Strange Things and Weirdos IX

Yes, indeed, it's time for another installment of Strange Things and Weirdos. This time, we are going to be covering the timespan of a few months, for these events have a central theme: the BART.

BART is the Bay Area Rapid Transit mass transportation here. It's sort of like Chicago's EL, but it's too expensive and doesn't run at convenient hours. Nonetheless, it is the only mass transit here, so it is used by many. The system is kind of old, and is pretty dirty, as I doubt it has been washed in many years. Cloth seats lend to the general nastiness and funk, but all in all, it's better than nothing. Unfortunately, it's usually as expensive, or in some cases, more expensive, and always less time efficient to take BART as opposed to riding in a car. If you carpool or if there is more than one person in your family taking BART, a car is cheaper all around.

So, first, something mildly amusing to get the story rolling. I'm sitting in a BART station and a train is approaching. The sign overhead flashes: Train Out of Service / Train Won't Stop. The train slows approaching the station, then stops. Matter of fact, it stays stopped for about 5 minutes, all the while with this sign flashing 'Train Won't Stop'. Good.

But that's not all that funny. The first story brings us back to April, when I was flying back from Minnesota. I landed at SFO, so I had to take BART back. I get on, and another Berkeley student, a poor freshman girl, sits down in front of me. She's obviously returning from Spring Break as well, as she has a suitcase, etc. For the first couple of stops, nothing is amiss. Then this old Asian guy comes walking from car to car trying to talk to people, and he zeros in on this poor girl.

Now, this girl is probably a bit timid, and since she's new here, probably hasn't dealt with people on BART much. Many of the people that ride BART are crazy. They're even worse than the street panhandlers because they know they have a captive audience. You either ignore them completely or give them a look of death; if you don't, they'll pester you the entire ride. Well, this poor girl hasn't learned how to be an asshole to BART crazies yet, so this Asian guy starts talking her up.

"Do you think that people should be allowed to drive SUVs?" She is polite with him and enters into a discussion, and then realizes she's been had. This guy starts launching into a tirade about how SUVs are evil, should be outlawed, how our president is a murderer, and then he starts getting into this existential shit about how we can live forever. He starts going on and on about how the government has discovered how to turn off some receptor in a gene that controls how we age but won't tell anyone about it. The girl asks why anyone would want to live forever, which really launches this guy off. I quit listening for a while, but I'd drift in and out of the conversation to hear shit like "This government wants us to all die so they can control us, but they have the technology. Don't doubt it. They will dole out the cure to our children so they can live in slavery forever."

Then we cross the bay and hit West Oakland. We get some rather seedy and questionable characters on the train there. Two black guys sit down across from me, and across the aisle from this Asian guy. One of them is obviously a student; he's well dressed and looks respectable. The other is some sort of street tough. His eyes are yellowed and bloodshot, he's got a couple of cuts, some tattoos, his clothes are dirty, and he's about 6'3" / 300 lbs. After a few minutes of listening to this Asian guy go on and on, he asks the student to his left and me "What the fuck is he talking about? He needs to shut up. I need some more crack." At this point, I'm beginning to wish that I had at least brought my K-Bar.

Then the Asian guy says: "Here in the US, our civil war 400 years ago taught us about slavery. The black man chose to be enslaved by the white man, and it was because the white man left out the gene that turns off when we die that he was enslaved." (I'm just repeating what he said, not claiming that it makes any sense). At this point, I thought the big black guy across from me was going to kill the Asian dude. He said something like "What the fuck did he just say?" and started to move that way when the student talked a bit of sense into him and he just started cussing at the Asian guy.

A couple of stops later, we're are the Berkeley BART station, and this girl isn't sure if she's at the right place. I told her that she was, and she said 'Thanks'. The Asian guy gets off the train following her, and I said to her as she exited "I bet that's the last time you talk to anyone on BART!" She looked over her shoulder, gave me this wide eyed exasperated expression and says "Yeah!"

Moral of this story: Don't talk to strangers on BART or you're likely to get your ass kicked by a crackhead who's just been insulted by a racist Asian without a sense of history.

Our second story brings us again to BART, although this time just a few days ago. On certain days out here, there is a lot of pollution in the air, so the BART system opens its doors for free and we have a 'spare the air' day. It encourages people to take mass transit instead of drive, and beecause it's the only day where it's actually economical to ride BART, it's jammed. Every parking lot is full, and the trains are standing room only. Unfortunately, it also means that homless guys and crazies can just walk right through the gates and shuffle from one train to the next panhandling and checking trash cans.

On this particular day, I was riding back home on the BART, and had just boarded at the Berkeley station. The train takes off, and no sooner than the train has taken off does this 20ish black guy with an LA Kings jersey and baggy pants run up the aisle in the train, pushing everyone out of the way screaming 'Look out!' and charges ahead into the next car. Everyone in a little annoyed at this, but they also realize that every nutcase is probably riding this train today for lack of anything better to do. Things settle down. Then a few minutes later, he comes back again, jumping over and around people, and knocking people out of the way. This time he's screaming "Look out, federal agent coming through!" and dashes to the back of the train. Now everyone's wondering what this guy's problem is. We take off again from the next station, and he continues. He must have made the circuit on the train about 6 times before the BART announcer says "If you have anyone causing problems on your car, please press the call button and let me know." Then we stop and the BART police get on the train with the dog. Nevermind that the train is crowded as shit because there's like 600 people trying to get home, no, the dog gets on and now this guys chase is for real. He dashes off the train screaming "Federal Agent! Move!" and dashes up the escalator at Lake Merritt with the BART police in hot pursuit with their German Shepherd. Then the train doors and everything returns to normal.

I'm not sure there is a moral to this story. On the plus side, I have actually seen a law enforcement agent of Kalifornia do something worthwhile, so I have a modicum of respect for the BART police now.