Ty Watches "The Alpinist"

After doing my regular activities on a Thursday I had a few hours to kill. I like to watch movies when I have down time, so I fired up the Netflix account and went searching. I was in the mood for a documentary, and when you can make it about sports, I will be fully in. I found a great doc that was recommended on my account called "The Alpinist".

I am a big fan of extreme sports docs. And when I say extreme sports I do not mean skateboarding or snowboarding or surfing, none of the cliche extreme sports that I have no ability to do. When I say extreme I mean ultra running, ice climbing, stuff like that. "The Alpinist" is about a person who many consider to be the best solo climber that ever lived. I saw "Free Solo", and thought that guy was the guy, but he was in this movie talking about Marc-Andre Leclerc. Marc-Andre is the person who many consider to be the best solo climber there ever was. This guy did some wild and crazy things that many people thought were impossible, and he did it, mostly, by himself. Sometimes he would bring a helper, or a guy that would film his climbs. But he was usually doing the climbs alone, filming alone and putting everything out there on his own time. The filmmakers decided they needed to make a movie about this guy, and when they approached him he was on board. But they soon found out that Marc-Andre was a free spirit who did not succumb to the everyday norms. He wasn't a social media guy. In fact, he barely ever truly owned a phone. He did not do these climbs for the recognition. In fact he shied away from it when possible. He simply wanted to see what he could do, and how far he could push the limits. Like I have said, this guy did some solo climbs that people considered impossible. He did this big time climb in Patagonia, Argentina that was the thing of lore amongst the climbing community. And when he filmed it, and we the viewer got to see what he put out there, I was blown away. I could not believe what I was seeing. I am afraid of heights, and while watching the movie at home, I was getting weak in the knees and sitting up in my seat. It was so high and dangerous, and he was doing this with a minimal pack and low food and water. But he was fast and figured things out quickly. They also would show him climbing other mountains, after he did one solo he would allow the filmmakers to film him doing it again, and it was silence and him climbing and it was beautiful. It was also mesmerizing. I was completely wrapped up in what I was watching.

After the Patagonia climb, I thought that was where the movie would end. Unfortunately, and this is all too often the case, Marc-Andre went on a climb in Juneau, Alaska with one other climber, and they never returned. There was some video of them at the top, but after that a big storm came along and an avalanche pretty much ended their lives. It was sad. I felt awful for his girlfriend and mom and all the people who came to know him and truly love him. It was a bleak ending to a very moving and fascinating movie. Marc-Andre was only 25 when he passed away. That is far too young. But near the end the movie showed his girlfriend still climbing and making videos for him. His mom spoke at his memorial service, and the place was packed to the brim. She said that Marc-Andre always lived his life to the absolute fullest, and she knew he would want everyone to do the same. It was a sad ending with a very uplifting message.

I loved this movie. I cannot recommend it enough for people that love sports documentaries. "The Alpinist" is a must watch.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Ty Watches "Tickled"

For date night this week I was feeling a documentary. I love docs. I like when information is given to me in heaps. It makes for an interesting viewing in my opinion. My wife isn't as big a fan as me, but she still enjoys them from time to time. It is not like I picked a noir or an indie movie.

I went searching for something a little different from your everyday doc. Then I remembered listening to a recent episode of the pod "This Is Important" and Anders Holm mentioned a doc he recently saw called "Tickled". He described it wonderfully on the pod, so I went looking for it. And much to my surprise, it was steaming for free on HBO Max. I was stoked. So I told my wife the name of the movie, and not much else. I wanted us to both go in with as little info as possible. That was the way Holm said people should view the movie.

What we then proceeded to watch for ninety minutes blew our minds. "Tickled" is one of the weirdest, yet most intriguing documentaries I have ever seen. The movie is about a journalist from New Zealand that covers the lighter side of life. He has very nice and heartwarming stories that he does from the clips we saw. But one day, when researching his next story, he stumbled across a website that was promoting a sporting event called Competitive Endurance Tickling. He was intrigued. As was my wife and I. What happened next, I never could have imagined. The journalist contacted the people from the website in the movie and asked to do a story with them. They responded with an email filled with threats and incredibly hurtful words and allegations. This only made the journalist, David Ferrier, more interested in what was going on. He could not let this story go. He was able to get a hold of three people who work at one of these CET areas, and he flew them out to New Zealand. The moment they landed and saw cameras, they went on the defensive. More threats came out. They refused to do anything on camera. It was all very strange. Ferrier dug even deeper, being able to get interviews with a few people who got involved with the website and CET. Their stories are harrowing. There is extortion and threats and real fear coming from these people. Their lives, since they have left the tickling world, are truly altered. And that is another thing, the tickling in this movie. Ferrier meets many people who have this fetish, and yes it is a total fetish, and it is uncomfortable to watch. They show long videos of people being tickled by other people, and it feels wrong. One of the people who have made a living doing these videos called it BDSM, and he is not wrong. I felt like I should not be seeing what I was seeing while showing these videos. It was worse than pornography in my opinion. It was, at the very least, way more uncomfortable. And all of this was being done all over the world, and seemingly run by one person. When the reveal of this person happens in the movie, I was floored. It was more intense than a villain showing their true colors, or someone who has been playing coy in a fiction movie the whole time. This person was real. And they were scary. And they were gross. And they had no bad feelings about the truly awful things they were doing to these young people.

"Tickled" had me shook. I was visibly shaken after we were done watching. So was my wife. But you know what? We both thought it was worth seeing. We were not disappointed when the movie ended that we had watched it. We found it disgusting and intriguing at the same time. "Tickled" is a movie that truly has to be seen to be believed. I for sure recommend to anyone that enjoys weird yet interesting subject materials. "Tickled" is a very good doc.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Better Late than Never on the Documentary "Icarus"

Now that I am back in my home I have been starting to catch up on shows and movies that I didn't watch while living with my folks. Yesterday I watched one of these movies, "Icarus", and I am here to talk about it.

I saw this movie on a ton of lists that centered around the best sports movies currently on streaming devices. The picture they had on most sites had a bike rider with some kind of wild oxygen face mask on, which made it all the more alluring to me. Then I read a brief synopsis of this movie which simply stated that the movie was about a bike rider deciding, for the sake of science, to try doping for six months to see how much better he could do, and some wild stuff happens from there. This was more than enough to check all of my boxes. So I had the time yesterday afternoon to watch and I did.

I loved it. “Icarus” was not like what I was expecting at all. The director, who is also the writer and star, is the bike rider. He is the one that decided to try PEDS. And the first forty minutes of this movie are all about him doing that and preparing for a very big amateur bike race coming up. All of that was very interesting. I was enamored with that whole storyline. I am a runner who runs races, but the stuff this guy does, Bryan Fogel, is way more intense and way more serious than anything type of trail or road race I have done. The guys he competes against are just on the cusp of the Tour de France. These dudes are the real deal. So is Fogel. He finished 14th in this super tough race before he decided to dope for science sake. Then to see him go through the whole doping regimen, that was wild. He was going to do the program with one certain doctor, but he opted to send him to a different doctor, a scientist from Moscow, who is one of the biggest cheats in athletic competition history, and was responsible for almost all of the gold medals that Russia won in the Sochi Winter Olympics. He knows how to mess up tests, how to cheat the system, so these athletes that use PEDs do not get caught. So for forty minutes, we get a great insight in this doctor/scientist method. It is nuts. Fogel does all this stuff, and shows it bare bones and all. It is rough stuff. What made it worse was, he finished further back after using PEDs for six months. He went from 14th to 27th. It could have been because of bike issues, that other racers have been using for years, that he didn't feel as well or all of this combined.

Later we see that Fogel's experiment did not work the way he wanted. I thought the movie would pivot into Fogel and the Russian doctor trying something else, or continuing on the program and doing it yearly. It did not. The movie suddenly turns into this geopolitical thriller. We get the ins and outs of why Russia had so many athletes banned from the 2016 Rio Olympics. I remember hearing that Russia was banned for PEDs, and I thought nothing of it. It just seemed like a bunch of cheaters finally got caught, and they were going to have to pay a price. It seemed karmic. But to see where this movie took us, the insight into how bad, and how deep the cheating goes, how long it has gone on, how the Russian government has covered it up, it was intriguing. I mean, PEDs are seemingly everywhere, especially in the Olympics, but what Russia was doing, and may still be doing, was on a whole other level. And to get this doctor/scientist side of the story, it was amazing. He risks his life. A friend of his who spoke out suddenly died of a "heart attack". The Russian doctor had to go into hiding. He had to go into witness protection. His wife and kids have to bear the brunt of the Russian police, or KGB, who is now known as the FSB. They are ruthless. But what was most fascinating to me was to see the doctor spill his guts. He holds nothing back, nothing at all. He names names, calls out the cheaters, calls himself out for doing what he did, it is all laid out on the table. It is truly incredible to see him do what he did, both the good and the bad. And for Fogel to be there every step of the way, that took guts.

I loved this movie. It takes a turn almost halfway through, but man does that turn payoff. There is a reason this movie won an Oscar for best documentary. Check this movie out. It rules.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Last Chance U"

Yesterday I finished another great documentary series on Netflix called "Last Chance U". Now, Netflix has been known, at least in the past year or so, to put out very good documentary series. You need look no further than the excellent "Making A Murderer", which is coming back for a second season. That show was damn near perfection. Everyone I know loved it, and everyone has an opinion, as one should when watching documentaries. "Last chance U" does not have the same stakes, not even close, as "Making A Murderer", but it is still very, very good. I was turned on to this show by a buddy of mine that I work with. He too, is a big fan of college football, and he told me to check the show out. It took me some time to get around to it, but I'm glad I finally did.

All of you know by now that I'm a huge college football fan, and "Last Chance U" focuses on a junior college team in the state of Mississippi. The team is the East Mississippi Junior College Lions. The thing that makes this school "special" or "unique", they take on transfers from big time division 1 colleges, or kids that were stars in high school, but couldn't make the grades to play D-1 football. EMJC is also an absolute powerhouse, obviously. When you are getting guys from major D-1 programs to come to your junior college for 1 or 2 years, you should dominate. They won the last 2 NJCAA national titles, and the title games weren't even close. In fact, they have won 3 titles in the last 6 years. They are the Alabama of junior colleges.

I sat down to watch the show, and we first meet the head coach, Buddy Stephens. He is a big guy, that immediately commands your attention. He has a southern twang to his voice, but his voice is booming. He is a salesman, but he is a damn good one. He convinces these kids that still want to play football and move on to another D-1 school to come to the middle of nowhere Mississippi to play football. He is a legend in the town and a legend in the junior college ranks. He is one of the greatest junior college coaches of all time. Not to be outdone, his staff is equally great. His offensive and defensive coordinators have a ton of experience, and they coach the hell out of these kids. He also has great, some former pro and college football players, as positional coaches. This staff is much, much to good to be coaching junior college, but Buddy Stephens has convinced these guys that this is where they should, and want, to be.

After meeting the head coach and the staff, we start to meet the players. This is the best part of this mini series, the players. There's two QB's at EMJC. One, Jonathan Franklin, was a former D-1 QB at Florida State. He was a star in high school, and was highly recruited. He got to FSU and saw his playing time was non existent. He was a good enough student, but he was upset at his lack of playing time, so he transferred out to EMJC. But, he had to split time with the other QB, Wyatt Roberts. Roberts was smaller, not as fast, but had better accuracy, and was more coachable. Roberts is also your typical country boy. He could have went to a 4 year university, but he didn't want to end his football career after high school. He wanted to keep going. He also loves hunting and living close to home, that is why he chose EMJC. The skill position players are boiled down to two of the running backs. They have receivers and tight ends, but we don't hear too much from them. The 2 running backs though, DJ Law and Isiah Washington, we get to meet both of them, and get their stories. Washington is the back up to Law. He is a true freshman, with lighting speed and the ability to find a hole in the smallest crease. But, he is not a good student. He does not care about school, so major D-1 straight out of high school is out of the question. He has to go to junior college to up his grades before he can go play D-1. DJ Law is the starter at EMJC. He is big, fast, strong, quick, finds space, can catch out of the backfield and block. He is the total package, but he also loathes school. He coasted in high school because he was so good at football, but no one offered him a scholarship because his grades were terrible. He would skip school constantly and, when he was in class, he couldn't keep up, so he was destined for junior college.

Flipping over to the defensive side of the ball, they point out linebackers and some secondary guys, but the mini series mainly focuses on one of the 2 defensive lineman. That D lineman is Ronald Ollie. Ronald Ollie is a kid who grew up with no parents. His dad shot his mom and then took his own life. He had to live with his aunts and his sisters kind of became his adult supervision. Needless to say, he had a very, very tough upbringing. But, he was always bigger than everyone else, and he dominated on a football field. Like the majority of the players on EMJC, he did not do well in school. Going to class was the last thing on his mind. School was boring, and he only showed up so he could play football. Man, what a great football player he can be. He was so dominant on the D line. Quick feet, heavy hitter and explodes through the hole to blow up QB's or running backs.

After meeting all these people, we go through the 9 game season with them. We see the ups and the downs. Early in their season, they get beat for the first time in 26 games. We come to find out later that the team they played had an ineligible player. We also see them regroup after the loss and go on to destroy any opponent that comes their way. They win games by 3, 4 and sometimes 5 touchdowns. We also see injuries and skipping classes come into play. Ronald Ollie suffers a concussion and misses 3 games. This is a big deal for a junior college player, because scouts will forget about a guy out with injuries, and move on to the next player. DJ Law also hurts his knee. This makes him question if he still wants to play football, and he flat out stops going to class. With Law out though, we got to see Isiah Washington, and that kid is great. There is also the QB competition all season long. Roberts becomes the starter, shockingly, and he does an adequate job, until he gets hurt. When Roberts gets hurt, we get to see Jonathan Franklin shine. He goes for 6 TD's, 4 rushing and 2 passing, in the first half of a game that will eventually ruin EMJC's shot at a third straight title.

We can see this title shot getting ruined earlier in the mini series. A few players and Coach Stephens get suspended for fighting with officials. The problem with running up the score, that makes the opponents take late shots, but the guys winning are always the ones to get caught, or made example of. That's exactly what happened in their final regular season game. They were crushing a far inferior opponent, 48-0 in the first half. Coach Stephens called a timeout, to give Franklin another series before half, and this incited an all out brawl. There were fights, people stomping on other people, trash cans were thrown, helmets were used as weapons, it was bad. Being the powerhouse they were, EMJC was forced to call the game, and their season was deemed over before the playoffs started. This made everyone upset. Some kids questioned being at the school. Others, they just wanted to get out of there quick, with graduation being around the corner.

The interesting thing about this part though, the recruiting didn't stop there. There was still another episode that showed how recruiting still goes on, even when your season ends. Most of the kids did get D-1 or D-1AA scholarships. Ronald Ollie ended up at Nicholls State in Louisiana. DJ Law got his act together and his grades up, and he ended up at UAB. Wyatt Roberts refused to go D-2, so he retired from football and decided to attend Mississippi State as a student. Jonathan Franklin ended up singing with Auburn, thus being the kid who got the best scholarship offer. I believe he is still there playing right now too.

"Last Chance U" is a must watch for football fans. It shows you everything you could want to know about the life of student athletes. The ups, the downs, the coaches, the academics and academic advisers, it's all there. I really hope Netflix continues with this series because I will watch every season. The show ended, spoiler alert, but not really, with Coach Stephens out on the recruiting trail, so that gives me hope that they will do another season. I also want to see what happens with Isiah Washington, because he already has offers from FSU and Auburn, so imagine what a good sophomore season can do for him. This show is great, and I think a lot of people would enjoy it. I know I sure did.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He used to load up his NCAA Football rosters with juco transfers, and he was unstoppable. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.