shawn ritchie dot com

Chicago Street Theater: The Goo-Goos

I usually rant about bums or the CTA when it comes to the negative aspects of living in this otherwise-mostly-great 'burg, but there's a more recent subset of annoyance that needs to be brought up:

The Earnest Do-Gooder Needing Some of Your Time

These fuckhats popped up a few years ago; I don't really remember them being around in the 90's or the early 00's. You know the type: earnest college kids in their late teens or early 20's, with a skip in their step and a chipper voice, strategically stationed at major downtown intersections so that you can't avoid them no matter which way you take... They approach with a big smile on their face, always, always waving a goddamned clipboard... "Hi, sir, do you have a few minutes to care about the environment?"...

You know what, kid? FUCK you.

How DARE you presume that I don't already donate more money than you'll fuckin' make this year to Green causes. Or that I'm not spending entire weekends working with orphans. Or that I haven't personally spayed 835 cats...

The point is not whether I do any, none, or more than these things.The point is that these little assholes' entire approach is predicated on assuming that I don't. Which is insulting.

Last week, there were some volunteers looking for people to sign up to prevent dog-fighting. 

Really. Last I checked, dog-fighting was a) already illegal and b) prosecuted pretty fuckin' firmly when a ring gets caught out. What else these high-horsed jagoffs think people should be doing is beyond me. I'll tell you what, though: I'd love to grab one of these unlovable scamps by the too-long hair and say "Okay, Scout, you want to do your bit, or, rather, make ME do your bit to end dog-fighting? C'mon. We're going to the West Side. You can personally tell Ray Ray "Kitten Carver" Jones, a long-time Gangster Disciple with 26 arrests, 12 complete beatdowns and 2 straight-up murders under his belt, that he can't run his little canine UFC show tonight. I'm sure you'll understand if I wait in the car while you convince him of the error of his ways". 

If it's not dog-fighting, it's the environment. If it's not the environment, it's the fucking starving children. I don't know why these kids think bugging the shit out of tired-ass commuters who just want to get out of the cold and into their lifeless offices, day after goddamned day, is the best path towards improving the lot of whatever pitiful creature is their cause du jour. The only idiots I ever see actually talking to these pricks are:

• tourists too fuckin' stupid to not be won over by a winning smile and earnest approach
• delusional fuckhats who think that, if they sign over their name and a five-spot, the cute alt-rock chick with the clipboard who apparently was too dumb for Starbucks so she's doing this shit instead will agree to marry them because their altruism gets her panties wet
• other goddamned goo-goos

I'm hoping that even just a week or two of being told to fuck off by endless streams of misanthropes like me will knock the optimism out of these shits to the point where they'll try to earn enough juice to score a gig that comes with a chair. Until then, I'll continue to take pleasure in watching their smiles slip when I return their "Good morning, sir, do you have a minute to care about the manatees?!?!?" with a hearty "Nope! Get fucked!".

Suggestion for the CTA

On February 7th, the CTA's already-questionable service is going to get noticeably worse as the latest round of doomsday service cuts kick in. All Express bus routes = gone. Every other bus route = runs start later, end earlier, and with bigger time gaps between each. All trains = less frequent service.

This is going to suck. I already have to skip the first Red Line that hits Belmont once or twice a week because it's literally too crowded to get onto it without committing felony sexual assault on some fellow passengers.

Given the money problems that are causing this drastic reduction in service (in short: the Union is a greedy dick that won't share the pain right now, like every fucking union ever), I am wondering why the CTA hasn't taken the one simple, obvious step that would probably save them a good chunk of change throughout the winter:

Stop heating the buses and trains. Period.

Here's how the average morning commute in winter goes:

• Check weather at home before getting ready
• Oh, great, it's 15 fucking degrees out
• Bundle up mad-crazy for the walk to the El; hat, earmuffs, scarf, heavy coat, gloves, long underwear if it's particularly windy...
• Do the Arctic Stumble to the Montrose El platform, which, at just about barely two years past a complete rebuild is:
• • rustier than shit
  • completely exposed to the elements save for a lousy two car-length roof mid-platform
  • at least there's the little heated cubbyhole that holds a whopping 3-4 people!
• Wait however the fuck long the wait is, it's random, trying to predict it is useless (hey, another parenthetical aside: even the scuzziest near-3rd World Euro city I've been to [lookin' at you, Athens] has subway/train systems capable of having extremely accurate digital displays showing the time of the next train AT EVERY STATION. The CTA has these signs at like three stops across the entire system, and, from everything I've seen myself or heard of, they might as well be offering Lotto predictions based on hobo urine patterns at the Wilson Red Line stop for how accurate they are. Why is this?) so you will freeze up good.
• Train finally arrives, is packed and heated to 80 degrees.
• 7 seconds after boarding, begin sweating through all layers of clothing due to heat
• 9 seconds after boarding, try to clean humid fog off of glasses
• Repeat whole cycle on the Red Line, too

I took the Damen bus to my brother's on Saturday and had the same issues. It was a balmy 35 or so so I wasn't even that bundled up, and the bus wasn't _that_ packed, yet the driver had the heat set to "let's pretend it's August in Miami!" levels.

WHY?

Body heat and winter clothing, combined with being out of the wind, would render any train or bus perfectly comfortable even without any artificial heat being supplied at all. I know the difference I get in gas mileage on my reasonably-efficient car when I have the heat cranked vs. not; I can't imagine that there wouldn't be significant power/fuel savings across the CTA system if they ditched the heat. Near as I can tell, the only reason they have heat in the first place is so that the drivers can pretend they work in an office or something, since they always seem to be wearing a short sleeve shirt and pants like they're, I dunno, NOT technically performing an outside job driving a vehicle.

Also, needs to be mentioned: excessive bus/train heat does not help the always-bad smell situation on the CTA.

So, why not shut the heat off? Yeah, AC's a necessity in summer, but I don't see why heating the entire system to 70 degrees from October to March needs to happen. We need the current service levels to stay put much more than I need to sweat through my wool coat while ingesting boiled bum feces flakes twice a goddamned day.

CAN YOU BUY ME DINNER PLEASE SIR?!?!?!!?

No. I can't. Well, I could... but I won't.

I don't care about the inequities inherent in our economic system that demand there be losers, the Reagan-era deregulation of mental wards that unleashed hordes of unstable Vietnam veterans unpreparedly onto our streets, the fact that I have a job and therefore should be wracked with guilt for these folks... 

What I _do_ care about is the fact that I've been taking the El and then hoofing it to various offices in the Loop since the mid-90's, and, thus, my ability to be even remotely empathetic towards our street beggars has been burned out like someone started a chemical fire in my soul. 

I have no idea how much cash/cigarettes/food I've handed out over the years; it's not a great, but also not an inconsiderable, amount all told. And all heavily front-weighted towards my first few years working in bum-infested parts of town. 

You see, it doesn't take very long at all to realize it's the same dozen motherfuckers ruining your morning coffee walk with bran-fed regularity. There's the crazy guy who's always shirtless, hates white women, and has the most impressive biceps you've ever seen. There's the really big white guy with the crazy beard and hair always on the milk crate at Washington & Wells who has been begging for YEARS yet always seems to have a better jacket and shoes than I do. Etc., and so on.

Not to deny that some of 'em are truly fucked. I've written before about the dude on the State St. Bridge back in the early 2000's that got all of my coffee change always, four times a day. Why? Fucker didn't exist beneath the waist. He's was genuinely screwed, but always polite and occasionally very fucking funny, so he got what I could give. I'm not talking about those sorts of folks here.

Recently, we've had a new addition to the local firmament of shitstains, though, and this guy is REALLY getting on my fucking nerves. Young, white, well-spoken, looks perfectly healthy, none of the obvious signs of mental or chemical problems that would lead one to think he couldn't pick up a shift at the McD's a block away that ALWAYS has a Help Wanted sign hung out. Yeah, yeah, one shouldn't judge, I don't know the guy... but I don't fucking care.

He looks like a slightly-rumpled college sophomore. His station is the NE corner of Michigan & Randolph. This spot proves he's no dummy; during rush hours, it's about the longest light in the Loop and, given the commuter density there booking ass for Metra and the El out of "Chicago's New East Side (Christ, I hate that moniker)", he's got a captive audience that refreshes itself every half minute to the tune of two dozen new marks or so. One can't even cross south to the other side of the street and wait it out there away from this braying dickbag, as then crossing west to continue towards the El or Metra is forbidden on that side of the street, and that's where EVERYBODY on this corner needs to go.

So far, we've just got a pretty smart bum, good at picking a spot. No harm in that. However, his spiel... it kills me. Picture the most annoying nerd-voice ever. Like the kind of voice you can only picture in your own head as saying something like "but Star Trek is better than Star Wars because the science is more science-y!!!". Now picture it at bullhorn volume. Now ladle in a thick coating of guilt-language:

"SIR? YOU IN THE NICE BLACK COAT AND HAT? COULD YOU BUY ME DINNER? OR SOME FOOD? I'M REALLY HUNGRY. NO? THAT'S OKAY. YOU GO HOME TO A NICE CHRISTMAS, SIR. MA'AM? COULD YOU BUY ME DINNER?'

If you don't answer, he'll call out every person within his range (and, believe me: kid's got some pipes) _specifically_ by some visible feature so that everybody knows who the alleged cheapasses are. It's this assumption-laden, "you're obviously doing okay and I'm not but all I'm asking for is some food, man, not even cash or booze, you know I'm not one of THEM kinda bums" bullshit tone that really makes me want to shove this guy in front of the #143. 

The worst of it is that I'm beginning to understand that hardening of the heart (and not just in the physical sense) that seems to come for most white males who've had some small measure of success in their lives. I've worked hard for what little I have. I part with it uneasily. Don't make me feel like a dick about it because you've decided to check out or leech a little more than your share by tugging on my remaining heart-string, dickhead.