Joyous Lunacy
"Joyous lunacy" is the turn of phrase that WWII veteran Stan Dibben uses to describe his days as a "passenger" (aka monkey) in sidecar racing. As Stan points out in this OpDoc film short, a definition of the word passenger is ironically 'a member of a team who does very little effective work' but if you have witnessed firsthand sidecar racing you know it is anything but. Stan and his rider were the winners of the 1953 Belgian Grand Prix World Sidecar Championship, but oddly as first-place winners - the rider receives gold, the passenger silver.
"No Ordinary Passenger" is the directorial debut of Cabell Hopkins, a London-based filmmaker and producer of television commercials. Watch the film in its entirety here along with a brief article by the New York Times.
[I could listen to Stan talk all day...love his voice and accent. Incidentally, Stan wrote an autobiography called "Hold On," available through Amazon via Kindle and iTunes for your Apple devices. Hard copies are a bit tougher to come by...]
-Cristi
