No Pants Subway Ride 2K9

            I board the 6 train from the nippy Spring street station and grab a seat. A fellow across from me in orange and polka dots gives me a glance. Down the car, a couple of Nike donning kids says “What the hell?”

            “Buddy, your pants are off!” One of them squeals in a wacky falsetto. A few more passengers enter in plaid, thigh huggers and simple stripes. A photographer is among them with heavy-duty equipment. She begins to snap some photos.

            “This is Astor Place”, the feminine mechanized voice says. As the door opens a man with suit, tie, glasses and briefcase is in a tight pair of Spiderman undies. It’s the No Pants Subway Ride 2K9! The 8^th annual event, organized by Improv Everywhere had a great turnout, despite the weather.

            At Union Square, a flood of pants less folk board the train. A young couple uninvolved in the event enters haltingly, glancing below the belt. Their hesitance causes a slight block-up and a passenger in black silk skivvies behind her says, “Excuse me…”

            At 23^rd street, a middle-aged Chinese woman enters, bewildered. Black silk sits next to me and begins to knit. A fellow in Jack-o-lantern boxers asks a friend “Do you know the spread of the Colorado game?” At 33^rd street, the car is packed with fruit-of-the-loom, hairy legs, trained thighs and packages. I look up and notice black heels leading to exquisite fishnet stockings and underwear one might see at a Burlesque show.

            One woman inconspicuously opens her green trench coat to reveal a fancy design over her unmentionables with mere strings over her thighs and buttocks. She pauses to consider how wide she’ll reveal herself. She bumps up against me and I take a moment to ponder how our personal space is altered when heat from the human body has an effect. She has a bit of razor burn, though…

            Two hefty fellows enter at Grand Central. They don’t seem bemused, but possibly annoyed, actually, at the prospect of a practical joke. After all, some might have to go to work today, or visit a loved one at a hospital, or go shopping for a colostomy bag.

            Somebody gets stuck in the doors at 59^th street and almost loses their hat. It causes a lot of commotion but she and her crew finally board safely. They continue their conversation about a scene in a film when they notice the scene around them. They start to laugh.

            “I love this country”

            “Fantastic…”

            “It’s so stuffy in here, I’d take off my pants too”

            A man across from me in snow boots, jeans and a gold earring looks about him incredulously. A Mexican man with a shopping bag stands stock still, suspiciously eyeing the legs around him. Another man down the car has not glanced up from his recently purchased copy of the World of Warcraft expansion

            I reach down to take a clementine from my bag and wonder if Razor Burn is nervous considering how close I am to her crotch. I peel the clementine, eat it, tear a hanging thread from my black, blue and silver silk boxers and exit the train.

(Check out this article in the daily news; i’m in the 2nd photo, a bit hidden though…)

Jokesters drop their pants and take a ride on the subway for laughs

for more photos go to Improv Everywhere

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            A tall young man, grinning from ear to ear ambles down the train. His black coat hangs off his large rectangular frame, it’s bagginess hanging wide around his hips. He compulsively wipes his face and brushes his nose, as though his inimitable gladness is inappropriate and is causing some sort of messy discharge. Groping forward along the bars through the sparsely populated car, he seems to be is running on delightful imaginary interactions, probably due to a mental deficiency.

The tongues of his shoes are tied down and out, popping like a welcome gesture. He passes by me, blinking hard and shaking his head—unable to knock his happiness away. He paces back and forth across the car, stopping at the doors once or twice to move around the endlessly entertaining joke in his head. He taps his jacket pocket, which rings out full of change.

He crosses once again to the doors, which are about to open at Dekalb Ave. they part, but he stands, essentially frozen in his hilarious moment. He rubs his forehead and a woman with a colorful scarf approaches him, attempting to board the train. She has no chance of passing his doorframe-sized body, but he zaps back to our world and exits while she enters.

The doors close and he stands on the platform, lost in pleasure. This is only momentary however, because as the train begins to move again, so does he.

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Puffy, faded lime green coat and fuzzy hood, i-Pod to match, she is obviously troubled. As the train arrives early this morning, she bustles her way on, taking a seat—we’re lucky, this train has a few open ones. But this seat doesn’t quite do it for her. She rises and moves directly across to a different one.

            “No, not the middle seat”, she says before heavily rising and finding the right one, just next to her first pick. Terribly chunky and insensitive to those around her, she digs into her purse to retrieve the i-Pod mini, which along with its ear buds uncannily matches her coat.

            I’ve seen her before, or rather, heard her. Riding home one night, a troubled, un-self-conscious moaning and yelping filled the train car. It was a-rhythmic and on occasion resembled words or phrases. When I left the train, I caught a quick glimpse of the bright pastel green jacket and matching i-Pod buds coming from a bush of tangled black hair.

            Today she continues with the same cawing and discontinued moaning. Sadly, she’s disrupting the otherwise peaceful early morning commute for many, but she is very much lost in the world of her music, chin tucked into her collar and eyes fixed on a single point. She clutches the i-Pod at a distinct angle, close to her head as though to maintain a specific radio frequency.

            I try to listen, but I can’t hear a note of what she’s listening to, as there’s hip-hop blasting from an i-Pod between her and I. At one point she barks a nearly intelligible line “No! Not for a thousand miles”, and I try to place the lyric. It rings sharply in my head as my eyes move vacantly over the novel I’m attempting to read.

            In a shocking instant, she lashes out at the woman next to her, “Could you move from that space please?!”

            “I’m getting off at the next stop”, she hurriedly replies, hiding frustration as she maneuvers her fingers through a multitude of plastic bag handles. I get off as well, and the girl comfortably shifts about, resettling herself by the space near the middle seat.