Like Finding Kryptonite

If you were a child of the 80s If you were a child of the 80s exactly like me, two things were true: 1. CandyLand probably did exist and your crap parents just weren't telling you where it was and 2. You pretty much anticipated this kind of underground camaraderie to occur with frequency (NB: I realize this is a film made in the 90s, but taking place in the early 80s)



Now that I'm a grown-up, I understand that these youthful fantasies were arrived at after less than logical argument, but the little girl inside of me still hopes.

And, in fact, one frequently does encounter boisterousness on the subway, but the person singing out loud is either a) soliciting things or b) crazy. C'est la vie. Sometimes you want to shake your ass, but embarrassment prevents you. Also, if you're anything like me, the ass-shaking in question isn't exactly fly girl-ready.

Well, the other day, devoted partner showed me a video. Easily the best video I've seen since Oh, Son, Your Missus is a Nutter (worth watching, but there are bad words and adult humor if you're in on of those offices where people notice such things)



The song was so good, it made me spontaneously break into dance. So good that I gladly paid my 99 cents for the privilege of having it on my iToy. So good that I listened to it on the way to the station, walking from my car to the platform, and thirdly while on the train. It's the kind of song you can not help but tap your feet to.

Apropos of an earlier post this week, I am ready to declare a winner in the World Series of Poor Breeding that is the New Haven line. It's not gayporn guy, muddy feet on seat girl, nosepicker, doucheoncellphoneblabbingaboutderivatives, Fran Drescher soundalikes talking about how tacky cousin Morty's Bar Mitzvah was. No. All of those able contenders have apparently been left bloodied on the field of battle by

Excessive Foot Tapping.

I swear to effin jeebus, the overly tanned J Crew dad sitting behind me actually tapped me on the shoulder to tell me my foot tapping was bothering him. I stopped, obviously, but not before marveling at what does and does not pass for appropriate behavior. It also gave me powerful ammunition for the next time someone does something that bothers me: my foot tapping might well drive cellphonedouche out of his skull.

But that's not important. What's important is that I've won something. You might think it's not that special, but knowing that my, and only my, behavior was so detestable that it merited intervention is special to me. After documenting the truly tasteless behavior of everyone else, it's nice to know that it was I all along.

So rather than give a lengthy victory speech, I thought I would let the song that started this whole mess speak for me.

Fellow commuters, this one's for you (if your office is unfriendly to the f-bomb, please watch this at home - but WATCH IT, IT'S AWESOME):

Breaking Rule #1: Always Have Your Camera

Because when you don't, it becomes impossible to document the 70ish man on the Metro North casually thumbing through gay pornography during rush hour.

I'd like to think of this moment less as a first amendment issue, clearly any and all persons have the right to look at as much gay porn as is possible, and more as an etiquette issue. Leaving aside, for now, that I would have been ejected from the train for going without a shirt while this man could look at pictures of men without pants and no one seemed to be in a tizzy, I would say that pornography, like cellphone arguments, singing along with your iPod, spitting, cutting your fingernails, and examining what you just picked from your nose are at-home activities.

Now I would wager that this particular individual was hoping dearly that someone would notice him - you don't just look at porn in public for no good reason and my contention is that he gets off on people knowing he's looking at porn in public. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that, by not alerting the conductor, I was somehow shirking a civic duty. Had he been sitting near anyone under the age of eighteen, I definitely would have gotten the conductor - because while I'm not a 'won't somebody please think of the children' kind of person, my guess is that any child would feel both extremely uncomfortable and paralyzed to act.

While in Portland, I came to the alarming (for a registered Democrat) discovery that to date, I have only ever voted for Republican mayoral candidates. Sadly, Giuliani left office on a one-way ticket to Crazytown, but that doesn't mean I didn't like him at the time - predominantly because he too seemed to value basic etiquette and was in the position to defend his position with a truncheon. While Mayor Mike and I certainly didn't see eye-to-eye on the whole no-smoking-near-anything crusade, I DO like that he felt he could do it. Smoking was his squeegee man.

But to rein myself in a little (sort of), I would say that I would be happier if we could deputize our Metro North conductors. The smile that breaks over my face when I overhear one of them telling a passenger to get his dirty feet off the seat borders on the indecent. These guys have to put up with all manner of things and it appears that, short of fare-dodging and public vomiting, they have little enforcement capability. Also, the pictures of that enforcement would be priceless!

Monday Nopropos

As we prepare for our slightly spontaneous must-use-vacation-days-before-September-1 vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains, I wanted to dispense with several items.

1. I'm not feeling a lot of love and support vis a vis this trip. To a person, everyone I have told about it, including my beloved sibling, has looked at me incredulously. "What are you going to do?" "Are you, um, outdoorsy?" "Why are you going there?" When I respond with the hiking/rafting/boating/riding we hope to accomplish, the stares become even more incredulous. Listen, I know that I take pride in my Gucci hiking slingbacks and in things like hot water and television, but I would like to remind ye of little faith and great mirth that devoted partner and I, despite our girth, are some pretty outdoorsy types. Offending one and all, devoted partner has been known to call me Action Jew (apologies to Eddie Izzard from whom we shamelessly stole), or if we are being athletic in France, Juif d'Action. In fact, if we can jump on a horse, get in a kayak, or get to the top of something really high, chances are we will. Now it's true, we will not be camping, and that was my decision, but it was prompted way more by the inconvenience of hauling camping crap on a plane than it was any abhorrence of outdoor sleeping. To say nothing of the fact that we have abandoned the sloth of the shore for the wet, oxygen toxicity of beneath the waves. In the future, perhaps a smidgen more benefit of the doubt would not be unwarranted.

2. While I still believe the best future for the MTA lies in Mayor Bloomberg buying it outright and running it like a business instead of a slush fund, I would like to commend the current thieves and criminals for installing, in some stations, the board that updates passengers on when the next train will arrive. Yes, other cities have had these for ages, but I say better late than never.

3. Devoted partner is a far better interweb miner than I, coming up with tons of funnies which he shares with me. I now share some with you and also a serious one courtesy of Antonio:
* Not about OJ Simpson, surprisingly
* Not statistically sound, but tee-hee
* Roger Ebert and I are mind-melding

Happy Monday!

Commuting Nopropos

Merely since yesterday I have encountered a startling number of commuting-related consternations, yet none of them really warrants a dedicated post. Therefore, please enjoy these four:

1. If your teenaged son has a learning disability/drug problem/run-of-the-mill teenaged angst issue, perhaps the best place to discuss with your older daughter how much you can't wait for him to get out of the house, how you're putting him on Adderall and how if he doesn't get into any college he'll have to go into the military and you don't want him fighting, is NOT the train. Kudos to your daughter for explaining that perhaps, prior to drugging your kid up, you might consider sending him to therapy - at least you didn't mess up both your kids. Also, if you're the guidance counselor at GHS where I now know this boy goes to school, please find him and give him some guidance.

2. If you absolutely must give someone instructions, over the phone, as to the precise precise location of the spare key he can find to gain entry to your house, you might consider giving such instructions sotto voce. See, the thing of it is, now that I, and everyone around you, know where your spare key is, you run a greater risk of someone other than the person you're speaking with finding the key and robbing you blind. It wouldn't really be all that difficult to sneak a peak at your license when you hand the conductor your ticket, nor for that matter would it be all that difficult to pickpocket you - especially were the robber a professional. Show a little discretion and you might get to keep all of your nice stuff.

3. It is politically incorrect to make fun of the sounds of foreign tongues - that's akin to making fun of the culture itself. However, if you are speaking English very loudly and it sounds like this or this, then I'm sorry, politically correct or not, I will not be able to stop myself from giggling.

4. If so few people ever help you get your stroller down the stairs that you looked at me with tears in your eyes as you said, "god bless you," there is something seriously wrong with everyone who isn't me. People, help women or men, frankly, get their strollers down the stairs. It literally took me 30 seconds and this poor woman reacted as if I had saved her kid from a burning building. Don't those subway ads say something about courtesy being contagious? Unless you are actually en route to save babies from burning buildings, you have the 30 seconds.

Perhaps Not the Criminal Mastermind I Thought

In theory, I think I would make an excellent superthief/superspy: moral relativist, flexible relationship with the truth, rationalizer. In reality, as devoted partner points out more often than I would like (though, to be fair, this is a stupid discussion to be having in the first place so perhaps he's right to put me in my place) I am not all that stealthy. I don't blend in with crowds and I haven't learned how to make myself forgettable (though I maintain that the cunning use of wigs would do wonders for my changling-ness). Also, and perhaps more troubling for the current monster.com resume I have in case SPECTRE is looking for new hires, is that there are certain scams, albeit minor ones, that just wouldn't occur to me, and I wonder if my big-picture attitude is hurting me or depriving me of lower-level experience.

Yesterday the conductor on my train, who I see at least twice a week, punched a ticket for me without seeing my train pass - several of the conductors do this because they recognize me (bad news for my covertness). This was all the more surprising because it was the first time in August I had seen him, meaning he had no guarantee that I had bought a monthly pass for August and I said as much to him, joking that had I known he wasn't going to check I could have saved myself some money. In reply, he told me that there had been a group of women who were regulars on his train that had done just that: they would buy their monthly passes and show them to him for the first week of the month; then, once they were sure he was going to punch tickets for them without verifying they had passes, they returned their passes for a partial refund and rode the rest of the month for free.

Leaving aside how rude that is - I don't know if conductors could get fired for that sort of thing - it's just the kind of petty crime I don't consider. I'm too busy wondering how far I could joyride in that Ferrari before apprehension and if I could find a way to talk myself out of it. And the sad thing is, as compelling a speaker as I believe myself to be, I absolutely FAIL at seeming pitiable.

I try not to speed beyond the average speeder in traffic because I know I'll actually get stuck with the ticket. Even if I was able to muster some tears for the highway patrol person, which I give myself about even odds for, I doubt I'd be believable, and this is a major failing in my criminal mastermind/secret agent ambitions. Women should be able to call on that, "I'm helpless/silly/don't know what I'm doing thing" at the drop of a hat. Feminists bear with me while I maintain that until we have salary parity it behooves us to use what ever tricks are at our disposal to level the playing field - consider the speeding ticket you talked yourself out of with eyelash batting as the first of many hundred dollars you are technically owed if that makes you feel better.

So, I'm checking local community colleges to see if classes are offered in this sort of thing because I figure, if I can't even scam Metro North out of $150, no one is going to invite me on that awesome diamond heist!

Thursday Nopropos

It's that time again. That time when I wonder why, if you intend to not answer your phone, you leave it audible. To the man on the train somewhere behind me this morning who chose to let his voicemail notification beep ceaselessly, you know that tummy trouble Nicaragua gave me? I hope you get it. For a month. I know a lot of you think my Giuliani-esque quality of life mobile phone tirades are, well, tiresome, but it comes down to sheer civility: don't, for lack of effort, be a douche. This goes for the people who have their phones turned up to Headbanger and then wait until the fourth ring to answer. It has also prompted me to select my next phone primarily for the feature where you can choose any sound you want as your ring. This will be mine! Because I am a child. An immature, petulant, vengeful child.

And while we're on children, and commuting, I have some questions for the parents out there: is rush-hour the bestest time to drag all seven of your mewling brood on a train and then ignore them as they literally step on the poor working stiffs who just need to make it into the office? I'm not saying you should all go live on an island, but if you're going to use public facilities, please take a moment to prep your kids in advance that public is different from private and that indoor voices and behavior are not up for debate. This will be greatly helped by your NOT giving your larva copious amounts of sugary junk food while you ride the train. I know it shuts them up, but 4 year-olds do not need Skittles at 9am. EVER.

But your issues' ill-manners are nothing compared to the alarming trend I notice vis a vis their comfort. I am a city girl and until I was a teenager I never got an effin' seat on the train/bus. Seats were for grownups. Who work for a living. I stood from the time I was too big to be on a lap until the time I was as tall as a gronwup. On the subway. When it was crowded. Through the curving track bits. Why is this no longer the case? The number of perfectly able to stand children I see sprawled across subway seats while grownups, some of them frankly old and infirm, stand is enough to make me rethink my subcontinental birth control theories. Children should be the first commuters ousted from seats when the ousting occurs and you parents should be doing the ousting and using it as a valuable teaching moment courtesy of The Rolling Stones: thou canst always gets what thou wantst. You'll thank me later when your overindulged progeny gets to the age of acquisitiveness.

Hmmm...it's possible I woke up on the wrong side of the moat this morning.

I'm Not Quite Sure What You're Doing

This morning, at about 7:30am, my cellphone rang. Of course I assumed it was devoted partner's cellphone because no one calls my cellphone because the very few people in the world who have the number know a) I don't answer it and b) it's hardly ever charged. I didn't get to the phone in time and I didn't recognize the number so I tossed the phone back in my bag. This shocked devoted partner who is the kind of person who calls people's numbers on his phone regardless of whether or not he recognizes the number.

I told him that only about a dozen people have the number, all of those people have our home phone number, and that all would either leave a message or call the house having gotten no answer on the cell. That it was obviously a wrong number and why do I want to spend time calling a wrong number back to verify that it's a wrong number. Which I guess brings me to the crux of this: I don't much like talking to people on the phone.

Sure, Ed and I can waste several millennia talking about absolutely nothing (Dear blogger spell check: Really? You don't think "millennia" is a word? You're retarded!) And I'm generally happy to talk to the people I already know and like, but more often than not I'd prefer to be contacted by carrier pigeon. When the house phone rings and it is for devoted partner, 99 out of 100 times I'll toss him the phone as opposed to answering it and then passing it on. I think this might be rude, but I do have a lot of knitting to work on and I can't be all distracted by making small talk.

This lengthy preamble is, of course, to my complaint of every day: mobile communication on public transport. The thing is, all of you (general, not specific) seem to LOVE to talk to people on your tiny phones and go blind and carpal tunneled by typing emails on your tiny phones. And I don't get it. At you home or office, presumably you have larger communication implements, a more comfortable chair, and privacy. Wouldn't you like to do your business/complain about your redecorating/talk about how wild it was at the bar last night in those places? This morning it wasn't so much that people were loud, they weren't, it's that everywhere I turned people were heavily invested in clickety clacking their toys in a way I am just flummoxed by.

I love my train ride because it is neither work nor home. I actually find it relaxing (when I'm not elbowing people out of my way to gain access to the seats they were saving for their laptop bags). Either I am really mellow, or other people are really really not. The thing, and forgive me for harping on it, is that if my job was such that on the 9:04 train I needed to be doing so much work, that would indicate to me that perhaps I'm not getting to my office on time. If I took an earlier train, by 9:04, I'd already be at my office typing emails and fielding phone calls. Using the train as a makeshift office seems not only rude, but (and I'm really surprised we don't hear more of this) potentially litigious.

So I ask ye of clickety clacking habits to try and shed some light on this for me. My iToy is a last resort to entertain me when there's simply no elbow room to do anything else. All thing being equal, I just don't want to communicate or be communicated with at every moment of the day. So help me to understand what I am obviously missing.

And please don't ever call me at 7:30am unless we a) have plans or b) you know that a missile is headed for my house.

Wednesday Nopropos

Yeah, I'm in a crap mood because I just spent 90 minutes at the dentist. I am now ready to assert that dental hygienists are bigger sadists than aestheticians who specialize in waxing. Therefore I am only in the mood for crying and ice cream and not so much for being entertaining.

That being said.

Having admitted my addiction to the wily yarn, I went to a weekly stich n bitch last night. And I might be hooked. First of all, grouping with women I don't know is an outside my comfort zone activity and, as such, a good thing. Secondly, these women were my age and certainly personable. Thirdly, I successfully managed to order nothing at Panera Bread save an iced tea which I sweetened with (gasp) splenda.

This weekend is the annual North Shore Animal League Adoptathon. We went last year, I got my picture taken with Cesar Milan, I played with puppies. We're going again this year. Some might say this is tempting fate, but unless I can line up some babysitters (puppysitters) for the third week in May and the second full week in June, I think we'll be coming home empty handed. I'm just hoping the people who work there don't recognize us from last year and accuse us of coming with no intent to rescue a puppy (last year we just didn't meet our dog - we met lots of cute dogs, but none of them was a love at first sight).

I am still flummoxed by people who hear that the conductor is coming to check tickets and still wait until he asks them personally before they go rifling through their bags to search for their tickets. This isn't rocket science, people, have your ticket out. The conductor has a whole bunch of other tickets to check so help him out by not sucking.

I am not green. Not by a long shot. My next car is going to be a clean diesel. Since my driving mainly consists in 3rd gear shuffles to and from the train station, I am getting abysmal mileage out of my fillups. I sort of fist pump when I make it past 20mpg.

My teeth hurt, they're making me go back in two weeks, I want a puppy, and a suntan, and a banana split. So excuse me while I go whine less publicly.

Rebuilding in the Off Season

I'm going to be optimistic for a moment and say that cold and flu season is over for the 09-10 winter. To help make the 10-11 season a healthy one, permit me to suggest that you use this time to work on your skills. Namely, cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough. Thank god we don't live in a time of cholera epidemic or we'd all be dead, given the number of people who hack away in crowded areas without covering up. Now, I know my mom was a stickler for proper manners, but she cannot possibly have been the only one.

Similarly, have you (and obviously I speak to my fellow commuters) noticed that I am the only person who says, "bless you" when someone sneezes? I don't understand why you, person who is sitting next to person who sneezed, doesn't. While we're at it, have you further noticed that I am the only person who says hello to the conductor? He said hello to you, not saying hello back is, well, rude. Even if he is socially beneath you, throw him the greeting crumbs from your table.

I don't want to project a false reality: I am certainly rude to people. But I am rude to people specific, not people general. Chances are if I was rude to you, I had a reason. I guess I should say that when rude I am intentionally rude. To be rude as just habit speaks to a far more sinister condition, and one I suspect has consequences far beyond my daily indignation.

And before I start sounding like Mother Theresa over here, in addition to not being a 24/7 polite person, I also don't much care about other people. Not that I wish them harm or have no concern for their well-being, but on a day to day basis, if I don't know you, I don't care about you. So blessing your sneezing isn't borne from some hippie-ass loving everyone nonsense. I just think that it takes more effort to ignore your sneeze than to acknowledge it.

I mean isn't it habit to say bless you when someone sneezes? To let the old lady have the seat? To wait your turn in line? These seem like societal baselines and to act otherwise takes effort. Because ALL of our mothers taught us these things. Willfully disregarding them is a willful act.

And yet you do it. Every day. Day after day. And I don't know where you learned it.

So take these, the gentler weather months, to consider how we came to be at this impasse, and see if you can't make a mental off-season trade so that when we get to this point next year, your team can be in contention for the playoffs.

Compromising My Blogging Integrity

You're My Brother and I Love You...
but for the love of all things holy, shutup!
I asked nicely, really I did.
An untrained eye wouldn't have even seen
the glint of "or I swear to god
I will stab you in the neck with my knitting needle."
Originally uploaded by reallyct

So, even though I know a lot more about this guy (what he looks like head-on and his name), after an especially poorly-timed walking out the door "discussion" with devoted partner, I am erring on the side of not having this flucktard show up on my doorstep threatening to bean me in the head with a can of Schlitz.

Apparently there was a gruesome murder/attempted suicide that happened in Westchester the other day. I wouldn't have known about it because I selectively listen to 1010WINS and since people are always killing other people, I can kind of drown it out. Fortunately, this guy, who I'm going to call "Fredo" so you can sort of understand the level of esteem I hold him in, knew the family involved and was re-telling the gruesome details to his friend on the phone. Next to me. On the train. In what I would conservatively estimate was 45% louder than a normal speaking voice. While, I like a good hanging stabbing story as much as the next girl, I decided that this was not appropriate public behavior and, as nicely as I could, asked him if he could please (I used the word please) lower his voice. When he didn't I added that it was kind of an inappropriate and graphic topic for public.

Instead of heeding what was, in all likelihood, my nicest version of what I wanted to say to him, he continued telling his story in his 45% louder than normal voice.

Then he called, literally, 3 other people and told the same story.

In between, he called some buddies so he could gossip about one of their wife/girlfriend's habit of "talking like a man," the remedy for which he described as "punching her like a man." He called maybe 3 buddies and said the above verbatim.

Even the least familiar of you with my particular brand of crazy can probably imagine that it took all my self-control not to talk to this man like a man so that I could precipitate his punching me like a man which would lead to his being incarcerated like a man, and then suddenly learning what it's like to be surrounded by, ahem, those more manly than one in a prison-type situation.

I really weighed the consequence: my broken jaw for his difficulty sitting/evacuating for a period of, oh I don't know what you get for first degree assault, but let's say he gets off easy with a year. I still am not sure I made the right decision in not provoking him. I would have enjoyed visiting him in jail and bringing him care packages of vaseline and kleenex. For his tears.

But let's be frank. Any dbag who publicly advocates hitting women who have the gall to, well, talk, is the kind of dbag whose mother probably still folds his underwear. He'd be about as likely to hit me as buy me a new Cadillac. Fredo was about as intimidating as a Jack Russell terrier. Still, I have to wonder about the kind of person who won't shutup when asked to. I knew that after I asked him to lower his voice, he was talking loudly and making multiple phone calls just to annoy me (at one point he moved up one row so we were directly opposite from one another). I know that his choice of conversation topics was aimed at me (you know how I enjoy talking like a man). And I know that the best course of action was to continue silently knitting and not engaging him further.

But it wasn't the fun course of action. Stupid adulthood.

You Can Pick Your Friends...

Very Eligible
Originally uploaded by reallyct

Now, I'll be the first to admit that in the privacy of my own home, when I think devoted partner isn't looking (and sometimes, sadly, when he is), I do all of the following: nose picking, shower peeing, ingrown hair extracting, audible flatulence. If this lessens your esteem of me, you must not know me. However, I draw what I think is a not at all arbitrary line when it comes to appropriate private behavior and appropriate public behavior, and prolonged nose picking is way way way on the inside of the private line.

I understand that sometimes you need to clear your nasal passageway and are bereft of tissue - in these cases, emergency dispensation may be granted, provided the offender in question makes some nod to propriety.

This man, who looked mostly innocuous and like he a) had a job and b) had sex with humans, spent his entire commute searching for something (obviously very important that he had lost - like his dignity) with his finger in his nose and occasionally in his ear.

While he sat across from me.

I don't know how many times I can say this, but you people totally disgust me! In fact the only thing that keeps me from wishing the whole lot of you to a fiery death is the thought of this.

Ahhhhhhh. There, don't you feel better? I almost can forget Captain Fingerb@ngs His Nose.

But not quite. I am reminded more and more of the SNL skit Eddie Murphy did about putting on whiteface and learning that white people have a whole secret society thing with one another that they hide in the presence of non-white people. It's as though the denizens of Fairfield county have a secret alliance that enables them to behave while on the train (and before it stops at Fordham) as if none of them had ever attended Deerfield. I obviously have a totally skewed view of the world because I always thought that the price on paid to have a lifestyle that enabled one to shop at Brooks Brothers necessarily precluded such anti-social behavior as is in ample photographic display here (oh, and yeah, sorry if you were eating when you clicked on this). I'm surprised there aren't more of them with boomboxes blasting Michael Buble (and/or John Tesh depending on how current you want to be).

I am seriously reconsidering traveling with a spray bottle of water and treating my fellow passengers like misbehaving cats, but then I remember, no cat would be caught dead being as disgusting as this guy.

I'm Just Like Gandhi, But Fatter

IMG_7028
Don't mind me, I'll just be putting
my wet dirty feet on the seat.
Oh, you want to sit down in the seat
not taken up by my feet? Cool.
But I'm not moving my feet.
Try not to scuff the leather, ok?
Originally uploaded by reallyct

We haven't heard much from the Hall of Commuter D-Bags recently. It's not that they've disappeared, it's more that the average level of dbaggery has stabilized. Yes, the woman with Fran Drescher's voice continues to loudly talk to her dawwter on the phone about banal shit; yes, the elite of Fairfield and Westchester counties continue to treat the train as an extended rubbish heap, leaving overturned coffee cups, bakery paper, and crumpled NY Posts, Times, and WS Journals in their wake; yes, men and women of every shape size color disposition guard empty seats in their vicinity with the ferocity of bears; but the outsize dbaggery worthy of comment has been minimal. I almost wrote about a whistling epidemic (people whistling inside the train, not on the platform), but when I reviewed it in my head, I sounded like a refugee from the 1920s who would then go on to complain about women wearing slacks in public while smoking.

So it with a mixture of sadness and relief that I bring you Sir Thisdick. That's him, sleeping in the above picture. Upon entering the train yesterday, I found Sir Thisdick awake sprawled across about four seats: the one his ass was in, the one his hand was in, and the two his feet were on. As that meant there were three technically free seats, I decided to sit in one: the outside seat facing Sir Thisdick. Now, let me begin by saying that even though I find it abhorrent that people put their feet on seats where later other people's asses, possibly in light pants or skirts, will sit, it seems more the norm than the aberration and I am coming to terms with the fact that I might be the sole person who wants to chop the offending feet off. That being said, it is no longer even within the realm of tolerable for someone to keep his feet up on the seat when someone is sitting in the next seat. That means that dog-shit covered soles are in the personal space of another person. Not ok. Ever. Even if you irrevocably effed up your leg in 'Nam and need to keep it elevated at all times.

So, as I'm sure you will have guessed, Sir Thisdick kept his foot on the seat. And then put his second foot on the seat, near enough that if I moved my left arm at all, it would knock into the foot. Please imagine the acts I contemplated with my knitting needle. But I have been told by the finest lawyers I know that the, "but his dirty feet were touching me" defense is flimsy at best, so I keep my knitting needles free of the blood of mine enemies. This left me with a dilemma: how to best fight the war without getting arrested. It should be noted that in the aisle seat on Sir Thisdick's side was a nice man who was quiet and not bothering anyone and therefore was a collateral damage consideration. Also, I didn't want to do anything that was against my moral code: put my own dirty foot next to him or start having a loud cellphone conversation.

IMG_7025
Something I just happened to find in my quiver...
Originally uploaded by reallyct

So I did the only thing I could. I emptied the plastic bag full of knitting stuff into my hand bag, put the plastic bag over one of my feet, and put the plastic-bagged foot on the seat next to Sir Thisdick. Yes, you read that correctly. I delved deeply into the pot of crazy to prove a point no one but me gave a crap about. And you know what? It didn't work. I think he knew why I did it, but the magic moment where he said to himself, "maybe she's pissed because I'm behaving like I was brought up in a ditch and I should take my feet off the seat because it's what contributing members of society do and also it was slushy this morning which means my feet are ickier than usual; come to think of it, why am I such a clocksmucker that I put my feet on the seat in the first place?" never came.

So I had to get my retribution from an unexpected place. Like Ronald Reagan, Iran, and Iraq before me, I chose the enemy of my enemy. Standing in the vestibule was someone who might have been in the running for the Hall of Commuter D-Bags on any other day, but who on this day, was a blessing. I'm speaking of course of self-important businessman using train time to conduct Very Important Deals in a Very Loud Voice. Distracted as I was by Sir Thisdick, self-important businessman's bloviating was just so much white noise. Until I noticed how pissed off it made Sir Thisdick. He started occasionally blurting out, "too loud" at the businessman, huffing in his seat, pretending to sleep, waking up again and saying, audibly, "too loud!"

So there was a chink in Sir Thisdick's armor. From this moment I begged the gods of poor breeding to make the very loud conversation last forever (or at least until 125th street at which point I don't much care if the entire train car rips each other limb from limb). It lasted long enough that Sir Thisdick's train ride, a once comfortable and spread-out affair, was marred significantly. Praise Xenu.

Traffic Laws

The first time I sat behind the wheel of an automobile it was on the corner of 87th Street and 3rd Avenue. I was 17. I learned to drive on the upper east and west sides of Manhattan with a driver's ed teacher. I took my driving test in Queens. Until I was 21 years old, I had never driven on a highway.

This is what it's like to grow up in Manhattan.

But I liked driving and, after a summer driving around Europe, I was pretty decent at it. Highways? No problem. (Unless speeding is a problem.) Paris at rush hour? No problem. It's kind of like Manhattan driving but with circles. The one area where I had both little experience and little talent was suburban driving for the simple reason that I had never done it.

So I won't lie, I was a little apprehensive about being a daily suburban driver. But, like with many other things, after you do it enough, it becomes second nature.

Almost.

You see, there are rules I have never had to learn and so I might be committing a variety of ticketable infractions on a daily basis.

This morning, it snowed. Now my brain knows that during precipitation, you turn your lights on. However, my car has daytime running lights. Are those sufficient for inclement driving or do I need to turn on my night lights? Would I get pulled over and given a ticket for failure to do so? Could I plead ignorance of the differences between daytime and nightttime lights?

Similarly we have a number of unfamiliar stoplights in town that I am fairly certain I am not using correctly. The configuration is thus: one red light atop two sets of yellows and greens, one of the greens is a turn signal. While the red light is still illuminated the green turn signal light will also go on, signaling that cars in that specified lane can turn. Ok. Fine. Easy. However, what happens next is incredibly confusing. The red light will go out; the green turn light will go out; and the other green light will go on. Now I know this means that cars in the non-turning lane are now free to go. But does it mean a)that cars in the turning lane are also free to go provided there are no oncoming cars or b)cars in the turning lane may no longer go. I happen to believe that the latter explanation is stupid as it would allow cars in the turning lane a mere 10 seconds per light change to participate in forward movement, so I assume the former. And I don't know if I'm just biding my time until I get a moving violation (don't even get me started on the scenario when it's a right-turn signal at an intersection where cars CAN go right on red. What the hell is the point of a dedicated turn signal when cars in that lane can pretty much go WHENEVER there's an opening?)

The stoptionals I engage in on a daily basis? These I know are wrong, but my neighborhood is generally empty and I really don't feel compelled to come to a complete stop at EVERY corner when a slight 5 MPH pause is more than enough to ascertain if cars are coming in the other directions. But these others... I won't lie, I get a little stressed out.

So if the Greenwich and/or Port Chester cops are reading this (as I know they are huge fans), if you see me break the law in front of you, could you please cut me some slack and understand that even though I now have a CT driver's license, it should, in no way, indicate that I am fully conversant in your ways. After all, while there are many of your mores that elude me, I am fully aware that the speed limit in Manhattan is 35 MPH. And that's not nothing.

Becoming Part of the Problem

It's a slippery slope, and I fell hard.

It wasn't until I heard my voice and realized I wanted to modulate that I realized I had asked for sister-in-law's phone, had dialed brother's number, and was speaking to him. While on the train.

I can give you a sackful of rationalization, like I didn't anticipate running into sister-in-law and her beau, and that since they were spending the day in Manhattan it seemed a perfect idea to send them to eat at brother's restaurant, and since I was getting off the train at 125th and they at Grand Central, there wouldn't have been a moment to call on their behalf when we weren't on the train. But none of that makes up for the fact that I used a cellular telephone on the Metro North this morning.

And it was easy. I wanted to do something at that time and I didn't think about the consequences, as I'm sure most of my fellow passengers do every day. I'll only waste a small amount of breath when telling you that the call was short and I didn't scream into the receiver, but I know that hardly matters.

So I will do penance and cherubically ignore everyone else's conversations for the rest of the holiday season. I will not excoriate them here, nor will I secretly wish them ill. I will magnanimously assume that, like me, they inadvertently behaved in a manner that is rude, and that humans err - even those as prone to perfection as moi.

I cannot promise that this peace on earth and good will towards blah blah blah will last indefinitely - after all, the holidays are stressful - but I will be practicing my serenity until 2010.

Welcome to Post-Racial America; I Live There

I think the most culturally significant piece of media to come out of my childhood was Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. No matter your color, shape, or brand of religious superstition, if you lived in New York, this movie hit you in your face, your gut, and then stomped on you for good measure. (I'm sure if you lived other places this was a meaningful movie too, but hot damn if it wasn't like looking in a mirror and realizing just how fat and ugly you'd become as a New Yorker.) My brother still hasn't gotten over it, and he's nearing 30 (though this speaks volumes about what our parents considered appropriate material for the 8-12 crowd).

And we came from the most stereotypical pinko commie liberal family you could imagine. There are racial epithets I didn't even hear until I went to college - I was like the Skinner Box liberal kid. I remember in school there were countless discussions about race: "would you cross to the other side of the street if you saw a group of black teens heading your way? What if the teens were white?" and frankly, I didn't have much of an opinion either way, if the white boys from Collegiate were coming down the street towards me shouting, "I'm gonna cut a bitch," I would consider taking another route to my destination, and likewise couldn't see the logic in crossing to the other side of the street when faced with a group of black kids who, you know, just seemed to be walking.

But still, for all my pretensions of total blind equality, I never told a black teenager who was playing his music loudly in the subway to sit the eff down and shut the eff up. Why? Because the statistical possibility (or so I was told) that he would have a weapon he would then use on me was too high. The lesson was: don't tell the minority kids to act like civilized members of society, they might have guns and knives.

I officially call bullshit.

Yes, the Koch/Dinkins years were a trifle unsafe, but now that I have lived in a depressed neighborhood, I've learned something: it's not the extroverts who are packing. The loud kids on my corner were just loud. It was the quiet, stealthy, I've-got-business-to-conduct-here guys who were armed. And since they didn't mess with you, why on earth would you mess with them? Similarly, like with bullies of every stripe, chances are when you stand up, they stand down.

It's racist to assume that because a kid is black, or hispanic, or wearing a certain kind of outfit, that he's a potential violent offender who shouldn't be admonished for fear of bodily harm.

Fast forward to yesterday on the train home. A group of five kids sits down across from me. They are loud in the way teenagers can be (I recall several similar groups during my return commute). Generally, they settle down because it's a long train ride and no one can keep up that kind of prattle endlessly. Not these children, though. They were shouting something that sounded like "bunnyfuzz" over and over again, using their phones/mp3 players to audibly blast music, calling one another on their phones and speaking at the tops of their voices. I gave them two complete stops before I mounted my passive resistance.

I began to read aloud from my book. My theory on this is that if it's going to be noisy, the sound of my own voice is infinitely preferable to the sound of anyone else's (unless it's Tom Jones loudly seducing me). It was made better by the fact that I'm in the middle of some truly snotty essays by Umberto Eco. Nothing like a little lesson on the life and times of Hermes Trismegistus to enlighten a train.

My seatmates did not find this edifying. In fact they were astounded that I would have the gumption to confront them, albeit in a non-confrontational manner. I think they thought I was a little crazy. Which I think is good. But rather than get quieter, perhaps taking the hint, they got louder and crazier, until a train conductor came over to settle the matter.

Whom do you think he admonished?

Yes, the kids were black and I am white. But, lest it be forgotten, only some of us were being truly anti-social. I was reading aloud, it's true, but in my normal speaking voice, and only in response to the noise I was confronted with. The conductor made the additionally valid point that I had been sitting there first and that if they wanted to play music they could sit in the bar car or in the front of the train where there was lots of empty space. But these kids didn't like that. The conductor was being racist by calling them out over their intensely anti-social behavior. And me, I couldn't help myself. I had the biggest Cheshire Cat grin I could manage.

Why?

Because, dear children, I don't care that you're black, or Mongolian, or scientologist. I care that you're assholes. And you should start worrying that I'm carrying a knife or a gun and that anything you assholes do to upset me could set me off. I no longer want to behave in a racist fashion towards groups of minority teenagers, and ignoring, thereby tacitly approving, their inappropriate behavior because they might do me harm is racist. If the boys from Collegiate act that way, I'm sure as hell going to let them have it. Not letting you kids have it would be racist, and I'm a more enlightened person than that.

P.S. This is not the first time I've used this method of resistance. I was returning home on the subway last winter and a school group came in the train. Obviously this group was going to be loud - all school groups are. But the kid sitting next to me, obviously the Alpha, had some kind of form or questionnaire that he was loudly contemplating and then waving in front of people around him. When he finally had waved it enough in front of me, I started reading from Will Durant's The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage. This kid, maybe he was 11, immediately got the joke. He saw why I had done what I had done, and you know what he did? He played along. He started acting all interested, nodding and mm-hmming to what I was reading. After a page and a half I stopped and smiled at him and he said, "hey that's a real interesting book, what's it called?" His teacher offered him fifty bucks if he read the book and wrote a report on it; I scribbled out the name on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

What's the moral of the story: people are people; assholes are assholes.

And The Sign Said Long Haired Freaky People Need Not Apply

I'm a reader. I like reading a lot. I like reading so much that I look for new and interesting places to read things. Like on street corners. In unfamiliar places where direction and location are important. On the backs of potentially dangerous compounds. When handling unfamiliar electrics. I find that, more often than not, reading answers many of the questions I may have. I used to resent going to meetings at my old job because I was fairly certain the two-hour long grabassathon could have been replaced by a memo with bullet points. In short, if I can't figure it out through reading, it's a complicated matter.

This morning, I took the train from the Greenwich station. Mother-in-law has long lamented the reduction of parking spaces in the downtown Greenwich area, so I was prepared to be moderately inconvenienced while finding a spot. I drove to the outdoor lot and wedged myself into a space, noted the number, and proceeded to the parking kiosk to pay for parking.

"Please enter your space number (1-360)."
"86"
"Invalid number. Please try again."
"86"
Invalid number. Please try again."

86 is a number between 1 and 360. I know this for truth. I stopped. And reread the instructions. Step 1: select the language. OK, I select English. Step 2: Choose transaction. OK, I wish to buy a parking ticket for the day. Step 3: Enter space number. OK, I enter my space number.

"Invalid number. Please try again."

Now I try other numbers between 1 and 360. All of which the kiosk says are invalid.

I then see the train I was going to take whiz out of the station. So now I am taking the later train. I might as well take it from my station where I know how to park. I go back to my car, past all the signs that direct me to the pay kiosk. When I get to the car, I see a sign three aisles away (approximately 50 feet) that looks different from all the other signs. Curious, I walk towards it. THIS sign tells me that daily parking must be done in yellow striped spots, whereas permit parking is done in white striped spots. From the entrance to the lot to this sign, a person would travel approximately half the length of a football field. On no signpost closer to the entrance was this sentiment stated. Upon entering the lot, one wouldn't even KNOW there were yellow striped spots. The only thing one would see was signs pointing towards the pay station with an admonishment to remember the number of the space parked in.

Now, devoted partner has been trying to educate me on the ways of the suburbans. When I complain that street signs are missing, he tells me this is intentional because residents don't want non-residents driving down their blocks. I find this ridiculous, and would offer the idea of gated communities to these folks where only previously approved cars could even gain entry to the premises, but ok. Where I don't understand deliberate opacity is in municipal signage. While it is true that the municipality would derive greater income from hitting me with a parking ticket as opposed to merely collecting my parking fee, this sort of action would quickly turn me into the kind of vigilante a municipality like Greenwich would not appreciate. Much like parking garages in Manhattan state in big bold brightly colored signage at the entrance how much it will cost to leave your car, I would suggest that the nice folks at Town Hall at least CONSIDER the idea of posting parking rules at entrances - this way confusion can be averted. I'll give you a helpful example:

While looking for parking I entered the covered parking garage only to be greeted by a sign warning me that ONLY permit parking was permitted there. This sign was clearly displayed at the entrance so that a driver could see whether or not his vehicle was permitted from the start.

So it's not like you people are too stupid to understand the concept.

Fair Warning - A Multimedia Extravaganza

My parents would not let me have a walkman as a kid. Their argument was that by owning one, I would turn into a mindless zombie who walked down the street paying no attention to anything save the music thereby making myself vulnerable to muggers, rapists, and oncoming traffic. As a result, I was never really a walkman person. Sure I finally bought myself one, and later a discman, and later still an iPod, but I never got in the habit of wearing it around. Part of the problem has always been the earphones: the puppy ones of our youth fell off the top of my head, and the buds of today fall out of my ears, making me look like I have some kind of repetitive disorder as I shove them back into my aural canals while walking.

I know when to admit defeat. You win, commuter d-bags, and I lose. You do not seem to wilt beneath my death stare, and I am unwilling to fight each of you individually, so I have fished my half-broken really old (like 2005) iPod out of its grave and loaded it with a playlist I like to call Commute 1, to imply that there might be additional Commute playlists down the road.
But lest you think I am going down without a fight, let this be your fair warning. You see, I have stocked this playlist with a dizzing array of feel-good Yelena nostalgia tracks which means I know at least 95% of all lyrics. You'll never know if your particular inane cellphone conversation will be the one that pushes me over the edge and forces me to sing along with my iPod, but know it's coming. If you refuse to understand the difference between your office/living room and a commuter train, then I too must claim ignorance of the differences between my kitchen/bathroom (the locations of my fierce rock n roll concerts) and a commuter train. Where you babble on about what's for dinner, how nice it was to see your cousin, and how last weekend was, I shall serenade you with tales of love lost, social commentary, and the occasional instructional treatise on the proper ways to make with the intercourse. I like to think that, in the end, everyone wins. You continue to have your conversations with zero regard for the disinterest of those around you, and I get to have a sort of "Take Back The Night" approach to commuting.

So, I now give you an annotated version of playlist Commute 1 and, since it's Friday, I have attached links for your listening pleasure. Please feel free to turn up the volume really high if you are surrounded by people who annoy you like it's their job - I know I will! And please, additionally, feel free to mock this superwonderful list that is a pretty accurate sampling of the rest of the contents of my iPod - I am unashamed.

Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution - AC/DC - An important tract by a band whose radio airplay should not be limited to merely three songs. Pretty much every song by AC/DC makes me want to take my t-shirt off.

Janie's Got A Gun - Aerosmith - I can see how some might question this selection when I have, at my disposal, the entire Aerosmith catalog from which to choose, but this particular song made the cut due to the high note. You know the one Steven Tyler hits towards the end of, "they say when Janie was arrested they found him underneath a train" on the word "train?" Yeah, well I can hit that note. Not always well, and not all the time, but when I get it right, it can nearly break glass.

Ain't No Other Man - Christina Aguilera - For all of you who claim I am not down with the kids today and their music, you are absolutely correct. Yet I may have a soft spot for Christina Aguilera, and this particular song calls to mind R&B from my teenage years, most notably the excellent collaboration between Salt N Pepa and En Vogue on "Whatta Man."

Love Shack - B-52s - Few other songs in creation have the potential to encourage other people to get up and dance. I argue that, given the right circumstances, one could turn one's train car into a mobile party simply through the application of this song. It is my hope to prove this hypothesis (or put together some bizarre performance art troupe that terrorizes commuters by assembling in train cars to dance to Love Shack).

Born To Be My Baby - Bon Jovi - I think this was the selected Bon Jovi track because too many American Idol contestants have murdered the a-list songs. Also this is catchy with no bizarre b-section.

Holding Out For A Hero - Bonnie Tyler - Please, like this even needs an explanation. No one ever wants to go to karaoke with me, but this is most certainly the song I would like to sing. I couldn't find a good version of the video, so I give you the scene from its inclusion in that most significant entry into the Pantheon of American Cinema, Footloose. You may fast-forward to about 1:45 if you have no soul and do not wish to watch the lead up.

Gonna Make You Sweat - C&C Music Factory - I'm at a dance, I think it might be someone's Bar Mitzvah. This song is certainly playing and, given that you probably haven't heard it in at least a decade, it is well worth remembering just how good of a dance track this is. Not so good for my singing along since, well, there aren't really a lot of words, but I'm sure I can come up with something equally annoying.

Lovefool - The Cardigans - This is an experimental entry. Yes, I really like the song, but I don't know if it has the same power the others do. Perhaps it's more suited to a morning than an evening. I will keep you posted.

Crossroads - Cream - Lest you assume I can only enjoy the music of my youth, I give you the music of other people's youth. I briefly sang with some guys (albeit only in the rehearsal studio) after college, and they wanted me to sing this. As Paula Abdul would say, I made it my own and, to this day have a soft spot for it.

Jolene - Dolly Parton - It's not just that I'd like people to think I have diverse and interesting tastes, it's that, sometimes, I do. Say what you will about country music, and I have said my fair share of unflattering things, Dolly Parton friggin' rocks. This song, completely misunderstood by the two American Idol contestants (yeah, I watch the show religiously even as it never fails to piss me off) who could not even approach the proper level of anguish necessary to pull it off, is unfarkingcredible. Also, I am seriously considering tracking down this lilac pantsuit and wearing it every day. EVERY DAY.

Blem Blem - Edesio - This one needs an explanation, but it has a sister track later on, and the explanation for them both belongs with her.

Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley - Again, icons need no defense. Everyone loves Elvis and I'm sure everyone will love hearing me sing along with him.

More Than Words - Extreme - Much like I think the HBO series "Rome" was created with me in mind, I believe that Monster Ballads was compiled for my enjoyment. To not acknowledge that would be to spit upon the grand gesture. I think a lot of people who didn't come of age as 80s became 90s might not understand the true greatness of this ballad. So think of me as an ExtremeEvangelist. Also, you gotta love that they both have way better hair than I do.

Praise You - Fatboy Slim - Trippy, jumpy, feel-goody, but, with repetition, highly annoying. This might be one of the list that needs to be back-to-back-to-back played before is achieves the desired results.

Sweet Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac - I am going to try to ignore that, while looking for this video, I had to wade through many a video of a remake by a teenybopper I've never heard of, because it is important to acknowledge the crazy awesomeness and awesome craziness of Stevie Nicks. Even thinking about her makes me want to wear spiderweb tights and a peasant skirt.


Jesus He Knows Me - Genesis - I don't want to start sounding like Patrick Bateman, but I think Phil Collins needs a lot more credit. This song is unbelievable. It is so due for a good remake (but I can't think of any group capable of this level of intelligence). Twinned with Land of Confusion and I think history might look back at the work of Genesis as the seminal socio-political commentary of the 1980s. I know there's been a lot of joking on this list, but I might try to claim that Genesis was our generation's Bob Dylan. Also this song is really catchy and saying Jesus repeatedly in a confined space is always comedic.

Can't Help Falling In Love - Lick The Tins - Been in my head all week so I had to add it. Fortunately for you, after watching the end of Some Kind of Wonderful to find out when the song came in, I almost lost my breakfast and decided I would not inflict that on anyone else. Let it not be claimed that my nostalgia is not discerning. For those keeping score: Extreme - still awesome; Some Kind of Wonderful - horrifying to behold.


Cherish - Madonna - Arguably, Madonna's sexiest video. I yearn for that hairdo. YEARN! To the point where I'm considering calling my hairdresser right now and asking for it. Seriously. Do you think there's a product on the market that makes your hair look wet like that all day? Cause I'm guessing it doesn't look good at all when dry. Yeah, Madonna was super sexy in this. It was during the Like A Prayer years when she still could sport a bit of muffin top (albeit, thin person's muffin top, but now I don't think you could get her skin to move like that over pants), before the crazy set in. It's my favorite Madonna. I have to stop watching the video - every frame gets me closer to a personal hair don't.


Beds Are Burning - Midnight Oil - This is another song where it is inexplicable to me that a remake hasn't been done. How easy would it be to make this the new anthem for environmentalism? Anyway, the song rocks. Even if you have no idea what they're saying when they talk all Australian and stuff. Come to think of it, I'm pleased our criminal neighbors to the extreme south are represented twice on this list. It shows my aversion to their ridiculous accents does not prejudice me against their creative endeavors.

Vamos A La Playa - Miranda - After college, devoted partner and I spent 10 weeks in Europe. And this song was on in every country EVERY DAY. By the time we got to Italy (about week 3-4), I had to own it. I found it in some non-major town (possibly Urbino) in the discount rack on a compilation called Paradiso Beach. On it was Blem Blem which also got a lot or airtime that summer. The entire album is filled with the kind of amazingly bad dance music you hate to love. I love it. I had never seen the video before this morning, but for anyone who has traveled in Europe (or for my European friends) this is an excellent example of how poorly our southern European friends dance. I do not dance, but I dance better than this.

Push It - Salt N Pepa - Fast-forward to :30. Ooh baby baby, this song has a high nostalgia rating and is also offensive. Because it is about having sex. Non procreative sex. Get up on this! It also allows me to rap. And I leave it to your imaginations how successful that can be.

A Girl Like You - Tom Jones

Lift Me Up - Tom Jones
Sexbomb - Tom Jones - Tom Jones gets three entries because Tom Jones deserves anything Tom Jones wants. I convinced my college roommate Eric that we should call our wildly popular radio show Tom Jones's Sock and we started every broadcast with a Tom Jones song. I am very very upset that I couldn't find the full version of Lift Me Up - which is an incredible song - so consider tracking down that album. Viva Tom Jones! P.S. I am not joking about this. I love Tom Jones.

Leather - Tori Amos - Nothing says dangerously unstable better than a pissed off girl in a handmade knitted sweater coat singing Tori Amos to herself in the seat next to you. While it is true, I don't give off the specific Tori Amos whiff of crazy, I can do a pretty good version of her on this song. And it's a creepy song. The refrain ends with the line, "hand me my leather."


Scenario - A Tribe Called Quest - When you think of vintage rap, think Yelena. I am almost as good on this one as I am on Mama Says Knock You Out. Fear my skillz.

Pride - U2 - I know U2 was gunning for voice of a generation and I up and gave it to Genesis, but this is to show there are no hard feelings. Also the high note in the chorus won't break glass, but it's in my sweet spot so it will definitely be loud! As a side note, I fear my hair looks way more like Bono's in this video than it does the Extreme guys.


Add It Up - Violent Femmes - I will never forgive Ethan Hawke and the Reality Bites people for their cover of this song. Ethan Hawke is a mama's boy wimp no matter how much grungy facial hair you give him and was wholly unbelievable as a tortured Generation X-er. Please see Dead Poets Society and Swing Kids if you have doubts (OKAY - it's been brought to my attention that it's the other mama's boy who is in Swing Kids; please replace Swing Kids with Before Sunrise, Ethan Hawke is still a pussy). The song however, is perfect for scaring commuters. It uses the f-word and talks about guns. And I've known all the words to this one since I was way too young to understand them.


Ces Soirees La - Yannick - Ok, this video is proof positive that we live in a post-racial society. This song comes to us from yet another vacation that saw us hearing the same thing on French radio once per hour. This song is so cringe worthy, I have learned all the words. In French. Don't believe me? I DARE YOU to call me on the phone and ask for it by name. But here's the thing. I never saw the album nor this video, so only hearing the rap, I assumed it was done by a white French guy. Because it sounds about as authentic vis a vis American rap tradition as Vanilla Ice (whose work was considered for inclusion briefly). But I love this song. And it is super annoying. And I know all the words. Which I think makes this a total winner because not only am I rapping, I'm rapping in a foreign language.

Bust A Move - Young MC - And let's end on a high note. Only the most cynical of squares could not want to dance to this. It is toe-tapping at its best. In fact, turn it up, dance at your desk - it's Friday!

Hall Of Commuter D-Bags, Couples Edition

Reason #619 Why You Should Boycott the AARP 11/2
Originally uploaded by reallyct

I'd like to start out on a positive note: fellow commuters, I met your children this past week as they came by my house for candy. Defying all logic and expectation, they were the most well-mannered children I have encountered in some time. Without exception, each of them bid me a Happy Halloween, thanked me for my treats, and acquitted him of herself like a model citizen.

Which is what makes your (collective) commuter dbaggery so difficult to stomach. It's not that you don't know the difference between right and wrong, it's that you intentionally ignore it.

Take these two, definitely old enough to know better, people. They broke nearly every rule in the book from loudly talking on cellphones to using the seats as footrests.

I know, sometimes it's difficult: train, kitchen, kitchen train. They are so similar. And good for you, old dude, bucking convention by eschewing the traditional bagel/roll and coffee and instead choosing to pass your commute by gumming a hunk of chicken thigh on the bone, eating cottage cheese out of the container, and finishing it up by spooning what I'm pretty sure was hummus into your gullet. This way no innocent bystander could mistake your douchiness in assuming that a public train is merely an extension of your trough.

But you brought your wife, a charming woman who gabbed noisily on the phone and then spooned up her own cottage cheese. I'm pleased to see you came prepared for this eminently reasonable in-transit meal with a napkin you have artfully draped across your chest so that the masticated chicken bits don't mar your suit. I was less pleased to see you take that napkin, wipe your face with it, and then wad it up and put it ON THE SEAT IN FRONT OF YOU.

Quite frankly, I kind of hope you get herpes.

But lest you think I only hate old people, remember these two?

Dbag Marathon Edition, 11/1
Originally uploaded by reallyct

Love means never having to say you're sorry. Also: never having to move your ginormous bag from DSW, never having to consider a seat in a public train anything other than your footrest (shoes optional - remember, a train is very much like a living room, if your living room is on rails), and never having to modulate your voice as you have a moderately volatile conversation with your dad about whether or not you told Jody you'd be out in time to go out to dinner at Hibachi, and no, you didn't say you'd be there, you just said you'd be at the house in time for the Yankees game.

What made you two all the more entertaining was how perfectly suited you were to each other. Madam, when you got off the phone call so loud that people in the next car were privy to it, you proceeded to regale your fellah with the story of what had just transpired, just in case he had been temporarily deaf and hadn't heard your asinine conversation with your dad. And sir, ye who put your disgusting bare feet on the seat and snuggled with princess over there, you acted as though it was completely normal to have to listen to her play-by-play of a conversation you already sat through once. I applaud your love, and could only be more supportive of it were there some failsafe way to ensure you both become sterile RIGHT NOW. I'm thinking some form of radioactive ray.

Common Courtesy

There has been a dearth of entrants for the Hall of Commuter D-Bags recently, and I'm wondering if, after only two months, I have become inured to the rampant dbaggery I witness daily. The other consideration is that, while many of my fellow commuters fall into the not-well-brought-up category, I would like to reserve the Hall of Commuter D-Bags for those commuters who break the mold, who stand out. I wouldn't want to dilute their contributions.

However, let it not be thought that the only infractions worthy of mention are those which propel one from loutish to dbag. It seems that a lack of breeding is no longer the sole domain of those who cook methamphetamine in their trailers et al. And while I fear those who reside in the Hall of Commuter D-Bags might be beyond saving, the rest of you do have time to correct your behavior. Bring the class back to the upper middle class by following these simple rules:

• The guy who takes your ticket, notice how he's generally the same guy everyday? I shouldn't be the only one in the car who greets him. If you don't recognize the guy (or gal) who punches your ticket and feel uncomfortable being so familiar as to say, "hello, how are you?" try "thank you" on for size.
  
• You know those times you don't see the dog shit until you've already stepped in it (see also: gum, soda, toxic waste)? Even though you spend time rubbing it off on the curb, a fair bit of crap remains on your shoe. When you put your shoe on a seat, you know the place someone's ass will go, the crap on your shoe gets transferred to the seat. And EVEN IF IT DIDN'T, well-bred people do not put their feet on seats.
  
• Literacy is a big thing with me. I wish we had more literate people, so I'm quite pleased you are one of them. Furthermore, I like the idea of paying it forward. If you finish your paper on the train, I understand the desire to leave it so that a future passenger who doesn't have a paper might get a free read. However, there is a difference between stacking your paper on the seat and leaving it spread out over multiple seats in a manner that suggests a homeless person was sleeping there - not that many homeless people ride the New Haven line.
  
• Similarly, if you have so much stuff with you that you might seem homeless to the untrained eye, carrying around all your worldly possessions, please consider the overhead racks. I think they were designed for precisely the problem you are having.
  
• If the gods frown upon you and you end up having to give up your multiple seats so that I may sit in a single one of them, please remember the following scenarios that are worse than having to share: genocide, tsunami, alien invasion, herpes, Garth Brooks concert; and then please tailor your response (sighs, eye rolls, etc.) accordingly.
  
• If someone sneezes in your vicinity, it is customary to say something like "bless you." If you are one of those vocal atheists who can't use the word "bless" without seriously compromising your non-belief, try "gesundheit," which just means "to your health." Much like the greeting of the transit worker, I should not be the only person in the car to acknowledge sneezing people.
  
• I now realize that until we re-elect Giuliani (and I become his right-hand woman) there will be no fascistic response to public cellphone use. In the meantime, if this is a necessary evil, could we all attempt to use a slightly toned-down version of our crowded bar/sports arena voices when speaking on our cellphones in the train? Ideally, I only want to be able to understand 1/10th of what you're saying.
  

It's Like the Hall of Tomorrowland, but Different

The Five Seater - A Rare Sighting, 10/8
Originally uploaded by reallyct

Yes, the time has come to acknowledge the wonderful people who make commuting, nay living, in the 21st century such a delight. We, the wage slaves, salute you for reminding us just how much we wish we had rich uncles so that we would never come across your like again.

Having started my journey to shaming those who do not behave as etiquette would desire in a surreptitious manner, I am pleased to report that I have blossomed into a shameless snapper of pictures, often with flash, of those who would treat a public train like a private rumpus room. I read somewhere recently that while we all think our dirty looks are withering and accomplish something, those on the receiving end are generally able to ignore our stares. The person recommended using our mouth holes to convey dissatisfaction, but I am using my pin hole.

So, my fellow commuters, you are on alert. If, as the initial members of the Hall of Commuter Dbags, you choose to ostentatiously occupy multiple seats in a crowded train or you decide that rush hour was just the time to talk to your best friend about the best places to get your lady parts waxed, I will be photographing you and adding you to this delightful flickr set.

Readers, I will attempt to remind you when it is updated, but the flickr set can now be found on the sidebar, and I urge you to do your part for civilization, even in these its waning days, by openly and loudly mocking and disseminating the shots of these Commuter Dbags.