Soldiers Base Jump for the Poppy

Posted by Jacko | Filed under Jacko Interviews

I’m not a crazy guy. “What do you mean, you’re not crazy, Jacko?” you cry. Yeah, it’s surprising. After all, I studied science at university; I spend my evenings in front of a computer, writing fictional tales about vampires and benefit-fraud; and I was Great Yarmouth’s finest table tennis player, U15 category, in the year of 1995.

Those things may sound like off-the-wall shenanigans to you, but seriously, I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I’m from Norfolk and we don’t like crazy stuff (marrying sisters isn’t crazy, it’s legal). We like a nice quite life, and we believe that B.A.S.E. Jumping is something that can only be enjoyed by the clinically insane (incidentally, these people are not insane; they are possessed by demons, demons possibly from Suffolk).

For those who don’t know what B.A.S.E. jumping is, have a read of this…Go Go Wikipedia

For those who can’t read (my Norfolk brethren)…

I’ll take them at table tennis.

Damn impressive, huh? The lads in the video are part of the Jump4Heroes team and Major Alastair Macartney, Warrant Officer Class One Spencer Hogg and Corporal Deane Smith went on to jump off the bloody Eiger (it’s in the vid, actually). Clint Eastwood could only perform a sanction on the Eiger, these boys jumped off it!

Jump4Heroes aren’t happy at simply jumping off a ridiculously dangerous rock. No, they’ve got something bigger planned. Ruth Powell is the PR consultant behind the boys.  She used to work for Apple Computers, but now she’s a marketing pro who uses all her skills, creativity, expertise and a li’l’ bit of magic and love for a successful, high profile fund-raising campaign for UK charity, Help for Heroes which supports the wounded in current conflicts. So far, she’s helped raise over a million quid!  She volunteers for all this. She’s a bloody good egg.  She took time to tell me what these guys have got planned next.

 

Ruth, great to have you here. Jump4Heroes, are they just a group of mentalists? Can you tell us a bit about them?
I help out on a number of fundraising projects behind Help for Heroes and Jump4Heroes is one of them. They kinda kidnapped me (not in a bad way) and I’ve been involved with some of their daredevil, high visibility activities which raise publicity and awareness for the service charities.

What sort of things have they done?
Well you’ve posted the video of their Norway training and their Eiger jump. They come up with some awesome ideas such as sky diving in a red poppy formation over Tower Bridge for Poppy Day, and calmly stepping off the top of a pod of the London Eye. They’re dedicated professionals, and serving officers too, so every trip is leave. Alastair looks after the other two, who we call the ‘kids.’  Smudge (Dean) is a Para commando and defuses the IEDs [Improvised Explosive Device, or bombs for us civvies] in Afghanistan. I can’t imagine the nerves of steel you’d need for a job that dangerous but he doesn’t tell me much, he just comes back and gets jumping.  Spence is also a top army Nordic skier. He jumped freefall and took their this fantastic picture.

I think they’re more than brave. Their military discipline makes sure they do things absolutely accurately. They’re the ultimate professionals. ‘Adrenaline junkies’ I think young people of today call them.

 
Yes, we do.
They’re determined to get me doing something called a tandem.

 
Oh aye….
Pack it in! I jumped out of a perfectly good plane in Hereford once. A SAS man trained me and shouted VERY LOUDLY and quite rudely for me to get out of the open door so Alistair reckons Ive got it in me but need the real experts to tandem. You’re welcome to join us, Jacko?

 
I’d love to Ruth, but, unfortunately, a freak table tennis accident in my younger days means that won’t be happening, nor will regular intercourse. Tough leagues, back then, man. Tough leagues.
Chicken.

 
Moving on. What have they got planned next? Eiger not big enough?
No it’s not! The boys want a world record. They want to take part in something that can only be called the marathon of B.A.S.E. jumps.  Alastair and Smudge will take part in the record attempt, jumping off the Menara Kuala Lumpur Tower in Malaysia during 28-29 October 2009 (starting about midnight, UK time). It’s the fifth highest communications tower in the World. 

Whoa! The jump will be a cakewalk compared to surviving an attack from that giant nerd and his merciless use of Star Trek facts.

Erm…try this one, my dear:

 

Oh, right. Look at the size of that thing!
The daredevil B.A.S.E. jumpers will leap from 915 feet, with up to 6 seconds in freefall before opening their parachutes and floating down to delicately land in front of the crowds of spectators.

That’s mighty impressive. So what makes this a world record?
The lads will form part of a team of 24 people, each who, over 24 hours, will jump each hour, every hour. They’ll be jumping with the Royal British Legion flag (poppy) and, as this is a world record attempt, it will definitely get lots of publicity.

And damned right it should. That is an amazing feat of endurance. This isn’t the sort of thing people usually do for charity events, is it? Couldn’t they have sat in a bath of beans for a medium-to-long period of time?
These guys don’t make things easy for themselves. They are serving soldiers who are paying tribute and respect to those out there, those fallen and those wounded. Remember

How can people donate money to Help the Heroes and Jump for Heroes?
They can find out more from the websites: http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/ and http://www.jump4heroes.com/ There are links there to all the other activities that are going on and also links for donating money to these fantastic causes.

There you have it folks, and to finish…here’s a salute to the greatest B.A.S.E Jumper in history.



He’s never sat in a bath of beans, either.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Read more | Comments (3) | October 28th, 2009

No Air Guitar Allowed!

Posted by Jacko | Filed under Jacko Interviews

“No Air Guitar Allowed” is the hilarious book, by Steve Weinberger.  “No Air Guitar Allowed” takes you through your average rock concert and pokes fun at all of us, in a side-splitting way.  I had a chance to chat with Steve, enjoy!

MJ:  Hey Steve, great to have you here.  Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?


SW:  I am a wannabe musician who used to sing into my hairbrush to Bon Scott whilst jumping up and down on my bed as a teenager. To be honest, not much has changed!  I am 42-years-old and still go to loads of rock concerts!  I live in San Diego. I went to College at San Diego State University and received my bachelors.  I have a Masters in special education and my day gig is working with adults and kids with disabilities.  We actually take a lot of our clients to shows.  Some of our clients have Down syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Autism…it is great to see how much they love the live concert experience.  I have a 3 year old daughter (who has seen over 10 concerts and her first being the Blue Oyster Cult) and a great wife.
 
MJ:  What compelled you to write “No Air Guitar Allowed,” and can you give a quick synopsis of the book?


SW:  I have been going to concerts since I saw KISS in 1977, my first concert. Since then, I have been to over a thousand shows good and bad. So I became a great observer of people at these concerts. I always thought that I would write a book based on just the fans because it has never really been done before.   I was at the House of Blues in San Diego, a real popular venue in America, seeing Ted Nugent a few years back, and I saw five 55 to 60 year old guys in full work attire, drunk out of their minds playing the worst air guitar simultaneously, and I said to myself, “this is it.”  This is the biggest concert faux pas there is. That is how I came up with the title! The book itself is full of so many cool illustrations of the characters we run into at pretty much every show.  It is an original subject but at the same time very widespread.  It is all about the fan craziness and comedy that goes on at every type of rock concert. From the moment you pull into the parking lot and buy a T-shirt from the “Unauthorized T shirt Guy”, to being made to hi-five the “Urinal Hi Fivers.”
 
MJ:  A “Urinal high fiver”?  What is one of those?  I got a “low-fiver” at a urinal, once, but that is a different story altogether, which I don’t intend to share.


SW:  A “Urinal Hi-Fiver is a guy who is vibing on the brotherly love feeling going on at a concert and decides to seek a hi five from you, right at the urinal when you are doing your business while using his other hand to hold his “Johnson.”

MJ:  Really?  That’s disgusting.  Ever end up covered in piss?

SW:  Piss-Oh Yeah, always covered in piss! Either from the floating Jack Daniels empty bottle spraying back at me in the urinal or the hi-fiver pissing on my leg!

MJ:  That sounds awful!

SW:  It is. And then there are the “Chatty Cathies.”
 
MJ:  “Chatty Cathies?”
 
SW:  In America, “Chatty Cathie” is a term describing a group of women who come to a show and just talk the whole time, the show is secondary, while ruining the concert experience for all the neighbors around them. There was a “Chatty Cathy” doll released in the 1970s, in the US, where you would pull the string and it would randomly talk.

MJ:  We have them in Britain, we call them women.  OK, let’s get to the Air Guitar.  I am English, white and very uncool, therefore air guitar is in my blood. Do you love us or loathe us? 
 

SW:  Thats easy! I love you! It is pure entertainment. Look, I am the leader of the 12 step program. I have broken every concert foul in the book. I am one of you!  To this day I still break some of the rules!
 
MJ:  “What’s the 12-step program, Steve?”
 
SW:  The 12 step program here is Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. There is a 12 step progress to teaching the methods to stop drinking. Not sure if you have that over there?

MJ:  Alcoholism, binge drinking and underage pregnancies are not problems here in the UK. 

SW:  There is a process one goes through when going through the 12 step program to recovery. Each step having to be climbed to get to the next one before graduating from the program and not having to attend meetings any more. Out here, it is understood when I use the joke because I have made so many mistakes while attending concerts (singing out loud, buying from the unauthorized tshirt guy, requesting the band to play a song, hi fiving at the urinal, playing air guitar at a show) the joke is that I am one of you. I am not ABOVE you as a fan. I have made the mistakes and I am in recovery myself.

MJ:  So are you trying to help us middle-class white boys from making fools of ourselves?  Can this book stop us from being twats?

SW:  No, there really is no rules at a concert. It is not like you can tell the usher to tell a person to stop singing horribly in your ear. The book just goofs on all the craziness we produce as fans at rock concerts. When the beer is flowing in that kind of environment, anything goes really!

MJ:  I have quite long arms, which means that my air axe is usually strummed at groin level, which looks as if I am pulling one off.  I realise that this is a faux pas, especially when I was at a wedding and inadvertently played my instrument at the bride’s grandmother.  Is this the worst crime I can commit with my air weapon of choice, and if not, what the hell is?
 
SW:  Air drums could possibly be worse! It really depends on how bad looking the grandmother looks as well! I have seen some hot looking grandmothers!
 
MJ:  Not in England, you haven’t!   Where do you go for hot grandmothers?
 
SW:  We have a term here called “Cougars.” These are usually recently divorced women looking for younger men! We have a lot of women out here that are on the loose, especially in Southern California where implants are now given automatically when a women  hits 45!

MJ:  That sounds brilliant!  They just get fat, here in the UK.

SW:  Here is the thing, at a rock concert, you should do the opposite of whatever you think you should do!   For example, if you think you should sing at the top of your lungs when no one else is, do the opposite.  If you think it is cool to start making out at the show (make-out couple), don’t!   If you think it is OK to be over 40 and hit on a 20 year old, take a step back.
 
MJ:  Whoa, fella!  A lot of my fans are over 40!  Is that really a no no?  Don’t college chicks love the older man?  In all the films I have on my computer, they do.  They really do.

SW:  Yeah, but that’s in the movies though. You want to go to a show and be the cool old guy, not the “Creepy Old Guy”. Now, if you are the “Just divorced Guy” and you show up somehow with the 20 year old, that is a good thing. Otherwise, I would just keep your yang in your pants and enjoy the show!

MJ:  If you could give me one piece of advice when attending a rock concert, just one, what would it be? 

SW:  The thing about concerts is we remember them forever except if we are the “completely wasted guy”! You do not want to be the guy remembered for ruining the concert for other people. So my advice is, go to the show, hang out with your friends, and have a good time. Pretty simple advice. I cannot tell you how many shows I have been to that have been a ruined memory for me because of other people acting like “twats.”

MJ:  Where can we find out more about you and your book, and where can we get hold of “No Air Guitar Allowed?”

SW:  The book is available at amazon.com or directly through my website at http://www.noairguitarallowed.com

If you have any questions for Steve, I am sure he’d take time out to answer them for you.  If you have any stories about rock concerts, this side of the pond, it would be great to hear them.  Oh, and if you live in the UK, and happen to be a hot grandmother, please post a picture for evidence.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Read more | Comments (7) | May 16th, 2009