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Flying the unfriendly skies

"I ain't goin' nowhere, man. I ain't goin' nowhere. It's dangerous out there, man Might 'a been a big bomb scare. Hard to get off of this easy chair. I ain't goin' nowhere.
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"I ain't goin' nowhere, man.

I ain't goin' nowhere.

It's dangerous out there, man

Might 'a been a big bomb scare.

Hard to get off of this easy chair.

I ain't goin' nowhere."

 

Hank Snow started it; Rick Moranis updated it to reflect the terrorist-scary times we live in. Me, I get to live it. It's dangerous out there, man.

Canadian country artist Hank Snow stole the song from an Aussie, changed the names of the towns to ones North Americans would recognize and had a monster hit in the 1950s with I've Been Everywhere. It was an auctioneer's ode to a footloose life, hitchhiking around the continent, enjoying serial experiences, relying on the kindness of strangers. Already a bona fide country star, the song became Snow's theme and was covered by, well, everyone who sang. It captured the spirit of the moment at a time when wandering was morphing from something bums and hobos did on freight trains into a national right of passage for families in station wagons.

In 2005, Moranis enjoyed a spurt of creativity during his self-imposed retirement from comedy and acting and "...just wrote a bunch of songs." One of them, I Ain't Goin' Nowhere, covered Snow's cover but updated it to reflect the agoraphobic times of post-9/11 paranoid, home-invasion petrified, cocooned America. The CD, aptly titled The Agoraphobic Cowboy , was largely overlooked since it was a little bit country and a whole lot comedic. But as is often the case, the comedy of the song only slightly sugar-coated the message of the times. See for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OeCacs5oqM .

And friends, things have only gotten worse.

I honestly didn't imagine air travel could get any less appealing. I was clearly wrong. I get almost misty-eyed when I remember, oh, a mere decade ago, a simpler time when the greatest hassle flying posed was getting over the Lions Gate Bridge and through the gridlock of downtown Vancouver. Sure, it meant the trip from Whistler could take anywhere from three to five hours, but once at YVR, a fellow could kick back, enjoy a few beverages, tell lies to strangers who'd tell bigger lies back and watch a parade of people the likes of which were rarely seen outside traveling freak shows. Hell, you could even check a bag at no extra cost. Swear to god.

Then planes were flown into buildings, an inept bomber couldn't light the fuse on his shoe, a martyr-to-be blew his John Thomas off with a tidy-whitey bomb and things went berserk. The TSA was formed, providing long-needed jobs for frustrated high-school dropouts and latent bullies. More money was thrown at the illusion of security than was spent on aircraft maintenance and things got, let's be honest, weirder and weirder.

Security lines began to grow so long the staging area looked like a rock festival. X-rays, pat-downs, clear plastic bags, no water bottles, no shoes, no belts, no jackets, no sweaters, no service. I had to hand my passport over to so many different people to get from check-in to boarding it began to fray. When the eighth person asked to see my boarding pass I wanted to scream, "How the f*@k do you think I got this far without one?" Calling this exercise in overkill mindless debased the word. Flying took on all the pleasure of a train trip to Dachau.

But when you thought it couldn't get worse, it did.

Having spent so much money and time stripsearching elderly grannies in an attempt to stay up with whatever tactic the terrorists had already abandoned, there were hardly any shock troops left over for cargo. Which was where, two weeks ago, some suspicious parcels popped up. Now, I don't know how onerous it is if you're a FedEx box to get through security these days, but I do know what I faced last week in Vancouver made getting around Whistler during the Olympics seem like a walk in the park.

I actually thought this trip might be a breeze. Boarding pass in hand, I gave check-in a miss. Security looked promising, only seven people in line in front of me. Seven! Forty-five minutes later, tying my shoes, buckling my belt and scratching my head I wondered why I hadn't seen the rabbit hole I'd obviously fallen into.

My first clue this wasn't going to be easy should have been the seeing-eye dog sitting at the feet of the laconic guy viewing the baggage screens. I'm not sure what he was pretending to look at since no baggage inched along the conveyor belt for a full 15 minutes. Reruns of I Dream of Jeanie seemed to be the consensus of the seven of us wondering why we weren't moving. Pique turned into gallows humour and we started a pool to guess how long it would be before Deadeye remembered to hit the "ON" button and get our suspicious laptops and shoes moving. I didn't win but then, I knew "forever" was a long shot.

In the meantime, a humourless humanoid ran cotton swabs over my hands and placed them in a machine. She did this with everyone. No exceptions. I never found out whether she was looking for evidence of gunpowder, bomb making or masturbation since she wouldn't acknowledge any of my questions. Whatever she was looking for - job security I suspect - her very expensive looking machine didn't find any.

When the line finally began to move, sluglike though not in any way deliberate, I oozed through the x-ray machine without setting it off. Free at last. Okay, maybe not. "Patdown or full body scan?" another cheerful TSA employee asked with a lilt in her voice. When I asked whether she'd be patting me down she shook her head no and pointed to a gruesome-looking thug who bore a striking resemblance to the character Dim in A Clockwork Orange .

"Body scan, please," I replied.

Having been scanned, sniffed, x-rayed and profiled - potential terrorist, definite troublemaker - they set to work on my computer. Ten minutes later all their sniffing machinery could conclude was that it was, in fact, a computer.

I ain't goin' nowhere, man... at least until the next time I have to.

Apparently, I'm not alone. While not as onerous as flying, the new drunk(sic) driving laws in Lotusland are proving perhaps a bit too strict. Or at least their zealous enforcement is having a chilling effect on the restaurant and bar trade, while providing a boon to tow trucks and taxis. Solicitous-General Rich Coleman announced the government in Victoria is having second thoughts about their first thoughts. They might even ramp up an advertising campaign to tell us it's okay to drink a bit and drive.

You can't make up irony this rich without calling it fiction.