The Flying Wallendas famous Wallenda died walking a cable between two buildings.
This week aerialists performing a hair-hanging stunt fell. Nik, a seventh-generation Wallenda — who in 2012 walked on wire over Niagara Falls — talked to me about fear:
“We carry incredibly high-cost insurance with Chubb. Price of premiums depends on risks we take.
“Fear turns into respect. I learned early to respect danger. My heart beats faster — but I’m not shaking. It’s meditation. Six weeks before walking across the Grand Canyon last year I sat on its edge. Days. Hours.
Visualizing it. I trained with a wind machine.
“Ate nothing within three hours before. Up 9:30; cereal, fruit breakfast, nothing heavy — then played horseshoes three hours with friends. Keeps your mind off stress. Stress causes accidents.
“No bathroom over the Canyon so use the restroom before. Drain that bladder.
“I’m not superstitious. I’m prepared for whatever I face. The gym five days a week. Cardio and weight training. I begin in calm weather only 10 feet off the ground, then in tropical storm 90 mph winds. If I’m to walk 1,500 feet, I start walking three times the distance — 3,500 feet. And watch my diet — under 1,500 calories a day.
“If fear comes into your mind, filter those thoughts out so they don’t become giants. Pray. Raised in a God-fearing family, my faith keeps me calm.
“Carrying the legacy my family started — we’re 14 members — I’ve performed since age 2. Mom did it while pregnant. My grandmother closed the show riding the wire on the seat of a chair in a bicycle pyramid. My children 15, 13, 11, have no interest. The oldest, in a military academy, said: ‘What the hell is that?!’
“Could I earn more as a computer whiz? Who knows. I make very good money.”
Age 35, this “King of the Wire” with seven Guinness World Records summers upstate doing shows with his wife as a human pyramid 60 feet in the air.
October it’s Chicago. Skyscraper to skyscraper walking the high wire. “Now picking the exact location, I’m close to finalizing it. I’ve already started visualizing.”
And the Discovery Channel will visualize it live.
Journo makes everyday choice
Brian Williams jumping from 14th Street’s gridlocked cab into a subway. An on-the-ground newsman forced underground??? . . . Performing for his sister’s 65th birthday, Tommy Tune home to Houston. “It’s how I started. My parents loved entertaining. And daiquiris. Me being so tall, they’d say, ‘C’mon, Blubber, give ’em all your arms and legs.’ ”
Judy does everything
Judge Judy, TV’s No. 1, gets an hour CBS prime-time special May 20 plus there’s her daily smartathon plus she’s producing another judicial program starting September plus her new book’s coming out plus there’s her daily Web site plus her Facebook contest flies the Brooklyn winner to LA to meet Her Judgeness in person. And where’s she been with all that? Vacationing in New Zealand.
Love of eating
Charles Osgood on his “Eat, Drink and Be Merry” special honored by the James Beard Foundation: “I spend 10 weeks a year in my house in St. Tropez. My wife, five kids and I like food a lot.” Besides food? “Up Sundays 3:30 a.m. TV Sunday mornings 20 years. Began on radio 48 years ago. Four Osgood File radio shows daily plus a live interview weekly. And I’m 81.” OK, OK.
Weeks ago reader Bonnie Shimkin and another lady eyed the same rotisserie chicken on sale at Rego Park’s Costco. Happened again. This time they co-purchased the only one left. In the parking lot, both tore it apart. The other lady wanted drums and thigh, Shimkin opted for the breast.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.