Jan 17, 2009
“Okay, let’s take this nice and slow and no one will get hurt. Put the sword on the ground and back away.”
The policeman was shouting out his orders and he was quite serious. I suddenly realized that I probably shouldn’t have been cutting apples on the sidewalk in front of my friend’s restaurant in Flushing, Queens — with my samurai sword! But the Daily News photographer didn’t think anything was unusual, and I was having so much fun doing the demonstration that I never imagined that it might be considered dangerous (and pretty stupid)!
Dec 23, 2008
I love dogs…tail-wagging dogs, rub-my-belly-please dogs, enthusiastic dogs, loyal dogs, always-willing-to-please dogs. Some of my blog readers may recall that I once broke the record for the most jumps on a pogo stick in a minute while holding a cute dog named Suki in one arm, in front of Scotland’s famous Greyfriars Bobby dog statue.
During a recent trip to Vermont to attempt a stilt-climbing record attempt up Mount Equinox, I was delighted to see a sign in our motel’s lobby:
Dogs are welcome in this motel. We never had a dog smoke in bed and set fire to the blankets. We never had a dog who stole our towels or played the TV too loud. We never had a dog that got drunk and broke up the furniture or punched holes in the walls. So, if your dog can vouch for you, you are welcome too.
And sure enough, the next day, I met a super energetic Cocker Spaniel in the parking lot who had obviously vouched for his owners!
Anyway, I gave that introduction about dogs just so when you heard about my latest record you wouldn’t think I was totally crazy! When the 2009 Guinness Book came out in September, a new category caught my attention: catching the most Maltesers in a minute in your mouth thrown from 15 feet away. (Maltesers are the British version of chocolate covered maltballs.) This record seemed quite beatable because my friend Bipin and I hold a similar record for the most grapes caught in a minute. But, to make it more challenging, I instantly decided to attempt this record with a dog on my back!
Nov 11, 2008
“This building is in danger of collapsing! Everybody must evacuate this building immediately!…”
Please forgive me for not blogging recently – I’ve been tied up with moving the health food store and stationery stores that I manage. I suppose by now, I shouldn’t be shocked or surprised by any new challenge that arises on Parsons Boulevard.
Jul 24, 2008
My spiritual teacher, Sri Chinmoy, is a relentless advocate for newness, always seeking fresh and creative ways to express joy and aspiration. For me, this inspires me to look for new and different types of Guinness records, sometimes beyond the fitness categories (star jumps, sit-ups, etc.). Lately, I’ve made a few forays into categories that have led to some interesting failures:
Category: Slicing apples mid-air with a samurai sword. Result: A sliced finger and, somehow, I managed to stab myself in the stomach.
Category: Continuous rotations on a giant gyroscope. Result: After 10 minutes, I had to quit for fear of losing my lunch. (I later realized eating an entire package of Swiss cheese just before the practice was probably not a wise thing to do!)
Category: Smashing watermelons with my forehead. Result: One bruised forehead, a giant headache and not a single smashed watermelon!
Fortunately, Sri Chinmoy would always remind me that failures are the pillars of success. “Never give up!” is one of his favorite mantras. After some more experimentation, I finally discovered my talent for eating garlic! As the manager of a health food store, I’ve learned of the great health benefits of garlic, but shied away from it because of the odor issues. I have to talk to people all day and I don’t want to torture them with garlic breath. There is an old New York saying, “Three nickels will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat”! Anyway, I decided to throw caution to the wind and look into breaking the garlic eating record.
Apr 30, 2008
“There is only one dream that will always be perfect in your lifetime.
And that is the dream of self-transcendence.” Sri Chinmoy
Every year, friends of mine put on an event in Munich, Germany called the Impossibility-Challenger games. Impossibility-Challenger is dedicated to self-transcendence in the purest sense. The event is always packed full of energy and inspiration and I love its diversity. Imagine amazing feats of strength and daring: strongmen pulling cars with their teeth, brave souls juggling chain saws and shot puts, martial artists breaking blocks of ice-everyone testing the limits of their talents. One creative fellow even rode a bicycle backwards for a considerable distance while playing his violin! Plus, it has a very special impact on me personally: compared to everyone else, I seem almost normal! Anyway, I decided to participate and attempt a stilt running record. And I figured, since I was going to Germany, why not make a “European Tour” of it with a stop in Italy?
The plan: attempt a record in front of the Colliseum in Rome; then, take a train up to the lake region and visit my Italian friend Priyadarshan for a few days; finally, fly into Munich for the Impossiblity-Challenger games.
I arrived in Rome in late March. I hoped to break the record for the most jumps on a pogo stick in a minute. The current record was 234 jumps. This amounts to almost 4 jumps per second so the conditions have to be ideal.
Mar 20, 2008
New Yorkers enjoy a reputation for not being the friendliest or the most helpful people, but my experience while recently training for the car-pushing record was just the opposite. In fact, I was amazed at how kind my fellow New Yorkers could be!
The record for car-pushing by an individual is 12 miles. The car has to weigh a minimum of 1609 pounds. The engine cannot be running and a person must sit in the driver’s seat to steer. I was practicing with a friend’s Ford Festiva (which weighs about 1850 pounds) around a ½ mile loop along streets of Howard Beach, Queens. Guinness requires you to push the car on a loop to eliminate any possibility (and advantages) of a downhill course. On a loop, whatever respite you get from the downhills, you eventually pay for on the corresponding uphills! It’s called the law of car-pusher’s karma!
I chose the Howard Beach course because it was relatively flat, and somewhat quiet. I spent several happy afternoons huffing and puffing, while car-pushing along my Howard Beach neighborhood loop. The neighbors clearly got a kick out of it. Once they discovered what I was doing, they contributed their own funny comments. One neighbor noticed that the car had Ontario license plates. “Hey, don’t tell me you pushed that thing all the way from Canada!” And another comedian yelled out, “You’re a genius. What a great way to save on the cost of gas!”
