Finkel's Fast Five - Issue #15

May 11th, 2018

The book I started this week that I can't put down: I've probably recommended Robert Kurson's book, Shadow Divers to a hundred people so I'm not shocked that his newest book, Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon, is amazing. While the story is ultimately about NASA's triumph, the chronicles of their disasters following Russia's successful Sputnik launch are brutal. The press nicknamed their failed rocket launches "Kaputnik", "Flopnik" and "Dudnik".  An absolutely mesmerizing video of a Doc Brown-level machine: You have to trust me. I just discovered this guy on YouTube and he builds ludicrous but fantastic Rube Goldberg machines involving absurd levels of timing, planning and household gadgets, in this case all lined up to serve a piece of cake. It's two minutes. Ten if you watch it five times like I did. The swinging chandelier, the baby and the deadpan seamless eating are crowd pleasers.  The one bar of soap I use for everything that simplifies travel: A long time ago I realized that our bodies don't need 5 different kinds of soaps and cleansers in the shower - that's all just marketing. So I went on the hunt for one bar to rule them all - a bar for body, hair, face and shaving. And I found it and never looked back. It's called Grandpa's Old Fashioned Pine Tar Soap AKA the original wonder soap. It does everything and you smell like a bearded lumberjack building a woodshed afterwards. In fact, I packed the Grandpa's bar for my trip to Charlie Ward's hometown this past weekend for a speaking/book signing event. Here's a photo of Charlie and I at the event with his parents if you're interested.  This magazine article has the best premise and lede I've read in a while: Here's the lede: You overdraw from your savings account. The bank doesn’t notice. You do it again. Same. And again. Same. What do you do? (A) Stop doing it. (B) Tell the bank about the glitch. (C) Live the life you’ve always dreamed of. This is the true story of the man who chose C—thanks to more than 1.5 million bucks in “free” cash. Great, right? The article was written by David Kushner for Esquire and it's a long piece but it's fun to live vicariously through this guy and the ending is worth it. Here it is.  A great answer to a question meant to be negative: When legendary boxing writer Bert Sugar asked two-time heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson about being knocked down more than any other heavyweight fighter in history, Patterson replied, "Yeah, but I got up more than any fighter in history."   Have a great weekend and remember it doesn't matter if you get knocked down more than anyone in history...as long as you get up more than anyone in history too!  Hey, do you want a free "Mean" Joe Greene bookmark? Get a friend who you think will really enjoy this newsletter to sign up and I'll send you one! Just reply to this e-mail with your address and their name so I'll know it when I see them on the list.

- Jon