|
| |
ST. LOUIS: TRAVELING |  | April 8, 2007 - The only way you can actually tell America is fighting two wars these days is to fly across the country. Airports, especially the busier hubs, are chock full of service men and women flying to and from Iraq. The
sheer numbers of folks outfitted in the new high tech desert camouflage is actually staggering, and the reality of the war starts to hit home, but once you leave the airport, that reality disappears fast. America is business as usual, and let's keep it that way! |
| Last time I flew, I constantly laughed at the 'airportly' nature of my countrymen. This time, the airports were
still chock full of fat folks with gigantic wastebands (sic) and seat belt extenders, but my vitriol was directed towards a new class of annoyances: moms traveling with kids. There was a mom with three kids, aged 5 to 10, who decided she could handle the three ragamuffins and decline the option to check bags. She managed to jam four over packed carry-ons into the overhead bins and hold up both the flight's departure and arrival stowing all of the foursome's formidable baggage. The airports cried out with yells and tears of young
children, wrecking any semblance of solace that can slightly be achieved. With a lot of fans from Boston to support Boston College about town, I also got a great dose of that old Massachusetts attitude and lifestyle, which drove me 1500 miles from New England three times in my life (KC, 1993, Ireland, 2001 and Austin, 2002). Besides catching some of that dirty accent in elevators and around the hockey games, I had my most enduring run in on the way out of town. It was 5 in the morning, and I
arrived at the train station to catch a ride to the airport for my early flight. It was 22 degrees outside, cold and windy, and I joined four other folks with bad reservations as well. One man, rich, white and portly, resembled Karl Rove. He was wearing penny loafers and a Boston Marathon jacket. He bitched about the unchecked ticket riding policy, the scheduling of trains, and the stupidity of waiting for as long as he had. He openly started questioning when the trains arrived and why they were taking so long. I was
too cold and too tired to respond to his increasingly short temper, so I remained polite and distanced from him. I didn't ask him what kind of public transportation options should be available for his fat white ass at 5 am on Sunday morning, nor did I suggest he walk back across the street and shell out fifty of his hard earned dollars for a personal cab to the airport. I just stood there and shivered.
|
the definition of a 'Masshole'
| After twenty minutes, the train finally pulled into the station. I was holding on for dear life, totally unprepared for the cold, and greeted the train's appearance with a warm glee in my soul. The Bostonian, who probably has ridden public transportation with disdain twice in his entire fat, unfulfilled life, got on board and took an opportunity to become even more obnoxious.
He pulled out his reservations, and fished through his pockets to find his cell phone. He called the airline, and bitched them out for the train being late. He ordered them to hold the flight for him, and demanded his boarding pass be "waiting for him at the gate." His demands must have been met by an inability to meet his demands, as he raised the ante and started yelling about how they must have a telephone or email to achieve his goals. After the thirty minute ride, he got off the train, pushing all the other passengers
out of his way, and scrambled for the check-in counters. I failed to grab my camera in time to catch him as he waddled like a penguin, with his baggage clearly in tow.
|
|
OLD STYLE
Long before hipsters started drinking PBR because it was cool, it was just another cheap, old beer. When faced with the prospect of burning some serious money on good beer, or heading into old, unhip waters, I chose the path less traveled and ended up with another of Milwaukee's finest brews: Hieleman's Old Style beer. |
| |
It did the job, was cheap, and I wholly expect it to be ironically embraced and drunk in large quantities of hipsters in short order, raising the 12 pack price from 7 bucks to 17 overnight. |
VICTORY RESIGNS!
About a week
or two before the trip, I told a couple of close friends about my desire to be on the winning team for once. I was tired of losing, and wanted desperately to just once, be on the winning side, no matter how evil, immoral or soul sucking that would be. One friend was excited, "You're a Republican now, COOL!", and another exhaled a sad breath and was barely able to utter a solemn, "well, that's depressing." When I got to St. Louis, I found this headline on a neighborhood newspaper. |
|
|
DIGGIE COIN|
My hatred of the US Mint has been touched on before, but what the hell exactly are they doing with the dollar coin? After the unparalleled success of the Sacagewa coin, which was only used by Post Offices (another love affair of mine). The automated ticket machines at St. Louis' train stations gave change using the new dollar coins, which are blandly designed and nearly indistinguishable from the quarter. The rest of the world uses the
equivalent of the dollar coin without problems, but America can't get it right. I used a Sharpie marker and made George Washington into rock and roll icon and personal hero, Diggie Diamond, formerly of Denver's Foreskin 500. |
|
|
| |
