Don’t hate me because I’m Evel.
Welcome to the first installment of “Star Of The Day.” We’ll look at someone whose birthday falls on the day. The person may nor be the most famous, or sexy, or wealthy, however, I’ll find them interesting on some level and may have a personal connection and a story or two with. In addition to “Star Of The Day” I’ll be rolling out a brief, personal astro-bluerprint born on the same day, which will include highlights from “The Secret Language Of Birthdays,” Sabian Symbol degrees, Mayan calendar outlook for the year ahead. So without further adieu, I give you “Star Of The Day.” . . . Bobby “Evel” Knievel
Evel Knievel was extreme before there was a word that represented being a daredevil and challenging gravity in ways that made us question his sanity. Back in the early days of Wide World Of Sports, Knievel was a fixture, one of the highlights being his body shattering fall from The Caesars Palace jump in 1968, that was pure Peckinpah, captured in slow motion by Roone Arledge’s cameras. We gasped. We were horrified. We were amazed when he got back on the bike and eventually jumped again when he recovered Knievel’s popularity peaked and ultimately crashed when he “attempted” to jump The Snake River Canyon in a rocket cycle designed by Robert Truax. Knievel’s team knew he couldn’t make the jump so they designed the rocket cycle to handle the landing into the river and not design it to make it across. It was a great stunt, but the best stunt was pulling the wool over the public who actually thought he was going to make it, or at the very least, try.
As he got older, he became more and more infirm, had problems with The IRS and eventually became estranged from his bike flying son, Robbie.
My last and perhaps most bizarre memory of him was watching an emphezyma riddled Knievel rap with David Blaine about magic near the end of his life.
The grand-father of extreme sports, one of America’s great hustlers and mavericks, Evel Knievel. Some of todays other birthdays include, Eminem, Wyclef Jean, Alan Jackson and Michael McKean.
1 thought on “My Star Of The Day — October 17th — Libran Evel Knievel The Godfather Of Extreme Sports, American Hustler”
I once had the pleasure of sitting next to Evil one night in a bar at the Marriot Hotel in San Jose. It was great. The guy told stories all night and drank like a fish. The funny thing about him was that as much as I tried to one up him with people I knew, he always won. No matter who I mentioned he would say, “I know that son of a bitch” and tell a better story. Incredible.