Bad Medicine

my current default magazine is new york magazine. i like that the articles can be long, but not too long. i love that it tells me a lot about what is going on in new york. and it's great because i can sit on the train, get through it, and sound all finger on the pulsy about issues and, just like great icing, there's a crossword puzzle on the back page.

so a couple of weeks ago the mag does a piece on suicide tourism - it seems more people than normal (however normal is calculated) travel to new york to kill themselves. hmmm... interesting, but not as facsinating as the documentary film "the bridge" that kept me awake for two weeks. but then, continuing with the morbid subject matter, the next week there was a piece about death on the subway tracks.

58 people died on the subway tracks. 58!!! thats like more than one a week. and i heard about like maybe 4 of them. and i'm just saying that so i sound like i heard about something but, beyond the subway hero (who didn't die) i can't think of any adventures on the tracks i read about. i am already paranoid about those tracks. i watched those breakdance movies in the '80s and i don't know how people can tell which track is electrified, because i sure as heck can't. and what if something goes awry and the wrong track gets the current? i just have an image of a youth being zapped seared into my memory. apparently most of those deaths are suicides (no numbers given).

some were homeless or drunk people who wandered onto the tracks. those are some brave wanderers. have they not seen those tracks? the rats are as big as blooming cats! massive. and the tracks are vile, soggy dark places. i don't know how anyone went down there to breakdance or grafitti. brave.

others fell onto the tracks while urinating between cars or surfing on top of cars. and then a final lot fell or were pushed onto the tracks. and you see, that last category could be me. and so it's like new york magazine looked into a receded corner of my mind and pulled out a fear, told me it was completely rational and ran with it. and then made me work in places with narrow, crowded platforms.

so, if you are on that platform and you see someone clinging to the wall behind them for dear life or taking that extra step back when a train is approaching, just say hi pandave and wag a finger at the new york magazine. what happened to the "best places to eat" stories???