when i first flew to india, i felt that the airport had the most bizarre security practices i had ever witnessed. that was before flying out of bob hope airport in burbank, california. in america, they are constantly afraid that a plane is going to blow up. security guards and transportation security officials are scary, surly people and the policies of what is allowed and what is not allowed change all the time, often without much logic. after richard reed tried to blow up a plane with his shoe, lighters and matches were banned from planes. now they let you bring matches, but only three books … apparently this keeps people from setting their shoes on fire.

i had known that liquids were either banned or restricted on planes, but had a 100ml bottle of face and body lotion in my bag that i had flown over with from thailand. i had heard that anything under 3oz was allowed, but wasn’t too worried if i had to end up throwing it away. when i got to security at the bob hope airport, they found the lotion and told me that it had to be in a zip-lock plastic sandwich bag. now security had no bags to hand out, but apparently over at the gift shop they were passing out special bomb-resistant bags. i walked 5 min back to the gift shop, 5 min back to security, placed my lotion in the zip lock bag and walked through security. i was tempted to just throw the plastic bag away then and put the lotion back in my carry-on, but i wasn’t too sure that the security people would see the irony in that.

i did have a nice, only-in-california moment tho soon after this …. saying good-bye to tee was a little more emotional that i think either of us had expected. when we finally did say good bye, this security guard was watching and she told me “now you hurry back and make him a happy man!” … being gay in thailand is very open and accepted, but not in the same way that it is in california. the thai’s have this history of katoey’s which is some sort of third sex …. and i think that because of that, the over-feminized gay man is something that has historical precedence and is accepted. the more modern view that a gay man can just be a normal guy, watch sports, wear dockers (well maybe not that far), get married to another man, adopt kids, etc … is all something new over there and is still gaining acceptance. i guess more than just gaining acceptance, it is something that is entering people’s thoughts as a possibility. i don’t know if anyone is even reading this blog, but would love to hear some comments on this if anyone has thoughts to share ….

so here’s what the newyorker has to say about airport security. used without permission …