Girl On Bus, Lady On Train...and Biker Chicks, yo!

...What up, yo? It's been a wild 'n woolly couple of weeks and a minute since I've posted any shorts on here -- been busy livin' and trying to keep my powder dry. While I haven't had much time to type, I have, however, continued to write my thoughts down here and there. Below's a little something-something that's a compilation of scribings on little sheets of note paper, post-its and soggy napkins that reach back to the through line I started posting with back in February. The tale began to assert itself one morning -- midway through my daily commute to work -- as I boarded a bus at Union Station on my way to my "day joy" over in Culver City during which I had one of my fabled "microphanies" (what I call a tiny epiphany)...

...A teenaged girl boarded the #33 at a stop near the intersection of Alvarado & Venice -- an area where during the day there's a grip of pedestrian foot traffic but at night, it's definitely not the type of neighborhood that many would lazily stroll through for a windy walk after the sun goes down. In the mornings I start the second leg of my trip to work at the Patasauraus Circle in Union Station. When I board the bus that takes me to my gig over on the West Side of town, I typically shoot for the back benches straightaway because seated there I can stretch out ( the average L.A. MTA backseat is not configured for a cornfed 6' tall man in the least). On this particular day my train arrived downtown about five minutes later than usual, so when I got up to the bus kiosks I found myself at the end of a long line of people whose trains HAD gotten to the station on time and when I finally got on, I had to choose between two aisle-facing benches directly behind the driver or the first row of two-seaters (which face the front) -- I plopped down onto the first two I saw of the latter situated on the drivers-hand side...

When the girl boarded she took a seat on the aisle-facing bench that was behind the driver and directly in front of me -- forcing me to avert my line of vision toward the 1:00 position or risk appearing to be a 30-something lech who's taken to slobbering over some teeny-bopper on the cross-town bus -- it soon became apparent that the grubby-looking oldster sitting across the aisle from me didn't have any of my reservations in the least, however, but that was another story altogether...Later on my trek toward Santa Monica, this other guy got on the bus around Vermont and Venice and despite the fact that I was checking pulse-soothing sounds of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take Five LP on my iPod at the time -- the intense; immediacy of the stare he threw my way got my dander up. "That's life in the big city, just let that go," I thought to my self as "Three to Get Ready" oozed out of my headphones and that's when Pancho Villa strolled through the sliding doors...

This guy looked mean, yo. He was sporting two arm's worth of Tribal Aztec tatts which he offset with a long bushy crumb-catcher (mustache). For all the said "hardness" dude's aura projected he was a short guy -- I think they're called chaparros in the barrio, but don't quote me on that; I don't hablo the 'spanyole as well as I used to -- but that didn't diminish what I thought was an intrusive-as-hell mad-dog in my direction (what they tend to say out here when one man stares stone-faced at another as an act of asserting one's dominance until somebody blinks), being from back East that shite doesn't mean anything to me, so I just let it too pass and looked out at all the traffic that snarls up on Venice when crossing La Brea going West toward Fairfax in the mornings...about the time I got to Fairfax, all of these coincidental pissing-contests jogged my memory about a late-night ride on the subway and like a bolt from Thor's thunder-mallet, I got the zap on my dome...

...A few weeks ago I went carousing down in Hollywood (on a "school night" during the work-week, no less) when I realized I had one Red Line train left going in my direction (L.A. subways stop running for a few hours every night for some dumb reason) or I'd have to catch one of those night owl buses that go all over the place and take years off your life, so I sucked down my drink (not to would've been a party foul) and my bike and I just barely made that last train going downtown -- nuyce...at Union station I hauled ass to make it the last sparsely peopled light rail train going towards my neck of the woods (I lucked-out twice in one night).

...At the first rail platform after Union (Chinatown) the train eased to a stop and just as the doors slid home this woman got on board. In this instance I was sitting in one of the aisle-facing single seat by the doors while holding my bike as I sat so she blew past me in a flurry of stale perfume and cold air as the dub poet Mutabaruka told me to "Check it" -- you know I had the iPod pumpin', son -- and as soon as the new passenger sat down, her hunched up body language broadcast an overall discomfiture (at least to me) like she was sporting a neon sandwich board that read: "I've got mace!" As I stared out the window observing the shadows of the cornfield art project on the other side of the train yard, I noted how she stuck out like a sore thumb...

...all of this brings me to said weeks of wild-wooliness wherein I've been out on jaunts of repose with the fair sex in settings varied and sundry. There were the two hardened biker chicks I'd met at a neighborhood bar on one sunny Saturday afternoon while writing articles for publication in longhand and slowly sipping J&B on the rocks --very relaxing -- and then there was the nurse that a homepiece's fiancee set me up with which went nowhere fast -- I wasn't feeling her and I'm certain that the vibe was more than mutual -- although I don't think that's possible. I'm no quitter by any stretch so I forged ahead and got up with this dominatrix at one point...wait, let me expound on that...

...About a year ago, as of this writing, I caved and signed up for one of those trial memberships to one of those internet dating services (a contradiction of terms, if ever there was one) and posted this grandiloquent profile (hey, as one who writes, if you can't sell yourself with words, why bother with the other stuff?) That said, I'd long forgotten about that wordy profile I'd penned so many moons ago, so imagine my surprise when I got an email from a potential suitor with the subject line: "Hey Sexy" -- she had a profile of her own with pictures, no less. She wasn't a bad looking girl, if I may be so shallow, so, despite disturbing past incidents and my better judgment, I acquiesced. Long story short, we went out a couple of times and each meeting, I couldn't ignore the dark "something" that seemed to float just beneath her gaze. Long story short: one night on the way to a bar she snapped out and started talkin' some serious shite but not the kind that turned you on. It was crazy, forceful fare that causes your left hand to involuntarily reach for the door as the right reaches for the buckle of your seatbelt while your body braces for the forthcoming Louganis onto the asphalt. Which brings us up to speed and the last and latest "contestant" of my love connection -- this bird I'd started rapping to over in Culver City...

...Things were shaky initially, as they tend to be when you start getting to know someone but eventually, after a string of email chats and phone conversations, I canoodled a meeting of the minds with her over on Venice Beach. I was stoked because, evidenced by our rapport and in addition to being easy on the eyes, this chick seemed like an overall "keeper" in every way -- the Four-F club (find 'em, feed 'em, fugg 'em and forget 'em) was the furthest from my mind. I wanted to get my weekly long distance ride in so I arranged to hook with girlfriend over in Santa Monica. It was great to see the ocean and the girl; to sip drinks and laugh with her at the Saturday passersby on the Venice Beach Strip -- especially this one nutter whose sole purpose in life seemed to be juggling a silver ball between the palm of his hand and all over the contures of his body. Did I mention that his "costume" consisted a leopard-print speedo and a wrist watch? Nothing else, son. You can't contrive some of the hilarious things you'll see on a balmy day at the corner of Pacific Ave. and 17th Street -- you just go with it which we did. Things went well, I thought. Our mid-day rendezvous segued into dusk but the conversation was lively so we kept on going, well into the evening and into the early morn. After going to a couple of bars it was time to part ways so, again, we went with it and she offered to let me crash at her pad since she lived a shite's sight nearer to where we were than I -- cool, noh? Everything that's occurred since the night I spent with that last woman makes me circle back to those two females on the MTA...

...In that moment of the aforementioned "synaptic zap" while sitting on the bus, I eureka'd on the fact that the punters staring me down weren't (giving me the stink eye) -- they were, however, still a bunch of tools, though. Why? I'll tell you why: it dawned on me that they were ogling the tight-stomached Teen Beat cover model ( I know about the flatness of her belly because she wore a parka with a Heavy Metal T-Shirt that was cut off at the mid-riff that bore a picture of Gun's n Roses on it and Axl and Slash never looked happier -- I might be getting older but I'm not blind). Still, she handled herself. Because she had no choice? Probably but she still gets all the dap. In that moment, I thought "Dayum!" -- just like on the train a few nights beforehand -- "it must really suck to be a woman sometimes." All those greasy eyeballs everywhere -- I never would've noticed if I hadn't been indirectly sitting in the line of fire, so to speak. It made me momentarily see red and want to shatter chairs over frontal lobes because I felt my space being invaded upon...that's gotta be a pain in the ass to deal with all the time...as a man, I know I've been guilty of doing it too -- I won't even front. But on the real side, I never really, really entertained what all that objectification does to normally, sane people...back in NYC I've stumbled home many a night with a brick in my hat without a fear of being put upon but maybe that's just my obtuse bull-headed side...testosterone's a motherfucker...sometimes it's easy for men to forget that their mothers were women too -- don't get me wrong, I'm not waxing Oedipal, I'm just saying...

...The hardened biker chicks and the dominatrix were all the antitheses of the babe in the woods projected by the girl on the bus. The nurse, let's be fair, never really counted for obvious reasons but I must insist that the bruiser of the bunch turned out to be the "straight-laced", Ms. Venice Beach. She's the one I thought would require the least amount of damage control but things don't always go in the directions we want them to, do they -- shows you how much I know about wimmin, yo. Whatever, that's life in the big city. I'm no quitter and considering the alternatives, let's just say you can't teach an old dog new shizzle. Richard Pryor once joked that at one point in your life you just stop caring and you just do your thing; whatever happens happens. I hear you Daddy Rich but none of that is either here or there. I'm no prole tourist on the scene and that's word. My dating foibles aside, I'll still raise a glass to the chicks who deal with we menfolk in stride and don't get all ixnay on the ace-may or freak out like that lady on the train -- nobody was thinking about her ass anyway, we were all too tired to care. Somebody, somewhere, must've lied to her about her passion-inducing good looks -- she could've taken some pointers from that 17-year old...but then maybe decades ago, as a girl, perhaps, she'd ridden the cross town bus herself on the way to highschool...laters...