(Don't) take the A train...

I happened to google "what happened in history today"...and there it was...in 1941 Duke Ellington first recorded "Take the A Train"...uh, no thank you, Sir Duke...if you've seen the weekend NYC news you will know that a 21-year-old man was arrested for a string of stabbings on the A train line...two people dead...others wounded and traumatized...although ridership is nowhere near what it was before the pandemic hit, subway crimes are up...unless you ask the mayor's office...then you will be met with charts that say no...this is not true...actuarial versus actual...just ask New Yorkers who do ride the trains...and many, I am sure, will profess less of a fear of Covid while riding...and more of a fear of accidentally brushing up against someone and being flung onto the tracks...or sliced like a Thanksgiving turkey...the abundance of mentally unstable individuals living underground is evident...the police have had their hands tied in legislative red tape as to how much they can do...and those who need the subway to get from point A to B to pay the rent...they are caught in a dangerous power play...an MTA teetering on bankruptcy cannot afford this public relations nightmare...the city cannot keep citizens from fleeing unless there is real help for the mentally ill...who need to be separated from the endlessly growing homeless population...so that when outreach groups try setting up housing for the homeless throughout the city they are not met with fear and anger from neighborhood residents...it's all easy to write in a blog...in reality, it takes money, and dedication...new laws, and revocation of laws that cause more harm than good...only then can we all ride that A train up to Harlem with a song in our steps...and not terror in our hearts...

Shadow dancing...

 tomorrow the length of winter is determined by a groundhog...yes, in the twenty-first century, we seek scientific advice from rodents...Punxsutawney Phil...Malverne Mel...Staten Island Chuck (who really should be called Staten Island Sal who goes to Denino's after for two slices)...tomorrow the rodents will be laughing from Pennsylvania to New York...and all along the Northeast corridor...the joke is on us...winter is back after last year's sabbatical and with a vengeance...but what I want to know...what's gonna happen in March when we hit the one-year mark from last year's quarantine...when they take Wuhan Willy - an ugly ass bat - and hold him in the sun?...will we get sprung loose...or endure six more months of quarantine...these are the things that float in my head...scary, huh?...because after almost a year of living in this painful alternative universe...this is what happens...I am like a lab rat...a rodent...a groundhog...subjected to a haphazard study of the effects of social distancing on the brain...when they take me out and hold me up tomorrow...will I see my shadow...or not?...it won't matter...me, I'm just waiting on Wuhan Willy...