As if to make me eat my words, it seems that the public transportation system in LA gets a little more sketchy and ghetto with each trip I take. Last night it was in peak form.

I boarded the subway intending to go to Compression and see John Tejada and Dan Bell (Spoiler: I made it there alive! Check out the photo set). Everything started out seeming mellow enough on the subway train. North Hollywood is the last stop on the red line, and it’s generally sparsely populated with riders. This is in fact a bad thing, since those unruly riders with a touch of the crazy feel that this is like a license to express the full depth and breadth of their insanity.
It all started with a young enterprising lady walking through the subway offering to sell water, juice, and pop for reasonable prices. A simple and harmless enough activity, and none of the riders took issue with this. Well, all but one. An older and heavily intoxicated older gentleman began questioning her legal right to be selling these items on the train. She gave some resistance, but the older gentleman clearly displayed signs of intending to be assaultive. She moved on to the next train and avoided further altercations.

This should’ve been the end of the affair, but the older gentleman, who we’ll call Crazy Bob, was having none of that. Crazy Bob continued to shout at the young entrepreneur even through she was no longer present. This continued for some time, and a pair of hispanic youths commented to themselves that Crazy Bob had no credentials to be enforcing the law on the subway in the first place. This was perhaps a bad move on their parts. Crazy Bob overhead this and stalked over, demanding that they repeat what they had said. They casually ignored him.

Crazy Bob spent the next five minutes on the subway describing, in graphic detail and at the top of his lungs, the various ways in which he would murder the hispanic youths.

A fellow subway passenger was gravely concerned by this development and discreetly began attempting to contact the subway operator by knocking on his door at the front of the train. There was no response. After a few minutes she gave up, and went to the emergency alert box and pushed the button. The door to the front of the train opened and the operator yelled at the young lady for distrubing him. It was incredibly shocking to see the subway operator berating the young lady for disturbing him while at the same time, 20 feet away, a man was threatening the lives of other passengers in explicit terms. The operator finished berating her and closed the door. Crazy Bob was still stalking the walkway of the train shouting “Hey ese! I’m going to kill you, muthafucka…yeah! FUCKING GUT YOU LIKE A FISH, BITCH!”

I alternated between staring at Crazy Bob in amazement and exchanging puzzled glances with the young lady who had tried in vain to get help from the subway operator. At the next stop in Universal City a large crowd filed onto the subway and Crazy Bob disappeared into the mass. We got off two stops later and as we walked to the street we discussed the event. We agreed that the subway operator had just engaged in gross negligence, put the lives of the passengers at risk, and should be in the unemployment line. We called Metro to describe what had just transpired and received a generic, “We’ll look into it” response. It was incredible. In hindsight, the subway operator had done worse than nothing. By starting up the train and leaving without giving anyone a chance to contact the police (they do have a purpose other than checking fares, right?) he would’ve effectively been aiding and abetting in any harm that came to any of the passengers. Unbelievable.

So yes, getting around by car is looking better and better.