Hey, fans, more over-writing! This page is compiled observations from my notebook written during my 28-hour Amtrak odyssey from NYC to Ft. Lauderdale. Not much else to do on a train, after all, especially when you've listed to your Steely Dan tape about 10 times already. Anyway, "enjoy" and rest assured the remainder of the updates aren't going to be quite so ... loquacious.
jc
Penn Station, March 25th (?):
Penn Station @ 5:30 am is even skeezier than you’d think. When you head down the escalators from 7th Ave., there’s homeless men sleeping on the main floor of the station. Cops running around with loud handheld sirens waking them up. “Let’s go, move it, move it!” A weird scene. As i got here, there was an NJ Transit train who’s departure gate # was just announced. Dozens of well-dressed, partied-out Jersey-ians clamoring for the entrance in their skirts and leather pants and high-heels and such, all looking pretty frazzled. And here we go again with the sirens. Three cops crouching over one homeless guy, blasting their sirens and yelling. Fuckers.
I’ve been up all nite, just like i promised myself i would be. Not as much fun as i thought it’d be, though, as i didn’t get enough sleep on Friday. The Tris McCall show at the Shannon Elk’s Lodge in Hoboken was fun – the Negatones were terrific, and everyone liked my new shirt. As for us, we played to long (me, Tris and RV tonight), and i screwed up a lot, but oh well. Beats not playin’. However, the highlight of that show to me came afterward when Tris’ friend Kevin tried getting a distracted Robin’s attention by very earnestly, very soulfully, very LOUDLY singing along with the jukebox as it played “When Love Comes To Town” by U2 and B.B. King. I thought he was going to pop a blood vessel in his head. 2nd place goes to the embarrassed look on Jesse Fuchs’s face as the 2nd CD by his very own Denver Zest blared over the P.A. in between sets.
20 minutes until the train leaves ...
We’re in Philly now. I’ve slept most of the way down thus far, thankfully. I woke up right as we were whizzing by a local rail station marked “North Philadelphia.” Very bleak looking. Amtrak trains always seem to run through these parts of cities. Old, shelled-out factories and rows of walk-ups with missing windows. There was about 30 pictures i wanted to take. All the houses looked like sad faces.
Fat married couple on bicycles! Come back ...
See what i mean?
DC on a cold sunny Sunday morning. I’m sitting on a bench in the mall, with the Capitol building on my right. Joggers, frisbee throwers, Japanese tourists. Mostly joggers. It’s about 10:30 am and my hand is cold from writing. My feet hurt from my new sneakers. I’m very groggy. I climbed the steps of the Capitol building and took a picture of the Washington Monument in the distance. I then thought about how strange it is to take pictures of landmarks; someone else at some point has already taken a much better one. They all end up on postcards. So i've decided i'm just going to take pictures of weird things, if i can find any. For starters, i’m tempted to take a picture of this squirrel sitting right next to me. But, until i see a squirrel drinking from a beer can with a straw – hell, a KEG – what’s the point?
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Just got done seeing the American History branch of the Smithsonian. The old satellite, Archie Bunker’s favorite chair, lots of kitchy plastic appliances from the ‘50s. I’m walking as i write this. I’m hearing a crow craw in a tree and it makes me think of Robin. She loves crows.
After seeing the Lincoln Memorial, i decided to make a quick pit stop at a snack stand to get a snack of some sort. For some reason i settled on hot chocolate. I sit on a bench outside and slowly sip my drink. After about a minute, i overheard an elderly couple on the other side of the long bench – she sitting, he standing.
Her, looking toward a far-off field of flowers: “Those yellow flowers over there, are those yarrow?”
Him, dismissively, looking in a different direction: “I’m not sure ...”
I sat for another 5 minutes. They didn’t say another thing to each other the whole time.
I’m on the train in the middle of Virginia somewhere. The train has been stopped for about 15 minutes because of a brush fire on the tracks. They’re saying another 10 minutes; i’m guessing it’s going to be at least an hour (it ended up being about 45 minutes). On top of all that, the train is completely full. I’m having to sit next to a fat smelly drunk ogre in black sweatpants who reminds me of my father Rudy. Across the aisle from me is a sunken-eyed potbellied moron who seems to have a fondness for staring, especially when a 10 year-old girl walks by. I can hear both men when they breathe. Crap, it’s like upstate NY in here.
Did i mention i sunburnt my scalp?
There ain’t been much in the way of scenery either since shelled-out North Philly. I saw a sign for “Pit Beef” in Maryland. And i thought John Waters made that up.
Little kid drawing in a “How to draw Garfield” book. Ah, the enduring classics ...
It’s early the following morning and we’re somewhere in Georgia. Not that i have any idea where; it’s weird to be floating along without any sort of geographical context. Just surroundings. I’d love to step out for 5 minutes, see some small town. See what kind of pink flowers are in that bush over there, see how cold the water in that swamp is. See where that road goes.
At least i’m not sitting next to those two old guys anymore. I was excited to wake up this morning to see the two seats across the aisle were empty. So i scooted over to sit and look at the scenery, and i realized that they’d been pissed in. This sux.
I’m in the dining car now. More coffee. It’s quite cold in here, and the sunny scenery streaks by. A little hick kid in the seat behind me is having a microwaved chocolate-chip cookie for breakfast.
The guy who runs the snack car is a trip. A very Brooklyn-y guy, shaved bald with goatee, kinda big, probably in his mid 30s, very talkative. He was telling me about a friendly woman who smiled at him earlier. 4 of her front teeth were missing. “It was f*ckin’ sick, dude!” he exclaimed loudly. She was standing about 5 feet away.
After that, he remarked “Not only that, but she’s already had 4 beers this morning (it’s about 8 a.m.) ... not that i mind, you know ... i just like making small talk.” This explains why, last night, he couldn’t stop telling me about another passengers breasts.
Little kid to other little kid: “Your bref is funky like a dawg!”
I’m remembering going thru a town in North Carolina last night, a very small town with many vacant store fronts. One such former store was called “New York Hi Fashion.”
My old seat-mate just walked by, heavily cologned, using a cane. “Ho, ho, ho” he said to no one in particular. Rudy.
Snack Bar Man gave me my 3rd coffee for free.
I believe the children are our future: The little kid who was having a nutritious cookie for breakfast spied me writing in my notebook and asked if i was a journalist. I said “no, i just like writing.”
He asked “do you like what you do?”
This seemed like a strange question, so i just replied “yeah, i guess so.”
“What do you do?”
Ok kid, you got me. So i told him what i did for a living, and he excitedly, yet unexcitedly relayed that information to another hick kid who had just wandered into the scene.
“Wow, are you famous?” the new kid asks.
“No, not really.”
“Oh, cuz i was gonna ask you for your aut-o-graph.”
!
“I’ll give it to you if you want, i guess” i replied with a shrug.
“Okay.”
I ask him his name (Lee) and where he was going (Florida ... of course, we were in Florida by this point, but okay ...), and i wrote him a note out of my notebook to the effect of “Have fun in Florida (you little ..)” and signed. As i was doing this, he asked me what i wrote on the show, and i explained about the bubbles and captions and all that.
And he says “Oh, like ‘Christina Aguillera has silli-cone?”
But kid, that’s Britney Spears, and that’s libelous and ... ah never mind. “Actually, we can’t stay stuff like THAT ...” i said, handing him his genuine Jens Carstensen autograph. “There you are!”
He smiled and put it in his backpack. “Cool, now i can say i knew you before you were a rockstar.”
!!!
At that point, The Mummy came on the tv in the car. I quickly excused myself, but not without taking a picture first.
Clockwise from l. - kid who said "Your bref is funky like a dawg,"
kid who eats cookies for breakfast, Lee, developmentally disabled kid you'll read about later
Eventually i met one of the kids’ dads, who, upon finding out what i do for a living, was very excited to tell me he worked as an assistant engineer on Emmylou Harris’ first demo in 1969. I thought that was pretty cool, so we kept chatting. He also mentioned that he did a movie with “Emmylou in it” in 1975.
“Really?”
To which he admitted he just used her music in the soundtrack. Okay ... Anyway, he was very excited to send me a copy of the movie (a movie about him growing up as a hippy, natch) because VH1 would be a perfect place for it, and what could i do to pull some strings, etc. Yes, i was being pitched to. At a loss, i told him about a co-worker of mine who had a script he’d written made into a movie that premiered at Sundance. That went in one ear and right out the other. I should’ve told him i hate hippies.
It would seem a lot of ugly people got off in Jacksonville. Then, another batch of even uglier people got on.
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Back in my seat. I just saw a sign that read “Thank you for observing rule 90.” I wonder what that means ... Biblical? An anti-littering ordinance? Some obscure Amtrak protocol? The mind boggles ...
The only AM radio station i can find on my walkman is broadcasting a golf match. On a Monday morning at that.
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So, what’s happened lately ... well, that one hippy clown managed to dredge up a copy of his movie out of his suitcase, just for me to pass along to VH1. He also cornered me and told me about his movie he made about his developmentally disabled son, augmenting it with anecdotes about meeting Neil Young and his two developmentally disabled children. He spoke about approaching “Neil” about doing a music video that featured the aforementioned children, which Neil declined. I speculated aloud that was probably because Neil Young probably wanted to maintain the privacy of his family and didn’t want to exploit or make a commodity of his children’s disabilities.
“You know, you’re probably right!”
That never occurred to him?
Did i mention he hailed from Boulder?
I somehow got coaxed into playing finger football w/a mentally retarded girl from South Carolina. She asked what i did for fun in New York City. I told her i play music. “That doesn’t sound like fun.” she said with a grin smeared with orange soda. “In my town, we have two malls! One is one floor, and one is two floors! Etc. etc. etc.” She also kept offering me some of her Pringles, by vigorously shaking the can that was obviously filled with crumbs. I gotta get out of here.
I’ve also had to tell about 15 people what i do for a living. From now on, i work at a coffee shop. I just saw a train car with a warning sticker that read “Do Not Hump.” Tee hee hee. Maybe THAT’S “Rule 90.”
Ok, so i’m ready to get off the train. I’ve been wearing the same clothes since the Tris McCall show, and i smell pretty raunchy. I’ve had two more cups of coffee, brushed my teeth, flipped my crusty socks over. Snack Car Man was even kindly enough to let me use his deodorant when i asked. Which i really, REALLY needed.
I chatted with him a bit before. He has a pretty cool work schedule – go to NYC (2 day trip), take a day off there, return to Flordia, then two days off. 45-50 hours a week, and Amtrak pays for hotel and food. Sounds like an okay gig to me.
I wonder if “life on the rails” is making him a little crazy, though. At one point, he was flipping through the Amtrak toiletries closet in a vain search for some deodorant. Upon coming across a packet of hand lotion he says “Here’s some hand lotion ... you might want to put this on your penis!” Then he laughed a lot.
Quick afterthought: Anyone want to screen that movie with me?
