by Kari Byron
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Debbie and I started talking seriously about how we could create a show—hosted by me alone—that would achieve that goal and Head Rush was born. It was a half-hour DIY show for kids on the Science Channel, very much a passion project.
Until then, I’d only been part of a collaborative team. Jamie and Adam helmed MythBusters. The success rested on them. Head Rush was the first time I was in the driver’s seat and would carry the entire show. On top of that, I’d set out to create something of educational value at the outset (MythBusters did that but as a happy side effect). Head Rush had a lofty purpose and with that came a heavy weight on my shoulders. Stepping out of the background into the spotlight as the show’s one and only anchor, with a grandiose objective of trying to improve the world at large, was an act of bravery unlike any I’d made before.
I brought a production team from MythBusters with me. We had to work within a very small budget. The network came up with what they thought they could do, a scripted clip show with a little hosting. I went back to my team, camera and sound guys who worked Saturdays for day rates, and my genius producer/director Lauren Williams, and said, “I want more pizzazz.”
Lauren agreed, and said, “They asked for a VW. Let’s give them a Porsche.”
We pulled out all the tricks, cool lighting, dramatic (yet cheap) experiments, a modern filming style. Everyone brought their A games and pitched in. I wore brightly colored T-shirts to make myself pop and keep the aesthetic interesting for kids at home. We pulled in people to talk about how they used science in their world, for example, Tony Hawk showed us how he uses math to design skateboard ramps.
I’d just given birth and was breastfeeding while we made this show; my schedule was unforgiving. Pump, drive Stella and the bottles to my parents’ house, drive back to shoot on a Saturday, drive back to Los Gatos to pick up the kid, back to SF. And then, back to work at MythBusters all week. I was exhausted, but I had to do this show. I had this idea of going back in time, with my younger self seeing it, then maybe going to engineering school. As hard as it was, Head Rush was worth it to create my own show. I got a taste of being the boss of my own vision.
We did two seasons. Unfortunately, we didn’t reach the right audience. Thirteen-year-olds don’t watch the Science Channel. Kids don’t watch TV, they watch their computers. Fittingly, Head Rush continues to have a second life in science classrooms all over America, thanks to the internet. If I produced my own show again for this audience, I’d do it online.
Through Head Rush and the connections I made at Science Channel, I was invited to the White House Science Fair (the Obama administration actually contributed funding for the show). It also took me to SXSW, and around the world to promote science. I did shows in Poland and Russia, and saw a new part of the world—all because of a brave first step I took at a cocktail party.
CRASH AND LEARN
“Be brave” has been my life mission statement in general, starting when I was that scared shy girl. It was obvious to me even then that courage in the face of fear is the main ingredient in any recipe for success and happiness. I pushed myself to do one scary thing or another, just to see what would happen. Whether I crashed and burned or walked away triumphant didn’t matter as much as being able to put myself in the fray in the first place. In other words, process was more important than outcome, because regardless of how things played out, I got a little bit stronger and wiser each time.
By being covered in scorpions, or wearing the coin bra, or diving though a coral tunnel, or farting on camera, for example, I came to the obvious conclusion that bravery is being afraid of something and doing it anyway.
Bravery isn’t being a superhero. It’s what you have to do to be free.
Bravery is not giving a shit.
It’s getting messy and facing the consequences.
It’s being who you are, and where you are, right now.
When I was at the White House Science Fair, my vision of confidence and bravery was redefined at the roundtable discussion later with special advisor Valerie Jarrett, Michelle Obama’s chief of staff Tina Tchen, Ellen Stofan of NASA, and some award-winning, inspirational student scientists. We went around the table and talked about what interests and experiences brought us all here today. So many inspiring stories of science love and overcoming odds from fourteen-year-old kids! Eventually, the question, “What brought you here today?” worked around the table to me. I was humbled to be at this table, but stuck to my bedrock belief, that bravery is the absence of dignity and the ability to laugh at yourself. So, to the luminaries and geniuses, I said, “I’m here because I like to blow stuff up.”
My life’s mission wasn’t to be famous or on TV, and definitely not to work in science. I just wanted creativity, passion, and adventure. Who knew that my life would bring my dreams to me? I’ve stumbled into my career, my marriage, everything, and have fought like hell to grab every opportunity, including writing this book and getting this message to you.
You can’t wait for the fancy invitation, the golden door with a neon sign that says, YOUR LIFE THIS WAY, or the giant X on the treasure map. You’ll be waiting for eternity. You have to choose your own adventure, take the trip, enroll in the class, say “yes” when you are afraid. You are the X on the map.
I started out a Crash Test Girl, when I was very much a little kid. It took me a long time to be a Road-Tested Woman. From where I stand, I look back and appreciate how much I had to learn to get to where I am now, and that at every step of the way, I was growing and evolving, through trial after trial by fire. No wonder I love blowing things up on TV and in life. It’s all about the explosion—of flames, of insight, of ideas—the chemical reactions I create through practical, methodical experimentation.
Sometimes, I crash and burn. Always, I crash and learn. By using “girl,” I remind myself to keep the wonder and fearlessness of a child as I continue to blow shit up as a grown-ass woman. My lesson for bravery—the one lesson to rule them all—is Crash and Learn (shades, boots, and burning car in the background optional).
Now it’s your turn.
Use the scientific method to solve your own toughest questions . . .
Acknowledgments
Thank you, Sue and Dennis Byron, for letting the wild flower grow in your garden. Thank you, little crash test sister, Summer Youdall, for holding my hand and sharing the crazy, remembering every detail of our childhood. Thanks to the rebel yell that became science-based reality television and the chance Discovery took on a mythbusting girl. Jamie Hyneman gave me the ticket to this thrill ride. The MythBusters gang and all the crew/family rode that coaster through the turns, climbs, drops, and sometimes inversions (especially Tory Belleci, who keeps running back to the front of the line with me). Thank you, Linda Wolkovitch, Lauren Williams, Yvette Solis, Francesca Garigue, Jacelyn Maker, Jaime Garcia, and Kristen Lomasney, the wild “ride or die” women of MythBusters who remain my sounding board and have my back at all times. Thanks to the bomb techs, sheriffs, police, firefighters, stunt men, range masters, scientists, and former FBI agents who kept me safe and had the best drinking stories I have ever heard and will never repeat.
Lisa Cole, you will always be a star in my sky and the best words in my story. Brittany Smail, for a lifelong friendship and helping me breathe under the weight of trying to write a book. Of course, Homer Hickman for the last-call double-dog-dare to write it, and Frank Weiman, Val Frankel, Hilary Lawson, Sydney Rogers, and Janet Evans-Scanlon for making it really happen. I hope within this book my daughter, Stella, will someday find a love note to the amazing beautiful woman she will become. And a love note to the man who knows all my demons and still invited them in to play. I love you, Paul Urich. Thank you. Finally, thank you to all the fans that continue to support me through every insane project that I put out into the world. The reason I have this incredible life is because you decided to watch it.
About the Author
KARI BYRON has been the most recognizable, honored
, and beloved woman in science-based reality TV for over a decade. She is best known as a host on Discovery Channel’s MythBusters but has gone on to host and produce shows spanning several networks: Head Rush; Punkin Chunkin; Large, Dangerous Rocket Ships; Thrill Factor; Strange Trips; America Declassified; White Rabbit Project; and Positive Energy.
Fostering her curious nature, she spent a lifetime acquiring odd skills and interests. After graduating from college and traveling the world, she decided to settle in San Francisco and pursue a career as a sculptor. Special effects and prop making seemed like a perfect fit. Trying to break into the field, she got an internship at M5 Industries with Jamie Hyneman. Her first day turned out to be the beginning of MythBusters and a career in television. Though her dream was to be a working artist, in a strange turn of events, her real dream job turned out to involve handling poop, eating bugs, wiring explosives, and scraping chicken guts off the ceiling.
Her passion for smart entertainment has led her around the world, speaking about the role of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) programming on television and touring with a live show, as well as hosting science fairs from Google’s headquarters to the White House.
Currently she lives in San Francisco with her husband, Paul, and daughter, Stella.
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Copyright
CRASH TEST GIRL. Copyright © 2018 by Kari Byron. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Front cover design: Faceout Studio
Front cover photography: Dan Escobar
All photographs courtesy of the author
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Byron, Kari, 1974– author.
Title: Crash test girl : an unlikely experiment in using the scientific method to answer life’s toughest questions / Kari Byron.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : HarperOne, HarperCollins Publishers, 2018 | Anecdotes from science experiments performed on or for the television program Mythbusters. The crash test girl is the author.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017059215
ISBN 9780062871213 (BN)
Subjects: LCSH: Science—Popular works. | Science—Experiments—Popular works. | Byron, Kari, 1974– | Mythbusters (Television program)
Classification: LCC Q162 .B97 2017 | DDC 500—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059215
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Digital Edition MAY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-274978-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-274977-2
Version 03272018
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