Brave souls prove that legends never die

When legendary pilot Chuck Yeager lowered himself into the cockpit of the Bell X-1 on Oct. 14, 1947, no one truly knew what physical impact breaking the sound barrier would have on him…but the general consensus was that he'd better have his insurance paid up.

Yeager, however, wasn't so worried about that — he was more concerned that those running the test would find out that he'd broken two ribs in a fall from a horse just days before and pull him out of the pilot's seat. To hide it, he'd gone to a veterinarian instead of a doctor for treatment, and was in so much pain that he couldn't seal the hatch by himself.

The rest, of course, is for the history books.

Perhaps it comes with the territory of having such a highly-developed intellect, but man has always been a curious animal, and some more than others; while the great majority of people may be satisfied to live lives of quiet contentment, there are those who continually push, prod, and blow apart the supposed limits we establish for ourselves.

Although they might seem slightly insane, in truth, they are the ones that push this race further and further into the collective unknown, with little regard for their personal safety.
Chuck Yeager was one of those men…and so is Felix Baumgartner.

Granted, much has changed in the single month since the 43-year-old Austrian daredevil gave my generation its own reason to remember Oct. 14 by taking the first giant leap that man has taken in quite some time — we've been through a catastrophic hurricane, a bruising election, and we're facing a "fiscal cliff" that (allegedly) threatens to plunge us back into recession.

All of that, however, makes Baumgartner's feat of skydiving from 128,000 feet (and becoming the first human to break the sound barrier without mechanical intervention) that much more important; like all events of that magnitude, they are victories for humanity first, and for nations or individuals second.

Cynics immediately dismissed it as everything from "just another publicity stunt" to a "waste of money," and one commentator on a New York Times piece even wrote, "Can't this guy figure out something better to do with his life? Please!"

But watching that YouTube video of the former paratrooper opening the door to his capsule, with the wind raging and the gentle curve of the Earth cutting across a black felt background, and stepping out into the 24 miles of nothing that separate him and the planet, is one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen.

The irony, of course, is that it's the people like that, who write anonymous killjoy comments on news articles, that make those like Baumgartner, who are quite literally risking life and limb in the name of progress, more necessary, even when it's not exactly fun. The Austrian said in a "Today News" interview that he didn't enjoy the jump, but had trained for it for five years and did not hesitate when the moment came.

"In my mind, I did that jump many times. I was ready to go," he said.

Speaking to him from mission control throughout the fall was the comforting voice of Joe Kittinger, the decorated American pilot and Air Force colonel who previously held altitude and speed records for his 1960 jump from 102,000 feet. During Kittinger's mission, a suit malfunction caused his hand to swell to twice its normal size. He ignored the pain, said a short prayer, and stepped out anyway.

Now 84, he spoke to Baumgartner in an attempt to keep his mind occupied and awake throughout the four-minute, 20 second plunge.

At the same time, somewhere over the Mojave Desert, an 89-year-old Chuck Yeager sat in the back seat of an F-15 as it broke the sound barrier once again, 65 years to the day after he did it the first time.

Some things never change.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

First volley in the war on obesity

BY STEVE JANOSKI

I've got to give New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg credit: the man's got…nerve.

I'm sure he knew the firestorm was coming last week when he announced his plan to combat obesity by banning the selling of sweetened drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces at places like restaurants, movie theaters, and fast food places, and he went ahead with it anyway.

And, as was expected, the naysayers have sprung from the woodwork with a glut of "reasons" why this is an awful idea. It won't help, they claim, because people will buy the same amount of soda, just in smaller containers.

They say it's "Nanny Bloomberg" once again overstepping his bounds, and call it a restriction on personal choice, on freedom itself!

Relax. It's nothing of the sort.

Make no mistake about it: Bloomberg is doing nothing that's going keep you freedom-loving Americans from guzzling gallons of soda, thereby retaining that inalienable right to die slowly and painfully as a result of diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and all the other illnesses associated with obesity.

What it is, however, is a public health initiative that's going to accomplish the same goal that his ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, and public parks has done over the past 10 years: make it exceedingly hard to ingest a thing that is truly, truly awful for you.

According to a recent New York Times report, a spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association — an arm of the soda industry's national trade group — criticized the city proposal, calling it a product of the NYC health department's "unhealthy obsession with attacking soft drinks."

"It's time for serious health professionals to move on and seek solutions that are going to actually curb obesity," said spokesman Stefan Friedman in the piece.

Right. Serious health professionals…you know, unlike the city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, who blames sweetened drinks for up to half of the increase in obesity rates over the last three decades.

According to the article, the city reports that obesity rates are higher in neighborhoods where soda consumption is more common; this must be simply a coincidence, eh Mr. Friedman?

The brutal reality — which is a place where industry lobbyists for things like Big Tobacco and now Big Soda don't operate — is that over half of the adults in the Big Apple are either overweight or obese already.

But if you were a spokesman for an industry that sells sugary poison, why would you give any credence to that?

Let us be real about this: obesity is the greatest problem facing this country right now. You can live without a job, you can live without being able to read, you can live without knowing algebra, but you cannot live without your health.

This has nothing to do with vanity, and nothing to do with self-esteem: as one writer once put it, "Diabetes doesn't give a (expletive) about your self-esteem."

The health problems that fat people have (I often refuse to use that softening sobriquet "overweight") are amongst the most vicious, and when they come to fruition, they toss their weight onto the already-strained healthcare system, costing untold millions every year.

Obesity reduces life expectancy, and is one of the leading causes of preventable death worldwide. Yes, you read that right: eating too much and moving too little is a major, major problem for the entire world, and it's every bit as serious as addictions to tobacco, alcohol, or heroin.

And what do good governments do when citizens are massively addicted to such things? They take steps to curb that addiction. If half the population of NYC were out-of-control drinkers, there would be an outcry followed by proposals on how to fix it.

Back in 1965, the smoking rate in the U.S. was about 42 percent. As the decades went by, however, many governments (especially New York City's) began placing heavy taxes and restrictions on cigarettes and smoking. Miraculously, the rate began to drop.

Now, the smoking rate in New York is just 14 percent, 6 percent lower than the national average. In West Virginia, where few limits are placed on the habit, the rate is 26 percent. Clearly, America needs that same kind of societal shift in the way it views obesity, and needs to be aggressive in fighting it.

So don't think of this proposal as a case of the government overstepping its bounds… think of it as the government trying to be something of a good shepherd.

A shepherd that watches large cows instead of sheep… and is watching them eat, and eat, and eat until they vomit, only to keep eating after that, to the detriment of themselves and everything around them, until they literally drop dead.

And whether you agree with the exact tenet of the law or not, credit must be given to Bloomberg for moving on it. He is one of the few politicians willing to take a tough, unpopular stance on an issue that is affecting more and more Americans every day.

Maybe, when this law succeeds and eventually spreads to the rest of the country (as so many NYC health initiatives have), you can write him a letter and thank him because you were able to watch a whole movie without needing an insulin shot.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/news/157690925_First_volley_in_the_war_on_obesity_.html?page=all

A lesson from Hemingway, five decades later

"I am one of those who like to stay late at the cafe," the older waiter said. "With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night."

I first discovered Ernest Hemingway in high school.

Well, not really "discovered." More like my twelfth grade English teacher told us to read "The Sun Also Rises" and I (in what is likely a metaphor for my high school career) ended up stealing the book but never reading it.

I tried to (kind of), but the story of the disaffected, semi-crippled World War I veteran living abroad went far over the head of my teenage mind, which didn’t yet have the necessary depth to comprehend the tale.

A decade later, after some of life’s hard knocks and cheap shots, I read the thing in one night and instantly the black beauty that seeps through the ink of each of the novel’s printed words shined.

It will likely surprise no one that since then, Ernest Hemingway has had a tremendous impact on me. As I delved deeper into the legend that has assembled itself around this dramatis personæ, I came to understand I share many of the same loves: boxing, fishing, the great outdoors; and many of the same vices: an intense love for a good late night at a nameless bar, or with a woman you just met.

Coming from the halls of a college where excessively complicated writers were worshipped, it took me some time to become accustomed to his famously terse writing style. But, there was a certain allure to his prose, which relied more on dialogue than description and gave just enough of the iceberg so that you could picture what the part below the water looked like.

From the galloping pace of the great hunt in "Green Hills of Africa" to the measured battle that takes place in "The Old Man and the Sea," the simple narratives were stories that could be just as easily told around a mountain campfire, and this paid off; there are guys I know who refuse to "waste their time" reading any book, but count a Hemingway story as their lone favorite.

I’ve always believed that Hemingway knew that by simplifying his delivery, he could reach the same people he wrote about — the boxers, the soldiers, the fishermen — who would never normally be reached by prose. That was his gift.

With the 50th anniversary of his death this past July, more attention than normal has been heaped upon the writer, and analysis of his "gifts" has commenced once again.

The New York Times ran an article called, "Blood, Sand, Sherry: Hemingway’s Madrid," in which a travel writer retraces Hemingway’s steps through the city that he lived in during various times in his life.

Woody Allen joined in also; Hemingway is one of the famous characters that Allen’s protagonist meets in 1920’s France in his movie "Midnight in Paris," and on the anniversary of his death, the Los Angeles Times ran a piece called "Rethinking Hemingway 50 years after his death," which provided an abbreviated timeline about how the author fell from grace in the wake of the women’s liberation and hippie movements of the 1960s.

The LA Times article delineates why people sometimes ignore Hemingway now; feminists have always cried that he was a sexist, while others critics have said that he was, at various times, a racist, an egotistical blowhard, and a "lazy" writer whose work paled in comparison to the William Faulkners of the world.

And this long assault on Hemingway has occurred during the same decades that the attacks on all things "male" began in earnest, and it’s no coincidence.

In stark comparison to the old days, men are portrayed on TV sitcoms as bumbling idiots who must constantly be saved by our all-knowing wives, who roll their eyes at our misguided macho attitudes before taking care of whatever we screwed up.

Hunting is constantly frowned upon by those too good to spend a weekend in the woods, and the archaic term "college boxing team" has become more ironic than anything else here in the 21st century.

In 1913, Abercrombie and Fitch outfitted Teddy Roosevelt for an expedition to the then barely known "River of Doubt" in the Brazilian Amazon; today, the only thing they outfit are the skinny runts known as "male models."

These days, the concept of the swaggering, brawling adventurer has been subverted and destroyed as "the ideal" by the suave, urbane, sensitive metrosexual who hangs out at Starbucks and has never been in a fight — and it is now that Hemingway’s legend is most crucial.

He served in one world war and covered another, travelled, hunted, fought, drank, and loved. By the time he reached his brutal end, staring down the barrel of his favorite shotgun, he was famous the world over as much for his raucous sense of adventure as he was for his Pulitzer Prize winning prose.

An old-fashioned, hard-living, no-regrets type, he was the antithesis of what is now presented as a "man," and this reality-television generation that watches life more often than it participates in it could afford to take some cues from him.

So put down the TV remote and go read "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

It won’t hurt. It’s short. It’s even free online.

Go, and read, and remember.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/132216093_A_lesson_from_Hemingway__five_decades_later.html?page=all

Borders' plunge shows booksellers' uncertain future

BY STEVE  JANOSKI

For the great majority of the American public that has not read a book since high school and is only vaguely aware that they're still printed, the slow death of the mega-chain Borders might slip by unnoticed except for the passing recognition of yet another empty storefront gazing out at the highway.

For some of us though, the ones who spent a great deal of time (and a great deal of money) in that cavernous building on Route 23, it is as if a dear old friend has passed.

I've always liked bookstores, as they actively catered to my two addictions: the printed word in all its forms, and coffee. And I loved them for it.

As a kid (and later, as an adult) I wandered their aisles for hours, reading pieces of this and that and marveling at the collected knowledge that sat upon the shelves, wondering if I would ever have the time to read all the things I wanted to.

I'll admit, I always liked Barnes and Noble better. It was, in my eyes, more the “Gray Lady” of that industry - more books, no music, and a bit more stuck up and crotchety. It gets away with this, of course, because it is a bookstore, and most of us who frequent bookstores are a bit stuck up and crotchety.

Borders was always like Barnes and Noble's reckless younger sibling - less books, more music, better prices, a bit more lively. How reckless they were, however, we weren't to know until they finally imploded last month and declared that they'd be going out of business.

Now, the place is a cemetery, and great towering shelves full of liquidator garbage sit where novels once did and a pall pervades the air as the signs declaring that “Everything must go” hang lifelessly from the ceiling.

It is a sad state of affairs…but there may yet be hope.

I am too young to remember the days of the corner bookstore, and all too aware of the increasing influence of the e-readers like Kindle and Nook (neither of which I am onboard with yet), but I have a sincere hope that the crumbling of this brick-and-mortar empire will lead to some kind of resurgence amongst those individual booksellers who had been driven from the field upon Borders' arrival.

Maybe, just maybe, we will see a slew of small Bookends-type shops begin to pop up and fill the void left by the behemoth's fall.

After all, I am very particular about the books I buy, and I have an odd routine that I follow that involves opening to some random page and seeing if the thing can hold my attention long enough for me to justify spending money on it.

And then there's the feeling you get when you physically hold a book in your hands. It's as if you're holding a direct link to history, to the thoughts and musings of the greatest minds that have ever lived, like Paine and Dickens and Rousseau and Voltaire, who spent their lives collecting, disseminating, and fashioning a creation that has a weight and heft (both literally and figuratively) that has to be felt to be understood.

That's hard to replicate through Amazon.com.

For now though, Barnes and Noble sits on its Route 46 perch as the last of the old guard, the only surviving king on a decimated chess board, and few of us know where the game is headed.

Until we do, I suspect that old-school onlookers like me will grip tightly our printed versions of the New York Times and “Les Miserables” and cringe, waiting to see what this future holds.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

Better to wear out than rust out

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

BY STEVE JANOSKI

When you go through elementary and middle school, there’s always "next year" to think about. You’re a year closer to high school, a year closer to driving, a year closer to being 18, a year closer to 21. Something exciting always lies around the bend that’s making right now worth it, and you just can’t wait until "the future" is here.

That wide open world is an electrifying one where you could still be president or an astronaut or a pro baseball player because life hasn’t really arrived and showed you the beating you’re going to take. Instead it waits and watches our ignorant youth, smiles at our idealism, and then plots our demise.

But when it stands and delivers, it does so fiercely. Some of us it kills outright before we reach our prime. Others get in trouble, either with the law or other things, and spend the rest of their time fighting for redemption. A few take off, and shoot right to the top of the food chain in whatever they do. These folks are rare.

Most of us end up somewhere in the middle though, and after high school or college, we find a "real job," which sounds the death knell of looking forward to "what’s around the bend."

In some professions there’s something like a promotion or pay increase to work toward, but many times those are vague hopes, moving targets that can seem so far away that working "toward" them can feel like a Sisyphean task.

It becomes all too easy to settle into what some might call a rut, even in a job you love. The days charge by, the calendar years change, and life rolls at a downhill pace that leaves us wondering where the last decade or so went.

Even our hobbies can take on a mundane feeling, and it becomes rare that we step out of our narrow box and feel the intimidation or discomfort that comes inherent with doing a new thing. We’re too old, too fat, too slow, too tired to be bothered.

This has led to what writer Richard Strozzi-Heckler once called a "muted nation of spectators," a country full of people who live and die by what happens in the sporting arena or on reality TV— not realizing that their own reality is slipping away with every minute.

Strozzi-Heckler blamed this on the manner in which we’re educated.

I disagree. I think it’s just a matter of being human.

We fear the things that we don’t know or haven’t experienced, and breaking through the bars that keep us in the cages we’ve created is just too much for some.

We like patterns, stability, and comfort— and our living room couches tend to be quite comfortable. We forget that the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the hole.

In the last year I’ve found that there is only one way to break this, and although it is simple and sounds easy, it’s a violent transition that is more difficult than it seems: get out in the world, and do things.

As we age, we must, must, must try new things in the attempt to constantly improve. Go somewhere different, join a class, learn a trade, just do something that makes you better than you were an hour ago.

Nobody can set the goal for you, and that’s what makes it both easier and more difficult. I knew I wanted to formally learn to box, but stepping into a boxing gym, no matter where it is, is difficult. It is intimidating, and uncomfortable, until you get a sense of the place.

But that in itself is an adventure. Having that feeling, the worried quiver in the pit your stomach, over something that isn’t all that scary is worth it because once it’s conquered, it’s gone. It’s a tiny victory that no matter how seemingly insignificant, makes us just a little bit tougher, a little bit smarter.

I’ve tried to live this creed out in the last year. I quit smoking, joined a gym, shot a gun, went to a live boxing match, read as many books as I could, and learned to hit a speed bag, All of these were skills or things that a year ago at this time, I couldn’t do, or hadn’t done.

And although they’re not going to win me any medals, although nobody else cares whether I did them or not, they’ve made me believe that over the course of this year, I’ve made progress.

I’m a physically stronger, smarter, better person than I was at this time last year. I was not static, I did not rust on the couch, I did not watch others live while my own life leaked away.

A friend of mine who took up running in his mid-50s sent me an e-mail a month ago talking about a 5K he had run on Thanksgiving morning.

"Funny thing about life," he wrote. "Some participate, most just watch. I suppose both have their merits."

I disagree with him as well. There is no merit in just watching.

In 2011, don't watch. Do.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/recreation/112644679_Better_to_wear_out_than_rust_out.html?c=y&page=1

Defending our last bastion

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
By Steve Janoski

Only in Brooklyn could the idea of bringing a baby inside a bar sound anywhere near a good idea — but that's what happening, according to Jessica Ravitz's recent article on CNN.com, "Brooklyn brewhaha: Babies in bars."

Ravitz chronicles the story of one Matt Gross, 35, an editor for the blog DadWagon and the columnist who writes the Frugal Traveler in the New York Times. He's also the stay-at-home father of a 14-month old daughter.

In the article, Gross says that he "longs for adult contact," and that though he has a child, he "doesn't want to be excluded from the adult world," so he brings his daughter with him to the bar.

The craze has apparently caught on in Brooklyn, where bar patrons are forced to put up with middle-aged adolescents who can't tear themselves away from the bottle for long enough to raise a kid.

My objections to this are multilayered. As a 25-year-old pub connoisseur, I am revolted by the idea of sitting in my neighborhood dive surrounded by children.

The guys I know go to bars to be out with other adults. We go to hit on women, or to commiserate about what said women have done to us. We tell stories about other nights drinking, laugh at crude jokes, and, depending on the night of the week and the amount imbibed, other things that the majority of society frowns on.

But it's OK. Why? Because that's our escape from the straight-laced job or the overbearing wife, and our last, great hiding place from the never-ending responsibilities that are heaped on us over the course of life.

Children, however, have the run of the country. Everything is about "the children" — some celebrity has a costume malfunction at the Super Bowl, and it's "What about the children!?" If an athlete gets arrested for some indiscretion, its always, "What does this tell the children!?"

Kids can go to any movie theater or restaurant, and other patrons are expected to put up with any kind of screaming fits or other baby issues they might have. And that's fine — this is the way it is.

But honestly, the bars? Have they no mercy or compassion for this last bastion of true adulthood? We who go to bars do not want to be surrounded by children and strollers and other reminders of either present or future responsibilities…we just want to have a beer after work or enjoy a Friday night.

And on top of that, what does it say about the fathers themselves, putting a little kid in harm's way at a bar because you "long for adult contact?"

Any place where alcohol is served en masse' is going to come with a certain degree of danger, and bars are known for being the place where you…well, get drunk. And when those people get drunk, they act in wholly different ways than they would otherwise.

Alcohol is involved in a good chunk of violent crimes — you don't often hear about the guy who drank too much Gatorade one night and decided to shoot his wife. Why put a little kid in the same spot where a lot of crimes start, and a good amount end?

The danger is not just from a lone drunken basket case, either. What happens if a guy has a couple beers and loses his balance and knocks the kid off the stool, falls on them, or even gets run into while he's standing? While these things can happen anywhere, things tend to end worse when booze is around, and it's the child that will pay the price.

The amount of fights I have seen in bars is also beyond count, and it doesn't matter what time of day you're there, because things happen. Is it worth it for a kid to be around that instead of just springing for a babysitter?

I don't have kids, but what I learned from my father about it is that when you do end up having them, they have to come first. You put their safety above everything else, and you don't do anything to jeopardize it.

I'd like to tell Mr. Gross that when he decided to have kids, he should have understood that his life wasn't going to be about what he wants anymore, but what his daughter needs — and what she doesn't need to be around is the kind of people like me who spend a lot of time at the local pub.

And if he wants some "adult contact"… join a book club.

http://www.northjersey.com/food_dining/89085917_Defending_our_last_bastion.html