A vagabond in vogue
Traveling Brit and professional vagabond Cash (short for Cashman) Peters finds himself in a different location each week with no money, no possessions, and no idea where he is. Stranded, airing Mondays at 9 p.m. EDT on the Travel Channel, premiered July 25, with Peters answering trivia questions from a stranger in a bar in exchange for food and chopping lumber for a bed in Deadwood, S.D.
What's the first thing you do when you are dumped in an unfamiliar place?
I try to find out where I am. There was one place where nobody spoke English. So I adopted the British method of shouting louder and pointing to get over the language barrier. They just stood there giggling and ran away. Eventually we found somebody who had supposedly had some sort of training in English.
Have you ever failed to find food or shelter?
One place where I stopped I was walking down a promenade, and I just picked up these three women and asked them if they would buy me a drink. It turned out they were British, too, so they said sure. Then I told them I have no place to sleep and [asked] if I could stay in their hotel room. They said no, [that] because they were lesbians, they weren't going to let a guy sleep in their room. So I ended up sleeping on a bench that night.
Where's the best place to get stranded?
Newfoundland. They have a social services office set up to give food and shelter to anybody who shows up and asks for it. But I didn't take it.
Which place caused you the most trouble?
This island in the South Pacific. Every night at 8 o'clock all the men drink kava [a traditional herbal drink]. On most islands, they have commercial kava, but here they are in the jungle. They dig up the root and give it to 14-year-old boys to chew and then spit out, and they mix it with dirty water and put it through a fork and drink it. It's like drinking little boys' spit. They got me to drink it on the third day. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever put in my mouth, but afterward you get completely stoned. You can't get up. But I had diarrhea for three days afterward.
Was it your idea to do this show?
This was actually how I came to America. I burned all my belongings in a field and set off to America with nothing. I thought, I'll give this American dream thing a try. Sometimes you just have to have an adventure.
Are you trying to inspire a generation of freeloaders?
I'm trying to inspire an anticynical belief. I went to one place where everybody is rich and they were all supposed to be jolly and playful, but everybody was angry. But most ordinary people are genuinely nice. This has confirmed for me that people are good at heart. When I was in the jungle where they have nothing, they gave everything. It was incredible. –Joshua Davidovich
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