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Dear BASE Board readers:
With only 15 days left until the big welcoming party at the hottest club in Kuala Lumpur, the faltering “international championships” of base jumping at the Petronas Twin Towers has confirmed only 20 people worldwide, all but three of them Australian or American – and SkyVenture employee Mark Hewitt isn’t even sure about THEM.
“Even if you have confirmed already,” Mr. Hewitt pleaded August 9 on the BASE Board,” please confirm again with me, as Robin is trying to scare people off…”
Actually, I’m just asking people to THINK and ACT RESPONSIBLY, and I am delighted to report that so far, most of the world’s most senior, thoughtful and mature jumpers have in fact thought about it and reached the same rational, responsible, common sense conclusion I have:
We have to walk away from this one because there wasn’t time or money to do it RIGHT.
It’s a BASE Jumping 101 decision: When the conditions aren’t right, you don’t do the jump, no matter how cool the object may be.
Further, it is obvious to almost everyone that the elite-level “world championships” we all designed and supported for 1.5 years has disintegrated into a low-rent “beer demo.”
For those who weren’t sure how bad it is, SkyVenture employee Dwain Weston removed all doubt when he acknowledged publicly on this Board July 29 that what we have here is “no longer the ideal World Championship as proposed by Robin but a more low-key competition open to anybody who can get there.”
Now THAT is a professional standard, is it not?
Despite this open invitation by Mr. Weston and Mr. Hewitt’s August 7 “personal” invitation to “anyone interested,” only a gaggle of their mates MIGHT be going, and that’s IT, which is cause for contented reflection on the overall solid ethical performance of our community (so far) when faced with a big temptation that could have led us into a poor judgment.
Think about it: Why are slots for seven days of jumping from the world’s tallest and most beautiful building going begging two weeks before it starts?
Because Robin Heid says it’s a bad idea at this time?
I don’t think so.
It’s because BASE Jumping 101 and Event Organization 101 say so. Project Development 101 says so. So do Gut Feeling 101 and any of several other BASIC professional standards of measurement.
It’s a no-brainer. I had a major cable network producer tell me the other day that, after ten minutes on the phone with Dann Lee, he could tell the Petronas Beer Demo was a complete clusterf**k:
“You can take six months to do a kick-ass event,” he said, “or four months to do a half-assed event.”
Or one month to make a colossal mess.
This producer was simply astonished that Petronas and the government of Malaysia are letting such a high-profile case of obvious poor planning and preparation go on, and for the most obvious and important of reasons:
“You can get away with a half-assed bake sale," he said, "but not something like this, not where people can die.”
Not to mention how going forward with this now would be a repeat performance of what happened in Yosemite 21 years ago – the same year secret SkyVenture employee Dwain Weston started kindergarten, and the year before Mark Hewitt even started skydiving.
I know it’s ancient history for most BASE Board readers, but the bottom line is: We made a colossal mess in Yosemite because nobody was ready for the activity.
The National Park Service had no idea what to do with us.
We didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
The result was a poorly designed NPS management plan and an even worse record of behavior by the jumpers, many of whom were considered “leaders of the sport.”
The consequences of that result is a prohibition which continues 20 years after the initial opportunity was lost – and actually influences the base politics of several other governments.
Back then, we had the “Flatbed Ten,” now we have the “Beer Demo 20,” almost all of whom come from Australia and the USA – the two countries who prohibit jumping systemwide in their national parks.
And, as we saw in Yosemite 20 years ago, the overall maturity level of the group is reflected in that of their alleged leaders. Consider the following BASE Board comments from Beer Demo technical director Weston on July 31: “If some people put as much energy into their jumping as they do into their bitching, they'd be phenomenal jumpers (or at least be invited to Petronas – ha ha).”
Of even greater concern is the sheer desperation shown by Beer Demo employee Mark Hewitt on August 9: “There is one week left to confirm your slot… and there aren’t many left. Don't let Robin scare you off from the world's largest building... Legal!!! We have 40 jumps budgeted for competitors... Each!!! Don't be Robins' Wussy.”
Begging for bodies and the event starts in two weeks.
Compare that state of preparation with Bridge Day 2001:
Registration closed a month ago, and that’s not until late October.
And both the West Virginia community and the jumpers have been doing it for years and everyone knows what to expect.
Nobody’s ready for this.
The Malaysians aren’t ready for us.
We are not ready for Malaysia.
And I’m not talking individual technical skill. At two events in Malaysia so far, the technical ability of the jumpers has been adequate to excellent.
But neither event was a competition, which is an entirely different animal than a demo or boogie.
Just as importantly, the amount of jumper misconduct during both the transmillennium jump and KL Tower Day rivaled anything the disrespectful, ignorant, offensive behavior jumpers visited 20 years ago upon the people and wilderness of Yosemite Valley.
The Malaysians knowledge of us is equal to or even less than what NPS knew about us 20 years ago.
It is a recipe for disaster. We have this beautiful opportunity to make a quantum jump forward, based on a plan designed to intelligently integrate our activities into Malaysia over a several-year period.
That plan has been destroyed and the damage has already started. Where once Dann Lee and I had a five-year plan, his new employee Mark Hewitt declared August 9th that “this maybe the only time Petronas is legal, you snooze you lose!”
Great progress Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Weston have made, and so quickly too!
What is happening now in Malaysia is nothing of which any of us can be proud. Even SkyVenture’s own employees publicly admit their event is:
a) not even close to meeting the professional standard upon which the event was supposed to be based (Weston); and
b) being thrown together for the first time ever at the absolute last possible minute (Hewitt).
So we still have a little work to do, folks.
I’m asking for the help of every one of you who exercised maturity and good judgment and declined to participate in this atrocious corruption of the event so many of us worked to create and of which we could all be proud.
What I’m asking you to do is contact me (robinheid@hotmail.com) and let me know you want to tell Petronas executives and the Malaysian government to shut this thing down NOW before any further damage is done, that we all want to jump their beautiful building but ONLY under the right conditions, and we’ll all work together to develop the kind of professional standard and plan that an extreme sport such as ours demands.
Write if you want to help, and I’ll send you the email addresses you need to have. If the government and company hear from enough of you, the event will be stopped for sure for this year, and we can take the time to do it right.
Please also do a little “outreach counseling” to the Beer Demo 20 and the gentlemen who declare themselves to be the leaders and organizers of this leaderless disorganized mess.
Some thoughtful, mature “guidance” from you all could go a long way toward convincing them to set aside their personal agendas and work with the rest of us for the larger good of the sport.
Thanks again to so many of you out there who chose principle and the Big Picture over ill-advised and short-sighted conduct, especially those who lost money canceling tickets and lost sleep over missing the chance to jump this incredible building this year.
Thanks also to those of you who have kept me in so many information loops and offered support and loyalty not just to me but to every one of us who tried for 1.5 years to make a first-class presentation of our sport to the world and won’t settle for anything less.
Robin Heid
BASE 44
