Pipe Down

The world, with it's notorious short-term memory, may have leapt on to other things, but I myself am not done with Jeb Corliss (who, just in case you really did forget, tried to jump off the Empire State Building on April 27th). Here's some inside information not reported elsewhere: Corliss himself hired at least one of the helicopters that circled above him as he stood cuffed to the outside of the observation deck railing. He apparently also hired a "visually stimulating young lady" in an effort to distract security and law enforcement. It’s also worth pointing out that Corliss’s efforts to milk the media have earned him the scorn of certain BASE jumpers who feel he may have ruined the site as a launching pad for any future jumps for others.

More shocking than these trivial details is the following fact: Mere days after Corliss was released on $3000 bail, a metal pipe managed to hop off an upper story of the new New York Times building and fall to the street below. The stunt provides us with a lesson in the value and risks of publicity. Where the face of the unsuccessful Corliss was seen by millions, few heard the story of the triumphant pipe, and no one knows its name. By choosing a site slightly lower in profile, the daring duct got to the ground below without resorting to disguise or alerting authorities with a plethora of cameras or buxom women.

Ironically, the security officers at the Empire State Building argued that they had held on to Corliss because letting him jump would have endangered the lives of passersby below. But Corliss has never killed anyone by landing on them. Thanks to lax security around the Times building, though, the pipe was able to make its jump and ended up crashing into a Honda, terrifying a family of three, and sending them to the hospital with minor injuries.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s no coincidence that the pipe didn’t make its jump till Corliss was out on bail. Corliss, now a proven master of disguise, may have donned a Hollywood style “pipe costume” and snuck past security in the hands of a well-oiled construction worker. Police officers in the area, on the look out for more graying fat men after Corliss’s release, reportedly noticed nothing peculiar about the materials entering the construction site.