Greetings, armchair travellers. This is Muddy
Karpitz, making a long overdue guest appearance on Dusty Venetian’s blog. I
know more than a few members of our extended circle have, after following my
cranky dispatches during my previous trip to Abba-land, been awaiting similarly
rage-infused observations from me during our current trip to the Big Apple, but
I may have to disappoint you all, because I’m having too good a time with Dusty
in this amazing city to invoke my “angry-dickhead-abroad” persona. But that’s
not to say that this trip hasn’t already produced more than it’s share of
intriguing, funny and flat-out strange moments, some of which I’ll try to
convey here at Dusty’s digital domain, now that we’ve pitched tent at Red’s
Upper East Side pad, and I have an opportunity to marshal my thoughts and
sharpen my (digital) quill.
Where do I begin? Let’s start with the epic
20-hour flight from the Land of Oz to the Home of the Brave. As many of you
know, long-distance flights fill me with as much joy as, say, sticking
push-pins into my forehead, or mucking out the chimpanzee cages in animal
testing laboratories. Which is kind of ironic, given that I am a card-carrying
plane-spotter (i.e. aircraft nerd) who could – and, indeed, did – correctly
identify the line-up of aircraft assembled on the top-deck of the USS Intrepid
for Dusty’s benefit (For which I’m sure she was super grateful. I mean, I think
it’s important that people know that the Israeli-made Kifr jet fighter was
copied from the French Dassault Mirage fighter – Isn’t that right, Dusty?
Dusty? Why are you walking away from me? Dusty?)
Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, flying. Look, I
do appreciate what a marvel of the modern age long-distance jet travel is,
allowing people like me and Dusty to traverse the globe in less than a day. But
that doesn’t mean things don’t get weird at 37,000 feet. Nor does it mean that
I felt any less like a POW being subjected to sensory deprivation torture at
high altitudes. We flew (Dis)United, and
were warned by all and sundry to expect the worst. While I’m willing to wager
that Soviet-era Aeroflot airline travel would be considerably worse,
(Dis)United came perilously close to fulfilling our friends’ warnings.
One of the cabin crew welcomed us aboard by
thanking us for choosing them as their Valentine (We departed Oz on Friday February
14). Hey, sister, we only choose this flight because it was going dirt-cheap on
WebJet, so don’t think this means we’re going on a date anytime soon, okay. As
it was, the female flight attendants looked like they were previously employed
as guards at a women’s detention centre (“He used to give me roses…”). Got a
problem with your in-flight vegan meal? Keep it to yourself, people, unless you
want to get smacked down by one of these perfumed steamrollers.
Someone told us that there was no in-flight
entertainment aboard (Dis)United flights at all. Like, no video screens or
audio/radio channels at all. Good Lord, what were expected to do to occupy
ourselves for 23 hours? Read a book? Talk to one another? Oh, the humanity! As
it turns out, (Dis)United’s fleet of older aircraft did have shared (communal)
video screens that dropped from the ceiling above our seats, which we could
watch if we chose to – but they weren’t the seatback video screens that we’ve
now become accustomed to. Which makes this a “First World” problem – on a par
with choosing to eat (dead) organically fed, free-range chickens over (equally
dead) battery farm hens – than a source of genuine distress (Like having
electrodes pinned to your genitals by corrupt police officials, which qualifies
as a uniquely “Third World” problem).
But that doesn’t diminish the horror of
having to watch Thor: The Dark World
which, even for a former Marvel Comics-geek like myself (who avidly read The Mighty Thor comic book as a kid)
from wanting to puncture my eardrum with a fork to stop listening to this
drivel (As it was, I just chose to watch it without sound, which made it
marginally less awful). Oh, and because (Dis)United screens films and TV shows
on communal screens (which darling kiddies might see during the flight), all
the rude bits are edited out, or otherwise modified. Which meant that Kate
Moss’s tits were clumsily airbrushed out of a photograph seen in the background
of the other in-flight movie, About Time.
That doesn’t even qualify as soft-core porn, you people! Porno denied! Thanks
for nothing, (Dis)United!
Because (Dis)United is an American carrier,
passengers are subject to US federal aviation laws and regulations, such as
congregating around the on-board toilets, which is forbidden – no doubt on the
grounds that would-be Jihadists leave it to the last minute to plot mid-air
mayhem hanging around an airliner’s toilet cubicle while their erstwhile leader
is trying to punch out a turd. That all sounds fine in theory, but it all goes
to hell in a hand-basket once several passengers are simultaneously afflicted
with broiling bowel syndrome, and would willingly trample to death any small
children who stood between them and the on-board dunny. Which is where I often
found myself throughout the course of our 20-hour flight, exchanging wild-eyed
glances with fellow inmates – sorry, I meant to say “passengers” – as we waited
desperately for the cubicle sign to change from “Occupied” to “Vacant”. But I
can assure all those good folk at the Department of Homeland Security that no
plotting took place in these circumstances. We were more concerned with our
near-exploding bowels than with explosive devices.
Now, I’m about to get scatological here, so
those with delicate sensibilities and/or little kiddies should stop reading
this now. (Okay, have all those sooks left the room? Good – let us resume) Perhaps
it was the airline-standard food that did it. Or that our internal organs are
being slowly rearranged in new & interesting ways in the pressurized cabin.
But going to the toilet at 37,000 feet is a strange and terrifying experience.
Not only do you have to fold your limbs like a sheet of origami paper just to
sit on the bowl in such confined quarters, but what comes out the other end
is…well, it just doesn’t look like it does back on terra firma. Nor do the
wafer thin pocket squares they jokingly refer to as toilet paper on these
flights comes anywhere close to carrying out their intended task (Ahem). But
the flushing mechanism is what scares me the most. Push the button and whatever
deposits you’ve made (Again – ahem) are sucked out into the stratosphere with
the force and speed of a Polaris missile. I can’t help but think that our
airborne waste is swiftly turned into an icy projectile as it hurtles towards
Earth in sub-zero temperatures. These now shard-like “Number 2s” could
potentially blind an innocent islander who happens to be looking up at the
night sky from their Pacific Ocean atoll as our flight passes overhead. So, to the people of greater Micronesia, I apologise
for my airborne “gifts” and any atmospheric havoc they may cause. (I mean, it’s
bad enough they have to contend with global warming and rising ocean levels –
they don’t need me dumping sh*t on them, either)
It wasn’t all bad, though. During the LA-NYC
leg of the flight, we sat next to a lovely woman named Liz, who was a sales
representative for a US company, which frequently sent her across the States
and abroad. Turns out she was a native New Yorker, because when we told her we
were flying to the Big Apple, her eyes lit up and she said:
New York is the
dirtiest, smelliest, noisiest and ugliest city in the world. And I know there
are far prettier places on Earth – but there’s no other city in the world quite
like it.
And as Dusty and I were about to
discover - she was right.
