RIP Evel Knievel

Maverick to shame all mavericks Evel Knievel, 69, died today, and I think the fountains at Caesar's Palace should spout at half-mast. Riding in a Greyhound--he jumped over 14 of them in '75--will never be the same. And I can never drive past the Los Angeles Coliseum without thinking how he jumped over 50 cars there in '73--as 35,000 gridlocked voyeurs rejoiced. He held the Guinness record for most broken bones--35, and you can see them mapped out here. Before his afflicted 1974 jump across the Snake Canyon River via "Sky-Cycle," he famously conjectured on the outcome:

"I've always said that when the canyon jump comes, if I miss it I'll get somewhere quicker where you're all going someday," Knievel said. "And I'll wait for you, because dying is a part of living and none of us is going to get out of here alive. If Mother Nature don't get you, Father Time will."

"Evel Knievel: The Rock Opera" debuted in LA this past October, and Six Flags St. Louis already has dibs on an eponymous roller coaster, coming in 2008.