They are just making travel harder with every day that goes by and they are the ones that take the fun out of traveling!

First laptops, then shoes, then liquids… It just goes on and on… When will it stop? My guess is never!

I bought a travel belt (all fabric with plastic buckle, no metal parts at all) specifically to speed up going through security and now they want me to remove it citing a “new procedure”! What new procedure? One they just invented today to annoy the hell out of me?

And check this out! These new body scanners they installed? I went through it today and they STILL padded me down!!! What the fuck?!?!$?!&?!?@?!

TSA has been checking people at airports for decades and yet we had terrorist attacks anyway. So what is the point? Terrorist have always and will always outsmart them.

If we fired ALL ground TSA personnel in every airport in the world and we put those people on planes with weapons and in incognito (just like Air Israel does, who coincidentally has NEVER had a terrorist attack on a plane!) then traveling through an airport would be a breeze and flying would be safer!

I spent four days in Sao Paulo working with Lou Reed and in the weekend I’ve been here Paul McCartney, Smashing Pumpkins, Scissor Sisters, Pavement and others were playing in different venues across this megalopolis. Next week Jeff Beck, Twisted Sister, Stone Temple Pilots and more. In my hotel a copy of Time Out Sao Paulo with tons of suggestions on things to do.
I must say I am impressed. Is there really always this much going on here? Or none of the promoters are smart enough to plan around each other and end up overlapping all the major festivals in the course of a few weeks? And how many Paulistas can afford a $400 ticket to McCartney anyway? Obviously enough to sell out two nights in an arena… But is that really a good representation of Sao Paulo?
Even downtown at night cars don’t stop at intersections for fear of being mugged while idling the engine at a red light.
And in the morning the skies are filled with helicopters of rich people going to work and dropping their children off on the roofs of their private schools…
Walking around looking for a bar to have a drink in after a concert is almost impossible in the neighborhood of our hotel where every venue has an ongoing party with a cover
charge between $50 and $100. Parties everywhere!
I feel bad I didn’t get to see live music places like O Do Borogodo in Vila Madalena/Pinheros or their East Village (Rua Augusta)…
City of contradictions, even more so than New York, which for the first time ever felt small in comparison.
Still, NYC rules above all!

I love snow. Maybe because it reminds me of my native Switzerland.
After the 15″ overnight snowfall, here’s a picture I just took this morning of a fellow NYer excited about snow: he’s cross-country skiing (or more like cross-neighborhood skiing) through Brooklyn!
I would do the same with my snowboard if I had a friend towing me with an SUV butmy buddy Roman is kitesurfing in the carribeans and so I decided to head to the alps… if planes are taking off that is… Cross country… I mean, cross fingers!