TWO THINGS.

1. This footage of the subway 25 years ago is fascinating to me. A lot of people I know, especially native New Yorkers,  talk about how the city is so much nicer than it used to be. I don't know... I've always wanted to live in the grittier, tougher New York. The New York of After Hours. The New York of C.H.U.D. sans the cannibals in the seweres, I guess. It seemed like it was a lot more fun. I was hoping that when the economy crashed and everybody was as poor as I am the city might slide back, but no such luck. Another thing: where the hell did the K train go? A friend and I were just talking about the letters that were unused by MTA and wondered why: H, I, K, O, P, T, U, X, Y. I guess we can cross K off that list?

 

2. When I was in college I was obsessed with the band Gravy Train!!!! If you don't know them, they are (were?) a queercore electro band from Oakland, California who sang and rapped their way through hilarious and filthy songs like "You Made Me Gay" and "Cotton Mouth BJ". Now one of the gay boys from Gravy Train!!!!, Hunx, has a side project in Hunx and His Punx. This album combines so many things that I love, you don't even know. It's inspired by girl groups of the early sixties set through the lens of contemporary gay dudes.

It. Is. Awesome. This will definitely be the only thing I listen to for the next six months.

Here is the video for You Don't Like Rock N' Roll, which could have been my theme song when I was single and dating years ago. I once dumped a dude on the spot because he'd never heard of R.E.M. I'm not even an R.E.M. fan per se, but come on. That's 101 shit.

 

Comments

[Alejandro]

I always thought having a P train would be funny.

The footage of the subways reminded me of movies I watched as a kid (ala Desperately Seeking Susan) and I was like "I WANT TO LIVE THERE!" New York, even when filthy, had more life than the boring and banal Miami I grew up in (and yeah, I know Miami is more exciting than a lot of other places, but I find it to be one giant strip mall once you leave the beach).

[Josh]

@Alejandro

God, I LOVED Desperately Seeking Susan.

[DJK]

There's a great series on the website Scouting New York that compares New York, as seen in famous films, and New York now. They do it pretty exhaustively:

http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=1092
http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=1048

Also, there used to be an H train, which was a Rockaway Parkway shuttle:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuniochi/2319697599/

[PJH]

The T train is what the new Second Avenue line is going to be called. Most train systems also don't use vowels as they look like numbers (i.e. I and O). And P and T sound similar so they usually use one or the other.