Re: [iiro] John Vincent Documentary
I actually liked John on a personal level, but there's no doubt he was the biggest site burner of the 1980s. And like too many "newbies" then and now, he used the sport to gain personal attention outside the BASE community without regard to the harm it caused. He brought the heat down on several long time sites and was warned over and over to stop doing it.
So one local crew tracked him down and did what they did. Actually they seriously debated killing him, but cooler heads prevailed.
John was hardly a BASE jumper when he first tried the ESB jump with skydiving gear. Her later paid a BASE rigger to send him an already packed BASE rig and then made the jump.
John did eventually become a rather competent BASE jumper, but the damage was already done and his name was mud in the BASE community. John is the reason old timers roll their eyes at Felix B. and the Red Bull guys.
It's human nature to want to be known, to be a name, but there's a right and wrong way to go about it. I can't count the opportunities I've turned down to be interviewed by people outside the BASE community. Sure, I could have gotten a certain amount of fame and made some easy money, but it's more important to me what my true brothers and sisters thought of me, and it's more important I stay true to the sport.
I was never in the group that said BASE jumping should be kept entirely underground. And I believe a certain amount of "good" publicity is necessary for growth and access. The problem is when the wrong people are doing our public relations.
John actions were especially galling as he made it look as if he invented the sport; it was all John, all the time. And the MTV generation swallowed it whole. To this day I still get occasional media inquirers about John and my stock answer is always the same. "I've never heard of him."
The lesson for folks new to the sport is you are standing on the shoulders of the jumpers that came before you. And you have an obligation to pass on what was given to you. We all need role models at some point, and the sport is full of good and bad ones.
My advice is be more like an Aiello and less like a Vincent. That way the next time a pretty girl knocks on your door in the night you won’t be afraid to open it . . .
NickD
BASE 194