It has been kind of a gloomy last couple of days, around town. But I have been insanely busy, with hardly any time to notice. Despite all of that, I was able to sneak in a few quick runs during the week. Our first race of the season is actually Sunday morning. Luckily it is in our neighborhood. So, we won’t have to stand around freezing in the park forever, before it starts.

One of the things that I worked on this week, was snapping some images (above and below) of the new Rothman’s space near Union Square. It is a NYC born and bred men’s clothing store that has been around for almost a century. It is a really cool space. I just wish that the weather would have cooperated, so that we could have had better light.

Here is a quick and dirty A train poem to kick off the weekend:

Chambers, Canal– here we go. ‘E’ across the platform at West 4^th, some jackass holds the doors. 14^th approaches, device alerts sounding in synchronization. Penn, Times, 59^th, time to zone out.  125 arrives, Harlem proper. 145^th– “’D’ on the lower level” a voice shouts. 168– Columbia Hospital and the place where they shot X dead. GW Port Authority, almost theres. 181, detrain and hit the stairs.

4 day weekends are boss. The weather has turned to crap, and is supposed to remain crap (rainy) for the duration. I’m not worried though. Some of our good friends will be spending the holiday with us, and I’m sure that there will be plenty of good times had. I’m also excited about my good friend Michael Corleone who will be returning from Italy after several years on the lam. Wait, that is a different Michael C.. My friend Micheal C., who is coming home from Italy to visit, didn’t shoot anyone. I’m hoping to be able to kick it with him for a minute or two over the weekend, as well.

Since it is sort of a Friday, I’m going to serve up this A train poem. I thought it was cheesily appropriate for this week since it has a bit of a gratitude theme.

The rain magnifies everything on the A train. The humidity on the platform, once bearable, reaches levels normally reserved for swamps and saunas. That subtle stench of urine/body-odor/halitosis becomes much less subtle. On rainy days, nose-deaf strap hangers are counted as fortunate. When it rains, the slight annoyance felt toward the person who keeps bumping your leg on the A train, becomes tangible as their wet umbrella soaks your slacks and drips onto your brogues. On the A train when it’s raining, that feeling of relief to finally be headed home goes beyond relief, and breaches the threshold of gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

[photo: Rush hour on the West Side Highway from the Vesey St. foot bridge]

[Above: goofing off on the A train]

The photo above is by our friend Jen. I would link to her, but she is too big to have a website. Not big, as in body mass (she is actually very fit). Big as in (more than) kind of a big deal, when it comes to lighting your Broadway show, opera, or rock concert. If you can afford her, your show will be successful. If not… hey man, who hasn’t rolled the dice a time or two?

Anyway, I’m glad that it is Friday. We have some pretty good stuff on tap for this weekend, if everything goes as planned. Part of it includes a road trip upstate to a magical outdoor art-installation wonderland.

To kick things off, here is another installation for the A train poem series. I call this one “Same but different.”

At times it is incredulous, the way that things are constantly changing, yet never appear to change at all. I find myself in the exact same state of mind, standing on the same underground slab of concrete as the day that I initially started recoding these thoughts. Staring into the same black tunnel. Same buds in my ears. Surrounded by the same mix of people. Despite all of the sameness, everything is so different. Everything.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday, everyone. It has been an interesting week ’round these parts. Most notably, there have been some celebration-worthy events transpiring. Wednesday night’s celebration included getting together with our neighbor friends (yes, Michelle it was kind of like a Friends episode). We teamed up to make some mac & cheese burgers. While Reagan and Jen worked on the Macaroni in our kitchen, the men (ok, mostly Franke), worked on the burgers at Joe + Jen’s place. The food was fantastic. Dinner was followed by enjoying the fall night on the roof discussing Japanese cinema and other items until the wee hours of the morning. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Switching gears completely, I’ll be headed off to Chicago this evening, for the upcoming race. I’m pretty excited to see my friends Mike and Jeni who moved there in the past year from California. I guess that I’m also pretty excited to get this race out of the way. Let’s see how that goes. I don’t plan on taking a camera or a computer with me. So, the blog may get a bit quiet over the weekend. Wish me luck.

And finally, another poem about the A train.

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Just marinating on this orange and yellow bench. A color scheme from a different decade, even a different century. A concaved bench designed for articulation to the build of the average person. Am I an average person? Does it matter? Hey! I can tweet from the 14th street stop!

Have a great weekend!

I wish that I could get more excited about this weekend. It is going to be kind of insanely busy. But I’m not going to complain. Most of the business is just editing all of the video that we shot on Monday. In addition to that task, I’ll be participating in a half marathon in the morning. The course is kind of boring (2 laps of CP), but It is kind of a special one, since it is named after one of my running heros, Grete Waitz, who passed away earlier this year. I have run this race a few time in the past as well. Traditionally Grete would actually come to the race and sound the starting horn.

To kick off the weekend, I’m also sharing another poem written about and while riding the lovely A train. I have actually given this one a title. It’s called “Emergency Brake.”

Earbuds blasting. In a zone. This A train is taking me somewhere important to somebody. On the cusp of achieving commuter Nirvana as jolts shock back to reality. Underground. Space invaded. One bud removed to hear the garbled overhead bleeting something about “this train going loco.” Or was it local? Either L word correctly sums this moment, this tunnel.

Have a great weeked!

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As great as public transportation is, the MTA is seriously messed up. Sometimes the glaring deficiencies are maddening. Other times, their efforts to restore service, or prevent interruptions are something that the Army corps of engineers would be proud of. One example of this was on Monday. A broken water main on the UWS caused the ABC and D tunnels to become totally full of water in certain sections. The MTA spent all night pumping it out and replacing signals and switches ruined by the flooding. Even though afternoon commute that day was hellish, having those lines out of service, the MTA had everything back in working order in time for the morning commute. Way to go, guys. In honor of their hard work, I would like to debut a little poem that I wrote about the A train. Hahahaha.

I have actually now written several of these. I thought that it would be hilarious to start writing poems while either waiting for, or riding the train late at night. This particular poem was one of the first. I thought that in light of recent events, it was appropriate to publish it this week.

On the platform, probably staring at the texturized yellow line. Maybe sane, maybe paralyzed. On my retinas flash the reflection of incandescent light on the tracks. It’s that ghetto incandescent light of a city that hasn’t been updated in much too, too long.  The tracks have been worn smooth, shinier than mirrors. Two parallel mirrors in the sooty rat pen. Optics strain, pupils dial down. There is a disgustingly un-royal, royal blue circle with the English equivalent of Alpha marking the center. On my way home, at last. At last what? I don’t know. Nothing significant, because I’ll do it again tomorrow and again. I’m bad at poems.

So there you have it. Happy Wednesday.

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