Friday, March 5, 2010

The International Subway Soundtrack

A couple of months back I visited one of my old time friends from grade school up at her college in Moraga, just a few towns away from big ol' San Francisco. It was my very first time riding the subway up in those parts and I was excited to figure out how this kick-ass system that I'd been hearing so much about worked. Haggled for a few moments with the little ticket machine and felt like an idiot a little, which invariably happens when you're trying something like that for the first time and there are every-day commuters all around you gettin all pissed off that you're stupid. So that was scary. But we felt really great about ourselves, even though we'd just popped out $9 for a 3 mile one-way ticket or something a little retarded like that, as we swam along with the rest of the veteran-rider school and reached the escalator up to the platform.

Welcome to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, Gina Caprari. Because, almost like the wafting music Disneyland plays while you're in line for the Matterhorn or something, there was a distinct soundtrack to the Walnut Creek BART platform, too. The escalator ascended, and just as all the anticipation was rising and all previous thoughts and prejudices and exhaltations about the Bay Area Rapid Transit system were sequencing through my head, the soundtrack came drifting down the escalator to us... almost magically...

"Well FUCK YOU THEN Jesus don't love you.
Jesus don't LOVE YOU. You think Jesus love you? You wrong! You damn wrong.
FUCK you. fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou and thank you very much, too.
Cus you said 'Fuck Jesus' so now he gon come fuck you. JESUS Don't LOVE you..."

Aaaaaand that was my first impression of the subway system in San Francisco. Reminds me of LA. It's cool, cus I felt right at home.

So what's up with subway systems havin a soundtrack then. "Fuck you fuckin Jesus" guy at San Francisco, and then the very first day I hit the Subte in Buenos Aires we get this crazy little puchero jumpin on our ass-packed (and I've never seen a more packed subway car. Like, other people's bodies stickin to my body.) car, with his headphones on, verily screeching into a business card as if that shields his fuckin voice from the rest of us and makes it okay to rape and pillage all of our senses at once. Oh ya, I'm talking a bonafide five-sense-er, baby, smell sound sight touch, most definitely touch, and he probably would taste funky, too. And I love that he traveled from his arrival spot on the train through the already heaving and dismal crowd to the absolute other end of the car, as if to spread the beautiful love which emanated from his cat-scratched voice and general person. Ah, what an allure. Makes me wanna try the subway in New York City. Who knows what talented people reside in subways there.

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