Live from Austin!

There was a boy on the subway just now who looked to be about 14 years old. He was with his father. I think the kid was autistic, because his behavior was very like Raymond in Rain Man. He even looked like a young Dustin Hoffman in glasses.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to do that… They shouldn’t be allowed to do that…” “What?” “They’ve closed the doors. We’re not even moving. Oh, no, now we’re moving… How fast are we moving? Uh-oh, what’s that noise? What’s that noise!?” “It’s the wheels.” “The wheels are metal?” …and so on. It was quite entertaining, really.

A $15 billion bailout for the airlines to save them from their own incompetence, yet we can’t even find $1.5 billion to save Amtrak.

Railtrack, the UK company set up to run the track part of the UK’s railway network, has gone bust. All the suckers who bought shares hoping that vital infrastructure could be treated as a profit-making industry will get little or no payback. A few Tory political cronies who got to be high-level managers of Railtrack made out like bandits and retired with millions of pounds.

Well, it beats having to re-nationalize. At least this way only the people who bought into the idea of privatization get screwed.

I just sat next to a new and different kind of crazy person on the T. I don’t know how you’d even begin to categorize his behavior, apart from “bizarre”.

He looked perfectly normal as I sat down. Smelled perfectly normal too—that is, no noticeable aroma. He began his performance art by poking at the backpack of the person standing in front of him, using a black Pilot V5 rollerball. He probed at the zippers for a while, without getting any reaction. Finally, he tugged on his victim’s T-shirt.

“Did you see me push my pen into that backpack?”

“No.”

“Is it yours?”

The victim considered. He was wearing the backpack.

“No, it’s your pen, isn’t it? I don’t have a pen.”

“Is the bag yours?”

There was a pause as the victim allowed the stupidity of the question to wash over him.

“Yes.”

“It’s just that it looks exactly like my backpack.”

The conversation seemed to stop at this point, so the crazy guy asked for directions to Porter T stop. The victim was unable to help, so the crazy guy turned his attention to me.

He started by trying to pull my backpack out from between my legs. He had his pen, and was clearly ready to do some probing. I blocked him with my leg. He seemed angry.

“Is that your backpack?”

I nodded.

“You could say ‘Hey, that’s my bag’, you know.”

I decided not to dignify that with a response.

“It’s just that it looks exactly like my bag.”

I considered this. My backpack is black and grey; the first victim’s was bright yellow. Let’s just say I was skeptical. I said nothing, and the crazy guy muttered something critical about how I shouldn’t ignore him.

He reached into a plastic bag, and started unwrapping some candles in cylindrical glass vases. He scattered broken glass over the floor of the subway carriage as he did so—he’d smashed at least one of the vases. I couldn’t help glancing at where the glass had gone.

“What, did I ask you to look? Did I get glass on your suit?”

I wasn’t wearing a suit. Not even close. I decided that if I was going to be criticized both for ignoring him and for paying attention to him, I might as well go back to my preferred option.

He offered the broken item for everyone to look at.

“The amazing thing is, it’s Pocahontas.”

I ignored him, in spite of further criticism. Eventually we arrived at Porter and he got off the train.

What the hell is it with the T this month? Did they shut down the local mental health ward? Are they shipping ‘em in from New York? I don’t want to appear insensitive, but really…

This morning on the T there was a really stinky guy with psoriasis and matted grey hair who insisted on standing shoved up against me, and breathing with his mouth hanging open. Obviously the psoriasis isn’t his fault, but the rest I hold him responsible for. I still feel soiled…

Coming home, I was sat next to the guy with Tourette’s Syndrome. At least, that’s what I assume it is; I’m no expert. He’s often travelling either to or from Davis Square. He sits and basically babbles whatever enters his head. Sometimes he tries to read a book or magazine, and you hear bits of the text incorporated into his vocalizations. Tonight it was mostly unintelligible; if it was a foreign language, it wasn’t one I recognize.

Sometimes he can clear a radius of two or three seats around him. When I failed to move, he moved a seat closer; perhaps hoping I’d try to strike up a conversation.

I do hope that everyone else has noticed LRT’s big lie.

I’m talking about the big lie in flashing lights on every station platform… ”EUSTON 2 mins”, “HAMMERSMITH 4 mins”, and so on.

From asking people, I’ve come to the conclusion that most people believe that the electronic displays at LRT stations actually indicate the time at which the train is to arrive. This is not the case.

The indicators are remotely controlled by a system of switches. If a train is running late, then LRT slow down the rate at which the times change, so that the trains always seem to be reasonably prompt. For example, one board at Baker Street indicated that the next Circle Line train would be arriving in three minutes. I timed from the transition of the display from “4 mins” to ”3 mins”, up until the “*** NEXT TRAIN ARRIVING” message. It took seven minutes.

No doubt you think I’m over-reacting, but I’m shocked by this. It’s a bit like brainwashing; people see that the trains are on time; so they believe that the trains are on time. Unfortunately, the information which they use to judge their belief is being manipulated and fabricated in order to fool them. George Orwell would have loved it.