Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Get a guy named Burger
The Donald Draper character in "Mad Men" is an actor named John Hamm. Mmmm, Hamm.
Democracy for the Wretched
If anyone out there wants to test his or her small-d democratic ideals, take a bus trip in a crowded city, or even a medium-sized town.
I guarantee that you will start to hate the people that you profess to want to help: the handicapped, the elderly, and the immigrant mothers with their 10 children.
Don't think me unkind. I rode the 42 bus from Dupont Circle to Mt. Pleasant in DC for two years. Think of this post as letting go of post-traumatic stress.
The buses were almost always late, and they usually would arrive stacked up one behind the other in groups of three. Even though waiting passengers could see that there were other buses available and a lot less crowded, they nonetheless would all try to push into the front one.
Many times at rush hour the bus would take almost an hour (it took about 10 minutes by car; non-rush hour) I would watch the cars swoosh by us, and sit there and hate. In no particular order, here's some hateful advice:
1)To the immigrant mother, put your kids on all in front of you, instead of having them squirm and squall all around you at the fare box, blocking everyone else from entering.
2)To the Fare Box Stars, who seemed to think that taking forever to pay the fare up front was their moment in the limelight. Be ready with the money, pay up and sit down ASAP or move to the back.
3) To the handicapped. There's little they can do themselves because the law requires that cumbersome and time-intensive process of moving the stairs into a platform and then strapping the wheelchair-bound onto the bus like it's the Space Shuttle. They aren't at fault, but nonetheless when I saw a wheelchair trying to board and I was in a hurry, I would often leave the bus and just start walking.
4)To the elderly. They got the lowered stair treatment too, although many certainly looked healthy enough to climb three stairs. And of course the bus emitted that ear-splitting beeping whenever the stairs were in motion. Why? Is someone going to get trapped under the bus otherwise?
In Brazil there is a city that employs what is called Bus Rapid Transit. Yes, I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but essentially what they do is have a dedicated lane that is physically separated from the others. Passengers pay a fare to get onto a raised platform by the lane, then simply get right on when the bus arrives.
There. I've re-established myself as a "concerned liberal."
I guarantee that you will start to hate the people that you profess to want to help: the handicapped, the elderly, and the immigrant mothers with their 10 children.
Don't think me unkind. I rode the 42 bus from Dupont Circle to Mt. Pleasant in DC for two years. Think of this post as letting go of post-traumatic stress.
The buses were almost always late, and they usually would arrive stacked up one behind the other in groups of three. Even though waiting passengers could see that there were other buses available and a lot less crowded, they nonetheless would all try to push into the front one.
Many times at rush hour the bus would take almost an hour (it took about 10 minutes by car; non-rush hour) I would watch the cars swoosh by us, and sit there and hate. In no particular order, here's some hateful advice:
1)To the immigrant mother, put your kids on all in front of you, instead of having them squirm and squall all around you at the fare box, blocking everyone else from entering.
2)To the Fare Box Stars, who seemed to think that taking forever to pay the fare up front was their moment in the limelight. Be ready with the money, pay up and sit down ASAP or move to the back.
3) To the handicapped. There's little they can do themselves because the law requires that cumbersome and time-intensive process of moving the stairs into a platform and then strapping the wheelchair-bound onto the bus like it's the Space Shuttle. They aren't at fault, but nonetheless when I saw a wheelchair trying to board and I was in a hurry, I would often leave the bus and just start walking.
4)To the elderly. They got the lowered stair treatment too, although many certainly looked healthy enough to climb three stairs. And of course the bus emitted that ear-splitting beeping whenever the stairs were in motion. Why? Is someone going to get trapped under the bus otherwise?
In Brazil there is a city that employs what is called Bus Rapid Transit. Yes, I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but essentially what they do is have a dedicated lane that is physically separated from the others. Passengers pay a fare to get onto a raised platform by the lane, then simply get right on when the bus arrives.
There. I've re-established myself as a "concerned liberal."
Friday, October 10, 2008
Street-Fighting Women
It looked for all the world like one of those fat-suit wrestling competitions. Two rather large Puerto Rican women in a roly-poly catfight on a sidewalk on Broadway in the 30s. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, but maybe 10 bored people looked on when me and a friend passed by. Even the cops treated it like a joke.
I never quite know what to do in those situations, and I hate gawkers looking on for cheap entertainment, yet of course have to fight my remaining journalistic instincts to witness violence.
In DC once some moronic kid in Mt. Pleasant was firing a gun northward at the end of the street. Instead of ducking back in to my bar, I started following the kid. A restaurant owner in his entryway looked at me like a was a lunatic and said "are you crazy?" and told me to stand back.
As PJ O'Rourke once said, violence is interesting. Unfortunately, he's right. The question is what is the moral thing to do in such situations? Do you have a moral obligation to do something?
It is like the case of people rescuing drowning swimmers even though it places them in harm's way. I think way back to the jet that hit the 14th Street bridge in DC in the early 80s. As you might remember, a man on the banks of the Potomac jumped out and saved a passenger in freezing, ice-choked water.
Then there's the guy who rescued someone on the subway tracks in NY by leaping onto the tracks and pinning both under the undercarriage of the cars.
They say that people do these kind of things because they want others to react the same way if they were in trouble. The question comes down to more than guts. As the subway savior said, he just didn't think about it, he just did it.
I never quite know what to do in those situations, and I hate gawkers looking on for cheap entertainment, yet of course have to fight my remaining journalistic instincts to witness violence.
In DC once some moronic kid in Mt. Pleasant was firing a gun northward at the end of the street. Instead of ducking back in to my bar, I started following the kid. A restaurant owner in his entryway looked at me like a was a lunatic and said "are you crazy?" and told me to stand back.
As PJ O'Rourke once said, violence is interesting. Unfortunately, he's right. The question is what is the moral thing to do in such situations? Do you have a moral obligation to do something?
It is like the case of people rescuing drowning swimmers even though it places them in harm's way. I think way back to the jet that hit the 14th Street bridge in DC in the early 80s. As you might remember, a man on the banks of the Potomac jumped out and saved a passenger in freezing, ice-choked water.
Then there's the guy who rescued someone on the subway tracks in NY by leaping onto the tracks and pinning both under the undercarriage of the cars.
They say that people do these kind of things because they want others to react the same way if they were in trouble. The question comes down to more than guts. As the subway savior said, he just didn't think about it, he just did it.
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