transportation disasters = fun

I wrote up my "thoughts" on a recent television program I watched into a Craigslist rant & rave.

Update: since it will eventually be deleted, I thought I'd repost here:

I know there will come a day sometime in the future, karma being the unavoidable bitch that she is, when I will find myself the heavily used Preparation H tube of a truck driver with Irritable Bowel Syndrome for thinking this, but that documentary on major transportation disasters I was watching today was goddamn funny.

I'm serious. Have you watched that shit? People seem to have the common sense of an autistic koala and, to quote George Carlin, the reflexes of an aging panda, and in the midst of disaster do the most profoundly retarded things. And people die because of it! And damned if it isn't fucking entertainment.

Case #1: Titled, I shit you not, "Flying with One Wing." Now, that alone is funny. You don't really fly with one wing in my experience. It's really more of a falling to your doom kind of thing. Or perhaps spinning to your doom. That second wing...really not so much optional. Not a backup. Prerequisite to the whole staying in the air thing, wouldn't you say?

But, anyway, Flying with One Wing. Apparently, there was some plane that, if I may spoil the ending for you, had a fucked up propeller that had broken off, destabilized the engine, fucked it up, and thrown it out of its mounting, thus contorting a wing, and making the plane not fly so good. Ok, so that sucks. But it turns out the pilots were so busy trying to control the plane that they don't bother to look back and see that, hey, the engine's all fucked up. All they knew was that the plane was veering sharply to the left and losing altitude. Which is fine. They were busy. But when they finally got it stable enough to call the stewardess, she apparently didn't feel the need to mention that she had, you know, noticed the engine was all fucked up.

Now, you'd think that would come up. At least a, "Hey, you know, I couldn't help but notice the engine's all fucked up, smoking, on fire, and about to fall off. I don't mean to be a bother, being a simple flight attendant and all, but it just seemed to me a rather important detail." But no, nothing. Not a peep. Not even a, "Hey, have you looked at the engine lately? I'm pretty sure it didn't look like that when we took off." Nope. Back to serving crappy pretzels.

Moving on. The final amusement of this episode was the announcer. Just before the plane crashed (in the re-enactment, of course...there wasn't another plane flying alongside full of insensitive pricks who just wanted to make a documentary), they said the pilot finally glanced back and looked at the fucked up engine. The reaction was properly overacted with the faux-pilot turning white, looking horrified, and generally giving the impression of impending doom. That wasn't what was funny. What was funny was that the voiceover said,

"...Only then did the pilot look back at the smoldering wreckage of the engine. He had no idea the extent of the damage. None of his instruments had told him."

Really. You know, because I could have sworn they put an "Engine All Fucked Up and Kinda Hanging Off the Side of the Plane" warning light SOMEWHERE on the dashboard. Seriously though, what fucking indicator would you put in to indicate THAT? I mean, among other things, I think the engineers would have assumed, rightly, that the point at which that light came on is roughly the point at which the plane had become intimate with a cornfield somewhere. What the fuck did the producers want? A giant warning message to pop up on the cockpit display that said, "HEY LOOK AT THE LEFT ENGINE IT'S ALL FUCKED"?

But the hillarity didn't stop with the plane with one wing. Oh no. Next up was a German rail disaster. Now, let's say you're riding happily along at 150 mph towards Hamburg facing your wife and daughter. You're enjoying some kind of funny-sounding sausage, drinking non-crappy, non-American beer, and feeling very efficient and stuff with only a hint of a memory of being bombed to shit at one point in your history. Now, let's say that interrupting this German bliss is an object that suddenly protrudes from between your wife's and daughter's seats. For the sake of argument, and because it's just plain factually correct, let's say it's...oh, I don't know...a giant metal beam.

That's right. A giant metal beam. Like the ones that sleepwalking cartoons seem to stumble upon as they're being lifted up a building? One of those. Sticking up between the seats.

Now, I'll give you two options at this point. It'll be like a choose your own adventure!

Option A) Realizing that travelling at 150 mph with a giant beam sticking through the floor is probably neither safe nor healthy, you run to the nearest emergency break handle and pull the fucker. Other train passengers arrive in Hamburg late but alive. You are yelled at and then praised in German. You can't tell the difference.

Option B) Having the common sense of a parent who sits their small child in front of a wall socket with metal forks in each of its hands, you decide to take a leisurely stroll back 3 cars to find the conductor and mention the minor but recent aesthetic annoyance of having a giant metal beam stick up between your wife and child. You fear your child will give the beam too much metaphorical significance and will become estranged from her mother.

Now, lest you jump at option B, allow me to make you aware of a further complication: IF you successfully tell the conductor about the giant metal beam sticking out of the floor, he will claim that company policy demands that he investigate the issue before pulling the emergency break. You know, because as a conductor, you see a lot of giant metal beams sticking out of the floor, and the stupid passengers will freak out at any old beam whether it's in danger of metastacizing into other giant metal beams or not. It might be one of those giant metal beams that jumps out of the floor as part of normal train operation. He doesn't know! He has to check it out!

Needless to say, this clever young chap went with option B. And wouldn't you know it, but before the conductor could pull the emergency break, the train derailed, slammed into a bridge, and killed most of the passengers. Ain't that a bitch?

All right, all right...final episode. This one is quick, but still worth mention. The last episode was on the Boxing Day tsunami. I know, too soon, not funny. Except that this particular (immensely entertaining) documentary taught me the answer to the following question:

Q) What's worse than being caught in a tsunami?
A) Having a phobia about getting caught in a tsunami and THEN being caught in a tsunami.

I shit you not. They interviewed some poor woman who had a long-standing fear of tsunamis, went on vacation, and was caught in the tsunami. What are the chances? Seriously. And when she came home, did she storm into her shrink's office and yell, "SEE?! I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO! Oh no...you said I was craaaaazy. 'Sure sure Helen...unstoppable wall of water. Widespread death and destruction. Yada yada yada. Whatever. Sit down and shut up Crazy McCrazyson.' Well FUCK you! I was right! Now give me my tinfoil hat back, you overpaid fucktard!"

Anyway, that's how it went in my head. Because it's funnier that way.

So yeah...transportation disasters. Hours of entertainment. Strangely apropos after breaking up with a long term girlfriend, but still...fun!