Airport!

No, this is not another rant about airport security!  I was scanning through the cable channels after watching a Dodgers/Cubs game, when I came across the film, Airport.  I remember seeing this with my parents when it came out — I must have been 10 years old at the time.  Since then I’ve seen it on TV a handful of times, but not in many years.

For those not old enough to remember, Airport is a film about a bomb that goes off on a transatlantic flight, and the crew’s attempts to land the plane.  You may remember the Jim Abrahams /David Zucker send-up called Airplane, starring Leslie Nielson and Lloyd Bridges, which was released in 1980.  (It’s actually a better film!)

Airport, released in 1970, was the first disaster movie.  It presaged Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Towering Inferno by a few years.  It was what passed for a blockbuster in the age before Jaws and Star Wars.  It had a high-wattage cast of thousands, which included a middle-aged, but still handsome, Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Maureen Stapleton, Van Heflin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes — who won an oscar for best supporting actress —  and George Kennedy.

I came in just as it was getting good, as the passengers were boarding the plane.  I was struck by how different plane travel was in those days, particularly the airport security, or lack thereof.  Hayes plays a women who is known for stowing away on plane flights.  She is able to board the plane simply by telling a random airport worker that her son has left his wallet, and ‘could she please return it to him.’  “Hurry,”  the worker tells her, “run and give it to him before the flight leaves!”  Just like that she is able to get on the plane.  Come to think of it, I have memories of those days —  I once was allowed to board a plane to say goodbye to my aunt. 

Heflin, plays a down on his luck ex-GI who plans on blowing up the plane so that his wife can collect the insurance.  His bomb is in an attaché case which he clings to suspiciously as he wlks onto the plane.  One of the workers notices this, and when he mentions it to his superior he is told, “I would worry if he was arriving from overseas and going through customs.  Let the authorities in Rome handle it.” 

That was all it took for the movie to rope me in.  To tell you the truth, it was surprisingly watchable, even though the special effects are laughably primitive.  The long shots of the airplane in flight look particularly fake and the night shots contain some of the fakest looking stars I have ever seen.  The film does manage to build suspense, however, and there is quaintness to the matter of fact way that it goes about telling its tale. 

Somehow they are able to land the plane without any casualities, except for Heflin who dies when the bomb explodes.  The film ends with Lancaster driving off into the sunrise to have breakfast, and sleep with Jean Seberg.  Of course she’s  at least 25 years his junior, but hey, he’s Burt Lancaster. 

Escape to New York

I’m writing this from the Jet Blue terminal at LAX where I am laying over enroute to New York City to do my New Years gig. The day began at 4:20 AM in Kona, Hawaii, and, if I’m lucky, will terminate sometime tomorrow morning at JFK where my best friend (and occasional guest blogger) Jeff will meet me.

Travelling to and from the east coast during the winter months is a risky proposition at best. The blizzard of 2010 has given new meaning to the word crapshoot. Right now my flight is delayed 90 minutes but I would gladly sign for eight hours if it would put me in NYC in time for my gig.

In Hawaii I was blissfully unaware of the ongoing chaos in airports throughout the country. People are waiting as much as several days for their return flights to New York. Last night I was at a bar in Kona. The bartender, upon hearing I was going to New York subjected me to a healthy and enlightening dose of CNN and the Weather Channel. Suffice it to say that it put the fear of God in me.

Just say no to air travel

Enough is enough.  The TSA has made it clear to us that they will have their way with our bodies, whether it be by radiation exposure or excessive groping of genitalia.  Let’s face it, the experience of air travel has long ceased to be anything approaching glamorous, let alone tolerable.  Let’s exercise our last line of recourse and vote with our pocket books.  

If enough of us refused to fly the airlines would feel compelled to offer incentives as a way of drawing us back.  Number one on their priority would almost certainly be expunging the TSA from the airports and replacing them with private security.   

Since that alone would not be enough to entice this jaded traveller to return I am offering my own list of incentives.

1)  Elimination of charges for checking luggage. 

2) Ability to fully refund my ticket up to 7 days prior to flying

3) A guarantee that when I purchase a ticket that I will have a seat waiting for me.  This means that when I purchase my ticket I immediately have an assigned seat.

4) Price of in-air food decreased by 50%.

5) Two in-air drinks for the price of one.

6)  In case of flight delays exceeding 30 minutes passengers receive a $50 voucher which can be used towards future flight purchase.

7) In case of delays upwards of 60 minutes passengers receive $80 in airport VIP lounge script and lunch with John Elway. 

I’m negotiable on point 7.