“The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon”: https://t.ly/qacea

1

ANOTHER BOOK?!

I wasn’t planning on writing about it, I wasn’t even sure I was going to read it, but late Saturday night Kevin Fedarko described the experience of running the river… Being at one with the water, checking the flow, charting a path, that reminded me exactly of skiing.

Not that you would know it if you haven’t experienced it.

But if you have…

People throw away their entire lives to go skiing, to go river rafting. And if you asked my father, that’s exactly what he would say, throwing away your life, wasting your time, but the experience, the adrenaline, the hit…

They’re at the top of a rapid, the oarsman is steeling himself, getting focused, ready to dive in at 100%, with this run the only thing that matters. That’s the same experience I have skiing. Not every run. But you’re standing atop a couloir, a field of bumps, and you know the only way you’ll make it is by nailing it, there’s no room for error. That if you pussyfoot, you’re f*cked. Either do it right or not at all.

But you could get hurt, you could die. And in truth, many people do.

And it’s one thing to base jump, to do something where the odds are not good. But quite another to develop your skill to the point where you know you can execute.

And to do that you have to do it every day. You can’t be a weekend warrior.

I used to say it took thirty days straight. Now I’m thinking I can get in the groove a little bit sooner. But I go out every day until I get that fine edge. It’s not about how I look, it’s about the feeling of control, the ability to recover, to stay the course.

And what dividend does that pay?

Only food for the soul, that’s it.

Sure, there are professional ski racers, even professional freestyle skiers, but that’s something different. Forget that it’s a competition, a lot of the time you’re not even skiing. You’re traveling, waiting, getting ready to throw down your run and put down a time.

But I can still remember this run on Wilbere Ridge back in ’76, where I hit every bump perfectly, when the lift was already closed, when there was nobody else on the slope. I’m constantly in search of that feeling.

2

So I stumbled on to Kevin Fedarko’s work. I read about his new book and reserved it at the library. It came out last spring, it’s entitled:

“A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon”: https://t.ly/CW5LM

In it Fedarko does just that, have a misadventure walking the length of the Grand Canyon, which is rare feat. Despite being in the continental United States, the Grand Canyon is to a great degree unexplored. Sure, people run the river, but the gullies, the tributaries, the sun, the heat, the shale, the scree…that’s too much for almost anybody.

And the funny thing about Fedarko is he’s Ivy League educated. And despite only writing two books, he’s got a lot of skill, and to make it simple, I will say he uses big words. Some you’ll definitely have to look up. Was this necessary? I don’t know. All I do know is it’s worth plowing through. Although I thought I was going to stop a time or two reading “A Walk in the Park.”

But writing about that book I got e-mail saying I had to read Fedarko’s previous book, “The Emerald Mile.” I reserved it, but did I really want to slog through another tome?

And when I ultimately cracked it… I was just not prepared for the adventure. It’s a commitment. But then…

3

You see Fedarko writes like I talk, with digression. He knows where he’s going, but there are side trips, that at first will have you scratching your head, wondering why they’re relevant.

You get the history of John Wesley Powell traveling down the river from Wyoming all the way through the canyon in 1869. You wonder why this is necessary. But then you start to marvel, this guy with one arm went on this expedition, and it’s nowhere near as well known as the Lewis & Clark trek, but should it be?

Not that a lot of people follow in Powell’s footsteps.

But then comes the U.S. government. They’re damming up rivers left and right, in order to generate power. And there’s this writer in L.A. who gets a bug up his ass, believing this is a bridge too far, it’s the beginning of the conservation movement, the early sixties, when most people hadn’t even heard of the Sierra Club.

But this guy Litton hooks up with the Sierra Club and gets it, reluctantly, on board, and they stop the construction of a dam in Dinosaur National Monument. It’s a compromise, the government won’t build that one if the Sierra Club lets them build another dam further down in Glen Canyon.

But after agreeing to this, the Sierra Club majordomo realizes this is a big mistake, what will be lost as the reservoir fills up is unique. And from that day forward the strategy is changed. No compromise, ever.

And thank god they felt this way, because the U.S. government was going to build multiple dams within the Grand Canyon. That’s right, they were going to flood the Grand Canyon! Kaput! You can’t stop progress, you know.

But the Sierra Club did. And reading this book will make you a conservationist.

4

So Litton ultimately goes into the business of running dory trips down the Canyon. While everybody is running these massive rubber pontoons. And these wooden dories… They bang into rocks, they get broken up, you’ve got to repair them as you go… But you just can’t barrel through the rapids, you’ve got to navigate, there’s finesse involved, and a dory trip takes three weeks, whereas a motorized pontoon trip can be done in a third of the time.

And this guy Kenton Grua gets the bug, he gets hooked.

If you’ve lived in the wilderness you know these people. They oftentimes come from the suburbs. But they experienced something in the woods, in the wilderness, and their whole life takes a left turn, this is all they care about.

So Kenton Grua dedicates his entire life to running the Grand Canyon in a wooden dory.

Let’s be clear. The canyon doesn’t change. Well, there are the equivalent of avalanches, there is movement of the rapids, but it’s still one river, it’s still in one place, but for Grua, that’s enough. He doesn’t have to run every river in the world. He’s dedicated just to the Grand Canyon. I love going to new ski areas, but I can tell you where every bump, every nook and cranny is at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, Bromley Mountain and Vail. Because I’ve gone down these runs hundreds of times. Like on Pickeroon… Sometimes I go left, sometimes I go right. If I go left, I drop in where the chair used to be, a narrow passageway. And then there are these giant rollers, you speed along and make a turn on top of each one, you’re flying. And if I go on the right, there’s a roll near the top and another at the bottom but the key is going around the trees in the middle, that exist just a few meters from the woods. One false move and… But it’s the tightness and the turn that give me that feeling. I could almost run it blind.

5

So now we go back to the dams. One dam in particular, Glen Canyon Dam.

Well, first we go into a description of an El Niño. Live in California, live in the Rockies long enough, and you’ll become familiar with El Niño and its counterpart La Niña. Bottom line, in an El Niño year, in this one in particular, 1983, it rains and rains and rains and rains. And in the mountains it snows and snows and snows and snows. And come spring this snow starts to melt and…

The rivers start to flow, the reservoirs starts to fill up and…

Glen Canyon dam can’t cope.

The passageways… Are literally falling apart. There’s a chance the water will breach the dam. Some people even think the dam itself is in jeopardy.

And for all those who hate the government… You’ll learn why we need it, you’ll appreciate the people who work for it, after you read this book.

But, as they’re trying to forestall catastrophe, they’re allowing water to run through and it’s moving fast at a higher level than ever before and Grua…

Decides to set a speed record. Yup, he’s gonna do it faster than anybody before, which in this case was him. He isn’t filming a movie, there’s no trophy, no book, no story, it was a personal quest.

The water is high, they take off surreptitiously, and…

6

Now Kevin Grua died riding his mountain bike. “…he suffered an aortic dissection, a tear in the inner layer of the large blood vessel branching off his heart.”

He was 52.

It’s unclear if this was related to trauma. But when you’re a dirtbag river rat you probably don’t have health insurance.

Grua was a child of the seventies. When you could survive as a dirtbag. You can’t anymore.

Used to be there were ski bums. Now all the help at ski areas comes from South America or Down Under, it’s just too expensive to live in ski town. Furthermore, the longer you stay in the mountains, the further you fall behind in the rat race, sans a career you’re going to be behind the financial 8-ball, and you’d be surprised how savvy today’s youngsters are. People like me used to graduate from college and head for the mountains. Almost no one does that anymore.

Not that Grua was getting rich running the river, but he could survive, he could make ends meet, and he could get that amazing feeling.

7

Now I’m going to quote a few passages, because they stuck out to me.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

Ain’t that the truth. Few take the risk today. At least physically. Out in the wilderness. Although it will never again be the way it used to be, no one is off the grid anymore, even your iPhone has satellite capability.

But if you’re not testing limits, pushing the envelope, you’re missing out.

“‘Thou shalt not’ is soon forgotten, but ‘Once upon a time’ lasts forever.”

This is kind of like Nike’s “Just Do It,” but softer. Or Warren Miller’s…if you don’t do it this year, you’ll just be one year older when you do. Step out your front door, put yourself in an unfamiliar position, you’ll encounter the unexpected, and that’s when you’ll feel really alive.

“Among many other things, those dirtbag river runners uphold the virtue of disobedience: the principle that in a free society, defiance for its own sake sometimes carries value and meaning, if only because power in all its forms—commercial, governmental, and moral—should not always and without question be handed what it demands.”

This is the essence of the other, the essence of rock and roll, the essence of the sixties, whose philosophy bled into the seventies, and then Reagan came along and legitimized greed and everybody bought in.

Everybody wants to buy in today. You want those privates, those brand extensions. The music is not enough, there must be perfume, and clothing. And if something makes a ton of bread, what is driving it, what is at the core, is irrelevant.

In many ways society is empty, we’re lacking leaders.

I’m not talking about the free speech movement online. That’s not the same. What you’ve got to know about defiance is it’s always been based on the lone individual. Who points the way but doesn’t insist you follow, who just continues to go on their own hejira. Politicians lead parties, musicians…those who change the world…they’re just following their instincts, and if they don’t align with society’s rules, too bad.

For a while there the techies embodied this. But then they came to believe that they were the establishment, that they were entitled to set the rules…meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

But to do that which is not approved, to risk everybody’s wrath, to not care about the money…that’s rare in today’s society.

But that’s what the dirtbags are all about, all they live for, they put their finger to the wind and…

Tune in Saturday November 16th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

X/Twitter: @lefsetz

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

She doesn’t know what else to do.

This is a failure of the media/sports industrial complex. We exploit them at younger and younger ages and when they’re spit out the other side…they’ve got no education, few skills, they’ve been to the top and they’re never going to be able to get there ever again.

I feel sorry for Britney Spears. Who wanted her to be famous, her parents or herself? Can a girl that age even make that decision?

I’d tell everybody to go to school, to graduate from college, call it seasoning.

The funny thing is you’re in college, rearing to get going. Wanting to eat up the world. Believing you’re falling behind.

When ultimately this is untrue. You hit an age… Could be your late twenties, usually sometime in your thirties, where you’re doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, or maybe just coasting, and you wonder what you were so hungry for, why you wanted to get started so soon, life is long and there’s plenty of time.

But you don’t know that when you’re young.

What causes someone to excel? Is it nature or nurture? Biology or hard work? Ultimately it’s a combination of the two. You’ve got to have the physical skills, the body, but then whether you win or not depends upon dedication. And training is not enough. The greats don’t choke in competition, they get even better!

So Lindsey Kildow is growing up in Minneapolis. Training at Buck Hill, a bump by the freeway whose race program is run by the legendary Erich Sailer, who has trained Olympians previously. Lindsey has success, she’s tall and strong, she could go all the way, but you’ve got to get out of Minnesota to do this, you’ve got to go to…

Vail. Where they have world class training facilities and educational opportunities alongside.

This splits up the family. Ultimately her parents separate. But her dad is a successful lawyer and there’s enough money to make it work. You need the money in ski racing, the equipment and travel eat up your dollars.

So now all the hopes and dreams of the family are invested in young Lindsey. The pressure is overwhelming. Look at all the rubble in her wake, now she’s got to make it.

And she does, she has the skills, and…

She shines at the only moment the American public pays attention, the Olympics, where she wins gold in the downhill, the signature skiing event.

And there’s reams of copy. How she was injured. How she put cheese on her shins to assuage the pain, how she skied on men’s skis with two edges. But she delivered, she triumphed, she was the all-American girl.

She fit the construct.

She was tall, blonde and beautiful.

Now the bottom line is the greatest skier in history is racing right now, Mikaela Shiffrin. She’s better than any man, she broke Ingemar Stenmark’s legendary World Cup victory record, and isn’t done yet. And unlike either Stenmark or Vonn, Shiffrin can win in every event, both the speed and the technical.

And it turns out Shiffrin is very verbal, and insightful.

And certainly attractive.

But she’s not a pinup, or the media does not see and promote her as such.

So there’s endless press on Vonn.

Which is Lindsey’s last name since she married Thomas Vonn. A young girl gets into a controlling marriage. To have security, to escape family turmoil. Her father disapproves and doesn’t even come to the wedding. And Vonn helps her win, but ultimately Lindsey wants out and…

Vonn sabotages her equipment.

But Lindsey gets past that and wins again.

Now all these skiers have had injuries. Some more than others. Kildow/Vonn had a ton. But she always came back. The skills remain. That’s what Bode Miller told me.

We’ll get back to that.

But her knees… The cartilage is evaporating. She wants to break Stenmark’s record, but ultimately she has to give up, she’s in just too much physical pain. She says she wants to be able to ski with her kids while they’re growing up.

Meanwhile, subsequent to the breakup with Vonn, Lindsey gets involved with Tiger Woods. But he steps out on her just like he did Elin Nordegren. And although Lindsey is in the public eye, she comes from a solid background, she’s not Hollywood trash, one faux pas and Tiger’s out.

But there’s never a steady replacement.

And now Vonn is retired. Getting further surgery. And showing up in a bathing suit everywhere, she’s a staple in celebrity news, the first skier since Suzy Chaffee to achieve this status, and, in fact, superseding Chaffee by far.

But that’s not enough.

Now skiing is an interesting sport. It’s a lifetime sport, like golf, or tennis, you can do it forever. But you can’t compete at the top level forever, people have tried.

Prior to Bode, the most legendary American World Cup skier was Phil Mahre. He hit the same wall as Lindsey, his life just wasn’t meaningful enough, he decided to come back. The skills were still there, but the body was not. He just couldn’t compete with the twentysomethings, ultimately he gave up.

And then there’s the sad story of Bill Johnson, an outcast who came from nowhere to win the Olympic downhill gold in Sarajevo, like Babe Ruth even predicting it! Subsequently his home life was a disaster, his young son died in a hot tub, he tried to come back, but…

The equipment had changed.

He kept his gold medal underneath the front seat of his truck, it was all he had left.

But skiers no longer used Atomic Red Sleds, straight planks, they employed shorter shaped skis, with such radical sidecuts that they turned themselves instantly when pressured. And Bill was training and his skis separated and he fell and experienced a brain injury and lived for a little bit, but ultimately died, sad and broke.

Now back to Bode. If you follow World Cup ski racing, and you probably don’t, the big story on the men’s side of the coin this year is the return of Marcel Hirscher. One of the best male skiers ever, maybe the very best. Hirscher won eight overall World Cups and quit. He had nothing left to prove. He rode his motorcycle. And then…

He decided to get into the ski business. He created Van Deer skis. He decided to come back, but he’s only 35. And Bode tells me Hirscher can win, because the crop of guys winning now…just don’t have his skills, we will see.

But unlike Vonn, and like Stenmark and even Alberto Tomba, Hirscher does not ski the downhill. It’s just too dangerous, too risky. You can die. Literally. After all, speeds of ninety miles an hour are not uncommon. And if you follow World Cup ski racing you know…the runs are as smooth as glass, they’re sheer ice, injected with water to ensure this. This is how the racers like it, everybody gets an equal chance.

So…

The average skier, I mean even the average skier who skis double blacks, if they found themselves on a World Cup course, they would not be able to hold an edge, they’d be sliding, they’d be completely freaked out.

Racing separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls. It’s one thing to be an instructor, quite another to be a World Cup ski racer. And it’s one thing to race slalom, quite another to race downhill.

Lindsey Vonn is going to race downhill.

This is an event of strength and speed. Technical discipline is key, but being able to hold a line, stand on your ski, it requires brute strength.

Which is why almost all the downhillers are large people. This mass also helps generate speed.

Can a forty year old hold an edge like a twenty year old? Under pressure, on ice?

Well, theoretically you can work in the gym.

Which is what Vonn does, she’s a noted gym rat.

So what’s she got… Her body, her good looks, her image. Her workouts. Maybe some dates, no long term love. Maybe she froze her eggs, maybe the window to have children is not closing.

So football players… Some get MBAs and become entrepreneurs.

But there are so many sad stories. Of brain damage and death. All the money frittered away.

John Madden said one NFL football game will compromise your body forever.

And if you’re a legendary baseball player you can sign autographs.

How fulfilling is that?

Vonn wants to be fulfilled.

All those young music stars we laud… They missed out on so much. Sure, they’re rich, they’ve had experiences, but this is all they can do, perform. Their options are limited, they’re locked in. And there becomes a time when you’re just too old to start all over again. And most people don’t want to go back to zero, emotionally it’s just too tough.

So Vonn has the world’s attention.

Does the world really care?

OF COURSE NOT! The world doesn’t care about anybody. You learn this as you get older. The spot in the news Vonn filled can be instantly filled by another.

And keeping yourself in the news is a full time job. It’s hard to get off the merry-go-round.

But at some point you become two-dimensional, you’re famous for what you did, and that’s it.

And everywhere you go people see you as that triumph.

Even in the show “Rivals,” Rupert cannot get past his triumphant showjumping days. Those were the peak of his life, he’s been chasing that high ever since.

Anything is possible. Vonn could come back and do well, despite the odds being against her.

Probably she’ll show up, make a few runs, realize she hasn’t got it and hang it up.

It’s so hard to hang it up. Ask Michael Jordan. Everybody who played beyond the sell date of their abilities.

Lindsey just can’t go back to her regular life. Because she never built a regular life.

She didn’t go to college and b.s. and find out who she was. Didn’t go to different people’s houses and meet their parents and experience role models, or the opposite. She was coddled and coached, all for victory.

She didn’t have love relationships outside the spotlight. She didn’t get high with no one paying attention. She didn’t take classes in disparate subjects, ultimately widening her horizons, illustrating the possibilities.

Now some legendary ski racers have come down against this return, talking primarily about the potential for injury.

But the mainstream press, the one that made Vonn an icon? They’re eating it all up. Who Lindsey actually is is irrelevant. It’s a good story about someone people know.

There’s nothing wrong with achievement. But at what cost?

What is life about, doing one big thing and coasting on that forever?

Especially in sports, young people specialize too early.

But some people don’t find their path for years. And they’ve kept the doors open while they’re looking.

This is a dangerous subject. Because Vonn is a beautiful, skilled, successful woman, a man really can’t raise any questions about her behavior.

But in light of the election is this still so? Is every woman off limits to every man? Can we make no comment, no judgment?

People are skilled or not. Successful or not. Physically attractive or not. They’ve got personalities. And in truth, we’re more alike than we are different.

I’d be saying all of the above if it was a guy trying to return.

Oh, but then there’s that issue of children. There’s this myth that you can have it all, but you can’t no matter whether you’re a man or a woman, to be the best in one thing, you’ve got to sacrifice another. Look at all the rock stars who don’t really know their first families, because they were never home!

You can’t judge anybody anymore. Everybody’s off limits.

Or maybe they’re not.

Hulu trailer: https://t.ly/Lb0A9

We finished this off in two nights. Will you enjoy it? I’m not sure.

This is completely out of my wheelhouse. I don’t watch the English dramas on PBS, I haven’t read the book it is based upon, but I was fascinated by the fact that it was set in the Cotswolds, the weekend getaway of wealthy Londoners, the northwestern Connecticut of England.

But I had a different vision in my mind. I thought it was less tony, less upper class. But in this show, the houses are huge and far apart. Giving the impression you have to be uber-wealthy to live there. I’ve got a friend with a house there, but I’ve never been.

Now the reason I was in is because the main star is David Tennant, who is always great, playing a role a bit out of character here. Tennant is usually intense, cerebral, one step removed. He was best in “Broadchurch,” but he’s got a slew of credits.

So, Tennant, as Lord Tony Baddingham, runs and owns an independent TV network in the Cotswolds named Corinium. It’s part of ITV, but it’s regional…I’m sure if you live in the U.K. it’s clearer, but you don’t have to know the ins and outs of the English TV landscape to understand what is going on.

And oh, I forgot to mention it’s set in 1986. Which is very interesting. Because it’s not only pre-internet, but pre ubiquitous cellphones. You’re watching and thinking…why don’t they just call him or her? And then you realize they can’t. And that we used to live this way. And didn’t know any better.

So Tony hires Declan O’Hara a BBC interviewer, for Corinium, promising him not only money, but freedom, throwing off the chains of the bureaucracy.

Aidan Turner as Declan is a true believer. His job is everything.

But this means his marriage to Maud, (Victoria Smurfit), suffers.

And this is where the show gets interesting. Maud is an elegant babe. And she needs the reflection, the interest, the body of men to reinforce her identity, her good feelings. But she’s also wrestling with the fact that she’s aged, and her looks won’t take her as far. She’s vain, nearly petty, but her challenges are realistic.

Claire Rushbrook as Lady Monica Baddingham, Tennant’s wife, is perfect. She’s put on the marriage pounds, but she’s insightful, supportive, everything you’d want in a wife. But Tony is sticking it elsewhere…

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. You think your new squeeze will deliver everything, but when you get there…

MP Rufus Jones as Paul Stratton is revealed to be having an affair with Sarah, (Emily Atack), but the end result is he leaves his wife and marries her. And she’s still trying to climb the ladder, she’s not really that interested in him, not really interested in him at all. She’s a sexpot trading on her feminine wiles, is that enough to get her where she wants to go?

And then there’s Katherine Parkinson as Lizzie Vereker. She’s got a self-centered nitwit of a husband, who anchors the afternoons on Corinium with a talk show, but he’s a narcissist who’s paying her no attention and she becomes focused on Freddie Jones, played by Danny Dyer, a tech tycoon who is married to Valerie (Lisa McGillis), whom he met in high school. Danny is rich via tech, yet he’s one of the most human characters in the show, but will Lizzie break her marriage bonds?

And everything is anchored by Alex Hassell as Rupert Campbell-Black, a gold medal showjumper from a blue chip background who beds everything in sight. He looks just like Tony Robbins, I couldn’t get the resemblance out of my head.

And Rupert is the desire of all the women And he’s got an inappropriate crush on Declan’s daughter Taggie. That’s the only thing that really doesn’t ring true, you can’t see it, she’s just so young.

Now if I were better educated in English literature, and TV shows, I could place “Rivals” in the canon. But I’m not. So…

It plays like farce. But not all the time.

There are very human questions.

The underlying rivalry is between Rupert and Tony. Both lords, but Tony only went to grammar school.

And then you throw Cameron Cook in the mix, the American TV programming whiz who is strong and independent but ends up in beds… Cook is played by Nafessa Williams, who played Robyn Crawford in the Whitney Houston biopic.

So what we’ve got here is a lot of characters. A lot of desires. Chance meetings. Plotting. Wins and losses.

It’s a community.

There’s one scene, a New Year’s Eve party, where everybody’s in their cups dancing and at first you judge these upper class twits…but then you ask yourself, is it really all just about fun?

You’ll be intrigued by the plot. Will Declan be able to interview who he wants, will he get to ask the questions he wants.

Does Tony/Tennant hold the ultimate Trump card, promising freedom but always withholding it.

And does Rupert have a heart, or is he just a cad. Hell, he admits he’s a rake.

So they’re out in the English countryside. It’s beautiful. And unlike in Southern California, it rains, so you get that interior vibe, inside in the semi-dark, reading, talking.

And people drop by unannounced, which never happens in the city.

And boys need to triumph. Have a leg up.

And at the end of the day, what’s important? Your job? Your relationship? The money? What are you willing to sacrifice, what are you willing to forgive?

Maybe they make shows like this in America. But I haven’t watched a network drama this century. But the ones I saw before that were constrained. Limits are tested in “Rivals,” characters do things people on American TV did not, at least when I watched it.

And they exist outside the boundaries of society. They’re caught up in their own little world. That’s another question that comes up, morals.

Now maybe in the old days, viewers would be hanging on every word of “Rivals.” As it is, the show has great RottenTomatoes numbers: 94/91. But almost nothing reaches all the water coolers these days, never mind that people bring their own water bottles to work, if they even bother to go into the office.

But you can watch it all at once now on Hulu.

If you miss it will you survive?

Absolutely, this is not “Squid Game,” this is not a societal event.

But despite these characters being so different from us, in many ways they’re just the same, facing the same interior battles.

And there are enough plot twists and surprises to keep you watching.

One episode will tell you whether this is up your alley or not. Two to get the complete feeling.

Don’t shoot the messenger, I don’t write about everything I watch, but there’s something at the heart of this show, or maybe it’s that there’s so much in this show…it ultimately resembles real life.