Safety Announcements, MTA Style

Moments after I boarded the bus this morning, the driver picked up the intercom to make this announcement.

“HEY! There’s a fire at Flushing and [garbled]. We gonna be rerouted down Metroplitan. You need to get off somewhere along the rerouted route, YOU LET ME KNOW, OKAY?! Don’t be yellin and screamin at me!”

Five blocks later, she made the same announcement, almost verbatim. Not a single head moved, either time.

I like the fact that the primary goal of her announcement was not to give us a heads-up that the bus was being rerouted, or that THERE’S A FIRE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, but to not hassle her because of either of these facts. And that no one seemed to notice or care anyway.

♪ It’s a hell of town… ♪

REMINDER: Give ‘Til it Hurts So Good!

goodguys.jpgAs I alerted this readership last week, the WFMU Pledge Marathon is afoot. So pledge today!

Or pledge tonight, during The Best Show on WFMU. Ted Leo and Aimee Mann will be in studio, playing songs for pledges. Paul F. Tompkins and John Hodgman will be there to provide hilarity. And a pledge of $75 gets you a brand-new pledge-exclusive Scharpling & Wurster CD. Wow! A bargain at twice the price!

But not only that! That same $75 pledge earns you another pledge exclusive: an all-star tribute to the Paul & Linda McCartney album RAM, with songs covered by such esteemed artists as the two titans mentioned above, plus Death Cab for Cutie, Times New Viking, Portastatic, and many more.

What else do you get? Much much much much more! Actually, just a totebag, near as I can tell. But that can be much much much much more, depending on what you intend to use it for.

Actually, you get the satisfaction of knowing you helped one of the funniest radio programs of all time and one of the few radio stations in the NYC area worth listening to. So if you give no other monies to charity this year–and you know you won’t!–give to this!

Vague Signage Theatre Presents!

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I appreciate your candor, but you forgot one important thing: WHAT ARE YOU WARNING ME ABOUT?!

A potentially explosive collection of verbal irritants