Travelin' Man

I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

--The Prisoner

After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.

--Willy Loman, Death of a Salesman


Big ups to Arthur Miller for being a total literary geek but still managing to pull the then-“Most Beautiful Woman in the World” (this just in Art, Joe DiMaggio’s dead but he still hates you for coming up on Marilyn like that. Almost as much as he hates the Kennedys for having her whacked). But how about not giving away the entire story in the title of your play? Why even go? You know what’s going to happen. Some salesman will die. When Willy comes on stage at the beginning of Act I, you pretty much know he’s toast. So like the guy next to you in Vietnam (or any Dallas Cowboys coach), there’s no point in getting close to him because you know he’s not going to be there very long. You’re not supposed to give away the whole story, either in the trailer or the titles. What if they’d called it “Rhett Leaves Scarlett,” or “Darth is Luke’s Father,” or “Iceman Can Be My Wingman Anytime”? Why even go to the show? Those kinds of titles are a lot like the literal Japanese or Hindi or other Asian language translations of American movies whose titles don’t translate so they just describe what happens in the movie. Like “Rebellious Catholic Woman Who Makes Happy Happy Song With Sailor and Children.” Or “Children of Honorable Father Make Revenge Against Unworthy Families.” Or “Ninja Sorcerer In Curtain Yells to Child-Girl and Dog.” Or “Flame Head Woman Gives Businessman Lotus Esprit Trip and Rub of Delight.” ($50 and an autographed copy of my law review article to the first person who can identify all these movies. And by that, I mean I'll buy you a drink).

Well once again I’ve gotten off to a bad start. In this season of travel, I want to talk about traveling in the 21st Century after 9/11. Admittedly, I dip my toe into the Alex Jones Crazy Pool, but please indulge me a bit.

Responding to hundreds of “imprisonment on the tarmac” instances, the Department of Transportation just issued new rules fining airlines $27,500/passenger for any flight that departs the gate and does not take off within three hours (subject to certain exceptions). The rules also require the airlines to provide food and water to all passengers after two hours, and to keep the restrooms functioning. Everyone’s heard the horror stories about people being trapped on planes for hours, without food and water but with failing restrooms and with passengers being unable to make calls, with the airline refusing to at least bring the plane back to the gate so that passengers can at least enjoy a little bit of convenience while waiting. According to the DOT, 613 flights were delayed and sitting on the tarmac more than three hours in the first six months of 2009. The airlines fought the regulations, citing an increase in flight cancellations if required to comply. They cite things out of their control such as congested and ineffective air traffic controls, and urge that travelers might be forced to endure flight cancellations and overnight stays as a consequence.

Remember when it was fun to fly? You’d dress up because it was a special event. The airport was a sparkling building that ran efficiently and effectively. The airline employees were especially helpful, and you’d get all kinds of freebies as part of your experience. Especially on Southwest Airlines or Braniff Airlines, smokin’ hot babe stewardesses, not today's matronly flight attendants with drill instructor charm, would cater to your requests. Seats were comfortable, waiting times slight, direct flights were plentiful, and food was served (even if not exactly haute cuisine, you still got something to eat). In short, it was a civilized experience.

Those were the days. Have you noticed the weekday crowds in major American airports lately? You’ll notice the crowds of beaten, weary, broken, humbled and abused travelers. Garbed in rumpled clothes, laden like pack mules with too-expensive-to-check luggage, and with that fine facial sheen that comes from being trapped like veal in recirculated air for the last three hours (Kimberly calls that condition "bus face"), your fellow travelers look like the undead wandering through the ethereal plane, desperate for sweet death. Its like being at a Coldplay concert.

The airlines, FAA, TSA, and local governments (which operate airports) have created a system that couldn’t be more suited to humiliating and breaking the people whom it theoretically serves. Travelers must present themselves, quietly and passively, for inspection. Must go where they’re told. Questioning is harshly punished. Travelers must please the workers and apologize for imposing on their time. Prices on everything are inflated, and everything beyond obtaining the smallest conceivable chair on the plane requires additional payment. Flights are delayed and cancelled with no notice, and travelers are largely left to fend for themselves. People are shunted about like cattle in a holding pen. You have to get to the airport early so you won’t miss getting to sit through the inevitable delays. Restaurant options (which became necessary in the 1980s when airlines phased out direct flights and made “hub” airports the newest form of waiting rooms, and which thrive as a consequence of interminable flight delays), bring familiar homogenized American chain-style blandness to travelers in scaled down form (“Chili’s To Go”). Can there please be one airport in America where its possible to get a Diet Coke and not just Diet Pepsi? When you finally get on board, you must assume the fetal position in a medium sized-box area space (seat back upright) like you’re traveling in steerage on the Titanic. You must remain in that seat the entire flight, risking federal prosecution to use the bathroom because the captain never turns off the “seat belt” sign (as the air waitresses parade up and down the aisle like they’re walking through a Nordstrom’s shoe sale-the guys, that is). The whole flight experience is a lot like prison. Or mass. Actually, the parallels between the penitentiary and Roman Catholicism are extensive, but on Christmas Eve, I’ll tip my cap to White Jesus and let that one go (“Black Jesus,” of course, being Vince Young, signed, Austin sports radio talk show caller).

I’m a little surprised the free market hasn’t bit into some of this. One would think that a “comfort airline” could make a go of it. I’d pay more to fly an airline that didn’t treat me like bananas on a steamer leaving Manila FOB Long Beach. In a sense, Southwest Airlines is about as close as it gets, in not charging the bogus baggage charges ostensibly imposed to recover increased fuel costs when gasoline prices ran up above $4.20/gallon last year, but which have not given way now that fuel costs have dropped by half. Southwest’s employees are still relatively approachable, and it appears to respond somewhat to consumer demand trends. Otherwise, the airlines, ever dependent on federal bailout money, continue their trend to parse and re-price their services at the most granular level. Charging for blankets and pillows? What’s next, charging to use the seat pocket? The market actually has responded, but in a way that has the airlines charging premium prices for things like blankets or telephone access to human beings that used to be provided as part of your ticket price. Premium pricing options have become the rage, with upgrades to first class, quick security screening, immediate access to actual customer service employees, membership in the airline’s “club” where one can wait in an environment not reminiscent of Lagos International Airport. But there’s still an insurmountable problem reminiscent of the old blonde joke-its still the same crappy plane going to the same place as all the human cargo that didn’t pay extra to get there. That means you’re subject to the same forced march exercise and threat of sitting on the tarmac for hours that everyone who didn’t pay extra has to endure.

This all takes a toll on people forced to endure it day after day, year after year. The business traveler gives up years off his life in this slow death march. The odd thing is that technology has made most of these trips unnecessary. Technology should have eliminated them, with video conferencing, web-based document sharing, texting, e-mails, and other means to review documents and see your meeting participants’ physical reactions to the discussion. That travel continues to such a great extent defies the corporate cutback culture that has left us all scheming for ways to steal paper clips and note pads from our co-workers (now that Accounting won’t authorize new purchases).

Meeting by phone or video does lose a lot of the critical physical cues and body language communication gained from in-person meetings. Being in the same room provides context, and allows a certain type of intimacy that no video link could ever provide. This could be just about anything-handshakes, showing pictures of your kids, seeing someone’s surroundings (pictures, knick-knacks) and getting a better understanding of their personality. Personally, I avoid meetings at all costs. The prospect of having to spend an hour or more staring across the room at a bunch of engineers or lawyers, each of whom sporting a walrus-like paunch and wearing that pre-seizure look of foreboding while being riveted on the figures in column 5 or deciding where the comma should go. I’ll tell you where the comma should go.

Instead of technology freeing the business traveler, he’s instead wrestled it to the ground and made it do his bidding. Ever-shrinking laptops designed to fit ever-shrinking “tray table” space, blackberries, wireless cards, USB pin drives, texts. All allow the business traveler of 2009 to be self-contained small mobile offices. It’s the ultimate extension of Al Franken’s old SNL one-man mobile news crew. So the salesmen shuffles along like lemmings to the cliff at airports around the country, each day giving themselves up to the TSA cattle prods, occasionally becoming incarcerated on the tarmac while it rains (or Bill Clinton gets a haircut).

This is all about control, you know. They want everyone under their control. From the airlines to TSA to the airport authorities, they all want to know everything about you, force you into docility and shake you down at every turn. Its far easier to transport cabbages than thinking human beings questioning why the hundreds and often thousands of dollars they’re paying to travel gets them service that every 7-11 clerk ever born thinks is subpar. No one can complain about their treatment, and even questioning runs the risk of TSA or FBI inquisition. Its like the airline industry has used 9/11 as a pretext to remodel itself along the 1970s Aeroflot business model. Obey or be taken out.

This mirrors our society in general. Government interferes in virtually all your choices. You want to pay an extremely low amount for housing? Too bad. For your own good, you must pay for housing that complies with building codes designed for your safety. Want to buy “unhealthy” food because its all you can afford? Too bad. Cities are banning the sales of certain unworthy foods. Want to buy a car as cheaply as possible? Too bad. Your car has to have meet all the latest engineering and safety specifications, for your safety. Want to select your own doctors or decide whether to purchase health insurance? Not anymore. The Government has made that choice for you. Government protects your safety, whether you can afford it or not. In so doing, it sets boundaries on what you can have and what you may not. Not sure Thomas Jefferson had this in mind.

Control comes in the form of tracking too. Cross a toll bridge and use a toll tag, and it creates a record of your travel. Use a cell phone, send a text message, receive a fax, visit a web site, make a purchase with a credit card…you’re creating a trail about your life which prosecutors and other government officials frequently try to obtain to put you away or levy penalties. Government uses all these millions of bits of data to track our comings and goings, and “protect” us against threats they never quite get around to defining when asked to explain. “I've miles and miles of files, pretty files of your forefather's fruit, and now to suit our great computer, You're magnetic ink.” The problem is that the control ethos has permeated corporate culture as well, with companies buying and selling this kind of data, to shape advertising, product development, and target specific consumers. Corporate consolidation, egged on by increasing regulatory burdens, have promoted uniformity, stagnation, and mediocrity. Every now and then a startup breaks through and remakes an industry. Usually the regulators are several steps behind, complaining that the new company (like Apple, Microsoft, Intel, or the like) must be stopped or it will “ruin competition.” Some incentive for innovation.

Ultimately, this is all about freedom. It’s hard to truly be free when you can make any choice you want, but the menu of choices is curtailed, and when someone somewhere knows every move you make. If you wanted to drop out and run away, you couldn’t do it. You must present appropriate identity to board any public conveyance. Charge cards, cell phones, toll tags, and banking records would create a record that can be used to track your every move. And yet, they still can't find Bin Laden. Maybe if he bounced a check....

However (or as Stephen A. Smith would say, HOWEVAH), having created such a quagmire through its own interventions, one really cannot legitimately object in this instance to these new rules. Ordinarily its right to object to the Government rushing in to regulate to protect us from making our own choices. But when an industry like the airlines have gone so far into the federal bailout money trough, it can hardly complain when the Government insists that it live by certain conditions. It seems only fair not to give the airlines millions to keep them from going bankrupt (largely due to their own ineptitude) and ask that in return they not hold passengers captive on the tarmac. Companies actually welcome most regulation of the sort imposed on airlines because it tends to keep out competitors that can’t endure start up costs and comply with copious regulations while getting off the ground (no pun intended). The airlines largely benefit from extensive FAA and DOT regulation, so, again, they can hardly complain about Government regulating to set certain minimum service conditions, or intruding on a free market that the regulation they desire artificially distorts the market and keeps out competition that might force them to making changes that would benefit consumers.

Where does that leave us? The DOT is stepping in to protect us from a problem it helped foster, with regulations that make it difficult for new carriers to enter the market, subsidies to inefficient airline companies, and to inefficient and ineffective air traffic controls. Willy Loman thanks you kindly.

Next-A Christmas Gift For You