Seat Jockeying on the 2 Train

Its funny to watch people jockeying for seats on the train. For example, while I'm riding down on the 2 train headed towards the American Museum of Natural History, this woman who I can't tell whether she's pregnant or just fat gets on the train and bullies her way into a seat leaving a small space between her and another woman sitting in the corner near the door. She's grumbling something as she opens up her NY Post. The train moves on.

A few stops later an older woman gets on and attempts to sit in the small space. Now I feel as if the woman didn't really fit in the seat being as "hippy" as she was, but apparently she thought she could fit. She says excuse me once, twice to no avail. Big mamma jamma is ignoring her requests to move over by holding the paper over her face while giving the mad dog look. The woman waits another few seconds and squeezes her "hippy" self into another tight (albeit somewhat bigger) spot and Big Mamma Jamma has a smirk of victory on her mean mug of a face. People truly are funny on the trains.

Over a Pair of Generic iPod Headphones

So I can truly say I have seen it all. I just had this suit here at the bar threaten to call the police and file a police report over a pair of apple headphones. These headphones that come standard with any iPod and iTouch. The dude says he's going to call the cops since no one should have taken his property. To add insult to injury, he was the one who left them on the dart rail UNATTENDED and now he's willing to call the cops and file a report. I wish he would have so I could see the look on their faces when they were told why they were here. But, the story ends with Stevie finding his headphones laying in a corner. Guess they're really worth a lot of money if someone just chucked them in a corner like a sheet of soiled toilet paper. What a fucking jackass.

Zach Shows Up at the Bleecker Street Bar

Zach Galifianakis of the Hangover walks into the bar with a few of his friends (Yes I know it sounds like the beginning to a joke). As he walks in, he does so during a routine Police Community check. The male officer says to me "He looks like the guy from the Hangover". I shrug since I really wouldn't have noticed that it was him if the officer hadn't mentioned it. So I do my job and ID him and his lady friend and here is how the repartee went:

"May I see your ID please"
"You really need it?"
"Yes I do" 
"But I'm 41 years old"
"You don't look 41"
"You must say that to all the ladies"
"Only to some of them"

I smile at him and shoot a glance in the direction of the cops as I say it. He grudgingly says "OK" and pulls out his ID. To he honest, had the police officer not mentioned it, I probably wouldn't have recognized him. We get our fair share of regular looking dudes with big beards in the bar so he really didn't stand out in my mind and as I told him after the police left, I didn't think that he was 41 years old.

The Rain on my City

There really isn't a much nicer sound than the rain hitting the big city. The tip tip tap of the drops on the asphalt adds to the musical notes of the rains drops hitting the various other surfaces on the buildings. The sidewalks seem to give off a fresh smell when the rainwater saturates them. Better that than the other smells that can come off of the sidewalks. 

The gentle splash of the tires on the passing cars can be very soothing especially as time passes into the later hours of the night. To my senses, the splashes come close to how I would feel being on a boat and the waves slowly lapping on it's hull. 

The reflections of the halogen streetlights spread across the puddles that occupy the various potholes and dings on the city streets. Each giving off a oily sheen depending on how much motor oil and radiator fluid has been deposited by passing cars. The liquid looks very much like darker colors on a watercolor painting. Smeared, thick, and blotchy. 

As my friend Harper likes to say: It's nice when the city takes a shower. Yes it does my friend. Yes it does.

FH

It's Our Fault You're a Douchebag

Last night Stevie catches a couple making whoopee in the ladies room and proceeded to escort them from the bar. The "lady" gives us no trouble whatsoever. The "gentleman" was another story. He takes the tact that the reason why he went into the bathroom with the lady was that it was our fault. How so?

Well, the man lectures Stevie and I that it was through our bartenders negligence of over serving him of his alcoholic beverages that was causing him to act like he was. That his behavior was a caused by our lack of moral responsibility when it came to over serving him and his lady friend. People, I kid you not. That was a first for me, but it gets better. He continues by saying that since he was already over served, he was going to finish his drink no matter what I or anyone else thought about it. I told him three words, take a guess of which three I uttered. 

So as he went to take a sip of his drink, I snatched the glass from his hand and told him to hit the bricks. Now he wanted to know my name so he could call the cops and report me. As if I had offended his sensibilities by not letting him do what he wanted to do. As if. People live their perfect little lives not used to hearing the word "No". Well, never let it be said that I'm above using the word "No" and breaking the delusion of grandeur of the many assholes that walk through our glass doors.

Long story short, he walked out on his own, proclaiming that we were the negligent ones and threatening to call the authorities. And people wonder why I have a specific disdain towards "suits". Bunch of douches. 

FH

Go Fuck Yourself MTA

I'm really tired of bitching about the MTA, but given the current state of gas and oil prices, I have nonviable choice but to ride the trains. So back to my original point, I'm getting tired of bitching about the MTA. I know shit happens. The system is old, over 100 years old to be exact so things break down. Trust me, I get it. But if something broke down yesterday, you can let people know about it though the PA system that is on the trains. For example, there apparently is a problem with the downtown local platform on 14th Street and Union Square. Now if you're riding down on the downtown express train and are looking to make a connection with the downtown local at Union Square you can't since the local train is not stopping there due to the platform condition. Knowing that, you think that the conductors would announce it over the PA at 42nd Street and Grand Central. No, that would be logical and too easy. They wait until the train pulls into 14th Street to let those want to transfer know that they can't. So we have to ride down to Brooklyn Bridge to transfer for an Uptown local train or just walk. All I have to say is fuck you MTA. You fucking blow!

FH

Two (of the many) Things That Irks Me About The Subway

Two of the things that irks me about having to deal with on the trains occurred on my ride home. One is getting on a train car after someone smokes a cigarette on the train. God only knows how people rode the trains when not only one person smoked on the train but everyone was allowed to. I'm not sure when smoking was barred from the trains but not only is it nasty it's fucking rude. Bad enough I walked into a cloud of cigarette smoke, but since I got a ticket two weeks ago for walking in between cars "without authorization" for trying to get away from a smelly fucker, I had to wait until the train stopped at the next car to change cars. If you need to smoke that badly, go between the cars. Is that too much to ask?

The second thing is when you have a drunk person sitting in front of you and he fucking can't sit still. To make matters worse, he's singing to a song on his cheap ass mp3 player with an off-key voice and stomping his feet to the beat. After having to deal with the smoke, I have to deal with this jackass? I so wanted to smack his face and give him a swift kick to the ass as I threw him off of the train. Luckily for both of us, he got off at 86th Street before he pissed me off any further.

Sometimes I really hate people. 

FH

A Mouse On My Train

Just saw a little mouse walking around the train car that I'm riding on. Cute little guy seems to be trying to find his way off of the train. While doing so he seems to have crawled onto the heater that is located under the seat across from me. The train is full of garbage under the seats: empty cans, soda bottles, coffee cups and garbage in plastic bags. The guy across from me wonders why there's a mouse on the train. I tell him while pointing to the garbage: if people would pick up their garbage...there wouldn't be any mice, he says finishing my statement as I nod to him in agreement. Ah, my beautiful home town of New York. Gotta love it.

FH

Drama Drama Drama

Before I go into the brief story I am presenting to you today, allow me to add this little tidbit. I have no idea of what events led into what was happening when I walked down the stairs into the train station. Given that brief prologue, here goes. 

I left work as I usually do, walked down Bleecker Street and crossed Lafayette Street to catch the Uptown #6 train. I had yet to put on my headphones so I could hear that there was some kind of commotion on the platform. As I take a few steps down, I hear something hitting the floor and breaking. I hesitated briefly on the staircase before continuing down. As I reach the bottom of the stairs, a man is throwing what looks like the remnants of a portable CD player to the wall. Yes, I did say a portable CD player. You do remember what those devices looked like in the Pre-iPod/MP3 player days. Right? But I digress.

Now, as I stated at the beginning of this post, I don't know why this guy was so irate as to ruin his music player. Now I assume that it was his since none of his friends (who were keeping their distance from him) were complaining about the destroyed electronic device. I made brief eye contact with the pissed off dude and stepped over his CD as I kept on my way to the turnstile. All I could hear as I swiped my Metrocard was f-bomb this and I don't give a f-bomb about that. This dude was seriously irate. 

As I stood on the platform, I decided to look back to see what was going on. Nothing worse that having major issues go down behind you and not knowing about it. Chalk it up to my being nosy. Anyway, I see the pissed off individual yelling at the token booth clerk while being restrained by one of his buddies. Yes, I realize that the term "token booth" is referring to a relic of an earlier era when riders used token coins to gain entry to the subway. If you have another more socially relevant name for the enclosure, let me know. Until then, back to the story at hand. 

The man was yelling at the clerk and the clerk kept saying something to him over the microphone. I was unsure of what he said since it was garbled but I don't think they were sweet nothings, since the man went even more ballistic. Now he started kicking the bottom of the booth and threatening to wait for the clerk to finish his shift and kick his ass. As amusing as the spectacle was, it grew quite tired and I decided to proceed towards the middle of the platform, shaking my head the whole way down. Another interesting night in the NYC Subway system.

FH