Posted on 08/27/2005 2:42:16 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO (AP) - David Smith Sr. holds a world record for the longest distance traveled by a human fired from a cannon. On Saturday, he plans to add to his list of cannonball coups by shooting across the U.S-Mexico border.
The feat is the brainchild of Venezuelan artist Javier Tellez and is part of a series of public art projects in the two border cities. Smith will be shot from a popular beach in Tijuana, Mexico, over a rusty, corrugated metal fence into Border Field State Park in San Diego.
David Smith Jr., also an accomplished human cannonball, said his father will be the first person to fly across an international border from a cannon.
Tellez organized the cannonball launch with psychiatric patients at the Baja California Mental Health Center in Mexicali, Mexico as a therapeutic project . The event is part of an art series that begins Saturday and will run through the fall, sponsored by inSite05, a binational arts partnership in the San Diego-Tijuana region.
Tellez said in a statement he was inspired by circus performers to explore "the notion of spatial and mental borders in the context of Tijuana and San Diego.
Tellez, 36, and Smith Sr. worked closely on the backdrop, music, costumes and advertising for the project, "One Flew Over the Void." Tellez plans a documentary film about it.
Although it is against the law for anyone, including U.S. citizens, to enter the country outside an official port of entry, Smith Sr. won't be crossing illegally. U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar made an exception for him, said Border Patrol spokesman Kurstan Rosberg.
Smith Jr., 28, said the family insisted on U.S. government approval.
"I had to have some kind of official OK high enough up to make sure he doesn't land in the U.S. and go to a federal penitentiary," he said.
Smith Sr., of Half Way, Mo., is listed in Guinness World Records for record distance for a human fired from a cannon. He flew 185 feet, 10 inches on May 29, 1998 in West Mifflin, Penn.
The Smith family has five cannonballs: father, son, two daughters and a cousin. Smith Sr. built seven cannons designed to fire humans, and his family operates five of them, traveling around the world to perform at events including parades and concerts, his son said.
"If one of the girls has a baby, they can't be a cannonball during that time," said Smith Jr. He said he has been clocked at 50 mph in little more than one-fifth of a second after takeoff and was scheduled Saturday to shoot out of a cannon in Toronto.
If one of the girls has a baby, they can't be a cannonball during that time,"
The girl or the baby?
'One Flew Out of the Cukoo's Nest'
are =our and i even previewed, too. damn it
Zero to 50 mph in 0.2 seconds? Methinks his cardiovascular system is in great shape.
Those aren't stretch marks it's rifling.
Huh? Therapeutic? In what way? Seeing someone crazier than you being shot aloft in a cannon? Yeah, right! Okay, whatever helps!
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