Token of My Mental Depreciation

Chris Stein just came across this relic. I remember moving to New York from Washington, where Metro farecards were forever the norm, and everyone in NYC saying they just wouldn't work here. Some 20 years later and we still use them, although some stations have been outfitted with readers for smartphones. Now talk about something that'll never work! 

DC's farecard machines: The least intuitive machines ever made.

Safe at Home

Well-played, MTA!

Page 1 Roundup (09/24)

The Daily News: More allegations emerge about Brett Kavanaugh's sexual misconduct -- including exposing himself at a college party and joining in on gang rapes in high school

New York Post: Nice dodge by the Post

The New York Times: Constrained from fighting, Trump is left a spectator with Kavanaugh in peril

The Wall Street Journal: You can now buy stuff with a ring, if anyone believes you

New York City's subways are slow, crowded and smelly -- officials say part of the problem is you

Morning Wood

Another subway creeper HERE.

Underground Lovers

I ❤️ NY ... #subway #nycsubway #gaylove

A post shared by Kenneth M. Walsh (@kenneth_212) on Mar 22, 2018 at 10:51am PDT

Spotted en route to "Angels in America" -- they were there, too!

Morning Wood

So handsome. Would be even hotter if he were reading my book!

Right Track, Wrong Train

Was torn between this headline and "Train in Vain"! 

Add me Facebook HERE.

Page 1 Roundup (06/28)

The New York Post: Woodward and Bernstein had a Page One clunker along the way too, but that doesn't mean Watergate didn't happen

The Daily News: Harlem A train derailment leaves 34 riders injured, sparks massive service disruption across Manhattan 

The New York Times: How McConell Miscalculated the Senate Health Bill

The Wall Street Journal:  Shhh, Look, It’s a Lesser-Spotted Refrigerated Maersk Container!

A Real Bowling Green Attack

The Daily News reports that a "man" was arrested Thursday for kicking a woman who is eight months pregnant in the stomach during an argument on a crowded subway train in Lower Manhattan. The only thing surprising about this disgusting story is that the attacker wasn't her partner, the kind of crime that is a million times more likely to happen than being harmed by a refugee. 

We Don't Need Another Hero

Subway performers definitely can be a nuisance. (A guy who didn't know how to play the saxophone blew one in my ears from 23rd to Rock Center last week, helping me attain my lifelong goal of being partially deaf.) But I'm not sure telling them off is worth getting punched in the face -- especially one as handsome as 40-year-old David Giaconne's! 

Woman Shoved to Her Death in Front of Times Square Train

Harrowing news out of the Times Square subway station, that a 30-year-old woman pushed a 49-year-old woman into an oncoming 1 train, killing her instantly. (A woman who was neighbors and friends with my doubles partner in the gay tennis league here in the late '90s was pushed to her death by a mentally unhinged man in 1999, which led to the passage of Kendra's Law, which may be relevant here as today's attacker is said to suffer from serious mental-health issues as well.) Almost as disturbing as this horrific crime is the comments people are leaving on the story, which show that no matter what happens in tomorrow's election, "Trump's America" has won. I always thought these types of people were supposed to be dying off, replaced by open-minded millennials. But what I didn't realize was so many members of Generation X are way more like Baby Boomers than millennials. God help us all.

Some "highlights" -- and notice how they don't even know the sex of the victim but make shit up anyway?

Cyan Boomerang: I bet you the perpetrator was black and the victim was white or at the very least white skinned.

Purple Corn: Yeap, but of course it won't be a hate crime since it's already a crime to be white apparently.

Cyan Boomerang: Hate crime laws need to be abolished. Hopefully Trump will win and over turn that madness which is nothing more than liberal racism towards whites.

Orange Guitar: They sent two white cops that look just like the guy she killed... dayum.

Red8 Ball: Another Hillary supporter kills a white male

snowonweb880: Black Lives Matter. HIlary supporters just having fun.

aaron calgary: Looks like a Hillary supporter.

Red Band Aid: Reports: Woman screamed, "Stronger Together, muthafucka!" before shoving man to death

Bike Man 99: Gee, I wonder why they didn't release the race of the victim?

Blue Planet: Because it was the victim's fault for displaying her "white privilege" ?

Red Snow: another person that had more dirt on Hillary

Purple Bone: I can't believe this pregnant nigerian would do such a thing. The photo must be wrong.

How someone ends up thinking like this is beyond me. Pundits keep saying we need to try to understand where these types of people are "coming from" -- that Trump has risen up from this group that feels unheard and left behind -- yet clearly they make zero effort to do the same for anyone not like themselves. The New York Times concurs, noting that if 2008 was an emblem of progress, 2016 has required the grim acceptance of limits and disappointments. Read HERE.

Taco Vigilante

From HERE.

I hope to God the cashier didn't demand $5 from Bernhard Goetz.

Crickets on a Train

Samuel L. Jackson's next script was just written -- truly horrifying!

The New York Post writes:

A crazed woman trying to sell crickets and worms on a D train suddenly threw them all over the crowded car, sending it into chaos during the evening commute. The woman walked into the train car at about 6 p.m. 

Wednesday and made a pitch to passengers to try to get them to buy the chirping insects and wrigglers. A group of teenagers pushed her, prompting her to freak out and toss the box of pests into the air, said witnesses. Straphangers then started screaming and crying, and all ran down to one end of the car. 

“It was pandemonium,” said Chris Calabrese, 29, who was on the train with his girlfriend. “It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on a train.” Someone then pulled the emergency brake and the train skidded to a stop on the Manhattan Bridge. The air conditioning shut off and the screaming passengers were all stuck inside the sweltering car with the woman, who then treated them to antics for half an hour as the crickets jumped on passengers. The worms just wriggled on the floor. “She was banging on the doors and trying to climb out the windows. Everyone had crickets on their arms. My girlfriend was crying,” said Calabrese. “Then some men were trying to hold her down and she started trying to throw up on them.” 

The woman then urinated on the floor and everyone again ran to the other side of the car while still trying to avoid the piles of bugs. The train started to move again after half an hour and pulled into the DeKalb Avenue station, where dozens of cops were waiting on the platform, said Calabrese. The MTA confirmed that emergency services removed the woman from the train, but they declined to comment on the crickets and worms.

Video HERE.

Tunnel Vision

Let's just say those subway poles are asking for strippers to use 'em. See HERE.

What the F?

Photo by David Miller.

I'm not sure I'd be this calm if I saw Bradley Cooper on the F train -- although I'd prefer he did it with no pants on like Chris Evans did HERE.

1 (Train) Is the Loneliest Number

This has only happened to me once before.

From my Instagram in the (212) HERE.

Subway Nannies

First we're not allowed to manspread, and now we're not allowed to to THIS?

Boys Don't Cry on the Subway

Try to guess if I tipped this busker on the way to work today.

A Train

At least he's not popping gum. Seen HERE.

The Z Train

I'm guessing when you meet with Dr. Z, he teaches you how to use photos that are 15 years old.