Should Clay Wear This Mask on His Next Plane Trip?

BUCK: We have Phil in Colorado. What’s up, Phil? How you doing?

CALLER: Oh, having a great day. Good morning, gentlemen. I was giving you a ring. I heard about Clay and was thinking about a new mask. I’m here in Boulder — in Denver, Boulder — Colorado, and so there’s plenty of the mask hysteria here. I personally don’t usually choose to wear one, but when I do, I always wear a mask that says, “Placebo” in big, white bold letters just to let everybody know exactly what I think about the usefulness of these things. I generally get nothing but compliments for it. I haven’t gotten but maybe a dirty look once or twice. But, by and large, people are just like, “That is so true,” and at least out here in Denver, people are abiding by it. But I don’t think that many folks believe in it.

CLAY: Yeah. What you know, “Placebo” is a smarter version of saying, “This Mask Doesn’t Work,” so the people who are able to see that and think, “Oh, placebo effect,” are probably, what, a smaller percentage of the population, probably smarter and unaware that masks don’t work. That’s a smart idea. I’m more blunt. I like the idea of just wearing a mask that says, “This Mask Doesn’t Work” on an airline flight. I just don’t know what it would do to flight attendant antagonism. Am I putting myself in a rough spot? Can they demand that you take off that mask and replace it with another mask?

BUCK: Right. Obviously if you stand up on a plane and yell, “Everybody freeze,” or something worse it’s gonna be a violation of federal law. You’re gonna get arrested, right? Obviously. Can they use the same kind of you’re creating a disturbance by wearing a placebo mask on a plane? I don’t know.

CLAY: Has that happened to anybody out there listening to us? I imagine. I know for a while there, Buck, they were like looking at masks and saying, “Oh, this one isn’t effective enough.” I haven’t seen that happening for a while, and they would make you put on another mask. But I’m curious if anybody’s been forced to take off something that says like “This Mask Doesn’t Work” or “Placebo” because the airline isn’t happy with the message that you’re sending while you’re flying.

BUCK: I wonder. I think that pretty much my sense of it is that… Now, there are many lovely airline attendants and great guy and gal airline attendants out there who love freedom and this radio show, and you are part of our family. That all said, I do think that, if an airline attendant wants to act like a Siberian prison guard, you’re in their world. There’s very little you can do.

If they decide that they don’t like the look on your face — if you said something snarky — they will hold that plane up for an hour before it takes off. They will drag your butt off with the police and you will be banned from that airline forever. My understanding, having seen this play out, is that that’s kind of the way it is. It’s a little bit like, actually, if you’re Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the border —

CLAY: Oh, yeah. You’ll be there a long time.

BUCK: You are there for as long as they want you to be. If they want to break open something that you have — if you’ve got some kind of a clay pot that you brought over the border or something — and they want to smash it, they can. There’s a lot they can do and you are powerless. That is the reality of it.

CLAY: That’s my concern about deciding to send that message with a mask. I’m fortunate that the only place I have to wear it is on the airplane. We got a big event no Fort Myers next week, so Ali said, “Don’t wear it when you’re traveling down.” We’re gonna be down there Thursday for our event on Friday and that is funny, if I wasn’t allowed to fly because I was trying to fly with my “This Mask Doesn’t Work” mask.

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BUCK: Sylvia in Spokane, Washington. Hey, Sylvia, how you doing?

CALLER: Great! Great. Hey, in December and also in January I went down to Fort Worth, Texas, and back again, and I’m a redneck. But I’m old, and I’m a little bit feeble, and I was only brave enough to wear that mask as I came into Spokane — which would have been the same time — and it said “This Mask Is Useless as Biden.”

CLAY: (laughing)

CALLER: But I did get one hug from a stewardess, a major airline. Other people looked at me but they were afraid to say anything.

CLAY: (laughing) That is fantastic.

BUCK: Yeah, that’s fantastic, great stuff. Thank you, Sylvia.