Crashing a pool party
October 11, 2014 6:36 PM   Subscribe

No big thing, just a base jump at night from a 1,099 foot tower into a swimming pool on the roof of an adjacent hotel. The helmet cam gives a nice first person perspective.

"Base jumper John Van Horne , along with his buddies‎‏ ‏‎Matt Frohlich‎‏ and ‏‎Andy Lewis‎‏ are always looking for exciting new jump sites. they ended their latest dive off the famous 1,099 feet (335 meters) Tower in Kuala Lumpur with a splash, as they took aim for the pool party at the top of the adjacent Hotel."
posted by SpacemanStix (80 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hopefully the Oculus Rift will place the assassin appropriately.
Eh?
posted by Mblue at 6:52 PM on October 11, 2014


Holy shit that's cool.

What does it say on that building they were facing on the way in? Was that english?
posted by nevercalm at 7:03 PM on October 11, 2014


Did the folks around the pool know they were coming? I think they were their friends, but hard to know.
posted by 724A at 7:31 PM on October 11, 2014


Very cool, but no way in hell am I ever doing that.
posted by arcticseal at 7:36 PM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


I love making an entrance to a party, and this is my dream. I only wish it didn't involve a statistically significant chance of horrifying death.
posted by stinkfoot at 7:37 PM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


Man, they really have improved the graphics with GTA6.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:42 PM on October 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


Did the folks around the pool know they were coming? I think they were their friends, but hard to know.

I am going to guess yes, or else it would have been a pretty hazardous thing to do (I mean, beyond the obvious) . If someone was in the pool, I imagine that it could seriously hurt someone.
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:43 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Damn. Just...... Damn.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:46 PM on October 11, 2014


The liveleak comments are full of 'look at the rich white dude', and while I don't actually know anything about the skin color or bank accounts of mr. Van Horne or his 'buddies', that was my gut reaction too.
posted by signal at 8:04 PM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


I am totally down with the statistically significant chance of horrifying death; this is AWESOME.
posted by Mars Saxman at 8:06 PM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


The liveleak comments are full of 'look at the rich white dude'

White People Can't BASE Jump
posted by Spatch at 8:08 PM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


And if you are going to do something crazy like this, at night with a lot of neon and other city lights is certainly the right way to do it.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:10 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Having done this a lot in GTA5, I know how easy it is to misjudge and end up just barely missing your target, scrapping the side of a building, and falling to your death.
posted by QueerAngel28 at 8:27 PM on October 11, 2014 [7 favorites]


Eh, he's not all that- he had to use a parachute.
posted by happyroach at 8:32 PM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


i'm actually sad this isn't on youtube and i can't use youtubedoubler, because holy shit if you sync this up with the classic james bond theme it fucking ROCKS.

this is the kind of thing sean connery or pierce brosnan smarmy bond would do, not so much daniel craig serious bond... but still.
posted by emptythought at 8:42 PM on October 11, 2014


Ha, at the end: No related videos
posted by hypersloth at 8:50 PM on October 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


For most of the descent I was watching the wrong pool on the wrong building, so the sudden splashdown was a real "oh shit" moment for me. (in the context of watching this at the office)
posted by misterbee at 8:51 PM on October 11, 2014


Did the folks around the pool know they were coming? I think they were their friends, but hard to know.

At the end he says "hey baby doll" to the woman that comes up and receives a kiss on the cheek. I got a distinct S.O. vibe from it, also her look said she was happy he was alive but pissed he just did it.
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 8:55 PM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


the sudden splashdown

kind of a Wile E. Coyote homage
posted by thelonius at 8:57 PM on October 11, 2014


Also, as a non-rich white man, I'd like to think that if I ever attain wealth, and there's anything left over after my works of guerilla altruism and dismanteling the patriarchy , I'll be doing shit like this.
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 8:58 PM on October 11, 2014 [10 favorites]


At the end he says "hey baby doll" to the woman that comes up and receives a kiss on the cheek.

Certain films have lead me to believe that you can do just that to strangers, as long as you make the right quip and the parachute has a Union Jack on it.
posted by happyroach at 9:05 PM on October 11, 2014 [17 favorites]


Is there a way to watch LiveLeak videos through another provider...? The buffering is horrendous.
posted by rh at 10:06 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


'look at the rich white dude'

At some point, we reach peak smug classism and we'll stop looking at everything through the bank account lens and be able to see cool shit for what it is -- cool shit.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:14 PM on October 11, 2014 [20 favorites]


Saw the intro on the front page and thought, "I bet this was in KL." Gorgeous.
posted by mantecol at 10:28 PM on October 11, 2014


For some reason I can only imagine Archer Sterling narrating this.
posted by The Whelk at 11:00 PM on October 11, 2014 [11 favorites]


I don't know about the rest of you but I'm personally looking forward to seeing awesome footage of the super rich hunting the not super rich for sport. Should make for some really cool as shit two minute Liveleak videos.

Wow. I'm all for eating the rich as much as the next poor person, but shit, it's a crazy amazing video of a guy parachuting into a pool on top of a skyscraper. Aren't there better grindstones for the axes somewhere else?
posted by dazed_one at 11:32 PM on October 11, 2014 [14 favorites]


If this was Sterling Archer, there'd be a gator in that pool.
posted by arcticseal at 11:36 PM on October 11, 2014 [7 favorites]


"..oh for christ's sake I SPEFICIALLY ASKED IF THIS WAS A GATOR POOL."
posted by The Whelk at 11:41 PM on October 11, 2014 [30 favorites]


Three chutes per person immersed in water
posted by aydeejones at 11:52 PM on October 11, 2014


The liveleak comments are full of 'look at the rich white dude'

Yeah, us proles get our jollies by jumping blindly into the gaping maw of capitalism itself.

(Seriously, this is straight-up Veblen. In other words, it isn't the cool shit itself, it's the deployment of cool shit as symbolic of leisure, waste, and excess income. Even if you can actually participate for little more than the cost of a parachute (and some experience using one), it's more about being yolo-free of responsibility and other trappings of the proletarian lifestyle where the idea of throwing yourself away for fun is really just out of the question.)
posted by dhartung at 11:59 PM on October 11, 2014 [14 favorites]


Did you listen to him? He was fucking pumped! Of course he did it for the experience. He gets rewarded for taking that kind of risk by people probably considerably richer than he is (e.g. whoever hired out the roof of a skyscraper for a pool party), but he'd have to be... really odd to be motivated by that sort of social positioning stuff enough to regularly jump off buildings.

Although what party couldn't you get an invite to if you said you were turning up like that?)
posted by topynate at 12:33 AM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Although what party couldn't you get an invite to if you said you were turning up like that?

i thought the purpose of this sort of entrance was not only do you not need an invitation, but the entire crowd will boo anyone who tries to throw you out.


i also don't really understand why people think this is a rich thing, or a rich douche leopard print lamborghini sort of tasteless display of wealth thing to be doing. everything i've ever seen or heard about base jumping/parachuting/stunt winging and wingsuiting and such seemed to place it on a level vaguely above involved snowboarding or mountain biking if you travel for that. it's like, scuba diving level.

they aren't even hiring a plane here, and their friends may have just mobbed that bar. this is like, thousandaire territory, not millionaire.

if you're really in to this kind of shit, it's totally possible to work contract gigs and live in a relatively cheap place and do stuff like this pretty regular basis. i've known of more than one guy loved traveling, and loved doing $EXTREMETHING while he traveled. you just have to save money right and kind of plan your life so you can pull it off.

I bet the most expensive part of this whole thing was flying to KL from wherever they were at before.
posted by emptythought at 1:10 AM on October 12, 2014 [13 favorites]


I for one welcome our new super rich overlords.
posted by iotic at 1:17 AM on October 12, 2014


you just have to save money right and kind of plan your life so you can pull it off.

Thanks for that, I wondered where all us poor people were going wrong so as to be unable to afford the time and money needed to do this.
posted by marienbad at 1:44 AM on October 12, 2014 [8 favorites]


Even if you can actually participate for little more than the cost of a parachute (and some experience using one), it's more about being yolo-free of responsibility and other trappings of the proletarian lifestyle where the idea of throwing yourself away for fun is really just out of the question.)

And having the social (or financial) capital to arrange the rooftop pool party.

you just have to save money right and kind of plan your life so you can pull it off.

This sentence beautifully leaves out everything that makes it possible to live a carefree adventure games kind of life.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:05 AM on October 12, 2014 [7 favorites]


Not getting arrested was probably pretty expensive
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:14 AM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Thanks for that, I wondered where all us poor people were going wrong so as to be unable to afford the time and money needed to do this.

I get snarked hard every time I bring this up. But I've known people who probably made under 50k, maybe even closer to the federal poverty line and just lived in efficiency studios or janky craigslist share houses in their lake 20s or early 30s so they could squirrel away all their cash to do this. They'd also do stuff that takes a bit of practice/licensing/established skill like welding, that you can easily pick up and put down and just walk away from for a few months. Work for a couple months, fly somewhere and ride mountain bikes for a few weeks, or dive, or shoot nature videos/photos, or whatever.

I mean maybe that line of my comment deserved that snark because it sounded vaguely like the myopic pollyannaish "poor people are just doing this one thing wrong!" Shit, and I get that, but there's plenty of people out there who love this gopro-YouTube-channel type shit and build their entire life around getting to do it. I guess it's just that I used to live in a shitty building full of SROs, and was shocked at the number of neighbors I had who were living there to get the cheapest possible bed before they flew somewhere again.

I mean, ever heard of dropzone bums?
posted by emptythought at 2:31 AM on October 12, 2014 [24 favorites]


Emptythought, I wonder though about the background of the people you describe; there are a lot of bo-ho bums coming from middle class or UMC background who can do that sort of shit because they're young and healthy and raised with the confidence of not having had their parents worry about money, who do have the network and skills to get back on the ladder if need be and they get bored with slumming.

There's nothing wrong with that sort of lifestyle as long as you recognise that it is still rooted in privilege even if your bank account is fairly low.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:01 AM on October 12, 2014 [15 favorites]


Two things I'd like to contribute to this conversation.
1. Cool trick, nice work extreme sports dude, but jeez would I be worried for your safety if you were my friend.
2. Re the class war tangent, which I'm all for, what I think really needs to be looked into are ways of convincing the bored-obnoxious-thrill-seeking-super-rich that hunting each other for sport is a really cool thing to do. If we can just work that idea into the zeitgeist somehow I can see a lot of benefits.
posted by threecheesetrees at 4:45 AM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


i've known of more than one guy loved traveling, and loved doing $EXTREMETHING

+1 for the $. (And not in an ironic class-critique way.)
posted by sutt at 5:31 AM on October 12, 2014


Mod note: A couple of comments deleted, maybe we can skip the Class Wars/Men Suck/Let's All Fight Now thing in this one thread?
posted by taz (staff) at 5:54 AM on October 12, 2014 [7 favorites]


Was that guy maxpower?
posted by TedW at 6:22 AM on October 12, 2014


>  i've known of more than one guy loved traveling, and loved doing $EXTREMETHING

mefi's own danceswithlight is one such guy gal, who actually earns part of her living by teaching other people how to live such a life if they so desire.
posted by dmd at 7:02 AM on October 12, 2014 [9 favorites]


The comments in this thread may be proof why none of us were invited to this pool party.
posted by Think_Long at 7:07 AM on October 12, 2014 [17 favorites]


I mean, ever heard of dropzone bums?

Indeed. The best BASE jumpers I know are: a tree surgeon, a roofer, two professional Skydivers (tandem masters and camera flyers) the owner of a Skydiving ProShop store and a location scout. They are not remotely rich but have managed to pretty much spend every free $ they ever earned on plane rides to altitude. It takes thousand of skydives to to develop the level of canopy flying skills shown in this video. Well, at least if you want to try to beat the 1-in-3,000 odds of dying on each BASE jump that is.

This makes for an odd attitude towards money as they tend to view everything in the context of lift tickets. E.g., Go out to dinner = 3 lift tickets. (pass) Four CDs = 2 lift tickets (pass) Take a date to the movies = 2 lift tickets (pass) Case of beer = 1 lift ticket (OK, purchase) etc.

Not the most glamorous lifestyle IMHO. But it does take a lot of commitment and makes for very strong friendships.
posted by Dean358 at 7:08 AM on October 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


God I wish a lift ticket cost '1 case of beer.' I would ski a lot more often.
posted by zpousman at 7:36 AM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


First off, the world has class and income issues that I'd love to see addressed, do not get me wrong. Things are fucked up. That said...

In my personal experience (having tree-planted, and spent some time in Western Canada's oil bonanza), there are bunch of people with next-to-no social safety net who are young and just reject the whole ladder entirely. It's not as much confidence as it is big infusions of cash combined with the failings of youth to be able to think 5-10 years down the road.

Yep, see my 'cuz as an example of this. He grew up, at best, upper lower-class with a dad working heavy industry/construction/seasonal labor and has merged into the same. And I saw folks doing the same thing while I was co-oping at a paper mill during my final years of college.

It's not at all uncommon for folks to work jobs like that for weeks or months or even years at a time, often away from home and while working ungodly long, punishing, and frequent hours, and then just peel off and splurge for a month or two and do whatever the hell they feel like. Not to mention that their jobs can range from the highly skilled boilermaker/stainless welder or machinist or electrician or engineer to the lowly hole/fire-watch* or helper.

I was never sure if the prevalence of this behavior (work hard for %TIME% then play hard for %TIME% and do it all again without a penny) was due to the nature of the hours/work involved or a predilection of the type of folks doing the jobs. I don't think it's wise per se, and it's often not great for their kids/homelife, but it boils down that I shouldn't be the one judging them.

*For those that are curious or perhaps unaware, a fire-watch is an, often mandated by local union requirements (even for non-union work being done), individual who watches a given activity that produces heat or sparks (grinding or welding being the most common) for a fire to start. Ditto for a hole-watch, who watches folks working in a confined space to see if they get stuck or, god forbid, pass out or get in a pickle. Trust me when I say these are, at least in my experience, not skilled or demanding or selective or easy-to-fill positions. Anyone who can (and most importantly will) stay sober/awake gets and keeps this job for as long as they want it and the construction runs. The going rate for a job like this can easily run into double a normal state's minimum wage with a spiffy per diem as well. /personalencyclopedia
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:43 AM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


But I've known people who probably made under 50k, maybe even closer to the federal poverty line and just lived in efficiency studios or janky craigslist share houses in their lake 20s or early 30s so they could squirrel away all their cash to do this.

50k puts you in the top percentile of worldwide income, so yeah, rich.
posted by signal at 7:53 AM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


50k puts you in the top percentile of worldwide income, so yeah, rich.

This is disingenuous. $50k/year would make you rich in many places of the world, but not the US. Factor in standards of living and debts, and someone earning $50k in the US could easily be worse off than someone earning a tenth of that in other parts of the world.

What would you have someone do with their free income? Invest it wisely? Give it all away? Give it to you? You are welcome to tell people that they can't do things they enjoy because it costs money, you are welcome to tell them that they're not allowed to earn money.

Just don't expect them to listen, or to have any sympathy for you.

There are far more wasteful things to do with your money than travel and adventure, at least you support the economy of the part of the world you visit. There are FAR richer people than those described here, doing far more damaging things to the world and wasting far more money.
posted by YAMWAK at 8:07 AM on October 12, 2014 [6 favorites]


Wow, everything about this - even the music - is Super Monkey Ball Monkey Target
posted by moonmilk at 8:10 AM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


I quite like this sort of thing when it's done with a slightly ironic attitude towards the world, like 'Jackass'. It's like the Jackass guys would be happy to say 'yeah I'm a privileged idiot white dude and amazingly someone is prepared to pay me to do this nonsense that might result in serious injury.'

But the unappealing side of it is a kind of cellphone-commercial-aesthetic Go-pro earnestness, that insists these things are 'cool' and 'awesome' rather than just plain silly and ridiculous like, say, Johnny Knoxville doing this while being punched repeatedly in the balls by a dwarf.
posted by colie at 8:40 AM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Are we supposed to react differently to the video based on the income of the people who made it? How absurd
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 8:58 AM on October 12, 2014 [6 favorites]


I'll agree that white people at a rooftop pool party says Richy Rich to me but the idea that only rich people who don't have to worry about the day to day grind are doing stupid cool dangerous stuff with their lives while the poor struggle to get by is nonsense.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 9:14 AM on October 12, 2014


It's not the incomes or attitudes of the actual people involved that make this a cultural artefact for discussion.

Within the kind of world-as-Google-ad feeling of the video there is a definite melancholy concerning leisure and the mindlessness of modern urban life and consumption.
posted by colie at 9:29 AM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


It's terrific that the people in this video have access to the resources they need to pull this off. It would be even more terrific if more of the world's people had similar resources. The one does not cancel out the other. If you turn up your nose at every awesome thing done by someone who happens to land in the global top income decile then your world is going to be a pretty boring place.

Doing something fun, challenging, and dangerous that creates a delightful, memorable experience for the people around you seems like an entirely reasonable application of whatever tiny slice of wealth and privilege the making of this video represents.
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:44 AM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Is it really delightful and memorable for the people sitting around the pool, assuming they weren't children? They'd have probably preferred a live band.

I think it is reasonable to feel gloom at the infantilism that is socially sanctioned by extreme sports awesomeness. This kind of thing, like breakdancing, is cool when done by drunk teenagers while outraged parents and headteachers try to stop it; not so much when done by mature men.
posted by colie at 9:54 AM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Commandeering the pool at a hotel is a simple as showing up if you're a guest there. I've had multiple roof pool parties at conventions and what have you and I've never had to pay a fee to the hotel to do so. Also that was a smallish pool and may have been a condo or luxury flat.

That said, that was amazing. Terrifying to contemplate, but amazing to watch.
posted by dejah420 at 10:02 AM on October 12, 2014


Wikipedia: The average monthly household income for Kuala Lumpur was RM4,105 (USD 1,324) in 1999, up from RM3,371 (USD 1,087) four years prior, making it 66% higher than the national average.

Another source now puts the average Malaysian household income as almost RM6000 within the past year.

So I can appreciate the visual beauty of that shot. And I understand the Bondian turn-on it is for some other people. But it's still a contrast to consider the above realities and then this image of white American bros thrillseeking in "exotic" locations and (presumably) partying at that same luxurious rooftop pool.
posted by NorthernLite at 10:06 AM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


I don't doubt that many people including women actually enjoy this stuff, and some also enjoy watching it.

It's still infantile.
posted by colie at 10:15 AM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Tourism is the third largest source of foreign revenue in Malaysia (Wikipedia again). Bringing money into the country is good, if you want the Malaysians to be richer. Having the tourists frequent expensive hotels is good (higher profit margins). The stunt didn't hurt anyone.

If they'd stayed in America, it wouldn't have made the Malaysians' life any better. Tourism is a great way to funnel money from the rich nations to the poorer ones (with plenty of caveats, of course).

People seem to want people to live like saints, only go abroad wearing sackcloth and focus on feeding the hungry or disaster relief. A bunch of showy Americans may not be pleasant, but it brings in far better money than selling them sackcloths.

It's still infantile.
So what? There are a lot of infantile ways to spend time. They could be playing computer games. It wouldn't give us the cool video, it wouldn't boost the global tourist industry, or encourage other tourists to visit Malaysia.

They could be doing non-infantile things like drinking themselves stupid in bars, hiring the services of prostitutes, or taking drugs. Infantilism is hardly the best criteria for judging the worth of a recreational activity.
posted by YAMWAK at 10:22 AM on October 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


I actually don't think infantilism is always a bad thing. And I apologise for sounding fighty to anyone that does indeed like doing this kind of thing. But I do think that white westerners running up thousands of air miles to visit luxury hi-rise hotels in poor countries usually is a bad thing though, whether or not they feel the need to jump off the roof.
posted by colie at 10:28 AM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Is there video of the infant parachuting into the pool? I would really enjoy watching that video.
posted by dogwalker at 10:30 AM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Within the kind of world-as-Google-ad feeling of the video there is a definite melancholy concerning leisure and the mindlessness of modern urban life and consumption.

I'm not sure where you are trying to land the plane with everything that you've found wrong with the video, but it strikes me that you are making a lot of assumptions about class, race, gender, and intention that perhaps could have been given the benefit of the doubt, for no other reason than politeness. Perhaps it's impolite to create soapboxes out of a couple of minutes of someone's life on video, when possible interpretations of essential background information to draw such conclusions is ambiguous?
posted by SpacemanStix at 11:14 AM on October 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


Perhaps it's impolite to create soapboxes out of a couple of minutes of someone's life on video

They stuck it on YouTube so any of us can have an opinion on it. I'm a polite guy and the author of this video neither knows nor cares what I think of it. We're just having an internet chat here and I personally feel a bit ambivalent about the whole extreme go-pro thing and modern tourism in general. Which is usually OK to express here.
posted by colie at 11:17 AM on October 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


I'm pretty sure I remember doing something like that playing Wind Waker.
posted by JHarris at 11:31 AM on October 12, 2014


That was insane, but also the margin of error is razor thin. One tweak a few hundred feet above, and he would have scrapped the skin off his leg slamming along the side of the pool. He hit dead center, and that's crazy impressive.
posted by mathowie at 11:35 AM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Signal: 50k puts you in the top percentile of worldwide income, so yeah, rich.

I don't even understand how anyone is supposed to engage with that at this point. By that definition I'd say 99% of the people on this site are rich, which means the goalposts have steadily moved this entire thread so that no matter what gets brought up about what the potential background of these people is, they're still rich and therefor lol.

There's obviously a snark and snarl drag race people want to have here, so I think I'm just going to step out. Others have described further the type of fuck long term savings/fuck the grind guy I was thinking of so... meh.

"But a guy who welds for a few months and then does this is still rich by global standards" is utterly missing the point of what the original snarkers meant by rich. I don't even believe you if you say you don't know that.
posted by emptythought at 11:54 AM on October 12, 2014 [9 favorites]


That was insane, but also the margin of error is razor thin. One tweak a few hundred feet above, and he would have scrapped the skin off his leg slamming along the side of the pool. He hit dead center, and that's crazy impressive.

I was actually worried about the second guy coming in. It looked like he was going to be off the mark but he corrected at the last second.
posted by SpacemanStix at 11:55 AM on October 12, 2014


I think I enjoy this video for similar reasons that I like that we went to the moon. Sure it cost money and probably appealed to a particular demographic more than others, but it was a technological triumph that showed what people are capable of, grounded in fearlessness and imaginative thinking. I think we could do with a lot more of this kind of thing.
posted by SpacemanStix at 12:01 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


At least it's not more billionaires, with their goddamn balloons.
posted by thelonius at 12:20 PM on October 12, 2014


I don't think Red Bull sponsorship money is enough to land these guys into the 1%. Maybe I'm mistaken.
posted by humanfont at 12:38 PM on October 12, 2014


All of y'all would be super wealthy by Malaysian standards.

The area of KL that video takes place in is expat central, but I don't think it would be just "white people at a pool party". It would likely be very multicultural, if on the upper-middle-class side of things. The hotel seems to be the Pacific Regency, which is 5-star, but it's not like 5-star hotels are super inaccessible to anyone except the Moneyed Elite.

You can see the Shangri-La on the left hand side, and I'm trying to decipher the text on the building on the right. It's most likely English, and I think it's a bank of some kind.
posted by divabat at 1:43 PM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


Text on the building:
Your Bank.
Malaysia's Bank.
AmBank.
posted by divabat at 1:47 PM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


Wheee!
posted by homunculus at 4:31 PM on October 12, 2014


if you're really in to this kind of shit, it's totally possible to work contract gigs and live in a relatively cheap place and do stuff like this pretty regular basis. i've known of more than one guy loved traveling, and loved doing $EXTREMETHING while he traveled. you just have to save money right and kind of plan your life so you can pull it off.

People confuse class and income all the time, and this discussion is a good example. Most people who are serious rock climbers or itinerant scuba bums or whatever have very low (and highly seasonal) incomes, because obviously they are spending most of their time climbing/jumping/diving, rather than having a regular career. But in terms of social class, my observation (from having met quite a few people living that lifestyle and reading plenty of interviews with and articles about them) is that they skew middle, upper middle, and upper class in a big way. Not universally, and it's trivially easy to find examples of people who don't fit that pattern, but it's unquestionably easier to take on the itinerant outdoor extreme sport lifestyle when you grew up in a family with at least a middle class level of resources, as well as the existing class distinction of activities like climbing and diving.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:07 PM on October 12, 2014 [5 favorites]


Well, who knew Saint's Row was a documentary?
posted by yeolcoatl at 6:02 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Dear wealthy white people,

Speaking as a third-world resident, I implore you to disregard this discussion and to continue to come and engage in your harmless frivolities here. We have nice things for you to look at and play at, come see!

We love you! And your money!

Love always,
posted by vanar sena at 6:23 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]


The jumpers have posted a "Behind the scenes" video.

It looks even more dangerous when you see it in daylight. There was a five metre wall around the pool that they had to miss, and the pool is tiny.
posted by Combat Wombat at 6:44 AM on October 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


1) this is really cool and looks like it was really fun to do!

2) it's basically an x-treme update of the swimming-pool shot from I Am Cuba
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:50 PM on October 20, 2014


At least it's not more billionaires, with their goddamn balloons.

You spoke too soon.
posted by dmd at 3:19 PM on October 28, 2014


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