The rope broke and he crashed painfully to the ground smashing through a table covered in a New Zealand flag table cloth. As he was stripped naked by medics struggling to revive him, I was impressed to see he was wearing New Zealand flag undies. This is a man whose life depends on the New Zealand flag.
I caught up with Randy Campbell at a swanky cafe in central Auckland. It was 10am, he ordered a vodka and yelled his answers.
What does the current NZ flag mean to you as a stuntman?
Our flag has all the ingredients of a great f@#en stunt flag. It's got stars, it's got stripes. It's red, white and blue. Any daredevil would be proud to wear it. Only problem is it's got England's flag on it. I went to England once and it was sh#t. So I'm all for a new flag but it has to be tough, cool and stand out amongst flames.
What do you think of the four flag options?
Weak. They're not options, they're dog turds. They're nothing to do with good flag design and more about a prime minister trying to ram his rugby fetish down everyone's throats. The idea of pasting a badly drawn All Blacks logo over our current flag is hugely disrespectful to all the brave daredevil stuntmen and women who have to risk their lives while wearing that flag.
Would you be willing to perform stunts using any of the new flags?
Do you have any idea how long it would take to cut out and sew that stupid fiddly fern thing on to a stunt suit? F&%en ages. So, no. I wouldn't be caught dead (or horribly injured) in any of them. Especially that curly-wurly Austin Powers one.
I'm all for Red Peak though. It says a lot more about New Zealand than "we play rugby". People can read their own meaning into the Red Peak. For me it's a gleaming red rocket car poised on a giant white ramp about to launch into a sky of black and blue. Now that's a tough flag I'd proudly wear. Unfortunately, it looks like the PM is gunna be a total dick about Red Peak so I may never get to wear it. Shame.
I tried to tell Randy that even rugby fans like myself don't see why we need the silver fern crudely slapped on our national flag. But he had to go. He was off to risk life and limb shooting his new TV show. Some kind of angry, dangerous cross between stunts and news called Stuntline.
He will spend the day on fire, smashing himself through and off things. He will be wearing our current flag with pride.
But what happens if we change it to one of the filthy four? What if we end up with an embarrassing eyesore? Will Randy be left in flag limbo along with the rest of us?
As a nation we have heard the flag-related opinion of every sector including daredevil stuntmen. The old flag has been wildly and governmentally slagged off and may never be looked at the same way; the four panel options are insulting humiliators and Red Peak, the only one people like, has been ruled out. It's all a bit of a bummer.
Luckily for our greatest daredevil stuntman Randy Campbell, he'll probably mess up a fiery stunt and die horribly, wrapped in the current flag, long before the referendum takes place.
