Slog - Comments on Airport by Hieronymus Bosch http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch Gawd, LAX is the ugliest, most depressing airport on earth. Here's something I never got around to mentioning on my trip to Vegas with Kelly O: The Luxor's nightclub used to be called Ra, which makes thematic sense. They changed the name, for some inexplicable reason, to LAX--and, yes, after the airport. The slogan is "take off for glamor" or some such bullshit.... Copyright 2008 Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:19:45 -0800 Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:14:13 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by Mr. Poe Gross. People.

]]> Mr. Poe http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902840 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902840 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:37:05 -0800 Comment by Greg LAX is where I was able to bring a ceramic bottle of sake in my carry-on through customs without a peep. I declared it on my form and all, but the security dude didn't even look at the second sheet.

]]> Greg http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902847 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902847 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:40:12 -0800 Comment by pablocjr Maybe they re-named the club in honor of all the laxatives cut into the drugs everyone is doing.

]]> pablocjr http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902849 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902849 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:41:26 -0800 Comment by brappy Well, T3 is pretty ugly. But if you fly on United, T6-7-8 are pretty nice and spacious. Looks like a bad day for Alaska, though.

]]> brappy http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902852 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902852 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:43:30 -0800 Comment by atlsea Dan: this is why airlines sell club lounge memberships: so you can minimize interacting with the proletariat! Airlines know their basic product is substandard so they create alternatives at higher prices! Hence first class and lounge memberships.

Go buy your self a Board Room membership or day pass!

]]> atlsea http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902857 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902857 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:50:59 -0800 Comment by Mahtli69 @4 - Yes, T3 is a disaster.

With 8 terminals in a big horseshoe shape, LAX is like 8 different airports. Of course, this makes it a total pain in the ass if you have a connection on a different airline.

The International terminal isn't bad.

]]> Mahtli69 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902860 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902860 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:52:05 -0800 Comment by lostboy When I was a tween in the early 80's taking red-eye flights a couple times a year to visit far-flung family, LAX was the coolest place on Earth.

Alas, Dallas-Fort Worth airport was and is the Earth's smelly armpit (and also a major transfer hub).

]]> lostboy http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902877 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902877 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:04:52 -0800 Comment by Orv LAX is the most disorganized airport I've ever flown out of. First off they don't have room for the baggage screening machines, so you can't just drop off your checked bags and go -- you have to wait in line to check your bags, then you have to wait in ANOTHER line for a screening machine. When I was there I had to wait in three separate screening lines because people kept going on break and abandoning their machines.

]]> Orv http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902879 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902879 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:05:23 -0800 Comment by Matt Fuckin' Hickey In the last two weeks, I've been in seven airports. I can say that the worst of these is the Tijuana airport, which reminds me of an ER during hurricane season.

In my lifetime, though, honors go to the Portland airport (which is nowhere near Portland) and the Sacramento airport, which is smaller than my apartment and is apparently built out of a shipping container, and the Houston Bush airport, as it has a nine-foot tall bronze statue of the first President Bush, who's from Connecticut.

]]> Matt Fuckin' Hickey http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902886 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902886 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:11:19 -0800 Comment by Fifty-Two-Eighty Orv, I've never had that problem, and here's why: I routinely fly with guns. The minute you tell them you have guns, TSA pulls you out of the line and gives you very personal service all the way through the process.

]]> Fifty-Two-Eighty http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902892 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902892 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:15:35 -0800 Comment by michael strangeways DFW has to be way up there as well, but ALL airports are an integral part of the various circles of hell...

]]> michael strangeways http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902895 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902895 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:18:33 -0800 Comment by Eric F When in LAX, best to look out the window at this

http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/84/39/22413984.jpg

and have a little Pan Am dream of jet-set-era glam.

]]> Eric F http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902898 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902898 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:23:27 -0800 Comment by mackro mackro I've been unlucky to experience this very terminal Dan snapped a photo of, but I do hear that, much like L.A. itself, it's interesting once you know where to go to see the interesting stuff.

But yeah, the Alaska terminal for LAX is even worse than Oakland's, which says a lot. When your only vegetarian option is an de-chickened chicken quesadilla at Home Turf, you know that you're not going to have a decent meal, vegetarian or not.

]]> mackro mackro http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902913 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902913 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:41:46 -0800 Comment by Bauhaus It's ugly AND inconvenient. You land there, think you're in LA, and have to drive an hour, an hour-and-a-half, before you're home or where you need to go - usually driving on the 405 which is always congested. Nobody uses it unless they absolutely have to. It's why Bob Hope, John Wayne, Ontario, and even Palmdale Airports are becoming more popular if somewhere in LA is one's destination.

]]> Bauhaus http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902936 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902936 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:56:15 -0800 Comment by Mr. X Yup, just flew through there, and the whole family (who are all well-traveled) all agreed that LAX is one of the worst laid out and designed airports we had had the misfortune to be trapped in.

And to think they renovated this P.O.S recently...

]]> Mr. X http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902949 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902949 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:08:58 -0800 Comment by Grant Cogswell Those crazy terminal ROOMS - I can remember flights from when I was a toddler, out across Greenland to our (my fatherīs legal) refuge in Europe, and the long white tunnel to baggage claim - I flew through there last year, and it was all the same (except big multistorey parking garages and viaducts stood where in the 70s it was just the flat lots surrounding the symbolic revolving restaurant - I heard the revolving part broke a while back).

I was trapped in one of the rooms a few years back waiting for a flight several yards from Stephen Malkmus, who I kind of knew 15 years ago but really donīt, and I was remembering taking off from there in 1973, discovering the Reeseīs Peanut Butter Cup which I didnīt know about because we lived in France, and...it was weird.

OK, now I have to go to a cockfight.

]]> Grant Cogswell http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902969 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902969 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:34:01 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle I agree with @4 and @6 - but it still exhausts me way more at LAX than at SFO when I fly to Santa Barbara.

Chantico at LAX Starbucks were good tho. Too bad they got rid of those ... only reason I went into Starbucks.

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902997 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c902997 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:20:37 -0800 Comment by Orv Say, while we're on the subject, is San Jose ever going to finish their new terminal? The old one is a joke. It's about the size of a DMV office, and has the same decor. There are no jetways, you have to go down a set of airstairs and walk across the tarmac. Meanwhile you're looking at the new one under construction, and it looks abandoned...tarps flapping in the wind, no one in sight.

]]> Orv http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903008 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903008 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:30:28 -0800 Comment by dw LAX is bad, but DFW is the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth semi-circles of hell.

LAS is the dive bar of airports. Only with less character than a dive.

Worst airport, though? TUL, which I flew into today. Only ten gates still in use -- on TWO concourses. Food is awful. Decor is straight out of 1965 (the bad part). Bags take 20 minutes to arrive at baggage claim -- your could WALK them from the plane to baggage claim. And $10 for wi-fi?

]]> dw http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903117 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903117 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:30:17 -0800 Comment by jim Yes, LAX the airport is unpleasant. Yes, it is actually more like 8 separate airports. No, it doesn't get shut down nearly as often as SEA for security breeches.

As for the nightclub in Las Vegas called LAX. UGH. I was trapped there for about an hour on a Saturday night. Worse than being trapped at the airport.

]]> jim http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903191 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903191 At Large Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:54:53 -0800 Comment by Judith the non-NWA terminal of DTW and the NWA terminal at narita are the two gateways to hell.

]]> Judith http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903223 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903223 At Large Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:25:20 -0800 Comment by slim Like health care, infant mortality, life expectancy, obesity, education, quality of journalism, gun violence, America's airports rank with the worst in the world. South East and east Asia's airport have surpassed America's by leaps and bounds. Many of America's better ones still rank better than those in developing countries, for now.

I just had gone through security at LAX where they did some crazy drill where they all scrambled away from there posts and pulled their guns. Freaked everybody out. Then after that I got to sit in the international departure lounge, which felt like Siberia.

]]> slim http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903536 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/airport_by_hieronymus_bosch#c903536 At Large Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:14:13 -0800