Riding the Subway? Leave Your Pants at Home

I’m pretty supportive of wearing no pants, so when I saw this while reading the DailyCandy site yesterday, i thought it was worth passing along.  I won’t be in NY until Saturday so you’ll have to pantless without me.  Have fun…

Annual No Pants Subway Ride
What: Wear normal winter clothes, swipe your MetroCard, ride the 6 train, then take ’em off.
Why: You’ve seen London. You’ve seen France.
When: Sat., 3 p.m. sharp!
Where: Meet near the black sculpture at Foley Sq., b/t Centre & Lafayette Sts. Click here for a map.

Badass Cops

I’ve travelled around quite a bit over the past few months and come across various policemen in different places. I have to say that some of their equipment is pretty funny. Check these two out:

New York’s Version of the Batmobile

In the US’s Gotham City, there’s now a sweet new vehicle roaming the streets. It’s sleek, it can get through traffic jams, and its miles per gallon is phenomenal!

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Italy’s New Speedster

What else can you expect from the home of the incredibly engineered cars like Ferrari, Bugatti, and Maserati – how about the new Italian Police Segway! I can just see a platoon of Segways cruising the streets trying to corner a criminal who’s cruising away in a regular car.

Italian Segway

Klosterman's Thoughts on NY

Just finished Chuck Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City" which was great. I love it anytime someone deconstructs or discusses GNR. I found an interview Chuck gave to Spin magazine where he discusses NY city. 

Living in New York makes you younger and older at the same time. It makes you younger because everyone who lives here is a drunk, and everyone stays out late, and everybody goes to shows, and everybody cares about rock bands, and movies, and generally things in America that only young people are interested in. It makes you a little bit older in the sense that everyone is jaded and has a cynical view of the world and is very distrustful.

Chuck Klosterman Interview, Spin Magazine 7/21/2005

Milan to Minsk? How about DC to NY

Sure it’s not an erotic journey (a la Seinfeld), but it is still quite an adventure. Asny3.jpg someone who has lived and worked in both DC and NY and gone back and forth regularly, i’m very familiar with the various travelling options. But this weekend was something special. As usual i explored my options:

  • The train is usually the best as it takes you right into the city (no cabs) and isn’t delayed as much as a plane.
  • Driving can be convenient if you need to be flexible, but you can’t do anything on the trip, so it’s just wasted time. If i have some good tunes or a podcast, it’s fine, but i rarely have enough material for the 4 hour trip. Plus there’s alwaysny4.jpg some parking hassle.
  • My latest love is the Chinatown Bus, or what i like to use is the Eastern Shuttle. This amazingly cheap and takes you right from Chinatown to Chinatown (or Midtown). We’re talking $30 round trip and you can just relax, get work done, watch a movie, whatever. For the money, my favorite.

This past weekend i took the bus and had a pretty good trip. However, what i wasn’t counting on was 26 inches of snow!

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I woke up Sunday morning to quite a scene. What i love about NY snowstorms is that the cars disappear and the streets become filled with walkers. I reminds me of movies after the apocalype occurs or zombies take over and everybody’s just on foot fending for themselves. Think of the movies 28 Days Later or The Stand except with a crapload of snow and without the mass destruction. That’s what NY is like today. Pretty great actually – just a serene scene of beautiful NY in the snow.

Ideas, Observations & Questions

I hate streetlightsPointed ShoesLocke's Cave - on at 11!Where are you Axl
Just some things i’ve noticed over the past few months:

  1. Why is NY the only city that’s implemented the cascading street lights? One light turns green, then when you get to the next – guess what? It turns green. Genius. I can’t stand waiting at a stoplight for 5 minutes, only to go 20 years to the next light which has just turned red. Mass Ave is killing me!
  2. What is the deal with women’s pointed shoes. People’s feet aren’t shaped that way, why do they make shoes that way. Is it supposed to be sexier? I always find myself looking at them and thinking – “man, shoe designers are dumb.”
  3. On ABC’s show Lost, John Locke is clearly the most interesting and coolest character. Wouldn’t a spin-off called “Locke’s Cave” be the best spin-off show you can think of. Each week, they could have an episode run parrallel to the regular episode but just follow what John’s doing the entire time. Sometimes i’m watching that show and thinking, “I would rather just watch John have awckward conversations with Charlie or Echo.”  I mean they did a Joey spin-off, it couldn’t be worse than that.
  4. A Reality TV Show idea that P-Walk talked about a few months ago goes like this….You gather some very attractive women from very poor areas of the country. Each episode you offer them large amounts of money to disfigure themselves. For instance, first episode you offer $30 grand for them to get a horrible nose job. Maybe for the season finale you offer $10 million for a full sex change. The winner gets something like $200k a year for as long as she remains a man.  It’d be a battle to see if the women are willing to live a completely new life, filled with riches and luxury, but they have to live a lie, live as a man.  It’s such a horrible idea, a total trainwreck. I just might watch it.
  5. Often, when i’m driving around town -maybe stuck in traffic- think to myself, “I wonder what is Axl Rose doing right now?” I’m just curious. What could he be doing? He is one of the biggest rock stars in the past 20 years – came out with 4 amazing albums – and now i wonder, is he now just playing pool and boozing it up with his buddies in LA? Seriously, i couldn’t see him doing anything but partying. It’d be kind of cool if he, Vince Neil (Montly Crue), Bret Michaels (Poison) and Sebastian Bach (Skid Row) formed a bowling team and just bowled like 4 days a week.  I did hear that he just turned 44 this past Monday.