Brighter Flames Arrayed

Spent the last three weeks sick or traveling and not updating. Here’s what I wrote today but did not post until I got to Albany, the airport of which has free Wifi.

In Her Majesty’s Service. The TSA agent in Seattle informed me that he liked Hong Kong better when it was a colony of the Crown. I agreed with him partially because I’m sure that a mutual hatred of Red China would assure me speedy passage into the inner sanctum of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The Importance of Urinating Correctly. Somehow it seems that men just can’t pee correctly in airports. So, perhaps you’re in a hurry and need to unload quickly; that is what urinals are for. Many folks without penises invest metric tons of money, time and effort in order to use urinals. You were born with the right biological adaptations for urinal use; take advantage of it. As I say to some of my teenage students, the penis has many functions, of which urination is the simplest; something like a level 1 function, if you will. If you can’t even master the simplest of penis functionality maybe it’s best we don’t let you use the more advanced ones.

We’ll Sell Them To You Later. Airlines don’t offer anything free anymore. No free bag checking, no free not-very comfy blankets, no free food, no free booze. However they take cash and credit for all those things. They even sell extra leg room and the “privilege” of boarding three minutes before everyone else. Maybe they’ll start selling horse armor next. There is still one free drink; sometimes maybe two. I actually quite like this for short flights because I’d rather stuff myself with cheap breakfast or decent food from the terminal food court before and between flights. The airlines think the exact same thing as well because they pack only about one meal per twenty people.

Worse Than North Dakota. The hotel I stayed at in Vancouver (downtown Howard Johnson) was possibly the worst hotel I’ve even been in. This includes all the sleazy motels visited when visiting long distance girlfriends while I was a poor undergrad and all the random cheap motels I’ve been to last year while driving across the country. Not only were residues of previous guests on the pillows, I was able to hear the music from the nightclub attached to the first floor lobby until 1AM—4AM according to my body. Keep in mind that I have hearing problems and the room was on the sixth floor. Somehow the Dakota hotel with the only casino and bar in the county (and the damn thing was open until 3AM) less than 50 meters from my room was quieter.

Cellos Are TSA Regulated. I got two seats to myself on a flight because—according to her traveling companions seated behind me she is stuck in Albany with two cellos. Details were scarce, but I will now think twice before traveling with two cellos.

Classism is Well and Alive. I have just been upgraded to Economy Plus class because the flight is full. Back in the early 2000s there were first, business and economy classes. Now there seems to be first class, business class, business preferred class, premier class, envoy class, economy class, economy plus class, economy with extra legroom class, and whatever else airlines have thought of. I propose that we instate some “classic” classes like honors class (the quiet, well-behaved folks who get to be in the middle of the plane), the working class (free fare for riding in the last row and fetching people soda), the middle class (2.2 children fly for free!), the featherweight class (food is not even mentioned and extra carry-ons allowed), the noble class (if the plane gets too heavy the others can vote to have their heads cut off) and the have-nots (no entertainment, no blackberries, no cell phones, nothing except the SkyMall catalogue, and they can’t buy anything from it, not that anyone with a sensible economic sense would).

Not That Northwest Passage. Though I was going Northwest my iPod refused to play Northwest Passage for me because I was going to the American Northwest and not the Canadian/Metaphorical Northwest that Stan Rogers imagined.

Wing :: Mar.27.2009 :: Posts :: 2 Comments »

In Taiwan, there is a clothing store named Nigger King. This is actually from a two-year old article from The Real Taiwan and recently resurfaced on Reddit. People mostly take two camps on the issue: offended or amused.

But if you think about it, the people who opened the store (and the folks who shop there) probably have no idea what the word nigger “really” means; I wouldn’t be surprised if none of them knew that Americans once kept negro slaves and that it took over a hundred years before black folks were given remotely the same rights as white folks in America. They know that racism exists but I doubt any of them had actually had the chance to experience it personally.

What they do know is that black culture is a major part of the American culture export and they like it enough to spend money, say, by shopping at Nigger King, to be closer to said culture.

These folks probably have never heard the word nigger outside of modern rap and hip hop music or movies about “gangstas”. When they hear the word nigger, they aren’t thinking about plantation overseers whipping black slaves or white men in fancy hats spitting at a black man who got too close. They are seeing strong, tall black men wearing baggy pants and gold chains while fearlessly strolling down dangerous Harlem streets to a soundtrack of gangster rap. Or maybe it’s a black basketball player leaping over others and scoring points in Madison Square Garden while tons of beautiful women cheer at him. Because they don’t know the racist use of the word and only how it’s used in modern black American culture a nigger is strong, fast, rich, independent and he gets all the women.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that proper research before naming a clothing store isn’t important—actually, in Chinese cultures it really isn’t beyond legal “oops this name is taken” purposes. But it really delights me to a certain degree to know that, out there, there is a group of people who has nothing but positive associations with a word that’s way too loaded and negative around here.

Wing :: Mar.10.2009 :: Posts :: 2 Comments »