Through such deafening silence...

Without so much as a word of context, here is the note I forwarded this past week to the kind folk at US Air. My intention is to write them one note per week detailing my increasing distemper at their inability to do the simple act we pay them to do. I am hoping I grow more and more angry, that my notes grow more and more weird, and that they never write me back. I'd hope they go out of business, as well, but as they are barely even in business, that seems a bit vindictive.

To whom it may concern,

I'm really unsure how to phrase this, but I'm sufficiently curious to at least try. I am, at present, sitting in my office in Boston, waiting for my girlfriend's flight to arrive at Logan. I do this every Thursday, as she is a consultant and travels frequently. Her firm uses your airline exclusively, and for the last seven weeks of her customer engagement, every single one of her return flights has been at least 30-45 minutes late. Last week and this week averaged one and one half hours. Out of curiosity, why is it that you are unable to limit flight delays to AT LEAST the duration of the flight itself? I've tracked these flights online, and the last two 1:30+ delays were caused by 'baggage handling' and 'cabin servicing'. Seriously? It takes an hour and a half to load the baggage for a 737? If that is true, please let me know, as I am somewhat concerned about you at the moment.

Yours,
Gavin

Modigliani on a Cigarette Boat

Dude, I totally need a coffee. And a woman shaped like this...

Sunrise on Oahu, and the light of the grey day whispered between the blinds. Morning here is a sound I’ve heard a thousand times, that whisper that tells you the day has begun without you. It sneers at the corners of your eyes, sneers that somewhere in the Hawaiian morning, no matter the weather, something is very, very wrong with your Ferrari.

"Bastards," I mumbled, dragging a sleepy hand across my mustache. There were no stewardesses in the room, no Polynesian tour guides drowsing like honey under several strategically-placed pillows, and if that wasn't disorienting enough, Mr Fujikori was standing on my end table, beaming down on me with the highest watt smile a 65-lb man can muster.

"Mother of a Retarded Christ!" I shouted, but Fujikori was already shaking my hand, and before I could drag my unbelievably limber body from my 900 count sheets, he vanished, leaving nothing but a puff of green tea scented smoke, and a page torn from an address book.

819 Kahala Beach Road.

The tuning fork in my head shook like a new-hatched bird. 819 Kahala Beach Road.

I slipped into a polo (the wonderful white Burberry one with the fuschia cuffs and the embroidery on the button placket...but that is neither here nor there), a pair of short shorts that shouted 'Macho!' rather than 'Rent me by the hour!', grabbed my .45, and disappeared into the AM mists.