As IF Times

link Kevin Smith fuels row over fat plane passengers | Reuters.

You know it had to happen eventually.  Mr. Smith was informed he was a safety hazard and would be denied boarding onto a Southwest Airlines flight.  This not because of his larger than life movies, but literally because he was  larger than life; super sized.   The “world” famous director of such classics as “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy” was so annoyed with his treatment by the airline that he went all a-twitter to marshall sympathy from his rabid fans.  Apparently a “wave” of protest from angry passengers supported Mr. Smith.  Although “wave” is not defined as an absolute number, I suspect at least 2, both likely of plus size.

It doesn’t appear to be an issue of size per se: Smith himself acknowledged as much by actually purchasing tickets for 2 seats on the original flight.  On the standby flight which he wanted to board, only one seat was available and apparently the airline made the judgement call that shoe-horning him in wouldn’t do.  What’s wrong with that?  Imagine if you were the person having to be seated next to a human wall.  God forbid that in some kind of emergency, you’d have to climb over Mt. Smith to exit the aircraft. 

It looks like he was inconvenienced by having to miss the flight and so he pursued today’s popular method of retribution, trial by media.  Disregarding the fact that calling attention to his story would heap even more ridicule upon his super size, he spins the story as one of indignance and positions himself as a champion for the rights of similarly proportioned fliers.  All of a sudden, it’s his rights that are being trampled.  As if.  What if his size 14’s were on someone else’s feet and he had to be seated next to a couple of people rolled into one?  My bet is that he would be complaining about his nose being buried in someone’s armpit.  Anyone who flies knows how ridiculously small the passenger spaces are these days for even an average sized person.  Having to sit next to anyone tipping 300 pounds on a flight of any length is unbearable.  It’s like sitting in a full nelson for hours.   What if you’re claustrophobic? What if you need to see daylight?

I’ve written numerous times on encroachments on personal freedoms, but guys like Smith use their “celebrity” in order to have things their way.  For them, it’s not about personal freedoms, it’s about their personal freedoms, others don’t matter.  What if he had an afro hairstyle the size of a hula hoop?  Are people obligated to accept his individuality?  Southwest for their part were wimpy in their response, apologizing and offering a credit.  What they should have offered were tickets on Sumo Airlines.

link P&G Razor Launches in Recession’s Shadow – WSJ.com.

This is truly what makes America tick.  Never mind the weighty issues of the day, annoying things such as unemployment, depleted pension funds, collapsing currency, nuclear nations, far away wars, none of that stuff.  What men prize most above all is a close shave.

According to the website, about.com, the patent for the ‘safety’ razor was issued in 1904 to King C. Gillette, ushering in whole new way for men to make themselves presentable.  Until this point in history, men had to endure the fickleness of shearing off facial hair with various kinds of sharpened knives and until Gillette’s invention, a straight razor.  I don’t know about anyone else, but the thought of sitting in a barber’s chair all lathered up while he goes at your face and throat with one of those sharpened blades makes me tense up like a fat guy at a cannibal convention.

Before the invention of the safety razor, it’s amazing that men bothered to shave at all.  Even with a safety razor, it was not unusual for men’s faces to appear as if they had been using their faces to fight cats, with red slashes and nicks aplenty.  The interesting part of the Gillette story is the idea planted in his head by William Painter, the inventor of the crown cork bottle cap.  Painter told Gillette that the real money was to be made by selling your product over and over again to the same satisfied customer.  Sheer genius really.  Thus was born the now famous “razor blade” business model, though as we see, it should  really be called the bottle cap model.

Gillette spent money and research to develop the type of steel needed to satisfy his business model, consequently factories were built, people were employed and with a military contract in hand, the rest as they say, was history.  From an idea to a business dynasty.  Fast forward a little more than 100 years.  Even with the invention of electric razors of all kinds, the razor blade business is still pretty vigorous.   According to the linked article, sales of Fusion, Proctor and Gambles’s top selling razor, contributes over $1 billion dollars of sales a year to Gillette’s parent company.  The product itself has evolved substantially from the 1904 model.  Over the years, there have been multiple blades added to the device which now stands at 4 or 5 on some of the recent iterations.   I can’t remember exactly how many, suffice to say, you are essentially shaving with venetian blinds.

The real challenge though will be how they propose to sell this.  The article states that the blades will sell for almost $17 for a 4 blade package.  Not exactly shave and a haircut, 2 bits as per the old ditty.  Seems like a lot of scratch to scratch your face.  I suspect women will be as likely to purchase at this price point as men, since at $17 bucks, a case of beer may be the stronger pull.  However you can never count out a company that has been successful for well over a hundred years on ingenuity of marketing alone.  Now about those nose hairs…..