LONG LIVE THE MEGA-POST!
You should be able to view it again, but Masako had to shut off the comments at…
3821.
She had to delete one spam comment to get it viewable again (link).
Please, let’s hear a big round of applause for all of you who posted in the Mega-Post and kept it alive for a year and four months. Please use this comment thread to post your fondest memories of the post with the most…
the Mega-Post.
Thanks for that.
Now, just don’t tell me who Santa Claus really is — it would spoil the “magic” of Christmas. Ditto for the Grinch and the Easter Bunny.
Happy future to you all, if at all possible, as we live in interesting times.
I’m late this Macalope Revelation. Kind of like the Wise Men. Which is clearly what we Three have become.
Tardy Tidings anyway, my friends. I found myself fretting about how we would remain in contact were this site to go the way of The Entity the other day so if we can get John to ferret across to each other our emails without having to publish in the clear (where they’ll doubtless get harvested by ‘someone’ telling us this site is amazingly insightful) that might ease my unease. We should look into it. Not to cease posting, clearly – there must be some kind of record we’re now approaching, surely – but just as a safety net.
Or at least provide a social media handle. I think Bluesky might be the most viable option going forward.
Up to you.
# CARS
Both of your ideas intrigue me. Let me put together a few of my functioning brain cells together … just need a few more synapses … ahh, there, I think I’ve got it. Normally I don’t give out my email address — wanting to keep a low profile like a paramecium — but in your case I’ll make an exception. Feel free to send me an email at this address:
MacalopeNxxxMoltzdrkMacalope@NxxxinfuzoMoltz.com
I’m not dyslexic, but may have made a typo in there somewhere. You might need to remove a few characters, like references to our landlord here at CARS, or to our friend whom we haven’t seen for a while. In the subject line of your email, put the name of the prison from which our friend escaped into orbit. I shall reply when you have passed my inconsequential security checks.
If you are a robot, please disregard this comment.
My god . . . I’ve found us! I usually just click in the Recent Comments bit. But then . . . what Fresh Hell is this! John’s returned! Signalling the CyberApocalypse, presumably.
I need a lie down.
BroMu,
Glad you weren’t in a coma. A lot of that going around lately…
Got stuck in a comma once.
Or was it a roundabout? Or do our cousins prefer “traffic furniture?”
Steve, are you sure it wasn’t Infinite Loop?
When discussing my potential comma-toes state, my wife did observed ‘how would be tell’, specifically in relation to my entertaining and vibrant contributions to family life.
She’s a keeper.
Fact-checking the Macalope (admittedly a pointless exercise) in a recent post:
« “Ugh, it’s so much easier if we just let it read the entire internet, why can’t we just do thaaaaaat?” they complain as they idly toss lit matches into piles of $10,000 bills. »
Wikipedia on US currency denominations: “They were originally printed in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000. The $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 denominations were last printed in 1945 and discontinued in 1969, making the $100 bill the largest denomination banknote in circulation.”
Tsk, tsk.
Testing…testing… 1, 2, 3… is thing even on?
Copy that, Ace. Read you 5 by 5. Over.
Roger that. The glitch in the matrix has been patched with another glitch. I think it’s all patches of glitches.
Or is it glitches all the way down?
I’d boggle my mind but I lost the dice.
Have fun working on Friday, cousins!
Signed,
Some treasonous colonials
Arrrgh. I couldn’t get into the site for some reason. I’ve updated and now I can. God knows what was happening there.
Taste-Filter, I suspect.
How are things over the Pond? We are currently getting absolutely pissed on. Then glorious sunshine. Then pissed on. Then sunshine. Ahh, British weather. I expect sleet and snow today, just for a bit of variety.
Bloooooorgh!
What did I miss?
*checks*
oh dear!
oh deary me!
North America lately is cauldron of hellish weather, natural and unnatural disasters, and political and social dystopia. Other than that, it’s all hunky-dory. Wishing the best for our cousins in the misty isles!
So, tomorrow (Friday, September 19) is Talk Like a Pirate Day. I’m undecided about whether I will talk like a pirate or squawk like a parrot. What’s the difference, anyway?
I will definitely not dress like either.
Aargh! I completely forgot about that!
Forcing oneself to walk the plank seems a bit ridiculous.
CBD products contain in good faith changed my person! I not in a million years expected something so natural like https://cobocbd.com/blogs/learn/how-to-make-cbd-oil to bring such hush and compatible into my every day routine. Stress that at the same time felt overwhelming is second so much easier to control, and my sleep has happen to deeper and more refreshing. Square muscle aches after extended days away faster. It feels remarkable to once have something gentle to this day potent that supports both heart and mind. I can’t imagine my days without CBD anymore!
It appears that we have a leak in the tunnels. Crazy people found us again. Where’s Del’s critters?
Apparently, great fortunes are to be made by marketing to the few gullible regulars found here. What a gold mine we have at the Giga-Post! If I only had some compelling product or service to offer…
I for one will be trusting the good faith of our new member.
And I *do* have a compelling service to offer . . . but unfortunately no one wants to take me up on it. No matter how much I beg.
I’m afraid to ask what that “compelling service” is. So I won’t ask.
I’ve got some polaroids if you want them, Steve?
Some of them are a bit sticky, mind.
Perhaps I should have used the term “irregulars” rather than “regulars” in my previous comment, but how could I have known?
Surely by our near-lifetime-long stream of off-kilter observation and low-level smut, Ace?
Which is probably how they’ll start our eulogies.
Ace, I think there’s medicine you can take to be more “regular.” Ask your doctor.
Not sure about all that, but….
First!
(reliving old glories)
Second!
Have we passed our 20th anniversary this year? Didn’t this start sometime back in 2005 . . . before the birth of my first child (now off to university next year).
Oh. My.
I would have to do actual research to answer that. The answer is buried in my 2012 iMac under a terabyte or so of archaeological debris. Wait, does CARS have a search function?
Thank goodness we’ve all used the time productively, though, eh?
Beacons to the skiving masses, us.
You are correct, BroMu. September 9th, 2005 was the inception date for this rambling thread. My granddaughter is in college. Whither time?
Thank goodness we’ve all used the time productively, though, eh?
Beacons to the skiving masses, us.
Maybe because it’s been so long, but I just noticed (re-noticed?) that the count at the top of the page (I know, you actually have to scroll) is followed by the word “thoughts.” That might be a bit too deep for some of these, specifically referring to the current comment. (This one should be number 8697.)
Surely ‘farts’, Steve? Mentally.
I like the way John is high-fiving everyone for keeping the MegaPost alive for a whole 16 months.
If only he knew . . . :0!
The average number of thoughts per comment seems to dip below 1.0 at times. This is due, I believe, to the plague of “thoughtless comments” that insinuates itself into our lives. What is the ratio of thoughtlessness inside versus outside of the Giga-Post?
It’s non-replacement certainly, Ace.
I think a good place to start your further studies would be something my kids call ‘TikTok’. No need to bring a calculator, though.
8701.
Before the great escape of Nxxx…
Found somewhere on the Internet:
The lawn chair cost $109 from Sears. Sturdy aluminum frame, waffle-pattern webbing, armrests that could hold a beer. Nothing about it suggested aeronautical capability. But Lawrence Richard Walters, age thirty-three, truck driver from San Pedro, California, had spent two decades convinced that with enough helium and determination, anything could fly.
Larry had wanted to be a pilot since childhood. At Hollywood High School, he’d done a science project called “Hydrogen and Balloons”—his teacher gave it a D. The U.S. Air Force rejected him for poor eyesight. He’d served as a cook in Vietnam instead of flying missions, then returned to civilian life driving trucks through Los Angeles traffic, watching planes overhead, nursing a dream that refused to die. At age thirteen, standing in an Army-Navy surplus store, he’d seen weather balloons hanging from the ceiling and thought: those could carry a person.
By 1982, the thought had become a plan. Larry and his girlfriend Carol Van Deusen bought forty-five eight-foot weather balloons from a surplus store, obtaining helium tanks from California Toy Time Balloons using a forged requisition that claimed the balloons were for a FilmFair Studios television commercial. He purchased the lawn chair. He gathered supplies: a pellet gun to pop balloons for descent, a CB radio, an altimeter, a camera, sandwiches, two liters of Coca-Cola, beer, water jugs for ballast, and a parachute—just in case.
He called his creation Inspiration I.
On the morning of July 2, 1982, in the backyard of Carol’s mother’s house at 1633 West 7th Street in San Pedro, Larry attached forty-two of the balloons to his lawn chair, filled them with helium, and strapped himself in. His ground crew—Carol and a couple of friends—watched skeptically as he donned his parachute, adjusted his supplies, and gave final instructions. The chair was tethered to his Jeep with three ropes. The plan was simple: hover at about 100 feet for an hour, enjoy the view, contact the FAA to explain what he’d done, then gently descend by shooting a few balloons.
When police had spotted them inflating suspicious quantities of giant balloons the night before, Larry had waved them off, claiming they were shooting a commercial. Now, on a clear Southern California morning, everything seemed ready. Larry sat in his lawn chair suspended beneath forty-two cream-colored weather balloons, gave the signal, and his friends cut the first rope.
The chair didn’t drift lazily upward. It rocketed.
The remaining ropes snapped under sudden tension. Larry shot skyward at more than 1,000 feet per minute, the ground shrinking beneath him with terrifying speed. He’d planned for 100 feet. At 500 feet, he was already far beyond his target. At 1,000 feet, he began to panic. At 5,000 feet, he realized he’d entered the flight path of Long Beach and LAX airports. At 10,000 feet, the temperature dropped and the air thinned. At 13,000 feet, he struggled to breathe. At 16,000 feet—roughly three miles high, the altitude where small commercial planes cruise—Larry Walters in his lawn chair leveled off.
Below him, Los Angeles spread out in impossible detail. He could see the orange funnels of the Queen Mary. He could see Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose. He could see Catalina Island in the distance. The Pacific Ocean stretched blue and opaque toward the horizon. Up there, in the thin, freezing air, suspended beneath balloons in a $109 lawn chair, Larry experienced something close to peace.
“It was peaceful, beautiful, like nothing else,” he would later say. The higher he’d gone, the more he could see, and it was awesome. The sea was blue and opaque. He could look up the coast like, forever.
Then a TWA pilot radioed air traffic control: “TWA 231, level at 16,000 feet. We have a man in a chair attached to balloons in our ten o’clock position, range five miles.”
Air traffic controllers initially thought it was a joke. Then more pilots reported the sighting. A lawn chair. Balloons. A man waving. At 16,000 feet. In controlled airspace.
Larry grabbed his CB radio and contacted REACT, a citizens band radio monitoring organization. The recording of their conversation would become famous:
“The difficulty is, ah, this was an unauthorized balloon launch, and, uh, I know I’m in a federal airspace, and I don’t know how to get down.”
REACT: “What information do you wish me to tell them at this time as to your location and your difficulty?”
Larry’s toes felt frozen. His teeth chattered. He was dizzy from thin air. His girlfriend’s voice crackled over the CB, begging him to come down. But Larry had waited twenty years for this moment. “No way in heck,” he thought. “After all this—my life, the money we’d sunk into this thing—just come down? No way in heck. I was just going to have a good time up there.”
After forty-five minutes aloft—forty-three minutes longer than he’d planned—Larry finally accepted he needed to descend. He picked up his pellet gun and carefully aimed at the balloons in the outer ring, trying not to unbalance the chair. He fired. Pop. A balloon deflated. He fired again. Pop. Another balloon. Seven balloons successfully shot. The chair began dropping.
Then a gust of wind jerked the chair forward. Larry didn’t fall—but his pellet gun did. He watched it tumble end over end toward the earth, taking with it his only means of controlled descent.
Now he had only the water jugs. He began slicing them open with his pocketknife, pouring out ballast, trying to control his descent speed through weight adjustment alone. The remaining balloons were slowly leaking helium from the cold altitude. Between the leaking helium and the dumped water, Larry descended—but he couldn’t control where.
The chair drifted southeast from San Pedro toward Long Beach, covering about ten miles. After ninety minutes total flight time, Larry approached the ground faster than he wanted, the water jugs now empty, watching the earth rush up with no way to slow down further.
At 432 East 44th Way in Long Beach, the dangling cables from his balloons snagged power lines. The line broke with a sharp crack. The neighborhood went dark—a twenty-minute blackout affecting dozens of homes. Larry hung there, suspended a dozen feet above the ground, still strapped into his lawn chair, swaying slightly, alive.
He climbed down using a stepladder that residents brought. Waiting at the bottom was the Long Beach Police Department.
They arrested him immediately.
A reporter shoved a microphone in his face: “Why did you do it?”
Larry, still catching his breath, replied with five words that would define him: “A man can’t just sit around.”
The FAA inspector, Neal Savoy, was less amused: “We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, a charge will be filed.”
Larry initially faced a $4,000 fine for violating federal aviation regulations, including operating an aircraft within airport traffic areas without establishing two-way communication with control towers, and flying an unregistered aircraft. He appealed. The fine was reduced to $1,500 after the FAA conceded that lawn chairs don’t technically require airworthiness certificates. The case made legal history: How do you prosecute a man for piloting a lawn chair?
Overnight, Larry became “Lawnchair Larry,” a folk hero whose audacity captured imaginations worldwide. He appeared on Late Night with David Letterman ten days after his flight. He quit his truck driving job to become a motivational speaker. Timex featured him in a print advertisement. He received the top prize from the Bonehead Club of Dallas. The Darwin Awards gave him an honorable mention.
But fame was fleeting and unprofitable. Larry never made much money from his celebrity. He gave his famous lawn chair to an admiring neighborhood boy named Jerry—a decision he’d regret when the Smithsonian Institution asked him to donate it to their museum. He hiked the San Gabriel Mountains. He did volunteer work for the U.S. Forest Service. His fifteen-year relationship with Carol ended. He found sporadic work as a security guard.
“It was something I had to do,” Larry had told reporters right after landing. “I had this dream for twenty years, and if I hadn’t done it, I think I would have ended up in the funny farm. By the grace of God, I fulfilled my dream. But I wouldn’t do this again for anything.”
On October 6, 1993, at age forty-four, Larry Walters hiked into Angeles National Forest and shot himself in the heart. The boy who’d dreamed of flight, the man who’d achieved it impossibly, died alone among the trees.
Twenty years after his death, Jerry contacted Mark Barry, a pilot who’d documented Larry’s story. The lawn chair was still in Jerry’s garage, still attached to some of the original tethers and water jugs. The chair was loaned to the San Diego Air and Space Museum in 2014, then donated to the Smithsonian. Today it’s displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.—a $109 Sears lawn chair elevated to the status of historical aircraft.
Larry’s flight inspired cluster ballooning as an extreme sport. Kent Couch flew 240 miles in a lawn chair in 2007. David Blaine reached 24,900 feet using balloons in 2020, with proper licenses and oxygen equipment. The 2003 Australian film Danny Deckchair told a fictionalized version of Larry’s story. The musical 42 Balloons premiered in 2019. Pixar’s Up, released in 2009, features a house lifted by balloons—an image that traces directly to Larry Walters floating over Los Angeles in his lawn chair.
Larry never got to be an Air Force pilot. He got a D on his balloon science project. He spent his adult life driving trucks through traffic. But on July 2, 1982, for ninety minutes, Lawrence Richard Walters flew higher than most small planes, looked down at the Pacific Ocean from three miles up, and lived a dream that everyone said was impossible.
The line between bravery and madness might be only forty-two balloons thick. But sometimes, when a man can’t just sit around, that line stops mattering. Sometimes the only rational response to an irrational dream is to strap yourself into a lawn chair, grab some beer and sandwiches, and see what happens when you let go of the rope.
Larry Walters saw what happens. And for twenty years after his death, the world is still looking up, still laughing, still wondering—could I do that? And more importantly: should I?
Man that’s a long post. I remember reading the bones of it elsewhere a few years ago.
I was thinking about Nxxx the other day. Given that we’ve been going 20 years, I do hope he’s okay. I may try to clobber John about it but last time was less than successful.