Public Transportation...Wow!

Bob Bowen organized some folks to have drinks at The Cat & Fiddle of Hollywood. "Hey great, I'll take public transporation to get there", I thought. The ORANGE LINE connects to the RED LINE which has a stop at Hollywood and Highland, a mere 15 minute walk from the bar.

The ORANGE LINE is a special street route built for the exclusive use of silver and orange "articulated" buses, long caterpillar-like vehicles connected together with what looks like a foil dryer duct. I don't keep tabs on the LA public transportation scene, but I knew the Orange Line was coming long before most people, probably because practically WENT THROUGH MY BACK YARD.

The RED LINE is our superb subway system, which takes you in a straight line to about two useful places. Many people fear premature burial in the RED LINE during an earthquake. People are always surprised to hear that there's a subway system in LA, especially the people who live here.

Anyway, the point of all this is to say that CRAZY PEOPLE RIDE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Why oh why can't you get on one of these things and not experience the sheer sweaty hell of broken humans? I get on, take a seat near the driver and soon notice the musculed sweaty, intense guy in the headband standing near the driver. He's listening to headphones and he's making these jerky dance moves, punctuated by grunts and half-words, presumably in sync with the rock music which is almost distinct from 5 feet away.

He starts pacing the aisle back and forth in front of me, laughing to himself, stopping to do his rough dance, stepping down into the exit stairwell, and then taking his position at the front of the bus again. I wonder which pass will bring with it a fist to my face or possibly strangulation. He again descends to the exit stairwell, just to my left. He does his most energetic dance thus far, then giggles to himself and says, "All the cars have hairs". Acid is what he's on, I think. More dancing, and then in a commanding clear tone he twice demands, "Come in London!". I guess it's conceivable that he had a special cell-phone connection to England, but the more logical scenario is that he was receiving special "transmissions" from London that ony he could hear. My fear turned into amusement, but I still didn't dare make eye contact with him.

On the next stop, he exited the bus and hopefully the rest of my life. Who are the crazy bus dancers out there? I've asked this once and I'll ask again..."How do crazy people know to ride the bus?!". How do they know to pay, to wait at the right place, to not jump in front of it as it approaches? How?

As for the subway RED LINE portion of the night, there were no crazy people, just loud Mexican American girls cussing at eachother in a friendly manner and two Mexican guys with a PSP playing a really loud videogame. I was surprised to hear Grandmster Flash's "Scorpio" coming from the game. A pleasant surprise.

Oh yeah, the best line from those Mexican girls..."Would you give me like the biggest cigarette in the world for Christmas?". Her friend says, "Yeah, I would". Now that is heartwarming. The subway ride was very quick, and as I stepped out onto the Hollywood and Highland exit and saw all the bad teenage kids clogging up the revamped street corner, I thought, "Hollywood still sucks ass".