The Bus Bench

Can we speak at the same level?

I guess the following can be considered a rant, pet peeve, you choose.

First off, I'd like to apologize for my lack of co-operation for quite a long time.

Now to my post. For some reason it has always puzzled me the fact that my native language Spanish, has been for some reason been relegated to a lesser status by your typical or mainstream American if you will. What do I mean. Well. Whenever I go to restaurants or read newspapers and they have articles, menu items or anything that is written in French for example, mind you, I have no problem with French, it's my favorite language after Spanish and English. As I was saying when I see articles with words in French, I see the editors of these newspapers or other publications go the extra mile to try to be as grammatically correct as possible. inserting the proper accentuation as the words require, they even go as far as to print them in italics so that the reader might better understand the fact the word is special. And when you pronounce it, they even correct you, they let you know that you are somehow killing the word.

Bible Thumpers Save Souls at "Unsafe Location" Bus Stop

Repent! lest one be consumed by the eternal damnation of the DASH!

Or so one might surmise from the religious crackpots packing up their signs at this DASH stop on 7th between Broadway and Spring. Even LADOT has formally implied the evil of this particular bus stop: "Unsafe Location" is hand-lettered at the top of the sign.

-BusTard

Pershing Square: What Was, What IS and what will never be. . .

Being a fan of cartography, typography, illustration and print, I was excited to take some time from my itinerary of fighting, drinking and satire to drink in the Central Library's latest exhibit, L.A. Unfolded: Maps from The Los Angeles Public Library. It is a decent exhibit (the garish lighting against the Plexiglass and protective glass coverings is rather annoying, to state the least) yet one that I highly recommend. The late 19th Century maps on display are small in number but certainly worth the trip; here are a few, after the jump. . .

Is Metro Hiring? They Should Be.

We have all heard that adage about good help being hard to find. Apparently, Metro Customer Relations Manager Tom Horne has abandoned any desire to overcome this bulwark of human nature and just let L.A. transit be plain LAzy.

TransitVue's Latest Failure

An hour after a post compiling TransitVue's various failures and glitches, a pair of monitors at the Santa Monica station along the Red Line introduced a new screw-up:

TransitVue Takes A Dive on The Red Line

A year or so ago, Metro elected to blow $2.2 million to install 350 46" plasma screens, allegedly for the betterment of communicating to straphangers the arrival times of trains. But as with all things Metro, not only has the usual gone undone but all manner of new problems have been introduced despite the promises of the contractor, TransitVue.

Need A Job? Drive for DASH!

I am not sure if this advert on a DASH is done out of desperation (owing to the cheap design and Day-glo orange) or if LADOT is subtly celebrating Halloween:

-BusTard

Metro Driver Drives While On Cell Phone

Earlier this week, the Daily News (L.A., not NYC) published an opinion piece wherein was stated the fact that some Metro drivers speak on their cell phones while driving. I and others to whom I have talked have witnessed such irresponsible behaviour, but after reading about it in a local daily, I decided to post this video from earlier this year.

Could These Be Unsold Embezzled Metro Drivers' Day Passes?

There is all sorts of wrong with Metro's poor compensation of bus drivers. The public's safety is but one facet (and apparently an insignificant one) of hiring drivers for rates at which even a lowly newspaper production schmoe would scoff: "Trainee Rate:$11.09 p/hr - Start Rate:$14.38 p/hr - Top Rate:$22.12 p/hr."

As such, it is no wonder that the Daily News found out about a Metro drivers' scam that has been employed for quite some time.

Black Monday prompts Blue Metro

As there is neither a recession nor a depression, then it follows that tits and ass, drugs and death, wrong and right, AIN'T. Or so Metro implies, as this single slice of the debauchery to follow clearly illustrates:

What Will It Take To Get Folk To Take Mass Transit?

It was a long week of research, this. In the end, a couple of us weary BusBenchers elected to sit down, down some drinks and watch a video of a Los Angeles-based illustrator whose work I have long admired. (I was unaware of the video until I found it at the main branch of the public library.) Titled "In Smog and Thunder: The Great War of The Californias," it is a low-budget albeit sharply produced documentary—replete with brilliant narrative that mocks most every aspect of California life in L.A. and 'Frisco—exhibiting Sandow Birk's voluminous cache of paintings of the same name.

Fun On A Sunday, While Awaiting A Bus. . .

Being an olde fan of Dr. Demento (his radio show dominated my Sunday evenings in the early 1980s) as well as philology and general nerdiness, I wanted to share this classic humourous tune.

 

-BusTard

Lost and—now—Found: Skid Row After Shave

After the last three, or four, or however many days of the last weekend of the Summer, what better than a lost bottle of Skid Row After Shave upon which to stumble when returning those unread copies of War and Peace and The Trial to the library what is best known for a two-DUI mayor and a gubernatorial goober who is not fluent in the language printed on posters promoting hizzoner?

-BusTard

The Light at The End of The Tunnel: Death? Or Just The Green Line?

For all the blather about protection that Metro promises via the white-shirted, dim-witted deputies and the occasional sheriff, one would do well to wonder why such a situation as recorded below exists. (I mean, really! As a minor teenager I secured the flight line of a nuclear first-strike air base and I cannot help but be repulsed by the incompetent behaviour of said "deputies" whose exclusive purpose is revenue.)

I can be awakened by gunshots and divine almost immediately the proximity as well as the calibre of the firearm discharged, but in this situation I guarantee that even large bore rifles would not require a can to suppress the noise of multiple shots.

-BusTard

Why The French Academy. . .

. . . is certainly not responsible to blame for the failings of Metro: