I can't figure out where these folks are coming from.

Seen on the Blue line this morning:

A tall skinny emo guy, in a candy-striped shirt and typical skinny, black jeans, sporting an ocean wave of a haircut... and holding a tiny kitten.

The Clumping of the Morons: An Informal Study in Non-strategic Thinking.

I type up a lot of stuff on the train. Blogs, essays, the book I'm working on, so I've developed a carefully vetted strategy to get the seats that are conducive to using a laptop. I won't bore you with the details. So you might think that the following might be unfair, but I don't care. The Blue Line tried its best to kill me recently, and naturally, I'm still bitter.

A Blue Line train is comprised of three cars with four evenly-spaced doors apiece. The platforms are pretty long and at most stations, they can only be entered at the ends. This causes an annoying phenomenon I like to call “The Clumping of the Morons.” See for some reason, some people - more than enough of them to make this post necessary - can't be bothered to move to the middle of the platform to get into the comparatively empty middle car. They walk onto the platform, and, apparently worn out from the effort, stand there, unable to proceed to an area of the platform that will enable them to get a seat. They then act surprised when they get on an end car and find that there are no seats. Even controlling for the 2-5 people per stop that run hard to catch the train and are forced to enter the first door they get to, that's a lot of morons that may or may not be lazy as well.

So now there are clumps of people just inside every door of the end cars, slowing everything down because people can't get their asses (a high percentage of which are spectacularly enormous) on and off the train fast enough. Some of the drivers get irritated and remind people that there are in fact 12 total doors on the train and would they mind using them all, pretty please? That just causes the people on the outside to push a bit harder to get in. I'd probably be less irritated if they'd also deign to stop bumping my laptop and reading over my shoulder. Morons.

Plato's Blue Line: The Lost Dialogue

Today, on the ride home, I had the opportunity to see someone threatened with arrest. She actually used the phrase "Here's my fuckin' ID! I'm Maria [something], and I ain't wanted for nothin'!" That's something that's never entered my reality. I've toed too many lines.

I easily noticed Maria over the Gnarls Barkley playing in my ears. She was loud, cranky and her language was laden with expletives. She was having a conversation with her friend. I think it was her friend. It was hard to tell since it consisted of yelling on Maria's part and defensive whining on her friend's part. Quite the dialogue, but not the dialogue du jour.

At Imperial Station, she noticed the sheriffs get on. There were two men, one of which I am passing familiar with and they were both armed which is a bit unusual; mostly you see unarmed Fare Inspectors. She reacted to them immediately and belligerently:

"Oh, no, not that bitch. He gave me a ticket just for walking."

She was referring to the heavyset, balding, mustachioed sheriff that I'm familiar with. (Actually he looks a bit like a fat Bruno Kirby with less hair...) My experience with him has been fine. He's polite when he asks to see your pass and patient while you dig it out. He can afford to be paitient. He's packing heat. Maria clearly did not think so highly of him.

Maria was standing three feet from me so I thought: "Hmm... Time to mute the lovely neo-soul music: this could be good." I wasn't disappointed. The conversation was like Plato's dialogues, only... not.

Maria's friend tried to get her to chill, but I don't think that chillin' is in Maria's nature. One thing led to another and Bruno and his side-kick made their way to where we were and began a dialogue to make Plato weep with sorrow.

Bruno: "You need to quiet down, ma'am."

[See? Polite.]

Maria: "What the fuck do i need to quiet down for? I got rights!"

[Hmm... Now I'm intrigued. She's an activist.]

Bruno: "You have the right to be quiet..."

[What? I begin to squirm in my seat from illogic.]

Bruno (con't): "Or you can get off the train!"

Maria (louder than usual): "You bet your ass I'm gettin' off this m*****f***** train!"

[This is the point where he asks for her ID. She asked what for.]

Bruno: "For being loud."

Maria: "You just gave me a fuckin' ticket for walking. I got rights!"

Bruno: "You got the right to be quiet or I'm gonna arrest you!"

At this point they got off of the train and Bruno gave Maria a ticket. It was clear that neither one knew where the other was coming from.

Here's the thing: Maria doesn't have the right to disturb the rest of us. But ol' Bruno was implying that not only does she need to be quiet on the train, but she should be fighting for the right to be allowed to be quiet. Who's out there saying: "This man is infringing my right to be quiet, by forcing me to be loud"? Almost no one, I'd wager.

He should have said something like:

"These nice people on the train have a right to ride without you disturbing them. You're infringing their rights. That's why you have to quiet down."

Then it hits me: people have problems with The Man not because the man is inherently evil or in the wrong, but because The Man is often too stupid to explain itself properly. Or maybe it's just another case of The Man keeping you quiet.

A Marie Antoinette Sighting on the BL

It's been a little bit since the last post, because every time I come with an idea lately, I've wanted to save it for a book. Ideas are precious, and I'm no Neal Stephenson.

But as you can see, I've got another couple of pictures. Several young ladies got on the BL at Grand Station with fake severed heads. Halloween? Most of them are wearing black... And retail definitely thinks it's Halloween, but the rest of us are still bemoaning Labor Day's inadequate recuperative powers and haven't moved on to candy and goth. So it took me a moment to realize that they were students at LA Trade/Tech's cosmetology school. (That's hair and makeup, not stars and galaxies.) For a moment I thought I had discovered a roving pack of smock-wearing, urban head-hunter/fetishists. It was certainly creepy.

So let's try captions. I'll go first. Here's a pair:

Pic 1: "I asked for fries, but this was all they had."

Pic 2: "Beauty knows no pain."

A Sleeper's Guide to the Blue Line

You're on the train again. You're tired. Here are some techniques you might consider. I've picked these up from watching others trying to catch 40 winks on the rails.

"The Window Washer"

Did you catch the irony? You will. This is the most common technique that you will see on the BL: just grab a window seat and put your head on the window. The drawback? Someone fairly filthy might have been there before you and left a nice grease-streak that you wouldn't dare use on your bike chain. Yuck! So you have to move on to the...

"The Head Droop"

Yes, just cradle your lunchbox in your arms and let your chin hit your chest. The drawback? (besides a stiff-as-hell neck?) Drool. Don't wear a tie that day. I saw a rotund guy conk out and never notice the thick stream of rubber cement-like saliva, cresting his pudgy lips and pooling on his USC sweatshirt. What a mess. I wouldn't want to do that. So I might try...

"The Neighbor"

Just make sure you introduce yourself before plopping your head on someone's shoulder. Addie does this to me all the time without even asking! But I don't mind. So, Mike, you may be asking yourself, what if you're just wiped out? Well, why not try...

"The Hibernator"

This technique great for those that need to seriously sleep off the rest of that hangover. Just find two free seats next to each other and lie down. But Mike, the A/C is a killer! I can't feel my feet! Don't worry, just curl up into a ball and cover yourself with a pillowy parka. You'll be so content you may not wake up until spring!

And finally:

"The Cornholio"

Some of you older folks may remember an offensive little cartoon on MTV called "Beavis and Butthead". I've never seen it myself, but it seems that the character 'Beavis' had an addictive alter-ego named 'Cornholio'. This 'Cornholio', after consuming ridiculous amounts of sugar and caffeine, would pull his tee-shirt up over head so that only his face was showing though the head hole said shirt. I saw a guy doing just that this morning when I got on the train. I guess his ears were freezing. He was using this technique in combination with "The Head Droop" with an occasional foray into the "The Window Washer". Just no focus at all, no commitment. And as he was wearing shorts, I think he would have gotten better results with "The Hibernator". Always bring your parka.

The Diner Car

Food and drink are not allowed on The Blue Line. Most people are respectful of that. Some aren't. So here's two of my favorite statute-breakers:

A guy sat down with what appeared to be the entire contents of his studio apartment. Once he got his stuff situated in the nearest several seats, he dug a large Zip-loc baggie out of his coat like some kind of latter-day Captain Caveman. The bag didn't contain chips or crackers or a sandwich - all of which would have been manageable train food. No, the guy had chicken wings. We all know that chicken wings are among the messiest foods to come down the evolutionary pipeline and this man had no napkin. But no problem: he was more like Captain Caveman than I had previously suspected. He was one of those put the whole wing in your mouth, clean it and spit the bones out kind of guys. It was gross, but I was hungry at the time and I must admit that I still wanted some. Not his. Wings of my own.

Another guy on another day gets on the train with his bike and a typical clamshell, polystyrene to-go box. There's a immediate stench but I can't be certain of the source. I stopped typing, held my breath and looked more closely. It could've been the man - he was pretty dirty either from outdoor labor or homelessness, but from the cut of his carpenter-style overalls, I suspect the former. Or it could've been contents of the box. He sat down on the floor against a set of doors near me and pulled his bike in front of himself so that he's barricaded in. Thus secured, he whipped out some chopsticks (not a fork, mind you) and tore into what appeared to be sobe noodles - at least visually. But again I can't be certain because of the powerful stinkiness and I began to suspect that it just might be the food. The food or the guy? The food or the guy? Then, it hit me: it doesn't matter where stench comes from - stench is stench. Just stop smelling it - don't make it a research project. So I put my nose in the crook of my elbow and continued typing with one hand.

Seen anybody eat weird stuff in weird places? Post it!