{"id":3269,"date":"2005-04-13T21:59:48","date_gmt":"2005-04-14T04:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2005\/04\/13\/george-carlin-airline-announcements\/"},"modified":"2019-12-13T12:03:39","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T20:03:39","slug":"george-carlin-airline-announcements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2005\/04\/13\/george-carlin-airline-announcements\/","title":{"rendered":"George Carlin: Airline Announcements"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:8456,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.amazon.com\\\/exec\\\/obidos\\\/tg\\\/detail\\\/-\\\/B000002JQA\\\/djwudicom-20&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20210716193935\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.amazon.com\\\/exec\\\/obidos\\\/tg\\\/detail\\\/-\\\/B000002JQA\\\/djwudicom-20&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 10:29:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 10:29:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:6221,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:6232,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DFluke%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>By the way, that little George Carlin moment in my previous post comes from one of my favorite of his routines from his &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/B000002JQA\/djwudicom-20\" title=\"Amazon: George Carlin: 'Jammin' in New York'\">Jammin&#8217; in New York<\/a>&#8216; album, where he skewers the convoluted and bizarre language used by the airline industry.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Something else we have in common: flying on the airlines, and listening to the airlines&#8217; announcements, and trying to pretend to ourselves that the language they&#8217;re using is really English. Doesn&#8217;t seem like it to me.<\/p>\n<p>  Whole thing starts when you get to the gate. First announcement: &#8220;We would like to begin the boarding process.&#8221; Extra word, &#8216;process,&#8217; not necessary, &#8216;boarding&#8217; is enough. &#8220;We&#8217;d like to begin the boarding.&#8221; Simple, tells the story. People add extra words when they want things to sound more important than they really are. &#8216;Boarding process.&#8217; Sounds important. <em>It isn&#8217;t.<\/em> It&#8217;s just a bunch of people getting on an airplane.<\/p>\n<p>  People like to sound important. Weathermen on television talk about &#8216;shower activity.&#8217; Sounds more important than &#8216;showers.&#8217; I even heard one guy on CNN talk about a &#8216;rain event.&#8217; Swear to God, he said, &#8220;Louisiana&#8217;s expecting a rain event,&#8221; I thought, &#8220;Holy shit, I hope I can get tickets to that!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  &#8216;Emergency situation.&#8217; Newspeople like to say, &#8220;Police have responded to an emergency situation.&#8221; No they haven&#8217;t. They&#8217;ve responded to an emergency. We <em>know<\/em> it&#8217;s a situation, <em>everything<\/em> is a situation.<\/p>\n<p>  Anyway, as part of this &#8216;boarding process,&#8217; they say, &#8220;We would like to pre-board.&#8221; Well, what exactly is that, anyway? What does it mean to &#8216;pre-board&#8217;, you get on before you get on?<\/p>\n<p>  That&#8217;s another complaint of mine: too much use of this prefix &#8216;pre-,&#8217; it&#8217;s all over the language now, &#8216;pre-&#8216; this, &#8216;pre-&#8216; that. &#8220;Place the turkey in a pre-heated oven.&#8221; That&#8217;s ridiculous, there&#8217;s only two states an oven can possibly exist in, heated or un-heated! &#8216;Pre-heated&#8217; is a meaningless fucking term. It&#8217;s like &#8216;pre-recorded,&#8217; &#8220;this program was pre-recorded,&#8221; well of <em>course<\/em> it was pre-recorded, when else are you gonna record it, <em>afterwards<\/em>? That&#8217;s the whole purpose of recording, to do it beforehand. Otherwise, it doesn&#8217;t really work, does it?<\/p>\n<p>  &#8216;Pre-existing,&#8217; &#8216;pre-planning,&#8217; &#8216;pre-screening.&#8217; You know what I tell these people? &#8220;Pre-suck my genital situation!&#8221; And, they seem to understand what I&#8217;m talking about.<\/p>\n<p>  Anyway, as part of this &#8216;pre-boarding,&#8217; they say, &#8220;We would like to pre-board those passengers traveling with small children.&#8221; Well, what about those passengers traveling with <em>large<\/em> children? Suppose you have a two-year-old with a pituitary disorder? You know, a six-foot infant with an oversized head. The kinda kid you see in the National Enquirer all the time. Actually, with a kid like that I think you&#8217;re better off checking him right in with your luggage at the curb, don&#8217;t you? Well, they like it under there, it&#8217;s dark, they&#8217;re used to that.<\/p>\n<p>  About this time, someone is telling you to get on the plane, &#8220;get on the plane, get on the plane,&#8221; I say, &#8220;Fuck you, I&#8217;m getting <em>in<\/em> the plane! <em>In<\/em> the plane! Let Evil Knievel get <em>on<\/em> the plane, I&#8217;ll be in here with you folks in uniform. There seems to be less wind in here!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  They might tell you you&#8217;re on a non-stop flight. Well, I don&#8217;t think I care for that. No, I <em>insist<\/em> that my flight stop! Preferably at an airport! It&#8217;s those sudden, unscheduled cornfield and housing development stops that seem to interrupt the flow of my day.<\/p>\n<p>  Here&#8217;s one they just made up: &#8216;near miss.&#8217; When two planes almost collide, they call it a &#8216;near miss.&#8217; It&#8217;s a near <em>hit<\/em>! A <em>collision<\/em> is a near miss! (Crunch) &#8220;Look, they nearly missed.&#8221; Yes, but <em>not quite<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>  They might tell you your flight has been delayed because of a &#8216;change of equipment.&#8217; <em>Broken plane<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>  They tell me to put my seat back forward. Well I don&#8217;t bend that way! If I could put my seat back forward I&#8217;d be in porno movies!<\/p>\n<p>  Then they mention &#8216;carry-on luggage.&#8217; The first time I heard &#8216;carry-on&#8217; I thought they were going to bring a dead deer on board. I thought, &#8220;what the hell do they need with that, don&#8217;t they have the little TV dinners anymore?&#8221; Then I thought, &#8220;carry-on, carry-on, there&#8217;s going to be a party, people are going to be carrying on on the plane!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Well, I don&#8217;t care for that, I like a serious attitude on the plane, especially on the &#8216;<em>flight deck<\/em>&#8216;. Which is the latest euphamism for &#8216;<em>cockpit<\/em>!&#8217; Can&#8217;t imagine why they wouldn&#8217;t want to use a <em>lovely<\/em> word like &#8216;<em>cockpit<\/em>,&#8217; can you? Especially with all those stewardess going in and out of it all the time!<\/p>\n<p>  There&#8217;s one, there&#8217;s a word that&#8217;s changed: &#8216;stewardess,&#8217; first it was &#8216;hostess,&#8217; then &#8216;stewardess,&#8217; now it&#8217;s &#8216;flight attendant.&#8217; Know what I call &#8217;em? &#8216;The lady on the plane.&#8217; Sometimes it&#8217;s a man on the plane, now, that&#8217;s good, equality, I&#8217;m all in favor of that. Sometimes, they actually refer to these people as &#8216;uniformed crewmembers.&#8217; &#8216;Uniformed,&#8217; as opposed to that guy sitting next to you in the Grateful Dead t-shirt and the &#8216;Fuck You&#8217; hat &#8212; who&#8217;s working on his ninth little bottle of Kaluha, I might add!<\/p>\n<p>  As soon as they close the door to the aircraft, that&#8217;s when they begin the Safety Lecture. I <em>love<\/em> the Safety Lecture. This is my favorite part of the airplane ride. I listen <em>very<\/em> carefully to the Safety Lecture, especially that part where they teach us how to use: the <em>seatbelts<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>  Imagine this, here we are, a plane full of grown human beings, many of us partially educated, and they&#8217;re actually taking time out to describe the intricate workings of a <em>belt buckle<\/em>! &#8220;Place the small metal flap into the buckle.&#8221; Well, I ask for clarification at that point! &#8220;Over here, please, over here, yes, thank you very much. Did I hear you correctly? Did you say, &#8216;place the small metal flap into the buckle,&#8217; or, &#8216;place the buckle over and around the small metal flap?&#8217; I&#8217;m a simple man, I do not posses an engineering degree, nor am I mechanically inclined. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time, please continue with the <em>wonderful<\/em> Safety Lecture.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Seatbelt. High-tech shit!<\/p>\n<p>  The Safety Lecture continues. The next thing they do, they tell you to locate your nearest Emergency Exit. I do this <em>immediately<\/em>. I locate my nearest Emergency Exit, and then I plan my route. You <em>have<\/em> to plan your route, it&#8217;s not always a straight line, is it? Sometimes there&#8217;s a really big fat fuck sitting right in front of you. Well, you know you&#8217;ll never get over him.<\/p>\n<p>  I look around for women and children, midgets and dwarves, cripples, war widows, paralyzed veterans, people with broken legs, anyone who looks like they can&#8217;t move too well &#8212; the emotionally disturbed come in <em>very<\/em> handy at a time like this. You might have to go out of your way to find these people, but you&#8217;ll get out of the plane a lot goddamn quicker, believe me.<\/p>\n<p>  I say, &#8220;Let&#8217;s see. I&#8217;ll go around the fat fuck, step on the widow&#8217;s head, push those children out of the way, knock down the paralyzed midget, and get out of the plane where I can <em>help others<\/em>.&#8221; I can be of no help to anyone if I&#8217;m lying unconscious in the aisle with some big cocksucker standing on my head. I must get out of the plane, go to a nearby farmhouse, have a Dr. Pepper, and call the police.<\/p>\n<p>  The Safety Lecture continues. &#8220;In the unlikely event&#8230;.&#8221; This is a very suspect phrase. Especially coming, as it does, from an industry that is willing to lie about arrival and departure times. &#8220;In the unlikely event of a sudden change in cabin pressure &#8211;&#8221; <em>Roof flies off!<\/em> &#8220;&#8211; an oxygen mask will drop down in front of you. Place the mask over your face and breathe normally.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Well, I have no problem with that. I always breathe normally when I&#8217;m in a six-hundred mile an hour uncontrolled vertical dive. I also shit normally &#8212; <em>right in my pants<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>  They tell you to adjust <em>your<\/em> oxygen mask before helping your child with his. I did not need to be told that. In fact, I&#8217;m probably going to be too busy screaming to help him at all! This will be a good time for him to learn <em>self-reliance<\/em>! If he can program his fucking VCR, he can goddamn jolly well learn to adjust an oxygen mask! Fairly simple thing, just a little rubber band around the back is all it is. Not <em>nearly<\/em> as complicated as, say, for instance, a seatbelt.<\/p>\n<p>  The Safety Lecture continues. &#8220;In the unlikely event of a water landing&#8230;.&#8221; Well what exactly <em>is<\/em> a &#8216;water landing?&#8217; Am I mistaken, or does this sound somewhat similar to <em>crashing into the ocean<\/em>? &#8220;Your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device.&#8221; Well, imagine that. My seat cushion! Just what I need &#8212; to float around the North Atlantic for several days clinging to a pillow full of beer farts!<\/p>\n<p>  The flight continues, a little later on toward the end, we hear, &#8220;The Captain has turned on the &#8216;Fasten Seatbelt&#8217; sign.&#8221; Well who gives a shit who turned it on? What does that have to do with anything? It&#8217;s on, isn&#8217;t it? And who made this man a &#8216;Captain,&#8217; might I ask? Did I sleep through some sort of an armed forces swearing-in ceremony or something? &#8216;Captain,&#8217; he&#8217;s a fucking pilot, and let him be happy with that! If those sight-seeing announcements are any mark of his intellect, he&#8217;s lucky to be working at all! &#8220;Tell the &#8216;Captain,&#8217; Air Marshall Carlin says, &#8216;Go fuck yourself!'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  The next sentence I hear is <em>full<\/em> of things that piss me off. &#8220;Before leaving the aircraft, please check around your immediate seating area for any personal belongings you might have brought on board.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Well. Let&#8217;s start with &#8216;immediate seating area.&#8217; <em>Seat<\/em>! It&#8217;s a goddamned <em>seat<\/em>! &#8220;Check around your <em>seat<\/em>!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;&#8230;for any personal belongings&#8230;.&#8221; Well what other kinds of belongings are there besides personal? Public belongings? Do these people honestly think I might be traveling with a fountain I stole from the park?<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;&#8230;you might have brought on board.&#8221; Well, I <em>might<\/em> have brought my arrowhead collection. I didn&#8217;t, so I&#8217;m not going to look for it! <em>I&#8217;m<\/em> going to look for things I <em>brought<\/em> on board! It would seem to enhance the likelihood of my finding something, wouldn&#8217;t you say?<\/p>\n<p>  Tell me to return my seat back and tray table to their original upright positions? Fine, who&#8217;s going to return this guy in the Grateful Dead t-shirt and the &#8216;Fuck You&#8217; hat to <em>his<\/em> original upright position?<\/p>\n<p>  About this time, they tell you you&#8217;ll be landing shortly. That sound to anybody like we&#8217;re gonna miss the runway? &#8216;Final approach&#8217; is not very promising either, is it? &#8216;Final&#8217; is <em>not<\/em> a good word to be using on an airplane. Sometimes the pilot will get on, he&#8217;ll say, &#8220;we&#8217;ll be on the ground in fifteen minutes.&#8221; Well, <em>that&#8217;s<\/em> a little vague, isn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>  Now we&#8217;re taxiing in, she says, &#8220;Welcome to O&#8217;Hare International Airport.&#8221; Well how can someone who is just arriving herself possibly welcome me to a place she isn&#8217;t even <em>at<\/em> yet? Doesn&#8217;t this violate some fundamental law of physics? We&#8217;re only on the ground four seconds, and she&#8217;s coming on like the fucking mayor&#8217;s wife!<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;&#8230;where the local time&#8230;.&#8221; Well of <em>course<\/em> it&#8217;s the local time, what did you think we were expecting, the time in Pango-Pango?<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;&#8230;enjoy your stay in Chicago, or whever your final destination might be.&#8221; <em>All<\/em> destinations are final. That&#8217;s what it means, destiny, final. If you haven&#8217;t gotten where you&#8217;re going, you aren&#8217;t there yet!<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;The Captain has asked&#8230;.&#8221; More shit from the bogus &#8216;Captain.&#8217; You know, for someone who&#8217;s supposed to be flying an airplane, he&#8217;s taking a <em>mighty<\/em> big interest in what I&#8217;m doing back here. &#8220;&#8230;that you remain seated until he has brought the aircraft to a complete stop.&#8221; Not a partial stop &#8212; &#8217;cause during a partial stop, I partially get up.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;Continue to observe the &#8216;No Smoking&#8217; sign until well inside the terminal.&#8221; It&#8217;s <em>physically impossible<\/em> to observe the &#8216;No Smoking&#8217; sign even if you&#8217;re standing just outside the door of the airplane! Much <em>less<\/em> well inside the terminal! You can&#8217;t even see the fucking <em>planes<\/em> from well inside the terminal!<\/p>\n<p>  Which brings me to &#8216;terminal.&#8217; Another unfortunate word to be used in association with air travel. And they use it all over the airport, don&#8217;t they? Somehow, I just can&#8217;t get hungry at a place called the &#8216;Terminal Snack Bar.&#8217; But if you&#8217;ve ever eaten there, you know it <em>is<\/em> an appropriate name.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"iTunes\" border=\"0\" width=\"61\" height=\"15\" src=\"http:\/\/images.apple.com\/itunesaffiliates\/logos\/iTunes_sm_bdg61x15.png\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/ad.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/show?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;bids=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0\" \/> &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FsongTerm=Atom Bomb (Atomix 2)%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for 'Atom Bomb (Atomix 2)' on the iTMS\">Atom Bomb (Atomix 2)<\/a>&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DFluke%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for Fluke on the iTMS\">Fluke<\/a> from the album <em><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FalbumTerm=Atom Bomb%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for Atom Bomb on the iTMS\">Atom Bomb<\/a><\/em> (1996, 6:43).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the way, that little George Carlin moment in my previous post comes from one of my favorite of his routines from his &#8216;Jammin&#8217; in New York&#8217; album, where he skewers the convoluted and bizarre language used by the airline industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-3269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-humor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}