MTA Excursion: Brighton Beach

After work yesterday, I put on my headphones.

Now
I'm wakin' at the crack of dawn
to send a little money home
from here to the moon
is risin' like a discotheque
and now my bags are down and packed for traveling

Lookin' at happiness
keepin' my flavor fresh
nobody knows I guess
how far I'll go, I know . . .

I go through the secret underground tunnel and mall between my building and Rockefeller center to the train. I get a seat on the B train and settle in.

Glass and concrete and stone
That it's just, not a home.
And its glass and concrete and stone

It is just a house, not a home
And my head is fifty feet high
Let my body and soul be my guide*

Wow. This is cozy. I have to be at West 4th before 7pm. It's so comfortable on the train, though, and it's only 5:15. I get to West 4th at 5:34. What's the last stop on this train?

Brighton Beach it is!

Raise up - shake them lazy bones
Read the T-shirt but still don't understand
Comin' home with a little apocalypse
It comes, now do you have time for this?

A 3-tone carpet and a Jackie Chan spear
Lookin' at a hairdo and a belly full of beer
Well I ain't no poet, ain't got no rhyme
Well I got me a car and I don't know how to drive

The guy next to me is huge - fur-hooded Timberland Jacket - unaware that he's upsetting me by inching closer and closer.

In the event of a pressure loss
All our lines are busy now
I will be laughing out loud anyhow

The wormy man across from me leaves the train. I thought those bags - one full grocery sack and a large camera bag - belonged to him. They didn't? Did he forget them? Was he elderly? I don't remember what he looked like. Have those bags been sitting there all day? But more importantly, are those bags suspicious?

Ev'ryday, a little apocalypse
Lay down, lay down next to this
Lookin' at the body well I don't even know his name
Call me in this morning was a friend of mine

Well the wind so strong, it's blown us all around
Wind so strong, nobody settle down
Ev'ryday another apocalypse
Had a TV but I don't know how deep it is

Okay, I just spent all day trying not to be paranoid. That's the kind of thing that might just happen to me, though. Take the B train to Brighton Beach for no reason and that train is the one get's hit. Who would know I'm on this train? Spontaneity isn't very safe.

Please read the print advisory
Would you like to go ahead?
Dancin' wherever she goes - Tippytoes

Is the bomb inside the bag on a timer? Why would someone bomb a train that was leaving Manhattan? Okay, I'm safe. Unless the timer on the bomb is preset to go off an hour later, when the train goes back into the city. I just won't take this particular train back. I'll wait for the next B train or I'll take the Q. Forget my 7:00 appointment. What's really important here?

Rhetorical
Memorial
Invisible
Incredible
Unstoppable
Emotional
Illogical
Sensational

Little sister gotta take her medicine
Baby brother, gonna do it all again
Runnin' fast but cannot catch the bus
Funny feelin', this is part of us

There's totally just cake in that bag.

And you must take your medicine
Getting better everyday
Good for a limited time - Feelin' fine

We will return your things to you
When it's time for you to leave
So quiet nobody knows - Tippytoes*

Nevertheless, today, I confronted death.

In Brighton, I walk under the train tracks and find myself in a place I'm familiar with. There's an Italian restaurant at the end of the boardwalk in Coney Island. I'd been there twice before, to use the restroom. They always made me by a diet coke because if their "restrooms are for customers only" policy. That means that I'm close to the ocean!!

Picture this
Bumping lips
Everyone talks
Do a dialogue box

They shake and bake
Make a cranky face
They got rocks in the head
Got rocks in the bed

Pull the hood down
Grab the fold out
Is it too loud?
Is it all right?

Makin' contact
And you know that
Need a tight fit
To survive

I walk up the boardwalk. Someone has shovelled a path in the snow. It's really quite serene and pacifying. I thought it would be really creepy. It's dark outside. Who hangs out at night on the Coney Island Boardwalk in February?

Romeo
Said Juliette
Got a dialogue box
Hey look at me, that's my answer

All Sparkly white
Shiny bright
A genuine smile
The Renegade style

Gonna heat 'em up
And stir the pot
bake it a while
Then cool on the side

Tribulation
Revelation
Absolution
Prophesized

I'm a rich man,
I'm a poor man
But the main thing
I'm alive

A bunch of people hang out on the Coney Island Boardwalk in the winter. Because the sight is breathtaking.

There were two photographers there. Snow on sand is an interesting photograph.

Lost in Space
Cosmic haze
Beautiful wreck
Special effect

Clean and pure
Swift and sure
I'm ready to drop
In a dialogue box

Decoration
Innovation
My creation
Any size

If you try it
And you like it
You can have it customized

Gonna test ya
With a gesture
Do I feel ya?
Are ya scared?

In the darkness
In the details
At the movies
Or a play

Lovely.

I have to get back to West 4th. It's almost 6:30. I climb the stairs to the Q train.

Delightful evening.

All crinkled up
Delirious
Fall through the cracks
In a dialogue box

With a smiley bump
Gonna line 'em up
And the question I ask

Hey look at me
That's my answer*

*Songs I'm listening to are from the album "Grown Backwards" by David Byrne