“TSA must have a lot of fun with you.” I hear this a lot when people see me packing up my show for travel. Between rubber chickens, beer bottles, hammers, rubber gloves, portable paper shredders and a handful of wireless devices with antennae and LED number countdown displays, yes – it’s sometimes quite tiring to go through airport security. Many times I’m traveling either very early in the morning or very late at night – and the TSA doesn’t know that I’ve already heard all of their comments before. I am “on the road” anywhere between 100-150 days a year. I fly a lot. Here are a couple things I deal with and how I deal with them so my life doesn’t end up like one big real-life version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
1) How I pack my show for the road.
I bring slightly different items for my show if I have to fly rather than drive. I would say my shows are 50/50 flying/driving. For the most part, the show is the same – but I bring slightly different props for weight/airline reasons. First of all, I have enough props to perform a decent show in my carry on alone. This way if my checked luggage gets eaten by the luggage gnomes (as it does a couple times a year), I can still go onstage and put on a good show. It’s just a little less entertaining than my “A” show, but hey If onlys and justs were candies and nuts, then every day would be Ernte Dank Fest.
Packing the show is sort of a fun thing to figure out and something I take pride in. My main show case is custom made and has foam cut-outs for every prop so I can still pack and know if I’m missing anything even in a dark backstage area at 1am when I have the swine flu. The rest of my bags change from tour to tour based on whatever new theory I’m testing out. This last fall, I used a bag that I bought for 5,000 won ($5) on the streets of Osan, South Korea. I was testing the “how functional can I make one tiny bag” theory. This next tour, I’ll be testing out the theory of “my agent made a deal with bag company and I can’t turn down a good thing.”
I have to also separate what items I’m allowed to bring in carry-ons versus checked bags. I use a ball peen hammer and a pair of scissors in the show, so I put them in the checked bag. Also, as a general rule of thumb, if it’s an item that can be found/replaced at a local store, I’ll check it. This allows me to follow the airlines’ rule of one carry one plus one personal item and still have enough stuff with me to do a good show.
Oh – also I have to carry some coins/cards with me in case the person sitting next to me asks what I do.
2) The airline ticket counter.
I’m a huge fan of Southwest Airlines. They have better customer service, happier more cheerful employees, better airplanes, cheaper rates, no baggage fees and they treat people like people – not cattle. Having observed the airline employees at different airports and the way they deal with frequent flyers versus occasional flyers, it’s easy to see that they have an appreciation for customers who “know the drill.” Having your ID ready and knowing whether or not your bags are overweight are two quick ways to make the experience pretty painless. My bags are rarely overweight – with the exception of extended trips where I need supplies for many shows. Almost always, my main show case is exactly 50 lbs. Occasionally it’s a pound over. If I don’t have anything extra in my case, I know that it’s just their scale that is off. But rather than argue with them about it (they hear “But it was fine at the last airport” ALL the time), I just take the hammer/heavy things out of the case and throw it in my second checked bag. In general, I go out of my way to be nice to the ticket counter people at the airport, because on those rare occasions when you’re having a bad travel day, they’re really the only ones that can help you.
3) TSA Security Checkpoint
Ahh – the thing that everyone’s talking about. I have mixed feelings about the TSA. I have always been really nice to them and thanked them. But lately, I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with them. Last year, I had good reason to believe the TSA caused $300 in damages to one of my cases by bending the latches and the result was this:
I had every bit of documentation you could imagine – boarding passes, bag check slips – even the TSA note that they inspected it stamped with the airport code. Filed a claim – nothing. They blamed the airline.
Then there are those times when the TSA tries to mess with me or play a joke on me like the time they stuffed all my lens wipes into my nest of boxes:
Things like these are funny at first, but when you think about the fact that it’s YOUR SHIT they’re going through – you start to get angry. So now – all I can do is try to follow their rules and make the process as simple and painless as possible. Which is getting harder and harder. I don’t have a problem going through the AIT scan machines that can see my junk. If they’re that desperate to see it, have at it. It’s much better than them touching me. And I hear mixed reports, but it seems like the fears about the radiation exposure are a bit overblown. I do have a problem with who’s making money off of these machines. Can you say conflict of interest? One of the stupidest things I’ve heard was someone say to me “If you don’t like it, don’t fly!” These people don’t understand that a lot of people make their living in jobs that require them to fly. I can think of two other than mine: Pilots and Flight Attendants.
Usually my security checkpoint goes like this – If I’m flying Southwest, I don’t have to wait in line at most airports, so that’s nice. I have to remove not only my computer, but my iCue2 which is the remote music player I use for my show. It pretty much looks like a bomb. It has a large antenna, remote controls, wires, and a LED display. It goes on the conveyer by itself in its case. Once I go through the X-ray, I would say 1 out of 4 times they want to look at my bag just because the stuff in there doesn’t look like normal stuff. One of my props always gets their attention. I can’t say exactly what the prop is without giving away secrets, but I can tell you that the reason they look at it is ridiculous and has nothing to do with security. A lot of times, they will search my bag and pull out the rubber chicken and show it around to other TSA agents as a joke. This is both irritating and humiliating. One time, a TSA agent took the rubber chicken around to EVERY other TSA agent and stuffed it in their faces, making stupid noises. Another time in Boston, one of the TSA agents had seen my show and demanded that I show her coworker a trick. I was nice to her and complied that time. But most of the time I don’t. They will inevitably ask why I have these weird props. I explain, and after the “show me a trick” conversation (I will say no), they stop being so jovial. I don’t treat them with disrespect – I just don’t feel like because they have the ability (not the right) to go through my stuff, that I should have to be subjected to watching them playing with all my magic “toys.” But I get it – I was excited when I saw some of this stuff for the first time too. For the most part – most of what the TSA is doing is theater. Many threats can still get by them. I accidentally brought a ball peen hammer through security once without them knowing it. I tried it again to see if they would let me through. They did. I went through 4 different security checkpoints before they found it. Turns out TSA is more interested in seeing my balls and peen than my potentially dangerous hammer.
I would say that because I’ve learned how to deal with them, my normal security experience isn’t that much longer than the average person, except for the extra time it takes me to remove and replace items from my bags.
A lot of people think its a glamorous job to fly all over the country, and sometimes it is. But dealing with airport security isn’t one of the highlights. It’s one of the annoyances. I rarely complain about my job. I love what I do. Sometimes whenever I hear myself complaining about my job, I have to stop myself and say “Shut up, moron – you have an awesome job.”
So with that said, “Shut up moron, you have an awesome job.”
peace, love and the 4th Amendment,
MK
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