Eat your heart out Chelsea Hotel.
Some years ago, Berlusconi’s Guinness TV flew me to stay in an Italian hotel with the most incredibly eclectic collection of amazing and intriguing people, all Guinness world record artists from around the globe.
Chief among the guests were the world’s tallest man, shortest man, strongest man, strongest woman, and the longest dog all staying in the same hotel.
Both the world’s tallest man, Bao Xishun (7 ft 9/236 cm) and smallest man, He Pingping (2 ft 5/74 cm), were from neighboring villages in Mongolia. They shared a hazy room in the hotel – both were smokers.
The sense of the extraordinary was constant and most patrons quickly learned to carry their cameras at all times. These Guinness record holders were approachable and unpretentious with unique knowledge.
But there were inter-cultural challenges, like when a hungry Cantonese martial arts champion selected me from a roomful of diners to help interpret the hotel’s menu.
I began with a chicken dance to indicate chicken was on the menu and theatrically described vegetables, rabbit, ham, and pasta to the best of my abilities. Though I was well-intentioned, the entire room exploded with laughter and the taekwondo champion thought I was trying to humiliate him – he was not the right person to offend.
Being in Italy, surprisingly few people were able to speak English. This drew me closer to the other English speakers including Sir Alan ‘Nasty’ Nash the toe wrestling world champion who had been knighted for gifting his prize money to charity. We took a five-hour walk, got lost and possibly saved each other on separate occasions from Italians driving on the wrong wide of the road.
Another English speaker was American wellness practitioner Dr Tom Owen who was once the bodyguard for General Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, whose Guinness feat was to lie there as 9 SUV’s drove over his stomach.
The third English speaker was Aussie, Chayne Hultgren aka the Space Cowboy, who has 56 Guinness world records – including sword swallowing, dragging the most weight via fish hooks from his eye sockets, and making spoons and forks bend without any apparent physical contact. He is now a successful visual artist with his own gallery in Byron Bay.
The fourth English speaker was former US marine Dennis Avner, known as the ‘Stalking Cat’ who gained the GWR for the most permanent transformations to look like an animal.
The record holders came in three categories. Those who were born freaks of nature, those who combined skill and risk and were willing to endure pain to entertain, and those who worked hard to develop freakish skills.
These included the world’s only albino triplets, a Kazakhstani contortionist backwardly folding her spine to pop balloons, a local with the most double-jointed thumb, a taekwondo pain threshold master, a death-defying trampolinist, an upside-down juggling champion, a guy holding apart two trucks with his bare hands, and another holding his breath in a tank for 18 minutes.
We were all to appear on a Guinness TV special to be watched by 5 million people.
The night before we filmed the program, all the skill-based Guinness performers stayed at the hotel to prepare their skills whilst the freaks of nature hit the town to party, knowing that their performance would be unaffected. The exception was the upside-down juggler who returned to the hotel still able to juggle despite being drunk.
On the night of the event, we entered Berlusconi’s studio with people smoking inside as the tension built with all the Guinness performers sprucing themselves for a big night.
The program was presented by one of Italy’s biggest stars and was massive. The European producers had gone to colossal lengths to put on a show with trucks, famous Italian dancers, actors, soccer stars kicking goals in a portable soccer pitch, an equestrian horse, dancers, a huge swimming tank, and much more. The filming went on for hours and many new Guinness records were set.
The close the show, the producers performed a bizarre stunt by handing out blond wigs to audience members and artists in a mock tribute to the albinos who seemed to like the attention despite the political incorrectness.
And to cap a memorable evening, the producers instructed the smallest man in the world to sit on my knee as I sat next to the tallest man in the world and other Guinness performers.
The Guinness experience was incredible. It opened my eyes to mainstream Italian culture, to how people like to be entertained and to what it takes to be a Guinness world record holder. Being amongst these people was indescribable. Sadly, a number of the GWR holders died a few years after the event; the smallest man (who was only 21), the cat stalker, and the man who gets run over by SUV’s.
The whole experience was like the most incredible dream.
Dean Frenkel held the Guinness world record holder for the longest vocal note (57 secs).