A dime is worth a lot more in Detroit / A dime in California, a twenty dollar fine

In 1964, a British television network began an intriguing documentary experiment. They interviewed a group of 7-year-olds, asking them what they wanted to do in life and what kind of a future they envisioned. Since then, every seven years, director Michael Apted has revisited the subjects for an update on their lives.

I'm back from the midwest.

Every time I visit, I feel like I'm filming an installment of a similar experiment, witnessing firsthand human change over the passage of time. For example, this time around, Tony reminded me of a heroin addict. His behavior was more erratic than I recall from previous sessions together. While sitting around, I counted three times in six hours that he found something to write on and started writing random phrases in Russian like an autistic child.

Enough filler.

I'm back in California and on a deep fried food hiatus. I ate way too much deep fried shit this past week in the midwest: potato wedges, mushrooms, chicken strips, a quesadilla, a chicken breast, fries, chicken nuggets, Canadian perch, spinach mozzarella, curly fries.

In Wicker Park, I saw a store that sold fried twinkies.

Planes
(the first of three travel blogs)

On the way to LAX, I saw a bus stop bench that said "Advertise Jesus." Is that really necessary? Isn't he kind of overexposed as it is? He's the Paris Hilton of religion.

At curbside check at LAX, the black man behind the counter asked where I was flying and I said Detroit.

—I'm sorry. We don't serve Detroit people here.

Whaaa? I thought.

—I'm…I'm not from Detroit. I'm visiting Detroit.

The black man turned to his co-worker and asked —Hey Sully! Do we serve Detroit people here?

—Nawww, replied Sully.

—Look, I have to catch my flight. I told you I'm not from Detroit!

—You a Pistons fan? the black man asked.

[pause]

Fuckin' Lakers fans. The NBA Finals were two months ago. Get over it.

On the flight from Phoenix to Detroit (few airlines fly directly from Los Angeles to Detroit), I had a middle seat. Upon locating my seat row, I saw a black person sitting in the window seat. I couldn't tell if this person was a man or a woman. "It" had short hair and wore earrings, a visor and a tracksuit. I thought "it" was a woman but then a flight attendant referred to "it" as "sir."

Anyway, "it" had its legs spread and its left leg encroached into my seat area. When I sat down, "it" did not move its leg, so for the first half-hour of the flight, my legs were scrunched together in the left 2/3 of my seat.

There are three types of airports: ones that have McDonald's (San Francisco, San Jose, LAX, Denver, Dallas, O'Hare), ones that have Burger Kings (Sea-Tac, McCarran, Sky Harbor, Philadelphia) and ones that just make up their own eateries (Detroit, Midway, Dulles), although to Detroit Metro's credit, I saw a Quizno's in the Smith Terminal this time around.

Portland "International" is an anomaly. It has neither McDonald's, Burger King or quack eateries, but instead Wendy's and Panda Express, which none of the other airports I've been to have.

Few things are worse than an airplane delay. Come to think of it, every time I've flown America West, I've hit a delay, two of which were four hours long. The shit I put up with for cheap plane tickets.

On my way to baggage claim at LAX, I encountered a large crowd of people blocking the entranceway to the baggage claim area. Apparently, police temporarily shut down the terminal because of security concerns. Try as I might, I could not summon Tom Hanks' complacency with being stuck in a airport, particularly after a layover delay at Sky Harbor.