Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Distraction Plateau

In the past I've listed some various distractions some of us numb-assed bus jockeys engage in. My two main time killing distractions outside of scribbling this drivel are; Attempting to become a Spanish speaking poker champion.

I listen to Spanish instruction MP3s (18 hours worth) on my iPod. I started back in March of this year, but feel I can't progress. I need an email or AIM buddy that speaks Spanish so I can write back and forth. I grew up in southern California, about an hour north of the Mexican border, so the language has always been in my ears.

The card shark distraction is me playing Phil Hellmuth at Texas Hold-em and never winning, Maybe if Phil spoke Spanish while playing I'd have both figured out.

Buena seurte amigos y buenos noches. Es muy tarde.

Monday, September 29, 2008

"Thank you Driver, I like a good long bus ride"


Filing down the narrow cattle chute to board the ACF, the driver tells the happy man in front of me "This bus is the local, and it"ll take you an extra hour and a half. The bus next to us will save you all that extra time".

The happy grinning man tells the driver "I enjoy a good long bus ride", and he gleefully boards the bus. I think I need to keep my eye on this freak.

Maybe he knows something? Maybe he's got it all figured out. I ascertain he's an idiot.

The crazy thing is I see this same situation occur at least two or three times a week. With different people of course. Do they not believe the Driver? Or are people just that beat down that they just don't give a rat's ass?

Suburbia is the Daily Obstacle


Live in the Rural and work in the Urban. For me it's the perfect balance. You have the solitude, quiet and wide open space during your time. While at the job you have the world of the cosmopolitan at your fingertips, the accelerated pace stimulates when you need to be productive. The much needed exhale of the slow rural world is welcomed as punctuation at the end and beginning of each day.

Suburbia, that endless blandness of the static in-betweeness is the unfortunate divider of my two worlds of contrast. Town after town that string together a blur of nationally recognized anchored brands for the creature of status quo. Wal-Mart, Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, Olive Garden and punctuated with a central shrine of commerce, "The Mall". More reconfigured comforting, branded sameness.

The perfect equation would be a metropolitan vibrant city, directly connected to the rural expanse to go home to. If only there was a way to subtract the suburban from the equation.

The burbs are the obstacle I navigate through begrudgingly daily.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Stopped for a Piss.

The two beer chugging Frat boys complained to the ACF Driver that the bus's toilet door is locked. So we pull over at a Diner so they can piss. Now I'm pissed.

Insider Trading Frat Boy intell.

Two wall street entry level dudes sitting behind me. I hear every detail of their 1st tier finance world. They are going back to Scranton University's homecoming. They are slamming beers, talking ab out their new big city lives.

One of them works at AXA insurance and is bragging about how he was just given stock options in the company a few months ago at 18 bucks, and since the AIG crash AXA is now worth 38 a share being the jackal, and getting all AIG's business.

They are analyzing the drinking costs of NYC vs. Scranton. They both determine one night of drinking in NYC equates to one week of drinking in Scranton. But they would never trade back. The quality of going out drinking in NYC far surpasses Scranton, PA boozing any day.

Amazingly astute observations.

"Not A Very Good Idea"


Most people who ride the ACF live far from NYC so that they can afford a larger living domicile. Maybe most are prone to claustrophobia of the average NYC apartment.

It's a rainy Friday morning ride, all the windows are fogged up, You only see traces of head and taillight streaks zipping past the windows like white and red tracer bullets. The guy in front of me keeps wiping a small port hole of clarity with his jacket sleeve. He must see out to the thing he sees everyday, I guess he is the watchman that makes sure nothing has changed.

The NY Times wrote that the nation's top economic academics from Harvard, Yale, MIT, and the University of Chicago all agreed "It's not a very good idea" referring to the 700 billion dollar bailout scheme the Treasury dept. has cooked up. They all say the proposed plan will do far more damage than good.

Rolling blind at 70+ mph in a tin trailer trash mobile home with a diesel engine twice a day is "not a very good idea".It's the price all us ACF warriors pay. Curious to see how the 700 billion will affect us and at what cost.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Get The F*ck Outta Here!

For the past 40 minutes the guy behind me has said "Get the f*uck outta here" at least every 15 seconds. He has created an entire language with just this one phrase. He has every emotion covered. He is the Maestro of "Get the f*ck outta here".

I am mesmerized by the harsh cadence of his only phrase. I've turned my iPod off to not miss a one. It's so simple, direct and un-nuanced, I'm oddly envious.

Unabashed groveling to please click the little text ads to your right of this post.
Thank you so very much.

Be_are_why

Es Masculino Y Feminino?


Sometimes you just don't know.
You see a huge heap of blanketed humanity piled in a bus seat and wonder. Is that a Dude or a Chick? Chico vs. Chica no mas guapa or guapo.

Now I finally understand why some languages assign gender to inanimate objects. A door does not have a gender that I'm aware of in my mono-languaged world but Spanish knows better. La peurta is feminino, the door is female.

I'm still left with the unanswered question of: what gender is the heaving blanketed heap across the aisle from me?

Am I looking into a crystal ball? Will that be my future evolution of a numb-assed, bus riding commuter?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ready. Set. Go!


Ok guys we're here waiting to board our beloved Chariot of the perpetual flaming anus. Let's really make this one count, let's dig down deep and find that extra little bit. We need to give a 110% tonight. And that means you to, hunched over fish-face dude, no phoning this one in.

Everyone with me? OK. Hands in the middle, and sound off like ya gotta pair this time.

Ready Set. KICK 60 MILES OF ROUTE 80'S ASS!

Yeah, you guys got the eye of the tiger, Now climb aboard that bouncy-assed whore and let's roll!

"Panthers Are Just Black Leopards".


On last night's zombie trip I sat across the aisle from a very drunk college kid. He passed out before we even started rolling, not very noteworthy.

About 45 minutes into the trip he jumps up wide awake and starts yelling something at me. I take off my headphones, but it's kinda fun watching him yell and not hearing him. He frantically asks me "have we passed the Delaware Water Gap stop!" I tell him "no we're still in Jersey". He calms down and I tell him we're almost at Panther Valley. (my stop).

Right before he nods back off he proclaims to me "panthers are just black leopards". That's the end of our exchange.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Something Sour & Unsavory


Tawdry, soiled, and public, is the overall skin-crawly feeling to riding the Ass Chariot of Fire. Yes you constantly rationalize, but each time your fingernails scrap along the rigid plastic armrest you know dark crusty shavings of all before you are now at home under your index finger and maybe a few more digits.

Ten or fifteen minutes pass and that piece of annoying bit of skin that is flapping on your chapped lower lip finally gets the best of you. You yank it with proud vigor and instantly remember the dark scrungy armrest shavings that you now have just licked your lip cuz the premature chapped lip skin you yanked is now bleeding a tiny bit. You now have every numb-assed slob's hands co-mingling in your bloodstream.

You are now assimilated and one with the ACF Borg. Part vampire, part commuter Zombie.
I am now one of them. Hell is full and the un-dead commuters ride back and forth. Nothing can kill us. We just whine, whinge and get annoyed but never stop riding.

Radio Station in the Swamp


Every morning we pass over multiple bridges just east of Newark. An odd sight that always intrigues me, a radio station and it's transmitter sits on a pier in the middle of one of the swamps. I never quite catch what the old neon red call letters say, but I know it's an AM station. I think about the people that work there, what must it be like to work in this glamorous media outlet in the middle of a jersey swamp?

Tomorrow I'll make a point of finding out the radio station's call letters. My guess is that it's either a oldies station or a creepy bitter talk radio format.

I found out what the station is. It's WNJR and it broadcasts only in portuguese, Radio Portugal 1430 on your AM dial.

I have been corrected by a co-worker it really is WMCA I stand corrected.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Port Authority Gets Cultured. And Moles The Size of Small Toes.


Waiting in line at Port Auth. to climb aboard the Ass Chariot in a Patron and Beer fuzziness. (Stopped in at Port 41) My ears catch something new, a Bach concerto is being pumped through the PA system. All the way down in the bottom basement pit of the skankyest of skanky. J.S. Bach is kicking out the jams. I'm waiting for Alex and his Clockwork Orange crew to appear and inflict a bit of the old ultra-violence.

Board the bus and have a seat, in walks Sam Ashe Dude, he is stunning, he struts up the aisle wearing a NY Rangers hockey jersey and plaid shorts. The dude is the man, no one else could pull this look off with such cavalier bravado as Sam Ashe Dude. He sits 3 rows in front of me and then I see them. Many moles the size of baby toes, they wiggle when he walks.

So much man, So much self confidence. He cracks open a Coors tall-boy and enjoys the ride home.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Friday Night Ride Home Driver Lost.



A very old feeble driver I've never seen is at the helm of the final ACF of the week. He does not take the usual going home route, no panic sometimes the other route through Newark is quicker.

Soon as we are on the Turnpike he pulls off in the emergency lane, turns on all the interior lights and asks us 55 numb-asses "how do you get to route 80?" SO a little woman with a thick Jamaican accent is navigating.

We are not on the regular route but we're going the right direction. For now.

"...oooh that smell, can't ya smell that smell?"


The snoring green hoodie wearing walrus sitting in front of me is jolted out of his sonic slumber. He bellows in a volume I think louder than he expected "oooh that smell, can't ya smell that smell?" Word for word he correctly quotes the Lynrd Skynrd classic.

Every morning this week the driver of the #553 Martz Trailways ACF flys down the steep downhill of Route 280 through all the Oranges. The new driver with the sloppy tie has the tach pinned, tranny screaming like a rice-burner drifter, and then stomps on the breaks and almost does a stoppie. Now is when "that smell" hits all 55 ACF riders simultaneously. It's the metal on metal smell of brakes strained to their maximum. The smell is strong and strange to most, and then is gone almost as quick as it happened.

The green hooded walrus is back to full chainsaw effect snoring.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Dark and Dark.

It's getting to be the most discouraging part of the year. I leave and it's dark and darkness drags me back home. No more summertime 9pm+ sunsets. It may as well be like going through the Lincoln Tunnel from NYC the entire 50 miles home.

In a car you have the benefit of looking forward seeing the signs on the hwy tick off signaling your getting closer to your destination. On the ACF if you sit beyond the first three rows, you can only look 90 degrees out one side, the bus's headlights don't illuminate the signs from this vantage point so it's as if you are staring out sideways into the darkness.

The only semi-interesting view is looking directly down out the window at passing cars. I'm always hoping to see something exciting, like a crazy Penthouse Forum story roll past, but it never does.

If you are ever driving westbound on route 80 through NJ, and you see a white and red Martz bus between 7:05pm & 8:20pm give all us ACF riders something to talk and write about.

Isn't It Ironic? No it is not!




Is it ironic that I'm seated next to the bucket of sloshing blue liquid that the Martz Bus Company defines as a toilet?

No.

It was the best seat available. It is a punishing coincidence that my personal number 2 (dump) schedule is out of wack. Was not able to let go of the usual pre-ACF deposit.

Back to irony. Why do we fall for and embrace this cheap-assed device? I'm the first to admit my addiction to both irony and satire. I'll take on satire another day, the other crutch to hide from reality or the possibility of original thought.

I just need to hang on to my shit until I get to the comfort of the handicapped stall at the gym's bathroom. The noise of people getting fit will camouflage my ability to let it all out. I predict 50 minutes until blast off.

Not many things can be more direct, or more real than having to take a shit. An absolute lack of irony exists in my current predicament. Only the rising tide of nature ticking away. To have to use the sloshing bucket of a toilet on the bus or hanging on for comfort, cleanliness and defecation harmony and bliss.

(note: below another pet peeve pointed out to me by a subway haircut aficionado. The cheezy device of using dictionary definitions in driving home a point.)

i·ro·ny1 /ˈaɪrÉ™ni, ˈaɪər-/ [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-] –noun, plural -nies.

1.the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.

2.Literature. a.a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.

I just need to crap. Now.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Tried Something New. 5 Hour Energy.


Who new what powers of hyper kinetic jitteriness could be packed into a 2oz bottle.

This was exactly the wrong thing to have 2 hours before the nightly ACF ride. After the late night last night I decided I needed a pick-me-up to make it through the last few hours of work. My wife is a Red Bull junkie and I hate that metallic taste, so I rolled the dice and gambled on that wee innocent looking bottle.

That racy, itchy feeling of all that niacin buzzing through me. Not the right recipe for a soothing chariot ride home.

The wacky back story to this legal crystal meth in a bottle is that; the guy I bought my KTM dirt bike from is a senior VP for the company that makes the stuff, it's located 10 miles from my house in NJ. I've gone on a few rides with him an he's always handing the stuff out, but I never tried it.

Twitching and tweaking the whole ride home.

In Search of Distractions.

It's a constant hunt to find distractions to pass the time while riding the ACF. Below is a list of activities me and my numb-assed bus riding compadres participate in during our rolling incarceration.

-reading books/magazines
-iPod listening
-DVD watching
-working on laptops
-schooling Phil Hellmuth in texas hold-em
-playing mindless games on your phone
-paying bills
-asking "where are we?" and "is this my stop?"
-beating Kasparov at chess
-staring at your pay check willing it to grow
-writing the next rap hit
-knitting
-administering and receiving hickeys
-putting on make-up
-eating unidentifiable things from tupperware.
-drinking beer from tall cans
-mumbling religious prayers
-scratching your head for 15 minute increments.
-playing hand held gaming devices
-snoring
-yelling at others for talking on their phone
-drawing pictures of the other riders.
-text messaging
-crying

And writing about it all on your phone.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Last Bus From Port Authority & Dive Bar Discovery.



Stayed a little late at work tonight and had plans on catching the 9pm bus. My plans went a wry when the subway decided to sit in the tunnel between stops for over 45 minutes. Missed the 9pm ACF by 3 minutes. Now I get to ride the 11pm bus, the last bus. Standing in line now half hour before it leaves, it's packed.

To kill the extra 2 hours I had a burger at film cafe on 9th ave, it never let's you down. Then I discovered a hidden nugget from the seedy past of NYC. Port 41 an incredibly skanky bar on the forgotten block of 41st street between 8th & 9th aves. The college aged girl bartenders wear the prescribed hot pants and bikini tops. They have 16oz PBRs in a can. This place is a hidden piece of schmootz that gets stuck in the corner that never gets swept. The disneyification of Times Square never found this place. Port 41 is right outside the exit where all the buses snake their way into the Lincoln Tunnel. It's an amazingly sad and pathetic location, not one trace of ironic hipster cool. I may have fallen in love with this place. The clientele is a mixed plate of every Union flavor and hardened going nowhere mid-level office drone. The uber-uncool crowd. They chat with me as if I had my name on the stool, sports, the insanity of the tanking market. What's truly great is that every Bukowski character that spoke with me had all the answers. If these guys were in control the Yankees and the Mets would win the world series every year, and the market would be in Gordon Gecko shape.

Port 41 took me back to my 10+ years of working in various factories during my 20's, for the exact length of time it took to drink 2 PBRs.

I hope it survives.

Slumped Over Smugness.


The past 3 morning trips on the ACF I have been seated directly behind him. His free promotional windbreaker hood pulled over his always correct head of smugness. The rear view of that crinkled hood makes me automatically agitated. His seat reclined back as far as possible, my knees grinding the rigid plastic back of his seat imposing on "my" space.

He sleeps restlessly, that stupid windbreaker hood pulled over his head makes a constant sound that irritates through the volume of my iPod. I know the entire back story of that jacket, it was acquired for free while on a trip to Atlantic City, if you frequent the NJ Vegas on a regular basis you are awarded such luxuries.

When we finally arrive at our destination to begin another fun filled day of work, he stands up before the bus comes to a complete stop. He whips off the crinkly jacket in the final crescendo of sonic obnoxiousness, wads it up, stuffs it in his bag and stares at everyone in the bus. He must make sure everyone knows who he is, he's the king of the ACF in his mind, with that smug look of entitlement. His perfectly manicured mustache stare down at me in my seat and I know I'm leering back at him in repulsion, my knee that rubs constantly on the back of his seat hates him.

All 54 other passengers on the ACF are such an imposition to him.

Smug Man. You just want to punch him in the back of the head.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Screw this. I'm driving.

Pulled up to the bus stop and there was a line of over 40 people, normally there are 5 maybe 7, this only means that the 6am bus did not show up.

I took one look at that line at 6:15am in the morning and just turned around and drove my truck in.

Have no idea what the issue is or was, so I had the luxury of listening to Howard Stern on Sirius radio the whole drive in. He's still funny as hell and seems to be getting better and better since he made the jump over to satellite radio.

Friday, September 12, 2008

E. Camara is gone.

Since coming back from vacation the Driver of the morning ACF is gone. We now have the guy who teaches the other Drivers. He's this very disheveled looking guy who has that constant look in his eye of "when can I be outta here and at the bar having a drink".

I must admit he's fast, he weaves that bus in and out of traffic as if it were a motorcycle.

In a sick sort of way I miss E. Camara's 72mph buzzer going off every few minutes during the morning ride to the big city.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The B&T perception of 9-11 & NYC


The Bridge and Tunnel crowds perception (which I now am an official member of) see's this event in a very different light. As I ride the chariot home across the highways of NJ I cannot begin to count the number of yellow magnetic ribbons and other trite tokens of people's outwardly public support for something most only know as an abstraction on a TV screen, and what the talking heads have told them to think.

In Manhattan where it "actually" happened and the most people that are, and were effected still live. The day of September 11th is much more respected with internal reverence. I'm talking about the loudest, brashest, most in your face of all Americans.

I still get very worked up inside while at my local small town diner I see the guy with the 9-11 trucker cap and support our troops t-shirt and I know he despises everything NYC is, and has lived his entire life in the cornfields of North West Jersey.

I realize this is all very judgemental, but it's what naturally brews inside me. An automatic disdain for the people and groups that use this day as petty leverage for there own narrow-minded ideals. People who view this event as an abstract, and not as a visceral reality that happened to real people.

Riding home on September 11th, 7 years later, not counting the magnetic ribbons on passing cars in the burbs and farmlands of New Jersey.

9-11 in NYC


Getting to work today is no different than any other.

Today I live 59 miles away from where the world trade center towers stood. The morning "it" happened I lived 11 blocks away in the West Village of Manhattan on Greenwich street. I was working from my apartment on a freelance website design when my Wife called me and said "there is a huge fire at the Trade Center" Being curious I walked out in the street and looked south down Greenwich street and saw a huge hole 3/4 of the way up the north tower. It was amazing looking from that distance. I ran upstairs, grabbed my camera (not digital) and pedaled my bike down the Westside Hwy bike path towards the hole spewing smoke. I stopped at Murray street one block from the scene.

I was mesmerized starring straight up as file cabinets would come smashing through windows to get air in to the people inside. Papers were raining down and then the images that will be tattooed on my mind forever, person after person jumping from the windows. People landing in heaps 30 or 40 feet from where I am standing. It was real, not images depicted on a 2-D surface like a TV or movie screen there was no abstraction, just real lives stopped in an instant, piled in heaps. The entire time this is happening the collective feeling from everyone witnessing these events up to this point was, "when will this be under control and when will it end" I kept saying this over and over in my head, maybe even aloud.

Then soon after the world had the answer. The south tower fell 1st behind the north tower that I was standing at the base of. The crazy thing was that huge rumbling cloud of the entire building was so slow. Or so it seemed at the time. I ran back north up the westside hwy from where I came. I stopped and tried to call my Wife on my cell phone, everything was overloaded. Then my phone rings, it's my brother from Houston wanting to know what the hell is happening. I blurted something to him that I was ok and then the 2nd tower fell. Hung up the phone and started running again, I am surrounded by the entire Stuyvesant High School student body, we all run north together. I catch my breath at where I chained up my bicycle and in the basket on the front of my bike is a NCAA basketball, I rode back to my apartment, drank 1/2 a bottle of Bushmills whiskey in one long chug, and then caught my breath.

I took a roll of photos that I was afraid to get developed. 3 weeks later I did. I caught the entire sequence of events.

Later that morning when I was with my wife and some friends that escaped the building next door to the towers. Things changed, everything changed in my mind. That invisible man in the sky that I always had doubts about, he was dead to me. The only things that matter now are my family.

Time goes on people and governments spin tall tales about that day.

This is the first time I've ever written about that day, I still have the basketball, the photos, and the detailed images in my mind. My son and I, who was born a year later now play with that same ball.

Today I"ll walk to work instead of riding the subway and remember "that" day. I need to always be connected to this city.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Curious Racial Migration Pattern.


Once off the ACF the next phase of the work-day journey is getting from Port Authority Bus Terminal to Union Square downtown via Subway.

I exit the bus and stay in the lower intestine of Port Auth. and walk underground for 3 city avenue blocks to the N,W,R or Q train.

It's during this odd subterranean walk that I encounter the daily racial migration. Every single day with out fail I pass walking in the opposite (west) direction a minimum of 300+ people that all belong to the same racial background. Every single person is under 5'2" tall with very similar medium brown skin tone high cheek bones and relatively flat faces. No one is fat and no one is overly skinny. Everyone is dressed casual, no suits, no dresses all look to be in their 20's.

What type work do they do? They all are on the exact same schedule every morning between 8am and 8:15am, never earlier or later.

My guess from having lived the majority of my life in Los Angeles is that they are Central American probably Guatemalan or El Salvadoran. I never hear any speaking. Ever. So I am not sure if espanol is spoken or not.

It has become a comforting constant of the commute.

What's the Deal with Newark?


Every morning the ACF barrels over the iron bridges of downtown Newark, it's the most uncomfortable portion of the journey, bouncing over moon sized crater potholes and bridges over swamps and rivers that if it wasn't for the rust nothing would hold them together.

I have lived in Manhattan for 9 years and now 4 years in NJ and have never yet met or known one person who lives or works in Newark. Why is it not a cool place? It's closer to NYC than over half of Brooklyn, and has more transportation options.The downtown winds around the river and has tons of shoreline with little marinas with yachts sprinkled all over.

I see people and cars in Newark, but who lives or works here? Maybe it's just a big bumpy mirage between me and NYC. It's only purpose is to throw my ass out of it's seat and wake me up, cuz we're getting close to work.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Seat Selection and the Personal Hygene Repulsion Factor

Going home from the big city you can almost always guarantee an empty seat next to you, but you must know how to play your hand at seat selection very shrewdly.

Over the course of a one year period I have the process finely tuned. The goal is to sit in an aisle seat and make yourself as unattractive and repulsive as possible. Use all the senses, look as large as you can, spread your legs wide, hang your arms and elbows in the aisle make your self an obstacle, never look inviting. Next sound is important, talk to yourself loudly speak in a pissed-off tone. Lastly scent, take up. Smoking cigars right outside the bus terminal, your fellow bus riders will remember who the stinky stogie smoker is and give you a wide berth. Always sit towards the rear of the bus, the front always fills up first with people afraid of the self manufactured slobs at the back of the bus.

I've been on a solid 80% streak of getting two whole seats to myself. These and many other silly mind games help you maintain a semblance of sanity.

Wake Up! It's Monday.


A rare occurrence on today's ride in to NYC. I slept most of the journey. Was awoken by the sweet smell of the Church Lady spraying on her perfume in the seat directly in front of me. The sweet smell of Jesus to start the week of toil.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Sam Ash Dude loves Gang Green



Who knew the 5 times a trip, bathroom visiting, 3 Bud Tall Boy drinking dude is a rabid NY Jets fan.

Sam Ash Dude sits in his usual mid bus position, and across the aisle sits a guy decked out from head to toe in NY Giants gear. Oh man does this set off Sam Ash Dude. He lays into the unsuspecting Giant fan with a litany of stats about how Gang Green is THE superior NY NFL team. The whole time that he's laying down the law both his feet are in full death metal, double kick drum mode.

The Giants fan does not have a chance, he cannot come back with even one retort for his current NFL champs.

I'm not much of a sports fan, so this kind of religious zeal for a game you only watch and probably never play cracks me up.

Sam Ash Dude has visited the ACF rolling toilet a record 5 times in under one hour. That's a stat worth recording.

Back to School






Is there a worse time of year? I think not. Those long lazy days of predictable ACF rides are long gone. Now with school back in session, the route to the city so nice they named it twice, becomes twice as unpredictable a ride.

This would be all cool if we all still had those 3 glorious months of between grade laziness. But nope, now it just signals unpredictable weather and who knows when you'll ever arrive at work.

The Driver almost took out a toll booth worker darting between booths. Would have made for a nice hood ornament on the Ass Chariot of Fire.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

The 9pm bus going home. The WTF is in full mutha F-ing effect!

White Trash Family.

The old man has no teeth about mid 30's a gimp arm and has some feral speach pattern from when he was raised by his original wolf family. Ma has the most amazing 4 pack a day camel unfiltered rasp of a voice. She makes Tom Waits sound like Liberace. The Kid, a little girl about 4 years old that looks like the mute kid from Road Warrior.

Ma & Pa are busy loading the duct-taped luggage in the storage in the belly of the chariot when the kid runs up the stairs, into the unoccupided drivers seat and starts yanking on the steering wheel. This is all happening as the bus is idling and the driver is outside the bus collecting tickets. The oblivious Whiskey Tango parents finally realize the kid is missing and start screaming "who stole our baby".

A creepy business man with a toupe saves the day and grabs the varmint out of the driver seat. Ma & Pa berate Mr. Toupe and then realize he was a hero, so they start hollering at the kid.

Family Values, god bless this great nation of ours.

Another Repulsive Act.

It's the 1st day back to the commute on the old ACF after 9 days of vacation in the sun.

The chunky Asian woman with the extraordinarily long wet hair is rubbing against my knee from the seat in front of me. I want to wretch.

The previous post goes into the auditory repulsiveness in probably too much detail.

It's great to be back.

A sound so powerful.



My iPod has no charge and my phone earphone jack is acting up. The result is having to be subjected to the "actual" sonic hell of the early morning ACF. To be able to harness the utter hatred of 6 gaping, gasping pie-holes of these snoring slobs could drive anyone to go postal. I wonder if Steve Jobs has any clue of his humanitarian force that he wields for creating the iPod.

I am wearing "that" pair of socks today that has one with no elastic to hold it up, I'm so tempted to take it off and cram it down the gullet of the snoring brontosaurus across the aisle from me. His constant gurgling and wet sounding chortle every 10 seconds is driving me to have very bad thoughts. As long as they stay as thoughts I'm ok, cannot let the thoughts cross over in to actions.

Just passed the Newark jail, it really is a thin line of civilized behavior that keeps us outside those walls. Today is one those days

I now know the living hell I must put my wife through on a nightly basis.

Snoring is an amazingly powerful force for hatred of any human.