Red Bull: Risk Made Me Do It

All of LA looks like a movie set at times. Even more so when you're standing in front of the Magic Castle. Ahead of next week's interview with magician Adam Trent we dive into the wild, weird history of the Gothic mansion near the Hollywood Hills where entrance is only guaranteed in formal wear and by invitation. Magicians have never felt so cool.

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When former happy-go-lucky pro surfer Jon Rose hit the skids in his personal life, a trip to Indonesia transformed him. We talk to the founder of the water filter nonprofit Waves4Water about selfishness, the problem with the 'humanitarian' label, and his recent decision to give up a permanent place of residence for a life on the road. 

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Ahead of our conversation with a surfing humanitarian, we take a look at the global issues around access to water and the unique group of nonprofits - and their personalities - looking to change that. 

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When David Colturi steps to the edge of the 89-foot cliff diving platform, it takes everything he has in his years of experience to control and focus the fear coursing through him. Then it takes only 3 seconds for him to hit the water at speeds upwards of 52 mph. We talk to the former college diving champion and Red Bull Cliff diving athlete about his summer as a show jumper in the midwest, training his mind, and the challenge of building a career in a niche sport. 

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Ahead of next week's podcast with cliff diver David Colturi, we rewind the clock to a man named Teddy Stauffer. The Swiss-born big band leader fled the Nazis and created a nightlife paradise in the sleepy fishing village of Acapulco in the 1940s and 50s. The crown jewel? La Perla, where Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth gathered to party and watch the famed cliff divers of La Quebrada breathe new life into an ancient sport.

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When Dylan Bowman laces up his shoes to prepare for another 100-mile race, he's not chasing competitors, or split times, but silence. The ultra-runner is one of the bright young lights in the painful, and often dangerous, endurance sport. He tells us what he learned from overtraining, pushing the pain threshold and why his worst attributes serve him well on the trail.

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For a sport as odd as ultrarunning, it's somehow fitting that the first man to complete a 100-mile race is Gordy Ainsleigh. In 1974, the Vietnam-war protesting, free-love-having Northern California native decided to enter a horse race without a horse. And because of that, an athletic movement was born. We talked to Gordy about love, untrustworthy friends, and how the two forces conspired to create ultrarunning's grandaddy race, the Western States 100.

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A multi-instrumentalist at a young age, Tom Holkenborg never met a music genre he didn't like. He went from a Dutch new wave band to producer of the international mega-hit "A Little Less Conversation," with which he accomplished two things: getting Elvis Presley's estate to agree to the sample, and putting his name on the global charts. So what did he do next? Moved to Hollywood to start at the bottom as a film composer. Holkenborg stopped by and talked to us about the importance of failing and the slow, slow path to a career that now includes composing the soundtracks for Deadpool and Mad Max.

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In this age of Hollywood blockbusters, the star actors and merchandising possibilities often outshine the music. That was the case in 1933 as well, until a child prodigy rescued one of the potential biggest flops of its time - King Kong - with something called a film score. Ahead of next week's chat with musical talent and composer Junkie XL (Mad Max, Deadpool), we dive into the life of Max Steiner, who went on to compose the scores for Gone with the Wind and Casablanca, and ushered in a new era of film composition.

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A hell-raiser at a young age—when he got into knife fights and raced around in the hotrod scene—Robert Williams grew to become the leader of a rebel art movement. A painter of pornographic, eye-popping illustrations steeped in the counter-culture of the 1960s, Williams was creating work that put anyone who sold it at risk of imprisonment. But his faith that he would find an audience endured. And he did. The southern raconteur spoke about creating Juxtapoz magazine, the high stakes of the art game, and why the hell all of us have gotten so damn complacent.

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