Flight Quarantined in Tokyo Obesity Scare

n American Airlines flight from San Jose to Tokyo was quarantined on the tarmac at the Tokyo airport last week when five passengers aboard showed symptoms of being obese.

"I was sitting next to one of them," claimed passenger Roger Mickle. "And he was going on and on about how he just couldn't keep the weight off and didn't want to get his fat ass laughed out of the gym. I'd heard about that kind of shit on the news and thought I should notify a stewardess. I hear it's some kind of epidemic these days."

Some observers have called the event an overreaction on the part of a Japanese government fearful of American obesity spreading to their relatively thin nation. Emergency vehicles met the plane on the runway in hopes of containing the threat, but all passengers were later released when it was discovered that the five were merely fat as hell.

"Oh yeah, they were pretty fat," said Jim Roache, a passenger in first class. "One of them was even fat as fuck. But obese? I leave that for the doctors to decide. I'd hate to call somebody obese and have them go on some kind of cake-eating rampage when it was a misunderstanding and they were just 'fucking fat'."

Tokyo officials issued a statement after the incident, explaining Japan's fear of American-style obesity. Though no conclusive scientific evidence has surfaced to suggest obesity is contagious, many researchers believe the American lifestyle and diet, major precursors for obesity, can be spread through direct exposure.

"These trans-pacific flights have to be watched very carefully," explained Japan's Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi. "If you know what to look for, say the stain from a French fry on a blouse, or the glazed-yet-satiated look in a passenger's eye, you can spot the warning signs before this epidemic is spread across the ocean."

Asked if Japan was in danger of an obesity outbreak, US Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona scoffed.

"Japan? Obese? Please. They're way too in love with fish to really ever weigh in with the big boys. Very few countries really have what it takes, you'd be surprised. There was that scare in Toronto, of course, but it was always just media hype. I've been to Toronto, and those baloney-eaters don't know the first thing about being obese. They wouldn't know obese if it sat down at their table and ate all the potato salad. Americans, we take them to school about being just disgustingly fat."

Regardless, Minister Sakaguchi remains cautious.

"We love the Americans, and the many gifts they have bestowed upon our culture. This, however, they can keep. No thank you, so sorry. We honor you, proud Americans, your hearts exploding like Fourth of July fireworks, but people of Japan must eat vegetables sometimes. Is… is in religion. Yes. So thank you, but please keep your big rolls of blubbery fat over there like good neighbor. Sayonara."

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You may have read about my A.M. radio station and the hostile buyout Clear Channel is attempting. But of course I have other problems to worry about, so that's just the pus-filled boil on the sore foot. Which is a nasty version of the "icing on the cake" cliché. I'm getting married in just a couple of months, so you can imagine I'm pretty distracted with all those details and trying to get a divorce from my current wife. Then there's always planning the big event… Girl Elvis vs. roommate Lee in one of the biggest matches ever to be courted by the Fox network.

So it's not like I needed something else to draw on my time. But this X-M radio is a severe letdown.

I went through all this time and effort to get the thing installed, which mainly involved the Sears guy fiddling with the stereo area while I hovered over him, arms crossed, tapping my foot, and asking what the hell the hold up was for a hundred hours. Actually, that's an embellishment—at 3'9" I don't exactly hover over anybody, but I've made an art out of hovering under them.

This is neither here nor there, surprisingly off-topic for one of my columns. I take issue not with the slowness of the guy (another column, another tirade) but with the failure of X-M radio to live up to my unrealistic expectations. They promised commercial free, and technically, they give it to you, since there's no commercial support. Imagine my supreme disappointment to find out they still employ DJs!

DJs? What is this, the 1960s? Is one song fading out and another fading in such a frightful concept that we need the banter of vanity voices to break up the constant play? It's damn ridiculous, radio industry. As a nation, we've outgrown DJs. As for VJs, they were never a good idea. The writing in the corner can perfectly inform me of the name of today's one-hit wonderband. DJs we've allowed for a little longer, since the radio isn't a visual medium, and the last thing I need is another car wreck while I call the radio station to find out who performed the last song. But those days are gone.

We have all-digital equipment now, not to mention cellphones you can operate with one hand. Modern radios with scrolling text can tell us who played the previous song, and if we wanted the other accoutrements of a live DJ, I'm sure they could tell us it's warm outside and insult our musical tastes as well. I refuse to pay a monthly service fee for space-age commercial-free radio and then listen to the prattling of a DJ like I'm a goddamn caveman trying to start a fire in his rumbling beast-like horseless carriage on the way to the commune each morning. Or whenever I choose to skip work and go elsewhere, but that's my business.

So naturally I ripped the guts out of my car and sent them the whole contraption back in a box, along with some parts that I think were motor-oriented, since the car no longer runs. But I made my point, and I'll expect a full refund on the whole thing. I would try Sirius, but I doubt they'd be much of an improvement—and frankly, I soured on their venture ever since they turned down the slogan I proposed: "Radio? Get Sirius!" That's just poor foresight, my satellite friends.

So I'm back to square one, with nothing to listen to on my drive to work, should I ever get the car working again. I mean, there's always KROK, the all-Rok Finger favorites radio station that I own, but hearing all that music only I like all the time gets a little monotonous. And it would leave me with little to complain about, regarding this whole X-M radio deal.

Did I mention how slow the guy installed it? You'd think he was getting paid by the hour. Which he was.

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In the interest of full disclosure, I'll start this story off by saying I don't know how I got to Las Vegas. These things just happen, and you either roll with the punches or you pull on a t-shirt that says "BIG, WHINY BITCH" and play the part. Since I was already wearing a pretty stellar Midnight Run tee, I decided to do Vegas like I'd gone there on purpose.

First thing's first, I've got to say the 9/11 tribute at New York, New York that you've been hearing about is a definite can't-miss. Every night at 9:11pm they fly a remote-control plane into the "twin towers" wing of the hotel and set off a shitload of fireworks and explosives, and Omar Bricks isn't ashamed to admit he got a little choked up standing on the sidewalk with all the other Vegas losers, clapping and cheering as the hydraulic towers went down and they shot some spare change and clothing fragments into the crowd and some of those Cirque du Soleil freaks did backflips off the roof. Leave it to Vegas to remind us what it's all about.

As far as the other casinos go, I still say the Mirage hasn't been the same since Roy had his nuts bit off by that tiger. Now they're advertising "Sigfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat," which sounds like about as much wild fun as a hysterectomy. I do understand the pussy move to less-threatening stage animals, but I don't think it's working out too hot since when I wandered into the show, one of the dolphins had just pulled Roy into the tank and was thrashing the shit out of him while Sigfried half-heartedly slapped at the beast with an oar. Funny shit, but probably not what Roy'd had in mind when they cracked open the full-body cast before the show.

I hear they're thinking of trying out ground sloths next, since that's one of the only animals Roy isn't afraid of now, but I'll bet you ten bucks one of those things finds its way into their hotel suite in the middle of the night and beats the shit out of Roy in slow-motion while he's sleeping. I tried to get the Mirage to give me odds on that, but they're not taking any more Roy-abuse action until he gets out of the hospital, out of respect and all that noise. But I'm thinking the Luxor might take my bet, those Egyptian hardasses have held a grudge against the Mirage ever since the Luxor-Mirage employee rumble back in 1998. I think they're understandably upset since the gaming commission ruled that they couldn't keep the Mirage employees as slaves after winning the rumble.

Speaking of the Luxor, I spent the better part of one night trying to sneak into the hotel pyramid's elevator, since I heard the crazy fuckin' thing goes sideways, down into the center of the earth. You know Omar Bricks had to see how that shit goes down. Too bad for the lame-ass truth: Turns out they guard that thing like the Pentagon men's room, you can't even get in without a room key or a much better grasp of the Vulcan neck pinch than I can take credit for. I won't lie and say it's the first pyramid Omar Bricks has been thrown out of, but at least in this one they let me out on the ground floor.

I've always thought that Vegas is basically large-scale mini-golf with beer, though they'll usually kick you off of the mini-golf course for bringing in hookers. Advantage: Vegas, there. This time I decided to test my theory and golf the strip, like in that video with the guy who sings like Elmer Fudd. You kind of have to make up your own par, since it's not posted, or if it is, the sign's been plastered over with titty posters and plans to build a new casino on the sidewalk in front of some existing casino. That's the downside of a town with no rules: the course etiquette blows.

Now nobody would claim Omar Bricks is a world-class golfer, maybe the class of the commune offices, but that's like winning a beauty pageant in a burn ward. Mainly I just swing hard and wait to laugh, if you hit the ball hard enough, something funny is almost guaranteed to happen. Especially if you're blindfolded, sounds are even funnier when you have to imagine who's making them. So I don't know where this cop got off suggesting that I was the one who hit a golf ball into the penthouse at Caesar's Palace. If I had that kind of aim, I'd be shanking that shit on ESPN. Not to mention having Nike paying the big bucks to put their logo on every piece of clothing I'm wearing and shaving it into my hair, like Tiger Woods. I don't know how golfers get away with that shit; if porn stars had those kind of commercial cajones they'd have condom brand logos tattooed on their balls.

Long story short, I had just hit a nine iron up the Eiffel Tower at the Paris when a cop asked me if I had a permit to hit golf balls into a crowded hotel. The dude scared the shit out of me since I'd just been ignoring him standing there; I thought he wanted an autograph or advice on grips. I showed him my ski pass from Vail Mountain, which usually gets the job done since most people don't like to read. But this guy was some kind of bookworm freak and he figured out the pass didn't say anything about playing the Bellagio fountain as a water hazard, so I spent the rest of the day ducking the cops and hitting the casinos in an oversized Ronald Reagan mask.

If you do go to Vegas some time soon I'd recommend checking out the Treasure Island boat show, if you can throw a baseball hard enough you can spend your Saturday night being chased by guys dressed up as pirates, which is good for at least a few months of local fame. A word to the wise though: those phony fucks don't hold themselves to any kind of real pirates' code when it comes to street fighting, and they're not above calling in some hard-hitting showgirls when the going gets rough. Bricks out.

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