American Airlines: 'Christian' Pilot a Goddamned Nut

No shit," promised American Airlines spokesperson Lindy Burger. "The pilot in question was out of his ever-loving mind. A fuckhead of galactic proportions. His inventive swearing was unfortunately mistaken for a Christian dogmatic rant."

American Airlines packaged the clarification of the incident with a passive-aggressive apology to any Christians who were stupid enough to mistake the pilot's announcements as endorsing any particular religion. Actually, the apology was about 75% aggressive and only 25% passive, judging by the wording and an elaborate passive-aggressive formula M.I.T. scientists worked out.

Burger, consenting to an interview in her office, as long as we kept the door open, explained it was American Airlines policy to allow pilots to swear in the cockpit. It was also possible she stressed such swearing is conditionally allowed providing they do not broadcast foul language over the speaker system, but this reporter was distracted by a woman saying "cockpit" and forgot to finish writing the quote.

"If it's requested," continued Burger, "American Airlines will release the fucking black box and let everybody get a whiff of Rodger's whack-ass ranting. That motherfucker can rattle them off like he has fucking Tourette's."

Burger also described the policy of hiring pilots who were former alcoholics which sometimes created uncomfortable social situations on the planes. According to Burger, alcoholic pilots with half a buzz on start calling around looking for Alcoholics Anonymous and come across American Airlines in the phonebook first, and management usually feels to sorry for them to turn them away when they show up. Plus, they think it will be funny. Pilots, once freshly on the wagon again, are shaved, showered, given a clean suit, and a job flying national and international flights.

Those who were on hand for the Feb. 7 incident accuse pilot Rodger K. Findiesen of asking the Christians on board the plane to "testify" to the power of Jesus Christ, their lord and savior. Many on the plane made claims to extreme discomfort and feeling singled out by a religious preference, while others felt it was distasteful and inappropriate.

Disagreeing with the assessment, Burger said, "Christian? Rodger? Shit, he can't even say it when he gets half a beer in him. No, more than likely what happened was he knocked back a few at home or made a stop by the drink cart on the way to the front of the plane and cut loose a little bit. Forgot his microphone was on, I bet. We had a similar incident in 1997 with him. Check it out."

Agreeing to check it out, this reporter screened a cassette tape from Burger's desk which she sometimes uses for training sessions or fun at college parties. On the tape, an apparently inebriated Findiesen talks either to the co-pilot, himself, or an invisible friend, including several verses of a song presumably titled "Lick My Salty Balls" set to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

"Ack. Fuck the pissin' president. God, am I shit-hammered. Stretched all up on a fuckin' (inaudible)… that's the way. Take a fuckin' parachute and let this sumbitch crash right into a fuckin' mountain. D.B. Cooper woulda done it… (inaudible wailing)… Ah, Shelly, you fuckin' bitch, Jesus hanging on a crucifix, you done me wrong, bitch. I love you. Still love you, baby. Glory, glory, halle-fuckin'-lujah, still love you, baby… Man, I'd love to get a (inaudible) with a cow sometime. That's got to be…"

Stopping the tape, Burger assured that Findiesen would receive treatment for any possible problem with alcohol, and that he had indeed found someone after Shelly.

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These days, it seems like you can't rifle through a newspaper looking for the comics or pretend to read a magazine on the subway while staring down a young lady's blouse without hearing something about the latest business scandal. If somebody isn't having a rubber-gloved finger probed up their asshole for shredding confidential documents, then they're facing the Spanish Inquisition for making a personal fortune by overvaluing their company's stock at the expense of the bottom line. And through it all, I've only got one question on my mind: since when did the entire business world turn into a bunch of crybabies?

Back in my day, you didn't hear people pissing and moaning about insider information or cooking the books and it's not fair, boo-hoo. Back then we only had one rule in business: no kicking in the nuts. And that one was sometimes optional.

Those were the glory days of bold men doing what it took to get head, not bald men doing what it took to get ahead. We had priorities, and big cars. Anybody who wanted to ask too many questions didn't get to ride in the big cars, they could schlep it back to the Hilton in their miserable little Yugos if they wanted to play around with any of that Woodward and Bernstein bullshit.

Heady times, indeed. And the corporate takeovers were the best of the best. I remember I was working for Schleinhauser Nut & Bolt Co. when they bought out Winslow Fasteners. Good god was that sweet! The spoils! We took many of their top executives as man-slaves and the most comely of their female execs and secretaries as our concubines. And I don't recall anyone complaining then, except of course for the man-slaves and concubines.

Forget about trying to live that large these days, you'd be lucky to pull off a subsidized loan to buy company stock in the current "goody two-shoes" national climate. The law of the land used to be that if you didn't have balls big enough to hang with the big boys, then you could cart your shriveled little nuggets on over to the unemployment line, bub. Get in line behind all of the other suckers who take a court order not to shred documents seriously. Hell, in my day I shredded stacks of court orders not to shred documents, that's just the way things worked. It was always better not to leave a paper trail, especially not concerning the sticky finer points of business like profits and expenses and other such voodoo.

Back then people understood that it was all about survival of the fittest, meaning the most cunning and feared, not to mention flinty. These days, people wouldn't know flint if it started their ass on fire in a movie theater. Nowadays it's survival of the least offensive, and may the bland guy win. At least it will be until some real slick bastard comes along and reminds us what it's all about, like some kind of big business Jesus Christ. I personally can't wait; this infantile obsession with "fair play" is really starting to chap my ass.

Jesus, did anyone see the tits on that girl waiting in line over there? I mean, she could lose a few pounds around the middle before she'd be a bona-fide knockout, but still, good lord! A man could get lost in that cleavage. And I hope it's me. I wonder how she feels about 50 year-old married men? Maybe she's got some kind of corporate take-over fantasy rolling around in that pretty little cock-teasing head of hers.

I think I'm going to ask her to join my staff.

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Is it crazy to travel all the way to South America, by car no less, to finally find out what an old Van Halen song is about? If your answer is yes, then stop reading this column immediately. I don't want any of my readers thinking I'm crazy. Go read Rok Finger or something, I'm sure he's got a Metamucil story that won't challenge your notions of acceptably sane behavior.

As for Omar Bricks, I've spent the last two weeks On the Road. I capitalicize that because apparently some insane bastard in the 50's did the same thing as me and wrote a book about it, since I guess he couldn't pare his recollections down to column length. An indictment of his editing skills I'm sure, though no doubt those book sales paid him more in the end than the can of lima beans and sack of assorted shirt buttons I'm likely to earn for writing this column.

But regardless of what I earned, or what it cost in damage to other people's property, the trip was a major success. Omar Bricks got out of the cold-ass weather for two weeks and finally learned that the Van Halen song "Panama" has nothing at all to do with the tiny little Latin American nation, and that David Lee Roth was probably just fucking some girl named Panama, or her name was Pam Anna and Dave just wasn't paying much attention. But Panama itself is a bitchin' little country where they do things the Bricks way 24/7. Or at least I did things the Bricks way 24/7 when I was down there, and nobody seemed to mind too much. They didn't complain in any language I could understand, anyway.

Now I'm sure a few of my more anal-retentive readers are wondering how it's possible to drive down the Panama, enjoy some time there, and drive back all in two weeks time, since it's something like 4,000 miles round-trip. All I can say is that those fussy motherfucks have obviously never heard of sleep-driving. It's a pretty straight shot most of the way down to Panama, so as long as you tie your steering wheel to something solid in the car, you can snooze your way through most of the commute.

Not that I spent the whole drive dreaming about Salma Hayek and cheap Jose Cuervo. There was still plenty of time for mayhem on the ride down, including a stop at a parade staging grounds outside Mexico City to cover the Bricksmobile in flowers and papier-mâché, so there rest of the way down it looked like I was driving a giant floral bull, scary as all get out. You can bet no matadors crossed the street in front of me for the rest of that trip. Though I did run into an incident in Costa Rica where half the town thought I was driving a giant piñata and I had to haul ass to limit the bat damage to my car.

The Bricksmobile III—Red Bagel Edition stayed in South America, needless to say, after I drove it into the Pacific Ocean. Some asshole told me that Ecuador borders Peru, but he didn't tell me on which side. Yep, you guessed it: the other side. The side I drove off was all ocean, baby. Onlookers said I only survived because my car hit the water going so fast that it hydroplaned for about a hundred yards, giving me time to bail out like some kind of water-skiing action stud. Keep that in mind the next time some loudmouth down at the bar starts mouthing off about the virtues of anti-lock brakes.

Thankfully for the sake of my return journey, later that afternoon I happened upon a car left running outside a bank in San Lorenzo. Normally my capers stop just short of Grand Theft Auto, but I didn't think the dudes inside waving the guns all around would really mind, when I waved the dude inside waved back like "No problem." It's a whole different mindset down there, hard to explain. I'm not even sure they have that crime down there; it's more like Grand Auto Borrow.

The down-side is that I have no idea what kind of car it is, where it was made, or what kind of units all the instruments are in. It's fast for sure, but whatever 300 I got to on the way back, I don't think they were miles an hour. Unless I really floored that bitch while I was napping. The guy at the border said I'd never get that thing registered to drive in America, but that's what he gets for thinking I register my cars. You're just asking for trouble by attaching your name to an unpredictable machine that can cause more property damage than a cruise missile.

So I guess in the end we came out even, the world south of the U.S. taught me something about Van Halen, and I taught them something about automobile ownership. I guess that NAFTA shit is working after all. Bricks out.

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