A Bit Too Far

In the guise of subway passenger, I am inclined to give panhandlers, performers, and panhandler-performer mind-melds a dollar or two. Without warning today, a self-described performer materialized with the contemporary equivalent of Ronco’s “Mr. Microphone” and an accompanying amplifier thing. His initial insertion into the dour underground world of a subway ride was somewhat unnerving. The man proceeded to make a very loud mock-conductor announcement with the help, of course, of his magical, mystical mic.

“Next stop on this train will be Rockaway Beach,” he bellowed. The not-so-funny fellow then cited the reason for this drastic change in schedule—we were Bronx-bound—as a “giraffe on the tracks.” Not surprisingly, I didn’t think the routine was laugh-out-loud riotous, but it was—if nothing else—unique. This man with the microphone informed all in earshot that his raison d'être was to put smiles on people’s faces. He pointed out one passenger who actually cracked a smile. And so I prepared to give the guy a couple of bucks before he performed his more far-reaching main act.

To make a long story short: He should have quit while he was ahead with the giraffe-on-the-train-tracks bit. His subsequent rap was rather vile. From my perspective, it wasn’t even remotely amusing and—by the looks of things—everybody else in the subway car concurred, including the person who had previously smirked. In fact, I was pleased to see that nobody—black or white—made a “contribution,” which was the performer’s word for his Go Fund Me endgame.

Both persons of color and persons of non-color did not appreciate this person of color’s overt racism and allusions to violence. I being in the colorless category reconsidered my contribution, which was pretty much a first for me. The not-ready-for-primetime artiste nonetheless parted with a gracious “thank you”—for what exactly, I don’t know—and importuned us to follow him on Instagram. No, thank you.

Prior to this unexpected and unwanted underground cabaret, the highlight of my trip was two German tourists poring over a subway map. The fly in the ointment here is that a young woman was seated right below it. A lesson that I’ve learned the hard way is to never sit beneath a subway map. Why? Because people on unfamiliar terrain will very literally get in your face while they are trying to figure out where they are and where they want to go. This particular husband-and-wife team was at it for multiple stops. I can only hope they found their way.

Finally, in New York City subway cars nowadays, advertising isn’t quite what is was when my father rode the train five days a week from the Bronx to Manhattan’s mega-post office in the shadows of Penn Station. He never saw a car festooned with one advertiser’s ads and one advertiser’s ads only. In the good old days it was a hodgepodge of this, that, and the other thing. But it’s not unusual in the here and now to see one company—or one product or service—being pitched in a series of advertisements throughout an entire subway car. It’s called branding, I think. The only problem is that I frequently have no idea what the ads are selling. Today, I spied a sleeping passenger directly across from me and was startled to see the ad above him. I wondered if there was some kind of subliminal advertising at work. Burrow’s? Sleeping? Repose? I am left only to wonder. Rest easy…

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)