The Bus Bench

Psycho Girlfriend. LaCresenta. 8/25.

On public transport today a woman got on the bus and her shirt said, “Gold Digger.”

She was about 54. A hard 54. The thought that went through my head was, “You didn’t do a very good job.” I felt bad about thinking that. I am pretty sure that I am a bad person. If I could be good I would, but I can’t.

At least I will no longer be able to kill anyone with a car, until 2008.

Now the MTA of course has lots of things that it does right. It can get you from point a to point b without killing you, that is a good thing. The MTA occasionally does things that are wrong, for instance their customer service.

Have you ever called customer service while waiting in the hot sun for a bus that was supposed to come, but forgot to?

It’s not fun.

It’s like being in high school and getting in a fight with your boyfriend-and-then-him-not- picking-up-the-phone,-so-you-call-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-again-and-then-he-takes-the- phone-off-the-hook-and-then-you-get-a-busy-signal, so you drive over to his house and start screaming at the top of your lungs.

“Fucker, get out of the house! I know you’ve been fucking my best friend. Fine don’t get out of the house I’ll just break all of the windows in your pretty car with this bat!”

It feels sort of like that.

You call the MTA customer service and wait and wait and wait and then when you get a person they say, “A bus is coming in 15 minutes.”

That’s the stock answer from them.

I think personally they should change it up a bit. Be creative with the lies.

“Reggie the alligator got on the prior bus, so we’re going to have a 30 minute delay,” a creative liar who respects you.

When I was in high school and college I came up with various excuses as to why I couldn’t get an assignment in on time or as to why I wasn’t at school on Friday for the 15th time.

“I witnessed a gang rape last night and I’m traumatized,” 15 year old me, being creative.

People like when you are creative when you’re lying to them. It shows you have respect for them.

The “It’s not you, it’s me answer,” though it takes the blame off of you, it still pisses you off. The person didn’t even make an effort.

I wish the MTA would stop treating me like a psycho ex-girlfriend. It just makes me want to break all of the windows on it’s car.

Browne

Why don't you drive? Los Feliz. 8/24.

People often ask me Browne (pronounced Brown,) “Why don’t you drive? You used to drive?” And thanks to movie stars like Ed and media moguls like Rupert Murdoch I have a stock answer, “Because I care about the environment.”

I’m going to be honest. While I do care about the environment (kind of) those hippie freaks totally bug. Those slumming, hyphen using, tofu eating, bought their dreads at Purple Circle people irritate me. And the ones that try to be make green hip, they’re even more annoying. The hip green people remind me of Christian rock bands. I don’t want them to annoy me. I tried to hang with them, but just can’t do it. They drive me bloody crazy. I’m a metropolitan girl that takes public transport. I’m not a greeny. I like bars and having a good time. I don’t eat meat, but that’s just so I can stay skinny. I also don’t like bugs or cats. I’m so for bringing that DTT back, because if I get bed bugs, I’m so going to kill myself. And don’t let me start on those cyclist people, especially the ones in biker shorts.

Do you really need all of the gear?  And if you’re fat, I’m seriously not getting it.

The reason I take the bus is because the gov’t sort of forced me to do it by taking away with my driver’s license. I was pulled over by the cops and then…hey no reason to go into the gory details, but my license is gone, gone, gone, gone. It totally sucks. I then had to start bussing it, I was cabbing it, but that was getting kind of pricey.

After taking the bus and realizing how much it sucked ASS, I decided along with friends who also had run-ins with the police (or trees) and now no longer drove, that we should use our art backgrounds and reformed partying ways to imitate-life-imitating-art-imitating-life.

The police is better than Jesus in getting you go to reexamine your life. Maybe Jesus and the police are the same person the way God and Jesus are the same person, kind of.

Would that make Chief Bratton or Sheriff Baca God?

(If God is Chief Bratton, then it's good to know that he uses Typepad to blog, since that's what I use.)

Are we with an organization? Heck no. We hate organizations. Speaking for myself personally, I hate clubs. I join them just to see what interesting thing I can do to get thrown out.

Have you noticed club type people go out of their way to be polite no matter how classless you are? They always want to give you a chance, but yet they don’t. You could take crap on the table at one of their meetings and give them a sob story and they’ll try to work things out.

I can’t stand people like that, so no, we’re not any group-affiliated. We’re not even going to go to any transportation group like things, because the people in groups are so psyched to let you know about that crap. We’ll link those people for you, but don’t worry about us coming to a meeting or giving you detailed facts about a meeting, because we don’t care.

We’re simply about showing what’s going on. Not picking a side. Not changing the system, but exhibiting public transport, L.A., and life outside the lines for your and our enjoyment.

This is a public service announcement from the publisher of ShameTrain L.A.

Miss Browne Molyneux

Hey at least we didn't die. 8/23. Downtown L.A., Hollywood, Cypress Park

Hey at least we didn’t die.

The staff of ShameTrain L.A. went about it’s day passing out PSAs on the MTA Trains. It was pretty entertaining. Shockingly the 180 where we all met up at Hollywood/Western was moving pretty well and on time at 5:45ish in the morning. We all live in various enclaves of the fake Eastside (the real Eastside is East L.A.) Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Hollywood area, yeah, we’re so diverse. Any how…

We went to Starbucks. Talked about that dead arty couple in New York. Then we talked about Bill Clinton and debated was he still putting his penis into people’s mouth’s (I say, probably yeah) and then saying it wasn’t sex (I say probably yeah.) We got all of that info from the New York Observer. Why can’t Los Angeles have a fun paper that is a paper and not just an adwell door jammer?

How do we at ShameTrain L.A. fund our projects on only a vision and enthusiasm?

“Borrowing” from Peter to pay Paul, and God is totally cool with this. God told me (God is transgendered and biracial with Canadian and American dual citizenship) in a dream that it was cool. I was stone cold sober that day, so I know I’m not imagining this vision.

I’m a bad secretary, so pretty much I use my downtown L.A. bossman’s photocopy machine, computer, and very expensive printer to print and produce beautiful brochures (designed by BusTard) for ShameTrain L.A. projects.  Now since my boss is a bad husband, all I have to do is smile and wear my magic jeans and then he doesn’t notice I’ve just used thousands of dollars worth of paper and ink…America rocks.

After we all told our places of employment various lies of why we would be tardy:

My mom died.
My cat just vomited.
I’m having flashbacks of my dad touching me in a special spot, I need some time.

We headed on the Red Line to spread knowledge, wealth, joy, and art.

We took the Red Line to the Gold Line and we even paid. We wanted to keep it all legit and things, since we thought only fair for us to pay the MTA since we were using their facilities to spread our art.

Apparently the Gold Line has some kind of technical problems. I know that not because I was informed of that on the Red Line or even online when I looked up the schedule, but because a muffled voice on the speaker said, “We are having technical problems.” You'd think they could put that on the schedule page of the MTA, but heck typing things onto a computer screen is hard work. I understand. I tell my boss that all of the time after my 60 minute morning smoke/croissant break.

After going real slow, in a shockingly packed Gold Line train the guy on the speaker said to paraphrase, “Hey I know you guys are late to work, but at least you didn’t die.”

Yeah at least we didn’t die. That’s a slogan the MTA should use, “At you didn’t die, because that would be worse than waiting two hours.”

Yeah, I guess it would be.

Browne

Sunset Junction?

More like an exodus of the west-side's most vacuous cash-givers.

The many years of allegations of embezzlement, questionable charities and whatnot not withstanding, there is no doubt that Michael McKinley's figurative nose (providing he dares to answer, let alone does not leave prematurely from the September "post-mortem" promised by Garcetti1) will make up in length what the rest of the body clearly lacks not just in height, but plausibility.

For the 2006 street fair, Eric Garcetti-shill Josh Kamensky claimed that it was quite fine to prevent taxpayers from ambulating along the very roads without paying yet another form of highway robbery, as long as the one collecting claims to pass along some money to a charity:
“Entrance Fees vs. Donations: the City Attorney's Office ruled that there are no ordinances prohibiting them from charging admission fees to events. The Sunset Junction organizers will charge festival attendees a fee, and proceeds will go to Sunset Junction's community youth programs. Michael McKinley of Sunset Junction can tell you more about their programs; he can be reached at (323) 661-7771.”

This year, the travesty continues. ATM troubles:

ATMtroubles
Video sent by shametrainla

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In the middle of Santa Monica and Sunset Boulevards2, ridiculously long lines:

LongestLine
Video sent by shametrainla

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Loads of trash, an absolute lack of parking (except for the LAPD, who had their own street ) and a total disregard for the thousands of pedestrians.

Donut Drive
Video sent by shametrainla

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LAPDmounties
Video sent by shametrainla

One video of LAPD mounted police idly watching a pick-up truck turn onto Santa Monica BLVD, cutting off a crowd of pedestrians walking toward the fair.

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But there is more, and there are photos as well as videos from Saturday, 18 August 2007, which will prove that there is also less—in a fashion that may well be illegal. 

Council District 13, which is L.A. City Councilmember President Eric Garcetti’s fiefdom, allegedly sent out a notice to select community groups in Silver Lake:

“All entrance gates will have consistent postings that educate the public on year round services provided by the SJNA to the community of Silver Lake.
The SJNA has chosen a mandatory $15.00 entrance fee over the option of a suggested donation for entry in to the festival. Therefore, this will not be declared a special event by the city and the SJNA will pay for all city services out of their proceeds.
The festival hours of operation are: Saturday, August 18, 10:00 a.m. to 11 :00 p.m. Sunday, August 19, 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
The SJNA will place barricades at the following residential streets: Maltman, Lucile, Edgecliffe, Hyperion, Sanborn, Manzanita, Bates, Effie, Griffith Park, and Fountain. "Local access only" will be posted on these barricades in addition to, "Festival parking at LACC" with instructions.”

In the photos and videos I captured of two of the gates, none of such signage was displayed.

StinkinSigns
Video sent by shametrainla

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As such, one cannot help but ask of Michael McKinley: “Where is the money going? To which agency or charity? What is the official status of the charity or charities being benefited? How might one contact the beneficiaries of such funds as were collected?” Surely these questions can be quickly and concisely answered. If not, surely a federal investigation should be suggested.

There is also the poorly worded Sunset Junction Web site 3, one so poorly put-together that were Rex Harrison’s character (Professor Higgins) to have accidentally read it while he were waiting for his “Fair Lady” to stop spraying about the “rain in Spain” and all that philological pain, would have simply drowned in his own vomit.

One wonders nevertheless, why there is no hue and cry from the merchants and unfavourably affected residents. Now that it has become a travesty that, like this one unmarked dead end that may well prove dangerous to residents near Hoover (and elsewhere depending on how the fences are set up), is a money-making monstrosity, well, now what?

DeadEnd
Video sent by shametrainla

by BusTard, 19 August 2007

1 According to a release by Mitch O'Farrell Ryan Carpio, "CD13 will facilitate a follow up meeting between businesses, residents, and the SJNA in September of this year to discuss issues and concerns with the 2007 festival and a plan for the 2008 festival."  http://silverlake.tribe.net/thread/2253eb72-e4a9-46c8-8445-b5e11015a2d6#e425228a-3520-41d7-b2df-625e9a753c0d

2 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/21/eveningnews/main541555.shtml (On whom can the poor fools patronising the machines count that they are not being ripped off in a manner that has become rather common: card readers that collect data for later collection?)

3 http://www.sunsetjunction.org/streetfair_contract.html