GUEST COLUMN: Dear Conductors, You Are Not Ryan Seacrest. Or Jim McKay. Or the Dude from Saturday Night Live.

NOTE: Today's column is a guest entry written by a fellow rider of the LIRR.

Subpar service. Overpriced tickets. Constantly delayed trains. Riding the Long Island Fail Road each day is bad enough without the conductors who think they should be sports announcers or radio DJs and regularly subject helpless commuters to their lame squawking and curious pronunciations of towns.

Picture it: A busy peak train in the evening. You've just settled into one of the tiny seats when a Two Ton Tessie plops down next to you and her generous thigh and ass fat oozes over the line onto your side of the seat. Crushed between a fleshy thigh and a filthy window that hasn't been washed since the Pleistocene Era, you somehow manage to fish the buds to your Ipod out of your pocket and pop them in your ears with much difficulty. As you scroll through the music selections searching for a tune that will transport you mentally from this Living Hell, suddenly there's a deep booming from above that sounds like the voice of God. If the voice of God was really fucking annoying. "This is the train to ...(Dramatic pause)... Raaaaaan-KANK-aaa-maaaaaaah! Once again, this is the train to Raaaaaan-KANK-aaa-maaaaaaah!"

Douchebag: It's pronounced Ronkonkoma. There is no need to stretch out each syllable. There is no need to put extra emphasis on certain other syllables. There is no need to take 30 seconds to pronounce the entire word. By this point, since we are trapped between the dirty, bird-poop stained window and some freak who looks like she could appear on the TLC show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," we are captive. And since we are in captivity, what you are doing is torture. Forget waterboarding. The Bush Administration should have simply used LIRR conductors at Gitmo to get detainees to reveal all their secrets.

Lest you think you're safe on another line, such as Babylon, take note: The conductors there love to shout, "Maaaaaaah-saaaah-pequa, pequa, pequa, peeeeeequaaaaah!"

Listen, I get it. You failed at the game of life and are now resigned to wearing fugly polyester pants and clicking a hole puncher day in and day out. Not my problem. So the next time you get in touch with your inner DJ, this will be my response: "Fuuuuuu-uuuuuck-uck-uck-uck-uck yooooooooou." You're not the only one who can come up with annoying pronunciations.

Mystery Meat

It’s a Friday night. It’s raining. There’s a “smoke condition” in one of the East River tunnels (Honestly, there are so many smoke conditions in those tunnels, it would make more sense for them to announce when there’s NOT a smoke condition). So naturally the train is going to have a track change and be two cars short.

Someone needs to explain this to me. Does the rain wash away two cars somehow? Are shorter trains more aerodynamic and more suitable for wet weather use? Why two cars? Why is a train never just one car short?

Anyway, I’m stuck standing a in a vestibule which is quickly filling with lots of people. In front of me is a man of either a middle eastern or African origin, talking quite loudly on his phone in a foreign language, laughing every 20 seconds or so in a boisterous, raspy laugh. Fine. I have headphones. I’ve dealt with worse. Much worse.

We hadn’t even left Penn Station when this guy proceeds to open a plastic shopping bag and produce a plastic take-out container, which has clearly been sitting in a fridge due to the condensation under the lid and the fact that there was no steam coming off the thing. He opens the lid. Holy. Fucking. Shit. This is one of the worst things I’ve ever smelled. My initial reaction was that it must have been curried dog asshole. It had to be. What else can smell that bad? It was a brownish-gray meat of unknown origin with rice, that was coagulated together in thick, cold chunks. And this guy was shoveling it down like it was his last goddamn meal.

For the uninitiated, the LIRR does not have a dinner car.

Not too many scents make me feel nauseous instantaneously. Bad fart in a confined space? Gross. Dog poop on a hot day? Pretty rough. This food? Nasal Armageddon. I couldn’t even breathe through my mouth because I could taste the smell. And this was cold. Imagine if this was heated up. The whole train would have been dead within a matter of minutes. If I wasn’t sardined into my spot, I would have left.

Thankfully the guy finished it quickly (it must have been delicious). He then proceeds to lift the bottom of his polo shirt up to his mouth to use as a napkin, all the while making odd kissy noises and lip-smacking sounds. And I can hear them OVER my music.

These sounds go on, and on, and on, and on. They don’t stop until he takes another phone call, in which he again laughs boisterously every few seconds, and talks at decibel levels that are higher than the music playing directly into my ears.

Finally, the phone call ends. And relative silence.

Smack, smack, smack. Again with the sounds! All the way until he got off at his station, two stops before the end of the line.

I don’t know what I did to deserve this punishment, but I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Honest.

I Lack the Ability to Perform Two Actions Simultaneously

July 7, 2011. A day that will live in infamy. It was on this day that I witnessed the most childish dickery by a conductor aboard a train. I’ve had conductors wave their hands in my face, snap their fingers at me and knock on the wall behind me to get my attention. But I have never seen one of these pink apes almost bite a rider’s goddamn head off.

I was sitting aboard the 6:53pm train, waiting to leave Penn Station, when I received a Rail Road e-mail alert on my phone saying that there were 30-40 minute delays on the Ronkonkoma branch, due to weather-related signal trouble (how rich). Was there an announcement over the PA about this? Of course not. Because, if you get a e-mail alert about a problem, they won’t tell you on the train (I once got an e-mail alert that the westbound train I was on was being cancelled at Jamaica and they didn’t bother telling anyone over the loudspeaker until we pulled into the station).

So anyway, part of the way through the ride, the asshole that is clearly counting down the days to retirement (and probably a disability package) comes around to collect tickets a second time. He’s getting pissy because he has to ask several times for people to show their tickets, as if he were expecting to announce it once, and everyone would happily display them as he walks by, giving him thumbs up and words of encouragement.

He gets near me, and a gentleman a few seats ahead of me asks in a very polite and friendly manner, “I heard there’s delays. How are we doing on time?” The conductor, very frazzled, replies curtly, “Not good. Not good.” The rider begins to ask the conductor if he can provide further details, and the conductor cuts him off saying, “I don’t know why people won’t show me their tickets. I’m asking for tickets, and I don’t know why it’s so hard…” The rider decided that being nice two times was enough, and starts to ask more firmly how late our train is going to be. The conductor snaps and says, “I don’t know! I have to check tickets! I can’t multitask!”

As the rider, who is a lot bigger and younger than the conductor, starts to talk back, the conductor walks away from him, probably realizing that he was about to get his face mashed into a jelly. Even though he was running away with his tail between his legs, he was still looking for tickets before passing into the next car. I was the last person he came to before the door, and when he looked down at me for my ticket (which was in my wallet, in my pocket), I replied without looking up from my laptop, “Sorry, I can’t multitask.”

“Mom? I got shanked ‘cause I can’t hold my liquor.”

Riding the railroad in the wee hours can be the most uneventful moment of your life, or it can be like that scene in Adventures in Babysitting where Brad gets stabbed in the foot because he fucked with the Lords of Hell.

On the special nights, some of the creepiest creatures known to man descend upon the largest commuter rail in the country and make it a point to ensure you never want to be awake and in public past nine o’ clock ever again.

From the people who drink brown mystery fluids out of mason jars to the wasted guy with no shoes and filthy, hole-riddled socks who shares dieting tips whether you want to hear them or not, you’re in for a night to remember if you run into any of these winners.

However, nothing compares to the combustible result when you combine the volatile mixture of blabbermouth teenagers with people who have spent some time behind bars who just want to sleep.

Ever think you were sure to see someone get stabbed in the neck? If you answered yes, then you were probably riding the train with me late last year.

It was late on a Thursday night last November. I was with my girlfriend and her friend in a six-seater, when a young, homeless-looking fellow plopped down in the four-seater across the aisle from us. It wasn’t long before his shoes were no longer anywhere in sight. Smelly and content, he struck up a one-way conversation with us, sharing diet tips and telling us the dangers of eating processed foods.

After what felt like an eternity, he drifted off to sleep mid-sentence, and my companions quickly followed suit.  It wasn’t until I had no one to talk to that I noticed how loud some drunken teenage girls from the other end of the car were talking and laughing. And it only seemed to get louder. And LOUDER. And LOUDER.

A man with a teardrop tattooed below his eye noticed too, and he decided to stand up and shout at the girls that they should “shut the fuck up,” and that he was “trying to get some goddamn sleep.” He also noted that he had “no problem going back to prison.” After a few more thinly veiled threats and profanities, he once again reminded the “bitches” to “shut their fucking mouths.”

They responded by giggling uncontrollably, not knowing an invitation to the ER when they saw one.

My fellow travelers (and shoeless buddy) slept through the rant, and I was left to be the sole murder witness when the bloodshed went down.

Things eventually quieted down, and the man fell asleep. A good bit of time had passed when I looked up to see two of the girls, holding back laughter, now standing over the sleeping man, waving in his face and talking baby talk to him. They may as well have strapped raw meat to their asses and ran around the Serengeti. What were these assholes thinking?! Well, their guardian angels must have been working overtime, because by some grace of god this guy didn’t wake up and bust a cap their goddamn domes. They quickly realized they were tempting fate a little too hard, so they knocked it off, sat down and shut their traps.

As the ride dwindled down, everyone parted ways. The ex-con woke up and got off, the health guru found his shoes and departed without even saying goodbye, and the girls, after sobering up a bit, quietly left realizing that they had barely survived after stared death in the face, quite literally.

Even though it was uneventful in the end, I couldn’t help but think that if some murderin’ had gone down, I’d have probably turned a blind eye if I weren’t too busy cheering and applauding. Usually I only dream of yelling at the loudmouths on the train. So, sleepy ex-con with the teardrop tattoo, consider yourself my hero.

Good Morning!

The train came in on time this morning. It wasn’t too crowded. People were generally pleasant and kept their voices down. The conductor was polite, not rude like he usually is. We made it in to Penn Station without any delays. We actually got in a little early! It was so nice. I can’t wait to ride home tonight.

Oh wait, what’s today’s date?

Please Replace With a Robot at Earliest Possible Convenience

I have a major problem with the conductors on the Long Island Rail Road. Well, shit, I have a major problem with just about every aspect of the Long Island Rail Road. But I really don’t like these clowns.

They march down the aisle clicking their hole punchers rapidly to get your attention, as if they can’t waste their precious breath to ask you for your ticket. Sometimes they like to make announcements over the PA demanding that you have your tickets out, usually in a surprisingly forceful manner. Oh, I’m sorry sir, is your time so fucking precious that a few seconds of your shift can’t be spent waiting for me to fish my ticket out of my wallet while I’m crammed between a window and an underpaid/overcharged schlub like me? Well the LIRR seems to be in the business of wasting commuters’ time, so I take every opportunity I can to return the favor.

A wise fellow commuter once told me that he never takes his ticket out until the conductor is right there next to him, and he takes his time doing it. So you know what? That’s exactly what I do now, and I suggest that all of you do the same from this point forward. I wouldn’t look these assholes in the eyes to save my life, so I don’t know if it bothers them, but it gives me a small sense of satisfaction. Sometimes I like to hold up a finger as if to say, “Hold on a second,” while I finish reading a line in a magazine, or typing a line on my computer. The worse of a mood I’m in, the longer they wait. If the train is late pulling out of Penn Station and I’m stuck standing because the train is a few cars short, I’m going to “check” every compartment in my bag, every pocket in my pants and jacket, and every compartment in my wallet before I “find” my ticket.

These losers are also complete cowards. When there’s some kind of weather related fuck-up and it’s clear we’re all getting home past our bedtimes, you won’t see a conductor the whole ride home. Where are they then, all high and mighty demanding your ticket? Oh, don’t want to face an angry public because your incompetent organization is ruining thousands of riders’ nights? Scared that someone might take out their frustration on you? Get out here and do your goddamn job, numb nuts. I wonder how long I would keep my job if I hid at work to avoid clients who were unhappy.

If this were feudal Japan, every MTA worker would have committed hari-kari due to the shame they’d brought upon themselves.

But above all else, there’s a rather serious reason I can’t stand these slugs. A staggering percentage of them abuse disability. Read it and weep. Literally. Don’t act like being on your feet all day clicking a hole puncher is so physically taxing that you need monetary compensation for it. Do ticket takers at movie theaters file for disability because they stand all day tearing tickets? No. How about cashiers at grocery stores? Nope. The notion of them getting disability pay for what they do would be laughed at. Yet somehow the MTA has no problem doling out money to these lying slimeballs.

A conductor’s job requirements are pretty well spelled out, so you should know what you’ll be getting yourself into. Get some comfortable shoes and a wrist guard, and stop complaining. Now go conduct yourself to some broken glass and sit on it.

Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good

So not every day on the LIRR is all that bad. At its worst you will be left blood boiling, standing in a hailstorm, three hours after you should have been home, waiting for a train that’s not coming…and no one bothered to tell anyone that it wasn’t gonna show (actually happened). Other times your commute might be made less pleasant by a man approaching middle age who thinks Couples Retreat is the funniest movie of the past twenty years and insists on quoting it almost every day (also true). Since every day isn’t always a complete nightmare, I’ll recount some of the A+ days from years past when new happenings are slow.

Today’s story comes from the files of “My headache was caused by a fellow commuter, and not the LIRR. Holy shit, what a nice change of pace.”

Every once in a while I forget my iPod or headphones at home or at work. When this happens, a beacon is sent out to all the crazies alerting them to sit as close as possible to me on the train and talk at the loudest possible volume about inane shit.

In the mornings I try to catch the express train if I can, because I like my commute as short as humanly possible. On this particular morning I happened to be taking a later train. Double whammy: I left my iPod at work the night before and now I was going to have a longer ride in.

Somewhere around Brentwood, a grungy looking, middle-aged fella gets on, plops down in a seat across the aisle from me and promptly falls asleep. No problem. It’s about two stops later when he takes a phone call that the problem begins. This is one of those guys who has NO PROBLEM letting the world know his business. Because if it were an issue, he wouldn’t speak at a decibel level well above that of a Motörhead concert. As an added bonus, he had a thick Long Island accent and he was one of those guys that pronounces all his S’s as slight Sh’s (i.e. ‘Sho I shays to the guy…’)

I was doing my best to drown out what he was saying, until I heard the same phrase repeated a couple times: “Don’t be bustin’ down my door, bro.” It was then that he had my full attention, because clearly this was a story worth hearing. Luckily for me, he’s one of those guys who will tell his story over and over again from the beginning, as if his listener can’t quite grasp the gravity of the situation.

From what I could piece together, this guy lived in some kind of halfway house. That morning, some fellow creep he lived with came into his room while the guy was still in bed. The creep was just kind of hovering over him, when the guy snapped out of his sleep and unleashed on the creep. He recanted to his friend how he grabbed the creep and held him against the wall while continually reprimanding him with the words, “Don’t be bustin’ down my door, bro.”

This guy must have said, “Don’t be bustin’ down my door, bro” sixty times in the span of ten minutes. Often preceded by the phrase, “So I says to him.”

Do me a favor. Go say, “Don’t be bustin’ down my door, bro” ten times in a row and tell me you don’t want to punch yourself in the face. This guy’s phone call lasted almost half the ride and I have never been more sorry that I had no audible diversion.

I’ll be honest, I feel bad for the guy. No one wants to wake up to some weirdo staring at them in their sleep, but I have a problem with a flaw in the guy’s storytelling: He woke up after the creep had been staring at him in his room. If his door had been busted down, as he so undoubtedly believed it was, would he not have woken up at the sound of wood being torn from its hinges? I suppose, but then the story wouldn’t have packed the same punch if he had been saying, “Don’t be gingerly openin’ my door, bro.”

Signal Problems!

Sometimes I think the Long Island Rail Road lives in a fantasy world. No, not sometimes. All times. I’m roughly 40,000,000,000% sure they do. Not only do they think that over $300 a month is a bargain to ride on a shitty, century-old rail system desperately in need of updates, but they somehow think their service is exceptional. This is something that is constantly touted in the monthly Train Talk newsletter that is left on train seats in a “Here, you throw this away” fashion.

This also means they believe that March 1st is the first day of Spring and that it has never snowed in the month of March, ever. So when it DID snow on March 23rd, it’s as if the LIRR was collectively caught off guard in their Tommy Bahama shirts, feet up, sipping fruity drinks with paper umbrellas in them. I also envision everyone wearing straw hats. And someone has a ukulele.

If anyone had the pleasure in being on the 7:11pm Ronkonkoma train on the night in question, then you probably know what I’m talking about (assuming you get off at Central Islip or Ronkonkoma). On display this night was everyone’s favorite horseshit reason for delays: the signal problem.

BING BONG. “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the inconvenience but we’re currently being held at a stop signal. We’re experiencing some signal problems up ahead…” You know the drill.

The train sat for thirty minutes just west of the CI station, constantly being told over the PA by some overpaid, shaved ape that we were going to be moving in about five minutes. When we did moves six five-minutes later, we rolled into Central Islip, riders disembarked, and we headed out. As the train crawled out towards Ronkonkoma, the train came to a stop again, now east of the CI station. For another. Thirty. Goddamn. Minutes.

BING BONG. “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the inconvenience…blah blah blah…moving in about five minutes.”

I’m going to throw a few statistics your way and then I’m going to ask you to answer a question.

1.     The Long Island Rail Road is the largest commuter railroad in the country.

2.     Long Island has a temperate climate, where it gets cold in the winter. In fact, winter-like conditions can usually be experienced between the months of November and April.

3.     The LIRR is consistently plagued by signal and switch problems. Most of these problems are weather-related. Usually having to deal with snow and ice.

Based on what I have just told you, select the statement that makes the most sense:

A.   The LIRR should update the switches and signals, so that they are 100% functional year-round in the environment in which they dwell.

B.    The LIRR should leave switches and signals as they are, and cause constant delays and frustration any time it drizzles.

I’m going to guess that most of you picked A. If you chose B, then you are probably Jay Walder or someone else with a cushy position within the MTA. I will never not be amazed at how inefficiently this system is run. It should really no longer be a shock to me, but you can’t help but be amazed by the feckless nature with which problems are handled.

The Long Island Rail Road will no doubt applaud itself for the fast manner in which they acted, and continue to hype their laughable peak on time performance.

BING BONG. “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the inconvenience…”

Stop apologizing and get me home already, fuckface.

Fun fact: While “fuckface” is flagged by Word’s spell-check, “horseshit” is not.

Hofmann Lenses

I'm sure anyone out there who lives on Long Island has ridden the Long Island Rail Road at least once in his lifetime. Maybe it was to see a Rangers game or a concert or a Broadway show. And maybe the experience wasn't rife with delays, broke-down trains and asshole-y ticket-takers, and I'm sure you thought, "Hey, this is kinda fun." You. Are. Wrong.

Remember that John Carpenter movie They Live, starring 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper? The one where he and Keith David beat the everlasting shit out of each other for six goddamn minutes? There were these sunglasses in that movie, and when a character wore them, he could see things as they really were, which were normally hidden to the human eye. Money and billboards had hidden subliminal messages. Normal looking people turned out to be butt-ugly aliens.

Well this blog is going to be a pair of those "Hofmann lenses", showing the ins and outs of the daily LIRR commute. I'm not sure how regular updates will be, but if it takes me four hours to get home (which it has on several occasions), you can bet there will be a post.