Self Portrait

José how could you

Yesterday I talked about my experiences with the "straw Jesus". Today I began thinking about the guy in that show who played Coronado, José Alverez. I met José a couple of years before we ended up performing at Charlies Place. We were doing another show for the same producer in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Many stories there but none to be told in the blog today.
José was a very large guy from El Paso. He was 5' 6" and maybe 300 pounds. His mother owned a Mexican Food restaurant in the Texas Border town and he grew up being the official taco tester. You would say that he was a jolly fat man, very enthusiastic on stage with a smile that never quit. There was a laugh in his voice even when he sang. The producer I mentioned loved to give him comedy characters to play on stage.
José was a tad naïve and would fall for the same practical joke over and over, so he was a target, a large easy target, for me and the rest of the members of the cast.
There was a running joke that we all perpetrated on him nearly once a week and he never ever saw it coming. That was the fun of the of it, he was just too jolly to believe we would continue to conspire against him.
I think the joke started when one of the guys legitimately misplaced his wallet. He was asking everyone if they had seen it and the entire company was looking for it. Toward the end of the evening it was found. Rather than just tell everyone it had been found the guy decided to hide it in José's locker and shared that information with everyone but José. We all made a point to be near that locker after the show. José opened the locker and one of us (maybe me) said "Hey, Dave, isn't that your wallet?". In a well rehearsed motion everyone turned to see the "stolen" wallet. We all looked at Jose with contempt. "Jose, how could you?I thought we were friends. If you needed some money for extra food you know I would have loaned it to you, " was all Dave said as he retrieved his wallet. As we all shook our heads and headed out the door José was baffled and pleaded his innocence to the condemning cast. Even by the next day he didn't realize he had been hoodwinked.
A week later one of the guys asked the cast if anyone had seen his watch. In a repeat performance we were all there when the watch was found in José's locker.
Another week or so went by and one of the waiters mentioned they were running low on silverware in the kitchen. The opportunity was too perfect. At the end of the evening silverware cascaded from José's locker. "José how could you" became the mantra. After a few more discoveries we cooled it for a while. José finally began to catch on when there was a crowd gathering at his locker at the end of the evening.
The final ploy was the best. One night the Chef was not there at the start of the evening. It was the talk of the theater. Would there be dinners tonight if Jimmy the Chef was not in the kitchen? Sure enough when we all finished the show Jimmy the Chef was bound and gagged below José's locker. All at once we said, "José how could you."
No doubt his weight was a problem no matter how jolly and happy José seemed. However, I don't recall him ever complaining about anything in his life. Less than ten years after the demise of Charlies Place José Alverez died of a heart attack. I remember his good nature and on stage he never gave less than a hundred percent. We miss you José and if you are reading this now some how, "Have you seen my money clip?"
As you were,
Jay
www.monkeyjoke.com

Parade Rest

First day of a new set of passengers on the Navigator and I am stuck in the pub unable to escape due to the welcome aboard parade that has taken over the Royal Promenade. As I watch the parade staff trying their best to look like they are having a good time strutting in garish costumes, I am glad that it is not a requirement for a guest entertainer. However, it reminds me of the days when I *was* required to parade in costume for a paycheck. Not on a ship but dry land. Not that it made a difference to my self-esteem at the time. I feel the angst of those who I watch now paying their dues.

It was a dinner theater called Charlies Place in FT Worth, Texas. We did a variety show for an audience that dined on gourmet spaghetti. It kept Sandi and I employed for a couple of years as bizarre as it seems now. And it did lead to meeting my first personal manager who brought me to LA and the rest is history as they say. The manager assured me my parading days were over. It is the only thing he came through on.

We changed shows every few months at Charlies Place and eventually did a show themed on all six countries that owned Texas in it's past. The cursed parade was part of the Mexico theme. In context of the show a procession of Mexican peasants proceeded the arrival of Coronado, the conquering hero. It became a musical number because we were so happy to be conquered, I suppose.

We were all dressed in muslin drag with sombrero's carrying various gifts for Sr Coronado. In reality the gifts were cheap border town souvenirs from Juarez. We paraded through the night club carrying the "gifts" trying to look and sound as Mexican as a waspy cast could. Only the guy who played Coronado was actually Hispanic. He translated a song for us to sing in Spanish at the conclusion of the parade.

My peasant was chosen to carry an awful interpretation of Christ on the Cross depicted in straw. I came to call it the "damn straw Jesus". I was at the time humiliated as a performer and offended as a card carrying Methodist to have to carry such a gift. It was pure sacrilege as I saw it, and hated every second I had to handle it. I will probably have to answer on judgment day for the way I treated the icon. I was as abusive as possible toward the prop hoping it would become so shabby looking they would have to give me something else to carry. It didn't work. All I accomplished was to make an already awful looking savior look more terrible.

They did have the good sense to put me in the back for the musical number. Consequently I never had to learn the Spanish lyrics. After the first phrase "Coronado hombre amado ..." I faked it with words like enchilada, taco, con queso and occasionally Desi Arnaz. In FT Worth, Texas no one was going to notice.

The show ended finally but ran longer than Mexico occupied Texas. There were other humiliations in performances to follow but none as defeating to my ego as bearer of the "damn straw Jesus".

So parade on my Royal Caribbean brothers and sisters. I can tell you that this too shall pass and some day if you are lucky, like me, they will give you a Tony in exchange for your goofy prop.
As you were,
Jay
www.monkeyjoke.com

What is happiness

This is a study in human nature with me as the bad example. (I bow to my friend Zan on this subject. Consult her Blog "Zan on Happiness" for real solutions to the question)
I finally get on the Navigator. I've been here many times and know the accommodations well. It is a suite and not a crew cabin. I am happy.
When I settle in I discover that the television is not working. Since Bob doesn't talk to me except on stage I usually have the TV on and tuned to CNN for company. That and the off chance there might be some universal catastrophe that might cancel my show.
But the television is broken and won't turn on. "Damn TV" I say to myself. I am not happy.
For a few minutes I wonder what will keep me occupied during my down time. I soon discover I can bide my time drawing and reading and playing with my IPAD. I begin to fill the day with those activities. I think how much calmer it is spending time creatively with out the drone of impending disaster and drug ads polluting the atmosphere. I fall asleep that night not to the TV but beautiful music coming from my favorite itunes. I think this will be a great advantage not having a TV. The TV is such a distraction. I say, "Damn TV". I am happy.
I wake up refreshed. I greet my steward with a smile in the hallway. He is happy. He asks if everything is alright. I say the TV doesn't work but all is good. The steward says, "Damn TV." He is not happy.
He leads me back to the suite. After a few unhappy minutes trying to fix it he finally discovers a glitch in the remote. He says the TV is prone to this problem. Frustrated that it he has to fix it again, he says, "Damn TV". He is happy.
He leaves the suite with the Television on and ironically tuned to CNN. Cliff hanger promos fill my world once again and I am caught up in the need to see the incredible video coming up next. I wonder, on the ship who would I call if I suddenly did have an erection that lasted four hours. The production manager? I think I am happy. But then realize I am caught up in the world of "coming up next". I am not drawing and I am not reading. I am not listening to my music. I come to my senses and break the hypnotic CNN spell. I try to turn it off but can't. Short of contacting the steward and ruining his happiness again, I can not get the TV to turn off. I think to myself .... "Damn TV" and I am not happy.
I leave the television on and leave the suite for the deck looking over Montego Bay. Soaking in the beauty I decide to write a blog on my BlackBerry about not being happy. But now... I am happy........ "Damn TV."
As you were,
Jay
www.monkeyjoke.com

Final Chapter
I talked to my son yesterday. He told me about a scary experience at the house earlier that day. Living in Encino with a security system and an electric gate on the driveway entrance we have always felt very safe, but criminals are always a step ahead of any technology.

My son had just returned from class and driven into the garage. The gate stays open for 45 seconds before it closes automatically, and had not yet closed as he was getting a backpack out of his trunk. At that moment an old car sped through the gate and screeched to a stop in the middle of the driveway, blocking any exit. A Ukrainian man jumped from the car and started toward him. It was the typical scenario for a home invasion robbery.

My son is a big guy and grabbed for anything he could use as a weapon. By then the intruder was almost in his face. Taking an offensive stance with a makeshift weapon in hand, he said, "What the f*** do you think you are doing?"
The guy jumped back and nervously said, "Bags, Bags I deliver the bags."
It was the long lost luggage from Germany being delivered by an English-challenged Ukrainian delivery man who was in much too much of a hurry.

No call, no notice, just a rush up the driveway when the gate opened. He quickly got our bags out of his car, with the motor still running, spewing exhaust. He tossed them on the porch and left as frantically as he arrived. It all took less than 45 seconds since the gate was still open as he sped away. My son took a moment to let his blood pressure drop and now sees the humor in the whole thing.

This event happens on the same day I receive an email saying KLM has no new information on our bags. I thought the email was funny because it said the bags were not lost, but they didn't know where they were. I wondered at the time what the KLM definition of "lost" actually is.
So there you have it, the final chapter in the saga of the lost luggage. The two bags have been out of our possession since December 17th just short of three weeks.

American Express is due a letter of praise from me. As a long time member and Platinum Card holder, the global services division has called, questioned and badgered KLM every day on my behalf since the bags were lost in Amsterdam. Sandi and I were able to get on with our lives, work and travel without having to sit on the phone ourselves. I will continue to be a fan of AMEX. I'm not sure I will choose to fly KLM again....although they did eventually return the bags to our home, albeit in a somewhat dysfunctional way.

Real life is so much more interesting than fiction, except in the case of reality television shows.
As you were,
Jay

Random access
My friend Jeannine Brenier has a line in her act that has stayed with me for decades. Talking about her career, She said,"You know how they say it's lonely at the top, well it's jammed right up here in the middle." I'm not sure what my show biz ranking is nor who decides but I am sure that loneliness is not exclusive to any rank. Even if you travel with an entourage you find yourself watching CNN alone in some hotel room trying to fall asleep.

That is where I find myself tonight, in a Crown Plaza hotel room near the Miami airport waiting to join a ship in 48 hours. I can't count the number of hotel rooms I have occupied in my career. After I filled a large cardboard box with the plastic card keys from places I stayed I stopped counting. I had an idea that some day I would cover the walls of my office with a hotel key mosaic. That is less appealing now than when I started keeping them. All hotels look alike to me now and even the best with the most beautiful decor feels cold and Spartan. It is a space you occupy but never claim as your own space. Home is where your heart is and I have never found my "heart" in a hotel room.

They have me on the Executive floor. Other than a small private lounge featuring morning coffee with continental breakfast and the necessity of a card key to access the floor, I don't notice the Executive additions.

Signage in both English and Spanish proclaims the entire floor a "quiet zone", information that should be shared with the planes landing at Miami International near by. The sign suggests ways to keep the "zone" quiet. It says, "Between the hours of 9:30pm and 9:30am please keep your television volume to a minimum, do not slam your door, keep conversations down especially in the hallway and NO LOUD SINGING IN THE SHOWER."
In my years of staying in hotels I can't remember a single time when my solitude was disturbed by "loud singing in the shower" nor did I know this was a big problem for Inn keepers.

CNN has started to repeat its programing so it must be time to go to sleep. In the morning I will try to remember where I am until I totally wake up and look around. The first thing I will comprehend fully is the fact that I am not home, I am living the glamorous life of show business.
As you were,
Jay

The Villain of Eden

So glad to have an iPad on the road. Down time is so much more interesting.
As you were,
Jay

Down Time

When I have no where to go and nothing to do and I am not at home, I think of odd things. Some of my friends and family would argue that I think of odd things most of the time. Odd is in the eyes of the beholder I suppose, however even I know that my brain was probably constructed by temp workers. Perhaps it was an assembly line joke for that day.
At any rate I see things differently and mostly think of that as an advantage.
As my mind wonders off today in contemplation of where our lost Christmas luggage might be, I recall some of my encounters with the KLM representatives in Holland. What comes to mind is the Dutch greeting that starts any conversation in Amsterdam. Every person behind a counter greets you with "Hallo". It sounds enough like "hello" that I would immediately start explaining my problem in English. Although most people speak English in Amsterdam it is not their first language and I speak faster than the average human.
I would realize my mistake about three sentences in. Their expression would go blank and their eyes would glaze over with that thousand yard stare. Of course I would start to compensate by speaking louder and slower. It is the equivalent of a Japanese speaker trying to help me understand by loudly saying "Bo... Choy. mich.... Ting ...Seri.... Owtaw. " volume is not the solution.
For all I know I was telling KLM to keep my luggage and send it to the Swiss Army.
Sandi believes our luggage will be found and arrive soon. She is an optimist, she thought marrying me was a good idea and still thinks my oddness is cute until it can be cured. All my friends regard her as a saint for staying with me for almost four decades. Being on the road was much more fun last week when she was here.
As you were,
Jay
www.monkeyjoke.com

Lost in transit
Back on dry land for a day or so. The hotel has a free wifi and I feel like I am in control of my iPad again. I will catch a ship at Grand Cayman in a day or so and continue my Naval life. It means a couple of days in a hotel, but it keeps me from having to fly coast to coast twice in 48 hours. Sandi flew home today from St Thomas, through Phidelphia. It is an odd way to get back to LA and it will be a long day for her, but she is due back on the set of "The Big Bang Theory" this week.
It is not the flying so much as the connections that have been difficult in the last couple of months. Flying to Ft Laudrdale last week I had to divert to Chicago instead of going through Dallas because the connections were not happening on my original flight. It delayed me by six hours but at least I made it wit all my luggage.
The Oasis of the seas was a real experience. I made the joke on stage that they could design a ship with a carousel on board but I still couldn't turn around in my cabin bathroom. Six thousand people, and it is crowded, but big enough that there is always a place you can be that is not packed with people. They have an outdoor aqua stage at the back of the ship where they do a water show. They do there best to make it like Cirque du Sole's "O" in Las Vegas.
My favorite feature on the ship is a bar called "Rising Tide". It is a small lounge that is in the middle of the Royal Promanade that seats twenty people or so. At fifteen minute intervals the entire bar lifts and rises three decks to come to rest in the Central Park section of the ship. Central Park is my favorite part of the ship. A park like setting that is open to the sky with plants and restaurants. It is calm and beautiful and takes you totally away from what you think of as a ship environment.
Happy New Year to all. Thanks for all the well wishes.
As you were,
Jay

P.S.
As we left the ship the electronic marquee had been changed to advertise the next act coming to the theatre. It was the picture of a band called Abba-cadabra, an Abba cover group. The text said.... Comedy Ventiloquist. They had not changed it from description of my show the day before. You can build the biggest ship in the world but it still has to be maintained by humans.

New Years at Sea

When my agent told me that I was going to perform a New Years Eve show on the largest cruise ship in the world, the Oasis, I was very excited. That is until it dawned on me that's the very same plot as the disaster movie The Posiden Adventure.
But the only disaster encountered was the reality that the ship is full of more than three thousand non English speaking passengers. They only know one phrase of English, "You ....not funny".
But I must say this ship is more impressive than you can imagine. I have worked on every class of ship in the RCCL fleet and the Oasis truly is a destination unto itself. In fact there may be too much to do since every venue is in competition with every other. There was a comedy show at the comedy club at the same time as my show. About half the club audience was at the wrong place. I felt bad for the comedians; when they announced the comics names for their show fifty people got up and left for my theatre.
Sandi is going back home tomorrow, but I am hanging around Miami to catch the Navigator for another week at sea. I have not been home for more than four days at a time for four months. In the words of Hyman Roth from the Godfather, "I didn't say anything because it is The Business we have chosen."
Oh and if you are keeping score is now going on week three of the hunt for our luggage. They now say there is no record of the attempt to delivery the bags in Berlin.
As you were,
Jay
www.monkeyjoke.com

Twas the Day after Christmas.....

As we left Europe I handed the Dutch officer my passport for inspection. He looked at it and with a Dutch accent said, "How Yea'll doink?" He looked through the pages to find a blank space to stamp, which is not easy given the number of times I have traveled out of the country in the last five years.  After stamping the page he said, "Howdy"which came out more like *Whoody* and he said it like it was the expression for goodbye. It took me a minute to realize that the passport correctly lists Texas as my birth place.  The immigration officer was doing his best Cowboy for me, and I almost missed it.

This is a picture I took of the Brandenburg Gate from what used to be the East side of Berlin. It was very pretty lit up with the Christmas tree in front and snow all around.  It looks like the picture was taken in the early evening, but it was actually about 3:00pm.  The sun doesn't come up in Berlin until 9:30am and starts setting about 4:00pm and by 5:30 it is full blown darkness.  It makes all the Christmas lights of the city more enjoyable.

As for our luggage, no word since the German delivery man called my son to tell him the bags were on the way to his apartment, while we were on the way to the airport. The fact that the bags made it to Berlin and had been found is not in the record that the magic tracking number was supposed to log.  In fact we are getting forms emailed from the Airline to fill out so we can file a claim.  According to the records the bags are still missing and have been since Dec 16th. I suppose on Monday I will have to make my rounds calling to see what news there is.  Sandi and I leave for a New Years Eve Cruise on Wednesday and I doubt we will know anything definitive about the bags before then.  

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I know the New Year will be full of surprises and opportunities.

As you were,

Jay

Lessons

Life has a sense of humor that can not be denied. Most of the time we are too close to see that what happens to us is a cosmic joke, a prank to make us smile, or to show us that the events of our lives are not so serious or tragic as we think, or maybe just to help us evaluate what is really important.
After seven days without our luggage Sandi and I have gotten used to the idea of never seeing those "things" it contained again. We were most upset that the Christmas gifts we brought to our son did not arrive. One of his German friends suggested, in broken English, that the "Christmas Man" - his translation of Santa Claus- had stolen the luggage to keep us from usurping his duty to deliver the presents on Christmas Eve.
But, the lack of personal effects did not keep us from experiencing the sites of Berlin or impede the joy of seeing our son. His grasp of the language, culture and mythology, that is Berlin, becomes infectious and, for his father and mother, lovingly overwhelming at times. In fact the lack of personal property was freeing in some ways. We had everything we needed. We had what we came for, time with our son in his adopted city.
So there was sadness when the time came this morning for us to go to the airport for our third and last time. The snow was melting a little causing the walk to the bus to become more slick and treacherous than usual. Even the streets of Berlin were trying to keep us from going away. Our son's cell phone rang and he answered it with his German hello. After a brief conversation he ended the call. I am accustomed to waiting his German conversation is over to get the English translation. The call was from Tegel Airport calling to say that our bags had been found and they were ready to be delivered. If they had kept them at the airport we could have picked them up when we arrived a few minutes later, but the bags were on a truck headed for the apartment we had just left. Our Son told them to deliver the bags to our home in California. The man said it would take a couple of days.
There won't be an end to this story until our bags arrive in LA and the belated gifts arrive in Berlin, but the moral is clear: important things can not be lost in travel nor delayed by weather and certainly can not be contained in a suitcase.
Merry night before the night before Christmas,
Jay

Day six of trying to cope with the coldest winter in German on record and doing it without any luggage. My advice to any traveler is avoid KLM Dutch Airlines if at all possible, especially traveling through Amsterdam. Now suddenly everyone seems to know that KLM is notorious for being hard to contact, and Amsterdam is a notorious for canceling flights and losing luggage, especially in the winter. Where was this information in the weeks before when we were booking this trip. While KLM's in flight service was very nice, once on the ground they become invisible. As flights were cancelled and we became separated from our luggage, we were told to "simply" call Customer Service and they would deliver our bags anywhere we needed them. Unfortunately, the phone numbers do not ring through, or are constantly busy, and not open 24 hours, nor weekends. When we finally did get through, on day five, the automated system instructed us to consult the website and disconnected. The website crashed and then we were told to contact the airlines through Facebook or Twitter. I am not joking, Twitter.
I finally resorted to calling American Express Global services to get some help. They could not get through to KLM either, but did find out that we needed to go to the Berlin Airport in person to file a report. We traveled the hour to the airport. After an hour wait and with our son there to translate we were given a form to fill out and told to fax it. Then we would be given a tracking number for our case. How would we get the number? We would have to call.
After several days of the same phone treatment we decided to go back out to the airport and actually find a human.
Another hour trip and we were directed to the Global Berlin Baggage service down stairs in the airport, where there was a line with a two hour wait to see a human. After an hour we discover that the line we were instructed to wait in was for Luftansa not KML. We switched lines to start the two hour wait clock all over again.
Hours of waiting time later we were allowed to meet with a human who substituted the Z sound for an S when she spoke. She said they had never received the fax and we needed to start all over. We finally got a tracking number, no luggage and no idea on when we would get it but we got the magic number. The only thing that was determined was that when we leave Berlin in two days, they would stop trying to get the luggage to our address here and send it to California.
Here is the bottom line. The inconvenience of not having our luggage is nothing compared to the stress, inconvenience and anxiety of trying to get KLM to look for our luggage. My wife and I both wanted a holiday we would never forget, well, be careful what you wish for.... We will certainly never forget this one. The saga continues.
As you were,
Jay

Winter in Europe
We are here in Berlin with my son. We do not have our luggage and were were two days late after being stuck in the Amsterdam airport for about a day and a half due to a snow storm. I'm glad I like the shirt I am wearing I've had it on for four days now. The airlines were not good at giving out information in any language. The forms to fill out were in Dutch, and the Information lines were jammed. No flights, we finally had to take a train to Berlin and were lucky to get it. More later as the saga continues.

On a totally different subject. Here is a comment that I got from my last post. The one with the vent movie poster painting:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "As you were, Jay":

there is a signature and Copyright mark so jay please post the info about where this came from... illustrators work very hard - hopefully no future bookings will use part of this for posters/press/website etc.

Posted by Anonymous to THE WORLD IS A STAGE at 2:01 PM

I don't know who anonymous is but they are not up to the usual intelligence of my average blog readers, and the fact that they would snipe with invisibility is not appreciated. Two things:
If "they" had actually seen the copyright they would have known that the signature is mine as is then copyright. The illustration is mine, I drew it, it is from my own art files and I will use it in whatever way I want to. What hurts the most is that whomever "they" are assumes that I would not credit another artist's work or would not be capable of creating that art myself. Next time Anonymous, get your facts straight, and be brave enough to leave your name.

As you were,
Jay

Traffic Event

There are several routes to get through the mountains from the Valley to the West Side in LA.  One is the 405 Freeway which needs to be avoided for short trips.  The other routes are canyon roads, two lane paths that wind through the hills to the other side.  The roads twist and turn and with the right car it is a very exciting drive at just a little over the 35 mph speed limit, say 50. It is better than a roller coaster ride at Magic Mountain.

Today I found the need to make that trip over Coldwater Canyon to Beverly Hills. Tis the season after all. I am in a BMW so I have the right car, and the morning drive traffic is gone.  Just me and the road, for a moment, I feel like an Indy driver on Memorial day. That is until I come upon an old model Volvo creeping along at 20 mph.   The ancient driver is driving way under the speed limit, breaking for every turn and wiggle in the road and yielding to imaginary wild life crossings.  To let him know that I am behind him, as is the custom in LA, I crowd him a little.  It is the signal we all agree on that says, share the road and at least drive the speed limit.  This driver obviously does not speak auto.  He continues to coast and break and yield to the frustration of anyone behind him.

Soon I am not the only driver who is frustrated.  There are six cars behind me that are thinking the same thing I am... why is this guy driving like he is from Florida?  Once again I crowd his back bumper.  (Honking is a NYC tradition that is rarely use on this coast).  The rule is once five cars are being blocked by a very slow driver, that slow driver should pull over and let the traffic by.  Again, this driver, "no speaka" nor "knowa the rules".

The parade slows to a funeral march. Lined up behind me is another BMW, a Lamborghini, a Porche, and three cars I can't put a make on.  The Lamborghini is having trouble going 20 mph, it idles faster than that.  The driver guns the engine just to keep it running.  It is a loud sound but the Volvo is unfazed.

 I give the driver the benefit of the doubt, one more time, thinking that he is just unaware of the commuter crises he is causing us.  I politely ride his back bumper again,  he shoots me the finger and hits his breaks.  I am able to stop in plenty of time as are all the others in the long line.  That is when I realize that this guy knows that he is leading a long line of pissed off drivers through the Canyon and doesn't care.  As he creeps ahead of me his personalized licence plates read,  "STA BAC"

As you were,

Jay

As you were,
Jay

Building a stone henge are we?

Eddie Izzard does a routine on stone henge that is very funny to me. As some ancient Druids are carving on stone a couple of neighbors pass by. Looking up at the activity they say, "Building a stone henge are we?...It's very nice."
Eddie Izzard would be one of my favorite performers even if he wasn't the one who gave me a Tony on stage at Radio City Music Hall. Thanks Eddie.
I was thinking of you when I painted this.
As you were,
Jay

Very different from what I usually paint... not a drop of blood in the entire piece.

As you were,

Jay

More Mind Fertilizer

I think that it represents more an example of obsessive compulsive disorder than actual talent, here is my new submission into the world of: "What did you do last week?"

There is one interesting thing involving my trip back from Acapulco. There are two things that are "given" in this story. As the lawyers would say we stipulate to these pertinent facts.

First, I don't like the TSA in general. I think they are the lowest level of Rent-a-Cop and now with the new groping procedures they are allowed to administer I feel more invaded and like the TSA even less. And... I don't feel safer because of the intrusion.

Second, I don't like to fly in Mexico. Since there is less Xray equipment and technology in most of the airports they rely on manual inspections. It is not always Manuel sometimes Manuellita. The point is, airport inspections are much more personally invasive in Mexico it is up close and personal: "Meester, cwould jew stan like thees with jour harms hup." On the street it is a robbery, at the airport it is security.

With those two facts in mind here is my saga.

I was searched at the dock by the Manuel at customs. My luggage was searched at the ticket counter when I arrived at the airport. I had to go through the metal detector and xray before getting to the gate. At the gate three more Manuels looked in my carry on bags and did a pat down.

Changing plans in Mexico City meant I had to go back through security, and was frisked by two different sets of TSAitos before boarding my final flight home to LA. Just part of the job, and the excitement of going home got me through it.

After 6 hours we landed at LAX Airport, and as I step into the jet way there is a Homeland security agent watching people get off the plane. He stops my egress and culls me out of the herd, "Could you step over here for just one second sir.... just put you bag down."

I can't tell you what I was thinking because the vocabulary of curses in my head is not a language that any one understands but me. Just know I was thinking words so derogatory they couldn't even be vocalized. But in my truly dysfunctional passive aggressive way what came out was, "Certainly officer."

The man looked me in the eye and said, "Just around the corner we have a drug dog." (My Inner dialogue: "Okay jack wad, what has that got to do with me.") He continues,

"And I wonder if you would mind giving us a hand." (Inner dialogue: "Why don't you go cavity search a baboon, Dick Tracy." ---- Outer dialogue: "Why, certainly officer."

He continues, "I would like to hide some drugs on you and see if the dog can find them? He is new and being trained to work crowds." How many times do they tell you not to take things from strangers at the airport. Here is a guy actually asking me to mule drugs and instead of yelling for the cops, he is a government cop. I said, "As long as the next officer knows that the drugs are yours not mine... okay." He really didn't answer that statement directly, but by that time several witnesses have seen me talking to the guy, he has a uniform...and I am so tired from flying I'm stupid.

He takes what looks like a chamois pouch out of a baggie and stuffs it in my sock. He takes my carry on saying, "I don't want this to get in the dogs way." and then the blow-off, "Don't stop until an officer tells you to stop." Those last words are the ones that hang in my rational brain as I continue on what is now not a normal journey for me.

At the terminal before immigration there is an officer with a black lab on a chain. I am figuring the dog will bark like crazy when I approach. But he doesn't. In fact he doesn't move. I go right past. Thinking that the dog has perhaps flunked his final, I am 30 or 40 yards away when I hear an officer say, "Will you stop right there sir. And do not turn around." I stop. I hear the officer say, "Good boy," and I assume it is praise for the dog, not me. I am thinking like a game show contestant now and expect to hear, "Thank you for playing, drug mule madness, here are a couple of parting gifts... Don Pardo what do we have for this gullible contestant?" But alas that is not the drill. I stand there for another five minutes waiting for the officer who planted the drugs on me to show up. It could have been less than five minutes, but it seemed like a couple of hours, because until the officer arrives, with my carry on, I am a drug suspect.

They retrieve the stash from my sock, thank me for my participation saying the dog needed the live drill and I was helping the cause. Of course for the next hour...the entire time I am at immigration and customs I feel like a drug smuggler. People who saw me being pulled out of line by the officer are avoiding my direct look. I am paranoid that the smell will stay with me and before I get out of the airport a more experienced dog will really bust me.

So I have now been the subject of a TSA "Gun Test" and a Homeland Security "drug test" during my airline commuting career. Feel safer when you fly this holiday, kids, Jay the security crash dummy is here to help.

As you were,
Jay