Chip Jacobs

Cajones. Big brass ones. Nads. Balls of Steel. Gordon Zahler, my mysterious uncle and the subject of Wheeling the Deal, never let a little malady called lifetime paralysis downsize his ambition to leave his footprints on terra firma. His, well, familiy jewels may have been numb from the harbebrained 1940 gym accident that rendered him [...]

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Neither does most of the world. And it’s upsetting. During the years I was crafting Wheeling the Deal, one of the most repititive criticisms I heard was that I’d veered too far astray of Gordon’s story to chart the lives and losses of his similarly tragedy-stricken relatives. My left lobe agreed it was a point [...]

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Yes, it can. Christopher Reeve’s computer-enhanced, Superbowl-Y2000 commerical packed an emotional punch fraught with hope, bravery, and more than a smidge of controversy. By presenting himself as someone convinced he could overcome one of the most devastating injuries a person can sustain by physical rehabilitaton and breakthrough treatments, he tacitly implied to millions of other [...]

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Gordon Zahler was a dreamer. And an a schemer. And an inspiration. And a royal pain. And a sometimes huckster. And a hard-living quadriplegic. He also was my uncle, a man I loathed in life but have come to adore from the grave. This video is a trailer for my book about him, Wheeling the [...]

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There’s so much to this segment … and so much left out. Nonetheless, at least one network had the guts to tell it like it is. I’m proud to have contributed to it. So what if the aftermath was messy and some of the heroes died. We de-mythologized, and took our lumps just like our [...]

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