My name, well my middle name, is Norman. That was my Grandfather's first, Norman Schroeder. It also happens to be Nor(d)-man(n). As in 'North Person'. I fucking love Norway. And there, I am often called Andrew Norman. And as some of you already know, I often invent my own words for my song titles. It turns out that even some of those are Norwegian words. Words I thought I was making up long before I ever even travelled the land of Scandinavia. I pretty much have what I would call my second family there in the town of Stavanger. The Hana family. Hence the title "FamHana" on the Skadra Degis CD. Tove, Alf, Anders, and Freddy. They are all lovely people. A pain in my ass but I love them.

I bring this up because it seemed fitting that my first trip to Europe after all this would be to see them. Some 2 weeks ago now I flew to Stavanger to visit the Hana contingent and play a gig with TYFT in Bergen at Natt Jazz. The TYFT gig was a blast. Playing with TYFT while Chris Speed is on stage is like going to school. Learning how to play music I already know, but better. When they invented musicianship, they invented Chris Speed. That fucker is one of the most musical people I know. For sure.

Anyway, the TYFT gig +plus Speed was really fun. Other than the fact that there was a really (and I mean fucking REALLY!!) drunk asshole singing along to all our songs and screaming the whole time (well, trying to sing along). Not necessarily a negative thing but indeed funny and a bit distracting. Sometimes, depending on the situation, this can make it difficult to perform. He was indeed intrusive but thankfully Anders Hana was in the audience and subdued the guy with some firm language. Shut the guy right up. Tove Hana (Mother of the Hana clan and known as Mama T) took some videos of the gig. I will post them if you feel like checking them out. None of the drunk guy though. Damn.

I bring this all up because there's a bit of a phenomena happening in my life right now. Since I've had to clean up my act. Take 40 vitamins a day. Drink 12 glasses of 'healthy liquid' daily. Refrain from alcohol. Ozonate the hell out of my body. Sleep well. Eat right. Meditation. Intuitive healing. Use my bio-photon hat and sheets. Take blood tests. Exercise. You know, all kinds of things to heal my body of tumor misfortune plus create a hostile environment for cancer. Any type of cancer. The amazing thing is.....it's working. My most recent blood work showed my immune system is off the scale. That's really good news. I can't tell you exact numbers but it's stronger than most healthy individuals according Dr. Wallace, my nutritionist (for those of you who are medically inclined my white blood cell count is 76). So take your mushrooms everyone!!

OK, back on track. The phenomena. It seems every drunk asshole on the planet is finding their way to me. Whether it's on a gig, a plane, or like the other day when this guy walked up to me and Hilmar on 5th avenue here in Brooklyn asking for directions. Dude, this guy could not even stand up straight he was so lit. And in my 15 years of living in Park Slope, I can't remember this ever happening.

The best drunk dumb asses though were on my flight to Norway 2 weeks ago. This would be my first journey without my glass of white airplane wine. Not like I would get fucked up on flights or anything but there's just something about having that glass of wine on the plane that I like. It's relaxing and puts you to sleep. Not this flight though. Instead, I got two of the biggest assholes I've ever encountered on a flight. Ever.

Now, if you go back a year, I've probably taken 100 flights in that time. Something like that. We all fly a lot and maybe sometimes, too much. But I enjoy flying and have never in my life encountered two guys like this. They were sitting one row in front of me but across the isle. I was 38C and they, 37A and B or something like that (the seats were 2-4-2). Directly across the isle from me was a Dutch father and his 8 year old son. Then, pretty much everywhere else around me, was a tour group consisting of Dutch contractors, builders, and architects. They all had been in New York to check out the architecture. They ones from that group I got to meet were super nice dudes.

Anyway, Mr. and Mr. asshole in 37A and B started with their first drink. The flight attendant was a KLM Dutch girl and was extremely generous with the whiskey. These were nice pours folks. She came back several times within the hour to accommodate their thirsty wishes. By one hour and a half into the flight, they were trashed. And I mean fucking lit up like a christmas tree after new years. 'Three sheets to the wind' as my friend Dana used to put it. That's when the fun began.

They were screaming at everyone. And I mean screaming!! Grabbing the seat of the guy in front of them and shaking it. Wearing headphones and playing air drums and guitar. These American fucks were at some bar in the midwest but on a plane. And for some reason they just got more and more psycho (hm, maybe it was the booze). They began to try and fight anyone who even looked at them. At one point they were yelling at the contractor guy sitting in front of me saying things like "you wanna piece of me?!?!" and shit like that. Look, any of you who have been to Holland know how big and tall those Dutch folks can get. Now, imagine a big tall ass Dutch contractor mother. Don't fucking provoke this guy. But they did. And he was saying things back to them like "you don't want me to hit you because if I do, you won't be standing after". In his broken English. Thank God for this guy. He was the only one who would get involved with these knuckleheads.

But this was the scene. On a fucking plane of all places. Basically there was almost a fist fight between two really drunk dumb Americans and a Dutch building contractor (a really tall one at that). Insane. Everyone knows there's not much room on these planes. So this was all incredibly disruptive to say the least. And it wasn't like anyone could ignore what was going on. The Father and son sitting across the isle from me were having it bad. The young boy was scared out of his wits. Poor kid. Finally they had to get up and head to the back of the plane. The flight was probably 98% full so there wasn't much room for all this chaos to take place in. No one really had anywhere to go to get away. And these guys kept getting worse and worse.

Then all of the sudden, they threatened the guy next to the Dutch contractor in front of me. I suppose it was because he was a bit smaller and quieter. They really just wanted to mess somebody up. The dude next to me, who was an architect from Holland and part of that tour group, told me I should move. I had mentioned to the flight staff that I might have a seizure because I recently had two brain surgeries. Since I don't have a medical bracelet yet, I felt it was important they knew just in case something happened. Anyway, the guy next to me warned that it might get dangerous and I wouldn't want to get my head knocked. Fuck, this was so strange. All of this complete and utter chaos on a plane. Everyone inches away from each other. Children panicking. People threatening to kick each other's asses. Drunk dickheads. Craziness. And I'm telling you, that in my years of flying all over the damn planet, I have never seen anything like this. Ever.

Then, it was time for the head flight attendant to get involved. I'm pretty sure she is known as the Head Purser. She came back with vengeance and was not about to take any shit from these numb nuts. Although, because they were so drunk, there wasn't much she could do except cut them off. At least until they were sober enough to be yelled at properly. By this time, we were all exhausted from the stress. The Head Purser was threatening to arrest them. The strange thing though is that these two guys were in complete disbelief. Asking, "what did we do!?" Funny, alcohol has a weird way of doing that to people. I can't believe marijuana is illegal and booze is so readily available here in the States. We've got it all wrong. Don't see people fighting like this at those cafes in Amsterdam. That's for sure. I mean shit, even our president is an alcoholic.

So the Purser is threatening to arrest and the drunk guys are in disbelief. Insane. She comes back many times and finally loses her cool. I would have lost it long before she did. The only drag is, what do you do with them? You can throw them off the plane. There's no where to put them cause the flight is full as hell. They're so drunk they're not even acknowledging their own behavior. It was really a pickle. So she comes back with hand cuffs and threatens to arrest them. Now, I don't know how she would even gotten hand cuffs on these dudes. Although, I guarantee she would have had some help. This seem to calm them down for a minute. But not for long.

At this point I had move to the back of the plane. The thought of getting my head whacked was to real and I didn't want to risk it. The situation was dangerous and everyone around me was getting the hell out of the way. I chatted with the father and son duo while we both stood in the back of the plane. I asked the 8 year old boy if he was OK. He exclaimed that this was the "scariest flight ever". Damn I thought. Not even from turbulence. Just scary, mean drunk dick heads. And these guys didn't even care about anyone around them. It was truly mind boggling.

Finally, everyone had had enough. I thought the Head Purser was going to rip them each a new face. She was pissed. It was really like watching a mom yell at her grown up children. These guys, even though in their forties, were acting like children. So they were arrested.

Now supposedly, when you're flying, the ruler of the air is the captain. He is the Prime Minister of the flight. Apparently, able to put people under arrest if the case ever arises. And here, it did. So all of the sudden, the captain comes to the back of the plane, and put these two noookies under arrest. Funny because the captain was a small fella. Especially in comparison. It felt so odd. And these guys, as they were being arrested by a captain on a fucking Boeing airplane headed for Europe, were still saying shit like "what did we do!?!" and "why are you arresting us?!!?" I mean, man, this was truly a remarkable situation to behold.

Then, to top things off, you hear one of the flight attendants say over the loud speaker "is there a doctor on board? Can you please come to the back of the plane.". What now we all thought!? Well, one of the people from that very same tour group was having a heart attack on the plane. Fell to the ground. The flight attendant came and told me she was happy to know it wasn't me having a seizure. OK, wait a minute. Now we've had an arrest AND a heart attack!?!?!?! What the hell's next!? Thankfully nothing.

All in all though, it did make the flight go pretty fast. That was the upshot.