Greetings Record Setters,
For about as long as anyone can remember, we of the human
species have had contests to see who is the fastest, the
strongest, the bravest, or the one who can lift the most weight
attached to his mustache. There is something deeply competitive
in our nature that compels us to record these achievements. Only
one problem: not all of us are blessed with the right
combinations of speed, agility or stupidity to set the kinds of
impressive records that bring money, fame and/or interest from
members of the opposite sex. Just the right combination of
genetics, practice and luck are needed to leap as high as Rudolph
Nureyev, run as fast as Jesse Owens, sing as powerfully as Enrico
Caruso or have as pneumatic a superstructure as Anna Nicole
Smith.
I came to the conclusion that there are some people who will
do anything to set a record again recently on the premier of the
the movie version of the unaccountably popular MTV TV show
"Jackass." While I have spent considerable time avoiding this
cultural phenomenon over the past few months, it has now taken
the leap into multimedia that makes it unavoidable. There is
even a website. And rarely has a movie or TV show been so
appropriately titled. You might even believe that these guys are
playing dumb. It takes a while to realize that they aren't
playing.
Basically the movie features a group of what can only be
called professional zanies, who travel around pulling one
idiotically dangerous stunt after another. These are what might
be very kindly termed "stupid human tricks." The stunts have
included high voltages, attack dogs, crashing golf carts, various
explosives, pepper spray, plus the swallowing - and the return of
- live goldfish. Interesting how you never see women doing
moronic things like these, isn't it? Makes you think there could
be something in the theory of testosterone poisoning. "Jackass"
is supposed to be funny, and there is a kind of manic comedy to
it all. In a good stunt, they are sort of funny in a Three
Stooges meets Dumb and Dumber sort of way. Except there are nine
of them instead of three. They seem to believe this makes them
three times as funny.
No matter how far they go and how bad it gets, you figure it
can never get worse. Then it does. But the whole enterprise
rings kind of hollow and pointless, and the stunts seem utterly
without redeeming purpose, just hanging there as a tribute to
nothing more than man's vast capacity for goofiness. Even the
stunt with the guy dangling from a rope over a pit filled with
alligators with raw chicken dangling from his underwear. Maybe
ESPECIALLY that one. I'm tempted to say that the very
pointlessness of it is the point.
You have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy this sort
of thing, I think. About 18 years old, male, not real bright and
very drunk would help immensely. The point of all this looniness
does seem to be to produce some kind of record. And all along,
the "Jackass" pranksters are just a little too dim to realize
that they have already achieved a record that will likely never
be equalled: they are, without any doubt, the stupidest white
males this country has ever produced that have never been elected
to office.
Folks who are far more mature than the crowd in that movie
are out friends and contributors, who never fail to come through
with new information for this crazy thing. People who've helped
this week include: Jerry Taff, Susan Will, Carol J. Becwar,
Rosana, Stan & Jessica Leung, Bernie & Donna Becwar, Helen Yee,
Jack Gervais, Darlene Bera-Gitter, Kerry Miller, Tim McChain, Jan
Michalski, Charles Beckman and R.J. Tully. I've recently had to
consider scaling this thing back a bit, as the time it takes to
do it properly is getting to be a bit of a strain on my
resources. But there has been a new SUNFUN out in some fashion
or another every week since the Summer of 1996, which may be a
record in itself. I'll check with the Guinness folks and get
back to you...
Have A Record-Setting Week,
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HOW MUCH FUN CAN PUNKIN' CHUNKIN' BE?
------------------------------------
Delaware is one of those little states with little that is
memorable. It's nice enough, I guess, but it ranks high up on
the boredom scale with Kansas and the southern part of Indiana.
Apparently, folks from Millsboro, Delaware had the same idea,
and, driven by the same kind of manic desire to be the best that
drives everyone else, the had to find their own special niche.
Who knew it would be throwing pumpkins?
And not just hand tossing them, but spending incredible
amounts of time and ingenuity devising ways to launch the
ballistic giant gourds ever further. The rules state that you
can't use explosives and you can't break the pumpkin before
shooting - and the pumpkin must weight from 8-10 pounds (4-5 kg).
That is not considered a limitation by these crazed fans of
flying pie filling.
How zany does it get? How about the team that produced an
80-foot-long (24 meter) air cannon named Old Glory? Captained by
Joe Thomas, that incredible jack-o-lantern artillery piece can
shoot a standard size pumpkin around 4,000 feet (1.2km). Also in
the same punkin' chunkin' class is the "Aludium Q36 Pumpkin
Modulator" from Morton Grove, Illinois.
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PAPER BOATS - REGATTA DIVISION...
------------------------------
In 1999, a cardboard canoe in Sheboygan, Wisconsin set the
record for the largest kraft paper craft ever to sail. Team
member Terry Van Akkeren estimated that 500 to 600 hours went
into building the canoe, using 75 sheets of 6-by-10-foot
corrugated cardboard painted to keep water out and rowers afloat.
Although it eventually broke in half, the cardboard canoe
"Jungle Fever" stayed afloat long enough to qualify for two world
records. The 154-foot craft traveled over 200 yards along the
Sheboygan River before snapping in half during the Great
Cardboard Boat Regatta on Monday. Terry Van Akkeren, captain of
the canoe's 10-member team, submitted paperwork to have the craft
recognized in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest canoe
and the longest cardboard boat. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
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I DO. OR AT LEAST, I DID...
-------------------------
I a marriage that has lasted decades longer than all eight
of Liz Taylor's, William and Claudia Lillian Ritchie of
Lexington, Kentucky stand out as survivors.
"I wanted to take care of her, that was the biggest part of
it," Bill Ritchie said.
And take care he has, ever since the couple wed on April 12,
1919 in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
Now the couple who said "I do" 83 years ago have been
officially recognized as the world's oldest living married
couple. They received a certificate from Guinness World Records
late last summer. Bill Ritchie is 104 and his wife is 98. They
have nine grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and 18 great-
great-grandchildren.
The Ritchies received 579 cards congratulating them on their
anniversary this year, according to their 75-year-old daughter
Jewell Wagoner. (AP)
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THE FASTEST SWEATER IN THE EAST
-------------------------------
Fast fingers and 32 years of practice gave American Lily
Chin an unofficial world title on Sunday - queen of the speed
crochet circuit. In a duel of flashing needles and whirring
wool, the 40-year-old Chin beat her British rival Susan Broscoe
to win the first national U.S. speed crochet contest in New York.
Chin, a New Yorker of Chinese descent, completed 92-1/2
double crochet stitches in the allotted three minutes while
Broscoe - who holds the British title for the pursuit - trailed
with 76-1/2.
"I think it is so thrilling," Chin said, adding that she
expected her feat to win her a listing in the Guinness book of
records. "My mother thought I would be less hyper if I took up
knitting," she told reporters. "Now I can do this with my eyes
closed."
Chin, author of "The Urban Knitter," a book aimed at the new
generation of hip young knitters, said her immigrant mother from
China inspired her and her sister to start knitting at the age of
8. She has parlayed her passion for knitting and crochet into a
successful career as a designer and teacher. (Reuters)
[ You could say the Lily Chin is the product
of a tight knit family... ]
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UP IN THE AIR ALL OVER AGAIN...
----------------------------
A one-legged 88-year old British war hero became the world's
oldest "wing walker" Tuesday after he spent over an hour in mid-
air strapped to the top wing of a biplane.
Les "Dizzy" Seales broke the record held by an 87-year-old
South African woman.
"It's very enjoyable," the new record holder said.
But the daredevil octogenarian said he would have a bruised
back after a bumpy landing on the grass airstrip in southern
England.
Seales, who acquired his "Dizzy" nickname after a World War
II exploit when he crawled from his air gunners' turret to rescue
his plane's pilot, said he would make his next wing walking
attempt in two years' time.
One of Seales' friends, watching his high-flying feat, said
his pal was "an absolute inspiration." (Reuters)
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CORNFIELD OF DREAMS
-------------------
With farm economics being a little tough these days, folks
from the sticks are looking to more than just growing things to
make ends meet. This has led to the popularity of agritourism,
luring city folk out to the farms for fresh produce and other
novel experiences.
And while cornfield displays and walkways are not a new
innovation, Jon Rose of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, decided to bring
in some money by creating a maze on his farm for the second
straight year in 2002. He has also come up with a technological
revolution in corn labyrinths.
Realizing that constructing the huge and elaborate maze he
had in mind would take a crew of ten up to three weeks, Rose
looked for a better way. He did it by drawing the image out on
his computer and using a global positioning system on his heavy-
duty brush mower to do the cutting. That way he did the entire
maze himself in just a day's work.
Inspired by a picture in a magazine, Rose planned a giant
labyrinth based on a map of the United States of America
(including Alaska and Hawaii), bordered above and below by the
phrase "God Bless America," with an endurance-straining 7.6 miles
(12.3 km) of aisles. Rose hopes to have the whopping 34.8-acre
American flag maze certified by Guinness as a world record for
the largest corn maze, eclipsing the old mark of 12.6 acres.
[ Why the popularity of labyrinths in corn? Partly
because it leaves its stalks upright after the harvest,
but there has always been something appealing about a
maize maze... ]
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IF YOU NEED ANYTHING, JUST YELL...
-------------------------------
It was a matter of ethnic pride, you see.
A band of 937 yodellers set a new world record for "largest
simultaneous yodel" by holding their melody for a full minute,
the organizer of the mass concert last month in southern Germany
said.
Most participants were Germans who had been studying
yodelling on training courses for months, but some Swiss
yodellers helped out, said Stefanie Stiefenhofer, spokeswoman for
the Ravensburger Amusement Park. As required for an entry in the
Guinness Book of Records, the yodellers in the southern German
town of Meckenbeuren held their tune for a full minute.
In their effort to beat the previous record of 807 people
set early in 2002 in Dublin, Stiefenhofer said "We felt it was
important that the record set in Ireland be broken right here in
the heart of yodelling country."
She also said the yodellers faced Switzerland in homage to
its yodelling tradition and mountains, but failed to get an echo.
Meckenbeuren is 40 km (25 miles) north of the Swiss border.
(Reuters)
[ Meckenbeuren calling? Oh, just let the
machine get it... ]
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A SPORTS RECORD THAT WILL NEVER BE REPEATED (THEY HOPE)...
-------------------------------------------------------
The rugby team Dinamo Bucharest set two world's records in
just a day or two, and we never heard it.
That's probably because it was among the more embarrassing
of records to hold. Dinamo was defeated by a British team called
the Saracens this fall, going down to a record 151-0 defeat.
This was so bad that the team's own rugby union banned the
team from international competition for two years and fined all
the coaches and players. That was also a record. (Reuters)
[ I guess the Dinamo is no Dynamo. ]
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THE KEEPERS OF RECORDS FOR THOSE WHO NEED KEEPERS
-------------------------------------------------
Who discovered the world's oldest vomit? Who stuffed the
most live rattlesnakes in his mouth? Who has lived longest with
a bullet in his head?
Perhaps only Britain, that hope of village eccentrics, could
produce a book devoted to these and other non-pressing issues.
The recently released new edition of the Guinness Book of World
Records is an international Who's Who of the weird, wacky and
wonderful, from the world's longest tongue to the man with the
biggest collection of traffic cones.
Competition for a place in the world's most famous record
book is as fierce as ever -- the publishers said on Tuesday they
have received 60,000 record claims in the past 12 months.
British scientists landed their coveted place in the book by
unearthing the world's oldest vomit, dating back 160 million
years to the time of the dinosaurs, during a dig in eastern
England.
American Jackie Bibby made his claim to fame by holding
eight live rattlesnakes by their tails in his mouth without any
assistance.
Japan offers one of the most offbeat entries. Schoolboy
Satoru Fushiki was accidentally hit in his left eye by a bullet
on January 23, 1943. The bullet was only removed on September
25, 2001 when the sight in his eye miraculously returned.
The French always pride themselves on being great lovers and
the flame of Gallic love certainly still burned brightly for 96-
year-old Francois Fernandez and 94-year-old Madeleine Francineau.
They made this year's edition for being the world's oldest couple
to marry.
The book even boasts a record of its own - it has now sold
more than 95 million copies to become the world's best-selling
copyrighted book.
The new edition, published in Britain on September 28 and
around the world in the next two weeks after that, is printed in
23 different languages and will be available in over 100
different countries.
Guinness, one of publishing's longest-running success
stories, was launched in 1954. It was the brainchild of Hugh
Beaver, managing director of the Guinness brewery. He was out
shooting in Ireland and got into an argument about whether the
golden plover ranked as Europe's fastest game bird.
Beaver, believing that records sparked pub and bar disputes
around the world, decided the time was right to produce the
ultimate reference book for superlatives. Twins Norris and Ross
McWhirter, who were running a fact-finding agency for British
newspapers, were picked to launch the book which has changed up
to 25 percent of its records each year. (Reuters)
[ You knew drinking had to come into this
somewhere, right? ]
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© 2002 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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