“New York I love you/But you’re freaking me out”–LCD Soundsystem
The Wednesday Pop Culture Rant has been traveling and gathering intel out in the nation’s capitol and in the city that never sleeps (The Rant does sleep at our advanced age, so we can neither confirm nor deny that assertion). We want to send a shout out to all our peeps that lodged, fed, entertained and confirmed our faith in humanity. Just know that many great Americans seek innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Also, DC has killer Indian food.
The Rant will have more rantiness on our travels later, but we wanted to give the stage to various conversations we overheard on the trip out. We had one of those amazing days where one thinks, “I can’t hear anything stranger than that,” and the universe steps up to the challenge.
April 7, 2016
Tulsa Airport–4am
“They didn’t know what it was asking.”
“Perfectly understandable. How much was the charge?”
“Twenty-eight dollars.”
“How are you this morning?”
“Where are you headed?”
“There’s another line open.”
“I suggest you take off your belt. Laptops out and in their own bin.”
DFW Airport–6.05am
“Going to be just a minute folks. Just waiting for some traffic to clear out ahead of us. This is an active runway, so please leave your seat belts on.”
“You’re going to have to check that.”
“What!”
“Check it.”
“Ladies and gentlemen the overhead bins are full and we will be checking all bags that won’t fit under your seat.”
“Both of those will have to go under the seat in front of you.”
In the air over DC—10.05am
“We’ve stopped our descent into DC. We have some rain and wind down there making landing from the north unfavorable. Those winds are starting to turn around. Going to stay up here for a few minutes.”
“Those winds have died down. They have us vectored for landing again. We’ll make those vector adjustments and land in 20 minutes.”
DCA Airport—11.05am
“Are you pulling all the luggage off or just some?”
“All of it. Right here.”
Metro—11.30am
“Push that button to cancel unless you want a day pass.”
“That machine only takes cash, sir. Come over here.”
“We don’t use those cards anymore.”
“Just one more stop.”
“Daddy? Here?”
“One more. Put your finger like this. One.”
“Come on. Let’s go.”
DC Hilton—12.10 pm
“How many cards, Mr. Crawford?”
“One.”
“Leave everything on this credit card for incidentals, room service . . . ?”
“Yes please.”
“Was I making two cards?”
“One”
“There you go, Mr. Crawford. Like that haircut by the way.” (Rubs his bald head)
Mellow Mushroom Pizza—2.35 pm
“Hey, I’m a good wingman.”
“I just try to do good things. The other day this lady had all these groceries, and I was like, ‘Can I help you with those?’ and she looked at me like ‘Is this a thing?’ So I grabbed like nine bags of her groceries and I had mine and she had four bags and we went to her car. Then she reached to give me some money and I said ‘No, I’m just helping out.’ And she just had this look on her face.”
“Karma points.”
“Right”
“Some day kids will just watch a video over and over until they get it. That’s how they do things with all the tablets and phones and things they look at. No people. Just the videos till they get it.”
“I went to school in Central America and one day the teacher said we had to write all the numbers from 100,000 to one million in our notebooks. There was no way. My aunt said, ‘did you do your homework?’ and I was in the car writing numbers like crazy, but there was no way.”
“I guess that was some sort of life lesson.”
“I guess the lesson was to always do your homework.”
“So there’s all this concrete and asphalt now and the water used to go, the grass, then the dirt, then the stone, and then back out to the sea to evaporate. That’s how it worked. Now it doesn’t have anywhere to go. Like L.A. There’s going to be a huge earthquake. In 25 years. Or at least in the next 25 to 50 years.”
“That San Andreas fault.”
“Yeah. And the drought isn’t helping.”
“My friend grows hops. I think we’ll be making our own beer in the next couple of years. Buy some land and have a place.”
“I was just listening to NPR and they were talking about a shortage of hops a couple of years ago. Sam Adams had to loan some to other brewers.”
“Yeah. Stone and Sierra Nevada in California. Hops take a lot of water to grow and some of these places don’t recycle the water from brewing.”
“So this was Catholic school. If you didn’t get your work done, you turned your hands over and the ruler came down.”
TDL Bar–DC Hilton—10.35pm
“You have a gift and treasure of two great kids. It’s ok you guys don’t like each other any more.”
“Yeah. Our purpose was to get together and make those kids. They’re great.”
“They’re so great.”
“The teacher says if anyone drops a pencil in class, Adam’s the one that picks it up.”
“I’m a tabula rasa guy.”
“There’s a lot of problems with that.”
“Listen man. Jimi Hendrix was not born with that. He earned it.”
“You’re saying he wasn’t born with that ability?”
“No. He figured it out and learned it. There’s no explanation for how I turned out. My father was a blue-collar farmer and military guy. No explanation for how I got here.”
“Hey. Just leave everything right where it is, ok? I am about to go unconscious from a lack of nicotine. We’ll be right back. I think you should just be up front with people.”
“You be here tomorrow, Mr. Crawford?”
“Yes”
“Maybe I see you. Have a good night.”
