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..............................BartCop
Store.........................................................................
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...... .........................................................................................................................................................................Support
Bartcop.com
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Sign the President Blow Monkey petition
"President Bush, if you deny federal
funds to students
who won't talk about their drug
histories,
it's only fair that you forego
your federal salary
until you are willing to come clean
with your own drug past."
Go to http://www.justsayblow.com/
Thanks to Martin Sall
Pearl Harbor
I just got back from Pearl Harbor and I was so goddamn impressed
I can't hardly type.
This great (yes, great) movie has been peed on by almost every
critic.
They didn't like the writing. ("there were no surprises")
They didn't like the directing. ("without grace, vision or originality")
They didn't like focus, or the black-and-white newsreel footage
spliced in..
They didn't like most of the acting, (but they loooooved Jon
Voight as FDR)
They didn't like Kate's make up. ("women never looked that way
in the 40's")
They didn't like the length of the movie, but they loooooove
to whine about what was left out.
They didn't like the attack scene. ("people cut down like tall
grass before a weed-whacker")
They didn't like the dialogue. ("reams of banal dialogue")
They didn't like the ending. ("where was the wham-bam?")
They didn't like the "redundant" special effects, as though there
are hundreds of different ways
to show a Japanese zero dropping bombs on American warships.
Fuck 'em.
I thought it was a damn good film.
I read a few reviews - all negative, but I was going see this
movie no matter what.
Maybe the damning of the film caused a little backlash in me,
I don't know,
I know if your eyes were dry when those hands poked out of the
USS
Arizona,
you probably don't have a heart, so maybe you should just join
the Republican party.
Roger Ebert, whose opinion I respect, trashed the entire film.
Check his hissy fit:
Our hopes are not high after an early newsreel
report that the Germans are bombing "downtown London"
--a difficult target, since although there
is such a place as "central London," at no time in 2,000 years has
London ever had anything
described by anybody as a "downtown."
Gee, I've never heard that distinction before.
I guess I'm a moron since I didn't know that the British don't
use the word "downtown."
Besides, unless you're British, how would you know?
Another Ebert complaint:
There is not a shred of conviction or chemistry
in the love triangle, which results after
Rafe returns alive to Hawaii shortly before
the raid on Pearl Harbor and is angry at
Evelyn for falling in love with Danny,
inspiring her timeless line,
"I didn't even know until the day you
turned up alive--and then all this happened."
What a horseshit cheap
shot.
It's real easy to ridicule out-of-context dialogue, but Evelyn
finds out December 6th that her first love
survived being shot down in Europe, and she's supposed to have
her feelings sorted out the morning of the 7th?
I bought the triangle all the way.
I'd never seen Kate Bekinsale work before, but she did a great
job carrying her half.
I've always liked Ben Affleck, and the new guy, Josh Hartnett,
was good, too.
Ebert closes with this:
I have visited the Battleship Arizona Memorial.
Three thousand died in all. This is not a movie about them.
It is an unremarkable action movie; Pearl
Harbor supplies the subject, but not the inspiration.
Maybe I'm just blinded by my overwhelming respect for those brave
men who fought and died,
but dumping on this movie just seems downright unpatriotic to
me. Maybe the movie studio screwed up
by over-promoting, but I don't see why "Pearl
Harbor fails to set record" should be the top
entertainment headline on Yahoo. That's the same way they treated
Clinton. He'd hold non-stop Middle-East
talks for 55 hours and afterwards the headlines would scream,
"Clinton
Fails," ...the sons of bitches.
The hospital scenes were expecially jarring. I've known the Pearl
Harbor story for decades, but until today,
I never once thought of what that hospital must've gone through.
They kept joking that sunburn was about
the biggest "medical crisis" they treated there, and then
that
hit. They showed dozens of men burned
head-to-toe staggering towards the hospital - in one incredibly
moving scene.
This won't spoil anything, but the hospital certainly was not
ready for thousands of casualties.
Overwhelmed like crazy, in the mad panic, they had to quickly
devise a triage system. The head doctor
told Beckinsale's character to "figure something out," so she
used her lipstick to write letters, such as
"C" for critical, "F" for fatal - on the foreheads of the wounded.
Some critics thought that was stupid as hell,
but I thought it was a stroke of genius considering the environment.
...and for those who ridicule the love story in the movie, did you see the NBC special Sunday?
They interviewed some now-eighty old men who survived, and to
a man, they said the memory of their girl
is what kept them going. One guy said he wanted his new
wife to think he had died in the raid, so she
wouldn't see how ugly he'd become after being burned. Their girls
and their family is the reason they fought.
None of the men could talk about that day without breaking down.
Maybe Tom Brokaw was right.
What if
Jenna Bush killed someone in a drunk driving accident?
By Kevin
Cunningham
Excerpt:
Would it be okay to talk about her recklessness
and disregard for the law then -
even if she is a daughter of the appointed
president?
Subject:
Laura The Loveless
By Margaret Shemo
ha ha
I love what she writes...
Catholic
Bishop Weds Korean Babe in NY
Group wedding presided over by Sun Myung Moon
Priests protest, "Why should
he
be happy?"
I ran across that recent audio clip of Bill Maher with Eight Wives.
He's very politically correct, saying the Democrats were "asleep
at the switch,"
instead of just calling them what they are - the Gelding Democrats.
A good article about Andrew "bareback" Sullivan,
the Clarence "Slappy" Thomas of the gay community.
From: Susan Sparks
Subject: David Gilmour
I've been your rabid fan for months, ever since
the coup, but you've really shot up in my esteem now.
After reading that you were a guitar fan, and
making references to Jimmy Page frequently, I wondered
if you would ever mention His name (yes, greater
than Koresh) and now you have!
But, seriously, you're pulling our leg about the
Brothers in Arms thing, right?
Brothers in Arms--that incredible, beautifully
political classic album by Dire Straits?
If you're not kidding, you need to pick up that
CD ASAP and listen cover to cover.
Mark Knopfler is maybe number two or three on
the list of the world's greatest blues-rock guitarists,
my hero, David, being number one, of course.
But bless you for mentioning his name, and the name
of the song that contains the finest otherworldly
outro solo in existence (Freebird eat your heart out!)
In Gratitude for all you do,
Sue
Sue,
ha ha
This is such a minefield.
All I know of MK is that horrid MTV song with "that little faggot,"
and Sultans of Swing.
Yes, I hear MK is a talented technician, I'd just never heard his softer
side till now.
Not that I'm into soft, but I like to hear emotion coming from
a guitar - not musical perfection.
It's the difference between a drummer and a drum machine.
I sure think more of MK after hearing that West Wing.
I watched the ending again last night.
I wonder how many viewings it'll take to seem just real good?
No
Whiff of Poof
by Maureen Dowd - She hates everybody.
Unlike a
Virgin
Spears keeps sex life private?
ha ha
NEW YORK (AP) - Lots of little girls look up to
Britney Spears, but the teen pop diva says
she doesn't want to be considered a role model
when it comes to sex and relationships.
"I just want to live my life," she tells
Us Weekly magazine in its June 4 issue.
She also doesn't want to discuss the intimate
details of her romance with
Justin Timberlake of 'N Sync, which has been
a topic of rampant speculation.
"Have we had sex? That's something that,
you know, I'd like to keep personal.
I want to try to keep a personal life,"
she says.
"I want to wait to have sex until I'm married.
I do. I want to wait."
Then she pauses and adds, "But it's
hard."
ha ha
She doesn't know the meaning of the
word.
I'll bet Justin does, tho...
Y'know, when you broadcast the assertion
that you're a virgin,
and you rub your breasts in your videos
for the young boys to watch,
...the "Are you still a virgin?"question is going to come up now & then.
They might as well do a Pay-Per-View of it and make even more money.
From: tcmack@swbell.net
Subject: IMO's PIZZA?!?!?!
Even though I live in Dallas, I travel to St.Louis
every two months.
And when I was there for the first time, the
natives swore that I had to try
"St.Louis style" pizza from IMO's.
Well... ugh!
A pizza splattered with a white gravy?
It's PUTRID.
How can you even think it equates to anything
from the great City of the York that's New?
So, ...you didn't like it?
My first guess would be you tried a different pizza, but Imo's
is kinda distinctive.
ha ha
You got the white gravy pizza?
Me?
I get the sausage, ...but that's just me.
The Imo's I like is paper-thin, with a dark yellow cheese.
When you chew it, the cheese sticks to the roof of your mouth and your
teeth.
And it rocks!
Of course, I've never tried the white gravy...
From: johnpavlik@mac.com
Subject: pizzA
I've never had pizza in New York but I have had
Imo's and do agree that it's pretty damn good.
But it's so un-Italian that they don't even sell
red wine in their stores: only pink and white.
But you can fill up on Budweiser instead so I
guess that evens out.
But even better than Imo's (I think because it's
been a few years now) was
the pizza at Balestreri's Italian-Ameerican restaurant
in Wauwautosa (just
'Tosa' to the locals) on N 68th St. in the Milwaukee
suburbs.
And I'm sure everybody's got a favorite (kind
of like BBQ snoots -- you can only get the good ones
in East St. Louis), but if you use Imo's as a
standard, you do know what you're talking about.
Maybe if some of the Democrats tried Imo's they
would know that sometimes
you have to decide that "this is right, that
is wrong," forget the bipartisan crap
and stand up on their hind legs and do the right
thing.
Hmm, one big envelope addressed to Tom Daschle and an Imo's to go, please.
Marc
Perkel vs Joe Lieberman
(Bet on Perkel)
Excerpt:
Lieberman obviously must think God is the
invisible moron in the sky.
Bush Faces
the Power of Subpoena
by Michael Waldman
WASHINGTON -- Teeth are still rattling over Senator
James Jeffords's jump from the Republican party
and the shift of Senate control to the Democrats.
Many consequences have been widely noted. But one of
the most important aftershocks has not yet been
felt: The change in control means the Democrats will wield
investigative power. The Bush administration
will have to face, as its recent predecessors did, an array of
committees with the power to peel back secrecy
and probe controversy. The results may not be pretty.
Relentless scrutiny by the opposition party has
been a fact of West Wing life for decades.
In more innocent days, novice presidential aides
were warned never to write anything down that they weren't
willing to see on the front page of a newspaper.
By the time I served in the Clinton White House, we were
warned to assume that anything could — and would
— be subpoenaed by somebody, especially by
Congressional committees. Over eight years, the
Clinton White House had to respond to hundreds of
subpoenas. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush,
too, had to face repeated investigations.
Until now, George W. Bush has looked — in this
way as in so many — exceedingly lucky. With the
expiration of the independent counsel law,
and with Congress friendly territory, it looked as if he would be
able to sail through his term with far fewer
controversies and confrontations. Indeed, there has been only
one high-profile investigation during the Bush
presidency. The subject, naturally, was Bill Clinton.
Now the gavel is in the other hand. Senators,
unlike House members, rarely resort to formal subpoenas
to get information and generally seek bipartisan
accord. But if necessary, the Democrats will now be
able to push through subpoenas on party- line
votes. This is an extremely powerful tool that must be
used both wisely and forcefully.
To cite just one recent example, the confirmation
of Theodore Olson to be solicitor general might not have
happened if the Democrats had had subpoena power.
They would have been able to seek detailed information
from more witnesses on whether Mr. Olson's account
of his role in the American Spectator magazine's
"Arkansas project" was accurate.
Other administration activities deserve a public
airing.
What role did energy companies play in the closed-door
sessions that drafted the administration's new
industry- friendly energy plan? (Surely this
deserves at least as much scrutiny as did Hillary Clinton's health
care task force.) Are White House political aides
putting pressure on the Justice Department to ease off
its lawsuit against the tobacco companies?
It should not be payback time.*Democrats
rightly spent eight years decrying government by subpoena;
not every controversy is a scandal. Joe Lieberman,
who will be the new chairman of the Governmental
Affairs Committee, should not search for his
inner Dan Burton — nor is he likely to. But the power to
probe is a critical tool for public accountability.
Secrecy and special dealing are not unique to either party.
H. L. Mencken reminded us that conscience is
the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
That now applies to Mr. Bush and his administration.
*horseshit
The next time we win the White House, the GOP will launch non-stop investigations
the way they did with Clinton, so why the hell are we playing
by the damn rules?
To prove we're better than they are?
We can prove that for years and years, from the outside looking in.
I
love an e-mail with numbers
This one's from Flybot.
The
End of New York
(The beginning of the end was in the
last issue)
The end of the end is in this issue.)
After Ricky Martin, we took a cab down to Washington Square Park.
It's a nice park - people were hanging out, walking their dogs, smoking handrolled cigarettes...
Have you ever seen on TV or in movies where people are sitting
outside playing chess?
That's Washington park.
I think Jeff Goldblum's dad was playing chess here in Independence
Day.
We kept walking and stumbled on New York's club scene.
This is the world famous Blue Note Jazz Club.
From their
web page:
The flagship New York club has earned the
distinction of being the world’s premier jazz club and restaurant.
Tony Bennett, George Benson, Ray Charles,
Natalie Cole, Oscar Peterson, David Sanborn, Nancy Wilson,
the late Sarah Vaughan and Dizzy Gillespie
are just a few of the superstars that have called the Blue Note "home."
Right across the street is the Village Underground.
Look! Patti Smith is here the first week of June!
Next door to that is The Fat Black Pussycat.
It's famous, too:
DAVID BLUE:
I remember one afternoon [Apr 16, 1962]
we were sitting in The Fat Black Pussycat drinking coffee, and Dylan
started writing a song. He had his guitar
and he was scribbling away, writing on a piece of paper. And he gave me
his guitar and asked me to play various
chords, while he worked on the words. When he finished it, we went over
to
Folk City and Bob played it for Gil Turner,
who thought it was fantastic. And then Gil got up on the stage and
played it for the audience, while Bob stood
in the shadows at the bar. The song was "Blowin' In The Wind."
Just outside the front door of the Fat Black Pussycat was a trash can that causght my eye.
They want to keep New York clean, but, ...but, ...but what's that on top of the trash can?
ha ha
That club is a happenin' place, all right.
Continuing onward, we saw Jefferson Square Market Library.
Cool building, eh?
Look
upper right, you can see Rapunzel
We kept running into these great little bakeries. Not only does
NY food taste like a million dollars,
it looks so good, you want to eat it even if you don't like what
it's made of.
........
I guess volume is the key. If you're going to sell $1500 worth
of pastry a day, you can afford
to pay a bad-ass pastry chef $1500 a week to create these incredible
edible works of art.
We kept walking and walking and eventually were were within a
mile of the Savoy so it wasn't worth
getting a taxi, so we just continued walking. Mrs. BartCop said
she'd hate to visit New York and not
get any great Italian food. I reminded her we'd had some great
pizza, which got me an icy stare.
So we jumped in the Le Sabre and drove towards Little Italy. (bottom)
Of course, we kept filming as we drove, so as not to miss any of the sights.
Yes, they love Hillary in New York.
Only the criminals, the defacers and the Republicans hate her.
One other thing - see that tiny sign in the upper right?
It says, "Don't Block the Box - Fine + 2 Points."
That's confusing, I wondered all week what that meant, then I
found out.
"The box" is the center of the intersection. What they sign means
to say is,
"Don't pull into the intersection unless
you can get all the way across, dumbass."
As savvy a New York driver as I am, I got caught in "the box"
once.
I was almost all the way across, then, in a New York second,
hundreds of pedestrians
were walking in front of my car, meaning I was blocking the traffic
that had the green light.
While hundreds of people were walking in front of the Le Sabre,
a NY cop tapped on
my fender with his night stick and said, "Don't
Block the Box - Fine + 2 Points."
I gave him my best Okie blank stare, like, "So what do I do
now, O'Toole?"
And he said, "Ease forward - through
the crowd."
Hmmmm....
Doing my best to avoid an indictment for "depraved indifference,"
I let up on the brake
and the car inched into the madding crowd, ...and they parted
like the Red Sea for Ol' Chuck!
I got away with blocking the box without a penalty.
Continuing with the story (which has taken longer to write than
live thru) I used my honing skills
to get us closer and closer to Little Italy. The
map I had didn't show street names,
but logically it had to be in the next few blocks - then we saw
- the flags.
Mulberry Street, where Brando got shot in Godfather
One
This was way cool.
We saw a bunch of restaurants with outdoor dining and the weather
was perfect.
All we needed now was a place to dump the Le Sabre.
You see it?
I'll be damned, there's a parking spot right there, so I snatched
it.
We were parked and soaking in Little Italy on foot.
We saw this place called Florios, which reminded me of
Tony's enforcer Furio.
Then this dude spoke to us with his thick Italian accent and invited us to dinner.
We figured it was a sign from God, so we accepted his invitation.
The menu had a whole lotta stuff I didn't recognize, but I saw
"Spaghetti and Meatballs,"
and I've eaten that before, so that's what I ordered. Mrs. BartCop
ordered the Fettucini Alfredo
Of course, we asked for a giraffe of red wine, too.
Within seconds, we had the wine, some bread and a dinner salad
on our table.
Salad? I didn't notice salad on the menu, but there's a
lot I don't notice...
How did they know what kind of dressing I wanted on my salad?
Duh!
They serve Italian dressing on the salad.
It's possible I use the term "greatest ever" too much, but this
salad was so simple
yet so damn delicious that no words have I. Their dressing
is what did it.
Oh, I've never tasted anything like this Italian dressing.
It was 90 percent regular, no radical changes or flavors, it
was just better.
Famous building in the background
So here's the deal:
I'm racking up major, major points with Mrs. BartCop.
She was happier than she was in Volume
260 in the cool Santa Fe breeze.
She couldn't be having a better time.
We were dining outside, the birds were chirping, the Italian
language was being spoken
by a majority of the people around us, she had a glass of red
wine in her hand and the giant
fried cheese sticks were done just right. I wish
I had a picture. Wait, ...I do!
ha ha
A little sip of wine, a nibble from a cheese stick, a half-a-slice
of that bread
followed by another sip of the red wine. I was scoring like Mickey
Jordan.in his prime.
Then it was time for la munche'
Her bowl was bigger than it looks.
So was mine:
Mama Mia, that's some spicy meatballs.
Some little dude ran out and said, "...Parmesan?"
I gave him that palms-open up move that Brando does when he means
"Why
not?"
It was really Catholic-tasting.
...and look at the size of those meatballs!!
If only the senate Democrats...
Uhh, ...nevermind.
We were having a lot of fun and everything was going perfect.
After we ate, we walked around and looked at the old shops.
........
pasta
pasta
We were filming everything. The shops, the streets, the store windows,
the people.
........
pasta
not pasta
I forget what this is called, but didn't they carry one
of these in the parade scene in Godfather II when
Travis Bickle shot the Black Hand in the mouth?
Cheese shops, pasta shops, restaurants and bars.
Little Italy - what a place!
Little did I know I was about to be the victim of a mob hit.
Back after this.
Don't forget the price they paid.
The Mean
Strategy Backfires
by Bob Herbert - NY Whore Times
Excerpt:
Back in 1998 I offered the Republican Party
some unsolicited advice.
"Give up the politics of meanness,"
I said. "It's killing you."
But the G.O.P. never seems to learn.
Newt Gingrich once said, "I think one
of the great problems we have
in the Republican Party is that we don't
encourage you to be nasty."
ha ha
Regis to
ABC: Don't blame me!
Don't blame Regis for ABC's loss to CBS in the primetime ratings.
Regis said ABC wouldn't even have been a close second this season
- falling behind CBS
by just 22,000 viewers - if it weren't for his show. "Where would
this network be without
the 'Millionaire' series this year? If you look in the top 15
shows, you'll see the four 'Millionaire'
shows every week," Philbin told AP Radio. "Now, if they've got
better than that, let's hope
we see it this year. Where are the other shows to support
what we're doing for the network?"
The game show pushed ABC to the top spot in the ratings last year,
but its popularity has declined
slightly this year. It's being cut from four episodes a week
to two in the fall.
"I'm not going to accept that as a problem that 'Millionaire'
is creating for the network," he said, his voice rising.
"I think 'Millionaire' has saved the network."
ha ha
The End
of New York II
Swear to Koresh, I was attacked by the mob.
Here's what happened, here's how the hit went down:
So we're walking around, like two bonehead tourists from Oklahoma,
the camera's pointing everywhere, and then I catch a glimpse of this
gang...
They started giving me the skunk eye - for no reason.
As I got further up the street, the one with the striped tie
gives a head nod to this guy,
...who jumped up and grabbed a giant wrench and started opening the hydrant.
........
He had that hydrant open faster than any fireman I'd ever seen.
........
I was wet, but I was alive.
That's a true story, Kay, swear to Koresh.
OK, new rule - no more taunting the gangsters...
Back in traffic, we saw a car with diplomatic plates.
Any guesses what VG is?
If it's car #1, it must be the ambassador,
himself
The sun was setting and we wanted to get back to the hotel.
On the way (not really) we thought we'd drive through Central
Park.
I am so stupid!
By now, at was 5 PM on Friday afternoon in gridlocked Manhattan.
It was taking 5 minutes per block, and Central Park was 45 blocks
away.
By the way, did you know the New York cabbies have come up with
a new measurement for time?
It's called a nano-gigo-second, and it's the precise period
of time between when the light turns green
and that son of a bitch starts honking at you from behind.
We gave up and went back to the hotel - there's always tomorrow.
The rest of the evening we sipped Chinaco and watched
New York from our window.
Funny, in New York, they never look up.
We were only on the second floor, and we could watch people was
they walked by
and listen to their conversations, but in four days, nobody ever
looked up and saw us.
(End of the story in this issue)
BROADWAY
PRODUCER STIFFS BUSH BIG TIME
..Or
does he? by Jerry Politex, 5/28/01 from Bushwatch.com
Just because Rocco Landsman, producer of the hit
Mel Brooks Broadway musical THE PRODUCERS,
says he'd give comps to Clinton, but not to Resident
Bush, that doesn't mean that Bush couldn't see the show
if he really wanted to. Even though it's sold
out into September, Bush could always have Karl Rove stand
in line at 9 a.m. for an early evening purchase
of a couple of the standing room only tix.
Maybe that would begin to make up for Rove blowing
the Jeffords Jump. On the other hand, why would
Bush want to see a play about a bunch of dumb
singing Nazis, when he hangs out with them every day?
Of course, Bush could just cough up $1,000 for
two same-day orchestra seats --he has the dough.
But why should he spend big bucks for something
in New York City, when he has all that great free
cultural stuff just minutes from the White House?
The National Gallery, the Freer, the Sackler? Right.
That'll be the day - when you see Bush in an art
museum, unless it's filled with pictures of cattle,
cowboys, and Confederate generals. When
someone tells Bush that he works in oils,
the Resident assumes the guy's a friend of Cheney's.
The End of New York Final
Saturday morning we only had a couple of hours before our 11:45
flight.
We packed, checked out and picked up the car.
There were so many things we didn't get a chance to see, but
we wanted
to take one last shot at Central Park on our way out of town.
Driving up 6th Avenue, we hit the stoplights with perfect timing.
I only stopped three times from 23rd street to110th - amazing.
I had to cross 110th Street, because of the song in the Jackie Brown movie.
We made a left and found ourselves in Duke Ellington Park!
I didn't even know the Duke had a park, but there it is...
According to the map, were only a block away from Central Park.
I'll be damned - they did it again.
Closed, just like the Guggenheim, The Twin Towers, the state
of Maine,
the top of the Empire State building - they've closed Central
Park
Maybe we were too early, or maybe Central Park was closed permanantly
after Bruce and Sam tore it to hell in Die Hard III.
By the way, wasn't the scene with the bomb in the fountain shot
in Washington Park?
So we're out of time, we gotta hurry to the airport for that 11:45 flight.
Back thru Tony's toll booth, to New Jersey.
I started humming the theme to The Sopranos.
Mrs. BartCop told me to knock it off.
We get to the Avis rental return and the dark complected man was
very friendly.
We joked about Guiliani being such a slut, bringing his goomah
home.
After he checked the car, he gave me my receipt.
$1247
to rent a Le Sabre with a noisy air-conditioner for five days?
What, do I look like I'm from Oklahoma or something?
I got the attention of the dark complected guy and said,
"This is crazy. I didn't want
to buy the car, I was just renting the son of a bitch."
Ho looks at me and says, "No Hablo English."
He stayed in character, like he's been thru this before, with
other unsuspecting victims.
By now, I'm worried that I did something wrong, because everyone
knows you don't
rent a car in Jersey because of that $950 car rental tax Trump
pushed thru.
The lady at the counter acted oh, so very surpised that "the
computer made a mistake,"
and came up with a more reasonable receipt, not realizing I'd
palmed the original.
Avis, you do that to every chap-wearing rube flying out of New
York, don't you.
You have to refund the money in what, 94 out of 100 times?
But that "full-billing" on the other six makes up for the tarnished
reputation, right?
It's not even 11 AM and it already seems like a long day.
We drag the bags to the TWA terminal and stand in the long line.
When we're finally granted an audience with the ticket agent,
and she looks like Luci the Bat!
Worse still, she's all bad news.
"You're not booked on this flight," she said, with a snicker.
"Sure I am," I protested, checking my notes. "I'm on
Flight 201 at 11:45."
(damn ticketless tickets)
She checks again, under my name instead of the flight, and says,
"No, you're booked on the 2:45 flight."
"Wrong lady, I know which flight I'm on."
"No, you're booked on the 2:45 flight," insisted The Bat.
"Hey, lady!
How'd I know you even had an 11:45 flight?
How'd I know that flight was Flight 201?"
Of course, she had no answer for that.
I asked to speak with a supervisior, but Luci kept fighting me
and I was getting tired
so we figured we'd just take the screwing and get lost in the
airport bar.
It was closed.
So we sat at the damn Burger King for almost three hours, listening
to crying kids
as the Katherine Harris-type mother screamed cruel insults at
them.
They were boys, maybe 5 and 7 years old. Poor kids.
Finally, we "bored" the plane and head for home.
The pilot seemed to know the way out better than the way in.
Heading for K-Drag, we assessed the trip as an amazing success.
Eight days ago, Mrs. BartCop was dragged kicking and screaming
into New York.
She's leaving with a smile on her face, except for the fact that
she'd miss The Preakness
because goddamn TWA wanted to bump me off that flight without
paying me, which is
probably a crime if there are any assistant DAs from the Newark
City Prosecutors Office
reading this, but how am I going to prove anything?
But even with missing the Preakness, we had a great time.
Sidebar:
I want to thank Ray again for the great
city tour and the "extras," and I especially
want to thank Christian Livemore for giving
us the great gift of New York City.
Without her, we wouldn't have gone and
we might not ever have gone without her.
A big shot of Chinaco Anejo
to CAL, who not only has great taste in food,
but she also does a lot of behind the scenes
stuff for bartcop.com
Ok, time to bring the story home.
It's four plus hours of the plane bumping and layovers.
We just wanted to get back to BartCop manor and unwind.
Finally, we get to the K-Drag dirt landing strip, (taxes are low,
here in GOP-land)
and we drag ourselves off the plane and
stagger to the luggage carousel. The sign says
"Luggage Guaranteed in 3 Minutes,"
but it was 18 minutes before it started gurgitating.
Another ten minutes go by, and everyone
gets their luggage except poor, tired BartCop.
The conveyor belt shuts off ...and here
we go...
I've never dealt with lost luggage before
- no telling what kind of nightmare this will be.
I go downstairs to the TWA ticket counter,
and the lady says
"The claims lady is already upstairs
to take your claim."
That's odd, how did they know I had a claim
to make?
I get upstairs and there's nobody but a
tired Mrs. BartCop.
I go back downstairs to the ticket counter
and tell them I missed the claims lady.
She gives me directions to the TWA luggage
claims office, back upstairs.
<big Al Gore sigh...>
I finally found the claims office, and there's
my damn bags.
I said, "Hey, thanks for finding them so
fast," and the lady said,
"Those bags? They've been here since 2 O'Clock. They arrrved on Flight 201."
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr........
The TWA luggage people put my damn bags
on that earlier flight because that's the
goddamn flight we, and the damn bags
were booked on, you morons!
Oh, I needed a drink or a loaded gun in
my hands real quick.
I settled on some Canaan tequila,
which I had 45 minutes later,
at home, at my computer, cat in my lap,
as I started writing.
Now we need to plan a trip to Las Vegas so we can compare the two!
ha ha
Thankgiving Tequilafest at the Rio!
I forget...
Is it illegitimate president or bastard president?
Read the Previous Issue
It had everything.
Copyright © 2001,
bartcop.com
Thanks for the
fumble, Dude.
