I have been riding the A-Train between the same two stops for a handful of years, now. My routine is pretty much down. I even have backup plans for when something goes awry. For example; in the morning, I know which crack to stand next to, so that I will be in the right spot to get in the door I want, when the train pulls up. Same thing, for the evening. Only, instead of a crack, it is a support beam that I stand next to. If someone is in my spot, I have two back-up spots to stand in and wait. It probably sounds crazy. Actually, it probably is kind of  crazy.

Anyway, I have been taking the train in the evening a lot more, since I moved groups at work. I used to pretty much always take a car home, because I would always work pretty late. Even when I didn’t work really late, I was taking the train late enough that it wasn’t rush hour anymore. I had no idea what I was missing. Afternoon rush-hour is complete crap. I hate it, bad. I don’t mean to sound like Max Hall, but I really can’t think of one thing that I like about rush-hour. Not only are there way too many people indignantly shoving their way in and out of the doors, but the freak-meter is off the scale. I mean, they are out in droves. Of course you get your occasional freak, no matter what time of day you are on the train. But during rush-hour, you can’t really avoid them.

This may seem like a petty example, but here is what happened on my way home Thursday evening: I was standing in the very end of the very last car. This dude gets on and posts up right next to me. He is probably late teens/early 20’s. He turns around to look out the back window of the train, and starts gradually shoving me over, so that he can be more squarely positioned in front of the window. Whatever. Not a big deal. I mean, there is a lot of exciting crap to look at back there, in the dark tunnel behind the train. Whatever he was seeing out there must have been pretty inspiring though, because next thin I know, he starts singing to himself. The singing is loud enough that I can hear it over my headphones which are turned up to 11. At first I thought he just got carried away, singing along to the music in his headphones. Oh wait, he isn’t wearing any.

Then this other lady gets on, and asks the woman sitting next to where I’m standing, to give up her seat. The woman obliges, and lets the other lady have her spot. This lady is dragging one of those annoying little backpacks with the rollers on it, the kind that everyone trips over while trying to walk behind them on the sidewalk. She slides her government-worker issued MTA pass back into its little plastic case and sits down in her commandeered seat, while wedging her little wheely bag right between her shins and the side of my leg. Nice. So, now I have aspiring American Idol-boy all up on my left side, and this crazy woman cramping me all up from the other side. The train is so jammed that I can’t really even move to another spot, at this point, without putting someone else out.

Next thing I know, this woman begins to rummage all through her little pack, which seems to be stuffed to capacity with a never ending supply of plastic sacks. Apparently she isn’t finding the right sack, because she rummages for like 3 stops. The whole time I’m blocking the stupid little fully-extended pull handle on her bag from hitting me in the junk, as it wildly swings around during all of the rummaging. Finally, she finds what she is looking for. It is a container of yogurt. She now begins to rummage through her handbag. Eventually she comes up with a plastic knife. Good enough, I guess. She opens the yogurt and drinks out all of that clear stuff that settles at the top. Mmmmm delicious. In the process, she gets a bit white smudge on the end of her nose from the partially peeled back foil at the top of the container. Next, she begins to spoon (knife) the yogurt into her mouth. Her first couple of attempts don’t go too well. The yogurt slides right off of her knife onto her sleeve. No problem she just licks it up. Then she takes a different approach, putting the cup to her mouth and just using the knife to shovel the yogurt in. So amazing.

There was a sudden and particularly loud burst of song that distracted me for a few seconds. When I looked back to my right, she had finished the yogurt and was back to rummaging. I was back to shielding the goods from the flailing handle. Momentarily she came up with yet another yogurt. Nice. At this point she had a substantial amount of white goop on the end of her nose. What harm could a little more do? She downs the second yogurt, plastic knife shovel-style and goes back to rummaging. I go back to shielding. Yellow plastic bags, black plastic bags, white plastic bags. She must have collected one from every bodega in the entire West Village. She finally retrieves a black plastic bag and unties it, to reveal a tupperware containing cut celery. Not too weird.

She opens up the tupperware and starts going to town on the celery. After placing one end of a celery stick in her mouth, she cups the palm of her hand at the other end and pushed it in, about a quarter of an inch with each chomp. It was similar to the way the beavers eat sticks in the old cartoons. She repeats this action with 3 to 5 sticks of celery, until her checks are completely jammed with partially masticated celery. She has one long celery string hanging from her lower lip, down past her chin. All the while, still rocking the goop nose. Over the next 5 minutes she chews that wad of celery.

This ride was taking forever. We stopped twice in the tunnel between 59th and 125th. When we finally arrived at 125, enough people de-trained that I was finally able to extract myself from between the aspiring vocalist and the hungry government worker, to find a less stimulating perch. I need to start working late, again.

[The photo is of the Rector Street stop, on the RW, in late October]

I have been meaning to post this, since last week. This was at Penn, looking from the C platform, across to the A. It was late-night schedule, so the A platform was empty. There were two rats just cruising around the platform, like a couple of drunk friends waiting for the uptown A. Reagan and I were cracking up.

He is alive and well, riding the A train. I have actually seen this 2-seat dude on the A train, a hand full of times, now. He always has his ipod cranked so loud that everyone can hear it, as he mouths the words and does that head-bob, that only really huge guys can do. I have been tempted to get a shot of him in the past, but never followed through. Yesterday, though, I couldn’t resist.

Yes, it is what it looks like. The dude has both of his hands down the front of his pants.

I was totally busted snapping this pic, too. I forgot to disable the automatic flash on the b-berry cam, hahahah. The train was totally crowded and everyone saw me snapping a shot of Biggie with his hands in his pants, including Biggie.

A lot of the time, commuting sucks. Especially when going all of the way from one end of the island, to the other, twice a day. This morning, for example, I needed to be in a bit early. So I made sure to get out the door at a reasonable hour. My efforts were, however, thwarted by a tunnel fire, which caused my train to sit idle on the tracks for nearly an hour.

But there are those intermittent moments that occur in the subway, that make it not suck so bad, at all. Last night, for example, I descended the stairs at the south end of the “A” train platform, at Chambers Street, and stumbled upon the scene in the photo above. There must have been 10 of those large bags full of balloons. I was temped to go ride in the car that they got into, just to see people’s reaction. Anyway, it brightened my evening.

This morning as I was going through the turnstiles, entering the subway, I noticed the little digital display read “No Tokens.” I must have read this about 1000 times before today. But for some reason, this morning, I decided to think about it for a minute. Why in the world does the MTA feel like they still have to inform riders that the turnstiles no longer accept tokens? People haven’t been able to use Tokens in the subway since 2003. Is the MTA afraid that someone is going to awake from a coma and try to get on the subway with a token, then sue when they can’t because they didn’t realize that tokens were no longer used?

Another observation/pet peeve, witnessed this morning, was the guy walking along in front of me chatting it up on his phone. With the “hands free” piece installed, he held the microphone portion right in front of his mouth. How long have cell phones been around now? Has that poor sap still not figured out that the mic on his hands-free wire will pick up noises on the other side of the street, let alone the words coming out of his mouth, if he lets it dangle (like it is designed to do) 6 inches from his face? Doesn’t he realize that by holding that thing against his bottom lip, he is not only muffling his words, but probably blowing out the eardrums of the person on the other end? Also, if you are going to go through the trouble of holding something next to your face, why use “hands free” at all? Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose?

Maybe I’m totally missing a key factor in both of these issues, that is preventing me from understanding the logic. Can someone explain it to me?

He was there yesterday too. He must be getting pretty ripe, by now.

I’m not really sure what was going on here. It was raining like cats and dogs outside, so I can see wanting to get out of the weather and have a nap. But, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there may have been a more low profile way to go about it, than camping right outside of the turnstiles at rush hour. Maybe the 1000 stairs, on the way up from the mezzanine did him and and he just couldn’t make it any farther without some rest. Whatever the case was, it was right in front of an MTA booth that is open 24 hours. Neither of the attendants seemed to mind, nor did anyone else. I hope he had some good dreams.

Reagan and I had both heard about this guy, but we hadn’t seen him in person until Saturday night. He rolls a piano into the subway, via handicap elevator and ramp, at W. 4th Street. In addition to his piano moving skills, the guys is also gifted on the keys. While we were waiting for our train he played “too late to apologize” (Timbaland/One Republic) and “Clocks” (Coldplay). The best part about the former song, was the way it was requested. This dude comes up and puts a dollar in the bucket and says “hey, do you know that one Coldplay song? The one with the pianos?” Hahahaha.

-I was in the subway last night, and I saw a homeless guy wearing a backpack that said “Zions National Park” on it. I would bet money that the guy has absolutely no concept of the significance of Zions National Park. I, however, do. With the temperature dipping down the way it did last night, I couldn’t help but reflect on the hot sunny days that I have spent in southern UT. It was straight back into reality for me, when I came above ground at my stop. That cutting east coast wind in my face was very sobering. Today’s weather is no better, topping out in the low 30’s. Man, I cannot wait for ti to warm up. I bet if that homeless dude with the backpack knew what Zions Park was, he would daydream about being there, too. FYI the photo above is not of Zions, it is from a different park near Bryce Canyon.

[photo by trevor Little]

-I missed out on the Red Bull Snowscraper event yesterday/last night. I don’t feel too bad about it, since it was way too cold to be standing around outside for a long period of time (and I was working, kind of late). There is a rumor that it is going to be open to the pubic, before they tear it down. Really? That would be pretty freaking awesome.

-Where I come out of the subway at Chambers, it is one of those floor to ceiling turnstiles, with the cage-looking bars that works like a one way revolving door. About 50% of the time, there is a sticker (when I say sticker, I mean an Avery address label with a message printed in Times New Roman, Bold), on which is printed “Amplify Love, Dissipate Hate.” Pretty profound. The MTA scrapes it off about twice a week, but it always re-appears. Thanks, who ever goes through the trouble to print those out and stick them on there, every week. Even when I see the little grey patch, where it was removed, I am reminded each morning of the phrase.

-I finished “TSAR,” last night and started 1776 this morning, during my commute. I have heard a lot of good things about David McCullough, and I can see why. For a purely historical book, “1776″ reads pleasantly smooth, almost like a novel.

-I’m looking forward to seeing Piper awake this weekend.