MADER'S RANTS Flying Ain't What It Used to Be February 27, 2004 - I am on yet another trip to L.A., which is part of the biz. I like L.A., but the thing that sucks big sweaty monkey nuts is the flying. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not afraid of flying. It’s the hoops ya jump through to get on the plane that piss me off. I had a 10:30a.m. flight, so of course that means ya have to arrive early for the body cavity check. I appreciate the need for security but there is some thing wrong when you see a line of full grown adults standing around in their socks because their shoes may be lethal weapons. On a brighter note, I now know I don’t have colon cancer. My laptop gets molested in case it might contain something other than my usual ramblings. Sadly, the only bomb in my Dell is my writing. Then my belt, my aforementioned shoes, my shaving kit, my book written by John Stossel (large print so it’s easier for liberals to read), my cell phone, you name it. If it has anything to do with human dignity, it gets removed and checked. Not that I’m bitching. The high school graduates running security are polite, but come on for God’s sake! Is my tube of tooth paste really a threat to national security? So after being dehumanized by an overly paranoid society, I get on the plane. Why? Why? Why? Why is there always some idiot that can’t read the notices that says, “If your carry on is larger than X, it must be checked.” Fuck bombs and box cutters! The real terrorist is fat lady from Spokane with the bag so large it can carry a dead body, yet she insists on trying to stuff it into the overhead compartment. The result is that a flight of 240 people is held up because the cow in aisle 9 can’t stuff her coffin on wheels into a space barley big enough for a lunch box. So everyone from aisle 10 through 44 have to wait. Of course, she has friends randomly spread out through the plane so this repeats over and over again! Ya wanna make air travel friendly? Shoot the fuckers that insist in carrying a garment bag onto the plane. Check your baggage at the counter, you waste of skin! Can we be candid for a second? Planes today are nothing more than buses with wings. The moron that designed the seats is clearly related to cow lady with the luggage. Only a sadistic asshole or an absolute short-bus-riding retard makes the seats so small that even a child would have a hard time sitting in them without being jabbed in the ribs by his or her neighbor every 3 minutes! And you can’t tell me that the pilots don’t go out of their way to find shitty turbulence, either. Granted, most of these guys are ex-military. I appreciate the fact that a 737 isn’t as fun to fly as an F-18. But ya know what, jet jockey? You are making between 150 and 250 Gs a year, in large part due to the training you received at taxpayers’ expense so you could take on horrible threats like the Iraqi and Afghani air forces. Oh, how awful those dogfights must have been! Spin me a tale, you brave soul you... Find me some smooth air, Roger Ram Jet! It’s a five hour flight, and I need to try to walk down the aisle without getting hit in the nuts so I can return the flow of blood to my legs after sitting for three solid hours trapped next to a pointy elbowed fat person with B.O. (...sigh...) So, we finally land in L.A. I spend a lot of time here, and it looks like I will be spending more. Sunny and warm in L.A.? Ha! Not in February, baby! Cold, rainy, overcast with mudslides. Mmmmmm! Gotta love it! It never fails that I get to come out during “Monsoon Season.” I get to my rental car, turn on the radio only to hear, “This could be the worst storm in ten years folk’s. Har har har!” ...joy... L.A. radio DJs must die. I don’t know if Rick Dees intentionally created the on-air personality that permeates the airwaves here, but they all mimic him. Even the chicks do it. Dees should be put on trial for war crimes and summarily shot. Har har har! “So what has all this led to?” you ask. I can’t say. “Nondisclosure agreements,” don’t ya know. I can tell you this, though. My peeps at Mav say that Madonna is planning a huge tour in the near future, but shhhhhhhhhh! It’s a big, enormous, tippy-top secret. So don’t tell any body... ;-) Ya read it here first! Take that, Entertainment Tonight!!! Later, Mader