I absent-mindedly entered on the uptown track instead of the downtown side of the subway station. I left the station and crossed over to the other side of the tracks but, of course, my metro card had been swiped and was now in a dreaded “already been used” state.

I approached the MTA booth and found a woman sitting there, apparently doing paper work. I said, “excuse me” but she did not acknowledge me in any capacity. I thought to myself, ok, maybe she is the middle of something I will give her a minute or two. Minutes passed and now at least one train went by and she did not even give me a “hold on a sec” acknowledgement.

Finally, I persisted, with “Excuse me, Excuse me, EXCUSE ME.” Then she looked up, told me to “hang on” accompanied with a real withering look. She then moved over to a different chair and asked me to swipe my card. I swiped my card, seriously, twenty times. Sometimes it said, “Swipe again,” at other times it said ” just used.” She insisted that nothing was registering on her end at that I needed to swipe it straight. Of course I was frustrated and I said, the screen read, “It was just used.” And she got haughty and said I “wasn’t listening to her.”

I kept swiping but eventually just walked away. I didn’t look at her. I didn’t acknowledge her behavior. I just left the booth and bought a new single ride pass at the computerized booth.

Go ahead MTA, replace her with a machine.

Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude or put too fine a point on it, but I feel I have to ask: What the HELL are you doing here?

That’s what I wanted to say to a handful of the people surrounding me during what should have been a lovely, relaxing evening last night.

Several hundred people were at the Highline Ballroom to hear the gorgeous song stylings of Katie Melua.

Four or five were there to ruin the experience for everyone else. To them, I say, at least on my own behalf, Mission: Accomplished.

As I sat there with three of my closest friends enjoying the concert, the drunk man standing behind me had a series of increasingly loud conversations. He was asked by me and several others to keep quiet. But of course, he didn’t listen, and things rapidly progressed to the point where another agitated member of my party was ready to take the guy out, physically and literally, and I sought a manager to have the guy kicked out, which he eventually was.

Then there was the loud, obnoxious, foreign fans.

Why is it that oftentimes, a performer’s biggest fans are the most obnoxious?

In this case, there were two sects. First, there were the photographers, including two young men who spent the entire show taking pictures and then showing them to one another and laughing, giggling, comparing notes loudly. Then there was the group of women who kept screaming out song unwanted song requests and phrases in Russian (which the singer speaks)… and then talking through each number she performed. Two of the women at several points got onto their cell phones to have loud conversations and, when asked if they might take the conversation outside the venue, glared as if they’d been asked to put the phones into their va jay-jay’s.

To all of these people I’d like to ask, again: What the hell were you doing there? Why did you feel the need to ruin the evening for people who’d not only bought tickets but then, in many cases — including that of my group — spent several hundred dollars on food and drink – in an attempt to have a pleasant, civilized evening on the town?

What gave YOU the right to ruin OUR evening?

And why, if you intended to spend the night talking or being rowdy, did you not go to a bar as opposed to a showroom where people had obviously and specifically gone to see the performer in question? This was not a rock concert or a piano bar, this was a quiet, simple performance… a woman, her guitar and her piano.

By the end of the evening, one of my companions was mad at me for making a big deal of the situation (although, in my defense, by the time I had the most offensive party removed from the venue, he’d begun flicking water at my head and calling me some rather nasty names) and it’s safe to say that the entire evening was ruined for my entire party.

And that leads me to these quetions:

Have we gotten to the point where one can no longer venture out into society without expecting to have to deal with rude people who don’t give a rat’s ass if they ruin the evening of those around them?

Are the 95 percent of us who want to sit through a movie without someone behind us taking a cell phone call or talking loudly simply expected to sit in (the shattered) silence rather than complain, if only for fear of being physically attacked?

In any case, next time a performer I want to see comes to town, rather than risk spending a small fortune only to have my evening ruined by the rude, crude and socially unacceptable folks of the world, I’ll stay home and listen to the performer’s CD’s.

I serve better drinks at my place anyway.

You can’t ride a subway or bus in New York City without seeing a sign proclaiming, “If you see something, say something”.  Now, it would appear that Metropolitan Transit Authory’s slogan — which popped up in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center  — is being slightly revised with regards to its employees who are now being told “If you see something, say something… but don’t get involved.”

In one of the most heinous and disturbing decisions in recent memory, a Queens judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by a woman who was raped in plain sight of at least two MTA employees, each of whom contacted the police but failed to take any further action to intervene on her behalf. 

After being dragged kicking and screaming past station agent John Koort, who remained in the token booth, and train conductor Harmodio Cruz, who did not stop the train or abandon his post, the 21-year-old victim was raped. Twice. 

Her attacker was not caught. 

 

 

 

 Justice Kevin Kerrigan deemed that the men took “prompt and decisive action” in summoning the police, a decision the victim correctly labeled as “deplorable”. As she and her attorney plan their appeal, one can’t help but wonder if a female judge would have handed down the same ruling. The cowardice of the men in question would also seem to prove we haven’t come all that far since that infamous night in 1964 when Queens resident Kitty Genovese was fatally attacked as nearby neighbors ignored her cries for help.

Perhaps more disheartening than Kerrigan’s actual ruling is what it says about human nature and the inevitable questions it raises about how we would react if put in the same situation. Could you stand by as a man brutally attacked another human being? Would you be brave enough to intervene, even it meant putting your own safety on the line? 

Equally disturbing is what this ruling says to New York City residents who rely on the subway station, many of whom no doubt assume that they are relatively safe riding the rails late at night as long as they remain within sight of the MTA employee safely-ensconced in the nearby booth. 

Think again.

In the past, when budget cuts have resulted in the closing of token booths, citizens in the impacted areas have often voiced concerns about the stations in question being less safe as a result. Unfortunately, it seems that with the blessing of both the MTA and the legal system, they weren’t exactly safe to begin with. 

 

yesterday, while attempting to cross 8th avenue at 34th street, i was unknowingly standing in the bike lane. perhaps i *could* be more aware of my surroundings but that doesn’t excuse the bicyclist that cruised by me and called me an asshole.