Ladies and gentlemen,

Greetings to you all! It is I, Alibaster K. Abthernabther, best-selling author, champion yacht racer, hot-air balloon enthusiast and fearless daredevil stuntman.

Last week, I was having lunch at Taco Diner with my good friends and Skip-Bo partners David Blaine and Criss Angel. As often occurs when the three of us convene, our casual conversation soon turned into a fierce match of one-upmanship. Blah, blah, blah, I can eat fire. Whah, whah, whah, I lived underwater for seven weeks. Meow, meow, meow, my manicurist says I have the best cuticles she's ever seen.

Well, before I knew it, we were engaged in one of our infamous daring matches. First I dared Criss to ram a railroad spike into his throat. Then Criss dared David to do a card trick with his bare buttocks. Then David dared me to ramp a motorcycle over the Trinity River.

I told them I would do one better. And that is how we got to where we are today.

Next Wednesday, I will ride a modified Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14 onto the Commerce Street bridge, then adjust my direction to hit a ramp pivoted slightly to the northwest, where I will clear the Trinity River in a single jump.

A simple stunt, you say? Your deceased great-grandmother could ramp the river on a motorcycle in her sleep, you claim? Well, please allow me to finish.

I will perform this stunt without a helmet, blindfolded and completely naked. The swath of pavement leading up to the bridge will be littered with high-intensity landmines and fresh, steaming cow pies.

The blood-curdling danger won't stop there. I will arrange for the Trinity to be filled with sharks on the day of the jump. These are not just your run-of-the-mill, everyday sharks. These are sharks that have spent the past 15 years training in underground boxing rings and kickboxing octagons. They have an unquenchable bloodlust. But they won't be alone.

To add to the terrifying nature of this stunt, a select group of anonymous commenters – who pounce on every item posted on D Magazine's FrontBurner blog – will await my arrival on the other side of the river. There they will immediately berate me with overly opinionated snark and poorly constructed insults. If I can survive that, well, I can survive most anything.

And rest assured, I will survive. Once I have silenced my naysayers and vanquished my foes, I will then be free to continue my work on this wildly popular newspaper column, which will no doubt continue to print for many, many years, if not innumerable decades.

Yours,

Alibaster K. Abthernabther

E-mail Alibaster at alibaster.k.abthernabther@ gmail.com.

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