TROUBLE GETTING ON AN AIRPLANE

Rita: While Lolita contemplates faster ways to hitchhike to Bangkok, I’ll go down to the airport to ask a new question. Oh, Susanna, that cello looks like it would be troublesome to get on an airplane. Have you had any trouble getting anything on a plane? SUSANNA PORTE (The Cello Chix): Yes, my mother (she has separation anxiety). *** AUDREY RYAN (Audrey Ryan): I was in Europe this fall on tour and took about six flights and on the last one I got busted for having a small container of cover-up because it was supposedly over 100ml of liquid. They told me it had to “be in a plastic bag” so I had to go back to the place where they check your passport and buy a plastic bag for a couple euro in a vending machine and then wait in the security line again to go through the metal detector and have my cover-up in a plastic bag. Took about an extra half hour and I almost missed the flight with that setback. They even take your toothpaste! Watch out for that liquid! *** CASEY DESMOND (Casey Desmond): One time I had this shriveled up septuagenarian scrooge of a flight attendant demanded I take my instrument and get off the plane immediately. Security was called, my guitar was taken, and one hour later we took off for Boston. Arrival was even worse as I received my Gibson with a fresh crack in the wood, and my pedal board was nowhere to be found. I hurried to my soundcheck in a fit of unspeakable rage. I despise airlines. Buy ATA! *** KIER BYRNES (Three Day Threshold): I was in Omaha meeting my cousin who had just driven up from Brownsville, TX. In he walks with a huge bull skull, complete with horns measuring four feet from tip to tip. He said “Kier, the instant I saw this, it reminded me of you.” I’m still not sure what he meant by that, but when it came time to go back home, the airport refused to let me board as they called my cow head a weapon, so I missed my flight and had to make other arrangements to get back. How I made it back with the bull head is another story for another time. *** WILL DAILEY (Will Dailey & the Rivals): Yes! Me. I have no love for US Airways. Three cancellations while sitting on the runway. Lost bags. Stranded in airports. Ticket errors. Won’t let my guitar in as a carry on. Official boycott of US Airways starts now. *** DANIEL PAUL BOUCHER (Neptune): The first UK tour Neptune did I was questioned and had my carry-on desecrated by a creepy, intrusive explosive-detecting wand. The razor sharp security persons thought my drum key to be quite suspect. They looked at me in that leery authoritarian way and I offered, “It’s like a wrench... for drums, you know?” Just before me Mark breezed through with some truly questionable homemade devices in his bag which included an old alarm clock with a contact mic epoxied to it and a duct-taped box that had switches, dials, and exposed wire all over. I was like, what the fuck? Keep the damn drum key, but go get the guy with the fucking bomb in his bag! *** LARRY DERSCH (A.K.A.C.O.D./ Binary System): The hardest thing I’ve ever tried to get on a plane is my butt at 5:30am. And why are all these people so damn chirpy? ***JAKE HALL (The Self Righteous Brothers): The only time I’ve ever had trouble getting something onto a plane was when I was 13 years old and my older Colombian cousin... we’ll call him Jeff... asked me to bring a half kilo of cocaine back to the states. Of course I was happy to do my cousin a favor but unfortunately I had to bring it in three tied off condoms that were inserted into my rectum. I didn’t receive any suspicion from airport employees, but it was still very difficult to walk through the airport without wincing. That is the only time I’ve ever had trouble getting something onto a plane. *** PETER RINNIG (QRST’s): True story: Many years ago when I was traveling in the South Pacific. I flew into Sydney, Australia (coming from Tahiti). I was dressed in all black, smelled from not taking a shower and not having any sleep. Basically, I was disgusting looking and smelling. Well, in hindsight, you should NOT go through airport security like that. I was taken aside, strip searched down to my skivvies and read the riot act. Thankfully I had nothing to hide. It took about one and a half hours for this process. From then on, I always take a shower and wear clean clothes! *** JUANITA (WBCN): I had trouble getting myself onto an airplane. A couple of years ago, I was traveling with my mom, and as I was handing the ticket counter person my license, my mom looked at my picture and said, no joke, “That doesn’t even look like you. You look like a terrorist!” Needless to say, we both got pulled out of line and had every inch of our luggage searched, and almost missed our flight. *** KEN CMAR (Wonderdrug Records): Yeah, myself. I was actually born in Tripoli, Libya (on an American air force base), so my passport says, “birthplace: Tripoli.” You can imagine the field day the customs agents have with that one (it seems by scraggly beard doesn’t help, either). I’ve almost missed many a flight coming back into the U.S. being interrogated. Although being stranded in Amsterdam does not sound like too bad of an idea. *** MIKE PIELH (Reverse/ Tim Gearan): No, in fact the summer after 9/11 I flew from Boston to Albuquerque and missed the connecting flight in Denver. Early the next morning, I go through the metal detector in Denver with my courier bag (same bag I walked on the first plane with in Boston) and they found: a nail set, miscellaneous nails and screws, a box cutter and a second E-acto knife. So I had all that crap with me when I walked through the metal detectors at Logan! *** JOHN EYE (One of Us): Yes, I had the hardest time getting a pair of handcuffs on to a plane headed to Key West, but I finally convinced them, heh heh. *** KEN FIELD (Birdsongs of the Mesozoic/ Revolutionary Snake Ensemble): On one of Birdsongs’ three tours to Hawaii, we packed much of our gear into a huge, heavy road case (that had, as I recall, once been owned by Aerosmith). We called it the hell box. We were advised by our travel agent that by tipping the skycap generously we’d have no trouble getting it on board. That worked in Boston, but after our west coast gigs they didn’t let it on the plane to Hawaii. We had to ship it airfreight via a later flight at a huge cost. Well worth it though; the tour was great! *** DAVE WESTNER (Woolly Mammoth Sound): I’m a pilot. The hardest thing to get into an airplane was one of my ex-girlfriend’s mom. She was so fat, I had to say no when she asked me if I would take her flying. She wouldn’t have fit in the seat, and the plane would have been overweight with the two of us in there. Is that too harsh? Lolita: Harsh! I can’t believe you would mention my mom like that in this column and not think it would get me upset. I didn’t hear you complaining about her weight when you named the studio after her.