Ah the airport where modern folk heroes are made. The airport where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone whos ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube - where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a flotation device - has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever blow the door explode the chute grab a beer slide to the tarmac and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French garrison in Brazzaville has a stroll on the tarmac thrilled so many.
Who cares that the crazed steward got arrested pleaded guilty to sundry charges and probably was a rude unpleasant SOB to begin with? Bonnie and Clyde were psychopaths yet what child of the 60s did not fall in love with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty?
And now three months later the newest airport hero arrives. His genius was not innovation in getting out but deconstructing the entire process of getting in. John Tyner cleverly armed with an iPhone to give YouTube immortality to the encounter took exception to the TSA guard about to give him the benefit of Homeland Securitys newest brainstorm - the upgraded full-palm up the groin all-body pat-down. In a stroke the young man ascended to myth or at least the next edition of Bartletts warning the agent not to touch my junk.
Not quite the 18th-century elegance of Dont Tread on Me but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch.
Dont touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man the Tea Party patriot the late-life libertarian the midterm election voter. Dont touch my junk Obamacare - get out of my doctors examining room Im wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Dont touch my junk Google - Street View is cool but get off my street. Dont touch my junk you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me and do you really think Im a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?
In Up in the Air that ironic take on the cramped freneticism of airport life George Clooney explains why he always follows Asians in the security line:
They pack light travel efficiently and they got a thing for slip-on shoes God love em.
Thats racist!
Im like my mother. I stereotype. Its faster.
That riff is a crowd-pleaser because everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; 3-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives - when everyone everyone knows that none of these people is a threat to anyone.
The ultimate idiocy is the full-body screening of the pilot. The pilot doesnt need a bomb or box cutter to bring down a plane. All he has to do is drive it into the water like the EgyptAir pilot who crashed his plane off Nantucket while intoning I rely on God killing all on board.
But we must not bring that up. We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to ensure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety - 95 percent of these inspections searches shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling - when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow concrete uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.
The junk mans revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? Okay. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population.
But now you insist on a full-body scan a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively the full-body pat-down which as the junk man correctly noted would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else?
This time you have gone too far Big Bro. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes remove my belt waste my time and try my patience. But dont touch my junk.
Ah the airport where modern folk heroes are made. The airport where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone whos ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube - where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a flotation device - has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever blow the door explode the chute grab a beer slide to the tarmac and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French garrison in Brazzaville has a stroll on the tarmac thrilled so many.
Who cares that the crazed steward got arrested pleaded guilty to sundry charges and probably was a rude unpleasant SOB to begin with? Bonnie and Clyde were psychopaths yet what child of the 60s did not fall in love with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty?
And now three months later the newest airport hero arrives. His genius was not innovation in getting out but deconstructing the entire process of getting in. John Tyner cleverly armed with an iPhone to give YouTube immortality to the encounter took exception to the TSA guard about to give him the benefit of Homeland Securitys newest brainstorm - the upgraded full-palm up the groin all-body pat-down. In a stroke the young man ascended to myth or at least the next edition of Bartletts warning the agent not to touch my junk.
Not quite the 18th-century elegance of Dont Tread on Me but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch.
Dont touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man the Tea Party patriot the late-life libertarian the midterm election voter. Dont touch my junk Obamacare - get out of my doctors examining room Im wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Dont touch my junk Google - Street View is cool but get off my street. Dont touch my junk you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me and do you really think Im a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?
In Up in the Air that ironic take on the cramped freneticism of airport life George Clooney explains why he always follows Asians in the security line:
They pack light travel efficiently and they got a thing for slip-on shoes God love em.
Thats racist!
Im like my mother. I stereotype. Its faster.
That riff is a crowd-pleaser because everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; 3-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives - when everyone everyone knows that none of these people is a threat to anyone.
The ultimate idiocy is the full-body screening of the pilot. The pilot doesnt need a bomb or box cutter to bring down a plane. All he has to do is drive it into the water like the EgyptAir pilot who crashed his plane off Nantucket while intoning I rely on God killing all on board.
But we must not bring that up. We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to ensure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety - 95 percent of these inspections searches shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling - when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow concrete uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.
The junk mans revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? Okay. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population.
But now you insist on a full-body scan a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively the full-body pat-down which as the junk man correctly noted would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else?
This time you have gone too far Big Bro. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes remove my belt waste my time and try my patience. But dont touch my junk.
