CTA Tattler

Be kind to animals

A tall, fat man in his late 30s boards the Red Line going south at Loyola.

Stretched tightly across his bulging belly is a T-shirt that exclaims:

“For every animal you don’t eat, I’m going to eat three.”

Pictured between those words are cute and charming caricatures of a monkey, a koala bear and a toucan bird.

He plops down in a seat and unwraps a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin with Sausage and starts chowing down.

Well, at least he warned us.

“Dude! Rock-Lock!!!!!!”

Two metal-heads in their mid-30s, wearing Megadeth and Def Leppard T-shirts, were standing just outside the Belmont El station.

Suddenly, something really awesome got their eye, and Megadeth screams: “Dude! Rock-Lock!!!!!!”

Megadeth extended his hand with the middle two fingers under-curled; Def Leppard punched Mega’s hand with the same fingers extended, and the two outside digits under-curled.

They feverishly punched hands and banged their heads around for about 15 seconds.

Then they walked into the station.

Purple Line intelligentsia?

This morning I had to drop my car for service in Evanston, so I boarded the Purple Line at Main.

In the car I entered, I immediately noticed lots of readers. A quick count showed just three of the 21 people on the car were NOT reading. That seems high compared to my Red Line commutes in the morning. That's not to say that there are no readers on the Red Line. Just that there seemed to be more on the Purple.

So does that mean Purple Liners are smarter?

Nah! They just have a longer way to go to get to the Loop or wherever.

There were just as many romance-novel readers scattered in with the magazine and newspaper readers.

Anything to make the time go by and enrich the soul.

Those strange Googlers

My blog software tells me how people got to my site. As in, where they were coming from when they got here. This includes what search terms folks used to arrive here.

And there have been some strange ones.

There sure are a lot of people out there who Google "butt man" and arrive here. Sorry if you were looking for something a little more risque. But stay awhile, why don't you?

And then there are people dying to read some "scary shit."

And I'm not sure why people would Google "missed your train." But at least they get an interesting story about drunken Cubs fans.

However you got here, I'm happy to have you, and encourage you to keep checking back. As Jimmy Breslin said in "Summer of Sam" (albeit about New York City), "there are eight million stories in the naked city and this is one of them."

St. Paddy's Day sleepyheads

Today I spotlight a story from regular visitor and commenter Veritas Scriptor. As a Michigander, his CTA experiences come as a visitor to our fair city of Chicago.

"I think it was two years ago and a friend and I were there for St. Patty's weekend (we both have Irish in our blood so we figure we have the right to go there every year for the St. Patty's bash). After leaving a bar we finally made our way to the train and hopped on, heading back to the hotel.

"As fate would have it, we both passed out and rode the train all the way to the end of the line. Someone from CTA woke us up and said we had to get off. We had no friggin' clue where we were...it was almost 5 am...and we were broke.

"It sucked at the time. But in hindsight it is funny."

Verily Veritas, you are a lucky man not to have had your pockets picked or otherwise suffered some unwanted fate. Be careful out there. We want you visitors to keep pouring money into our economy on the west coast of Lake Michigan.

Someone sat next to him!

We’ve all experienced it.

We walk on a full train or bus and spy the lone empty seat. Next to a sleeper. Who is hogging much of the seat. Who smells. Who snores.

Today, someone actually sat next to him! And she switched from her first seat choice to do so! A landmark day in CTA history!

Actually, the guy didn’t smell all that bad. And his butt was hogging only about a quarter of the seat next to him, as he hunched down in sleeping repose. He was totally cloaked from waist to head in a mauve, hooded sweatshirt. Could have been a woman for all we could tell.

And I suspect the woman who sat next to him was trying to get out of the sun, because she immediately sat down and fell asleep herself. Maybe they thought they were in the “sleeper section.”

Oh, and she was wearing a green scarf covering yellow curlers. When was the last time you saw someone wearing curlers on the rush hour train?

CTA fare hike, service cuts coming?

The Chicago Tribune reports today (reg. req.) that the annual whining and gnashing of teeth about possible fare hikes and service cuts have begun.

Jon Hilkevitch writes:

“Chicago Transit Authority officials warned Thursday that service cuts and another fare increase could be imposed next year unless the General Assembly alters the formula that funds mass transit in the six-county region.

”The cutbacks, which would be the first major reductions since 1997, could include eliminating 24-hour bus and rail service and switching the CTA's focus to serving rush-hour commuters, the agency's top brass told the Tribune editorial board.

For want of a mower…

Seen on the Red Line south from Granville, at 1:40 p.m. on a Wednesday: A balding man in his 70s is sitting in the seat in front of me, except he’s on the aisle, I’m on the window. He’s wearing a tan banded collar shirt, and clutching a purple “Nutri-Tote” mini-cooler with a can of Seven-Up in it.

He opens an envelope and pulls out a yellow paper that looks like it was part of a triplicate form. Across the top the letterhead says:

“Village of Skokie - Grass and Weed Maintenance Dept.”

“Dear Owner/Tenant,
We have observed weeds over six (6) inches high on your property. That violates village ordinance. You have ten (10) days to come into compliance with the ordinance. We will return on June 26 for a compliance check.”

The man is clucking and shaking his head as he reads it.

New Red Line seating scrunches riders

Monday was my first experience on the Red Line’s newly configured cars. It’s an experiment by the CTA to try to give more room for standing passengers during peak travel times.

When I walked on I was somewhat disoriented at first. It was just so different. You’ll notice the main changes between the two sets of doors. That’s where almost all the seats are aligned along the windows, facing each other. This creates a wider aisle for standees. And that is a good thing.

The other big change is the proliferation of black hand straps dangling above, and more poles to hold. I do like the straps because you can sway more easily with the train’s movement.

An ad card announcing the seating experiment states that there are “39 seats, the same numbers as the Orange, Brown and Yellow line 3200 Series car.” But of course it’s a lot less than the old Red Line cars. And it’s very noticeable.

The “big” problem would be for “big” people and sitting next to them. With the new seat configuration, odds are you’ll be sitting hip-to-hip with two people -- one on either side of you. In the old two-seat configuration, you could lean out into the aisle and just half-sit on the seat if your seatmate was a little larger. No can do here.

Plus, you can hear other people’s conversation much more easily. But that’s a good thing for a guy writing the CTA Tattler!

By the way, I looked for a link to more information on the CTA’s worthless Web site, but couldn’t find any. Sorry!

The Tattoo Lady / couple

A young couple boards the Red Line at Chicago, heading north at 4:55 p.m. Both have tattoos fully covering both their arms and necks.

The man is about 25, with a swooped up pompadour, and slightly overweight. A portion of his right arm is tattooed with “Vicente” and “Marie.” His neck appears to be covered with Chinese characters, his shirt collar obscuring them.

The 25-ish woman has jet black hair on the top and bangs, alternating blond and black over the rest of her head. She wears a nose ring in the right nostril, four piercings in her left ear and one in her right. Among the various tattoos on her arms, her left biceps bulges with “REVENGE.”

The back of her neck is adorned with two neatly scripted words:

“Straight edge”