Stop Touching Me On The Train, Son

I love the train, but I am open about being a huge hater while on the train. Everyone has train pet peeves; I have several. I hate the bastards who lean on THE WHOLE DAMN POLE RIGHT BY THE DOOR. That is prime real estate for me to hold on with 2 purposes: 1. Having an immediate escape route and 2. Not falling on the creepy dude sitting in front of me (in the event that the conductor had a few too many before his ungodly moleperson night shift, causing the train to jostle), and having said creepy dude I might fall on think I made an intentional flirtatious "oops."

I also hate having any form of literature read above my head. Like if you are not going to let me read with you, do not put me through David Baldacci crumbs falling on my head--or worse, New York Post feces I mean newsprint (can we really call it "news" print tho?).

But what brings out the worst Rilli Tho face is when I am sharing holding a pole pause with someone on the train and their hand slides down to mine, touching my hand and leaving me in perpetual fear that this unwanted train intimacy is only going to progress (I've had dudes masturbate in front of me. My commute is not a game.).

This is not "Ghost" (RIP Patrick Swayze).

We are not going to sculpt shit together. Keep your hand where it was originally. I've created a photo montage of what this looks like and feels like to me, so that you can either relate if this has happened to you or know the warning signs and create a defense plan in the event that this does happen to you. It starts like this:

 OK, so you already knew that I was riding the train, no Quad City DJs. This picture was a test. If you see something, say something. I'm gonna guess with a probable statistical significance of P<0.000001 that you were not about to report that suspicious backpack at my 10 o'clock.

Also, let's report the dude who volunteered to sit under the map. NEVER SIT UNDER THE MAP. I cannot stress this enough, particularly if you are a native New Yorker or just anyone who doesn't want people leering uncomfortably close over your whole bodice like it's OK cuz they "wanna see the best route" to 42nd Street. Fuck outta here; everything is the best route to 42nd Street.

 Aite, so we have someone with a Calvin Klein-model glare joining us on this train pole here. Not the best of situations, but still foreboding since you know there is tragedy to come.

OK, it's winter and your hand is sliding down the pole. That tells me that you have sweaty palms, which is already pretty gross, but makes me anxious about how much closer you're going to get to my hand before I have to mention something or glare at you and have you look at me like I was the first offender. Also, why are you looking at me?

Holy shit, where is my Klonopin?! You are OD close, sir. I am so sorry about your pituitary gland situation, but do you rilli not see where this is going? Because I do, and again, this is not "Ghost." This is about the point where I generally try to slide my hand down a little without having to touch the potentially lice-ridden head that is inevitably right underneath this safety net of height on the pole. Also, I bet you still didn't say something, even though you saw something...

This is the danger zone. I am now auditioning for Demi Moore's part and I had no intention of acting today. This is emergency preparation time.

Good. Now we are officially the cover of an interracial erotica tale. And sculpting a vase.

Son of a bitch. You are Ghosting the shit out of me right now. Clay isn't even my medium of choice! Fuck outta here with that. I know you feel my discomfort; back on up! At this point, I hope there is a bomb in that bag that you probably still didn't report yet.

From here on out, this is what it feels and looks like to me. Someone in the background is singing, "Ohhhhhhhh, myyyy darrrlllllinnnggg..." which makes me even MORE nervous because by means of behavioral conditioning, I am trained to think those oogum boogums (bad-guy ghosts) are going to come at the end of this movie (read: ride) and get me in the dark while I'm walking down the street. BECAUSE THAT'S HOW "GHOST" ENDS.

...Which is precisely what I'm going to start singing the next time someone Ghosts me on the train. Special thanks to Chadlibs for improvising this scene with me and allowing himself to look as creepy as he isn't.

RECAP: Don't Ghost me on the damn train! And stop bangin on de damn furnace!

Hipsters Are People Pigeons, Part II

I have returned to go HAM on hipsters. To recap the first portion of my anti-hipster diatribe, I wanna kick hipsters because they are always in my way and I have the ILL pedestrian rage as it is. Back to the issues at hand...

HORN-RIMMED GLASSES
Why?! How?! These are the glasses that you had to wear as a child--almost as a form of cruel punishment--because they were the only ones they made to fit the huge lenses that were mandated to accommodate astigmatism in both your little-person eyes. These are the glasses that readily identified the nerd archetype character in 90's sitcoms. HOW DID THIS BECOME A THING. Daria is the ONLY person who ever looked good in them, and she is a cartoon.

Moreover, how is it that these glasses are the only glasses hipsters can find and cling to with all their faux-identity might? Have you been to LensCrafters? They have nearly unlimited options in terms of eyewear. Not to mention, they are so big as to take up 65% of any given person's face who wears them. Your facial features literally become uniform to the glasses, creating this Twilight Zone episode/Pink Floyd's "The Wall" hybrid of uni-face that apparently is only freaking me out. And as a reminder, I am a native New Yorker, so I see crazy shit all the time. It's like a prerequisite to residency.

Also, I personally don't like to look like a victim in New York. Aside from the fact that my smack reflex is already heightened around people pigeons, horn-rimmed glasses are OD smackoffthefaceable. Which makes it easy to say "oops" after. I WON'T MEAN IT THOUGH.

MUSIC
For a while, I wasn't concerned about hipster infiltration of my music because I listen predominantly hip-hop, reggae, and enough reggaeton for all of Washington Heights and LES combined (it's an issue, I am aware. No, it is not something I am willing to give up. Sorry, everyone around me on the train who has to second-hand hear Daddy Yankee playing in my headphones). I didn't listen to Grizzly Bear or whatever other like abbreviation-/animal-related band name music, so I thought I was in the clear.

Then something horrible happened.

Childish Gambino got signed to a label, and hipsters were catching on to the amazingness that is Donald Glover. I hate to say it, but I'm about to be one of those people who says, "Ohh, yeah, you JUST found him out now?! I been on his shit since 2007 when he was Prince Reggie K. Yeah, I met him, too...but, you know..." </asshole talk>

I was able to enjoy Donald Glover's stand-up shows and his initial concerts in blissful peace...until the last one I went to at Terminal 5 in November. Oh, it was so tragic: plaid, unwashed hair, and groupie-like zeal everywhere, in a space not fit for the breadth of the audience. I internally shed a solitary tear. At that moment, I realized I was no longer safe, and that my music-going tendencies would have to be indoors and alone. :(

Since writing the first part about people pigeons, it is as if hipster karma has knocked at my door: one of my best friends' bands, Sylvana-Joyce & the Moment, is playing at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg on Tuesday, January 31st. (WILLIAMSBURG, ugh.) Go get tickets, because I swear fore Michael Jackson and even Ben that you will not be able to afford them soon.

Sylvana-Joyce is the definition of authentic, and her music ("gypsy rock") is too good not to inevitably be consumed by hipsters. Sylvana-Joyce will be in tow at the show with hipster glasses, but she asked for my forgiveness in advance, so I will pardon her. (People Pigeons: a native New Yorker wearing hipster glasses is the actual definition of post-ironic.)

Let us pray the hipster prayer: 

Hail Macy's, full of clothes that look like I could have gotten them originally in 1972, 

our Pabst be with thee. 

Blessed postmodern art thou, among women who were like women before women were in, 

and blessed ...is the fruit of your labor by virtue of being in the 99% no matter what your tax bracket is. 

Holy Contrary, Mother of Mod, 

pray for our spinsters because marriage shouldn't have to be a recognition of a true bond anymore--True Religion excluded--

now and at the hour of our fetch, stay "in."

Hipsters Are People Pigeons, Part I

Yes, folks, this is the long-awaited hipster post that I've been asked to write because their whole existence is a www.RilliTho.com all by itself. They bring the most stereotypical, attitude-laden Native New Yorker out in me, which some people find hilarious. But rilli, I want to stop the mass hipsteria immediately.

I call hipsters "people pigeons" because they are everywhere in my way and I wanna kick em. I think people should put up signs not to feed them cultural trends just as people put up signs not to feed pigeons to deter them from populating any desirable area. Pigeons may have variations in color and slightly different taste in bread crumbs, but at the end of the day, they all poop on our new shoes that we just got 2-for-1 at Charlotte Russe. Except the difference with people pigeons (PP, from here on in) is that they then make those shoes more expensive by their noting my impeccable taste and making them popular enough that prices go up. They are an entire movement based on appropriation.

Now, I can only speak for hipsters as I witness them in New York City. I have a grand list of complaints about them that likely exceed DMX's and TI's jailtime combined.

1. They are essentially permanent tourists. They walk slowly, visit all the "hotspots" of the city, and have a uniform akin to the fanny packs and oversized t-shirts of all other tourists to New York. 

1a. The hipster uniform is sneaky. It is sneaky in that their powers of replicating New Yorker fashion makes them look like down-ass OG New Yorkers...until they open their beaks. This essentially makes them the Agent Smiths of New York, pecking through the streets that were once ours in the clothes that are still ours, making us involuntary workers in their Pigeon People matrix of conformity and despair.

1b. However, the "irony" of this uniform is that nonconformity is the People Pigeon mantra, indie music and indie films their cultural soundtrack. I'm not saying anything here that hasn't been said already a thousand times by other people, but this "postironic," actual-irony bullshit needs to be understood by hipsters.

2. Williamsburg. I tried going to a bar there once, half-knowing what I was getting into, but not knowing what can only be described as the plague of the locusts--yes, I am going hyperbolic Biblical status on this. Oh, the sense of entitlement that has overtaken the once-gritty/beautiful dichotomy of Williamsburg! Today, you can barely call it Brooklyn--but heaven forbid you tell a hipster that. People Pigeons LOVE taking pride in being self-proclaimed Brooklynites, having no idea what it really means to be Brooklyn. They may be in Brooklyn, but they are not Brooklyn. 

I feel the most sympathy for the Williamsburg Dominicans, who really should have the most to complain about here. Do you know what the L train used to look like? Five years ago, you would not catch me on the L train if my grandmother's cockatiel was suffering a thromboembolism and crying suddenly--in an amazing moment where birds developed a larynx armed with the capability of crying--and the only veterinarian in the city who could potentially treat him (Yeah, I know--let's please pretend for the sake of satire that cockatiels can get the ill strokes) was a stop off Bedford Avenue.

Look at this shit--and this is just the train. That means the people who rode the L train had to amass other graffiti junkies to graffiti-crackhouse the whole fucking train. As a reminder, trains move. Underground. Where subway rats and other horrifying, potentially Hanta Virus-carrying vermin lurk. Imagine not only what the inside of the trains were like--but the stations. The stations, Dear Baby Jesus and all his Holy diapers! Horror--sheer horror.

But People Pigeons want to now claim Brooklyn. After everything that people who have lived in Williamsburg for decades had to endure. Appropriation. And before you call me out for it, I lived in Chelsea when Chelsea was the hood (yes, that was a time, dear Transplants-to-NY). Therefore, I'm giving myself a get-out-of-judgment-free pass for every needle I had to hop over on the street and every outpatient cup of methadone I had to pretend was orange juice when I was a wee lass. What I'm trying to say is, I grew up thinking "park" was a synonym for "drug cartel playhouse."

I'm sorry to end so abruptly, but I just feel my foot wanting to kick the pigeons so hard right now that I have to pseudo-benzo myself into a calmness that will allow me the placidity to write a Part II. I hope you've enjoyed my resentment. Native New Yorker out.

F*ck a Generic. Real Talk.

One of my best friends recently sent me this link about healthcare, as both being crazy and reading about it all day, I don't shut up about it.

Rilli tho, this chick has to be OD desperate. To prostitute yourself for managed care is worse than to prostitute yourself for prostitution. Girl, you have too much going for you to be doing this to yourself.

You clearly have fashion sense, as I see your lil' Kathy Ireland cardigan pokin' out, which also demonstrates your financially savvy ways from the Kmart collection (I grew up on layaway Christmases--I feel you, girl).

You found a clear background from which you could video yourself--no clutter in sight--so you're obviously not a hoarder. That is a plus. Meanwhile, let's back up on the camera thing. I know you are aware that your laptop or whatever other device you used to tape this is obviously more expensive than the Flonase you big-up in the beginning of your serenade. I'm saying that selling that should probably be your first method of recourse.

I'm also gonna go ahead and assume that you had found that salon that gives fantastic free hair cuts and dyes on the first Monday of the month, so you know how to spot a deal. Let's work with these money management skillz.

Now, you still have a boombox--that is an issue, I see--but we can get past that. I know a crackhead on 178th outside that crackhead-infested bus station who would gladly sell po' lil' boom boom box to someone else who had no reason in the middle of January to buy a boombox in 2012 in the first place. And while yes, you'd have to stay to monitor that he did not run with your money or use it to scratch his nether regions, he'd at least break you off $3. These $3 are crucial, as you can at least get a single-ride Metrocard to take a bus or train (you look like a bus girl, tho) down to a free clinic. Yes, they exist. Get your lil' deviated septum some help.

Now, what concerns me most is that you will "suck a d*ck for generic*." Girl, the only preexisting condition that you have is that I have not kicked knowledge to you on generics. I know times is hard on the yard, and that closed mouths don't get paid on the boulevard, but you need to save your oral services on this one.

Generics are cheap; you don't have to be. Generics are also cheap because they are not 100% guaranteed or you get your money back. They do not come with the Allstate promise. In fact, the fucking drug assholes (FDA, for short) mandates that generics only have 80-125% bioavailability to the brand name of the drug. This means, young lady, that one month, you could get Flonase made by Generic Company A, that's as efficacious as the brand name, and then next month, you could get itty bitty 80% Flonase, made by Generic Company B.

Your video has shown me that you know how to find a deal, and that you're willing to put out for some nasal-passage clearing, so if you're going to give it up, do it with the knowledge that you'll be able to breathe the same way every month. After all, if you're gonna be doin' that for moneyz, you will need some clear sinuses.