And by "no prizes," I don't mean No-Prizes like Stan Lee used to give out in Marvel Comics. I mean there are no prizes. But write me if you can identify the individual who painted the above painting. I'll run the names of the first ten people who get it right.
My pal Joe Brancatelli, who knows more about air travel than any man, woman or child alive, writes in answer to my two queries…
So the reason why airlines no longer check luggage tags at most airports is that they are cheap and the number of luggage thefts is actually pretty low. It's cheaper to pay off on the rare losses than staff carousels.
And why is pizza so bad at airports? Because most places only have chain joints in the first place, chain joints make crappy pizza at the best of time and limited space at airports mean no on-premises dough (it's shipped in, often frozen) and no ovens with sufficient heat and size to make a good pizza. Now that I think of it, it's the ground-based equivalent of why coffee is so bad on airplanes. The high altitudes make it harder to get water hot enough to make a decent cup and most airlines use awful blends of coffee because it's cheap…
I buy the first explanation but still want to know what changed. Did the airlines just all figure this out one day? It's not like they suddenly got cheap. Back when all those employees were diligently making you show your baggage claim check, did the airlines not know that it would be cheaper to just pay off the losses? And I'm still curious as to what percent of people taking others' luggage is deliberate theft and what part is "Gee, that looked just like my bag!"
Stealing luggage at the airport always struck me as a pretty stupid crime — a lot of risk for little potential gain. I can't think of anything that's ever been in one of my suitcases that was worth even a 1% chance of doing hard time. (That, by the way, is how I feel when people get hysterical and scream "Vote Fraud!" because it's technically possible sometimes to go to a strange polling place, get someone else's ballot and vote. There are folks out there who loathe Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. How many in this country would risk prison to change one vote in one precinct in one state? They'd stand less chance of being caught and would impact the vote more if they robbed liquor stores and gave the money to a PAC.)
Getting back to the airport: I'm not sure I buy Joe's explanation about airport pizza. I've been to great pizzerias that had just as little operating space as the places at the airport. Vito's, the best place I've found to get pizza in L.A., operates out of the crate in which their mozzarella is delivered. Still, they seem to be able to make fresh dough and they seem to be able to bring in an oven that gets hot enough. Then again, Joe does know airports and he is Italian…
In his e-mail, he chides me for eating airport pizza at all, noting I could have consulted this guide he compiled on good food in airports or its sequel. The answer is simple: No time. In Minneapolis, for example, I had less than a half-hour between one flight's arrival and the departure of the next.
I would have loved to go to Ike's, the Minneapolis Airport eatery that Joe recommends. I dined there years ago and it was excellent — an airport restaurant I would go to if it were outside an airport. But I was in the wrong concourse and didn't have 90 minutes. I did have plenty of time at Indianapolis Airport but Joe's guides do not recommend a great restaurant there. Looking over the list of places to dine at IND, I assume it's because there isn't one.
This is my way of saying that I'm sure Joe's recommendations are sound. Listen to this man and read his latest article, which is all about why United Airlines is the "Worst. Airline. Ever. Again." And you know it's just gotta be awful if someone says that with a period after each word.
Number two hundred and twenty-nine in a series…
Well, it's not definitive research but this list of the longest-serving soap opera actors shows a couple of folks who worked into their nineties but no one who got an Emmy nomination at that age. So until someone proves me wrong, I'm taking the position that June Foray is the oldest Emmy nominee ever in the performer, non-honorary category. She may even be the oldest in any category but someone else will have to figure that out.
So someone needs to research this. It says over on Wikipedia, which as we all know is never wrong about anything…
[Betty] White also holds the record for the oldest recipient of a competitive, non-honorary performing Emmy, winning in 2010 at the age of 88 – as well as holding the record for the oldest nominee, nominated in 2011 at the age of 89.
They may be talking there just about primetime Emmy Awards…but June Foray, who was nominated this morning for a Daytime Emmy, is 94. Actually, to get technical, she's more than 94 and a half. Did she just become the oldest-ever Emmy nominee, beating the previous holder of that honor by five years?
Performing Emmys in daytime do not usually go to older people since they're mostly for game shows and soap operas. Bob Barker was 83 when he got his 19th and final Emmy but he was the exception. There certainly has never been a game show host who worked into his nineties and I doubt there's been a soap opera actor or actress.
Like I said, someone needs to research this. And we may need to point this out to the press.
You may have seen this but just in case you haven't, here's a profanity-laced montage of insults uttered in major motion pictures. You hockey puck.
William Saletan on how and why Barack Obama got around to endorsing Same-Sex Wedlock. There's more to it than just the polls but not much. And no, I don't think our president had a revelation about the injustice of not allowing gays to marry. If anything, it was a revelation that it wouldn't hurt and might well help his election chances.
You know, reading the debate online, I'm always struck about how opponents of this kind of thing keep using the term "defend marriage." They made up an imaginary war on marriage, deciding letting gays do it would destroy it for everyone, and they don't seem to want to engage the real point its proponents are making, which is that it doesn't threaten marriage in any way.
But the thing is that marriage is kinda losing its importance in society. More and more heterosexual couples are opting to live together without the benefit of legal marriage. More and more children are being born to couples who have not officially tied the knot. There's hard, inarguable data that this is happening, whereas the notion that Gay Marriage harms marriage in general is at best an unproven, hard-to-articulate theory. The divorce rate is also on a slow, steady rise as it has been for decades now.
So if someone is worried that marriage is "threatened," aren't they ignoring the real threat? Shouldn't they be working to ban divorces and co-habitation instead of that small group of folks who are fighting to get married? Or is there some theory out there I don't know about that says Gay Marriage is the reason Straight Marriages are declining? Come to think of it, I'll bet there is…
Shelly Goldstein just reminded me the Democrats are having this year's convention in North Carolina. It would be great if the party would say, "In light of the Neanderthal, intolerant vote against the rights of so many human beings, we're going elsewhere." But it won't.
Congratulations to the First Lady of Cartoon Voices, June Foray. This morning, she received her first-ever Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program. It's for her role as Mrs. Cauldron on The Garfield Show.
In case anyone's wondering what you have to do to get nominated for an Emmy, it's simple: Just be the absolute best at what you do for around seventy years.
Someone reading this can explain this to me. If it isn't you, it'll be Joe Brancatelli…
Years ago when I flew into most airports, I'd pick up my suitcase at Baggage Claim and then there'd be a guard or some sort of airport employee there who'd be checking tags. I would have to show a baggage claim check to get out of there with my luggage.
I don't think I've been asked for that in over ten years at any airport. Now, I just pick up what I claim is my bag and I leave with it and no one cares.
So…what's changed? I can only think of the following options…
The last time my suitcase got lost (lost, not stolen) I asked a fellow who was working in the finding-your-baggage department at Southwest Airlines and he didn't know for sure. He just shrugged and speculated, "I guess they figure if someone wants to steal your suitcase badly enough, they're going to do it," which didn't strike me as much of an answer.
I'm also curious as to which is the greater problem: Dishonest people intentionally walking off with your suitcase or honest people who take your bag thinking it's theirs. I always had the feeling the tag-checkers were stopping more of the latter than the former. So have folks become better at not taking the wrong piece of Samsonite? Or more honest or what?
Number two hundred and twenty-eight in a series…
Here's an article I found interesting. One of the many reasons American Airlines is in financial trouble — above and beyond the fact that it's become a pretty bad airline — is that they sold these "lifetime" passes to a lot of people. Travellers paid a few hundred thousand for "fly anywhere whenever you want" privileges, then took trips that priced per flight would have cost millions.
Not covered in the piece is a question I have: Did these passholders ever have to fly on some other airline? American doesn't fly to every city. Did the lifetime passengers ever have to go out and buy tickets on some other carrier? Or did they just decide to never travel to places not reachable on American? It would have felt weird after flying for "free" (or what felt like free) on American and being treated like royalty there to have to pay and get in line like all the peons on Southwest.
My trip last week put me in four different airports in four days. I ate nothing at my home airport but at each of the others, I had a slice of pizza. I have no idea why I did this because airport pizza is always terrible. How…terrible…is…it? The following is not a joke: The best pizza I ever had at an airport was Pizza Hut.
At Memphis Airport, I had but a few moments to grab a bite of something before boarding the second leg of my flight to Indianapolis. A place called Vito's Italian Deli was near Gate A7 which I'd be going through in a matter of minutes so I gave it a try. I was perhaps attracted to the name. The best pizza I've had in Los Angeles is at a place called Vito's (obviously no relation) over on La Cienega. I like it so much I named the Italian chef on The Garfield Show Vito. Anyway, the Vito in Memphis is undeserving of the name. Even Garfield wouldn't eat his pie.
I had some time to kill at Indianapolis Airport for the trip home but in the area where I set up my laptop to work until boarding time, there were three eating options: A McDonald's, a Chinese place and a pizzeria called Giorgio's. I wasn't in a Mickey D's mood and the food in the steam table at the Chinese stand looked like it had been there since my previous trip to Indianapolis in 2010. The pizza at Giorgio's looked good but tasted like matzo covered in catsup and Cheez Wiz. Maybe for Passover…
On the way back to L.A., I had to change planes in Minneapolis without much time to eat and board. Near the gate on Concourse G was Taste of Tagliare, which looked like Sbarro Done Right. It turned out to be Sbarro Done Same. I ate about a third of a slice before it went into the trash. Awful, awful pizza.
So here's what I don't understand: Why? Why is airport pizza so far below the standard we'd expect from a pizzeria not in an airport? Thousands of pizzerias across the nation master the skill of making good pizza. Why do none of them set up the same assembly line at an airport? Or if they do, why do they serve a product they would never serve outside the airport? I understand being able to stay in business with rotten pizza when your potential customers only have the option of you or Burger King. I don't understand not trying for something better than being the least bad alternative.
Yesterday, I linked to Matt Taibbi writing about how the current presidential election was boring and in many ways didn't matter. Now, I link to Ed Kilgore with the rebuttal. I'm more on Kilgore's side.