Speaker 1: What's Chinese for? Oh crap, it's one more thing. I'm
Speaker 1: strong and getty. One more thing. Whatever it is, I'm
Speaker 1: sure this paragliders said it as he almost equaled the
Speaker 1: world record for how high you go in the sky
Speaker 1: paragliding or without oxygen or not motorized plane or whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he was a paraglider who almost equaled the world record
Speaker 1: at twenty eight thousand feet. Jeez, holy cow. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really really high. By accident, he was inspecting his
Speaker 1: gear on the ground when an updraft took him on
Speaker 1: an uncontrollable ascent five miles into the clouds.
Speaker 2: That's astonishing.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, he could. Well, I'll just read it as
Speaker 1: it says it here. He was conducting a routine test
Speaker 1: of his paragliding equipment there in China when the draft
Speaker 1: hit him on the ground. I had just bought a
Speaker 1: second hand paragliding harness and wanted to test it, so
Speaker 1: I was conducting ground parachute practices. The wind suddenly picked
Speaker 1: up and lifted me into the air. I tried to
Speaker 1: land as soon as possible, but I failed. Explaining that
Speaker 1: he got carried even higher by a wind from a
Speaker 1: cloud system that just happened to come through, and he
Speaker 1: ended up more than five miles above the ground, which
Speaker 1: is where commercial airlines fly.
Speaker 2: Given the reality of life on Earth or probably any
Speaker 2: other planet, which is that things fall downward like five
Speaker 2: zillion to one, this guy was the one. He got
Speaker 2: lifted upward and was thinking. Ah.
Speaker 1: He said. The scariest moment was when his parachute plunged
Speaker 1: headfirst toward the Earth. That was the scariest moment. Is said,
Speaker 1: that would be a very scary moment. Yes, but he
Speaker 1: managed to write himself before emerging from the cloud system,
Speaker 1: getting his bearings and then landed the thing. I have
Speaker 1: a feeling you know where this is leading, as we
Speaker 1: have talked about this many times throughout our radio career.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't help but revisit lawn Chair Larry, one
Speaker 1: of our favorite stories are one of the most famous
Speaker 1: things that's ever happened. There have been movies made about it.
Speaker 1: He was on David Letterman.
Speaker 2: He's the guy that in Night Way, I did that
Speaker 2: I'd be poopy pants.
Speaker 1: Paul soiled himself. Sam Larry Walters in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: attached forty two helium balloons to a regular lawn chair.
Speaker 1: He went to an army surplus store and bought a
Speaker 1: bunch of big thick balloons, filled them with helium, attached
Speaker 1: him to the lawn chair he purchased at Sears and
Speaker 1: similar to this paraglider guy in China, not intending to
Speaker 1: at that moment take off, the strap broke and he
Speaker 1: went up into the sky very very quickly, like within moments.
Speaker 1: He was at sixteen thousand.
Speaker 2: Feet, which is going to pass out just thinking, which.
Speaker 1: Is three miles up. He was planning to go up
Speaker 1: into the air, obviously, he didn't think he would go
Speaker 1: that high. He strapped himself into the chair in the
Speaker 1: backyard of his home in San Pedro, California. He took
Speaker 1: a pellet gun, a Cbee radio, sandwiches, two liters of
Speaker 1: Coca Cola, a six pack of beer, and a camera. Wow,
Speaker 1: he wasn't sure.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm in the mood to drink tonight.
Speaker 2: I'll bring some beer, but some soft drinks too, something.
Speaker 1: To wash down my sandwiches. His plan was to just
Speaker 1: go kind of high and get some pictures of the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But sandos and a variety of beverages.
Speaker 1: That's weird. When the cord that tied his lawn chair
Speaker 1: to his jeep broke prematurely, his lawn chair shot straight
Speaker 1: up almost immediately. He was at sixteen thousand feet three
Speaker 1: miles in the air. He was spotted by two commercial airliners.
Speaker 1: He slowly drifted over a long beach. The entire flight
Speaker 1: lasted about forty five minutes before he started to oh,
Speaker 1: this is how it happened. After forty five minutes in
Speaker 1: the sky, he came up with the idea. He had
Speaker 1: his pellet gun with him, so he shot several balloons
Speaker 1: with the pellet gun, taking care not to unbalance the
Speaker 1: load so he would tip out point. But then he asked.
Speaker 1: But then he accidentally dropped his pellet gun over the side.
Speaker 1: No dang its seat of a gun that was working
Speaker 1: so good. Despite taking a camera, he did not take
Speaker 1: any photos. He was probably distracted by the impending doom.
Speaker 2: He just tell you what, Honestly, I got a fear
Speaker 2: of falling or heights or whatever it is to be
Speaker 2: able to unclamp my arms from the chair from the
Speaker 2: arms of the I'm sorry, unclamp my hands from the
Speaker 2: arms of the chair to even grasp the gun to
Speaker 2: shoot out, I mean, cause you probably had to cock
Speaker 2: it so we had to take both hands off. That's
Speaker 2: an amazing act to me right there. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: have a sphere of heights. It would be damn scary, obviously,
Speaker 2: But I wonder forty five minutes that's a long time.
Speaker 2: You might acclimate after a certain amount of time, like okay,
Speaker 2: here we are, what am I gonna do? Yeah, tentatively
Speaker 2: take one hand off, then the other, and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm just floating here, so right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Before I get back to the story. The scariest thing
Speaker 1: like in that line that I ever did. Do you
Speaker 1: remember how high I climbed on that ladder on the
Speaker 1: fire truck. Remember they put that ladder straight up in
Speaker 1: the air, not up against anything. If it had been
Speaker 1: up against a building or something, it had been one thing.
Speaker 1: But it was just up in the air, and I
Speaker 1: climbed to the top of it. It was really really high.
Speaker 1: That was pretty that one was. It was like hard
Speaker 1: to make my hands move from rung to rung when
Speaker 1: I got a pie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd have rather been shot if they'd forced me
Speaker 2: at gunpoint. How to said, shoot me.
Speaker 1: So back to lawn chair, Larry and his sears lawn
Speaker 1: chair three miles in the air, so he drops his
Speaker 1: pellet gun despite having Kiken. Okay, he descended slowly until
Speaker 1: the balloons got caught up in some power lines. The
Speaker 1: power line broke, causing a twenty minute electricity blackout in
Speaker 1: the town there still in California, and then he landed unharmed,
Speaker 1: which is just miraculous. I mean, between the you're in
Speaker 1: a lawn chair with helium balloons, just plummeting to your death,
Speaker 1: then getting caught up in the electric lines, which obviously
Speaker 1: all kinds of bad things could have happened, right, he
Speaker 1: ends up tumbling a few feet and being fine.
Speaker 2: You'd think I outran a lion, and now essentially I'm
Speaker 2: going to well, it's just no, no, you overcame all
Speaker 2: the odds and then there you are twenty five feet
Speaker 2: in the air and you're gonna die. That No, that's
Speaker 2: too much irony.
Speaker 1: The aftermath is kind of interesting also. Walters was immediately
Speaker 1: arrested by waiting members of the Long Beach Police Department,
Speaker 1: which is where he landed. We know one person was
Speaker 1: quoted at the time of saying we know he broke
Speaker 1: some part of the Federal Aviation Act. As soon as
Speaker 1: we decide which part it is, some type of charge
Speaker 1: will be filed. If he had a pilot's license, we'd
Speaker 1: suspend that, but he doesn't. He was initially fined a
Speaker 1: lawn chair pilot stylus. He was initially fined four thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for violations under the FAA operating aircraft within an
Speaker 1: airport area or something like that. He appealed and the
Speaker 1: fine was reduced to fifteen hundred dollars charge of operating
Speaker 1: a civil aircraft which there's not currently an effect. An
Speaker 1: airworthiness certificate was dropped. Yeah, there's no sea here. Here's
Speaker 1: sixty day guarantee. Certainly, I wonder if he returned the
Speaker 1: launchair Just after landing, Walter spoke to the press saying
Speaker 1: it was something I had to do. I had this
Speaker 1: dream for twenty years, and if I hadn't done it,
Speaker 1: I think I would have ended up in the funny farm.
Speaker 1: So he just had all his life he'd thought, I
Speaker 1: want to attach helium balloons to a lawn chair and
Speaker 1: see how I can go. If I hadn't done that,
Speaker 1: I would regret it. The rest of my life ten days. Oh.
Speaker 1: He was awarded a special Darwin Awards Survival Award that year,
Speaker 1: which right, we used to do the Darwin Awards every year.
Speaker 1: We should bring that back. They're always good. Ten years
Speaker 1: after the flight, he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman.
Speaker 1: He was briefly in demand as a motivational speaker and
Speaker 1: quit his job as a truck driver. Wow. What is
Speaker 1: he with? Motivational speaker? If you believe you could.
Speaker 2: Tie the balloons of your aspirations to the lawn chair
Speaker 2: of your reality.
Speaker 1: He never made much money in that line of work.
Speaker 1: Even though he quit his jump. He was briefly featured
Speaker 1: in a Time Exit Watch ad in the early nineties.
Speaker 1: The lawn chair used in the flight was reportedly giving
Speaker 1: to an admiring boy, but he regrets doing it because
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian wanted it. He gave away the lawn chair.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that is funny. He ended up doing
Speaker 1: volunteer work for the United States Force Service later in life. Oh,
Speaker 1: then he broke up with his girlfriend of fifteen years
Speaker 1: and he could only find sporadic security guard work.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Oh, and then a very unhappy ending. Then I won't
Speaker 1: mention because it'll bring us down. At age forty four,
Speaker 1: he committed suicide.
Speaker 2: Wow what a life. Yeah, wow that it did bring
Speaker 2: me down, but it uh, I'm glad you threw that in.
Speaker 2: It's uh, I think there's a lesson there.
Speaker 1: Well, the kind of guy that comes up with the
Speaker 1: idea does it. When he's interviewed immediately upon landing, says,
Speaker 1: I always wanted to do it if I had not
Speaker 1: had gone crazy. It's just important to me. That's kind
Speaker 1: of odd.
Speaker 2: Then you give that guy global fame, even you know,
Speaker 2: back in the day, and then the expectations he develops
Speaker 2: based on that very brief global fame, it's probably you know,
Speaker 2: there is definitely a lesson there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he probably thought for a while when
Speaker 1: he got the motivational speaker gig, that he was, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of maybe on a track for a little better
Speaker 1: life than he had before. Turned out, there's not much
Speaker 1: motivating about. I bought helium balloons at a surplus store
Speaker 1: and attached them to my sears lawn chair, and uh,
Speaker 1: I put too many on there. So I shot really
Speaker 1: eigh in the air and then miraculously, through luck, I
Speaker 1: floated to the ground the end. So too, and you
Speaker 1: can too. I don't know what his final closing statement
Speaker 1: it was, but I.
Speaker 2: Wonder what the nature of his speech was because they
Speaker 2: say motivational speakers, so we're obviously taking that literally. But
Speaker 2: you know, I've been to that sort of event, those
Speaker 2: chitfaquas or you know, just speaker marathons or whatever, and
Speaker 2: some people are just there because there it's funny and amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, if you could help him write it,
Speaker 2: or write it for him with jokes and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: that would be you know, like the jelly and the
Speaker 2: peanut butter and jelly sandwich of your speaker's bureau or sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I get that. I'd be entertaining. But anyway, holy crap,
Speaker 1: you couldn't. You couldn't replicate that. I would think if
Speaker 1: you did it exactly the same way a thousand times,
Speaker 1: you'd get that one successful result.
Speaker 2: I wonder, Oh my god. Yeah. Although I'll tell you what,
Speaker 2: for people like me with my phobia, this entire conversation,
Speaker 2: a lot of it was like somebody who's got a
Speaker 2: rack of I mean, like not I don't like spiders,
Speaker 2: but seeing one, you have an overwhelming animal fear wash
Speaker 2: over you. That you can't control. I'd like a ten
Speaker 2: minute conversation about being covered with spiders. Tough to take.
Speaker 1: The one thing it doesn't mention I wish it did,
Speaker 1: since his girlfriend was there in the backyard when the
Speaker 1: cable broke and he shot immediately three miles straight up.
Speaker 1: But she probably couldn't even see him, right, I wonder
Speaker 1: what she was thinking at that point.
Speaker 2: Well, she's just see the balloons for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I suppose, but three miles is of way up there. Uh,
Speaker 1: she had to be thinking. I don't know what she
Speaker 1: was thinking.
Speaker 2: My boyfriend's about to be dead, that's what she was thinking.
Speaker 2: I didn't think that would happen, or something along those lines.
Speaker 2: What a dumb ass she was thinking.
Speaker 1: I guess I need another boyfriend.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: To his credit, at least he was legit. Remember balloon Boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was a hoax, So this guy actually actually
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 2: So well, they were looking for that sort of fame,
Speaker 2: true fame whores. We'rese sort of people. Well there's murderers.
Speaker 2: Those are bad too.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess that's it.