Two phrases that should never be heard back to back.
There is something somewhat liberating about not having a car. Something zen. Sunday my car began to sound like a diesel and by monday it was dead. The head gasket I think.
With my car incapacitated I have had no choice but to ride the city bus. An amenity that is free just by flashing my student I.D.
Possibly the most synthetic environment that I have ever been in, nothing on a city bus exists in nature. Everything is so incredibly sterile and cold. Apsects that are only fully accentuated at night when the lonely blue glow of the single-strip fluorescent lights is the only light available. The lighting sets a mood that seems to be what the directors of modern japanese horror films have been aspiring to but have been continuously falling just short. It is a feeling of utter desolation.
My travelling companion last night was Nina. A beautiful dark-skinned girl that I met at the bus stop. She boarded the bus to ride downtown to surprise her boyfriend at work and I boarded mostly just to ride. The shitty electric glow from above emphasized her purple hair and the fact that she seemed utterly detached from the world. And who could blame her? The bus is always a very surreal experience.
I looked up on March 24, 2006 at 7:43PM to read the electronic sign that scrolls the time an date: "November 7, 2025 8:43PM".
This weirdness caused me to have a flashback to the night before which was, coincidentally, my WaveTransit deflowering. When I boarded the bus, so did a handicapped elderly gentleman in a Hoveround. He was mumbling barely coherently while the bus driver was securing his chair to the chassis of the bus and responding to all of his questions in an extremely patronizing and insincere tone. He mumbled vague directions to the bus driver who, in turn, dropped him off on the side of the road in one of the few locations where the sidewalk is what I would refer to as "imaginary". As we sped away I looked back to see the man, heavy on the throttle of his chair, kicking up dust while spinning around in tight circles trying to figure out a way off the curb.
At the next stop we dropped off a man who, upon his exit, turned around, and with a flambouyant gesture that conjured up images of Nixon on the steps of Air Force One, said "God bless everyone on this bus." Moments later, some drunken NASCAR fan stumbled into the only available seat which happened to be next to me. He smelled like a locker room that had been freshly cleaned with malt-liquor. Or perhaps some back-woods moonshine still hidden away in a barn frequented by livestock. The next passenger to board was a feeble old woman with a definitive limp. The drunk stood and surrendered his seat to the woman and someone in the back said "Oh... A gentleman and a scholar." I am not sure if it was the "gentleman" or the "scholar" part that set the man off but his response was a sweeping gesture with his middle finger and the phrase "I WILL FUCKING KILL EVERYONE ON THIS BUS!" This caused a slight tension in the atmosphere of the otherwise cheerful bus. The woman chuckled a little causing the drunk to spin around, middle finger still raised but now gesturing to the length of it, and say "See this?!? This is how far I have to go to kick his ass!" (motioning now to the man who implied that he was polite and well educated, both of which turned out to be incorrect assessments).
I can imagine that the bus is prone to many fights. It is a very hostile environment. The foreign, unnatural electric glow. The whole world wooshing by just outside the windows and the only constant is the little, pulsating ribbon of concrete created by the curb. There is a sense of invincibility. All of the cars on the road seem to be submissive to you and your seemingly infinite momentum. The whole behemoth shakes violently even on the smoothest of asphalt. It is like riding in a rodeo with some Parkinson's Diseased bull.
With my car incapacitated I have had no choice but to ride the city bus. An amenity that is free just by flashing my student I.D.
Possibly the most synthetic environment that I have ever been in, nothing on a city bus exists in nature. Everything is so incredibly sterile and cold. Apsects that are only fully accentuated at night when the lonely blue glow of the single-strip fluorescent lights is the only light available. The lighting sets a mood that seems to be what the directors of modern japanese horror films have been aspiring to but have been continuously falling just short. It is a feeling of utter desolation.
My travelling companion last night was Nina. A beautiful dark-skinned girl that I met at the bus stop. She boarded the bus to ride downtown to surprise her boyfriend at work and I boarded mostly just to ride. The shitty electric glow from above emphasized her purple hair and the fact that she seemed utterly detached from the world. And who could blame her? The bus is always a very surreal experience.
I looked up on March 24, 2006 at 7:43PM to read the electronic sign that scrolls the time an date: "November 7, 2025 8:43PM".
This weirdness caused me to have a flashback to the night before which was, coincidentally, my WaveTransit deflowering. When I boarded the bus, so did a handicapped elderly gentleman in a Hoveround. He was mumbling barely coherently while the bus driver was securing his chair to the chassis of the bus and responding to all of his questions in an extremely patronizing and insincere tone. He mumbled vague directions to the bus driver who, in turn, dropped him off on the side of the road in one of the few locations where the sidewalk is what I would refer to as "imaginary". As we sped away I looked back to see the man, heavy on the throttle of his chair, kicking up dust while spinning around in tight circles trying to figure out a way off the curb.
At the next stop we dropped off a man who, upon his exit, turned around, and with a flambouyant gesture that conjured up images of Nixon on the steps of Air Force One, said "God bless everyone on this bus." Moments later, some drunken NASCAR fan stumbled into the only available seat which happened to be next to me. He smelled like a locker room that had been freshly cleaned with malt-liquor. Or perhaps some back-woods moonshine still hidden away in a barn frequented by livestock. The next passenger to board was a feeble old woman with a definitive limp. The drunk stood and surrendered his seat to the woman and someone in the back said "Oh... A gentleman and a scholar." I am not sure if it was the "gentleman" or the "scholar" part that set the man off but his response was a sweeping gesture with his middle finger and the phrase "I WILL FUCKING KILL EVERYONE ON THIS BUS!" This caused a slight tension in the atmosphere of the otherwise cheerful bus. The woman chuckled a little causing the drunk to spin around, middle finger still raised but now gesturing to the length of it, and say "See this?!? This is how far I have to go to kick his ass!" (motioning now to the man who implied that he was polite and well educated, both of which turned out to be incorrect assessments).
I can imagine that the bus is prone to many fights. It is a very hostile environment. The foreign, unnatural electric glow. The whole world wooshing by just outside the windows and the only constant is the little, pulsating ribbon of concrete created by the curb. There is a sense of invincibility. All of the cars on the road seem to be submissive to you and your seemingly infinite momentum. The whole behemoth shakes violently even on the smoothest of asphalt. It is like riding in a rodeo with some Parkinson's Diseased bull.
posted by Seth Parham at 2:35 PM
1 Comments:
woah. that's why i live in l.a. where we all have our own cars.
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