by Clyde

Have you ever seen the TV show Airline? I’ve caught a few episodes of it from time to time. I think it originally ran on A&E and you can still catch it on reruns from time to time here and there on the cable dial. Using a documentary format, the show explored the inner workings of Southwest Airlines and airports in general.

If you have ever worked with the general public as I have, you know that John Q. Public can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes. And with delayed flights, getting bumped off planes, flights being cancelled, people can be especially obnoxious at an airport. And that’s the way it was on Airline. You saw a lot of obnoxious passengers and how they were handled by the people who worked for Southwest. It would certainly take an extreme amount of patience to work for any airline. especially these days. But that is not to say the Airline was always right. Not by a long shot.

Of course, sometimes people do have a legitimate reason for getting at least a little bit perturbed about certain situations. There were many times that I thought situations could have been handled a lot better. But after a while you learn something else. Southwest very seldom if ever admits to a mistake, not when corporate screws up and seldom when their employees do the same. There were many times when I thought the attendants and other employees were overstepping their bounds a bit, but maybe they wanted to play up to the cameras for TV so you gave them a bit of a pass.

Now we get this latest story regarding Kyla Ebbert that you may have already heard about. It seems some flight attendant didn’t think she was dressed quite properly. I mean, it was an airplane and not a transit bus so I guess the dress code is different. From ABC News:

Her outfit aboard a Southwest Airlines plane two months ago first earned her a flight attendant's reprimand and now has sparked a decency debate that may result in a lawsuit.

Kyla Ebbert, a blond, shapely 23-year-old San Diego coed who also works shifts at a Hooters restaurant, boarded the flight to Tucson, Ariz., on a one-day round-trip visit to an Arizona doctor's appointment. She had settled into her seat when a flight attendant confronted her about what was later described by the airline as "revealing attire."

Ebbert's so-called objectionable attire included a white, tight-fitting shirt, a green cropped sweater, and a white denim skirt cut high on her thighs.

Ebbert appeared on NBC's "The Today Show" today wearing the same outfit and said that she was asked by a male flight attendant to come to the front of the plane by the door to the jetway. There, Ebbert said that she was told she would have to catch a later flight because she was showing too much skin and Southwest is a "family" airline.

Ebbert said she told the flight attendant she needed to remain on that flight so could make her doctor's appointment and that because she was on a day trip, she had not packed any luggage from which she could take clothes to change.

"Southwest Airlines was responding to a concern about Ms. Ebbert's revealing attire on the flight that day," the airline said in a statement. "As a compromise, we asked her to adjust her clothing to be a little less revealing. She complied and traveled as scheduled.

"Fortunately, as an airline that carries approximately 96 million customers a year, these situations are extremely rare."

Though she accepted the compromise, Ebbert said she was left embarrassed by the situation, which she said played out in front of fellow passengers -- so embarrassed she requested a blanket to cover herself for the flight.

So “how do you compete against 21,000 free airline tickets?” asks The Dallas Morning News (free registration). “If you're Southwest Airlines, you serve more than 600,000 free drinks,” the paper answers. In response to AA’s free-ticket giveaway, Southwest will offer customers up to two free alcoholic drinks on all of its flights at Dallas Love Field.

The offer is good through May 29. That means the airline could give away up to 600,000 drinks if all passengers take advantage of the deal, The Morning News says, noting that “the carrier should see more than 300,000 passengers on outbound Love flights during the promotion.”

Yep, nothing like a plane load of drunken passengers for promoting that wholesome family atmosphere you’re so concerned about. Obviously their "family airline" excuse is just that. An excuse and a crappy one at that. There once was a time when airlines bent over backwards to please their passengers. Boy, are those days long gone. What do you think? The outfit in the picture is the one Miss Ebbert was wearing the day of the flight. Take the poll and let me know. To view Kayla's Today Show appearance, simply click on the small picture and away you go.

I only heard about this by accident. Yes, I've heard of High School Musical and even intend to watch it some day and find out what all the fuss is about, especially since now there will be more fuss than ever. It turns out that a full frontal nude picture of star Vanessa Hudgens has shown up on the web and has been confirmed by her as being authentic. But once again it is one of those pictures that was meant for someone else in private, like possibly a boyfriend. Now the speculation is whether she was eighteen or not when she had the photo taken. It's Antonella Barba all over again, only Antonella was definitely eighteen at the time of her pix, and she never actually appeared nude in any of them.

My take: Don't get yourself in an uproar over this. If she was under eighteen, it was a mistake, if she was over eighteen she was just stupid. When will they ever learn?After giving it some thought I've come to a different conclusion. Why do we as Americans get so bent out of shape every time a celebrity takes their clothes off? You can spill an awful lot of blood, gore, and guts in movies without ever getting an R Rating. Bare a couple of female breasts and the MPAA will slap an R rating on you quicker than you can say booby. Frankly, we ought to quit making such a big deal out of it.

But then again, you never know when things like this are done on purpose for the publicity either. Read more at The Canadian Press, The National Ledger and still more at Crazy Days and Nights. In answer to your question, yes I have, but you'll have to be your own detective.

I pretty much predicted way back in June that this year's Idol concert was going to be a bust. Again I was scoffed at by the Idol sheep who couldn't understand why I would predict such a thing. They said this despite the fact that I pointed out that there were an awfully lot of good seats available in a lot of places even though tickets had been on sale for several weeks when I made that prediction way back when. And as it turns out, that is exactly what it has been....crappy attendance for a crappy bunch of performers that nobody really cared about seeing this year.

From U.S.A. today:

At the halfway point of the 2007 American Idols Live tour, ticket turnstiles are, to an alarming extent, standing idle.

Reports of attendance and gross receipts for the first 30 of the 57 shows scheduled for the tour, as recorded by Billboard Boxscore, show this year's crop of 10 Idol finalists is falling short of last year's concert performance.

•No sellouts were reported for the first 30 shows, and only one topped the 93% of capacity mark. (That was the show in Glendale, Ariz., Idol winner Jordin Sparks' home turf.) Of the 2006 tour's first 30 shows, 17 were sellouts and another 10 exceeded 93% of capacity.

•Nearly half (14) of the shows were below 60% of capacity. (Lowest was 38.9% in Birmingham, Ala., hometown of 2006 winner Taylor Hicks and 2003 champ Ruben Studdard.) In 2006, the lowest-capacity figure in the first 30 shows was 89.3%.

•The 2006 tour was the most successful to date, but 2005's was a lot healthier than the current version. Of the first 29 dates of 2005, 11 were sellouts and four more topped 93%.

With Jordin's hometown being the only place close to being a sell out, you have to wander how many tickets Ma, Pa, and Grandmama Jordin unloaded on all their wealthy friends, neighbors, business associates and contacts. Maybe they should have given those who attended prizes from all the regular Idol sponsors since that ploy worked in getting a bunch of Glendalians down to those Jordin rallies every week during the Idol season.

Of course there are those who have their own reasons for the huge drop off in attendance, some of which I buy some of which I do not:

Representatives from tour promoter AEG Live declined to comment, but Gary Bongiovanni, editor of touring trade publication and website Pollstar, says, "There are always intangibles that motivate people to see something live, and maybe there was something about last year's tour that people wanted to see vs. the acts this year."

That may be an understatement. According to former Variety music editor Don Waller, who served as a USA TODAY American Idol commentator over the past two seasons, this year's lineup is "not a compelling group of acts. There was no must-see live performer and not a lot of diversity."

He says last season's top four — Taylor Hicks, Katharine McPhee, Elliott Yamin and Chris Daughtry — were much more of an attraction than the leading finalists this year. He also believes there was less of a buzz this year. "I don't think people were that enthused. It was, 'Oh, here's the Idol tour again.' It was bad casting."

Another possible culprit, cited by both Waller and Bongiovanni: rising ticket prices. Idol 2006 tour prices averaged $53.27; they rose 13% to an average of $60.45 for the current tour. In 2005, the average price was $44.47.

"percentage-wise, that is a pretty healthy jump in the average ticket price," Bongiovanni says. "In the first six months of the year, the average price for the top 100 touring acts had only gone up 50 cents. Maybe the ticket price was creeping up a little too high for that audience."

I think you can rest assured that the main reason is the lack of talent, or at least talent that anybody wanted to see. The two most talented contestants on the show, Melinda Doolittle, and Lakisha Jones, were often praised by the judges, but never received the kind of promotion that Idol's manufactured winner Jordin received. I mean, there sure weren't any sponsors like Coke, Proctor and Gamble, Lexi Lu, or Ford out at rallies featuring giant billboards, free cell phone calls, and two jumbotron tv's giving prizes away on their behalf. And say what you want about Sanjaya, but he had more showmanship in his little pinky than the hand picked winner Jordin had in her whole Middle Linebacker type frame. It could turn out to be that Jordin has now secured for herself the title of Idol Winner that most people never really wanted to win.

As for the ticket prices, as I had said before that $70.00 (probably closer to a hundred by the time you tack on Ticketmaster fees, parking and refreshments) is way too much to see a whole boatload of wannabes that will probably just never ever be. But the truth is, Americans have always been willing to pay through the nose to see a concert, as long as that concert is being performed by somebody they really would like to see. That simply was not the case this year.

And there is the one other thing that people simply may be overlooking. Maybe the interest in everything Idol has peaked and is simply in a steady decline as indicated not only by the concert but by the ratings decline also. I've already said on several occasions that unless they are willing to shake things up, this could very well be what is happening and will happen.

Here are the gloomy numbers at a glance with the most telling numbers being gross receipts at only $12.1 million despite the ridiculously high ticket price increase. That tells me there were a lot of promotional tickets given away somewhere.

96% VS. 63% CAPACITY

Number of shows
-2006: 59
-2007*: 30

Gross receipts
-2006: $35.2 million
-2007: $12.1 million

Total attendance
2006: 645,782
-2007: 200,047

Seats filled
-2006: 96.1%
-2007: 63.3%

* = To date
Source: Billboard Boxscore

Here we go again. It’s another round of the White House game “He said this but the other guy said something else and then the other guy said that.” I’m sure most of our stenographic press corps is writing it all down and repeating the talking points back to the zombified “intellectually incurious” among us who have more important things to worry about such as counting down the days to the next first run episode of House. But not Keith. Keith once again digs into the book, Dead Certain, to gather the information needed to prove that Yes, Virginia, your Commander-in-chief is the Liar-in-chief. Yes I do know that most sane people who haven’t consumed the wingnut juicy juice or neonut brain lobotomy Kool-aid already understand that. But isn’t it great to hear one person on TV actually report it as a fact instead of listening to them read the latest press releases off of the White House Stationery?

In case you missed it, in the book Dead Certain, President King Shrub II says Paul Bremer never consulted him on whether to disband the Iraq Army, and totally dismantle the Baath Party. But Bremer says, “OH! contraire, my lying Commander-in-chief! And here is the correspondence to prove it.”

So I’m sure tomorrow Bush will be using that time honored phrase made famous by this administration which has bailed them out of hot water time and time again. The Phrase of course would be, “I can’t remember for sure exactly what happened.” Of course if somewhere in the middle of transcribing their white house notes some reporter actually scratches their head and realizes they should ask a question about this…but that’ll never happen.

Bush flew over for another secret photo op with some troops and then tells them the big lie that some of them may be coming home soon. And yes, the press corps reported that also and said, “See, some troops are coming home.” And they danced gleefully around in a circle talking about what clever reporters they are.

But buried in the book Dead Certain is the real agenda of Bush, which is reported on by Olbermann and infuriated him enough for one of his special commentaries which you probably have already watched by now. What did Bush say?

“I’m playing for October-November to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence”

So in essence, nobody’s coming home guys. Now smile for the camera while Bush gets his picture taken. I could have sworn I read his lips and saw him asking a General for a bull horn. At least Shrub didn’t make the guys try to eat a plastic turkey on this trip.

On a side note, Jay Leno can kiss my butt too. I wish I had recorded last nights episode so you could see how he let Dennis Miller sit there an spout his right wing nutso b.s. as Leno sat there as if he had duct tape on his mouth. I’m hoping I can find a clip later in the day, or maybe next week when they rerun it. The audience laughed a couple of times but they sounded awfully uncomfortable doing it. At one point he talked about supporting the Troops then quickly added President Bush into the sentence. Of course the audience applauded the troops. Miller wouldn’t have dared have mentioned supporting Bush in a sentence all by his lonesome because Dennis Miller is another lying Republican coward who knows damn well what the reaction would have been if he had.

It was hate hate hate one sentence after another as if he had just morphed into the male version of Ann Coulter. I watched for a few minutes but couldn’t take it. Shame on you, Leno. Why even have him on your show if you”re going to sit at your desk like a puppet with your thumb stuck up your ass. You’ve lost me as a viewer permanently and I’ve started marking the days until Conan O’Brian takes over for your sorry ass.

On the other hand, I quickly switched over to Letterman to catch a few minutes of Bill Clinton. He was explaining in depth as to why although there may be temporary let ups in the violence, in the end our presence in Iraq will accomplish nothing. It’s hard to believe we once had a president who could actually explain something in depth and authoritatively. He also went into depth about his new book, called Giving, which is about how the average person can do little things to change the world. Quite a contrast from the hate fest on Leno.

Finally, we have some neo-nuts and other nuts complaining because Perky Katie Couric shouldn’t put herself in harms way by going to Iraq and taking the chance of leaving her kids without a mother. I agree with that. Okay, before you go off on me, let me explain my position. First off, she’s only over there to see what the Generals and the Repugs want her to see so she can report back about Happy Iraq. Couric herself has even admitted to this. So why in the hell is she over there? You can take dictation in the U.S. at your desk in the CBS studios every bit as well as you can in Baghdad. Just pick up the phone and call your local General and you’ll get the same story. Just have your art department paint a desert for your backdrop, and make sure you have your ear piece in so the staff can explain it all to you.

So what it amounts to is that Perky Katy went over to Iraq to practice her stenography and to try boosting her sagging ratings. What? You didn’t actually think she would put her life on the line to do some honest to god real reporting did you? Hell, screw honest reporting. It’s those Nielsen ratings points that make taking the chance to have your kids be orphans really worthwhile.

Edit: You can watch a clip of Clinton on Letterman at Huffington Post. It was the part of the program I missed also.