Bill MAher guest with bullshit skydiving story

[airtwardo 6]

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Guy sounds like a pretentious douche, unfortunately.

Pot meet kettle...

Really? Wow, how insightful. Thanks!

(goes off to cross "Be called a pretentious douche in a round about way on DZ.com" off his bucket list..)

Well I mean come on, the guy is a journalist describing his FIRST jump experiences as he recalls them...and quite eloquently I might add.

Instead of congratulating him on the success of the jump or the book or the interview, why is it necessary to swager 17 years of knowledge and experience with nit-picking every tiny detail he relates?

I would venture YOU couldn't precisely recall every little detail of every little thing YOU did on your 1st time...isn't it a bit egotistical and judgemental to call someone else a 'pretentious douche' because you can spot errors in what they are saying?

I would hope that anyone with any kind of history with the sport at all could see & understand that what he did and what he said don't exactly match...but so what?

He doesn't tell the story to 'hurt' anyone, or change anyone's idea regarding the adventure...why denigrate his character?

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[Coreefdiver 0]

"Pretentious", "exaggeration" and "embellishment" all come to mind as I watched him read from his book.

I think he may be trying to get a job writing news copy or scripts for one of the Discovery channels many "reality" shows

I also gotta laugh at his 5k statement. We typically break off at 4.5-5k, and even hop-n-pops exit lower.

Not trying to discount the fact he jumped from a plane, its how he's telling the story.

DS#727, DB Cooper #41, POPS #11065, SCR #13183, FA #2125, SCS #8306, HALO #309 SRA #5930

[drewcarp 0]

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Guy sounds like a pretentious douche, unfortunately.

Pot meet kettle...

Really? Wow, how insightful. Thanks!

(goes off to cross "Be called a pretentious douche in a round about way on DZ.com" off his bucket list..)

Well I mean come on, the guy is a journalist describing his FIRST jump experiences as he recalls them...and quite eloquently I might add.

Instead of congratulating him on the success of the jump or the book or the interview, why is it necessary to swager 17 years of knowledge and experience with nit-picking every tiny detail he relates?

I would venture YOU couldn't precisely recall every little detail of every little thing YOU did on your 1st time...isn't it a bit egotistical and judgemental to call someone else a 'pretentious douche' because you can spot errors in what they are saying?

I would hope that anyone with any kind of history with the sport at all could see & understand that what he did and what he said don't exactly match...but so what?

He doesn't tell the story to 'hurt' anyone, or change anyone's idea regarding the adventure...why denigrate his character?

I agree, some here have drank too much of their own kool aid.

Lots of skydivers are more annoying blithering on about skydiving to people who don't know or care about it. And then they come here to whine that everyone asks them stupid questions, like their their boss or some guy with 1 jump on TV should of been born with an inherent knowledge of a fringe sport.

So what if he forgot the details, who didn't their first jump? He seemed pretty excited about the sport and spoke well of his experience, much better than most press we get. Reminds me of an Onion article, "Factual Error Found on Internet" STFW?

[Austintxflight 0]

I think if we look back to the point of the original post, it was about the guy on Maher accidentally saying 30,000 feet instead of 13,000 feet, a pretty reasonable mistake.

We did some research, found other videos of him reading excerpts from his book, a literary piece of work, which had the correct height and gave us enough information to tell he was doing AFF level 1, plus some shots from the said dive.

I must also add, when you have a forum where an author is reading passages directly from their book, it always tends to sound smug, you are reading your book aloud, its kind of hard to do that action humbly, its like saying you have a 12 inch dick in a humble manor, it just ain't gonna happen.

The main question of if he was lying on the Maher show was resolved, he got enough right in the book to explain his situation and point, especially when it was a story about race and culture not skydiving.

[dninness 4]

FWIW, my "pretentious douche" comment was more angled at how he acted, not on what he did.

His description, as written, was not bad and well couched in a way that would make most whuffos go "Wow, cool."

But the whole time I couldn't help but think the guy was trying to paint himself as the Black Ernest Hemingway or something. I mean, it was a *little* thick.

Can't wait to hear him describe something more mundane, like a game of ping pong.

And for the record: I didn't nitpick his details. I can step around the 40,000 ft bit (40, 14? Whats the difference a couple thousand feet makes, right?) and whether he was truly "solo" or doing AFF (and clearly "not tandem"), which a lot of DZs bill as "solo" jumping. Not a big whoop, really.

But I didn't even get a laugh out of the Pecos Parachute School reference, though. That part really hurt.

NIN
D-19617, AFF-I '19

[barflyer 0]

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ok, so did most of you miss the entire point of this mans story? I mean you should have seen the fish i caught? (yes everyone even skydivers have on the occasion exaggerated a story for the affect) I think everyone on this here should be excited that another person got to experience and feel what we do most every weekend. Even in my short time skydiving 21 jumps now. I often feel exactly the way this man felt, awesome jump chute opens and wow look at the view the experience that time after time has brought me to say wow.....how can people NOT believe in God. From under canopy i always am in aw of what God has given to every single one of us... And how awesome is he that he brought each and everyone of us to such and an amazing sport to reveal in his beauty....Whats the point? The point is dont get so caught up in 40,000ft, 14,000 feet solo no solo...be grateful that God has given someone else the opportunity to see the world from our perspective and how amazing it truly is..I hope that God blesses all of you and gives you many more opportunities to use skydiving (our love and passion) as a tool to bring not only ourselves but others closer to Him....Blue Skies

God?? lol and you're watching Bill Maher...priceless shit!!

[skydived19006 4]

All I can think is that he'd come off as a lot more credible if he'd asked someone, maybe his instructor to look over his rough draft and suggest corrections. Doesn't mean that he'd change stuff like the 7 seconds to death, or use words like bridle as opposed to string, cord or what ever he said. I hate to think that he may have actually had editorial comment from a skydiver, and ended up with what he did have. It's likely typical of most things, I just happen to know skydiving. But the press in general doesn't seem to be very concerned with being technically correct. They figure that the public isn't any more informed than they are, so why dick with getting it even close to correct.

Some novelists actually take being technically correct seariously. They tend to stick with what they know, and rely on research as opposed to just filling in the blanks with bull shit.

Regardless, I'm sure I'll see a ten fold increase in tandem customers of African descent next season! Ironically, my observation of male Afrocentric tandem students so far is that virtually all of them are gay. Seems that gay black dudes have more balls than the hetero brethren, or maybe are just less concerned with doing what black folk are supposed or not supposed to do in general? At the end of the day it don't matter, the money all spends the same.

Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else.

AC DZ