Harvey Birdman vs. Denny Crane

These are two lawyer-themed shows.   “Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law” is on Adult Swim, an adult-oriented part of Cartoon Network which only airs at night.  Denny Crane is the character played by William Shatner, best known as Captain Kirk from “Star Trek”, on the TV show “Boston Legal”. [I originally posted this on 7/30/10 and am updating it now having finished watching the fifth and final season of "Boston Legal".]

 Harvey Birdman is an animated show which takes aim at various cartoon characters, of the Hanna-Barbera variety (no sign of Warner Brothers or Disney characters).  With his signature bravado, lawyer Birdman announces that “I’ll take the case!”  He’s voiced by Gary Cole, better known as Bill Lumbergh from “Office Space” (“that would be great, um-kay?”).  It’s gone on for 3 seasons and all three are now available on DVD.

 In law school, they taught us to “spot the issues”, and frequently our exams would consist of a rambling fact pattern and the question was, “identify the causes of action illustrated and explain how strong they are.”  Likewise, HB seems to do just that.  Here are some examples:

 In his first case, HB represents Dr. Quest in his custody dispute with Race Bannon over Johnny Quest.  Later, HB defends Shaggy (of Scooby Doo) on unspecified drug charges, Secret Squirrel (who is accused of exposing himself when he opens his trench coat), and Fred Flintstone (accused of being a mobster).  It’s all very irreverent, but you can see how they show legal issues erupting in otherwise non-legal contexts.

 Some of the colorful characters in the HB world: his legal nemesis Vulturo, a be-feathered villain who speaks with an affected British accent (reminds me of Christopher Hitchens); Reducto, the very short alien who threatens to reduce his adversaries to “fun-size”; HB’s wife Gigi, who seems to sleep with everyone EXCEPT him; Mentok the Mind-Taker, who frequently acts as the judge; Peanut, his assistant who does very little work; his bird mascot, Avenger; X The Eliminator, a Dormammu-looking villain whose attempt to assassinate Birdman or steal his crest (the source of his powers) appear to be a lame effort at attention and approval; Peter Potomus, who works in the building and periodically peeks in the office to ask Birdman, “did you get that thing I sent you?”.   It’s all very irreverent but mixes H-B cartoon nostalgia with a cursory lesson in jurisprudence 101.

 Sebben & Sebben.  This is supposed to be a law firm, but Phil Ken Sebben never takes any cases or discusses them with Harvey.  His corporate propaganda film makes S&S look like a regular company which has a lawyer on staff (HB) who handles lawsuits.  This violates bar rules of every jurisdiction except D.C., and it’s apparent the show does not take place in D.C.  Am I overanalyzing this?  You bet.  It’s what we lawyers do best.

 Birdgirl.  The daughter, Judy, of Phil Ken Sebben.  She has the hots for Birdman (not Peanut) and tries to assist him in her guise as Birdgirl.  As practically all cartoon women, she is excellently proportioned, which does not escape the notice of her father, who makes incestuous advances at her oblivious to her true identity; in fact, he appears oblivious to practically everything, but is still arrogant and certain of everything.  She’s saved from marrying him by an obscure relative who captures PKB’s heart at the wedding. 

 In fact, in practically all DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and the animated versions thereof, female superheroes and supervillains share the exact same body type:  hourglass figure, killer legs, C cup bust (ample but not ridiculous), and a full head of hair.  Whether it’s Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Harlequin, Batgirl, Supergirl, She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, etc. they all have the same figure.  I’m not complaining:  for some reason Hollywood’s standard for female beauty to devolved to Sarah Jessica Parker, i.e. extremely skinny with no bust. 

 Boston Legal.  As with “L.A. Law”, “Boston Legal” puts what would be considered a small firm into office space typically occupied by a huge firm; in Crane, Poole, & Schmidt there seem to be maximum 20 lawyers, with cast members changing from season to season.  There are five seasons in total, and the cases get stranger as the show goes on.  

  Supposedly, the main character is Denny Crane (Shatner), a pompous attorney so enthralled with his own mystique and reputation that he constantly repeats his own name.  But he’s past his prime and he knows it – he’s even coming down with Alzheimer’s, which he refers to as “Mad Cow disease”.  The writers seem to pour all the worst Tea Party, GOP, and Red State inanities into Crane, yet still manage to make him barely likeable.  “You’re a bigoted, arrogant, selfish, pompous old fart...but we love you anyway!”

 “Poole” is played by Larry Miller.  He has a nervous breakdown and has to be committed, and retired indefinitely. Unlike Denny, his illness is caused by the stress of being in litigation for so long; the mental toll is more than he can handle.

 His #2, so to speak, is Alan Shore (James Spader).  As a practical matter, Shore turns out to be the main lawyer on the show as he handles most of the toughest cases; Crane occasionally comes in on some cases but the plot seems to focus more on his idiosyncrasies and personality conflicts with Shirley Schmidt than on any courtroom activities of his.

Shore manages to be obnoxiously cynical and annoyingly moral at the same time.  Unlike Crane, Shore seems to be the mouthpiece for the writers’ own political views. I’ve noticed this in other contexts: newspaper articles (not editorials) and TV news shows.  The Blue State view is presented in a neutral or mildly favorable tone, whereas the Red State view (e.g. NRA) is described as [proponent] “claims” or “alleges”, the same way you might say, that crazy man on the street “claims the world is going to end” or “Lyndon LaRouche claims the Queen of England is a Communist drug dealer”.  And the Blue State view always, always, ALWAYS gets the last word.  What you’re left with is a nominal pretense of an intelligent debate on the issues but in reality it’s heavily slanted in favor of what they consider the “winning side” (theirs). 

 Anyhow, Shore tends to argue cases in a way that suggests that he believes his client’s position is not merely legally superior, but also morally superior.  This is the same guy who frequently resorts to blackmail and other unsavory methods to secure favorable settlements outside the courtroom, but even his courtroom antics border on contempt.  It’s like he deliberately flirts with, or dances around, the grey areas to push the envelope (that familiar compliment we hear: if you weren’t in trouble we’d think you’re not trying).  On the other hand, the lesser lights at the firm run afoul of Lewiston and the Bar, but they stumble into it unwittingly; Shore is the Harold Lloyd of legal ethics.

 Towards the end of many episodes, Crane and Shore puff away on cigars on their firm’s balcony, idly chewing the fat about the day’s trials or the larger issues at stake – or their lives.  The writers do seem to realize that “a stopped clock is right twice a day”, so Crane is not 100% completely full of shit.  Often times he simply comes off as a counterpoint to Shore to keep the latter on his toes or just to give (as noted before) the nominal appearance of objectivity and balance. 

 Initially they had Alan Shore win every case no matter how implausibly, ridiculously or unethically.  It reached the point where Lewiston (Rene Auberjonois, best known as “Odo” from Star Trek/Deep Space Nine, but here he’s revisiting his “Clayton” character on the show “Benson”) would tell him, “officially, I cannot sanction [highly effective yet highly unethical practice]” while “nudge nudge wink wink”ing him to subtly encourage him to get his hands dirty.  Lately I’ve seen him lose cases, and sometimes even take positions I agree with. 

 There is also Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen), who supposedly was Crane’s lover in a past life (!) but now simply rebuffs his clumsy passes by repeating his name to him.  And she rebuffs Alan’s suave but equally unwanted passes with appropriately snide remarks.    

 I find the rest of the characters vary in quality and likeability. Examples:  Marine Boy (Mark Valley), English Tart (Rhona Mitra), Stuck Up Blond (Monica Potter), Uncle Ruckus (Gary Anthony Williams).  By the end we have Jerry "Hands" Espenson (Christian Clemenson) who has Asperger's syndrome, so he can't function without a fake cigarette which turns him into a bigger asshole than Denny Crane, and Carl Sack (John Larroquette), a visiting partner from New York who winds up with Shirley, much to Denny's jealousy.  Opposing counsel come and go, but Melvin Palmer seems to be the one who sticks around most often - much to Alan's immense annoyance.

 Having bitched all that, the arguments presented in court are legally valid and legitimate, on both sides, no matter how slanted they are presented.  It’s legally accurate though politically charged.   “Harvey Birdman” is too humor-oriented and irreverent to have any pretense of presenting coherent political or social arguments, but even its cartoonish (!) depiction of the law is still illustrative and informative, in a limited way.

The Environment

We have no problem smoking out those Uncle Shams who wrap themselves in the US flag, barking at anyone who disagrees with them that “if you oppose me, you oppose the US, you’re ‘unpatriotic’”, etc.  South Park: “The children oppose Starbucks…are you against children….???”  So why can’t we do that with the similar screwups who tie themselves to trees, metaphorically, and make this claim about the environment?

 The number one offender for this is Al Gore.  Recently I read an illuminating book, The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You To Know About – Because They Helped Cause Them, by Iain Murray.  I strongly recommend this book to anyone, but for these purposes I’ll briefly summarize the major points.

 1.         Al Gore is a phony, a fraud and a hypocrite.  To the extent there is any scientific basis for global warming, he grossly misrepresents it and blows it way out of proportion.  Even under worst case scenarios, the seas are not going to rise and flood our coasts, nor is there an ice age on the way (“The Day After Tomorrow” was hogwash).  His carbon footprint is immense, yet he tries to weasel out of that by having a company he owns pay HIM carbon offsets as benefits – which he doesn’t even pay for.  This is the same clown who took credit for increasing funding for DARPA (the Federal agency which essentially created the Internet) but then denied claiming to have invented the Internet. 

 2.         DDT is extremely effective when used to wipe out the mosquitos which cause malaria.  The jury is definitely out as to whether it’s carcinogenic; Rachel Carson’s “science” was essentially bullshit.  But malaria is killing thousands in Africa because the econazis succeeded at banning the use of DDT.

 3.         The chemicals in birth control pills are causing all sorts of problems in the water supply (women on the pill urinate, the chemicals end up in the water).  But the liberals never squawk about that.

 4.         Ethanol.  This is another mess.  The problem is that growing enough corn to produce ethanol to replace gas, costs MORE than the gasoline it replaces.  Switchgrass is hopelessly inefficient.  And there is a zero-sum game with the land: land used to make corn for ethanol cannot be used for food, which means that food prices would skyrocket if we tried that.  We’re better off simply paying more for regular petroleum-based gasoline and keeping food prices reasonable; better to drive less than to starve. 

            I recently read a book about IG Farben, the cartel which helped the Nazis during WWII.  The cartel itself was formed in 1925, but its main companies, BASF and Bayer (as in aspirin, which they invented) date from the late 19^th century and started out making dyes and pharmaceuticals.  IG Farben’s major quest, like alchemists seeking to turn lead into gold, was synthetic gasoline.  It started off promising in the late 20s, but went into the toilet in the early 30s when oil was discovered first in Texas and then the Middle East, and the price of gas also went down the porcelain wastebasket.  In the late 30s, IG Farben started simply buying gasoline from Standard Oil so the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht would have enough to invade Poland and France.  The technology is THERE, it works, but it’s extremely inefficient and cost-ineffective so long as regular petroleum is available at a reasonable cost.  And just when the experts predict we’ll run out (as they did back in 1926) we find more!  In fact, we’re always finding more.

 5.         Fuel-efficient cars.  They’re usually smaller and less safe than larger cars.  Even Ralph Nader (!!!) had to admit that other things being equal, a larger car is safer than a smaller car.  But the econazis don’t give a rat’s ass if we live or die on the road, so long as the damn things don’t eat up too much gas.  Or you get clueless morons like Steven Seagal telling us to ride horses or bicycles instead of cars.  Stick with the martial arts movies no one watches anymore.

 6.         Wildfires in California are caused because the forest management practices we used to conduct in the past (clearing brush, lighting smaller fires, etc.) were abandoned by due to pressure from the econazis in favor of dangerous new “natural policies”. 

 7.         The Green Lobby is huge but refuses to reveal how its money is spent (transparency). To the extent anyone can tell, the top people pay themselves huge salaries and pay their employees “breadline, breadline or less.”  Hardly progressive employment policies – yet Michael Moore never interviews those firms.

 8.         The Burning Cuyahoga (river in Cleveland).  Mainly the problem here was that the Ohio state government gave the firms responsible for polluting the river a blank check (permits) and barred possible claimants from suing these firms under common law nuisance actions.  The idea here is that traditional capitalist remedies for pollution (nuisance) were artificially shut down by state action, so the EPA wasn’t so much cleaning up after bad companies, so much as correcting messes made by state governments.

 9.         The Endangered Species act is a huge mess.  They play fast and loose with defining species, some of which are not in danger at all – or they’re not taken off the list when the numbers go back up.  But mainly it’s a huge nightmare for any property owner who has the misfortune to find such an animal on his property: the law gives him an incentive to quickly kill and bury the animal before anyone knows it’s there.  The “commons” problem is discussed: poaching is a problem because no one “owns” the animals.  If there were property rights in the animals (capitalist solution) most animals would be bred and preserved rather than hunted to extinction.

 10.        The Aral Sea was turned into a vast desert by the Soviet Union’s “environmental policies”.  Again, the atrocious environmental track record of socialist and communist regimes is completely ignored by the econazis. 

 When you examine the impact of their policies on the environment – usually extremely adverse - and give the rhetoric and ideology a closer look, what you consistently find is that these people are really just communists trying to hide their Red agenda behind a cloak of Green respectability. 

 I don’t think ANYONE, no matter how Republican or Dick-Cheney they may be, wants to pollute the environment, or screw up the planet, etc.  At worst, some of us are noxiously indifferent.  Back when I was in school in the 70s in the US, I remember two things.  First was that famous ad with the crying American Indian (no, not the 7-11 Indian).  Telling us not to litter is certainly pertinent.  How hard is it to put trash where it belongs instead of just throwing it out the window?  This should be obvious to anyone, no matter how Red State or brain dead. 

 Another thing was recycling.  This too is fairly sensible: with a little effort we can make a difference.  The key is an aggregate of LITTLE THINGS each of us do, which all add up together. I unplug my cell phone charger when I leave for work, and turn off the A/C.  If there are “green alternatives” which cost the same and work as well, I’ll gladly use them; but if they’re hideously expensive or don’t work for shit, forget it.  We can make a difference.  And without ditching capitalism.

The World Cup

[Update 11/22/22:  This time around it's in Qatar (eastern coast of Arabian peninsula, on the Persian Gulf, south of Bahrain and north of UAE/Dubai.  As the temperature during the summer is unpleasant, the games are taking place in late November.  The US & Brazil are back - let's see how they do this time around.  Neymar seems to be the star of the current Seleção.]

I addressed this issue in 2006 years ago when Brazil lost to France in the eliminations back in the 2006 World Cup (“O Que Aconteceu???” = “What happened?”).  This time I’ll tackle it from a larger perspective, rather than just focusing on Brazil’s problems, although any World Cup discussion necessarily concerns Brazil.

 Every 4 years, since 1950, the world (except the US, do we qualify?) has been possessed by this international soccer competition.  Each part of the world has playoff slots to qualify, e.g. South America has 5 slots, the fifth of which requires a playoff vs. Oceania; Europe alone has several different divisions.  Brazil has never failed to qualify.

 This time around, 2010, the finals were held in South Africa.  After the first round, then the subsequent playoffs, a winner emerged on Sunday: Spain defeated Holland, each country trying for its first World Cup; Holland had made it to the finals in 1974 and 1978 but lost both times.  Each of them had defeated another team (Spain beat Germany, Holland beat Uruguay) and those teams played on Saturday; Germany is #3!

 For the first round, 32 teams compete in 8 groups of 4.  Each team plays its 3 competitors once, receiving 3 points for a victory, one point for a tie, and no points for a loss.  The top two teams from each group move on to the next round of playoffs.  These are “win or go home”, no home/away aggregates or best of 7 playoffs.

 Prior winners (and runners up in the final):

[2018     France (Croatia)

2014     Germany (Argentina)

2010     Spain (Holland)]

2006     Italy (France)

2002     Brazil (Germany)

1998     France (Brazil)

1994     Brazil (Italy)

1990     West Germany (Argentina)

1986     Argentina (West Germany)

1982     Italy (West Germany)

1978     Argentina (Holland)

1974     West Germany (Holland)

1970     Brazil (Italy)

1966     England (West Germany)

1962     Brazil (Czechoslovakia)

1958     Brazil (Sweden)

1954     West Germany (Hungary)

1950     Uruguay (Brazil)

 As you can see, Brazil has 5 World Cups, Germany 4, Argentina 2, France and Italy 2, and England and Uruguay 1 each.  Brazil was in the final in 1998 and 1950, so it could have had 7 World Cup victories.  In 1930, 1934, and 1938 there were World Cups, the winners being Uruguay (1930) and Italy (1934 and 1938).  The World Cups which would have occurred in 1942 and 1946 were disrupted by WWII. 

 US.  The US has never won.  However, it tends to dominate the North/Central America group for slots and get in with Mexico fairly consistently.  US players are beginning to get the crucial jobs playing for top flight European teams – better teams and starting positions.  Our best player, Landon Donovan, plays for the L.A. Galaxy and Everton (a Premier League team).  Clint Dempsey, arguably the second best, is being seriously considered by AC Milan. [Both are now commentators.]

            Unfortunately, we are still fair game for countries like Ghana (who?) which have equally strong teams but are politically inconsequential.  If it’s any consolation, Japan is in a similar position, and neither China nor Russia has ever been a major contender.  Neither of those countries, nor India, even qualified this time around.  All the World Cups since 1930 were won by teams in either Europe or South America, as were all the runners up, which leaves Africa, North America and Asia completely left out.  The US’ best finish was a de facto third place back in 1930.  For us to win the World Cup would be a Miracle on Grass, but if the French could do it (1998 & 2018) and the Spanish (this time – plus they had never even been to the final before, nor, for that matter, had the French) then who knows?

 Brazil.  By far the powerhouse and the ones to beat each time.  Brazil’s group this time, G, was called the “Group of Death” (possibly for the ill-fated North Korean team).  Sure enough, Brazil came out on top of that group and easily advanced to the second round.  I still don’t know how the Dutch defeated them, or the French in 2006.  My theory for 1998 (lost to France, in Paris, in the final) is that they were hungover on the field after prematurely celebrating their victory (?) against the underdog French.  Their 58/70 star was Pele, who is still a major figure in Brazil.  In the early 80s it was Zico (most often associated with Flamengo, and coach of Japan’s team in 2006).  By the late 90s and early 00’s it was Ronaldo – not to be confused with Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, or Ronaldinho – who scored both goal against Germany in 2002.  By now he’s back in Brazil playing for Corinthians.  These days the stars are Kaka (AC Milan, now Real Madrid), Robinho (Real Madrid, Manchester City, now back at Santos), and Maicon.  Ronaldo (past his peak) and Ronaldinho (still strong, debatable about his peak) were left off the team, and Rivaldo and Romario (notice they love those one-word names starting with R) were considered too old.  

            For their part, the French didn’t even make it out of the first round in 2002 or 2010, but beat the Brazilians in 2006, only to lose to Italy in the final.  That was the game with Zidane’s infamous headbutt. 

 Dunga.  Brazil’s coach is nicknamed “Dunga”, which is Portuguese for “Dopey”, the dumbest of the Seven Dwarfs.  To me he looks like Mike Delfino, the plumber on “Desperate Housewives”.  But can you imagine if the US coach had that name?  “Let’s go live to Bob, who’s interviewing Dopey now” [with “DOPEY” in all caps under the live video interview of the coach].  Hilarious.

            Of course, since Dunga didn’t deliver a World Cup Final victory for Brazil, he got booted.  But even if he had won, chances are he would have resigned after the victory parade.  The job is non-stop stress for the 4 years or so (depending on when he got it), especially in Brazil, where anything short of complete victory = failure, and it seems that everyone claims to do a better job than the coach (“180 million coaches”).  The press are merciless, so I can understand why Dunga blew up during a press conference.  At least in the US, we don’t have 5 World Cup victories under our belt, so anything less than complete dominance is not considered a screwup.  Even so, we’re still competitive and like to believe we have a shot. 

 Germany.  They have [4] World Cup victories and came close this time, losing to Spain – who I was expecting them to beat.  They have been in the final 4 times; had they beat Brazil in 2002 both countries would have been tied at 4 World Cups.  The Germans are consistently competitive but can be extremely arrogant.

 Argentina.  Bitter rivals to the Brazilians.  Their star of 1978 and 1986, Diego Maradona, came back to coach them this time around.  As we know by now, he has a big mouth, but the Germans shut it for him quite dramatically. 

 Offense vs. Defense.  Baseball has the most rigid structure: the teams stick where they are until the at-bat team gets 3 outs.  In the NFL, this is less rigorous: it takes only a fumble or interception to change possession in a heartbeat, but these occur modestly relative to the amount of turnover-free series of possessions.  In soccer, as with basketball, a steal can rapidly switch possession from one team to another; in terms of the dynamics of possession, soccer most closely resembles basketball.  But a basketball court is much smaller, and it’s MUCH easier to make a basket than it is to make a goal.  One area where soccer definitely dulls me out, is when the winning team simply plays “keep away” with the ball, continually passing the ball back and forth between players, even as far back as their own goalie.  Because a 1-0 score is victory no matter how you slice it, this means a soccer game can slow down after only one goal. 

 Ties.  In most other sports, a tie or draw is rare.  In the NFL there would be overtime, and usually one team can score at least a field goal.  But 0-0 ties in soccer are fairly common.  For all but the eliminations, they are acceptable.  In the NFL, if one team runs up the score, that’s a dull game.  But in soccer, two evenly matched teams can hold each other goal-less, which to me is actually NOT an exciting game; in fact, if a team runs up the score it is more exciting (at least to me) than a 0-0 slugfest.  To me, the issue is goals vs. no goals; a 3-3 tie is still exciting, we get to see 6 goals scored.  

 Injury Time.  You know with any soccer game it will probably last only a little over 90 minutes, plus the 10 minute halftime.  Overtime, if necessary, is two 15 minute periods followed by a penalty shootout if the exta 30 minutes were still not enough for a goal.  There are no timeouts; the clock runs continuously; in Maracana Stadium, there isn’t even a clock for the fans or players to watch. 

            At the end of the 45 minute half, they add on 2-3 minutes of “injury time”.  This is the amount of time which had been wasted by various players pretending to be seriously injured by incidental contact with opposing players, in the hopes of earning a penalty kick because they’ve been unable to score a goal any other way.  In some cases the player cringes and cries, clutching an entirely different part of his body than was actually struck by the other player or the ball.  My solution?  If your “Injury” merited a penalty kick, you go off the field on the stretcher and are OUT of the remainder of the game.  Because too many of these crybabies are running around 5 minutes after the “injury” with no apparent problem.  If an NFL player is “injured”, chances are they really are.

 Fans vs. Players.  This doesn’t help soccer’s image of a sport played by effeminate Eurotrash boytoys like (gay icon) Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo.  For every lower class Paul Gascoigne there seem to be dozens of jet-setting, metrosexual, overpaid playboys.  The two “Goal!” movies reinforce this even further (Newcastle and Real Madrid).  I don’t think they’re all like that, but certainly that’s the image they tend to advance.

            Contrast this with the image of European soccer FANS, especially in the UK.  In “Fever Pitch”, Colin Firth’s character is wary that his fellow teacher (the woman he likes) will write him off as a “yob” (lower class Neanderthal) because he supports Arsenal, i.e. that he follows soccer at all.  Certainly the press loves to hype the hooligan issue.    Groundskeeper Willie (The Simpsons): “You call this a soccer riot??”

Jerseys.  What I find amusing is that many countries have jersey colors which don't appear in their national flag.  Australia - yellow & green?  Germany - white?  Italy - blue??

 Crazy stuff.  This time around it was the annoying vuvuzelas (plastic trumpets) which produce the buzzing noise together.  Then there was the German octopus, Paul, who correctly picked the winners of every German game and the Final.  And Joachim Loew (German coach) had that lucky blue sweater; its luck ran out against Spain.  Then there was that Paraguayan model.  Schwing!

Let me add this (2022).  Let the players put a patch on their jersey indicating the professional team they play for.   That would help us recognize them a little better.  

Flying

I’m not afraid of flying, but I am concerned about the “Murphy’s Law” things which can and do go wrong when traveling by air.  Neither I, nor anyone I’ve ever known, have been in a plane crash, so what passes for “horror stories” will fall short of fatalities: see below.

 January 1979.  We flew to Paris for the first time, moving there.  I was 10 years old, and thrilled to be flying.  So much so, that I gave zero thought to this whole concept of actually living in France.  Ok, the flight’s over, now let’s go back.  What?  We’re staying here?  Crap.

 January 1987.  I was flying back from Paris to Maryland, due to arrive at Dulles and continue my spring semester of freshman year at UMCP.  With 2 hours of a 9 hour flight left, the plane was on its way to IAD (Dulles) when the captain came on the intercom and announced that, due a massive blizzard hitting the entire East Coast, the flight would be diverted to Detroit.  WTF?  I was flying alone and nothing like this had ever happened to me before.  I knew no one in Detroit.

            I hanged tight, and the airline (I forget which one) booked me on the first flight out the next morning (no extra charge) and got me a hotel in Ann Arbor for the night (no charge).  I could barely sleep.  By 2 p.m. the next day, though, I was at Dulles, phoning my Dad (who had been worried and calling everyone in the airline industry) and my buddy Phil, who was the one due to pick me up.  I ended up spending the weekend with his family in Sterling, finally arriving in College Park on Sunday night.

 Romania via London.  This had an insane layover in Heathrow on the way back.  I was literally broke, so I couldn’t go into London, although the Underground does go to the airport.  The flight came in from Bucharest at 5 p.m. London time, but the flight I was booked on for IAD didn’t leave until the following day at 1 p.m. London time, meaning a hellacious 17 hour layover.  I was able to sleep in the “quiet lounge” until 1 a.m., at which point they chased everyone out of that terminal, made us go through immigration, bused us over to the main (very small) terminal.  This one had benches with armrests for each seat, meaning you couldn’t stretch out on them to sleep. I put chairs together from the bar and slept there until 6 a.m., at which time the departure terminal reopened and I could continue my hibernation in the quiet lounge.  The flight from London to Dulles was 8 hours, normally a long flight but now relatively short compared to the layover.  I was like “Viktor Navorksi”.

 L.A. via Dallas.  On this recent trip, my outgoing flight was through Dallas.  As the plane approached Dallas, the captain came on with bad news: “we’re all stacked up and don’t have the fuel to continue as long as they’re asking, so we have to stop in Oklahoma City”.  We stayed on the runway for 30 minutes, refueled (didn’t even get off the plane) and were in Dallas about 2 hours late.  My connecting flight to L.A. had already left AND was the last flight to L.A. from Dallas that night.  Although they immediately booked me on the next flight out the next morning, I had to stay in Dallas overnight.  I suspected, and I was right: the airline treatment of 1987 would not be repeated in 2010, so I had to pay (a reduced rate) for the hotel.

 Aisle vs. Window.  I prefer aisle seats, particularly for overnight flights where there is nothing to see out the window.  Coach is bad enough, but having the window seat is downright claustrophobic.  I’ll gladly get up out of the seat to allow the window seat passenger access to the bathroom.

 Fellow passengers.  For some reason I’m almost always put next to a guy.  On rare occasions the airline will relent and give me a female companion.  On the way to Dallas recently, that female passenger was a large Texan girl of limited intellect.  On the trip to L.A. the next day, it was a black woman who was determined to sleep throughout the entire 3 hour flight without saying a word.  Then there are the crying babies: on an overnight trip to Romania, there were no less than 3 crying babies who took turns to annoy everyone throughout the entire flight, not just during those annoying pressure changes on takeoff and landing.

 Movies.  Most of the movies are fairly dull and inoffensive, and rarely films I’d really care to see on my own, with a few exceptions.  When “Back to the Future” came out in 1985, I was living in Paris and could not see it in the US.  By the time our home leave came around in 1986, it was well out of US theaters.  My friend Sean and I had tried to see it in Paris, but the line was around the block, so we said “screw it”.  So I was SOL trying to see this film….until….we flew back to the US in July 1986, and the in-flight movie was, you guessed it.  Woohoo!  Sometimes I’ll pay some attention to the film and end up renting it back in the US to fully digest it, or if it’s a really good film, pay full attention to it with the earphones.  “The Island” was pretty damn cool.

 Sleeping.  I cannot sleep on the plane.  Even on an overnight flight, something about having to keep roughly sitting position just doesn’t do it for me; I cannot get into a comfortable position.  Add to that the rumbling, vibration, and turbulence, and I get at most 1 hour of sleep on an overnight flight.

 Upgrades.  I think we managed to upgrade to first class ONCE, thanks to my dad’s connections in the airline industry – he worked for USTTA and seemed to know everyone at every airport short of actually working for an airline.  For a 1 hour flight, coach is no problem.  Even for an overnight flight, in a middle or window seat, I can endure the inconvenience.  Coach seats are expensive enough. 

            I’ve never been on the Corcorde, which is now retired, so I lost my chance.  The entire plane was first class, $8000 a ticket. 

 Airline Magazines.  These bore me to tears.  99% of the articles are targeted at white collar businessmen, as are the ads.  I am almost never flying on business.  The ads are often for obscenely expensive hotels I could never hope to afford.  About the only items of interest are the maps in the back with the flight routes.   The SkyMall catalog is a total ripoff.  Who buys this shit?

 Food & Refreshments.  The days of good treatment and free stuff are long gone.  By now I expect the flight staff to come down the aisle bumming gas money from us.  The dinners on long flights are OK, I usually just eat the “chicken” or “meat” type item and the bun, and ignore the green beans.  I love the little pretzel and peanut bags, but I’ve noticed they’re rare on even short flights these days.  About the only thing free these days are soft drinks, so I’ll drink those down. 

 Airports.  If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.  They all look pretty similar inside, so I don’t brag that I’ve been to a city if I’ve never left its airport.  What I really can’t stand are the ones with completely separate terminals so you have to take a shuttle or train from one to the other.  L.A., Denver, and Heathrow are like that.  The “stalks on a tree” format, simply requiring you to return to a central hub, works better for me – e.g. Charlotte. 

    Most airports are located in remote locations far away from anything interesting, which means you really have to get there early to make sure you get there on time and don’t miss your flight stuck in traffic somewhere.  Exceptions:  Phoenix’s airport is right in downtown Phoenix, and Las Vegas – the city seems to have grown south from its historic district down to surround the airport itself.  The Mandalay Bay, Luxor and Excalibur are right across the road from the runways, you can look down on the airport itself from your hotel room.  You could practically WALK to the airport.  Las Vegas also has slot machines throughout the terminal.  I mean, are you so hard up for gambling that you either can’t wait to get to your casino/hotel or can’t resist a few pulls on the arm before you leave? 

    If there was one good thing about Heathrow was its excellent stores.  I snagged a whole tin of Cadbury Flake and had chips & a Strongbow, with my last few coins.  They had a few stores selling brand new soccer jerseys, but I had the ones I wanted already at that time and was broke anyway. 

    Otopeni in Bucharest was very small, which is odd because it’s THE main international airport for not only Bucharest itself but for Romania as a country.  It used to be larger, but Ceaucescu maintained that “Romanians have no legitimate need to leave the country” so he deliberately reduced it. 

 Stairwells.  Dulles Airport still has many of those mobile lounges.  In most cases, especially in the US, the gates have those boxy passageways which link up to the airplane.  When I went to the USSR in March 1983, the planes were met on the runway by those ancient outdoor stairwells, the ones you see the Beatles walk down on in the rain in Australia and other parts of the world.  You’re met a few yards away by a shuttle bus which takes you into the airport.

    What was funny was traveling back to the US on home leave in the summer.  Paris summer weather is very mild; it gets “hot” maybe a few days out of the whole summer, so many people in Europe don’t even have air conditioning, which causes problems when they do have a legitimate heat wave.  We’d get off the plane at Dulles, and even in the gateway we could feel the heat.  Leave the air conditioned terminal building and you’re hit with a heat wave like a microwave oven.  My mom would say, “uh uh, I’m not going anywhere until the hotel shuttle gets here.” 

    The difference is even more dramatic if you fly to Rio de Janeiro in January.  You’re escaping frigid cold and snow at Dulles, then at GIG you’re hit with the Brazilian summer.  And when you return, you’re leaving Rio’s heat and beaches and tan, to face more arctic air (maybe even snow) at Dulles.  The first time I went to Rio, though, was in June, which is winter there.  Rio’s winters are so mild, though, it was hardly much of a difference.                                                 

 Nonstop/layovers.  I’ve already mentioned my horror story in Dallas.  If the nonstop flight wasn’t so much more expensive than the one-stop flight I’d gladly take it.  The delays are so unpredictable that you have to cushion your itinerary with a 3 hour layover; 30 minutes to an hour seems to be asking for trouble – and is.  But that 3 hour cushion adds even more time to the length of the whole flight.  When I came back from Denver via Newark, the flight was so late leaving Denver that I literally had to run through the Newark airport to make my connecting flight to DC.  At the other extreme, I couldn’t switch to a Friday night flight from Heathrow coming back from Bucharest (I tried).

 Jet Lag.  Flying eastbound, the time difference gets added on.  You leave Dulles at 6 p.m. at night, arrive in Paris at 8 a.m….except that to your body, it’s 2 a.m.  Everyone else in Paris is waking up for the day, and you’re dead tired.  The first time we flew (January ’79), we took a nap at 9 a.m. and woke up at …. 6 p.m.  Which felt like noon our time.  So when midnight came around, we felt like it was 6 p.m.  Having slept the whole day, of course we weren’t tired at midnight.  It took until 6 a.m. to fall asleep.  D’oh!   The best solution is to simply stay awake all day and go to bed at the normal hour.  When I visited my friend Jean for his wedding in July 1996, I did that and had ZERO jet lag. 

    Flying westbound is strange: the flight time and time difference cancel each other out.   But the usual result is that you wake up at 5 a.m. and can’t get back to sleep, because your body thinks it’s noon.  But by the next night you’re pretty much OK.

    Flying north-south, no matter how long the flight, is not a problem.  Five trips to Brazil, no jet lag at all.  Depending on the time of year, the time difference is either 1 hour, 2 hours or 3 hours, most often 2 hours, which is too small to make a difference. 

 Clubs & Lounges.  Back when we traveled as a family, my father would also sometimes get us access to the TWA, Pan Am, or whatever airlines lounges.  These are quiet places where you can read that day’s newspaper, sit down, relax, and they bring you soft drinks, coffee, and even croissants at no charge.  Normally my deal is I go to a bar and buy one overpriced beer and watch the TV there.  Mr. Middle Class.   

 Gates of Babylon.   In the old days – meaning before 9/11 – we used to be able to go all the way to the gates even if we weren’t the ones actually flying, both to “see someone off” and when we were picking someone up.  The drama of seeing someone go through the gate into the plane, or see someone come out, was incredible, especially if we haven’t seen them in some time.  This didn’t apply to international arrivals, as the returning passengers had to go through immigration and customs (without any interference from locals) before emerging; but it did apply to international departures. 

   Now, of course we have this TSA BS to deal with.  Every time I go to the airport I wonder what some TSA person is going to confiscate: a fifth of absinthe, a tube of toothpaste that’s too big, a body spray.  And take off our shoes.  None of this was necessary back before 9/11.  Nelson Demille bitched about this in Wildfire, through the character Bain Maddox.  Whenever I have to deal with this security BS at the airport, I think, “damn those stupid terrorists.  They have no legitimate grievances which justify the huge headaches and hassles we have to go through because of their asshole stunts.  And the stupid liberals, even RON PAUL!!, bend over and grab their ankles to pacify and apologize for these sick bozos.”  Anyone who makes any apology or defense of the Islamo-fascists, as Hitchens loves to call them, deserves a special ultra-high-harassment lane at the airport, with full cavity searches, confiscation of the most harmless and innocent items (e.g. gifts for loved ones), and sufficient delays to guarantee they miss their flights. 

 Airplane!  I zone out on the “airline disaster films” and defer to this one, which is not only a terrific parody of all those films, but a damn funny film in its own right.  In fact, the comedy is a remarkable throwback to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, all the slapstick films of the silent era, somehow resurrected decades later in this “talkie” and updated for modern audiences.  The sequel wasn’t as good, but it was still funny.  Every now and then I see an old Leslie Nielsen film in which he’s playing a serious role, and I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for his punchlines.  “And stop calling me Shirley.”

Los Angeles

I recently got back from a short trip (a few days) in Los Angeles, California.  I had a good time and saw lots of things, and even took pictures and posted them on Facebook.  Here’s the blog.

 Intro: Hollywood.  Every country seems to have its own film industry: France, Brazil, Romania, India, etc.  But the films are made for, and intended for, the local population and no pretense or expectation seems to be that an audience outside the country will be watching.  Here in the US, you have to look for small, boutique-style trendy, artsy movie theaters to find films made outside Hollywood.  Hollywood is unique in volume, quality, but also making films which they have every expectation of being seen outside the US, worldwide.

 Naturally, most of the films seem to take place in L.A.  Sure, New York and other US cities (sometimes stood in for by Canadian cities) are also popular, as are foreign destinations, particularly for James Bond films, but L.A. seems to be the #1 city.  And that also applies to TV shows as well.  Again, “Seinfeld” is set in NYC (though a two-part special took place in L.A.) and other cities come up now and then (CSI Miami, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, etc.) but L.A. seems to outnumber all the others combined.  And this has been going on for longer than I’ve been alive.

 Up till now, I’d never been there.  The closest was two trips each to Las Vegas and Phoenix (and for the latter, one “trip” was simply a detour from the airport for lunch at Cooperstown).  But of course I’d seen all the movies and TV shows.  So when a chance came to visit, I grabbed it immediately.   So here are my own subjective impressions.

 Freeways.   Every major city has its defining characteristic.  For NYC it’s the Empire State Building and skyscrapers.  Paris has its Eiffel Tower and art & architecture.  London has its fog, its Big Ben, double-decker buses, etc.  For L.A. I’d point to the freeways.  While Hollywood Blvd., Sunset Blvd., Beverly Hills are all nice and impressive, they don’t anchor the city the way the freeways do.  The 405 runs along the south and then goes up northwest, kind of bracketing the city by the ocean.  The 110 goes north-south.  The 105 goes east-west.  The 5 goes southeast-northwest as a mirror complement to the 405.  Up further there’s the 10 (parallel to the 105) and the 101 going northwest into Beverly Hills.  The 710 and 605 run north-south parallel to the east of the 110.  The freeways are wide and the interchanges push you way up into the sky.  I was particularly thrilled going from the 105 west onto 110 north, which gives a panoramic view.  L.A. has a metro system, but you really have to drive to “experience” L.A. – to take the subway would be like driving in Manhattan instead of taking its subway, or the London Underground.  I did get stuck in traffic a few times, but not ALL the time.

 The Trees.  A close second are the trees.  I don’t know what they’re called, these palm-like things with skinny trunks and a big head, but they are certainly ubiquitous and remarkable.  It’s like you can’t figure out if L.A. is supposed to be tropical or a desert.  Green seems to be a color almost completely absent; yellow seems to be L.A.’s color. 

 Hollywood/Beverly Hills.  I went up on Wilshire, Sunset Blvd., and Hollywood Blvd.  This is clearly the “tourist” zone with the Chinese Theater, Kodak Theater, all the stuff the tourists love.   I suppose everyone has to go there, and I enjoyed it.  I liked McArthur Park, which is bisected by Wilshire over on the eastern uptown area.

 Beaches.  We went to Santa Monica (nice, upscale), Venice Beach, and Redondo Beach.  Venice is like a Grateful Dead concert parking lot turned into a permanent beachfront, with head shops and medical marijuana clinics.  Redondo Beach was nice, but we stayed on the pier and had fresh seafood.  That, Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach are south of Marina Del Rey, which divides the beachfront. 

 Griffith Observatory.  For some reason this gets almost no publicity.  Its existence is acknowledged but I’ve never heard anyone insist that “if you go to L.A. you have to go here.”  But like Corcovado & Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro, or the Empire State Building in NYC, it’s the highest point in the city and offers the most spectacular views.  Not only that, the observatory itself is impressive.  Although the Tesla coil was off, the exhibits, the telescope (pointed at Venus when we went there, due to look at Saturn when we were due at the airport), the pendulum, everything there really knocked me out.  And of course the view.

 South Central/Compton.  Once you leave the north part of town and start heading south, the city deteriorates dramatically.  The funky trees are still everywhere to be found, but all the buildings are run-down and grungy, and low-class taco huts begin to predominate.  I kept thinking of Cheech & Chong.