sideward glances…

6 train…

my game…

same old same. 

it's astounding how no matter how many times gothamist posts the rules for subway etiquette, no one gets better at riding the train. 

so as I get in the crowded by the doors part of the car I see, that 20 inches past the door is the great empty…

so I excuse myself and here the tell tale teeth suck of thug life. 

the kind of thug life that inhabits the high school a Ross the street from the bastard's office. 

flashback: I'm trucking in from forest hills… 

same train doorway scenario…

"please step into the car so I can step in"

nothing

"PLEASE STEP INTO THE CAR", and I push in…

hard

"yo, I'll fucking cut choo", says a 14 year old girl

the bastard smiles in his trench coat and sunglasses and growls…

"I'd really like to see that"

she shuts up. 

now:

so thug life teeth sucks and throws his arms back as if to stop me…

but an irresistible force will not stop…

he tries to wrest my bag but my arm goes up and some poor Indian lady collects 5 pounds of anodized aluminum into her back. 

rule  573 of subway etiquette: step into the fucking car stupid. I sleep soundly on this

I get into the big empty and turn around. 

rule 731 of being a bastard: never turn your back to an asshole… you can't see what he's doing

thugs give me the sideward glance…

then looks at his girl who was looking at me the whole time. 

she slowly shakes her head "no". 

then it's over. 

I go to work…

and thug life goes to one of the bottom 10 schools in NYC for his last 17 days in the system before he goes back for summer school. 

yeah…

I'd like fries with that… thug 

yes

yes

y'all

—the bastard

...on handbags

this morning...

the weather has moved on but, the humidity has decided to stick around for now.

the bastard is always delighted when a weather system can stick around in the capacity to make him sweat alot but not enough to keep all those dicks on the bar's back porch indoors.

magical...

but i digress...

barely made it onto the 7 when i crash straight into faux pas number 537 on the subway...

step into the car

followed by faux pas number 63...

not stowing your fucking luggage...

now the bastard isn't a cold unfeeling creature...

no wait...

he is...

but he understands the value of a good louis vuitton shopping tote, even it it is a knock, he understands it...

and he understands the value of a longchamp tote of equal or greater size but one should stow them  properly. they are bags, not frikkin people bumpers.

and why the hell do you need two enormous overpriced totes anyway?

are you going away on a thursday for a long weekend of jackassery?

but nonetheless, there i was with the two designer duffel bags and my umbrella...

propping it up...

and she is not happy...

but i remembered tell chicago jerkface my musings about people and polite society from a while back and decide that this is the course of action to take.

next leg...

6 train...

new bag in my back...

new course of action...

leaning.

i've decided that you can't always fight the good fight about this sort of thing so one can go the other route and use a bag as a piece of furniture.

more comfortable that way. at least for me it is.

oh look...

it's started raining again. perhaps it'll last long enough to keep my evening quiet.

but i don't buy it.

you see what i did there didn't you?

rhyming...

look that shit up jerk.

—the bastard

…on offworlders

recently…

my mayor passed away…

and when respected dignitaries shake off this mortal coil…

they find the best quotes from said dignitaries' life.

case meet point…

when asked about living n New York City once, Ed Koch said that everyday he woke up he'd get out of bed and look around and proceed to thank god he was still in New York.

the bastard does this too.

there is some civic pride attached to being a lifelong resident of this Gotham.

flash forward:

this morning's commute was 10 different shades of awful.

I had never been in a position that there were so many people on a platform that I couldn't leave it.

hundreds of angry travelers…

and I kneed one of them full on in the chest because they were swinging at people and I'm just not the one

but when the 6 train full of fail finally turned up…

we spilled into the car and folks just kept on coming

and some awful offworlder…

in trendy aviators and with the smugness of a transplant with a trust fund blurts out.

"new York city is a shithole on so many levels"

and I think to myself in response, "leave then"

leave oklasota…

go back to whatever Midwestern backwater that spawned you and your fucking horse toothed mug and go there to stay…

leave my city if it sucks so badly for you…

I'm sure shit was SO much better for you in whatever New York junior crap stand shit you out onto the road and into my streets.

go home…

go back there. we're so sorry that a day long police investigation fucked up the 6 train and is messing with your fake tan…

go back to wherever it is you came from…

and filth up my home no longer…

and we can just add 'jerk' for good measure because I likes the word jerk.

—the bastard

...on muckraking

the bastard would like to talk about his hood for a minute...

i live in a spaceship in long island city 3 blocks away from the east river...

and while it didn't garner as much press as what's happened down by the rock...

we took it on the chin when sandy came through...

we took on some water...

which wrecked our electric.

my neighbors and i were homeless-ish for two weeks...

and fortunately, we're all getting back to normal.

we were lucky.

but here's the rub.

there is this local blog that i USED to go to for my local info that went to my building during the post storm mayhem to "get the scoop" on the extent of my building's damages.

we're a new building...

we're not all sold...

we'd like the rest of the building get sold...

but this sort of thing sets us back as a community, so our people politely said no...

the muckraker who writes this blog presses harder, saying he's providing a "service to the community" by providing  photos that are fit for disaster tourists of all stripes and those of the kind of carnage that would definitely hinder other new buildings in the area from EVER becoming profitable anytime soon.

i'm sure the powerhouse and the yard are real fucking grateful for that.

so after this bit of leverage from the muckraker, our people respond with a sterner "no comment" which hurt his widdle feelings.

so in what the bastard can only imagine was in a crying fit of babylike proportions, he wrote an angry post about our building...

you know...

as a service to the community.

a service...

you know?

muckraker.

this prompted the ire of both residents and local who felt that this "service" was unwarranted...

perhaps uncalled for...

trolls responded to the counter...

and i'm convince those trolls were the very author of the post as they all centered around how the blog provides a service to the community and we should all move on.

i mused to myself, does the muckraker hav e a thesaurus in which to alter his constant refrain regardless of what the name of the troll who posted in response.

i eventually, commented an invitation to lunch to the author of one unkind cut.

said we should meet up...

have some lunch...

chat about the local issues...

like muckraking...

and local bloggers who flew through a storefront window as a service to the community.

muckraker.

but i digress, when the bastard moved back into the building, he decided to let it go,  glad to be home again.

this post garned the most comments in the pitiful history of the blog so it was not surprising that when my building was mentioned in a post on curbed that he felt the need to repost it as his own content.

or at least as a "i'm neither good at writing nor am i good at generating my own content but, i sure did like all of that attention i got the last time i slagged off on that building that hurt my feelings so left me just repost it"

muckraker.

so to the blog, i linked to today but won't bother mentioning...

please go directly to die...

you won't be missed i assure you.

now i have work in the publishing world to finish up now...

so run along now to your amateur photography and your bitchy posts.

—the bastard

pay to play...

protip: there is a reason you are now up against the grating sir. 

you see…

the turnstile is over there… 

where you pay to get on the train…

not against the grate where I have pinned you as you attempted to saunter through the emergency exit we all walk out because we're all too impatient to exit via the turnstiles and in a fashion…

I'm a little in the wrong here. 

but I paid to get on already…

and that is what you should have done before I checked you against the grate…

i didn't look… 

because I tend to not look back…

but it sounded like your iPod popped out and perhaps you dropped something…

I didn't see. 

so the protip is this…

we pay to ride this train…

so should you…

you don't get to walk around like you own the place…

because I do.

I paid for this city…

it's mine. 

—the bastard

could any hell be more real…

…or more now

…again

the bastard thought he'd left this behind in the fhills but…

the noise it follows him.

tonight the bar was host to a rather large corporate card which came in the form of caterwauling assholes.

not again, the bastard said.

and rather than resort to violence…

I went down to the bar to appeal to the caterwauling masses' better judgement

this was a mistake.

first to one it was 'awesome' that I lived upstairs

no asshole… it isn't awesome.

you are an asshole

to another, I said that their caterwauling was keeping my child up.

and she said 'aaawwwww'

which is what drunken women who don't have children say when children are mentioned.

a third asked me why I moved in next door to a bar and rather than stab her in the face which was a growing reality to this idiot I replied that there WAS no bar when I moved in.

which prompted the second idiot to say 'awwwww' again.

it was at this point that I wanted to beat them all senseless.

then the owner came to me and oddly enough calmed me down.

asked me to come to him, not the caterwauling idiots under the speed of a corporate card.

he was right.

but it was hard to resist trying to see if idiots can actually have that 'a-ha' moment that they are being inconsiderate and that is not the case.

and in many ways, it somes up what I dislike about younger folks. these things aren't their concern until its their problem.

so here is my wish.

I want them all to have many children.

problem children.

screaming children that keep them up at night.

and when they grow up, I hope their children break their hearts.

except for the third one. I hope she is barren.

and instead has a miserable hole in her life to keep her up at night.

I really wish this wasn't happening again.

—the bastard