The Train Chronicles #5 - Weird stuff

I see a lot of stuff on the train. I am on it for almost three hours a day so there is a lot to write about. However, I looked back at the list of my blog entries and I realized that I have written about the characters on the train lately. Have I gotten tired of talking about them? Have they gotten less interesting (hardly likely!)? It made me wonder why I had begun to slack off. I think I was just busy and was focused on some other things. That said here are some crazy things that I have seen lately and some oldie but goodies!

• Yesterday there was a guy dressed in a full renaissance fair outfit playing the lute on the downtown 1 and he acted like we were strange for looking at him as he panhandled.
• This morning a man came on and tried to sell DVDs for a "animated movie" that he was trying to raise money for but then never moved from his spot as if he expected people to come to HIM to make a purchase! This ain't a lemonade stand, fool! You better walk around, you crazed cartoonist.
• Last week, a woman got on the train wearing 14 differently colored pieces of clothing. Yes I counted. I had too because either she didn't when she got dressed or she wore all of that so that I would noticed and be forced to count. Either way, I felt visibly assaulted and called the fashion police immediately when I resurfaced to report her whereabouts. There is no telling what kind of damage she could cause if left unchecked.
• I once sat across from a man who I surmised was a Buddhist monk from Africa. The monk part was easy to figure out: he was wearing full garb and was praying with Buddhist beads. The African part only became apparent when a man with a Haitian accent accosted him, rudely inquiring "what's all this about". The man clearly didn't want to be disturbed and ignored him but the other man persisted. Eventually he tried to speak and I realized that he didn't speak English. After one more inconsiderate intrusion, I told the Haitian man that the guy was a monk and was praying. He then turned his attention to me to bother me. I, however, am not a meek monk and shut him down immediately. The Haitian eventually got off and the monk nodded to me a sign of thanks. It's not everyday that you have an opportunity to come to aid of an African monk!
• Two weeks ago, I boarded the 2 train and a woman was sitting in a seat right by the door. Her friend/lover/boo, another woman on the wrong side of 250 pounds, was laid out over the seats next to her which were designed to seat 3 more people (technically). Now this second woman was loud and obnoxious. The sad part was that my fellow hard core New Yorkers said NOTHING to her and milled about looking for some place to STAND! I guess I was too far south or not far enough because these people made no fuss whatsoever and the woman only moved when her friend told her she was making a scene. If I were one of the people that were displaced because she decided to re-purpose that subway car from transportation to lodging, there would have been a misunderstanding.
• And last but not least, there is the woman who taps me on my shoulder as I am writing this very blog post to ask me "is that an iPad?" even though I have a set of large, over the ear, headphones, the universal sign for "DON'T BOTHER ME RIGHT NOW". I wanted to tell her that it was an intergalactic communicator and I was in the process of logging all of the annoying people on planet Earth so that my fellow aliens could come, remove them, and place them all on a satellite moon by themselves where they could all annoy each other and leave us in peace and that I had just added HER name to the list. Somehow that run on sentence in my head came out as "yes it is". Oh well, another missed opportunity.

And so, as I type this to the sounds of yet another mariachi band on the 1 train, I have to wonder: am I the only one seeing weird stuff on the train? What strangeness have you all encountered?

Post Script - As I put this post to bed, I passed a woman with a cat in a baby carrier on the train. It never ends...

Where the bodies are buried.

Carl Palidino is a candidate for NY State governor and his hometown paper just endorsed his opponent, Andrew Cuomo. The paper stated that an old politician is sometimes a good thing because they know the ropes and know "where the bodies are buried". That last part refers to metaphorical bodies, of course, but it's the part that intrigued me. Every deal in politics is predicated by back office handshakes, a nudge here and a wink there. Are new politician at a disadvantage by not knowing the history of how certain things "got done"? By the time they figure out the lay of the land, have they missed their opportunity to be effective? The American public only gives you a short window in which to do what you said you would do before they start looking for your replacement. President Obama is an example of how difficult it can be to be a virtual Washington outsider and try to effect change. He's finding it very difficult to form coalitions with Republicans and I believe it's because he doesn't know where the bodies are buried.

These are my thoughts ....what are yours?

The Train Chronicles #4 - You don't smell that Part 2

Trains are interesting inventions. Especially subways. Someone decided that traveling underground was a good idea and a bunch of people agreed with him. Today we stand on platforms and feel the artificial wind at the trains lumber through the tunnels, pushing the stale air onto our face like a vile, imitation subterranean wind.  That does not compare, however, with the vile winds that emanate from the sphincter of some of the passengers on the train.

It's bad enough that we have to share the same air but it's downright unconstitutional to further pollute it with your emanations! You know who you are but I've compiled a list:

• The dude who sits in the middle of everyone and raises one cheek ever so slightly to facilitate the escape of the noxious fumes 
• The woman who sits there quietly reading her magazine but secretly spreading her womanly charms into the nostrils of her unfortunate victims sitting next to her.
• The guy who stands directly in front of a sitting passenger and blasts the unsuspecting person with a maniacal stream of SBDs.

These are just a few but they all are offensive. You know you're having a gassy day! You felt the rumblings of an unsettled mass of putrid gas bubbling in your gut when you started your trip. Go stand in the corner. In fact, I am advocating for a fart corner to be assigned on every subway car. I'm actually ok with that kind of segregation. And when you are finished destroying the ozone layer, you can rejoin the rest of the people on the train who had the courtesy of not eating beans before they boarded the subway.

I'm jus' sayin' ...  These are my thoughts...what are yours?

What are good schools really good at?

I attended a city university for my undergraduate education. I have always said that dollar for dollar, I got a better education that most of my friends who when to expensive, higher rated schools. Since that time, I have made a career in higher education and I've noticed something over the years.

Last night, I helped one of my younger cousins navigate their syllabi and planned out his semester with him. This is young man already has a year of college at a state school under his belt and is going to school closer to home this year. As I walked him through what stuff he needed to be on top of, I realized that there were numerous basis tenets of being a college student that he had not been taught: study techniques, calendaring, and how to adjust to college learning. I'm almost positive that as an accredited institution of higher learning, that  these services are available at his school. However, as was with my college experience, you have to go FIND them.

My colleagues and I teach this stuff to  our students every year during orientation which is extensive and protracted. Needless to say, the students find it laborious but in the end, it prepares them better. And therein lies the major difference: the students services piece of education. No-one advised me to see my academic advisor, set up an appointment each semester to speak to my professor, nor did anyone teach me how study to be successful in college. I "survived" but I always said that if I had a little more guidance, I would be in a much different place today. At times, I feel like we coddle our students but last night I had a completely different opinion on this. I see how detrimental the absence of these services can be and how easy it is to get lost in the system.

I pledged to make sure that my young cousin gets the support that he needs from me and that he demands it from his institution. With that, I also offer a word of advice to guardians and families of college aged students: take the time to walk them through the basics of transition to college and/or make sure the seek it out from their school. You would be so amazed by the difference it can make. 

You don't smell that.....?

Every time I walk to the train station unfortunately sometimes on the actual train, I pass someone who smells like they took a bathe in cologne/perfume. I know that when you put scents on that sometimes you can't smell it on yourself. But that applies to normal amounts of cologne! When you're going through a bottle of Drakkar Noir a week, you HAVE to know that you're smelling like a French whore. I was told that the rule of thumb for cologne was that a person should only be able to smell your cologne when they got really close to you. It's for you and someone you're intimate with, not the entire block! I am not exaggerating when I say that either. There have been countless times that a person has passed by me and I walk the entire block being assailed by the remnants of their odor! Why? I don't get the purpose of dousing yourself in a perfume.

Here are some helpful hints to help avoid this travesty:

• If you pour your cologne/perfume into your hands and it creates a pool that a small goldfish could swim in, stop immediately and find 26 friends to share that with.
• If your index finger becomes sore because you pressed the spray button so many times, stop, go take a shower, and start all over.
• If you are using an aerosol can, you should not be able to sing the entire alphabet before you're finished applying. Stop before you get to "C" and no slow singing either.
• If you hug your mate on the way out of the house and then wonder why they're wearing the same scent that you are, turn around and start from the beginning again. You've clearly infected them with your foolishness.
• If a ridiculously large percentage of your disposable income is being spent on cK1 and you DON'T own stock in the company, please reassess your life, you smelly loser.
• Lastly, if you notice that people all turn, look at you, and have a look of amazement when you pass by, it not because you look astounding that day. It's probably because you smell like you replaced the water heater in your house with an enormous vat of White Diamonds. Cut it out. You're impeding the regular breathing habits of the sane people around you, you aromatic jerk.

Ok, I'm done but I may have to revisit this topic if the violations continue...spread the word...

Are we connected?

In the last 10 years the ways that we connect with people has changed drastically. Technology has forced us in to pseudo relationships that give us the semblance of deepness (or maybe they are deep and my cynical mind thinks that their not) and communication that is fraught with the potential for miscommunication. I belong to a bunch of list serves and I talk to people on there more frequently than I do with people who I consider to be real life friends. On a few of them, efforts have been made to connect outside of the cyber world and, although I haven't been able to make any of the events, I can imagine how weird it must be to finally MEET someone whom you have soooo much information about and have had such rich discussions, for the first time. It has to be weird no matter how you set the meetings up.

The wife and I went to see "The Social Network" last night (great movie, by the way) and it was interesting to see our lives BF, Before Facebook. Mark Zuckerburg's goal was to give people a way to connect easier. Mission accomplished. 500 million people on the same system without the constraints of school affiliations could very easily be viewed as the largest connected group of people any where. But are we really connected. Even the people who you are directly connected (the people on your friends list) are often just Facebook friends! I once had one of my wife's friends nearly come up to me in Target because she recognized me from Facebook posts, only to stop herself when she remembered that she didn't actually KNOW me.

Have we been lured into a false sense of connectivity but all of these connectivity tools? I recently realized that I am not as much a part of a friend's life as I had thought. We speak every single day but was not included in their real life event. It made me feel bad until I realized that when I plan real events myself, I don't think to include people who I have a cyber relationship with. I call up people who I haven't spoken to in weeks to share THOSE events. So am I really connected? It feels like I am: I'm on seven list serves, I have over 3000 friends on Facebook, I have a Twitter account, a blog that gets hits from China, and a website. But is that all smoke and mirrors? In the end, are we just connected to the people that we see or has definition of connected changed forever? These are my thoughts....what are yours?

Monday Blahs remedy: Sesame Street: Smell Like A Monster

Seasons of Change

Ok so I'll be the first to make the official announcement: Summer is over! As much as it pains me to admit that my favorite season has come to a close, I feel it necessary to inform my fellow NYers. I know: it's hard to accept that the days of beaches and blistering heat are gone for another year. This, however is NOT an excuse for people to refuse to switch their wardrobe to more sensible fall attire! The micro shorts and flip flops need to put away for another day...and those are the guys that I'm talking about! No-one is more saddened by the days shortening and the mean temperature steadily dropping than I am but I deal with it and pull out the sweaters and autumn hats! I plead with all of you sun worshipers to get with the season and cover up before you get sick and end up on the train with me, coughing and sneezing on everyone...cause I'll write about you then too...

Everyone has a butt- The Train Chronicles #3

We all have butts.

Some of us have larger ones than others but we all own one, even if yours is simply the truncation of your spinal column. Associated with this point is that we all have had them all our lives. For some of us, they have gotten bigger where some of us have had diminished assets. But that doesn't happen over night.

Why am I focusing in on butts today? Simple. As a human you know EXACTLY how much space your butt takes up and unless you have SERIOUS spacial recognition issues, you can tell whether your butt will FIT into a space. Spaces like seats on a subway car! If I'm on a train where there aren't those grooved seats to suggest the acceptable size of derriere that should be plopped down there (which I find obnoxious), I normally can judge whether my tuckus will fit in the opening. Why aren't other people doing this? People try to squeeze into spaces that they absolutely have NO business trying to navigate and end up literally sitting on the person next to them. Take one wild guess as to who the person sitting next to them is: ME! I have someone sit on me at least once a day and I am seriously considering charging people for the free lap dance that they are stealing from me!

And not to sound ageist but the WORSE offenders are our seniors! You figure they have had THEIR butts the longest and therefore have the most experience navigating their cabooses. NOPE! It's always some septuagenerian resting a full cheek on my lap before he settles in and farting all the way down to add insult to injury!

This may seem like a small thing but I'm so done with it.

These are my thoughts....what are yours?

The Great American Novel

I'm a writer. Whatever that means.


It's interesting what the connotations are when you say that. It used to be that the first thing that people extrapolate from that statement is that I'm published somewhere. The second thing is that I was a serious subject matter writer. The glory of the information age is that tons of people have access to word driven communication in print (albeit electronic print) form. This has facilitated the proliferation of writing from numbers and varied sources. Simply put, all of a sudden, EVERYONE is writing! Blogs, poetry site, Facebook notes and even status updates are everywhere. But none of those people consider themselves to be writers if you asked them. However, if you collected all of the postings of these people in their various outlets of expression, you could string together a pretty interesting tome. The written word (okay...the typed word) is enjoying a revival unparalleled in anytime in our history!

Ok so many, it not always GOOD writing! Sometimes it's not even complete sentences (you should see some of the papers I used to receive from my students-they wrote like they texted). But who are we to really judge? Highly educated people are writing, people with very little schooling are writing, and even kids who just mastered the skill are writing.

So the statement "I'm a writer" is now a loaded statement and unbeknownst to the vast array of people that are contributing to the Great American Novel that we are all writing our own little piece to, the description is now much broader than it used to be. Personally, I'm a novelist, a poet, and of course, a blogger but we have all started a new love affairs with the ancient discipline of writing. And I'm loving it!