FRANK 32: Jet Set

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STAFF Mike and Stephen Malbon Chris Nagy Sir Frank Jason Lee & Chris Pastras Frank Green Stefanie “Schui” Schumacher J. Nicely Adam Pasulka Dan Tochterman Craig Wetherby Sherry Brody Anton Schlesinger Joseph J. Setton Shanti Garcia Thomas “Bongi” Bongiorno Ricky Powell, Hallie Waxman, Monihan Monihan, Clyde Singleton, Chris Cruz, Frantisek Rehak, Dean “Blotto” Gray, Thom Hohman, Ports Bishop, Jake Lemkowitz, Stash, David Corio, Todd Jordan, Chris Nieratko, Andy Levison, Caitlin Collins, Arnaud Pigounides, Thomas Subreville Brian J. Marvin Eric Shorter Domingo Neris Christian Alexander Todd Nisbet Mr. Bee Dave Cove & Aaron Ginsberg Daisuke Shiromoto Lyntaro Wajima, Takayuki Shibaki Yosuke Nakata, Yoshiharu Kudo, Halmi Shioya advertising@frank151.com content@frank151.com info@frank151.com tokyo@frank151.com

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WITH JASON LEE AND CHRIS PASTRAS Interview Jason Lee and Chris Pastras So, what are the highs and lows of Jet Setting?

Jason Lee: Highs – Seeing the world with friends, the variety of foods, museums, architecture.

Lows – Jetlag.

Chris Pastras: Highs – Seeing the globe from the dining car whilst sipping champagne and having a foot rub. Lows – Backache.

Favorite Jet Set destination?

JL: Northern CA, San Francisco, Paris, French countryside, London, Austria, Switzerland.

CP: South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Mexico, Cuba and New Jersey.

Jet Setting vehicle of choice?

JL: Planes, trains and motorcycles.

CP: My 2004 Honda Element and my skateboard.

Any idea who the first Jet Setter was?

JL: Colonel Sanders.

CP: The dudes in Planet of the Apes.

Who are some of your Jet Set heroes / influences?

JL: Todd Bridges, Gary Coleman and Mr. Drummond. Oh, and Remmington Steele.

CP: Dudley Moore as Arthur, 007, Inspector Clouseau, William Shatner, Rodney Dangerfield, Cruella De Vil, Richie Rich, Christian Hosoi and Tony Hawk in the 80s, Slick Rick and Neil Armstrong.

Person you most wish was a Stereo Sound Agent?

JL: The best Agent would be Sammy Davis, Jr. Irreplaceable!

CP: The late great Mr. Dangerfield for sure.

Most low budget trip ever?

JL: The old amateur skating days crammed in a stinky van with potato chips and Coke as the daily menu.

CP: A skate mission in 1988 where me and Sean Sheffey bummed a ride to Ocean City Maryland and back with nowhere to stay and about 50 bucks between us for the whole summer.

Most luxurious mode of transport ever?

JL: 1978 Rolls Royce, and Winnebago for long distance.

CP: The time The Greatest American Hero flew by and picked me up... He flew me all the way to the Glendale Galleria.

Most remote Jet Set destination traveled?

JL: Tom Selleck’s moustache.

CP: The South African Bush.

What do you think the future of Jet Setting holds?

JL: Always good times, and perhaps space travel.

CP: Trips to the Moon in First Class for sure.... Cheers to Martinis in Space!!!

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Photo courtesy of Corbis

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I’M NO MISTER FANCY PANTS...

Interview & photo Ricky Powell Yo wassup...? I thought this guy was gonna be like a fancy yerk off for me to interview, considering the crews he’s run around with.

But to my pleasant surprise, he was like this dude who doesn’t rest on his laurels and comes correct. I felt lucky that he elected to drop some science on me. So here’s what went down while Mr. Robin Leach was running errands on the go in Vegas...

Ricky Powell: I think if the term “Jet Setter” was in the dictionary, your picture would be right next to it.

Robin Leach: For years I chronicled the lifestyles of the rich and famous; not just for the television show, but in everything I’ve ever done, really, going back to when I was in England and then when I came to New York and LA, and now for the last seven years in Las Vegas. I would say that Las Vegas certainly in the last three to four years has become part of what used to be only a “golden triangle” for the American Jet Set, which was New York, Miami, Los Angeles. In the last three to four years, Vegas has been added to make it a quadrangle. Las Vegas, now, is a must-stop for the Jet Set from Europe. When they fly between London and Paris and the French Riviera and Rome and then they come to the States, Vegas has become one of their top two cities of must visit.

RP: What are you doing in Vegas, specifically?

RL: A number of things. I came out here originally to be involved with all of our Food Networks chefs to the

restaurants at the Venetian. I was one of the founding fathers of the Food Network after Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous— RP: What?!— RL: Yes! RP: Wow. . .

RL: I was at Food Network for five years until it was sold. During that time we started talking about putting a satellite TV studio in Las Vegas so the chefs could open restaurants in Vegas and at the same time do their television shows. I had never intended to be a full-time resident in Vegas. I was very happy in my apartment on Park Avenue in New York, but I fell in love with the city and I realized it was a city just about to explode, and I’d arrived at the right time to help it explode. We’ve been involved with a number of chefs, a number of hotels, and then we started bringing TV shows to Vegas, including one that I did recently which was a show called Fame Games on VH1. It was a multipart twelve-week series. And we are now in the throes of wiring with fiber optic all the hotels on the strip so by the spring our studios will be able to

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just roll on wheels, plug into any hotel in Vegas, and we can get the satellite out of the resort to anywhere in the world in any format.

RP: That’s what’s up. Smart move, I like that—portable studio.

RL: Just plug it into the wires and then we just roll the tires off. Then we are going to launch an old fashioned variety talk show from any location we want to do it on the Strip.

RP: I like it, I like it. We need to bring back the good old variety show.

RL: Yeah, and if you could do it, the only place in the world you could do it would be in Vegas. Ellen DeGeneres did it recently as part of the Comedy Festival. It was throwback to Ed Sullivan. You can’t reinvent the wheel all the time, you can only update the wheel.

RP: Uh huh, well said. Yes, indeed. I myself have had a talk show, but on Public Access TV in Manhattan. Now I’m going to start doing it on YouTube.

RL: Very good.

RP: That seems to be the Public Access for the world.

RL: The Internet is very, very powerful and in some terms more powerful than television. I’m trying to figure out how you marry the two because the two should be married. You can’t interact with the TV set. If they take the TV programs on the Internet where you can interact with them, then you have the best of both worlds. That way you can then make money out of both with commercial advertising.

RP: Let me ask you this, if I may.

RL: You can ask me anything you want.

RP: I’m a freelance artist, right? I usually don’t sell any work when I have an opening, and then I ask the

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gallery owner what is it gonna take to sell some prints, and he told me it’s all about circles, as in circles of people.

You seem to have come up in an interesting circle of people yourself.

RL: I don’t know if that’s really true.

I’m still the kid from London from the wrong side of the tracks. I’m still scrappy. I don’t regard myself as having won anything yet. A lot of people would tell you that somebody who had a successful TV show, somebody who’s done this, that and the other, normally you would just stop and sit back and retire. But I think if you retire, you die. Therefore, I still wake up every morning thinking I’m 21 years of age standing in America without a penny in my pocket and I’ve got to go to work again. I think work keeps you young, keeps you healthy and it’s exciting. I don’t know that there are any circles that I’ve ever had and moved in, but I’m not rich, I’m not famous—maybe a little infamous—but I’m still scrapping to make an extra dollar here.

RP: I appreciate your foremost honesty. I agree with you. You have to keep reinventing yourself.

RL: Well, in this day and age of television, longevity is very short. A TV star certainly explodes out of one TV show.

Like Grey’s Anatomy is the hot show this year. But how many of those cast members do you really know? And how many of those cast members ever really get seen again?

RP: Yeah, I hear you, I hear you.

RL: You have to be a businessman as well as an “actor” and entertainer, or in my case, a writer, and keep punching away with a different and a new idea every day of the week until one of them gets bought. Nothing ever comes to you in television unless you’re a superstar or a sex symbol.

You were fantastic in Baywatch, now

I need you to headline a magic show in Vegas. That’s the culture we live in where girls on television are far more favored than somewhat aging men with receding hairlines and protruding stomachs. I don’t resent any of it, I just think that’s another challenge one must take on.

RP: When you see the programming on television today and the “celebrities” of today, how do you feel? Do you think the bar has been lowered?

RL: Let me try and give you a doubleedged answer. What happened is when cable television came on the scene, it’s success depleted the revenue of regular television. And in the old days three networks and two local stations cut up the pie between the five of them. Cable came along, lots more independent stations came along and now we have a hundred stations that cut up the pie. Each of those stations are trying to make television programs

that are a very expensive undertaking.

And so what happened was TV shows became cheaper to make—they had to. So you got Reality Television where it was easier to not have a cast of 12 but it was easier to have an unpaid house of 24 people and just let the cameras roll without scripts, without anything. So the bar got lowered. As a result, when those people could get ratings, what did you need stars for?

Or as many stars? So the old days of television, when an actor or actress became a hot commodity, was sort of pushed down as we went into this cheaper and cheaper form of making television with the result that the “star system” suffered. And so it’s only in the movie industry that you really have the same stardom of yesteryear that we had with people like Clark Gable or Cary Grant. We have a handful of people who really will be bankrolled by the money men of Wall Street or Hollywood so that they don’t lose

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money by putting a new actor on top of the marquee on top of the new movie.

RP: Oh, brother.

RL: It takes a long time for an actor or actress to become a bankable star.

And that’s why we see so few names making so many movies.

RP: I see, excellent point. Speaking of the old, glamorous stars, my friend runs Gina Lollobrigida’s estate for her.

He looks out for her. He got a signed postcard for me from her. I did a little research on her. I was amazed that her photography and her sculpture work came before the movie career, but she’s doing it all. My question is, did you ever cross paths with Gina Lollobrigida, and if so, what were your sentiments?

RL: I haven’t crossed paths with her in a long, long time. But when I lived in New York up until 2000, I would often run into her at parties or dinners or social gatherings. I always liked Gina, but I must confess I always liked Sofia Loren a little more. But what you have to admire about Gina Lollobrigida, and you talk about the photography and the sculpture, is that there was a woman who knew that at such a point her career as a glamorous actress would come to an end. If you don’t have another craft like sculpting or photography, your days become very miserable. Gina, even after she’d become a little aged in terms of what the movies wanted from her, had a very formidable career as an artist.

RP: Cool, cool. Did you come up with the idea for the show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?

RL: Yes. RP: Did you ever catch that show on MTV that they called MTV Cribs?

RL: Yes, an absolute copy and a rip off

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of what we did. They even did it with a fake English accent. I’ve always said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But I’ve always said if you are the original with an original idea, then people, however many times it gets copied, you still remain number one.

So like you said, everybody knows Lifestyles and everybody knows Cribs, but everybody knows where Cribs came from.

RP: Of course. I was kind of baiting you! I thought your stomach might turn hearing the name of that show.

RL: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was the first form of Tabloid Television.

I was involved with the launch of Entertainment Tonight two years earlier than we started Lifestyles. When you look back to the very early criticism of Lifestyles, people said how rude it was to take a camera into people’s houses, how disgusting it was that Leach asked questions about their money, et cetera. And then it gave birth to everything we now know as tabloid TV. So you know, we were before Geraldo opened Al Capone’s chest.

We were doing all that stuff before all those other programs began.

RP: Were you ever approached to do the conventional talk show format?

RL: The new show that we do— RP: Is that more like standard talk show, Johnny Carson style?

RL: No, it’s ensemble/variety. Here in Vegas, we have the greatest acts in the world and they change every week.

RP: Thank you for your time and continued success, sir.

RL: Thank you for your interest.

RP: Alright, chill.

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Words Adam Pasulka Air travel stands as a towering monument to the determined and innovative nature of humankind. Thanks to contributions from brilliant minds such as Leonardo da Vinci, the Wright Brothers, Sir Frank Whittle, and many others, the age-old dream of flight is now a reality. However, as far as aviation has progressed, the concept still seems absurd when broken down into its basic components.

Passengers board a 250 ton steel bird, take a seat on top of 50,000 gallons of fuel and wait patiently to be rocketed 30,000 feet into the air. From this point of view, it’s no surprise that the combination of such high-risk elements occasionally results in disaster.

But what exactly is it about the potential for plane crashes that makes the fear of flying one of America’s top phobias?

In 1989, The New York Times ran an article reporting that 15 major airlines showing the 1988 film Rain Man cut the scene in which autistic savant Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) refuses to take an airplane to Los Angeles with his brother Charlie (Tom Cruise), muttering, “Airline travel is very dangerous.” Charlie runs through the list of available airlines, all of which Raymond follows with a crash date and death toll. Raymond is steadfast in his refusal, until finally citing that Qantas Airways has never had an accident.

Unfortunately for Charlie, no Qantas jets are flying to LA. And so begins their journey, albeit by car.

Which airline chose not to cut the fourminute sequence from Rain Man? Qantas, of course.

When looking at the numbers, fearing death by plane crash is like expecting to win the lottery. Slim to none just about covers both scenarios. In 2004,

the odds of dying in a US civil aviation accident as an American citizen were around one in 460,993, with aviation accidents accounting for less than .03% of all mortalities. Compare that to heart disease, the number-one killer of Americans in 2004, accounting for over 27% of all mortalities. Other top killers included stroke, several forms of cancer, respiratory disease, diabetes and ‘unintentional injuries.’

If the probability of death by way of plane crash isn’t anything to be afraid of, perhaps the nature of the crashes merits a closer look.

Comair Flight 5191 stands as the deadliest US civil-aviation accident since 2001. Flight 5191 was scheduled to take off from Blue Grass Airport in Kentucky on August 27, 2006 at around 6 a.m. It was the Pilot Jeffrey Clay, who shortly after receiving a runway designation from air traffic control, mistakenly maneuvered the CRJ-100 onto a shorter, unlit stretch,

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not suitable for commercial jet use.

Co-pilot James Polehinke then took control of the plane and initiated takeoff. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) post-accident report stated that all 47 passengers, along with two of the three crew members, were killed “by impact forces and a post-crash fire” when the plane broke through a Blue Grass Airport perimeter fence and impacted with trees on a neighboring farm. As the sole survivor, Polehinke was seriously hurt before rescue workers pulled him from the burning wreckage. His injuries included facial and spine fractures, a broken foot and hand, three broken ribs, a broken breastbone, a collapsed lung and a broken leg that would later be amputated.

NTSB released the 43-page Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) transcript five months after the crash. The bulk of the roughly 30 minute record covers the time from when the pilots first

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entered the cockpit to make preflight checks, up to their final takeoff preparations. Aside from standard planespeak, the crew discussed family life and career aspirations. The accident is covered in the last two pages of the document. Once the plane began to pick up speed, about 15 seconds prior to the initial impact, Polhinke is cited as saying, “Dat is weird with no lights,” presumably in reference to the unlit runway. Clay responds, “Yeah.” The transcript then continues for two seconds with editorial insertions such as “[unknown ambient noise],” “[unintelligible exclamation],” finally ending with “#,” which signifies “expletive.”

After more than a year of investigation, NTSB cited the pilots’ initial runway confusion, as well as their failure to recognize signs that they were on the wrong runway, as the main causes of the accident. The CVR transcript and post-crash report, both of which are available on NTSB’s website, do not

go into the specifics of the accident, let alone the horrific and ultimately unimaginable death faced by all but one of those on board Flight 5191.

In a chapter entitled “Beyond the Black Box” from her 2003 book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Mary Roach interviews Dennis Shannahan about his time spent as the injury analyst investigating TWA Flight 800. En route from New York’s JFK airport to Paris, France in July of 1996, Flight 800 broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 230 passengers on board. Shannahan was charged with formulating the probable cause of the crash. If the cause of an accident is unclear from studying the aircraft wreckage alone, or if integral pieces of the plane cannot be recovered, “investigators turn to what is known as ‘the human wreckage’: the bodies of passengers,” Roach writes.

“By studying victims’ wounds—the type, the severity, which side of the body they’re on—an injury analyst can begin to piece together the horrible unfolding of events.”

Since it was reported that Flight 800 exploded in midair before plummeting into the ocean, Shannahan looked first to see if explosives were involved. Roach continues, “Had there been a bomb in the cabin of Flight 800, Shannahan would have found a cluster of ‘highly fragmented bodies’ corresponding to the seats nearest the explosion.” He also tracked “the number and the trajectories or ‘foreign bodies’ embedded within [the victims].” Lastly, Shannahan looked at the chemical burns apparent on some of the passengers. Though explosive projectiles such as missiles can cause similar burns as seen on Flight 800 victims, he suspected that they were acquired after passengers

hit the ocean, as “spilled jet fuel on the surface of the water will burn a floating body on its back, but not on its front.”

Shannahan also noted that, “had a missile blasted through the cabin, the fuel burns would have been on people’s fronts or sides, depending on where they had been seated, but not on their backs, as the seatbacks would have protected them.”

Shannahan ultimately determined that no criminal activity was involved in the crash of TWA Flight 800, a theory later verified when several key pieces of the aircraft were located. The NTSB’s final report stated that an explosion in the center wing fuel tank, ignited by a frayed wire, lead to the crash.

Though criminal activity was not a factor in the case of TWA Flight 800, malicious acts do contribute to plane crashes. The aviation industry was most notably rocked on September 11, 2001, when four commercial airplanes were hijacked; two hit the Twin Towers, one the Pentagon, and another crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania, allegedly on its way to another high profile target. Arguably the nation’s number one authority on domestic aviation accidents, the NTSB does not investigate crashes resulting from “criminal activity,” nor do they factor this type of crash into aviation statistics. These investigations are handed over to the FBI and other federal authorities, as they are not considered “accidents.”

On November 19th, 1987, CustomerService Manager Raymond Thomson fired USAir Ticket Agent David Burke after a hidden camera caught Burke stealing $69 from flight cocktail receipts. An unmarried father of seven, Burke reportedly turned moody and violent after his discharge.

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Less than a month later, he boarded Pacific Southwest Flight 1771 from Los Angeles to San Francisco on a one way ticket, smuggling aboard a loaded .44 magnum revolver he had borrowed from a friend. The FBI affidavit that followed the crash of Flight 1771 stated, “David Burke had been allowed to bypass security screening as a familiar airlines employee.”

The events leading up to the crash were recorded by the plane’s CVR. A commotion began with what sounded like two gunshots in the cabin. An “unauthorized entry” was then made into the cockpit, followed by a scuffle and three more shots. One more shot was heard shortly before the CVR stopped recording.

Raymond Thomson was one of the 43 passengers on board, all of whom were killed when the jet slammed into a hill near Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County. Taking into consideration the drastic descent reported, investigators posited that the two pilots might have been shot in such

a way that their bodies were left slumped over the controls, forcing the plane into a nosedive.

Amidst the wreckage, investigators recovered a portion of Burke’s thumb, along with the borrowed revolver containing six expended cartridges.

Also discovered was a message to Raymond Thomson written on an airsick bag. “Hi, Ray. I think it’s sort of ironical that we end up like this. I asked you for some leniency for my family, remember. Well I got none. And you’ll get none.”

For the less blissfully ignorant (and perhaps more cynical) air traveler, the concept of aviation feels counterintuitive, not to mention unnatural. Poet Saul Williams captured the paradox when he wrote, “I can think of nothing heavier than an airplane…I can think of nothing less likely to fly. There are no wings more weighted.” As a species, we spend the vast majority of our lives firmly planted on the ground.

We rely on an imperfect technology to carry us up. We then rely on fellow humans to utilize this technology without error or malicious intent. For some, air travel is nothing more than a collection of potential hazards. But in actuality, the fear of plane crashes is unfounded. Hard statistics and probability are unfortunately less convincing than horror stories and a powerful imagination.

So with that said, what is the best way to overcome the fear of death by plane crash? Replace it with the fear of death by heart attack.

For more information on plane crashes visit www.ntsb.gov or check out Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.

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Interview Hallie Waxman Photos courtesy of NASA What one can find on the future of travel, and even more so, space travel, is a wealth of vacation destinations and scenarios that seem plucked straight from science fiction. While all of these are interesting, the “future” of years ago would have us in flying cars or clubbing underwater. Even the projections made a couple of years back seem misinformed, if not just plain silly now. We don’t seem to be moving forward all that fast when actual progress is pitted against these musings into the future.

With all that we’ve known for years about the nature of fossil fuels, why are we just beginning to talk hybrid cars and power alternatives? With NASA sources reporting an increase in cut corners and the resulting apprehension with which we send each shuttle into space, how likely is it that members of the regular old Jet Set and not multi-billionaires will soon be able to vacation in the final frontier town? What does the future of travel really look like, and can the public see it at all without a special clearance pass?

Luckily, my family consists almost entirely of rocket scientists (with a few exceptions) and even though the lot of them are employed by big bad organizations, I figured maybe I could get from them something closer to the real deal since, you know, blood is thicker than evidence of water on Mars. So, armed with a bribe of McDonald’s for lunch and a few bucks for gas, I went to my brother, a researcher and super smart genius valedictorian Aerospace Engineering student. He doesn’t eat fast food now, and a few bucks wouldn’t cover his gas, but he agreed to help a sister out.

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Frank151: So, other than making more money than me and dad, what exactly does your work entail?

Hallie’s Brother: I research advanced propulsion technologies, specifically pulsed detonation engines, which is a more efficient kind of combustion, to be applied for future use in supersonic propulsion or aviation.

F151: So like, space rockets and regular jet flying?

HB: Yeah, for space “rockets” and different aspects of defense—like missiles and stuff. Also for ground based energy generation. They’ll apply it to that first, since no one will be up in the air relying on it if it actually works or not. Pulse detonation engines use a different type of combustion phenomenon. It’s detonation as opposed to deflagration. Now we use deflagration, in your car engines, jet engines, in everything. It’s a flame type of combustion. Detonation is more of an explosive, pressurized combustion—much more efficient. So fuel savings are big and there’s less of an environmental impact.

F151: What do you think is the biggest issue facing us right now in terms of fuel and fuel efficiency?

HB: Fossil fuels—jet fuel—has the highest energy density, which means you get the most energy for the weight or volume. In aviation, we’ve looked at moving over to hydrogen— but that energy density isn’t there. It’s not feasible.

F151: What about cars?

HB: There are cars that work on fossil fuels, of course. Then there are two different kinds of cars that use hydrogen, fuel cell cars use hydrogen and oxygen and have them on opposite sides of an electric circuit. What it does is it takes an electron from one and brings it through the circuit and it’s water, but when that electron is moving through it creates a current and that powers your car. What comes out of your exhaust is water vapor.

There are also cars that use hydrogen combustion. BMW has this concept car, it would hold both gasoline and hydrogen. The problem with extracting hydrogen is the method is either inefficient or requires the use of fos-

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sil fuel, which defeats the purpose.

There are straight electric cars—they use huge lithium-ion batteries, and that’s where they are limited. I mean, we can make an electric car that you could plug in overnight and have enough energy to get around, but the expense of a battery that big…these are the obstacles.

F151: Do you see us not using fossil fuel anytime soon? Why do you think we haven’t taken steps to switch to something else sooner?

HB: Well, we are going to have to.

In Brazil, they use ethanol, made from corn oils and that’s a renewable resource. There’s huge business in oil. Oil is the most lucrative business you can think of right now—I mean, of the top five Fortune 500 companies in 2006, three are oil companies. Exxon Mobile is number two (with an annual revenue of $347.25 billion and profits at $39.5 billion). The idea of the hybrid has been around for like 40 years, but American car companies were not having it. After a lot of trying, they took the idea over to Japan, and they went for it. Using less oil means huge losses for these big oil and car companies.

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F151: Let’s talk about outer space.…

How come we’re not where we thought we would be ten or 20 years ago?

HB: We were at the moon, and since then, you could say we’ve gone backwards. Not in technology, but the focus is elsewhere. If you shoot for the moon and then get it, orbiting around in space is just not as exciting. And even though we need to do it to go farther out, it’s become less of a priority. The main focus has been putting up satellites and working on space stations, GPS, weather satellites, you know. Since the Columbia disaster, NASA was having trouble with funding before that and now…. The deal is, though, there is this new thing where they are offering these things called X Prizes for private companies as an incentive for certain goals. One was to independently build a shuttle that could be launched into space.

It’s always been a strictly government thing. Some people argue that only the government can be careful enough to do this sort of thing, but God knows NASA has had its share of accidents. The prize was a million dollars, which is far less than what it

X-38 Ship released from a B-52

would cost to make it, but the winner got recognized and bought by Virgin.

The winner was Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composite Spacecraft Design, exclusively licensed to Virgin Galactic—go to the website. They are booking trips to space for as early as 2009 if you can buy the $200,000 ticket.

Another contest like that is to build this theoretical “space elevator,” a physical cable, tether, something, that goes from earth up to space and to a body out there. The competition is to make something that can actually withstand going through the atmosphere and into space while still connected on the Earth end, and a vehicle for it, to carry cargo to and from space. The idea was actually from a science fiction novel. The emphasis is now on giving private companies the incentive to build these things. NASA is still working on George Bush’s “back to the moon” thing. It’s called Project Constellation and the vessel is called

Orion, and what they want to do is replace the space shuttle and go back to something closer to what we used in Apollo—a big rocket with a space craft on top. The shuttle now is a bad design—incredibly expensive to send up and bring back.

F151: What about underwater? Could there be a dance club underwater?

HB: Underwater? I guess you could make a club underwater. There probably is one. The thing with underwater travel is that the military subs and stuff are nuclear powered. What limits them in terms of how long they can stay underwater or at sea is not their fuel, it’s how much food they bring along. Nuclear power is very powerful, very efficient. They are looking into using nuclear power for other things— space flight, but it is a touchy subject.

All that testing goes on underground.

You know K-----‘s Atomic Power Lab? It’s near our old house. They do

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A concept image for the Ares V cargo launch vehicle for Constellation Space Program.

that there, subs and nuclear power plants for training underground. There is another one farther upstate, a real big one. You could see it from Google Earth maybe.

F151: Oh, man, really? Will you take me there so I can take pictures?

HB: No way. They have gates with machine guns and stuff; it’s pretty high security. You can’t take pictures at where I work either.

F151: Can we try?

HB: You can do whatever you want.

F151: Can there be a dance club on Mars?

HB: Not in the near future. But I can tell you what might be. There is one

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thing that might cause us to go back to the Moon very shortly. There is a material found very rarely on Earth called Helium 3, it’s used for nuclear energy production, fusion, and it’s very expensive. They think there is a lot of it in the soil on the Moon because it all comes from the Sun, solar emissions, that our atmosphere blocks. If we find out there is enough on the Moon that makes it worth it for us to go to the Moon and bring it back, then there will be a huge drive to go to the Moon, colonizing it…there could possibly be a dance club.

F151: One last question. Where do you like to go on vacation?

HB: Uhhh…Canada.

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Words & Photos Chris Pastras

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...AND ACTUALLY MAKE A LITTLE BREAD ON THE SIDE Words Monihan Monihan (in Jet Stream of Consciosness) Back in the day when I was a teenager, before blah blah status, blah blah blah blah pager, you could find my broke ass flying ‘round all the continents, sleeping on couches, seeing all the monuments…okay, admittedly crappy paraphrase (sorry, Tip), but it’s true; in the late 80s/early 90s, I was a (just barely) paid skateboarder sent to contests and demonstrations across the globe to show off my “skills,” but remember, this was the pre-Xtreme era, so on the green scale, being a skateboarder was more akin to being a competitive badminton player, nothing like being a full-fledged rock star as these young punks got it nowadays, spoiled little shits, because for real, being a skater meant most of the time getting (if you were lucky) a four—but more likely three—digit monthly check from a board sponsor and selling stickers on the side to supplement your mandatory nightly alcohol consumption; so like I was saying, the shit wasn’t even close to mainstream, and it wasn’t really the best way to get your bank account right, furthermore, though I’d like to remember it differently, the fact of the matter was I wasn’t that nice on the board anyway, I mean, sure, I could hold my own and usually make the cut into the lower money ranks, but I wasn’t going to be taking out Hosoi or Hawk, not even close, that’s why I used to spend so much time on the other side of the rock, because for a while there, Europe (and sometimes Asia) had the equation: bigger cash prizes and little to no top Yankee Doodles showing up

to participate, and back then (unlike today) the Euros weren’t as skilled as the Amer-I-Cans, so even second rate Monihan used to clean up—relatively speaking of course; not X Games contest loot, but still a couple of thousand bones here and there, which at the time seemed like millions, ‘specially to a kid who came up undernourished from the Seattle CD like me, BUT (‘cause every good story needs some big BUT) then, god dammit, the Yanks caught on and before I had saved up for retirement all the top dogs were swarming the international scene like a fucking locust outbreak, eating up all my potential earnings, bastards, not to mention I had to send most of my winnings (and sticker sales) back to the blood-sucking University of California where I was still enrolled as a full-time student (had it hooked up with my professors so I could write papers from overseas and still get credits if I stayed up on my tuition), so it wasn’t like my pockets were staying fat anyway, but such is life, I was lucky to even be out of my neighborhood going to school (sort of) and (more implausibly) seeing the world in the first place, however the whole thing posed a slight problem, which brings me back to the airline angle, see, I had gotten used to living a cosmopolitan existence, like a rolling stone, letting no moss grow on thy back, traveling man shit, so with limited ends I had to find a way to maintain a lifestyle I had grown accustomed to, which meant hustle mode in the hour of chaos, so what did I do to keep flying around

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from town to town across the four corners of the planet, on a sticker selling pittance??? I freaked it at the baggage claim, flew for free, here, let me explain: on most international flights you used to be allowed to check two bags free of charge, as long as they weighed less than 70 lbs/32 kilos, and you’d also get a carry-on bag AND a purse/handbag/backpack if you were so inclined, which I was because for the checked variety of baggage I was checking, one huge bag always maxing out my 32 kilo allotment due to the fact that the second bag was a virtually non-existent, next-to-nothing, sorry excuse for a piece of luggage in comparison to the big fat 70 pound duffel bag it was being checked next to, weighed probably less that two kilos, that second bag, which was the reason I had to max out my carry-on provision, if I had more gear than what

I could stuff in the big bag, because basically that second checked bag was a lot of the time just an empty bag or at best a bag filled with a couple of t-shirts (and maybe some stickers), always something deliberately condensable, why, because when we’d land and I’d head to the baggage claim to retrieve said bags, upon their appearance on the suitcasego-round, I’d swiftly stuff the small bag into the huge bag and then wait patiently for the remaining bags to be delivered on the carousel to their rightful owners, and once all the other travelers had scooped up their bags and left me sitting there by my lonesome, staring at an empty silver spinningbacked barnacle, I would wait a few minutes more for good measure (that healthy extra pinch sense of drama) before walking over into the adjoined glass-enclosed customer service

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room, where I would politely and with just the slightest hint of annoyance and anxiety ask whether there would be any more bags coming out on the steel conveyer belt, which without fail would prompt them to walk over to the belt and look around for themselves, where upon seeing the stopped and clean metal barnacle they’d turn to and point out the few unclaimed and oversized items that had magically migrated and found a home off to the side of the carousel, allowing me to shake my head and say, “Nope, none of those are mine” at which time they’d lead me back to the customer service room, and after having me fill out a lost baggage claim, describing the size and color and contents of the piece of luggage, they’d apologize profusely before assuring me that they would promptly have it delivered to my local residence as soon as they could track it down, insisting, “It will probably come in on the next flight” or something like that, and I’d nod, hint of annoyance overshadowing the anxiety by now, perfecting my verité acting technique, knowing full well that they’d have a better chance finding gnat shit in a tub of ground pepper before they’d find that “missing” bag, so I’d leave the airport feigning frustration, but feeling a little high in the knowledge that three weeks would pass along with a series of phone calls and complaints about not getting my shit, which would lead to them sending an itemized claim form and instructions to include any receipts for missing items which I always had in abundance (actual factual or not, didn’t matter) and I’d send the

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paperwork back in, wait a few more weeks, then receive a check to the tune of $900 for all my troubles, and shit you not, I pulled this prank enough times to keep me time zone coasting for upwards of five years, without a hitch, which brings me to the present, writing this here, where upon disclosing such information about my sordid squalid past, I’ll surely be asked whether or not I’m the slightest bit nervous about being tracked down and tried for crimes against a beleaguered post-9-11 industry, to which of course I’ll reply, “No, of course, not,” for if they (“they”) came after me I’d just say, “I made it all up,” and with a wink and nod to the old school idiom I’d add, “I was just ‘perpetrating a fraud’” to which I’m sure they (the feds, insurance company stooges, come to think of it the same people really) would realize they were shit out of luck, without a legal leg to stand on, literally and figuratively “without a case” dissed and dismissed, thrown out of court, which leads to round two of the other inevitable mealy-mouthed question I always get when bringing up this stuff: Why would I reveal such a savvy con?

Aren’t I afraid of everyone jumping on the baggage scam bandwagon? To which I respond, shit, I hope everyone will start screwing the airlines out of their dough so they’ll all go out of business and that way maybe we’ll be able to reduce some of the CO2 emissions so we can still fuck and make babies without feeling guilty as Hitler…‘cause when all is said and done, criminal activities aside, really I’m just a humanitarian at heart.

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Words Chris Nieratko 1. When traveling abroad or even domestically, make certain to wear a condom when fornicating with prostitutes. I know you don’t want to. I know how much better it would feel without one, but you can’t. You just can’t. OK?

2. Graceland is closed on Wednesdays. Schedule your visit for any other day of the week.

3. The best part about Los Angeles is that the airplanes leaving from LAX take off really fast to get you the hell out of there. Be sure to buckle up.

4. The best way to avoid getting pickpocketed in Paris or Portugal is to hold all of your cash in your hand and squeeze it very tightly.

5. Vacation in New Jersey. It’s a lot more scenic than the stretch of turnpike outside of Newark Airport would lead you to believe. And the tomatoes are to die for!

6. Dress accordingly. Help make others aware that you are on vacation and not familiar with your surroundings by carrying a map, wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a camera around your neck and fanny pack on your waist.

7. Never ask for directions. No matter how lost you are, don’t ask for directions. WE’RE AMERICANS, FOR GOD’S SAKE! We just don’t do those kinds of things.

8. People outside of America do not have the fantastic health care system we do and as a result their hearing suffers. It is important when speaking English to non-English speaking foreigners in their homeland to speak it at a much higher volume than you would back home.

9. It’s OK to drink the water in Mexico; the results are quite humorous.

10. When visiting the America’s southern states, youll find that they have both kinds of beer: Bud and Bud Light. So you needn’t worry about your diet suffering while on vacation.

For more of Chris go to www.ChrisNieratko.com or www.NJSkateshop.com His book, Skinema, is available now from Vice Books.

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Words Chris Cruz It’s a smallish world these days. So small it can almost fit inside your computer. You can talk to anyone, at any time, if you have some sort of network connection. You can read the headlines in Rio. Watch sunsets in Bora Bora via webcam. At the same time.

More than ever we find ourselves becoming citizens of the world, easily connecting to most anyone—from a farmer in Xiping Village to a Parisian rare art collector. We don’t need to jump on a plane—we don’t even need to leave the comfort of our home.

This is the standard now; our connections are instant. With these fixtures cemented in our lives, it’s hard to imagine a time when it was any more difficult to get around.

The bulk of the last century was spent physically connecting the world. We built railroads, freeways, subways, airplanes, and airports. We even built space shuttles to explore space. More people than ever before were able to

access, connect, share experiences, and see the rest of the world. Recent generations can only relate with the growth of the internet—a truly infinite representation of human connection.

But we can really only project the tingle of finally exploring a new world face-to-face. To access places we could never have visited otherwise.

To move faster and in ways humans were never naturally meant to move.

Each subsequent invention physically brought the world closer together, with the jet plane reigning supreme.

They must have experienced a similar thrill, on the brink of discovering that the world was faster, cooler, and smaller than they ever imagined.

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Up until the 1950s, airlines still flew the old, reliable propeller planes, which were tiny and limited onboard crew and cargo. All would change when Boeing introduced the prototype for its 707 jet plane and Douglas introduced its DC-8 jet plane, respectively.

These planes promised to fly further, faster, and hold more people than ever before in the history of aviation.

Pan Am’s daring CEO, Juan Trippe, ordered 20 707s and 25 DC-8s in 1955 from the companies. In October of 1958, Trippe and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower stood next to a sparkling new Pan Am 707 jet at Washington National Airport in New York City.

As the 111 passengers boarded the plane, the First Lady christened the plane with a mixture of water collected from all seven seas. With that, the 707 Jet Set off on the first nonstop commercial jet flight to Europe. The trip took seven hours. The flight shattered

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records. Trippe proudly proclaimed, “In one fell swoop we have shrunken the earth.”

The jet age had begun. 51 million passengers flew out of domestic airports in the next year. That number doubled in the next two years. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to explore the skies.

Not only were the destinations glamorous—flying itself was in mode. Like turning on a color television instead of black and white or using a cable modem instead of dial-up, this was the coolest new way to connect.

Stories of the glamorous Jet Set poured into magazines like Vogue and Time. A gossip columnist for Hearst newspapers first coined the term “Jet Set,” using it to describe those affluent individuals who could easily travel to international destinations for pleasure or social affairs. For

instance, The New Yorker reported on a woman who traveled from New York to Paris to have her hair done at a famous salon, then returned that same evening to attend a party at the Plaza Hotel. Celebrities and aristocrats alike could attend a party in Rio, then jet to Bora Bora to catch a sunset.

The paparazzi—similarly a new Jet Set breed—snapped pictures to accompany gossip rags. Filmmaker Frederico Fellini made La Dolce Vita (1960) about this new generation. Writer Truman Capote famously dished the international comings and goings of the social elite in his short stories, and was well-known as a Jet Set “wonder boy” himself.

The Jet Set phenomenon made the skies look even more glamorous, and the rest of public wanted to experience what was so wonderful about this shrunken world. The influx of passengers spurred more airlines to go into business. At the time, prices were regulated by the government and kept high to support the booming airline industry. Regulation meant that if you were to fly from Los Angeles to New York, you would pay the same price regardless of which airline you chose. There were small regional airlines and charter planes that could avoid regulation, but these were the exception. So, the only way for major commercial airlines to distinguish themselves from each other was to develop a unique personality. For instance, Eastern Airlines stressed simplicity and convenience—they didn’t assign seats or issue boarding passes. Southern Airlines promoted with shot glasses (a new design every year) and called their flights “The Route of the Aristocrats.”

A popular personality, shared by many airlines of the time, was the sexy

stewardess. Some airlines had nice, next-door type girls; some claimed the most fashionable. Uniformly, these employees were required by the airlines to be young, unmarried, and female. Mary Wells, head of marketing for Braniff Airlines, summed up the sentiments of the time: “When a tired businessman gets on an airplane, we think he ought to be able to look at a pretty girl.” Airlines recruited stews from big and small towns alike, plucking the most beautiful girls out of obscurity and promising them a chance to see the world. As stews, they could play with the international Jet Set, and were told that perhaps they could find an exotic (or rich) husband.

Southwest Airlines dressed their girls in hot pants and white vinyl boots. The stews on United Airlines wore short, A-line dresses in bright colors with runway stripes down the front. Stews walking the aisles on the jets looked as if they were walking the catwalk in a fashion show. Braniff commissioned

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Italian couture fashion designer Emilio Pucci to create a sexy, space-age look for their stews. He used loud patterns with interchangeable pieces to draw passenger’s attention to the Braniff Babes. He even designed a futuristic plastic bubble helmet for the girls to wear over their heads, in order to protect their hairstyles as they made the short walk from the jet to the airport.

Airlines trained their recruits in air safety, but they also taught rigorous courses in hygiene and personal presentation. As employees, stews were officially required to maintain a professional attitude. However, they shared their own fraternal codes as to what was acceptable and not. “Come fly with me,” invited the promotional materials from United Airways, captioning pictures of stewardesses posing next to the phallic nose of the jet.

The popularity of the idealized stewardess was never more apparent than in the “memoirs” of two likable stews named Trudy and Rachel, published as Coffee, Tea, or Me? in 1967. The bestselling book was actually ghostwritten by a man (and reads like it), but it plays out the wild adventures you would expect of the busty, lusty (and naïve) stews as they take weekend trips (for less than $20) to Rio or London and baby-sit celebrities flying first-class in the swinging 60s. The title refers to the ubiquitous joke from the time: A stewardess enters the cockpit and asks her captain “Coffee, tea, or me?” The captain leers towards her and responds, “Whichever is easier to make.”

As a standard, all airlines treated their customers as their top priority. Customer loyalty was the only way to sustain economic success. Every flight, no matter how short, offered a gourmet meal and full service drinks. Federal

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law stated a two-drink maximum for the tourist section (now called coach) during a flight, but stewardesses would often sneak an extra drink to their more charming passengers.

Flying sometimes turned into a giant party. A flight from Chicago to Mexico City turned into a fiesta when a traveling trumpeter pulled out his horn. My father remembers someone pulling out a ukelele on his flight from Phoenix to Honolulu and singing songs—with the stews dressed in grass skirts.

Smoking cigarettes was allowed, and there was a reserved section for smokers in the back of the plane. All passengers were expected to dress up for their flight. No slobs were allowed to board. You could request copies of magazines or newspapers to read (a favorite request was Playboy, which was not allowed—it was more of a pickup line).

Another type of Jet Setter was the “stew bum.” Instead of the socialite attending exclusive events around the globe, this type took to the skies simply to meet stewardesses. With an infinite supply of money and no real business to tend to, these men had the freedom to spend as long as they wanted on the ground or in the air. They would invite these stews out wherever their plane landed. They would wine them and dine them, flaunting them about as if they were some sort of celebrity.

As bizarre as it sounds, stewardesses of the time enjoyed quite a following.

For a time, the world revolved around jet travel. It became an everyday, household term. If you added “jet” to a word, it got faster. More futuristic.

Cooler. The Jetsons. Jet lag. The New York Jets. Jet-Puffed Marshmallows.

In 1962, Vogue began to report on the “beautiful people,” referring to the social circle that followed John

F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier.

The beautiful people and the Jet Set began to be used interchangeably. For those included in their elite groups, this overexposure made their lifestyle decidedly uncool. For the rest of America, it made the skies and their potential destinations even more irresistible.

The numbers of passengers—and the further democratization of jet flight—continued to grow throughout the 1960s. As airports expanded to accommodate the influx of people, the new designs reflected the sensations and sleek styles of the jet.

Newer terminals boasted swooping ceilings and brushed foil surfaces on its walls. It was one continuous motion from check-in to boarding. There was no metal detector to pass through—

security visually inspected you and motioned you along with a smile.

Life-sized photo posters of exotic destinations tantalized the millions passing through the terminals. Your flight began as soon as you stepped foot inside the hub.

Braniff Airlines, again in attempts to make their brand fashionable, enlisted the help of New Mexico architect Alexander Girard for their campaign to “End the Plain Plane.” He had them paint their entire jets in loud colors like “Metallic Purple.” The interior of their planes were upholstered with dozens of different types of Herman Miller fabrics. The idea was that you would never fly the same scheme twice. The gates and check-in counters in the home terminals reflected the same bold themes. From start to finish, the

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passenger not only chose an airline to reach his destination—he chose an experience. The most fashionable; the most convenient; the one with the prettiest girls.

Jets could fly at 600 mph and had a range of up to 3,000 miles. Despite its power, the feeling of jet travel was marked by a peculiar lack of sensation. Unlike a road meeting the wheels of a car or water churning against a boat, there was only white noise and occasional erratic turbulence in the jet. Abstract clouds or out-of-focus landscapes floated beneath passengers as they gazed out the cabin windows. Distance passed only by time, which even seemed flexible as flights

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passed time zones and datelines.

Flight, it seemed, was a unique, exotic state in and of itself.

As seems the case with most exciting advances in technology, the novelty eventually began to wear off. Popular culture consumes it so much that it becomes commonplace; almost expected. Towards the end of the 60s, using the term “Jet Set” might elicit a wince. Airlines were finally banned from refusing to hire married women and men. Pucci’s last uniform design for Braniff Babes was in 1974.

The glamour became commonplace, and airlines could not afford to spend the money to continually up the ante.

Furthermore, the general feeling of safety in the skies and at the airports soon disappeared. Hijackings, both domestic and abroad, dominated the news. Between 1969 and 1978 over 400 hundred international hijackings occurred, affecting 75,000 passengers. Airports and airlines adopted strict security measures, installing metal detectors and singling out passengers for interrogations. Glass throughways in the terminals were made opaque in order to prevent visual terrorist communications between hubs. What was once open and free began to close, and a feeling of anxiety in the terminals and skies soon replaced the carefree, continuous motion of flight.

Airlines became the latest examples of a trend in the late 70s, wherein the government ceased to regulate the industry and allowed economic competition to drive business. In 1978, President Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act, which would phase out the Civil Aeronautics Board— the authority governing the aviation business. Airlines could now choose the routes they wanted to fly and charge whatever competitive fare they wished. The hypothesis among airlines was that if prices came down, even more people would choose to fly to their destination. Unfortunately, there was hardly enough demand to sustain that model while maintaining the costly levels of service to which passengers had become accustomed. In 1982, Braniff flew its last flight, citing an increase in fuel prices and fierce competition as its reasons for ceasing operations. Hundreds of airlines followed suit, either being shut down or purchased and subsumed into the ever-growing monoliths of the airlines. It was the end of an era.

Today, it’s difficult to imagine how relaxed and glamorous the skies truly felt as they were being discovered.

Now endless queues, cancellations and delays and a standardized, somewhat distant form of service mark our experience. We still get free peanuts or pretzels and drinks, but we have to buy alcohol and additional pre-packaged snacks. Dress codes are relaxed to the point of sweatsuits. The experience is heavily influenced by security, unpacking and repacking your belongings, ushering you by with an anxious eye. We’re used to the hassle now—it’s a necessary chore that we just have to get out of the way before we arrive at our destination. Like a bus or a car, jet travel is a common mode of transportation.

The Jet Set still exists, chartering private planes and playing in even more exotic destinations. We read about DJs and photographers jetting from Los Angeles to New York to catch a show, or flying to the Philippines just to throw a party. They continue to further separate themselves from a decidedly middle class traveling experience. International flights still offer luxurious first class options for those who can afford them. One must pay to jet around in style. But the world has caught up to the speed of jet travel. It now seems infinitely slow compared to the results of a Google search—we even get frustrated if a webpage takes more than few seconds to load. As future technologies develop, we should expect to enjoy that now familiar cadence: the euphoria of innovation, the subsequent social stratification, and ultimately how the world becomes an even smaller, well-connected community.

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Interview Stefanie Schumacher Photos courtesy of Cliff Muskiet Cliff Muskiet has traveled the world as a Purser (lead flight attendant) for KLM airlines. Along the way, he has snatched up stewardess uniforms from every airline imaginable. Knowledgeable, enthusiastic, driven to collect till his last breath, Cliff Muskiet is the go-to guy when it comes to stewardess uniforms.

Frank151: What is your earliest memory of airline travel?

Cliff Muskiet: I was a five-year-old kid, and I traveled from New York to Amsterdam. I was actually born in New York and lived there for five years before moving to Holland. The plane left in the late evening, and I remember traveling from the terminal by bus to the airplane, and I remember the departure, and I remember I slept a lot on the plane, so I don’t really remember the flight itself. That’s how I started to be interested in airplanes and aviation.

F151: What about airplane travel sparked your imagination?

CM: It’s different than traveling by bus or train because you can fly. It’s the only possibility to fly. And it has some kind of glamour and it’s exciting. I don’t

know, I get a kick out of it, you know?

Every time we take off in a plane I feel this strange feeling in my stomach. It’s weird. But it’s a feeling.

F151: So what got you interested in airline uniforms?

CM: It’s a very difficult question to answer because the funny thing is, I have so many uniforms at home, and if those uniforms were worn by policewomen or by nurses or a stewardess on a train, I would not be interested. I would throw them away immediately.

So it really has to do with the fact that a stewardess works on a plane, and I like planes. It’s part of aviation.

It has this glamorous thing about it, to me, and that’s why I like to collect the airline stewardess uniforms. And because the uniforms are so different, there’s such a big variety of dif-

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ferent styles, many different colors and accessories, so it makes it more interesting—for me—to collect them.

F151: What designer would you consider to be a true innovator in airline uniform fashion?

CM: Emilio Pucci was a big name in the 50s, 60s and 70s because he designed for Braniff International.

He was very well-known in the 60s because the Braniff uniforms were really trendy and cool; they really stood out, they were unique. He used a lot of bright colors and they had these plastic helmets on their heads like astronauts.

F151: Why doesn’t anyone make uni-

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forms like that anymore?

CM: Because women wouldn’t want to wear a uniform like that. It’s not practical. It’s nice to look at, it’s funny to look at it, but not practical. And nowadays a uniform has to be more like a business outfit. So I don’t think a lot of women would accept wearing such a uniform.

F151: Would you ever like to work with a famous designer to create your own airline uniform?

CM: For my own airline? Yes! I don’t know if I would introduce the same kind of uniform as Braniff did, but I would definitely make a complete uniform with a hat, a scarf and all the accessories to make the uniform stand out.

F151: Wow! CM: My big dream at the moment is to make a book—a big coffee table book with all the uniforms I have and use real models. It could be glossy pictures like Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar.

So I’m working on that, looking for a publisher right now.

F151: What was the most challenging uniform for you to obtain?

CM: Well, I had a layover in Singapore, and I traveled all the way to Hong Kong. It’s a three-and-a-half hour flight to pick up some uniforms at Cathay Pacific, that’s the airline from Hong Kong, and I went to their office, got their uniforms and then flew back to Singapore. So it was quite an adventure to travel all that way for the uniforms.

I’d use a lot of color, because I think a lot of airlines, especially in the US, they use dark blue or black and it’s quite boring; all the uniforms look alike.

F151: What’s your dream for your collection?

CM: Well, on my website, I mention opening a museum, but it’s very hard to open a museum because you need a lot of money, a lot of space for all the uniforms I have. At the moment, I have 651 uniforms, so I think I need a lot of space.

F151: Where do you store them now?

CM: At home.

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F151: Are there uniforms out there that you’d like to get your hands on?

CM: Oh, yeah. There are so many.

It’s a never-ending hobby because airlines come and go and they keep changing their uniforms so it never ends, you can keep on collecting. I like the late 60s and early 70s because I like the style of fashion, and I think the uniforms look good in those years.

F151: And the men’s uniforms?

CM: Boring.

F151: So do you think in a past life you were maybe an airline stewardess?

CM: (laughs) Maybe! I don’t know where this interest comes from. I think all collectors, if you collect stamps or airplane models, it just clicks. And the fact that the uniforms are hard to obtain makes it even more interesting.

And there aren’t many people who collect airline uniforms.

For more information visit www.uniformfreak.com

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Photography: Craig Wetherby Styling: Thuy Nguyen Hair: Megan Del Haro Makeup: Tori Babin Models: Baelyn, Nicole, Ayana, Greger, Poca (pooch) Wardrobe: Breanna Livie @ Eastern Costume Company in Los Angeles Sunglasses: WESC & Dragon Optical Members come and go, but the prestige of membership never fades. No matter your age, it’s never too late to join the Mile High Club. So get on board, settle in and go with the flow. . . because you never know!

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Words & photos courtesy of Clyde Singleton The trip was to go like this: go to Europe, tour, get footage, possibly hump a marsupial-shaped Euro bish, and come home. Never in a hundred years would I’ve guessed I was gonna die over there. Especially from falling off a fukkin bridge. The sad part about it, we were all but one week from getting on the plane, and coming home! Shyt. Even Welsh’s insecure ass was coming back with footage! But then, there was Prague.

Prague’s a very old, shytty dump of a place. I think the nicest building consisted of Gargamel’s old castle, and the torture museum. I remember the torture museum, because that’s were we went after taking a “tour” of downtown. Along our “tour,” some white lady was asking me if she could “touch my hair.” Touch my hair. Dumb hoe. So, yeah. The torture museum, skating, and then it was off to the first day of practice for World Cup. Not ten minutes into practice, my confidence told me, “You can salad grind the box atop the pyramid…. It’s your ‘go-to’ trick.” My mind played a trick on me halfway through rolling up, and last thing I remember’s running backward ten feet in the air. Then, a loud crack.

I’d fell and hit my head so damn hard, I’d woke up in the middle of the street course trying to adjust my watch. I don’t remember who even put me in the am’uhlance. What I do remember, is when I got to the local hospital, the realization of the words “third world

country” and “poor health care” made a lot more sense. The place looked like a bricked up version of Laurel Ingles’ school, with some Tandy 1800s. I even saw a doctor doing surgery with a Robotron. After being stitched, and bandaged like Pac, I was discharged back into the streets of Prague. I was back at the hotel casino, drunk and up 7k within the next three hours. Rich, bish like Dave Chappelle! By morning, my 7k was down to $6,800 and it was the first day of qualifying. I had nothing else to do, so I’d went downtown and bought a DV camera, tons of shyt for the family, gifts for my girl, etc. As I arrived at the contest, some genius tipped me off to the fact Heinekens were 25 cents all day. Wow. The day was filled with everything. Good skating, music, women, you name it.

We was even rolling dice in between heats, with the folks throwing the contest. It was very “festive,” as white folks would say. Toward the end of the night, Rick McCrank rolled in with the news.

Keenan Milton had passed away the night prior. Damn. I dropped my head, and headed back to the hotel. We were all of 300 yards from the hotel, and all there was to do was cross the bridge and walk through a small field.

Being as it was pouring rain, the visibility was shyt. While standing atop the bridge, I guess we failed to notice the guard rail was missing. There was also a 30-something foot drop behind it. I swear on my dead little brother, the

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last thing I remember is pointing at the hotel. I awoke in ICU some 50 hours later. We’d both walked right off a 30 foot cliff. Welsh fell atop of me, and nobody—I mean NOBODY, could see us under this bridge. My best friend layed in the rain crying, watching me almost bleed to death outta my ear and skull, for an hour. Luckily a car drove under the bridge. The second am’uhlance ride in 48 hours, and back to the same hospital. Now ain’t this about a beep! I guess I was dead for a bit. Actually. I KNOW I was, because I vividly remember the setting. Everything’s white. Maybe not for some of yous’, but for me it was. I was going “upstairs.” Jeah! After realizing where I was, and what happened, I just passed the flukk back out. Next day, I woke up to the same doctor who’d previously bandaged me up. Dude

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wasn’t psyched, but I didn’t care—I was alive, and I couldn’t understand him anyways. My team manager decided to stay in town, as everyone had flown back after the news about Keenan, and myself. Did I mention, I was declared “dead?” Well, I was “dead,” and everyone panicked to the point they called my poor mother. Holy beJesus. Why? This poor woman’s never been on a airplane, much less knows, where a “Prague” is. I called my mother to let her know I was “okay,” and I’ll be home soon. The doctor looks at me and says in plain English, “You must stay here for at least a month…you have a five inch crack in your skull, lost almost four pints of blood, and we don’t have the proper equipment to help you. And if you try to fly, any pressure on your skull will make it slowly crack in half. Plus, your eardrum’s completely broken, so you’ll slowly paralyze first.” Holy shyt!

I attempted to get up and “run” out, only to find out this guy was correct.

I was skinnier than Nicole Ritchie, partially bald, with a bunch of stitches and bandages on my head. Even if I’d escaped, it would’ve been easy to find me before I died. This was gonna be tricky, but I had to risk it or my momma was gon’ kill me. So, a few days and some one-eared Wu-Tang cds later, I devised a “plan”. The “plan” was to ask the doctor to sign my paperwork over so his country held no responsibility in case I was to die en route to Germany. In Germany, I planned to go to a real hospital, get the needed help then board a plane home. Bad idea. It turned out the doctor was right. The train to Germany, every bump felt like a kick to the head. When I’d arrived, my head was swolled something serious.

Immediately I went to the hospital. No luck. Wouldn’t even talk, much less look at me. Second hospital. Same story. By the fifth one in three days, I

was more than sure I was gonna die. I decided to plan my “last week.” Went to a zoo for the first time, ate veal, even bought some shoes. How the fukk was I gonna wear shoes, dead?

The ticket was planned, so after eight days we headed to the airport. Before boarding, I saw KT for the first time since London. Dude just broke down in tears. I think we ALL knew then, I was about to die. I boarded the plane anyways. “Rather die on the way home,” was my word, so I was sticking to it. It’s all I had left at that point. The whole ride, my head got larger and larger. Then my eardrum burst, which paralyzed the entire right side of my face. Closing my eyes was now, not an option. Plus there was some shytty little kid screaming the entire flight.

We got to DC, and we all prayed I’d make it to LA. Once we arrived home, I dropped my luggage at the crib, and started just walking. Along wherever

I was headed, I’d saw my two good friends I grew up skating with. My head was so warped, bloody and bandaged, neither noticed me. Plus, I was “dead.” Jason stops. “Clyde?

Is that you?” For some reason—I caught the voice. They both run up, threw me in a car, and rushed me to Cedars. I woke up in a catscan four hours later, to a doctor scratching his head telling me, he put me through it twice. My man was shook! He had no earthly idea how the fokk I even made it from Prague! He also informed me, if I were to go to sleep that night I was toast fareal. It was to be my last night, but I made it! The next few months I spent in rehab due to partial paralysis in my face. Had to tape my eye shut to sleep. Learn to chew. All that good shyt for the first month. Till this day, hearing in my right ear still sounds like I’m underwater. Yup. I’m one lucky sum’bish.

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Images courtesy of Frantisek Rehak Frantisek Rehak is a sugar packet collector from the Czech Republic. He has over 1,024 packets from 260 airlines and hundreds of exotic destinations in his collection. Frank151 celebrates the unique and beautiful design elements of the sugar packet and the obsessive enthusiasm of the collector.

For more information visit www.sugar.barok.org

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Words & photos Dean “Blotto� Gray My life’s work is capturing still moments of professional snowboarders traveling, riding and performing plus the blood, sweat and tears that come along with it. I expose the talents of these snowboarders to the masses via print and electronic media, while simultaneously recording their lives and times into black books called Travelogs. The following pages show a glimpse of this reality with passport pages, boarding passes, luggage tags, the ubiquitous departure monitors and on-board dining areas.

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Interview Stefanie Schumacher Photos courtesy of Sri Dharma Mittra Sri Dharma Mittra is a world-renowned Yoga Master and Guru.

Studying since the 1950s, he is known as “The Teacher’s Teacher,” and the “Rock of Yoga.” His “Master Yoga Chart of 908 Postures,” made as an offering of devotion to his Guru, Swami Kailashananda, is a staple on the walls of schools and ashrams worldwide. Sri Dharma Mittra is also a Master in the technique of Psychic Development & Meditation. Sri Dharma patiently leads his students on the path of mental mastery, self-realization and the power of collective consciousness at his school in the Gramercy Park section of New York City, where he teaches daily.

Frank151 fielded questions from several worn-out, stressed-out, jet lagged Jet Setters. Sri Dharma Mittra, who travels the world teaching yoga and meditation from Tokyo to Tel Aviv, took some time to share some tips for meditation on the go.

Dear Dharma, it seems I’m always on a plane these days. I’m trapped for hours at a time with nothing to do.

How can I be more at peace even though I’m crammed into a tiny seat in coach class?

Dharma Mittra: I find myself in the same dilemma often. But it is so simple to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to have some alone time. You can be making this time valuable by practicing concentration.

Concentration is the beginning stage needed for the practice of meditation. Concentration is learning to keep your thoughts on one object for a minimum of 30 seconds. Of course, in the beginning, this will not be easy because the nature of the mind is to be like a child running after external sense objects. I can safely say that with regular practice it gets easier;

your thoughts will begin to slow down and soon the mind will settle.

Dear Dharma, the seats in business class are so uncomfortable, and I’m a big guy. What do you recommend I do to get comfortable so I can use my time to meditate? What should I do with my hands?

Dharma Mittra: Yes, it usually is very uncomfortable to sit on planes, and they seem to be making the space smaller instead of larger and more comfortable. On long and seemingly endless flights, it can really take a toll on our bodies. First, I would recommend getting out the kinks and tension with a few gentle and slow neck rolls, roll your head to the right and then to the left. After that do some small shoulder circles, bring your shoulders up to your ears and then roll

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them back and down. Next would be to gently twist your chest and torso to the right and then the left, to relieve your back and spine. Also relax your feet by doing some ankle circles with or without your shoes. Now, you are ready to bring your body into a sitting position, which is as straight and tall as possible. If you need, you may put a pillow behind your lower back, and if you don’t have one, you can roll up your jacket or coat. Then you should make sure your legs are parallel, and if you need to, you may put something under your feet to get them planted on the ground. You may cross your ankles. Next, place your arms on your lap with the hands lightly clasped, or you may place your hands on the knees, palms up. Try to keep your neck erect yet relaxed with your head nicely balanced, chin down a little bit.

You have now set your body up to feel comfortable, and what’s better yet is no one even needs to know you will be practicing meditation. The simplest method is to gently close your eyes and bring your attention to your breath. Don’t change anything, only observe. Instantly, as you begin to follow your breath, your breath will slow down on its own. You don’t even have to make any effort. Keep observing the breath and it will become slow and steady, and you have done your first exercise in meditation practices.

I don’t even need to tell you what the effects will be, you will feel them instantly and your body will understand them as well.

Dear Dharma, I get what I have heard you call the “monkey mind.” I can never stay focused. And usually there is a screaming baby somewhere on the plane, or a guy next to me snoring. What should I do to keep myself from being distracted?

Dharma Mittra: The monkey mind

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refers to the uncontrolled restless mind that never stops. It even continues to disturb us as we sleep. Our thoughts keep jumping from here to there, and there is never quiet and peace. These thoughts can change your whole state of being in one second. And yet what are they? They are only thoughts that surface up on the horizon of your mind. If the thoughts do not exist, then the present worries are gone. The time tested methods of the great Saints and Sages from different religions give everyone easyto-learn techniques that will quiet this so called “monkey mind.” You know that the more you can go within, the more you can eliminate all external disturbances. I have been teaching this to students for the past 40 years.

These practices are ultimately very simple and what better time to start practicing them than when we have no other place to go? When we are so called “stuck” in a physical or mental place, as in either an airplane, or in our own lives and relationships. I am offering you simple tools that you may use in so many different situations.

A practical technique I offer all seekers is to close the eyes and concentrate at the center of the chest on the right side of the heart. Concentrate on a light there. Even if you are unable to see the light in the beginning, continue to concentrate there and very soon a light will appear. The more you concentrate, the light is going to get brighter and brighter like a bright sun.

Yes, the mind will become distracted by sense objects, the crying kids, and just about anything, but keep concentrating. You may remind yourself that you are not the mind (monkey), and that everything is time passing away, but you are the eternal present. Don’t worry…eventually the mind will start to

leave you alone. Remember that even many of the Great Saints and Sages were subject to the mind and its fluctuations—they just didn’t entertain those thoughts.

Dear Dharma, I have heard you speak about Prana. It has to do with breathing and utilizing the energy that keeps us alive and aware.

Is there a breathing technique I should use that will help my meditation while I’m on a plane, even though the oxygen at 30,000 feet is recycled and superdry?

Dharma Mittra: Yes, there are hundreds of breathing techniques in the Classical Yoga System. I recommend this as being the best and most efficient technique, Nadi Sodhana Pranayama, or the Alternate Breathing. You may feel more comfortable doing this in private, but in reality you may do it anywhere at anytime, as no one really knows what you are doing anyway. Five minutes of this will begin the stimulation of the Prana, or psychic energy to move up the spine. This draws energy, to the latent areas of the body, and you feel very refreshed and balanced.

Dear Dharma, I know that you speak on the importance of vegetarianism and how it helps with meditation. Airline food is terrible. I’m not even sure it’s real food. Usually, I feel like a piece of dehydrated fruit when I get off the plane—wrinkled, crinkled and dried out. I want to get off the plane and feel refreshed!

Dharma Mittra: Well, yes, first and foremost is always the practice of vegetarianism. Slowly the Western World

is picking up on this understanding. I even saw an ad the other day to free children of getting cancer, keep them vegetarian. It is of utmost importance, especially today, when there are so many chemicals in the air, the plants, and in the farmed animals. I have been a vegetarian now for 45 years, and it has made me all the stronger and resistant to illness. The main reason other than personal health is that the animal kingdom is our inferior brothers and was made to be loved and respected. I see parents taking children to petting zoos or farms, and buy children a menagerie of cuddly stuffed animals, but then comes the disconnect. Animals want to take care of their children and families as well. They don’t want to be factory farmed and lose the life they were supposed to have. Also everyone knows that cows are vegetarians and therefore very gentle animals. I always suggest to all students to give up flesh. This way their psychic channels will become purified, otherwise after three of four months that flesh becomes part of you and your mind will never settle in meditation. A non vegetarian diet makes the mind restless and always jumping. Lower passions increase, and your health will deteriorate very quickly. For success in meditation, try to stick to light fresh foods with lots of juices and salads.

Pack them with you on your travels.

Your body will feel young, like a child!

Dear Dharma, I miss my friends and family when I’m traveling. Is it possible to send them a mental message while I’m flying over Rio or about to touch down in Palau?

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Dharma Mittra: Yes, of course, I know you have taken my Psychic Development class in order to be able to ask this question. Part of the beauty of the science of Yoga is the higher understanding one develops as the consciousness lifts. The deeper you go in meditation and Yama and Niyama, the ethical rules, you will begin to see reality. This is not the reality we see in front of us in the everyday world. Inside of this subtle reality you will discover there is no time, no space, no separation—these are all part of the material plane, which is limited and perishable. The Yogis discovered that once you are able to go beyond the physical plane (through constant practice and the grace of the Guru), you may project your thoughts to anyone, anywhere, at any time and be assured the message is received.

Let’s say you miss your family. At any time you may send them a psychic telegram by sending them love through the practice of visualization.

They will feel these thoughts on some level, according to your level of concentration. This is how great Yogis share their love and help the entire planet vibrate with spiritual well being.

Dear Dharma, I try to be a compassionate and loving person but it’s really hard to be compassionate on a cramped airplane. But what if everyone in the world—including everyone jetting around the planet all hours of the day and night—meditated and projected thoughts of love and compassion? What do you think would happen?

Dharma Mittra: We are walking towards this direction. There are many groups, many serious spiritual teachers preparing their disciples, to do this work. Eventually, and as the world needs it more and more, we will all get united with one thought. When

you have many people thinking the same thing at the same time, a collective mind is formed, and then it gets really very strong and everyone on the planet is affected by that thought. The thought is the most powerful thing if devoid of the personal Ego. The betterment of all human and animal kind with devotion is that great and holy thought. If the thoughts are creative and come from a Guru or people who have renounced their Will to God, they are like an instrument for God’s message, and that will really change the entire planet and affect every living creature on this planet in a positive way.

Dear Dharma, I fly in and out of New York City a lot. I know that you have been offering a weekly class on Meditation and Psychic Development for years. It is based on the teachings of your Guru, Yogi Gupta, who is credited with bringing the practice of Hatha Yoga (the postures) to the United States back in the early 1950s.

Do you recommend the guidance of a Guru if I want to take meditation and other deeper practices, as you have mentioned, to higher level?

Dharma Mittra: Yes, surely. The guidance of a Guru is essential in bringing one deeper into the meditation and higher levels of understanding, you understand? In the beginning, you may look at some nice books on postures or read about some of the techniques (even in this article for example), and derive many benefits from that. But once you become very interested and serious about changing your life, helping and affecting others as well, then the guidance of a living and true Preceptor of Yoga is essential.

For more information visit www.dharmayogacenter.com

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WITH THE USA IS A MONSTER TOUR Words Thom Hohmann Photos courtesy of Ports Bishop I’m up at cruising level, about two hours to landing at LaGuardia, coming back from my sister’s wedding in Portland, OR. I’ve spent most of the flight totally engrossed in a National Geographic from 1947. The story was about Antarctic exploration, a feast of frozen photographs and maps compiled by the US Navy, using an arsenal of equipment developed during WWII to conquer the South Pole, a manly story of turning swords into ice picks, and seeing if those ice picks could be used to carve out strategic bases at the bottom of the world from which long range bombers could strike....

So, I was in the zone until a Navy cameraman described the glacier that he was flying over as “The avenue of frozen rainbows.”

The poetic beauty of these words amidst a dry account of Naval operations really stunned me. I wrote a song in my head called The Avenue of Frozen Rainbows. A serious chart buster. This led me to remember that I had agreed with myself to write down some jet lag stories from The Usa is a Monster’s “Rainbow Warrior” tour in Japan during the flight, in order for them to be authentic to the second degree.

Lots of people fly way more than I do, I’m sure, but from the last seven years of touring with the Usa is a Monster, my passport has no empty pages.

One of the main reasons to get on the road with the band was to see some of the world in what seemed like the best possible way. Playing music. For other people. Vans, cars, trains, planes….

I feel in my element looking out a window and seeing the world cruise by. But I always have these waking moments when I enter the spirit world and the forward motion of my body in space is my only grasp on reality. It’s

a place of tones and untangible emotion. I don’t know where or what it is.

It’s sort of like a déjà vu. I searched through my old tour notebooks and found this example of some stuff I scribbled down, waking up in the rental van, somewhere in the UK: “The black pony: during three hours of sleep I dreamt of a black pony. Not much context, I remember the small black face...a dark, intent and understanding horse, maybe the size of a large dog.” On the flight from New York to Tokyo, I had one of these moments.

That’s a long flight no matter how you

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slice it. I had fallen asleep drinking beer somewhere into my third movie of the flight. Hugh Grant was in it. I did not write that dream down.... Oh, man, do you ever have that moment when you take a piss on the airplane and you wonder, “What is directly below me right now, down there, 4,500 feet below? Maybe a giant squid, and little does he know, but...”

The first Japan gig was in Enoshima, a beach town about a 45 minute drive south of Tokyo. We arrived in the dark.

I could hear and smell the beach, but it was not until sunrise that I beheld a breathtaking view out the bay windows of the club. The show started late and just kept going. I think we played third out of five bands. Playing was challenging, as is every first gig of an overseas tour. Setting up borrowed equipment for the first time, running on adrenaline that only lasts so long after a few Sapporos. When we finished, I was tired, and the night was far from over. I entered a long, jet lagged delirium, trying to hang out and then scoping out possible crash spots around the club. Then the sun came up, and it was so beautiful I almost cried. There in the twilight was a beach with waves and rocky cliffs.

The smiling, positive jam music of the band that was playing snapped into focus. It was perfect. Everything was perfect. My fatigue disappeared, and I was in love with the music, the people, the beach, the sun, everything. And I was sure that everyone in the room was having similar feelings. I’m telling you, the best high. Next time you fly halfway around the world, don’t sleep.

Go to a beach, stay up all night and watch the sunrise.

Kyoto We stayed with Hide. We know Hide because our old band, Bullroarer,

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played with his band in Boston in 1998, Ultra Bide. Back then, he lived in New York and was making records on the Alternative Tentacles label. He did not necessarily remember us from that show, but he was superpsyched on us knowing his band, and he played with us on four of the Japan shows with no less than four of his musical projects, the current line up of Ultra Bide being one of these. Maki, our friend and tour organizer, made that happen. Hanging out with Hide was superfun. I was really impressed by his forty-something lifestyle. He lives alone in a nice place above his parents and has a studio up in there and is just rocking harder than ever. His parents were amazing, too. They came to the show on a Saturday night and just packed on in there with everyone and had a great time. His dad bought me several drinks.

The first night sleeping at Hide’s, I woke up at 5:40 a.m. from the jet lag.

I decided an early morning walk would be good. How often do I get to see this part of the day? No need to worry about a corner store being open on the quiet tree lined avenue. The vending machine on the corner had a perfect can of hot coffee. I walked in the direction of the river, not seeing anybody else until I crossed a street and cut through a break in some bushes to get to a riverside park. I almost walked right into the naked ass of a woman who was squatted down taking a piss in what she thought was a chill place.

She must have been walking to work along the river or something. I really startled her, and she jumped up and walked away fast. How often do you see a full moon at sunrise?

Later that day (well, early the next morning really), after the gig, we were winding down at Hide’s place,

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drinking some sake. Some friends of Hide came in from the country, and they had some homegrown. That was my first Japan weed, and it was very nice. One of the friends, an older woman, used to live in the States and was the only English speaker in that crew, so I rapped with her and was really enjoying myself. Ports, our American buddy and tour photographer, was passed out on the floor, sawing away on his bedroll. All of a sudden, he sat bolt up in bed and a long, loud, string of incoherent sounds came out of his mouth. It was pure animism. Some local spirit was uttering an ancient, forgotten tongue in our very midst using Ports’ body as a vehicle! My reaction time was just a little too slow. By the time I pressed record on my tape recorder, the spirit was gone and Ports was peacefully prostrate. I was so close! I’ve always wanted to record something like that.

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It would have been an awesome answering machine message.

Saturday market, Osaka In Osaka, we played with Afrirampo at a club owned by the guitar player from the Boredoms. That show was really fun, a small place all packed in and Afrirampo did a cool set where they came in and jammed acoustic on the floor while burning incense before moving to the stage and shredding.

That night, we had an awesome slumber party at Shinji and Pikachu’s place after hitting a late-night food spot. A sort of Japanese Denny’s. Anyhow, I fell asleep watching Blue Planet. In the morning, Shinji and Pikachu took us to a big market that happens every Saturday inside this old temple grounds.

As you go through the entrance gate, there is this thing that looks sort of like a ship’s wheel that you spin for good luck. Inside was this incredible mixture of religious temple activities and an all out rummage bazaar. The denizens were mostly in that latter half of the

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human life span and the vendors were all spread out with just incredible amounts of junk for sale everywhere.

One spot I remember that sort of summed the whole up was a rug that had on it, among other things, a rusty old piece of Samurai armor and a Hulk Hogan LP. In the middle of the temple/ market was a murky pond with hundreds of turtles in it. The water was incredibly foul and stank to high heaven, but mixing with that smell and almost overpowering it was that wafting incense smoke from the door of the main temple where you could lift a small Buddha statue in order to determine the future of your day. If the Buddha feels heavy, Pikachu explained, this does not bode well. If it feels light, then, it’s all good. So, I bought some incense to stick in the sand and took my turn with the Buddha lift. It was sort of a hard call. I was not like, “Damn, this Buddha is light” but at the same time I was not thinking, “Damn, this Buddha is heavy.” Well, the rest of the day was fine...

The Ups and Downs of a Travel Pillow Entrepreneur Interview J. Nicely Photos courtesy of Dave Corbin Trying to get a decent sleep while flying on a plane is damn near impossible. Even if you manage to nod off for a brief spell, you are likely to wake up with a kink in your neck. Thankfully, inventors worldwide have been making leaps and bounds in travel pillow technology. These days travelers have a wide assortment of options when it comes to finding some form of support for your head, allowing you to rest somewhat more peacefully while cramped in coach. One of these innovators is Dave Corbin, inventor of the SkyRest Travel Pillow. Frank151 spoke with Mr. Corbin, to learn more about what it takes to make it in the multi-million dollar travel accessories market.

Frank151: Tell us about your history and how you came to start SkyRest.

Dave Corbin: I spent many years working in the high-tech industry as an electrical engineer. During my last gig with a big corporation, Xerox, I wound up doing a lot of travel for them, and they sent me to Europe many times flying coach. I’m kind of a big guy, and I was unable to sleep on a plane.

I noticed that students were putting their backpacks on the tray and trying to sleep that way. Kind of looked like a good idea, but it didn’t look very comfortable, so I thought, “Why not come up with something bigger and make it so that they’re sitting up a little straighter when they’re leaning forward like that?” And that’s good, but I ended up with something pretty bulky, so I said, “Why don’t we make it inflatable,” so that’s when I came up with the idea. Actually, while I was still working at Xerox, I started the whole process. Got some prototypes made, and patented the thing, and maybe about six months to a year after that, Xerox decided they were going to get

rid of the whole division, I got laid off with 800 other people. I had already started manufacturing this, actually.

I was using SkyMall, which was a big gamble because the prices are high.

But it turned out to be a good thing, because I got enough business to at least pay for the product, and it was paying for itself. That was back in 2003, and I’ve been doing it ever since.

F151: In terms of the process of creating the product, prototyping stage and what not, was that something you had experience with already because of your engineering background?

DC: The kind of engineering I was doing was very complex systems.

This kind of prototyping was a piece of cake, I mean cost wise you got a quick turn around. So it was really quite easy for me to do. What I did first was I made a regular pillow—cloth filled with stuffing—about the size and shape that I thought would be good, and I took some pictures of that, and sent them off to my most likely prospect as far as being manufactured goes. I

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came up with an inflatable prototype.

The first or the second one is in the picture of me from SkyMall, the one where Ellen DeGeneres said it looked like I had too many Gin & Tonics. I wasn’t on her show, but my product was. She got on a plane with a bunch of people from the audience, and she was taking samples from SkyMall, and she picked my product and one other product, and was of course joking about it. Pretty good publicity no matter what.

F151: Have you ever bought any products from SkyMall?

DC: Yeah, I’ve bought a few things.

F151: Was it the cash counting machine?

DC: No. What I bought from them was an emergency battery for my cell phone. And you know, if you look in the catalog seriously, there are some good things in there. I heard someone refer to SkyMall as “SkyCrap.” But I think my product’s been successful because it’s a great target market for it, and it’s a useful product. It’s not some silly thing that you see.

F151: SkyRest really stands out from the competition because of its unique design. But many people, when they first see it, might have some doubts as to how comfortable it is…

DC: And also there is the dork factor, “How silly am I going to look with this thing?” But I think that you’re on the plane, it’s a long flight, who cares anymore? You’re tired, everybody’s a mess. At that point you pull out your SkyRest and go to sleep.

It’s not intended to be ‘the position’ to sleep in. It gives you an option.

Most people, when they’re sleeping in bed, they don’t sleep the same way all night—they turn around, toss and

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turn a little bit, sleep on their sides and their stomach, whatever. It just gives you an option. If you’ve got a window seat you can shove it into the window, because there’s usually kind of a gap there. Shove it into the window, and lean against it, so you’re not kind of trying to lean against the window, which doesn’t really work. Or if you can stretch your feet out, that’s really one of the best positions I’ve found.

You can stretch your feet out and put your legs up and put your feet up, and you’ve got like a recliner.

F151: When you dove into this market, was there any sense of the potential?

DC: I knew basically about the other kind of pillows, and I had looked at how many of those there are, and I figured if somebody is making money here, and I come up with something different, I should have a chance of at least creating a job for myself, if not becoming fabulously wealthy and having a huge company. So far that’s what it’s been, although I’m starting to see my volume go up, and starting to work with larger resellers and who knows. I’ve got lots of product ideas but very little working capital. My R&D budget is very low.

F151: What are some of the future travel products that you would like to come out with?

DC: Well, I don’t want to put my cards on the table, but there are several other things you could do with the same idea, integrate them into other things, or even just make a travel kit or whatever. For awhile, I was looking for venture capital, and I came up with a whole business plan road map, nine yards, PowerPoint presentation thing. Just sitting and thinking about it for a couple of hours I came up with a whole product road map that shows like a dozen products being

Dave Corbin, inventor of the SkyRest Travel Pillow

developed over two or three years.

No shortage of ideas.

I also came up with another product, kind of an offshoot of dealing with a customer. It’s called RestUp, and what it is, is an inflatable wedge pillow, and if you’re in the medical market at all, then you know that wedge pillows are very popular for different kinds of conditions that people have, But if you need one when your traveling, their awfully bulky. And that was due to talking to a customer that had bad acid reflex. He had had the sphincter at the end of his esophagus removed because of cancer. Their was nothing keeping the stomach acid out of his esophagus, unless he slept at an incline. And he came up with the proportions he wanted, I made him a prototype, and he says that it’s great.

I guess he was doing a lot of traveling at the time. I actually commercialized that for a while, until my manufacturer went out of business. And that turned out to be a difficult product to make.

We had problems with leakage and all that, so I haven’t re-introduced it yet.

Because that turned out to be a successful product, I have people asking about it all the time, but unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it at the moment.

F151: What would you like to see for the future of jet setting?

DC: Well, I’d like to see it go back to being more fun, more of a pleasurable experience. If you’re doing international travel it takes so much time it should be part of the vacation. It’d be nice if there could get you their quicker, they’ve been talking about that for decades.

And now what they’re doing is they’re making these humongous new planes that hold 600 people. But you know, with dwindling resources, you’ve got to be practical, too, I suppose. I’m looking forward to the old Star Trek thing where you get in the chamber and you wind up somewhere else.

For more information visit www.skyrest.com

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Words Jake Lemkowitz Photos courtesy of Unclaimed Baggage Center There’s no worse feeling than standing in front of an empty baggage claim carousel and realizing that your suitcase isn’t coming out. You are a sucker, and your bag is lost forever. You’re not alone. Every year out of the two billion bags that get checked by airline travelers, an average 36,000 pieces of luggage go missing and become unrecoverable. But don’t cry, because at a magical warehouse in the Bible Belt, your soul-crushing loss is the American consumer’s gain.

The Unclaimed Baggage Center combines the voyeuristic thrill of looking through another person’s belongings with the unbridled joy of capitalism, all in one place: Scottsboro, Alabama.

The company buys unclaimed luggage from a variety of airlines in bulk, sight unseen, then sorts through the contents and puts the choice items into its 50,000-square-foot showroom.

The place is the size of a city block and packed wall-to-wall with jewelry, freshly laundered clothing, electronics, guns, musical instruments, books, and all sorts of miscellany. The big draw for shoppers is that it all gets cut a deep discount. In-house appraisers decide the retail value of what goes onto the racks, and then they drop the price 50 to 85 percent. Consider

the fact that jewelry pieces valued at $20,000 to $30,000 regularly come through the store, and you realize the deals that are at stake. The store is like a giant yard sale, except instead of selling stuff that someone doesn’t want anymore, it sells stuff that someone is sad about losing.

UBC has unpacked some pretty rad unreturned luggage over the years: a rare violin from 1770. Egyptian artifacts including a mummified falcon, burial mask, and scarabs. A 19th century suit of armor. A Barbie doll stuffed with $500 cash. A Jim Henson puppet, Hoggle, from the movie Labyrinth, which probably scared the crap out of whoever opened the bag. That movie gave me nightmares for weeks

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when I was a kid. A 5.8 carat diamond.

A live poisonous snake slithered out of a suitcase, was caught in a shoebox, and released into the graveyard behind the building. Presumably it still lives there. A hat autographed by Muhammad Ali. Bagpipes. Ancient maps of Afghanistan. And last but not least, a F-16 guidance system, which was returned to the United States Navy. As for all the unpacked contraband that can’t be flipped in a retail setting, such as prescription drugs, it is either thrown out or handed over to the cops.

Besides illegal goods, the only baggage items that the UBC chooses not to sell is the personal items they find, such as notebooks, photographs, and letters. Even the laptop computers and the cameras for sale have had their memories completely cleared. While this is disappointing for anyone in the market for lost diaries and homemade porn, it is probably a relief to those who have lost their bags. The airlines lose less than 1% of all checked luggage, but there are stepsyou should take to make sure this never happens to you, by the way. Avoid special handling instructions, as these will probably just confuse your airline. Make sure you have ID on the inside and outside of your luggage. And lastly, check your bag with a skycap and tip him. Five dollars is probably a good bet, unless you’re a high roller, in which case you should tip ten. When you pass off the money, put it in the palm of your hand and give it to the guy in a handshake.

No matter how many times you do it, it is one of those moves that will always make you feel mad suave.

The Unclaimed Baggage Center gets close to a million visitors annually. It has turned Scottsboro into one of Alabama’s biggest tourist destinations,

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on par with the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, and blowing the World’s Largest Chair in Anniston, AL, out of the water. The business has come a long way from the 1970s, when the company’s founders, Doyle and Sue Owens, bought leftover bags from a Greyhound station, hauled them back to Scottsboro in his pick-up truck, and sold the bags on card tables. Now the UBC is a major operation with 140 employees. They get so much luggage that they don’t even attempt to sell all of it. A third of all their findings are donated to local charitable organizations, like baby strollers to a teen pregnancy center and crutches to war veterans. Community is a big deal to the business, which has been in Scottsboro since day one, and has no plans to leave.

Besides being an economic boon for the small town’s 15,000 citizens, it has

helped them to overcome the lingering infamy of the 1931 Scottsboro Boys case, a racist miscarriage of justice in the post-reconstruction South that I learned about in high school.

While the thrill of a gigantic warehouse full of lost treasures may not give the same adrenaline rush as picking up a random suitcase from the baggage claim and making a run for it, you are guaranteed to find some sweet deals.

There is even one documented case of a shopper finding his own stuff. A man came in and bought a pair of ski boots for his wife. When he got back home, she claimed that the boots looked familiar. When she looked under the tongue, there were her initials. It was the same pair of boots that had been lost on a trip two years before. So if an airline ever loses your bag, you know where to look.

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Doro Wat. Schiacciata con l’Uva. Doogh. Makki Ki Roti. Cevapi.

Chiles Renellos. Saki. Pipikaula. Skyr. Djej Emshmel. Zong Zi. Taramosalata. World travelers should be adventurous and patient when enjoying the local cuisine. This philosophy does not apply to finding a bathroom. Though it’s not printed on a few sheets of cotton soft, two-ply Quilted Northern, the list of translations below should come in handy next time you find yourself in a foreign land, wondering, “Where’s the bathroom?”

Armenian = Pekaran ooreh?

Afrikaans = Waar is die badkamer? (“Vaar is dee bat-kah-mer?”)

Norwegian = Unnskyld, kan du si meg hvor toalettet er?

Persian = Bebakhshid, dastshoee kojast?

Czech = Prosim Vas, Kde jsou toalety?

Dutch = Pardon, waar is de W.C. (“way say”)?

Finnish = Missä on vessa (veh-seh)?

Polish = Przepraszam, gdzie jest łazienka?

Portuguese = Com licença, onde fica o banheiro?

Punjabi = Gusal Khana kithe hai?

French = Excusez-moi, Où sont les toilettes? (Ex-koo-zay mwah, oo sonh ley twah-lett?)

German = Wo ist die Toilette, bitte?

(Vo ist dee toy-LET-uh, BIT-uh?)

Romanian = Unde este toaleta, va rog?

(Oon-day yeh twa-letta, vuh rog?)

Russian = Izvinite, gde toalet?

Greek = Parakalo, pou ine i tualetta?

Samoan = E, ‘O fea le faleuila?

(Ay, Oh fay-ah lay fah-lay-wee-lah?)

Hebrew = Slikha, ehfo hah sherooteem?

Serbian = Izvinite, gde je kupatilo?

Hindi = Bathroom kahan hain?

Swedish = Ursäkta mig, men var finns toaletterna?

Indonesian = Permisi, dimana kamar mandi?

Tagalog = Pwede po bang malaman kung nasaan ang banyo?

Italian = Mi scusi, dov’è il bagno?

Tamil = Bathroom enga irukku?

Japanese = Toire ha doko? (toi-re wa do-ko?)

Turkish = Pardon, tuvalet nerede?

Lebanese = Waynil hemehm.

Urdu = Bathroom kidhar hay?

Malayalam = Bathroom evide ah?

Vietnamese = Cho hoi, nhá ve. sinh o da u vây ?

Mandarin Chinese = Duay boo chee, nee duh tzuh swoh zai noh lee?

Welsh = Pardwn ble maér ty bach?

(Par-dOOn ble MY-r Tea bach?)

Nepali = Snaan kaksha kahaan cha?

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New York City - 2004 - 25F

Photographers: Todd Jordan (p. 142) Craig Wetherby (p. 144-145) Stash (p. 146-147) David Corio, www.davidcorio.com (p. 148-149) Choosing your seat on a flight is a very personal affair. The aisle seat has its advantages such as the potential for extra legroom and the convenience of not bothering your seat mates when you have to get up. Given the choice, no one in their right mind would pick the middle seat. The window seat, however, is hands down the best seat assignment. If you don’t agree, you’ll be convinced after you see these views.

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New York City - 2001 - 22A

Las Vegas - 2006 - 10F

Amsterdam - 2006 - 22A

Aspen - 2008 - 39A

New York City - 2007 - 24A

Italian Alps - 2006 - Cockpit

New York City - 2008 - 22A

Oracabessa, Jamaica - 2000 - 4A

New York City - 1993 - 18A

Carribbean Sea, Jamaica - 2000 - 2D