Hollywood Vs. The neighborhood
So, like most educated white males I know, I spend a lot of my free time comming into contact with fucking lunatics and trying to understand where they are comming from. Last night after a thrilling poker game, where our humble hero and future leader of the free world (moi) was taken for 20$, (but got his bacon cheeseburger for only 3$ because no one had change) I’m on the downtown 1-9 train from the BX all the way to the deuce (22 stops, son) with one of my peoples.
Having an intimate knowledge of the transit system and not having drank two 40’s, my associate points out that by switching to the 2-3 train (which was across the platform) we can save time and arrive at the same destination quicker. (*it’s ideas like this that will help our country get its perverbial groove back)
So as we transfer at 96th street to the downtown 2, a tall homeless looking (you can never be too sure these days, what with it being cool to smell bad and yell horrible ideas at the top of your lungs. yes, columbia/nyu kids this means you) man wearing a backpack not made by one of the major backpack providers of my youth (eastpack, jansport, northface, ll bean) and looking as though he is going to begin explaining his plight in hopes of getting some $$$. Instead, he politely excuses himself as he makes his way to one end of the car, where my associate and I were standing, cleared his throat and began…
"We are in the neighborhood, and it is not hollywood…" and he kinda kept going on like this for a while, talking about how if you don’t want to be a good neighbor, you should move out of the neighborhood… and he made reference to 9/11, plungers, 41 shots, the war in Iraq and other "fun-filled" moments in RAH (recent american history, my patent is pending on this acronymn).. but he kept comming back to this hollywood vs. the neighborhood thing (he would tap his fingers loudly on the ceiling of the car whenever he came back to this main point) and this went on all the way from 96th-72nd street without him even asking for money. I’m not sure what everone else on the trains reaction to this was, most likely they were confused, not being english speakers themselves, but I was feeling him, it was like he had a vague idea of the topics he was going to cover, but was freestyling the order. To call his poem/speech disorganized would not be doing it justice. And I would be lying if I didn’t point out that I couldn’t make eye-contact with him or even really look-up without starting to giggle. Anyway, he kept building up steam, and when my associate and I exited the train and descended into the bowels of time square for the 7, my man with the non-brand-name backpack was still going very strong, with no sign of stopping, or asking for money. Which is crazy.
So I’m just trying to figure out like, what his motivations and goals were in doing that. He seemed lucid enough to be aware of RAH (thats my patent-pending acronymn, recent american history, again) and formulate semi-poeticly vague sentiments regarding them. I feel like if anyone wanted to see some sort of interesting reality-show-like experience, they should ride the trains late at night. and I would say that the 1-2-3-9 are pretty civilived as far as train lines go, at least the 1-9 is(maybe they got rid of the 9, or are planning on it?). the real fun starts at 4am on the G-train.
*another fun fact about the world
I have another patent-pending acronymn out there, LPE or Least Possible Effort, aka what I’m putting forth in life.
