In case you did not notice, the USAmerican economy is in the toilet. You know, with the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and subsequent housing market collapse and the ripple (tsunami?) effect on mortgage backed Wall Street investments. Petrol prices are at an all time high, the dollar is trading at near all time lows, and the central bank is not sure if it is coming or going (the Bear Stearns bail-out looks like socialism for the wealthy to this naïve economist). Really though, is it any surprise? I mean, the incumbent president of the country couldn’t even manage a major league baseball team and yet, YOU elected him to lead the world’s most powerful (at the time) economy. TWICE!!?!!? Okay, I will give the benefit of the doubt and say once, anyone remember Florida 2000? Anyhow, enough G-Dub-Ya bashing-the poor guy is just trying to do the best he can with his limited intellectual facilities (too much booze and cocaine as a young adult). The president has however, determined to do something about the faltering economy. Stimulus! And, the real question is, how are you going to spend YOUR economic stimulus?
I know how I am going to spend mine ‘cause, despite the fact I will not get it until mid-June, I already spent it! You see, I recently had an opportunity to spend a weekend in Paris (France, not Texas) visiting “mon ami”. Yes, I know, the irony of spending my tax stimulus in another country and no, I did not buy any “freedom fries” whilst in France. Of course I had to get there and so I had to spend half my stimulus flying standby on a “buddy pass” from my sister-in-law. Jennifer, a sweet, kind, gentle woman, mother of my niece Cassidy, is unfortunate enough to work for USAirways-a disaster of an airline if there ever was one-but I was able to fly SFO to Paris (CDG) via Philly for a little over 300 duckets, round trip! That’s great! Flying USAirways, not so great, but that is a subject for a different blog altogether.
So, yes, I flew to Paris for the weekend. Eifel Tower, Louvre, catacombs, the Arch D’ Triumph, all that good sh!t (none of which I visited-of course!). Julien, a friend of mine from Berkeley via Paris, has a place conveniently located in the 15th across the street from his high school and a 10 minute walk from his childhood home. He put me up for the weekend and provided a little walking tour of the city taboot on the Saturday before we attended an All Pinks (Paris’ rugby club team wears hot pink uniforms) match that evening. We, Julien and I also enjoyed quite a few beers from the bodega and on Friday night took in a show of imported culture-Galactic with special guests Boots Riley and Chali 2Na. The show was fantastic. I still regret missing them when they were in SF in October. I just couldn’t make it to the Fillmore after Cal’s crushing defeat by the beavs of OSU but, I digress. I also spent a day at Musee D’Orsay and cruising the Latin Quarter. All good stuff but still not what this is all about.
I want to address a pet peeve of mine. Before departing SFO I noticed a mother and two children waiting for our flight to Philly. Now, there was nothing grotesque or abnormal about their appearance. No, what caught my eye, my ear really, was that the youngest child-a boy-had a hacking cough that he did little to suppress. He coughed and hacked every 5 minutes or so and sitting in the terminal I hoped and prayed that the little incubator of all things nasty would not be seated in my vicinity. As luck would have it, the little biological terrorist-I know, I know, I should be careful how I label peeps in this brave new world, but that is what he was, a cute little terrorist with an arsenal of germs and, unlike So-Damn-Insane Hussein (“hey, you are just fanning the flames of hatred”) , the capability to delivery the WMDs. Indeed the child’s cough was the ideal delivery method for the germs he carried. The germs evolved for this dispersion method, damn it! Anyway, the little terrorist was not seated anywhere near me, for the flight to Philly. However, after several hours in the Philly airport, can you say, “delay”? You better learn if you intend to fly USAirways, I boarded my flight to Paris and who should sit behind me? The little terrorist and his terrorist sister. I spent the next 6 hours in a tube of re-circulated air being bombarded with germs. “BOMBARMENT!” (2 Simpson’s references.) What the fuck? Why do people insist on flying when they or their children are sick? It should be illegal. They should be treated like the biological terrorists they are. They should be removed before take off or not allowed to check in to begin with. Maybe they should be stopped at security, lord knows we stand in line at security long enough for the TSA to identify deliriously ill passengers (who am I kidding? The TSA can barely catch people with handguns). Whatever it takes, these people should NOT be allowed to fly. It is just a matter of time before the REAL terrorists figure this out and start to attack. Why hijack a plane when you can do more damage, perhaps cause an epidemic just by sitting on a long flight? The new terrorist could well be that gentleman with a slightly TB-like cough at the back of the plane. A new kind of martyr in a new kind of war. You may think I am crazy, and, you are probably right but I have spent two weeks coughing up green chunks of germs. My sinuses were so congested on the flight home my ears didn’t pop for 5 days! God damned terrorism I tell you. Terrorism. See pictures of Tyler in Paris in the photo gallery.