All the while I am self-explaining my ironing technique in the howling wind, hopeful that the microphone pinned to my shirt will capture my wording, “Set your iron’s temperature based upon fabric, using the rule of Sir Winston Churchill,” I mutter, proud of my memory aide tribute to Britain’s great prime minister in deference to Karl’s homeland. “The ‘S’ stands for synthetics which receive the lowest heat,” I explain, “then comes wool (medium heat); cotton receives the highest heat.” Wrinkle-free, I dress myself in the freshly pressed shirt. Modelling it for the camera crews on the opposite cliff.
Karl and I trade places. He pulls boxer shorts from his laundry bag and with a few strokes of the iron joins the world of extreme ironing. Radio-controlled camera drones are airborne videoing his initiation. I imagine the IBOX-theater type footage as the drones encircle him with their lenses shooting directly into the abyss. The wind is still cracking; the boxer shorts whipping in the breeze. At times, he leaves the iron in one place too long that, like a coach standing on the opposite cliff, I admonish him to maintain nice, even strokes.
The mundane tasks of ironing has never before been so exciting, so meaningful for both of us as on that deserted pinnacle hen nothing else in the world seemed to matter. It is just you, your laundry, an iron, a board, and a picturesque paradise, performing a household chore in a glory few will ever experience.
On the hike back out, Karl and I look spiffy in our freshly pressed clothing. We bond over our new shared experience. Karl admits that ironing has never been more memorable. He wasn’t sure he would take to it at first, but he quickly “warmed” to the concept. I tell him he will be “hard-pressed” to find a more satisfying sport or leisure activity. Then I think of the Devil’s Golf Ball, and suggest that next time he comes to the States that we try “extreme golfing.”
I quip that we can trade in our irons for a 9-iron. Karl moans one last time.
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Michael Kelsey founded the American Chapter of Extreme Ironers.
Write him at KelseyADK@yahoo.com. The video footage accompanying this blogpost can be viewed in the The Moaning of Life Series 2 towards the end of the episode titled, “How To Live Your Life International Master.”
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