Jack LaLanne died at 96 … 96! He was in pretty good shape until the end. Jack was a vegetarian (or “pescatarian”?), non-smoking two-hour-workout-a-day beefcake Greco-Roman model (NSFW!) who lectured housewives and night-shifters for 30+ years on the teevee, and if you actually look at him it’s like Kerouac talking at Neal Cassady speed, and it’s fantastic.
He was the Michelle Obama of his time, but nobody called him Communist, even though his 10-point plan was about as Buddhist as you could find on American Teevee. [NYT]
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But he died, proving exercise is a waste of time.
absolutely. can my grandma get her money back?
Jeez. I don't know whether I want to get one of those belted short-sleeved jumpsuits, or just be buff in the buff like that incredible photo. Who knew?
What a physique and pre-steroids no less! Is it okay that I get a tingly feeling from a 57 year old photograph?
Was it the power juicer that did him in?
In his memory, I think I'll have a doughnut and a cigarette.
Exercise, nutrition like that would make him immortal. I know it
doeswould for me. Must have been an Obamacare Death Panel that killed him.And Billy Graham is still giving interviews, just sayin'. Thinks he "maybe" got too political on occasion. But, he's still kicking two years after the family had a big fight over where to bury him, inside or outside "GrahamLand." He has to live 4 more years though to prove Jack had "faith" too low on the 10 point scale.
I remember seeing my mom feverishly work out to this buff Jack laLanne character in front of the B/W teevee with one his giant blue rubber band stretchy things, and then I'd go pick up a comic book with those Charles Atlas ads in them.
No wonder I grew up with serious body issues. American culture, you are so cruel to young manhood!
Maybe if someone had just kicked sand in your face.
You know – those Atlas ads are a sad reminder of a different time. These days the average kid isn't "scrawny" but obese. I look at old photos of kids and am just amazed at how thin they were.
I think it had something to with being poor and having to eat wallpaper paste for a primary source of nutrition, back in the depression.
More paint chips for desert, kids!
That wasn't a giant blue rubber "band."
Certainly no Wisconsin Winter Weekend with those dickpics!
Geez, all this fawning over an athlete. It's not like he walked up and down the Washington Monument steps on his HANDS or something. Oh, wait. Nevermind
Martinis, too. Many martinis, through his 90s.
At 60 he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat. At 70, handcuffed and shackled again, he towed 70 boats, carrying a total of 70 people, a mile and a half through Long Beach Harbor.
Good gravy — I'll consider myself a success at 70 if I can drink a bottle of wine, smoke several bowls and bitch coherently about a number of current topics enough to drive those around me into exasperated silence. That Jack fellow had it goin' on.
"drink a bottle of wine, smoke several bowls and bitch coherently"
That's been my exercise program for years.
He was a model of discipline and dedication. But seriously, it's good that he's doing clean jerks with the angels, now. The sentient beings watching us from distant galaxies needed to realize that he was the exception, not the rule, and the human race as it presents itself nowadays wouldn't last past an hour doing any sort of heavy, slave-type labor.
Uhhh, Malomars and YooHoo, anyone?
I do clean jerks, too. With Kleenex.
I thought clean jerks happened in the shower?
I recall hearing how Jack pulled a locomotive with his teeth or some such.There's some joke to be had here about pulling a train, but I'm too sad thinking about his dog Happy.
Damn. One of humankind's most valiant attempts at immortality: thwarted.
Yeah you all keep at this routine, which is the equivalent of Jim Inhofe's "It snowed in DC, so there's no global warming." Libtard & Wingnut always meet together at Denial.
Hey — it's under 20 here. Stupid Al Gore, who is fat and not dead, explain that Mr Darwin!!!?!?!
How can it be that Wonketteer In Name Only abbreviates to WINO? That seems backwards.
You're uncharacteristically interrupt-y today, KL. Got an issue you want to share?
I promise to eat my vegetables Dad.
His famous juicer will make an excellent urn for his ashes.
First thing I thought when I heard the news this AM. It would only be fitting for Jack LaLanne's corpse to be disposed of with his juicer.
Sounds French to me.
I remember seeing him on the black and whiteish teevee when I was dragged off to Kindergarten. He bugged me with all those jumping jacks and the jumpsuit.
So this Jack LaLanne guy would change people's oil during the commercial breaks?
Go ahead and put up a couple of nude fellows holding hands and looking admiringly upon each other's naked bodies in this day and age, and watch how many Suzy Q Homemakers tune in to the program. Go on, I said.
Aw, bye Jack LaLanne! You were something my preschool brain barely paid attention to before the Bozo the Clown Show. So, thanks.
I was in Costco today, grazing for samples and picking up the 1,500 packette case of Sweet & Low and I saw his juice loosener machine. I joked to my husband that we should buy it and return it and list "it doesn't work, he died" as the reason for return.
Great, I can get the deep-fryer back out now.
So, uhm, Jack was of the Hebrew persuasion?
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