Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Somewhere over The Rainbow – Judy Garland

‘Miss? Follow me, please,’ the customs officer at Belfast’s international airport says as he starts putting on his rubber gloves.
- ‘What seems to be the matter, good sir?’ my friend Ilse inquires, ever the communications teacher – assuming an attentive, concerned attitude and engaging in open, neutrally phrased questions rather than a less cooperative ‘I don’t think so, mister’.
- ‘Standard procedure,’ the officer replies with a face that indicates he expects the rubber to give him a nasty rash. How come everybody else is still standing in line, passports ready? Ilse observes as she follows the man. Maybe this particular procedure isn’t that standard, after all? The officer doesn’t think she’s very funny. Off to one of the airport’s private, fluorescent lit interrogation rooms it is.

Ilse is coming to visit. As it happens, her work brings her to Belfast for a week, to teach typically Dutch communication skills to students over there. She can get a few days off after that. Since she will already be up to her elbows in old British colonies by then, it only makes sense to head straight from Belfast to New York, without wasting any precious time by going home first. Ilse books a flight from Amsterdam to Belfast, from Belfast via London to New York and a nonstop return flight from New York to Amsterdam. She’s very practical like that. British and American customs, however, aren’t buying it.

In London, my friend is picked out of the passport line again, and for a second time she is given the third degree in a place where there is no darkness. Why was she in Belfast? What does she mean, she was there for work? Who does she work for? Can she prove any of this? Why isn’t she going back to Amsterdam? What does she plan to be doing in New York? Who is that supposed friend? And why exactly did she spend a night in London at a random airport hotel?

Finally London allows her on a plane to New York. The plane lands without any delay. I am waiting in Arrivals. No Ilse. I wait some more. Still no Ilse. When at last she walks through the sliding doors, she has been politely forced into an interrogation room for the third time in 24 hours, this time staving off two American officers wanting to know what it is exactly that she planned to do in the land of the free. Welcome to America! I try.

My friend is a well educated Western-European woman; she has no religious or other criminal convictions; she is always friendly, and on top of that she’s pretty. Why would international airports pick her out of a line not once, but three times on the same trip? What ominous profile does she fit without even knowing it?
Are they confusing her with someone on the American No-Fly List (Europe has plans to conjure up a similar list to ward off suspected fly-by-night terrorists)? If it can happen to eight year olds, all bets are off.
Maybe there’s something wrong with airport security. Any scanner that can mistake Mexican mole sauce for explosives might deem my friend’s old socks a threat to national security, too.
Maybe her Passenger Name Record states something unusual.
Is the combination of traveled cities (Amsterdam-Belfast-London-New York) controversial? Or the fact that she is a girl traveling alone, carrying a backpack?
We can’t figure it out. Of course every airport traveler legally has the right to refuse interrogation by customs officers. Unfortunately, customs officers have precisely the nutshell of power that enables them to legally refuse you on any flight. Either way you lose. You can’t beat the airline industry.

Thankfully, both Ilse and I belong to that assortment of naïves who insist the world is a good place. Man is essentially good, and man’s organizations and actions are rooted in good intentions, we like to think. Even if thinking that means having to violate (or, as we like to call it: rainbow) essential facts. Truth? What good has ever come of truth? We are positive there’s a way to rainbow three private interrogations on a single trip. Maybe, we start thinking on the bus to my home, it is all a matter of the airline industry wanting to give Ilse her money’s worth.
You see, part of any ticket price is made up of taxes and fees. Those taxes and fees are in part made up of what the airline industry calls an Air Travelers Security Charge. They are the fees that magically increase your ticket price. For instance, on a return ticket from Belfast to New York for $ 386, an extra $ 435 in taxes and fees is added at the online checkout. Instead of the initial $ 386 you end up paying $ 821 for your return flight. In this case, more than half the money you pay for a seat on a plane has nothing to do with that seat on that plane.

The point is that Ilse paid for three different tickets to get to New York; that means she paid security charges three times. We rainbow that the airline industry must have thought it was time to give a valued customer something in return. You know what, they must have thought, this lady has earned and bought the right to a little tour behind the scenes. We will give her an opportunity to experience, up close, how we as an industry make sure our travelers can feel safe. What the hell, we’ll give her three experiences.
Ilse and I decide that we like this version of the facts. We’ll stick to it for now. After all, we consider, the airline industry would never make their customers pay $ 435 on top of their ticket price in order to secure their safety, and subsequently treat those same paying customers like threats to society. That would just be silly.

Unless, we think, the airline industry is trying to reinvent its international airports as some kind of extreme adventure sport location. You know extreme sports: the type of activity where the price goes up the more you want to suffer. Climbed the Kilimanjaro, swam with sharks, went on diet boot camp, base jumped off the Eiffel tower? Think you’ve seen and done it all when it comes to experiencing fear and fatigue for money? Not if the airline industry can help it. Anyone who pays taxes and fees over the amount of $ 400 is guaranteed a minimum of one cavity search plus individual interrogation on any international flight. Too much, too soon? All standard airline fees include some airport classics: Standing In Line For A Very Long Time; Handing Over Your Privacy; and Partially Undressing In Front Of Total Strangers. People dig expensive torment.
(The exceptionalist who does not appreciate adventure entertainment during his travels, or who just wants to arrive at his destination without delay, can be registered as a ‘Clear’ traveler for an annual $ 100, to be paid on top of his plane tickets with taxes and fees. Of course he has to give up his privacy, his iris- and his fingerprints first, and any background check must come up clean.)

Customs harassment as an extreme sport, with the usually uninvited and somehow never quite expected intrusion of the body replacing the adrenalin rush of a free fall. Ilse and I decide we might just as easily accept this version as truth. It gives us the bonus option of admiring the airline industry for coming up, under the guise of outrageous security policy, with customer service that is both inventive and progressive. Finding a new niche for air travelers can’t have been easy (what could customers possibly want other than arriving at their destination on time?); the industry’s bold move to offer its customers extreme sports while on the fly, shows an ability to think outside the box that we think is to be applauded.
Yay for the airline industry.

How Sweet To Be An idiot

How Sweet To Be An Idiot – Neil Innes

If you've ever been on an international flight to the USA you've seen it: the Visa Waiver every tourist must fill in during the flight. ‘Do any of the following apply to you?’ the form asks, before listing a number of inquiries after your health and other criminal records. Anyone who answers ‘Yes’ to one or more than one question in the list may be refused admission into the United States, announces the form. Forget about any moral objections you might have against these questions. Never mind whether people who suffer from an infectious disease or mental illness (Question A) do or do not deserve a break. I raise an eyebrow at Question C: ‘Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?’

Who, except maybe for the syphilitic mush-for-brain Question A refers to, would ever answer ‘Yes’ to that question? Forget about the two cantankerous Nazi’s still walking this earth in need of a flight attendant to tick off the box next to the questions, since they haven’t physically been able to draw inside the lines since 1987. ‘Nein, nein, nein! I said Yes! Verdammt noch mal!’

I wonder what they instruct new recruits in random Al Qaeda boot camps in Jemen today. ‘Future martyrs, gather round for a second and listen carefully. We have come upon a discovery. Every tourist on a flight to the land of the rising debt has to fill out this questionnaire. That saddens my heart with the might of a thousand wolves howling at a full Afghan moon. And it also really sucks, since we may be terrorists, but we are not hypocrites. We do not fib. Surely, we do not have to go around presenting our enemies with any information on how and when we would like to reorganize their capitalist society into a mere figment of a true virgin’s imagination; but when asked, we shall not lie about it. We are, after all, uncompromising militants, not whimsical pretenders. So when asked to fill out this form, you are to answer truthfully.’

The instructor ignores the murmurs of incredulity and concern rising among the ranks.

He continues, ‘Luckily, we have discovered something else. See, it says right there: if you answer “Yes” to any one or more questions, you may be refused admission. Not: you will be refused. We think the bark of the heavyset popcorn eaters is worse than their bite.’ He has it on good authority that this form is merely part of the extreme adventure he signed them all up for when he bought the tickets. All is well with the world.

The Fun Lovin' Criminal

The Fun Lovin’ Criminal – Fun Lovin’ Criminals

‘It’s a Glock. Not the one on the left. The pink one, on the right. The left one is the fake. You can tell by the extraction mechanism, see, it’s in the wrong place.’ The bedraggled looking guy sitting next to us on the W train from South Ferry to midtown sounds pretty convincing. Of course he isn’t talking to me. He is addressing his friend, an equally frazzled looking middle aged man who is nodding slowly in agreement. They’re both terribly pale. The younger guy has that haunted, haunting look in his eyes that either indicates he’s been on the lam for weeks, maybe months, or that he really shouldn’t have taken that last line of speed this morning. Or maybe both. The gummy spit in the corners of his mouth suggests he’s been up for a while – I’m thinking 36 hours at least.

The men are discussing an ad on the train for New York City gun control. Gun control (or lack thereof) is a pretty big thing in the US. The right for citizens to carry around a weapon designed to kill is more constitutional than the right for any citizen to marry the person they love. Any idiot can buy guns and bullets at Wal-Mart. Same sex sweethearts can get married in exactly 6 out of the 50 states that unite America. Gun control laws vary by state – much like same-sex marriage laws. For example, there are few gun stores in New York; there are plenty of gun stores (preferably right next to liquor stores) in Florida. Of course, I would be surprised if there is a single state in the USA that actually denies individuals their constitutional right to carry a gun in some form or other (both Chicago and Washington, D.C. have tried to ban handgun possession altogether, but those decisions are under attack for violating the Second Amendment) – much unlike same-sex marriages. Today, you can only marry your same-sex partner in Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts and – since March 2010 – Washington. All other 44 US states deny their citizens that civil right – including New York.

In 2006, 30,892 people died a gun-related death in the States – that means 10.36 of every 100,000 citizens (un)intentionally died by the bullet in that year.
Let’s assume for a moment that gays and lesbians live equally spread throughout the country (which I am sure they don’t); that would mean in the same year 10.36 of every 100,000 citizens died in a shooting incident, 88,000 out of every 100,000 same-sex citizens could not get married (in 2006, gays and lesbians could not yet get married in Washington, but they could still get married in California. Thanks, Austrian Oak, for setting them straight).

Still, better to have our citizens be single than dead, New York State must have figured. And after all, the LGBT lobby is more colorful than it is powerful – it’s just not easy trying to win a battle with kindness, common sense and civil rights on your side. Either way, New York put its money on gun control rather than same-sex marriage. Problem is, now they have to face the lobby that stands to protect the freedom and right to carry a gun, the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA might not be as colorful as the gay and lesbian rights lobby, it is considerably more powerful – remember, these guys are all packing.

Noticeably, the former president of the NRA was Charlton Heston. Charlton Heston, the man who was continuously prancing around all hot, sweaty and shirtless in front of men in skirts in Ben Hur. The man who fell in love with a monkey in Planet of The Apes – again, running around mostly shirtless, this time in front of hairy men in leather numbers. That Charlton Heston. Not only did he have what media call a ‘turbulent gay history’ off-screen; he was a vehement advocate for civil rights in his day. And above all that, the man apparently also knew how to pull a trigger. He’s the man who told gun-control advocates, You will have my gun when you can pry it ‘from my cold, dead hands.’ How could the gay and lesbian rights lobby have let him get away? He would have turned that shit right around for them. I can see the combined NRA/GLBT slogans now: We Have A Right To Carry and Marry; Bullets Don’t Discriminate, Why Should We?; Let’s All Shoot Till Death Do Us Part! Or something like that.
But alas, Charlton Heston is cold and dead, and here we are, looking at a gun control ad on a Manhattan train.

The poster in the car depicts two guns – one real and one fake. The ad states that in New York it is illegal to paint a real gun to look like a toy, and it’s illegal to sell a toy gun that looks real. The gimmick is that the gun you think is real (a black, mean looking one) is actually not. The gun that looks like the toy is the real gun. And apparently, the real gun is a Glock.
It’s hard not to overhear the guys talk. For one, the car is empty but for seven people: the two of them, a middle aged man in a mohair suit, two handsome twenty-somethings and my friend Ilse and I. On top of that, the guys are really loud. They seem very excited to finally get a chance to share their experiences with the wonderful world of handguns with a bunch of commuting squares.

‘Man, it’s a pretty bad faker, too,’ the guy continues. ‘See that, it doesn’t even have a hammer cock.’ He tugs at his friend’s sleeve and points a trembling finger at the poster. The American flag embroidered on the friend’s sleeve wrinkles for a second, then jumps back into shape when the guy lets go.
- ‘Yeah,’ the sleeved friend says. He’s not much of a talker. He seems to be more of a silent nodder. Before he dropped out, his high school peers probably voted him something like ‘Most likely to punch people in the throat without warning.’ The strong, silent, violent type.
In fact, both guys look like they would shoot Charlton Heston in the face without hesitation if they thought he was gay – or just because. Not only do they look like they carry guns, they look like the only thing they have ever registered is 101 ways to file off a serial number.

- ‘Which one is real? Not the one you think,’ the guy parrots the ad’s slogan. ‘Stupid ad. It’s totally obvious which one is real. It’s the Glock. The one the right, see? That’s the real one. They painted it pink, see, so that it looks like a toy gun, but it’s really the real gun.’ The guy’s clenched jaw twitches. He’s jabbing his finger in the direction of the pink gun.
- ‘Yeah,’ says the sleeve.
- ‘Look, see, you see how it’s all square?’ The guy can’t sit still any longer. He leaps up to the ad and starts outlining the shape of the pink gun with his trembling finger. ‘That’s your typical Glock shape right there. See the ribs here? There’s just no other gun that looks like a Glock.’
- ‘Yeah, I know what a Glock looks like,’ says the friend, suddenly lively. ‘It’s the gun that cops use. I know what that looks like.’

Everybody in the car is silent for a second. Then the two guys start laughing like that was the best joke in the world. The sleeve quickly glances around the car to make sure everybody heard that one. They stare down the barrels of cop guns every day of the week. And laugh in the face of them. They are so badass. Are we getting all this? We are.

I’m thinking, Damn, did these guys have actual New York City policemen pull their guns on them, and live? That’s pretty awe commanding, considering how trigger happy the NYPD is. If they’re not shooting their own, they are happy to empty their Glocks on mental patients armed with skillets.
Being cornered by New York’s finest and live to tell the tale means one of three things: you are really dead; it really didn’t happen; or you are really, ridiculously badass. I glance at the guys. It’s hard to tell what category they are.

The two handsomes are exchanging looks that say, Next stop, we’re getting the hell outta here. Handsome #1 grabs Handsome #2 by the hand. They’re ready to flee. The middle aged suit tries to catch our eyes with a reassuring look – Don’t worry, everything will be alright, just stay calm. He’s ready to fight. Meanwhile, the guys get back to business.

- ‘The fake one’s a Beretta. See the way the barrel comes out a bit and it has this little nubby bit on the bottom?’ the guy lectures on.
- ‘Yeah.’
- ‘But it’s way too detailed. That’s how you can see it’s a plastic replica and not the real thing. The Glock on the other hand is already made of plastic. So it looks fake. But it isn’t.’
- ‘Yeah, I know.’

The guy continues to point out characteristics of the guns. He suddenly reminds me of my old high school geography teacher, who would trace and talk just like that, only not about guns but about economic and cultural borderlines across a map of the world he pulled from the classroom ceiling. The only thing this guys needs is a ruler.

By now we have all exchanged glances in the car. I realize that both Ilse and I are actually sitting up straight; we paying attention like we’re back in class. If there’s information to be had, we automatically tune in – badass or not. Besides, it’s good to know a little bit about guns when you live in a big city. You never know when you might need it to tell the hit man from the blank. Bring on the knowledge! The two handsomes and the suit have also recognized the educator inside the clenched jaw. And just like that, the mood in the car changes completely.

The guy notices the change. He realizes that, in order to put fear back in our model citizen hearts, he needs to step up his game. He can’t have us think he’s all teach and no do. Think!, we see him think. Think!
- ‘Yeah, and, see that little trigger safety next to the trigger? That really slows you down. You have to push that first or else you can’t pull the trigger. Man, I hate that shit.’

Everybody in the car is silent for a second. And then the five of us burst out laughing. Like that would have ever stopped Charlton Heston.