Answer honesty: would you prefer...to be able to fly or to be able to eat any amount of food without getting full or sick?

Thanks to Mark, the head (oooohhh) of the in-flight crew on this evening’s Delta flight 1476, departing Atlanta at 2135 hours and arriving New Orleans’s Louis Armstrong airport at 2210 hours (no chance), I just learned that they’ll be showing short “Delta TV” program on my flight. Mark has some headsets, which I can purchase for a price of $2.00. And – listen to this – if I pull the trigger, I can use them on future Delta flights and with my own personal electronic devices. Mark! You should have mentioned what a deal I was getting sooner! It’s almost like I would own the headphones.

Wait a second, Mark. What’s the catch? Is it illegal to use these headphones on a friend’s personal electronic devices? Is there a punishment for using these hard-to-come-by audio devices on non-Delta flights? Would you seat me behind a fat guy who decides to recline his chair and uses his excess lard to get a little bonus recline, forcing me to balance my computer on my lap like a “V”, hunched over and typing like I have little raptor arms? It’s hard to imagine how miserable that would be…

Mark, you have a lot to learn as a salesman. You had me going. I was reaching for two crumpled Washingtons, and then you slip in the deal-breaker. I can use my headphones at no charge to me. Any implicit restrictions on where I can use my headphones? None. What charity! Sorry, Mark, forget your $2.00 headphones. I’ll enjoy this montage of outdated sitcoms on some non-Delts.

Change of subject: The guy next to me ordered a spicy tomato juice on the rocks. No hesitation. What the heck is spicy tomato juice? This man has the look of a distinguished gentleman, one who knows his way in the world. I thought: does this debonair fellow know something I don’t? And I ordered one myself, side of peanuts. Yuck! I mean, Jesus, yuck! Forget the hard stuff. With each sip of this STJ, I can feel hair growing on my back. Melt, rocks, melt. Help me out!

Small irony: the pack of “Fisher Party Peanuts” (it’s always a party when you cruise on Mark’s seven-four-seven with headphone happy hour) has a coupon on it. “Save fifty cents on any Fisher Snack Nut Item 5oz or larger.” When have you ever run into a pack of Fisher Party Peanuts that wasn’t (a) smaller than 5oz and (b) free on a Delta flight?

Two deep thoughts:
1. If I’m writing in Word without internet access, am I really blogging? Even if I plan to paste the results into my blog?

2. It’s challenging to put together a blog post without Wikipedia, Google Images, and YouTube. Nonetheless, like my main man (group? hard to know without Al Gore’s marvelous creation) J5 said:
“I’m taking it back to the concrete [text].
Original [sentences], real live [ideas].
The playground tactics, rabbit-in-the-hat tricks.
Mumble mumble ah-icks”


That brings me to a reader question. Would you prefer…to be able to fly or to eat any amount of any food without any adverse health effects or feeling sick?

On one hand, a superhuman power. On the other, the properties of my stomach from when I was fifteen. The unknown vs. the known. Tough question. The iron stomach is, quite frankly, awesome. On my fifteen year old stomach’s curriculum vitae, we have

1. Pregame lacrosse meal at Steve’s Pizza in Falmouth, MA. Four dollars, all-you-can-eat, greasy American pizza. The kind with a half inch thick crust and a half inch thick crust of cheese. The kind that, on the first slice, you take a napkin and mop off the grease. The napkin is instantly orange and translucent. You move onto a fistful of napkins and pound away because that’s the only way to bring the temperature lower than the sun’s. Then, you bid adieu to the roof of your mouth, and bite in. After slice 1, you dispense with the grease mopping. What’s the point?

Sans peer pressure or impromptu eating contests, my fifteen year old stomach canned nine slices. Hey, THB’s fifteen year old stomach, what did you wash that down with? Some Sprite? Water? Two chocolate milks.

No one pushed me around in the game. That’s not true. My fifteen year old stomach processed the meal without any noticeable effect on mass or mobility. In fact, at halftime, my fifteen year old stomach refueled with – not oranges – Oatmeal Crème Pies, among the densest materials known to mankind.

2. Easter Brunch at the Flying Bridge Restaurant in Falmouth, MA. A classy performance in a semi-classy venue. You know what Easter is like: white tablecloths, all patrons dressed in their finest pastels, the local sk8er bois waiting tables in white tuxedo dress shirts. Easter brunch is for families (except for the two to three lone wolves at the bar sucking down Bloody Marys), and it’s (again) all-you-can-eat. I’m not proud to admit that my grandparents were on hand for this mauling.

We’d all battled long and hard against the buffet. My fifteen year old stomach had already mowed through a cornucopia of rich food: ham, roast beef, eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, homefries, pasta with pesto cream sauce, and – everyone’s favorite – two Eggs Benedict. The dessert table tensed up, fearing the wrath of my fifteen year old stomach. The normal food tables breathed a deep sigh of relief. And that’s when my fifteen year old stomach switched back into attack mode, inhaling up two more EBs – shining white ovulets, in English muffin boats, adrift in a sea of cheese sauce, with a life preservers fashioned of ham (EBs inspire me to poetry) - to the wide-eyed horror of my grandparents, who had lived an honest god-fearing life in which mere mortals cannot guzzle un-hatched chickens drenched in cheese sauce at such a dizzying pace. Their gaping eyes asked: four? My fifteen year old stomach shrugged and wandered off to find the dessert table.

If Madden had rated my fifteen year old stomach, it would have gotten the following ratings:
Overall: 96
Starting volume: 87
Ability to expand beyond full capacity: 100
Iron-ness: 100
Speed: 98

An overall 100? The Tom Brady of stomachs, yours for keeps? That would be wonderful.

You might have gathered: I’m not in the most jovial of moods about flying right now. Flight, flying, airplanes, airborne, “The Air Up There”, Sugay Ray, “I stay fly-eye-ya-yai-ya-yai-ya-yai-yai”. Not right now (or ever again, in the case of the last one). I mean, on the surface, human flight seems like a dream come true. But let’s dig a little deeper. The cannon of popular culture gives a clear warning: “You got [human flight], you got a responsibility…You don’t just give up. You get out there, [fly around,] and [save tons of] f-ing [people]” (“Billy Madison”, minute 26).

Five for Fighting touches on the stereotyping that accompanies human flight in their formerly Buzzworthy song about Superman: “I’m more than a man, a silly red cape, I’m more than mumble mumble out in the mumble. It’s not easy. To. Be. Me.” When these lyrics entered my fifteen year old ear canals, I knew that these five almost-middle-aged guys (who are in favor of brawls) really understood my angst. I may not have been superman, but it wasn’t (sob) easy (sob) to be me either.

Finally, we have “Hancock”. I didn’t see this. You shouldn’t see this. If ever a terrible film has been released to make some dolla bills even though everyone involved knew it was terrible, this is it. But the previews get the message across: Will/Hancock is cracking under the pressure that comes with being able to fly. I mean, think about all the stuff people are going to ask you to do. You can’t just sit around and stuff your face. Play that Sublime song: “Riots on the streets of Long Beach. Riots on the streets of ”. Everyone would call you. Now you can fly. But you can’t be in twenty cities at the same time. And you can’t diffuse riots. Suddenly, you’re a big disappointment.

In short, I don’t want to have anything in common with Hancock, except potentially the ability to get jiggy wit it if I find myself in a club.

Appendix: Why I hate popular culture oftentimes

Hancock. And Britney’s new song “If You Seek Amy”. Pronounced “F-U-C-K me”. Yup. That’s where we are.

My often-time hatred for popular culture really developed in junior high. When someone says “OMG have you heard so-and-so’s new song? It’s sooooo good” and they act like they are Chris Columbus discovering the new world, I get angry. Maybe it’s because I have never heard this new song. I’m still on the song from last week. I updated my AOL profile favorite quotes to “A little bit of you makes you me a man” too late. Lou What’shisface and “Mambo Number Five” were already on their descent into anonymity. “Country Grammar” was the in vogue. People probably send instant messages behind my back with little laughing (at me) smiley faces. And then asked each other who they like right now. I’ll tell you if you tell me first. No, I’ll say and then you won’t tell me. Yes I will. No you won’t. Where did the last four hours go?

Product review: Seabiscuit audio book. This gets full THB backing. Five Bros or whatever. It was so enthralling that I almost ran out of gas. Seabiscuit was about to race his arch rival War Admiral one-v-one. They were determining who gets the key inside starting position. If Seabiscuit didn’t get it, he would be handicapped as War Admiral has famously fast breaking speed and would secure the inside track. The gas light in my Pontiac G6 rental made a beep when it came on. I was aggravated. What was f-ing with my listening experience? Thank goodness it did. I was forty miles from home and no immediate plans to stop for gas. None whatsoever.

I cried at the end. I was cruising down the Mass Pike in tears. The ending was so glorious, so triumphant. It’s times like these that I’m glad THB masks my real identity.

Second product review: Delta cookies: Four bros out of five. They aren't bad.