by Adam Carolla
Let me explain how crazy this is to those of you not from L.A. We pulled the hobbled car off the freeway on Tampa Boulevard and needed to get back to my house off of Barham Boulevard. This is a fifteen-mile trek running completely parallel to the 101. On the freeway it’d take you twenty minutes with average, a.k.a. shitty, L.A. traffic. But on Ventura with average, a.k.a. shitty L.A. traffic, jaywalkers, and more stoplights than exist in the entire state of Iowa, you’re looking at about an hour.
So I told Casper to stay right behind me, I even pointed out two cars and said, “That is the distance. That is the follow length.” I warned him that with all the lights on that street, if he’s not right on my ass, I would lose him. He said he understood. I got in the damaged car in case the tires went bad again; Casper was in my car. Immediately he got a football-field worth of length between us. I know I usually drive like a madman but I was keeping it cool, and he was just driving like an old lady. I kept looking back in the rearview, leaning out the window, giving him the “go go go” signal, and eventually the “bring it in” signal, closing a gap between my two hands while steering with my knee. I was only going about twenty-seven but I kept leaving him in the dust. So what was already going to be a long frustrating ride down Ventura turned into the Trail of Tears.
But let me take this story and make a broader point, because it covers so many of the things that make me angry about our country and our transportation system. You have a generation that has been so beaten by the way our system treats motorists that they’ve decided to give up on the idea of driving entirely. You’ve got a government so criminally unfocused that there is enough debris in the road to blow two tires in one shot yet has laser accuracy when it comes to ticketing cars in the street-sweeping zones. You’ve got a citizen unwilling to help his fellow citizen. And finally there’s me giving Casper my “keep it tight” lecture and about seventy thousand “bring it in” hand signals to no effect. That’s my life in a nutshell. I constantly tell people the right way to do things and they give me the “got it, boss” and then proceed to ignore me.
And that is why I’m naming MMA legend Chuck Liddell as my Secretary of Transportation. As you’ve read, I’ve got a lot of ideas on how to get our cars, and our country, moving again. I just need an enforcer. Chuck is going to be a very hands-on Secretary of Transportation, personally delivering some ground and pound to all the dickhead drivers and city traffic officials trying to fleece their citizens.
NASA
As budget cutter in chief, I hereby declare NASA gone. I’m going to put all of that money and brainpower toward fixing problems here on Earth. Let’s figure out how to get a car from L.A. to Vegas without stopping for gas first, and then we can focus on a manned mission to Mars. I just don’t really give a shit about space. Space used to be cool and interesting in the sixties. Astronauts used to be guys with buzz cuts named Buzz who shot down MiGs in Korea. But now it’s a lot of short Asian chicks who run a nursery growing sprouts on the International Space Station. If I had the chance to go, and as president I would, I’d skip it. I’ve seen too much IMAX footage of space. I feel like I’ve already been there. I just don’t think I’d care. If I got on Richard Branson’s space plane, I’d instantly start complaining about the fiesta mix on the flight.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m into the technology. The space shuttle is an amazing feat of engineering. It weighs 172,000 pounds—that’s eighty-six tons (or for you brothers, thirty-five Escalades), has a wing span of a mere fifty feet, and manages to enter the atmosphere in South America and glide to a safe landing in the California desert on a strip the size of a starlet’s pube patch.
Though I do think we could do a better job naming the shuttles. The last one was called Atlantis. Why would you name your spacecraft after an underwater city? What does that have to do with flying through space? And the bottom of the ocean is not the image you want to conjure up when thinking of a space vehicle. You should hope that the thing doesn’t end up where its namesake city is.
We recently retired the shuttle. And when we did, we missed an opportunity. First off, it should have been parted out to the American public. They paid for it. But not you, welfare queens. You didn’t put anything in there. But guys like me who paid a shitload in taxes should have been able to go in there and get the ashtray or something.
But the real lost opportunity was when the old shuttle Endeavor was hauled through L.A. to place it on display at the California Science Center. They shut down a bunch of streets and towed it to its new home at the museum. If I had been president then, I would have dictated that instead of taking it straight there, the shuttle should have been taken for a spin down the 405 Freeway, and right up to the Mexican border, for a victory lap. I would have just parked it on the American side of the border at Tijuana and said, “See this? This is what happens when you study. Maybe if you lighten up on the drug running and putting heads in duffel bags, you might get one of these yourself. Drop the machete and pick up a mechanical pencil. Oh, and this is old technology. We’re done with it. We’re mothballing this one. It’s grown tiresome going into space all the time. Have you ever been? It’s awesome.”
4
THE TSA AND THE FAA
As your president, I would order some major adjustments to air travel. My Transportation Safety Administration will speed up security lines and my Federal Aviation Administration will address my problems with pilots and planes.
One of the reasons I’m running for president is because I have lived as a citizen of the city that to me epitomizes all that is wrong with America. Much like the traffic in L.A. motivates me to fix our entire transportation system, let’s not forget the clusterfuck passing itself off as an airport known as LAX. Rated as the most inefficient airport as far as security, and ranked number one for most stolen luggage in the country, LAX is the jewel in the shit crown of Los Angeles transportation. Having to fly in and out of that disaster nearly every weekend would make anyone want to run for president in order to fix our air travel system.
Let’s start with the TSA and airport security.
(And to all you political junkies thinking, “Wouldn’t the Transportation Safety Administration be the purview of the Department of Homeland Security? Shouldn’t this go in that chapter?” I say fuck off. You try writing a book.)
AIRPORT SECURITY
The newest among my many complaints about airport security is that now, when you step into that scanner, not only are you probably getting cancer, there are two footprints to tell you where to stand. But they look like shoe prints from the 1940s. They have a heel and sole mark. It’s the print from the shoe a reporter would have worn during Prohibition along with a hat bearing a tag that said PRESS. Please, TSA, don’t insult me with your old-time wingtip shoe print. I don’t see a lot of guys who look like Fred MacMurray about to get on the flight. Plus you’ve already made me take my shoes off. Why are you taunting me? You’ve painted shoes to imply a utopia where we’re treated like adults and get to keep our shoes on. Every time I’m standing in that tube I find myself angry. “Man, look at that. That fake guy got to keep his shoes.” So as president, I’m sending someone from my TSA out with a can of Krylon to paint over every single one of these shoe prints.
If the TSA hadn’t already ordered the removal of the “backscatter” type of scanner, I would have. Not only because it sounds like porn terminology (“We’ll do some DP and finish with a backscatter”) but also because it raises privacy concerns. These were the type of scans that made everyone look like naked ghosts. Manning that station is the one TSA gig that when the manager comes up to you and says, “It’s time to take a break,” you’d be like “No, I’m good, boss. The Pepperdine women’s volleyball team is on their way to Denver. I’ve got a Lunchable. I’ll work through.” As much as I don’t want the TSA agent to judge my junk, I can’t help but wonder how much money it must have cost multiplied by the number of airports in this country taking these out must of have cost. These aren’t slot machines.
They weren’t paying for themselves. I hope we had the brains to sell them to countries that respect their citizens even less than we do.
Speaking of respect, in a Carolla administration the TSA would treat the citizens with a fuckload more of it. I might just be extra-jaded because my home airport is LAX—ground zero for rude, incoherent, condescending, light-in-the-IQ-department screeners. I travel the country extensively and have had emotional whiplash from the screeners in other airports. I was going through Logan in Boston and was cheerily greeted with a joke and some talk about the Pats by three different people named Sully. At LAX, on the way out for that trip, when I asked the heavyset woman of color—I know, shocking—where the first-class line was, she grunted at me. Not “Right over there, sir,” not even “Over there,” not even “There.” It was a guttural “Unnghgh.” I couldn’t even get a second syllable out of the cunt with the grunt (my favorite Dr. Seuss book, by the way). I’m in the middle of a maze of ropes, like a cattle auction, and she grunts at me like I’m the architect of the goddamn airport and should know exactly where I’m going. I have a first-class ticket. I’m not wearing a ski mask. How about a little fucking respect? I asked my traveling companion, Mike August, what the fuck was going on. I said, “Who’s in charge? Don’t they have supervisors?” He replied, “Yeah, the chick who was grunting in that position eight months ago.” Sad but true.
When they’re not being rude they’re being redundant and condescending. You probably already know I’m obsessed with the extra verbiage that cops and other authority figures throw out. This goes for the supersingsongy airport security guy too. I’m okay with the part where they tell you to take your computer out and empty your pockets. But they don’t just say, “Empty your pockets.” Oh no. They work in security so they have to say it ninety-seven different ways. “Please empty your pockets. That means everything out of your pockets. All items must be removed from your pockets.” As if there is some confusion. And I don’t need the list of all the potential items that I could have in my pockets. “That includes change, ChapStick, sunglasses, hard candy, old-timey pocket watches, pocket fisherman, Hot Pockets . . .” Are we going to break it down into specific coins too? “All nickels, all dimes, all quarters. If you have any of the Sacagawea dollars you need to remove those as well and place them in the tray.” Then it continues. “That means both your front and back pockets, completely emptied of all items.” As a kid, did you think when you grew up you’d be spoken to as if you were still in preschool? When did it become okay to treat adults this way? And what do these guys do when they get home? “Honey, I’m going to need you to pass me the salt. Not the pepper. The salt in that glass shaker in front of you. Not paprika from the spice cabinet, the white granular substance that is in front of you currently on the dinner table . . .” I’m just saying, I’m not an idiot or a four-year-old. You had me at “empty your pockets.”
If I was a terrorist I would show up at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas, pull up a chair, and just watch the endless maze of dejected travelers waiting in line, removing their belts, their shoes, and their dignity. I would sit there with a satisfied, victorious boner like an arsonist staring at his forest fire thinking, “Look what I’ve done. Look what I’ve created.”
I call out the Vegas airport specifically because it is uniquely horrible. When you factor in the time to get through there and get a cab to your hotel, it’s faster to drive from L.A. to Vegas than it is to fly. At certain times of the year it might be faster to walk. The C Gate at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas is a little slice of Ellis Island right in the middle of Clark County. There should be a plaque that reads, “Bring Us Your Morbidly Obese Degenerate Gamblers and Weekend Strippers Yearning to Be Drunk.” Plus walking through the Vegas airport wearing earbuds is depressing. I know everyone thinks about Vegas as a party and a good time. To me, because I’ve studied a little psychology and know human nature, when I see a guy chain-smoking and feeding nickels into the slot machine and sucking on the oxygen tank behind him, I think, “Buddy, give me a hit off that oxygen because I’m gonna jump off the top of the Luxor. Looking at you, I am fucking depressed.”
I’m also convinced that those hieroglyphics the TSA agents scribble on your boarding pass are either meaningless doodles they use to kill ten seconds to make it seem like they’re doing something, or are secret codes to their buddies later down the line that translate to “Check out the fake tits on the chick behind the guy with the unibrow.”
But as commander and idea man in chief, I’ve come up with a way to make airport security fun and profitable for all Americans. This is an idea I’m in love with. Are you paying attention TV executives? Consider this a pitch. It’s a competition reality show. We’ve all seen the guy who’s late for his flight, just made his way through security, and is rushing to get to the gate and trying to get himself together after taking off the belt, emptying his pockets, taking out the laptop, losing the shoes, removing the hat, and being grunted at by Mo’Nique’s angrier sister. Well, this show is about families competing to see who can get their shit back together while on the move and dodging other passengers. You have to get from the end of security to your gate in the fastest time. Imagine it. Mama’s yelling at the kids to get their knapsack packed up, Grandma loses a shoe on the way. And then when they get to the gate the judges start giving them the once-over, twice. That’s when the scrutineering begins. (And yes that is a word. Like “behymen.”) They’re taking a look at Dad’s belt saying, “You missed a loop.” Then Mom starts yelling at Dad, “This is why we practice, Bill.” It’ll be great. It’s Family Feud meets Wipeout in an airport. I call it—Terminal Velocity.
I now have some directives for the airport itself, once you get past security.
First of all let’s address the jetways. These are the telescoping covered bridges that we all get herded down and then stand in like cattle while we wait to get on the plane. From now on they must have temperature controls. I don’t think that’s too tall an order. I just flew six hundred miles per hour in a vehicle with free Wi-Fi and satellite TV to get to this cigar tube, I don’t think a little temperature control is out of the question. It’s always somehow ten degrees hotter or colder than the ambient temperature outside inside of these things. How the fuck is that possible, and could you possibly have a worse advertisement for your city? You’re welcoming people to your town after they’ve been stuffed on a plane for several hours and their first impression is that they’re either walking into an oven or a freezer?
A connected little side note to all the local cabdrivers who pick me up at the airports when I’m doing out-of-town gigs: You’re not likely to have my ass grace your metropolis again if, when I comment on the extreme temperature, you say, “That’s nothing, you should come back in August when it’s really hot” or “You should have been here in January when it was really cold.” I shit you not, in the same year I went to San Antonio, where I was sweating through my shirt and got the “This isn’t that bad” comment, and to Winnipeg, where the temperature reading on the cab was literally one degree, and was told, “This winter has actually been pretty mild.” At the same time don’t inform me that if only I’d planned to come there three weeks from now, the leaves would have turned and it would be gorgeous. Why are you telling me something that’s not on the menu? You know I can’t enjoy it. I’m not coming back in three weeks. And don’t tell me what I just missed either. I don’t need to know that I was one day late for the Thirty-second Annual Big Titty Blowjob Festival.
Next up, everything on the other side of security should be a 24/7, international-waters, duty-free orgy. I can’t stand when I’m on the road and I’ve gotten up at 4 A.M. to get the first flight out and there is nothing open at the airport. I want a goddamn Bloody Mary. Yes, it’s 7 A.M. here but it’s 10 A.M. where I’m going, so why the fuck not? It’s an international airport. You’ve got people coming from China and Australia and God knows where else and everyone’s body is on a different clock. There should be places
to get breakfast, lunch, or dinner and, of course, booze, at all times. If I could get on my plane, which is a mere thirty feet away, I could get that Bloody Mary. So why not at your bar? It’s a bar, right? And the one time I attempted to break long-standing Carolla tradition and purchase something from the duty-free shop—I think it was a case of cigarettes the size of an accordion—I was shut down because I didn’t have an international ticket.
That said, there are a lot of stores at the airport that we can do without. I was at the Detroit airport recently and noticed a Swarovski crystal store. Who is this for? Most of the people passing through that airport are stretching their budget to pick up something at the Cinnabon. Are there a lot of CEOs doing their Christmas shopping at the Detroit airport? I suspect this is why the city is bankrupt.
I tell you one store the airport does need. I call it the Lazy Dad Store. This is the place where all the tuned-out lazy fathers like me can grab something for their kid on the way home. The store would have different sections with items sporting the name and theme of all major cities. So when you arrive home in Chicago from a trip to Phoenix and you’ve forgotten to pick up something for the kids, before you leave O’Hare you can hop to the Phoenix section of the Lazy Dad Store and get them a pencil case with a cactus and a Road Runner on it.
As far as traveler behavior at the airport goes, when did it become a youth-hostel/hobo flophouse? Whenever there’s a delay we all become cats and the airport is our living room. People started sleeping at the airport. Back in the day a guy would just tip his trucker hat over his eyes and lean back a little. Now the airport is a tent city with people using hoodies for pillows, draped across three chairs or laid out on the floor. I’m not talking about leaned back, I’m talking sprawled out. Shoes off, eyes closed, sweatpants on, boner up. I don’t know if there’s any other public space where you’d be so comfortable letting people watch you sleep. When my wife drags me to Target and I’ve got a half hour to kill, I don’t curl up in the housewares section. Could you imagine doing this at Sears? “Honey, you shop, I’m going to bivouac in the husky section.” I swear I went to the airport bathroom once and saw a guy stretched out on one of those Koala changing tables.