Life Imitating This American Life (or Quit It, Ira Glass, You're Freaking Me Out)

It's Friday, October 5th around 10pm.  My chosen listening for my commute to and from work is the recent podcast of This American Life, "Send a Message."

The opener describes the bizarre coincidence of Kepler's translations of Galileo's coded messages.

In a nutshell, as host Ira Glass describes, "[Here was] a guy ... [Galileo, who] would send a message that he probably hopes will never be decoded. And then it gets decoded, but incorrectly. And then the wrong message turns out to be right not once but two times."

(For details, you're just going to have to listen to the episode, or read the transcript.... it is too weird and arcane to get into here.)

The next story, the show's Act One -- The Motherhood of the Travelling Pants, delved into weirder synchronicities, as a family recounts its generations-old tradition of sending either a pair of little-boy pants or a little-girl dress to the next expectant mother. And, with a statistically brain-breaking level of accuracy, the sender (usually the last person who bore a child) correctly predicts the sex of the newborn.

This is put to an astonishing test when one prior mother can't decide which to send -- so she sends both the dress and the pants to the next mother. And the new mother has... wait for it... fraternal twins!!

So here it is, 10pm and I'm  on my way home after having stayed late at the office to put the finishing touches on my solo show. And I am up to the next segment, Act Two -- Message in a Bottle -- told by stand-up comic and musician Dave Hill -- which, as one would expect from a stand-up, contains its share of playful crudity.

He begins bemoaning the current edge-lessness of our recently sanitized  city:

I understand that there was a time in New York when you could walk down the street, and just crack open a beer, and just suck it down, and throw the bottle on the ground. [LAUGHTER] And you might get, like, a little raped, or whatever. [LAUGHTER] But it didn't matter. It was like a give and take. You took the good with the bad. And everyone was fine with it. And now you can't really get away with any of that stuff. But you can get a really nice brunch at a lot of places. Just go with your friends, free refills on mimosas. It's great for everybody.

And this is true. As a native of this town, I remember all too well the crack dealers prowling the corners of Lafayette and Bond (on my way to do stand-up, myself, at the First Amendment Comedy Club), and I remember vaulting over mats of sleeping homeless on my way to class at NYU.

And I have seen my share of exposed body parts and those parts' various secretions. 

But I have never had an experience quite like what followed that evening on the downtown B train.

So, as I am listening to this segment, where Mr. Hill describes putting a rather harmless piece of refuse on top of  one of those large black garbage bins that can be found at the edges of many subway platforms. This apparently disturbs a homeless guy sleeping near the bin:

And he's like this sleeping giant, just like, [GROWLING SOUNDS]. And he gets up. And his bones are creaking. And his hair is, like, all crazy all over the place. And he looks at me. And he just starts yelling. And he's like, back up! Back up! 

Hill fails to back up.

At that moment, a B train pulls in. Now, I always get on at the last door of the last car because I need the rear exit of my stop. And I usually sit in one of the forward-facing window seats of the back-most cluster of the B's R68 cars.

But there'ss a homeless guy huddled up in the backward-facing seat of the rearmost cluster, so I move to the next cluster up and sit facing backwards (which I usually never do on an empty car since I prefer to face forwards).

So I am sitting there, directly behind the homeless guy, spacing out a little with my eyes gazing towards the floor, and Dave Hill continues on:

And then he goes, back up or I'll throw this bottle of piss on you! And then from out of nowhere, like a ninja, all of a sudden he's got this Gatorade bottle.  And it's a huge Gatorade bottle. ... Only, instead of being full of delicious and refreshing Gatorade, it's full of pee, of urine.

And at the very moment Hill says this:

And before he even finishes his sentence, he cocks his arm back and just launches it at me. ... His aim was incredible. It was just coming right at me. The first blow nails me right in the head.

I begin to notice some liquid travelling down the center of the car towards me.

Now, liquid in a subway car is not that big a deal. People still drink all kinds of beverages (even though you are not supposed to have open containers anymore) and they slop them cavalierly whenever and wherever they please.

But this liquid is special. It isn't spilled-soda liquid -- a single, localized hit -- this liquid keeps on coming. I trace my eyes along the widening rivulet, following it towards the back of the car and I see ... wait for it... a full Bethesda Fountain emerging from the lap of the homeless guy. It is arcing its perfect parabola towards the center of the car.

Now, as I mentioned, I have seen a lot of stuff -- but I have never seen this -- a full-blown, unrepentant micturition right into the center of a subway car.

It takes me at least 20 seconds to wrap my mind around what I'm seeing, as Hill goes on:

It's going down my back and down my jacket. And it's soaking my pants. It soaks through my pants, soaks my underwear. He had effectively wet my pants with his pee.

And I'm realizing, "Hey this is a crazy-assed coincidence!" And then I think, "Hey maybe I should take a picture of this..." But he's been at it for at least 30 seconds, so I figure it's probably all over and I continue to listen to the podcast.

Because if you figure if your opponent's first move in a confrontation is to just drench you in his own pee, like, what's next? At the very least, he's got a couple more bottles of pee back there, you figure.

The pee fountain continues full force, and finally I decide that yes I will photograph this insane event, but the moment I get my phone out the car stops and the people sitting in front of me get up and block the last few moments of the geyser.

So it's all over.

I move to the next backward facing seat hoping get a good shot of the urine starburst on the floor and its watery trail through the car -- which is shown here -- as well as the homeless guy himself, who huddled back to sleep the moment he was done.

And in a testament to the fact that neither New York nor New Yorkers have lost our edge, another passenger continued to sit blithely just a few feet from the homeless guy all through the urination episode (see his feet at the right of the photo). 

Yes, Dave, this motherf*cking town is back!!

This is the Way the World Ends...

... Not with a bang, but with budget cuts.

I've lived in New York City for a long time.

And -- though I've seen it through some pretty dark days -- when it comes to the subway, I'm a True Believer.

Even through the days of graffiti-riddled, screeching cars of the 70s, the stalls, break-downs and surprise reroutings of the 80s, and let's not forget the days of waiting forever on a freezing outdoor platform, with no signs or announcements, only to learn -- by asking the guy in the token booth -- that no train was coming ... through all of that I always felt New York had -- or could have -- the best subway system in the world.

For a century it has tied the diverse neighborhoods of the city together. And, let's face it, when it's working properly, the subway really is the fastest way to get around.

And over this past decade, the MTA has really stepped up.

Schedules have been available, and many trains have actually managed to stick to them. When service is diverted, there have been signs, announcements -- paper and electronic -- even shuttle buses that actually appear within five minutes!

Yes, for a brief shining moment, we have really had The Greatest Subway System in the World.

And now we have budget cuts.

What does that mean? Fewer people running the trains, managing stations, hanging signs. And those that remain? Barely competent -- if we're lucky. And surly on top of it, because the system is screwing them too.

Some signs of the MTApocalypse?

A downtown V pulls into 42nd Street in the middle of the day, pauses for the requisite 30 seconds -- and then pulls out again! Doors don't open; no one gets on or off the train.

I and a bunch of other passengers run to the conductor at the next stop. He tells us to screw ourselves.

Trains are rerouted for trackwork, but there are no signs, no announcements on the platform. If we're lucky there will be one sign posted -- but on a wall on the other side of the turnstiles -- like people stop to look at the walls when they're running for a train.

A Manhattan-bound Q at DeKalb pulls in on the local track. There are no signs on the platform, of course. I run to the motorman and ask if all trains are rerouted. "Yes," he says -- just as the conductor, who never once poked his head out of the window to check the platform, closes the doors.

The motorman laughs at me and pulls out of the station.

An uptown C pauses at each station for nearly a minute after the doors have closed, while the signal is green.

I peer into the engineer's booth -- she is reading a paperback! So I bang on her door. "Green means go!" I bark.

"Shut up!" she yells back.

A lovely New York moment to amuse the tourists.

Well, there was one bright spot in all of this.

A few weeks ago on my way to work, an expensive bracelet fell into the tracks at Times Square.

An orange vest near the Shuttle platform told me to "let the booth know." I dashed to the booth and gave the attendant a description of the item and location and ran back to the platform -- hoping against hope that someone would arrive quickly.

Minutes later, I saw two track workers walking near where the bracelet fell. I ran up to them and asked if they had been sent to help.

They had no idea what I was talking about (of course). But they were extremely kind and got the bracelet for me anyway.

And what about the person(s) dispatched to help me?

They are probably just getting there now.....

Men Behaving Badly

Actually, I think many women behave worse.

But we are not the ones who sit with our legs spread as far apart as possible on the subway.

And I've given a few spreadeagled guys a hard time ("I'm sure your balls are huge, but do I really have to smell them??" Giggles from fellow passengers are usually enough to shame the guy into exercising his noodley inner-thighs).

But today, the problem wasn't a leg-spreader; it was a seat-stealer.

I had to take my cat to the vet this frigid morning. So I carried her in a bulky Sherpa shoulder bag, held close to my body -- a sweater around the cat inside, and a blanket draped over the outside.

And I had a heavy knapsack of stuff for the vet on my back.

So there I am, on the DeKalb platform, train pulling in.

I hobble onto the moderately crowded Q and head towards the remaining empty seat.

About two feet from my Formica Valhalla, a smirking twentysomething shoots me a look and dives into the seat.

I sidle up to the pole in front of him, positioning my foot near his, figuring a good jolt would give me the opportunity to crush his metatarsals.

But no -- too childish, I decide (actually, the train operator didn't drive like a cabbie, for a change... so no convenient jolts).

So I'm standing there wrestling with myself, wishing I'd said something when he first sat down.

But now that the moment is gone, what do I do? Seek petty, childish, eminently satisfying passive-aggressive revenge?

I glower down at him for the full seven minutes across the Manhattan Bridge. He notices this at first, but sniffs a little scoff of victory and feigns sleep behind his tinted glasses.

Canal Street comes and the person sitting next to him gets up.

I plop down next to him, cat carrier on my lap, and turn my head to face him full-on.

"You got a problem?" he sneers.

"Yeah." I sneer back, but still can't bring myself to speak directly.

All the way to Union Square, I turn the words over in my mind. I'm not going to be passive, I decide. He put me through discomfort, and I'll return the favor. And that will be that.

Finally, as we pull into 14th Street, I get up, face him, and say:

"You knew very well I needed this seat more than you did. But you went and plopped your fat, ugly, lazy ass in it anyway." (He actually wasn't fat, but that's always a useful ephithet -- even for men.)

"But what goes around comes around. And karma is a bitch, and so am I. And with the way you act, I won't be the last bitch who bitches at you. And you'll deserve every bitchy word, you selfish, pathetic douchebag."

I head towards the open door, but turn back one last time: "And Merry Christmas."

He scoffs again, turning to the woman sitting next to him as an ally against the crazy bitch yelling at him.

But she's seen the whole thing and turns away with a little scoff of her own.

And I scoff too ... and, finally, step off.

En Route to Egypt

So far, so good.

As I write this, I figure we are somewhere south of Nova Scotia. The guy in front of me has decided to lay back,making it difficult to see the screen, much less type. And they are showing The Nanny Diaries on the monitors, such as they are.

Dinner was actually very good.

I had the beef, which was some kind of seasoned patty, with rice and surprisingly fresh veggies, and the usual accompaniments: cheese with crackers, juice, water, a roll with butter and salad, as well as custard and tea for dessert.

Egypt Air isn’t long on amenities (at least not for us poor slobs in coach), but the food is prett good!

As usual, I left my apartment later than I’d planned, missed a train, then the next arriving Air Train was taken out of service. So I didn’t arrive until 4:45pm for my 6:30pm flight. They tell you to check in three hours ahead of time, but it turns out two hours was enough.

Fortunately, there was hardly a line to check in, so I got my boarding pass and headed off to security, wolfing down my lunch and a protein drink – because apparently they don’t let you take any beverages past the security checkpoint.

And they won’t let you wear any kind of footwear at all through the metal detector. I’d put my sneakers on the belt and put on a pair of rubber thong slippers. But the guard told me to put those on the belt, too!!

Then the guard started grabbing my stuff as I was unloading it into the bins and I told him to take it easy. Big mistake!

He decided to go through my whole knapsack – five pockets, mainly containing my personal toiletries. He emptied out over $200 worth of lotions, perfumes, etc. examing each one trying to figure out what some of this girl stuff was, all the time going, “I’m trying to help you, ma’am.”

Petty dictator.

Then, after he pawed his blue rubber gloves through my things, he brought over a ziplock bag and, with deadpan glee, told me I could take whatever could fit in the bag, figuring I’d probably have to leave something.

But he underestimated my feminine packing powers. It all fit and I swept my bag away from his prurient gaze.

So.

Here I am. Happily flying along. The many children have finally stopped crying and they’ve turned off the cabin lights.

My seat-mate, a lovely woman coincidentally named Ranya, has plugged into The Nanny Diaries. Eek.

I think I’ll watch an episode of House.