By
John
Saleeby
November 16th, 2003
Loose hearted lady
Sleepy was she
Love for the Devil
Brought her to me
- "Train Kept
A' Rollin'"
Okay, I know those lyrics
are from another song on the Aerosmith album with "Train Kept A'
Rollin'" on it, but the lyrics to "Train Kept A' Rollin'"
are really stupid. I only wanted to quote "Train Kept A' Rollin'"
cause this an article about my train trip from Mississippi to New York
and back and, I dunno, I just like Aerosmith!
And the bad news is, I wrote
that paragraph on the way BACK from my nice restfull vacation! What
did I write on my way up? We're not going to use any of that in the
article. Acid Logic editor Wil Forbis is saving it for a future article
entitled "Shocking Confessions Of A Slobbering Net Porn Addict!!!"
Forbis says once I email it to him he owns it and can do whatever he
wants with it. So now I'm gonna start up my own web site based on e
mails I've recieved from Forbis called "Awake, White Man! Awaken
And Arise!"
Yes, I was on vacation. I
would rather have been on Vicodan, but now that Rush Limbaugh is in
rehab, there's nothing left for the Genuinely Hip but heroin and after
nine hundred and seventy Aerosmith interviews it suddenly struck me
that heroin is bad and I decided to go on vacation - A Permament Vacation!
I like trains. My Dad was
working on the railroad when I was a little kid. You always hear about
people from the Wrong Side Of The Tracks and the Right Side Of The Tracks,
I'm from The Tracks - No wonder there's no place for me in Bourgeois
Society! In the summertime we'd vacation down at the Gulf Of Mexico
in a little white house right across from the railroad tracks so me
and my little sister could lose our minds and run around like monkeys
everytime the train went by. One time we were eating Raisin Bran on
the front porch and when we heard dat whistle a' blowin' down de line
I ran inside the house hollering "THE RAISIN'S COMING!!! THE RAISIN'S
COMING!!!" Things were never quite the same between my parents
and me after that.
I was on The New Orleans
Crescent, an Amtrak line running from New Orleans, Louisiana and New
York, New York and back. In between New Orleans and New York it stops
in Birmingham, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, Philedelphia, Pennsylvania
and all kinds of lesser known places like Aeridian, Alabama, Geridian,
Georgia, Peridian, Pennsylvania, and Meridian, Mississipi where I got
on board(For anyone who is confused by that previous sentence, "Birmingham",
"Atlanta", "Philedelphia" were the names of cities
and "Alabama", "Georgia", and "Pennsylvania"
were the names of states. "Aeridian", "Geridian",
and "Peridian" were nutty joke names to go along with "Meredian"
which is the name of an actual city which is still kind of a joke just
on account of being in Mississippi).
The first thing you do when
boarding a train is run around looking for an empty seat next to a twenty
three year old redheaded chick with big tits. Can't find one? Well,
shit - Just sit anywhere. It don't make no difference , the whole damn
trip is shot if you can't find a twenty three year old redheaded chick
with big tits so just park it anywhere. I found two empty seats and
stretched out with my feets sticking out the window and my head in the
aisle so I could make eye contact with little kids and hypnotize them
into keeping their damn traps shut. It's a twenty five hour trip but
you're allowed to get up and walk around, unlike a plane where you just
have to sit there and be quiet unless you are an Arab terrorist or that
fat guy who plays guitar in R.E.M.
In the seats behind me were
two sleeping creatures that I assumed to be Hobbits until I remembered
those queers were just fictional so these guys must have been Europeans.
Europeans? Uh oh, maybe they weren't sleeping. Maybe they were dead!
But that couldn't be right - As we learned from the Holocaust, first
you put the Europeans onto a train, then you get them off of the train,
and then they die. Which reminds me of my favorite Hitler joke - Yes,
Mussolini got the trains to run on time but it took a real genius to
get six milion people to ride them against their will. No wonder my
old stand up act didn't go over in them East Village Folk Clubs. I quietly
eased back hoping that no one would make enough noise these characters
up and force me to kick some Pixie ass.
But it was not to be. No,
because sitting behind the sleeping Europeans were The Silliest Black
Guys In The World. That was going to be the title of this article until
a lesbian peeked over my shoulder and saw me writing this in an Upper
West Side Starbucks a couple of days later. "'The Silliest Black
Guys In The World'!!!" she screamed "That can't be the name
of the article!!!" When you're a New Yorker you have the authority
to edit every fucking goddam thing written in the United States. She
wouldn't go away until I started crying and bought her a Grande Latte
with a plastic snap on lid in the shape of Liz Phair's ass. But, Lawd
Have Mussy!, were these Black Guys SILLY! I can't quote any of their
wacky dialogue here, you'll swear I was making it all up -Like that
story about making out with Jessica Biel in last week's article. They
just started jokin' and kiddin' around and it was just like Rudy Ray
Moore was Rudy Moore and Ray Moore. I can only hope that they were two
guys who just happened to be sitting next to each other that particular
day because if they had been two lifelong friends who always talk like
that everywhere they go it is just a matter of time until they get murdered.
I mean, these guys were so silly even JOHN SALEEBY couldn't put up with
it!
But if anyone is offended
by what I've had to say about those Black Guys just wait until you hear
what I have to say about those European Guys once the Black Guys once
the Black Guys woke em up with their silly ass chatter and they turned
out to be DUTCH GUYS!!! Could anything be sillier than a Dutch Guy?
Sure! How about two Dutch Guys? Could anything be sillier than two Dutch
Guys? How about two Dutch Guys talking with The Silliest Black Guys
In The World? God, what a silly discussion! Too bad I didn't have a
tape recorder with me at the time. No, not so could record their zany
banter and play it back for you - So I could have tied up all four of
them with the magnetic tape and smashed them all over the head with
the recorder (Now that everybody's hip to box cutters the tape recorder
in the new Travelin' Man's Terror Tool - You watch!)
After you've read enough
of my Acid Logic stuff to know what kind of conversationalist I am you
will be mighty proud of me to learn that, with these four cartoon characters
driving the other pasengers off to the Lounge Car for enough booze to
make being trapped on the same train with their flappin' gums for the
next twenty hours tolerable, I was merciful enough to keep my mouth
shut and not make a contribution to the contrifusion. That would have
been just too much to process, like when Ted Nugent comes out right
in the middle of an Aerosmith concert and there's a panicked stampede
to the exits before he can start jamming with Joe Perry and everybody's
head starts manufacturing so much ear wax to protect the eardrum that
within ten seconds the entire crowd is buried beneath a bubbling brown
lake of human mucus (Happened once in Texas in '78 - Forty thousand
dead but at least they'd already seen Cheap Trick at their rockin' peak
so they died happy). So I just played it cool, had a few beers, and
sat back thinking Cool Beer Thoughts like "Football - Good! Carmine
Electra - Hot! 'Maxim' - Informative And Entertaining!" Boy, is
beer stupid or what? But inevitably . . . Suspicion! Paranoia! Projecting
My Own Loathesome Qualities Onto Others! Hey, maybe I oughta drink that
beer stuff more often!
After several hours of beer
and listening to these Dutch twits share tales of their many travels
across the USA with the curious Blackamoors my Evil White American Brain
reached one inescapable conclusion - The Dutchmen were DRUG COURIERS!
Yeah! Dig - All these two ever do is fly in from Amsterdam (You all
know about Amsterdam. What's the first thing that comes to mind when
you hear "Amsterdam"? Mmm hmm, yeah (“Legal Prostitutes”
- ed Wil) and then they go to New York and then they go to Chicago
and then they go San Francisco and then they go to Los Angeles and then
they go to New Orleans . . . Well, maybe when a couple of really silly
Black Guys listen to a couple of Decadent Dutch Dudes describe that
kind of life they just hear what sounds like "Ain't Nothin' But
A Party" but when the Evil White American Man hears it he hears
DRUG COURIERS!
This was no time for jokes!
Dutchmen were smuggling drugs and Black men were being so silly not
even Russell Simmons could figure out a way to make a buck off of it.
It had been made known to everyone within hearing range of these two
that the Dutchers were going to New York to catch the Sunday night
flight to Amsterdam on a Singapore Airlines. Singapore Airlines! What
kind of people take Singapore Airlines? Why not just come right out
and announce to the World that you're a DRUG COURIER, ya Big Brazen
Bastids? Building a MacGyver Radio out of a black ball point pen and
a potato chip, I contacted my old frat buddy Tom Ridge at the Office
Of Homeland Security and spilled the beans of Hans Brinker and Mister
Annie Frank right then and there. And I'd do the same to you if you
make a lotta noise while I'm trying to take a nap. Felt pretty good
about it until Tom reminded me of the fifty bucks I still owe him for
Who tickets. Shit! So next time I'm trying to take a nap go right ahead
and make all the goddam noise you want - No way is Tom gettin' paid
for those crappy tickets, they couldn't even get Keith Moon to show
up!
Time for a cup of coffee.
Beer is cute, but what is this - High School? Hey! The Old Lady working
in the Lounge Car was the same Old Lady working in the Lounge Car when
I took the Crescent two or three years ago! Thank God I'm not the only
one who ain't gettin' nowhere in this Dog Eat Dog world. "Oh, you
don't have to give me a tip!" she told the guy ahead of me "I
just got a job writing for 'Late Nite With Conan O'Brien' and this is
my last day on the job!" Dog Eat Dog? Make that a cup of coffee
and a Hot Dog. Yeah, yeah, I know what that'll do to the inside of my
stomach. I just wanna get the inside of my stomach in sync with the
inside of my head. My god damn head.
Cause I made just one mistake.
Pretty good by Saleeby standards, but still one too many when you're
going up against the cold blooded efficiency of the Dutch Drug Lords.
You see, as perfect as that loud son of a bitches' English was, when
I thought he was saying "New York" he was actually saying
"Newark", and when I saw those two merrily hop up and off
of the train at the second stop away from New York City I knew there
were gonna be some mighty pissed off Federal Agents waiting for my dumb
ass in Penn Station. But it wasn't the first time I'd made the Ol' Lamp
In My Face Routine with those boys and it probably won't be the last.
Cause when you play the Humor Writing Game the Saleeby Way you see a
side of things most people can only begin to imagine, much less try
to pitch situation comedies to the UPN about. And in today's geopolitical
atmosphere I'm not even sure why I bother. Guess deep down inside I'm
just an Old Song And Dance Man.
By the time I was released
from custody it was almost time for me to get right back on the Crescent
and head back down South. And with the kind of people I run around
with in New York I was probably beter off wisin' off to the Feds in
front of the Two way Mirror all week. It's like being on TV!
The train back was crowded.
Very crowded. Almost TOO crowded. The perfect cover for . . . DUTCH
DRUG COURIERS!!!
I ran up and down the aisles
interrogating passengers -
"Dutch?"
"No"
"Dutch?"
"No"
"Dutch?"
"Quack!"
"I said 'Dutch',
not 'Duck'!"
"Quack!"
"Don't apologise
to me, just don't ever do it again! Dutch?"
"No, I paid for
my ticket and my date's ticket."
"Huh? Oh, I get
it."
