Getting into Guinness

by Larry Olmsted

  The Vienna pub owner was a passionate skydiver who had jumped his way into the Guinness Book of Records once and was determined to do so again. Opportunity knocked in 1997, when Rezac joined very elite company by successfully stepping out of a plane and landing on the North Pole. This was a rare and impressive feat, but his jump was not groundbreaking, and he was not the first to do it. Parlaying the North Pole jump into his second record would require upping the ante. To get into Guinness, Rezac needed to complete a second jump on the South Pole—in the same year—something no one had ever done.

  Parachuting has a long and rich history in the pages of Guinness World Records, and it is a category where firsts, especially regarding the North and South poles, are exalted and immortalized, never vanishing long even when they have been equaled or exceeded. The sport has always been given a fair amount of space and attention in the book, often with its own section in the sports chapter, and in many editions, numerous records, charts, and photos as well. The 1986 book has a large picture of parachutist Dr. Jack Wheeler, called the “real Indiana Jones” by the Wall Street Journal, standing with his chute at the North Pole, a first described in the caption as “A record that cannot be bettered after setting.” With the South Pole conquered much earlier, for the first few decades of Guinness World Records history the North Pole remained parachuting’s Holy Grail; in 1972 the record for most northerly jump was still at 89°30´ N, on the polar ice cap but tantalizingly shy of the pole itself, which sits at a latitude of 90°00´ N, a mark begging to be broken. Which happened when Dr. Wheeler landed on the pole in 1981. With both the North and South poles claimed individually as parachuting prizes, and jumps at the ends of the earth, while still rare, becoming increasingly commonplace, the only record left up for grabs at the polar extremes was to jump both in the same year, which is exactly what Rezac set out to do.

  According to the Washington Post, Rezac partnered with three other experienced parachutists to make the trip to Antarctica. Such excursions, like guided mountain climbing expeditions to Everest and other high peaks, are prohibitively expensive for all but the wealthiest to undertake alone. The foursome, who didn’t know each other beforehand, found themselves teamed by destiny and a need to defray logistical costs, which clocked in at $22,000 a person (though some members of the trip received discounts based on their reputations and the visibility they could bring the tour operator). Rezac’s partners that day included three Americans: Michael Kearns, 39, a computer graphics manager and former Air Force captain with about 750 jumps; Ray Miller, 43, who like Rezac, 49, had skydived over the North Pole; and Steve Mulholland, 36, a specialist in BASE (Building, Antennae, Span, Earth) jumping—a plane-free subspecialty that involves leaping off terrestrial heights such as skyscrapers, mountains, and bridges. Mulholland’s claim to fame was for the first authorized jump from Seattle’s sixty-story Space Needle. According to the Post, Rezac was not alone in his bid for glory, since in addition to his two-poles-in-one-year effort he also planned to join all three of his companions in an attempt to set a record for the first “four-way skydive” over the South Pole. While such maneuvers are common among parachutists who jump and practice together, this was a spur of the moment record decision. The group of strangers had decided on this plan of action once they were in Chile preparing for the final leg of their trip, enticed by a bonus shot at world record glory. But on December 6, 1997, just eighteen seconds after they left the safety of their plane at 8,000 feet, with the air temperature at minus 100 degrees, the group claimed a much different record, one for the worst civilian skydiving accident in thirty years. Two never opened their chutes at all, the other two opened their chutes too late. Of the latter, only Kearns, the most experienced of the jumpers, survived but with multiple injuries. Kearns could not explain what happened to his comrades, but contributing factors may have included altitude-induced hypoxia (a sort of drunkenness brought on by thin air), faster-than-normal free fall in thin air, and a lack of visual reference over the flat, white, ice mass so acute that it is difficult to tell up from down. Tellingly, Kearns was the only one of the four who wore an automatic safety device that would explode a charge and deploy his chute if he failed to do it manually. This happened, and it probably saved his life.

  There is nothing new about accidents and death in the world of exploration and adventure. The race to be the first, highest, and fastest has resulted in the losses of hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives. As billionaire adventurer Sir Richard Branson puts it, “I think another Guinness Book of Records entry I should be applying for is for having been pulled out of the water six times by helicopter. Most of my adventures have ended up in some kind of catastrophe or another.” Even when he succeeded, things rarely went smoothly. “Having crossed the Atlantic, we went and also became the first hot air balloon to cross the Pacific. Even though we were aiming for Los Angeles, we missed it by two and a half thousand miles and crashed in the Arctic. Of course, we had clothes suitable for Los Angeles weather but not minus 60 degrees.” Of all his many records, Branson quite bluntly admits he is proudest of his first transatlantic balloon crossing, due to its inherent danger. “Because before we did it, six people had tried and five of them died. It was certainly man against the elements and it was one of my first big adventures, one which we were delighted to have succeeded and survived.” Shortly after I spoke with Branson, and just before I was to interview his good friend Steve Fossett for this book, Fossett, a career adventurer and the first to fly a plane solo around the world without refueling, died in a plane crash while scouting yet another world record attempt.

  When people attempt to push limits in adventures like exploration, mountaineering, or aviation, some of them are going to die in the effort. In light of this reality, and given some of the activities it awards certificates for, it is amazing that the Guinness World Records book does not seem to have directly claimed many lives. With records for motorcycle jumping, sword swallowing, and high altitude tightrope walking, the lack of “death by record setting” surrounding the book is nothing short of serendipitous. As a fatality, Rezac was a rare Guinness-chasing exception, but there have been plenty of close calls, and a number of records and record categories have been quietly dropped or modified over the years because of their implicit danger. It is worth noting that the book includes many records not specifically undertaken in order to “Get into Guinness,” and it is important to differentiate between those feats that editors have chosen from the public domain to include in the book, and those undertaken specifically to earn a spot in its pages. Hillary climbed his mountain, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile, all for higher purposes; these types of sometimes dangerous pursuits go on with or without the existence of the book, as those undertaking them are driven by other motivations.

  Not so for Jackie “the Texas Snakeman” Bibby, who literally puts his life on the line every time he breaks one of his rattlesnake records, dangerous stunts he clearly admits are undertaken explicitly for Guinness World Records recognition. In fact, Bibby has been bitten by his poisonous snakes on nine different occasions, but not yet while formally attempting to set a Guinness World Record (though his practice for such attempts is part of an increasingly gray area). Likewise, Ashrita’s most serious injury, a laceration to his hand that severed a nerve and required surgery, came while practicing for, but not yet attempting, the Guinness World Record for glass balancing—something he clearly never would have been doing had it not been for the existence of the book. The book dodged yet another bullet when one of its other snake-related record holders was killed during a public performance rather than an actual record bid. Boonreung Buachan, known as “the Snake Man,” was Jackie Bibby’s Thai soul mate and the holder of the Guinness World Record for spending the most time penned up with snakes. He got into the book in 1998 after living in a glass box with poisonous snakes for seven days. Buachan died in 2004 after being bitten by one of his cobras.

  Over the years the b
ook has periodically tried to create a safer record-breaking atmosphere, sometimes through sensible rules, other times through mere lip service. Medical precautions and observations are now de rigueur in the specific rules for many kinds of record attempts, including almost every marathon event. In fact, London’s Independent reported that Guinness banned all endurance-based records on the grounds of safety in 1990, and then reintroduced them in 1999 with strict guidelines. But the various editions of the book throughout the 1990s do not bear this out, and indeed include numerous records for extremely lengthy events set during that period, ranging from Ashrita Furman’s seventy-one-mile brick carry to a 3,233-mile bed push and a fifty-eight-hour clapping session. Just what endurance events, if any, were banned is unclear. In this same vein, on several occasions the company has announced records or categories that have been banned, or in Guinness-speak “retired,” so that the last person to set them holds the record forever. This happened with Ashrita’s nausea-and dementia-inspiring somersault record over the route of Paul Revere’s ride. But like the alleged endurance ban, there have been many cases where Guinness World Records staffers have stated in interviews that certain records or types of records are no longer sanctioned…only to go ahead and welcome them back—or at least welcome variations so close to the banned version as to not be able to justify any sort of safety rationale. Perhaps the book wants to work both sides of the fence, knowing that the lure of danger is what creates its appeal to its core audience, while posturing in a manner that might discourage litigation when things go bad.

  No category of records has generated so much confusion on this point as eating-related feats. Printed warnings of possible danger began to appear in the book in the early 1970s, and these admonitions were soon strengthened by specific prohibitions on records involving the consumption of spirits (any amount) or “large quantities” of beer. Competitive eating seems to be endemic these days, having even made it onto the airwaves, at least on ESPN2, publicly anchored by the popular annual July 4 Nathan’s Coney Island hot dog eating contest. Competitive eating as sport, if you can call it that, has evolved into an almost Guinnesslike phenomenon with its own official record-keeping body, while the fastest eaters of everything from Spam to cow brains have become celebrities to a niche but fast-growing international fan base. But despite its newfound popularity, speed eating and gluttony records as a genre were banned by Guinness World Records as early as 1989—sort of. In May 1989, the London Times reported, “Now that it is officially acknowledged that eating can seriously damage your health, the Guinness Book of Records is to abandon all its records for gluttony and fast feeding.” The article quotes the book’s then-editor Donald McFarlan as saying, “We now regard these records as unhealthy and outmoded in the light of growing concern about health issues.” McFarlan added that the only such eating record being retained is that of greatest omnivore, “for its historical and nostalgic value.”

  The greatest omnivore title is one of the book’s most enduring, and has long been the sole province of Frenchman Michel Lotito, better known by his nickname M. Mangetout, French for Mr. Eat Everything. Lotito has achieved membership in the rarefied pantheon of all-time Guinness greats, a fan favorite on par with the Texas Snakeman, Robert Wadlow, and the McCrary twins. Greatest, like oddest (his record has also appeared under Oddest Diet), ugliest, or most artistic, is a vague definition, and this is one of the rare Guinness World Records instances of an editorial judgment call outside the realm of measurable comparables. But Lotito’s case for the record seems open and shut, as the Grenoble native has consumed an impressive diet of things widely considered inedible, including eighteen bicycles, fifteen shopping carriages, seven television sets, six chandeliers, two beds, a pair of skis, a computer, and an entire airplane. “I believe he was the only man to ever have a coffin inside of him, rather than the other way around, when he died,” current Guinness World Records editor Craig Glenday said of Mangetout.

  Lotito was the inspiration for the title character in Ben Sherwood’s novel The Man Who Ate the 747 (2000). Sherwood got an unusual level of behind-the-scenes access to the company’s record operations through his friendship with Mark Young, then the editor of the American edition. He went through company files, read record submissions, and attended record breakings before writing the novel, which displays a high level of realism and expertise. “My interest was in the perspective of fiction. You’ll notice it’s not called the Guinness Book of Records in my book, because that’s a copyrighted name and you can’t do that, so mine is called the Book of Records. Then I fictionalized it to make it what I wanted it to be, a guy running around under pressure to deliver more and bigger and better records.” That guy running around is the novel’s protagonist, a sort of romantic traveling record detective who has no real-life counterpart, but was an inspired amalgam of the book’s Keeper of the Records and Sherwood’s childhood view of how the book should be run—in the pursuit of the greater glory of superlatives rather than profit. In his novel, the man from the Book of Records finds his way to Superior, Nebraska, a town named for superlatives, where a local farmer is systematically grinding up and swallowing an entire jumbo jet, a 747 that had crashed in his cornfields years earlier and lain abandoned ever since. The researcher visits the farm and vividly describes what he sees as the greatest of the many record attempts he has ever witnessed. As the devout chewer nears completion, the London home office of Sherwood’s fictional Book of Records suddenly pulls the plug on the attempt, deciding it is too dangerous and scoffing at overly litigious American society. In a memorable phone exchange with his superior, the traveling record verifier is told “problem is, we’ve got copycats. A woman in Ghana is eating an office building. A family in Morocco is eating a bridge. A man in Malaysia is eating an ocean liner. We don’t know where it will stop.” Through this absurdist exaggeration of implausible ingestion, Sherwood hits the nail on the head vis-à-vis the world of Guinness records, and his novel is a clear case of art imitating the real life of record copycats.

  While the attempt to eat a 747 is intentionally preposterous, Lotito did in fact eat his way into Guinness World Records by consuming an entire airplane, ground up in similar fashion, albeit it was “only” a four-seat Cessna 104 single-engine plane, a so-called “light aircraft”—at least until you try to eat one. While airplane eating might no longer be endorsed by the book today, speed eating is back with a vengeance as part of the acceptable Guinness World Records realm, despite the 1989 ban, and there are time-based records featured prominently in the current book for mass consumption of everything from Tabasco sauce and jalapeño chili peppers to brussels sprouts and doughnuts, this last with separate records for powdered and jelly versions. The spirits ban seems to have remained in force, though, and while it is hard to imagine anyone sanctioning record attempts for vodka guzzling or the like, the almost-as-politically-incorrect beer-chugging records remain (including those for Guinness-style stout). There is even a record for beer chugging while upside down, not widely considered a paragon of safe behavior. Despite the apparent danger of encouraging very fast beer drinking, this category has a rich history going back to the very first edition in 1955, the only one without any made-for-Guinness achievements. The original green book put today’s chuggers, who are limited by rules to a couple of liters at most, to shame, with gluttonous speed records for both beer (twenty-four pints in fifty-two minutes) and wine (forty pints in fifty-nine minutes). Even back in 1971, what editor could have possibly thought it a good idea for the book to include a record for the world’s Heaviest Drinker? Of course, they didn’t call it that. The more eloquent title for this record is “Most Alcoholic Subject.” By any name, the London-based hard drinker was impressive, averaging over four bottles of port each day, or nearly a gallon of fortified wine, appreciably higher in alcohol content than other still wines. He kept this frenetic pace up for twenty-three straight years until his not surprising death at 61. Had he lived in the greener modern era he might also have qual
ified for “Biggest Recycler,” as it was estimated that he produced some 35,688 “empties.”

  The earliest printed warning regarding the potential dangers of record breaking in the book itself I could find was in the 1971 edition. It added a note printed in red type to the otherwise black-and-white section on gastronomic records, suggesting that while no one was known to have succumbed in the course of setting an eating or drinking contest, such attempts are “extremely unadvisable” medically. This was a lesson learned the hard way by Bennet D’Angelo, when he made ice cream history and the pages of Guinness World Records by winning a contest in which he shoveled down three and a half pounds of the frozen dessert in just ninety seconds. Afterward, he felt sick, his face was numb for much of the day, and when the feeling finally returned he discovered that the cold had loosened a tooth and his filling had fallen out. He was not alone: all twenty-seven other contestants fell ill as well.