Dear George W:

Thanks, from the bottom of my heart, for another one of your “brilliant” ideas. You make my life difficult daily. You managed to facilitate one of the  biggest wastes of time and money in our nation’s history… well, besides the War On Terror (oil). Thanks to you, sir, millions of travelers spend at least an extra half hour in the airport daily, which sums up to be a perfect illustration of the inefficiency that was your presidency. Ouch.

To make matters worse, hundreds of musicians like myself have to deal with this day in and day out:

what it's supposed to look like:

Courtesy of TSA

This is one of my delay pedals. Apparently one thick-skulled individual thought this was some sort of explosive terrorist apparatus, and decided to try and defuse it by ripping it to shreds. BTW, the metal piece on in the 2nd picture was a fix that my handy-man dad came up with the FIRST TIME TSA broke it…                  …I stopped typing just now because the only words rolling off the tongue in my brain shouldn’t be uttered about anyone… anyone except the TSA.  So i verbalized it, but I won’t type them.  For crying (swearing) out loud, do you have any idea how much pressure has to be applied to rip through metal like that? It’s not really possible unless you’re jumping on a freaking 15 lb pry bar like your kid was pinned underneath a railroad tie with a train barreling down the tracks. WTF TSA?

here are a few examples of the power they wield (read: frequently abuse):

Justin's board... a sad day.

this is the 3rd volume pedal...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

did someone shoot this with a BB? how about the power jack in the back?

 

 

sent letters about this, but the government is unaccountable for their actions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pissed,

Evan

 

ps. To those of you who have already read this under the old title “I hate TSA,” I’ve changed the name to a self-explanatory acronym. This will be the first post of probably many under the new title, in which I will share with you my experiences. 

pss. Feel free to share any horror stories of your own in the comments section. Hell, maybe I’ll even compile them and start a whole separate blog dedicated to the exposure of such travesties.