Heathrow

I was looking for an outlet and then I realized I didn't have the adapter. I'm in the BA lounge, waiting for my flight to Oslo. There's a woman using her speakerphone in an indeterminate foreign language and it's bothering me, you see I need to work in silence, but I will struggle through.

I'm fascinated by foreign security. How the system seems so much more efficient. We nationalized the TSA and all we hear is guns get through. I can't imagine that happens in the U.K.

I took a BA, British Airways that is, flight from L.A. And I'm here to tell you not to. I thought that BA caught up with Virgin, but they had such a fakokta seating system it blew my mind. Every other airline gives you nearly a compartment in business class, but in an effort to make more money BA has this layout... It's essentially 8 across, with curved windows, and stools for your feet, and all during the flight little kids were leaving the center section and stomping on my toes. And I wouldn't mind if it weren't for the fact that this flight cost deep four figures. For that price, they should treat me like a king. Which BA's partner airline, American, does on this same route. I'm not paying, but I feel like complaining, even though I know it's falling on deaf ears. You see we all hate the airlines, as we should, except for those privileged to fly private and the self-satisfied and poor who go nowhere at all. I don't understand how people want less regulation. Air flight is a
utility. And oil prices have dropped through the floor but airline ticket prices have not. Have you flown to NYC recently? I paid nearly a grand for a coach seat, and I booked weeks before. It's a scam. The whole country's a scam. We lionize corporations, wanting them to endorse our efforts, while they keep squeezing us for profits for their shareholders. As for BA coach... Eegads, I snuck a peek and I've never seen such little legroom.

As for LAX. Actually, before LAX...

I took Uber to the airport. I'm so fearful of getting a lousy rating that I didn't call early, I mean use the app to get a driver early, because if they had to wait while I was schlepping my stuff from my house... And then, since I was going to the airport, no one wanted to pick me up and I had to wait the better part of ten minutes and then I was worried about being late, and I'm paranoid about not making the international cutoff time, which is strictly enforced. But my Uber driver was friendly and nice and driving while he worked on his standup career. Yes, I talk to the driver, worried once again I'm going to get a bad rating. And it turns out there are open mics every night, but there is no audience, not a real one anyway. Rather, it's just a bunch of comics, who don't laugh. But at least this guy is paying his dues. Which seems anathema in the music business, where everybody wants to have success instantly or keeps telling you how many dues they've paid.

And security at LAX...

I just don't get it, the richer you are, the skinnier you are. There's a national scourge of buttless women. Sure, Kim K. has an ample booty, supposedly surgically-enhanced, but the true upper class, the educated as well as wealthy, barely eats and must buy its jeans in the boys' department. It's a national competition, seeing if you can make your butt disappear. As for the men, most appreciate a little meat on the bone. And the overweight poor seem to be having all the fun. Knowing there's no upward mobility they eat and drink and screw and are happy in ways the uptight uppers are not. At least that's the way I see it.

But what blows my mind is how inefficient the scanning system is at the Bradley terminal. They're constantly running out of plastic bins, people are swiping them from other lines, and there are people cutting in, really, and it's all so frustrating and so unlike Heathrow.

So we landed. One good thing about flying in an A380 is the ride, it's like traveling on your living room couch. But the lighting was so bad, such a tiny beam built into the seat, that I was frustrated reading the newspaper and switched to magazines. Have you noticed every album in "Rolling Stone" gets a three star review? It's kind of funny, kind of like the magazine. Which was nearly unreadable, just endless press releases. Is this what the new regime has wrought? But after dinner I went back to the Jonathan Franzen book, which is blowing my mind. Because it's all about interior life, which is rarely seen or heard in America today. What people think, who they truly are, what they feel like as they roam the planet... That's the conundrum, we're all in it together, but we all feel so alone. As for the Franzen book, "Purity" in case you're playing the home game, if I printed a page here all hell would break loose. Because the truth hurts. The truth is we're screwed up sexual beings
who feel guilty for being so, because society says we're bad. And there are constant truisms in "Purity," which resonate and make me feel connected, which is what we're all striving for, like this musing on fame:

"'Here are two true things about fame,' he said. 'One is that it's very lonely. The other is that the people around you constantly project themselves onto you. This is part of why it's so lonely. It's as if you're not even there as a person. You're merely an object that people project their idealism onto, or their anger, or what have you. And of course you can't complain, can't even talk about it, because you're the one who wanted to be famous.'"

I have a miniscule amount of fame, but I know what Franzen is talking about here. I will get e-mail in response to this missive that excoriates me for going off topic, going on too long, not satisfying, not filling some deep hole inside the reader, who is angry, not at me, but with his or her own life. He or she did not fly to London on business class. He or she is struggling and is frustrated and is venting upon me, who is enjoying the perks of who I am but is concomitantly depressed that I'm not bigger than I am.

Ah, the conundrum.

Anyway, Felice and I deal with airports differently. Felice goes by instinct, I need to get directions, I need to feel comfortable, I don't want to make a mistake. Not that F. is with me, she gave up coming when she realized all we do is talk business. But I thought of her as I wondered how I was going to get to my connecting flight. I wish I had my Fitbit, I must've gone 10,000 steps getting to where I am now. And I eventually ended up at a security checkpoint that I failed.

That's right. We lined up in fours. We took our bins from beneath the rollers and filled them... Only I travel too heavy and had too much stuff and how do I put it all in one bin and will my laptop be injured by the equipment stacked upon it, yes, I removed my Mac.

But after scooting through the scanner the techs readjusted my stuff, got another bin, but then...my stuff didn't make it to me. Oh, a bit of it did, but not enough.

I'm sorry, I'm starting to rush. I misread my ticket. I thought I had to board at 12:45, when the truth is the doors close at 12:45. So I'm getting anxious, and I'm speeding through the part of the story I wanted to tell. Which is how efficient and magical the security system at Heathrow is. How the plastic bins recycle automatically. And, when they find an offending bag... It scoots behind a plastic wall all by itself. Well, the rollers change direction and it's pushed there.

And I'm marveling at this. And how the bin has an electric tag delineating the exact default. And I've got to wait for them to get to my stuff, the techs are backed up, and when they do, they rip my bag apart, literally, Velcro is separating, and they're swiping and not only are they going over my iPad and my Kindle, but the white power brick to boot. They're taking no chances.

I've got to wrap this up, I've got a flight to catch.


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