Scattered Smatterings and Spring (3-28-07)

Well, the crocuses are out, which can only mean one thing: I'm sick. But the baby daffodils mean it's spring, and it was 80 degrees out. I ain't feeling so hot, but it's been a while, so here we go:

First, do you guys remember the candy that comes in a box called boston baked beans? I swear the company is haunting me and trying to rob back my childhood--i keep seeing empty boxes of the stuff laying on the sidewalk where I'm walking.

I also think I saw pink blur praise jesus girl, but this time she was wearing pretty nice clothes and walking a little slower through the train. She had like dark almost black skinny jeans on and a long, what are those things called, duster? on. Long knit kind of jacket thing. No hat, no pink puff jacket--same bad skin complexion and expression.

Or maybe I'm delirious.

One thing I do know, I was in a magic show. Yeah, this little mexican dude came whipping into the five train the other day. I'm sitting and riding along, bopping around to my phat beats, when this tornado of a dude with a jeri curl and a pencil mustache comes whizzing in with some contraption on wheels. He straps the whole mess to the pole right in front of me and gets to work. Next thing I've got a plexi glass stick in my hand and, "here, here, Amigo" he's instructing me to show that his box is empty, then telling me, "here, here, Amigo," put the stick in that box. Step three: open the box! No, wait, that's another scene. Anyway, i put my stick in, he waves his hand in far too hurried a fashion--the local stops are flying by, the next express stop is coming up, and the train's actually gonna stop--and poof! no more stick in da box.

Then there's a bird. You know that Dr. Octagon album, Dr. Octagonelocogist? Well, I do. In the middle of it he's playing doctor in a skit and he says, "Oh shit, there's a horse in the hospital!" it was like that. A bird, this pink speckled unnatural looking creature--even more so because it was underground and flourescently lit--could have been a spraypainted morning dove, flies from the meximagician's hand to one end of the train car, amid commuters and mothers and teenagers off from school, most of them don't blink, and back to his hand. Then slam! Into the bigger box covered in black velvet. I guess it's lights out once the stage goes black for that little birdie. Still, I get weirded out when i see pigeons in port authority when i'm waiting for a bus, or these tiny starling looking things popping in and whizzing through the subway platforms. in the car?? This is too much.

Then I saw a guy who looked like santana if santana was in the black leather motorcycle gang and was on his way to JFK to catch a flight to Munich that leaves in three hours. He had slow curls that drooped from back on his forehead, black with marked streaks of silver intermingled. He had studs and rivets and leather and chains and boots everywhere. And carryon wheelie luggage. No shit.

And he's epileptic. Or so I think. He moves slower than his curls and takes out a little pad stuffed with paper odds and ends and a day planner chart inside. He starts writing with what looks to be a real nice pen. Silver, shiny=nice if you're me. I use bics. So he's mapping out his appointments in Munich or wherever and seeing what's upcoming and there's all this stuff about neurology and epilepsy research groups and I see that many of the folded up pieces of paper are notices for support groups for epilepsy around the city and clinics and shit like that.

He stops writing, pushes back a curl, stretches out his bootheel.

It's my stop. I've got to go above and watch the little purple buggers die in radiant decadent defiance of the biting winds of late winter in Brooklyn. Hail the courage of the crocus!