Crazy Train: Why The NYC Subway Can't Get Much Weirder

by BILLY GRAY · January 7, 2010

    (UPDATE: Crap, my bad! This event is tomorrow, Sunday, and the forecast says it will be a balmy 30 degrees! Apologies for any confusion and solitary frostbite. Thanks to True/Slant's Michael Roston for pointing out the error...however, in our opinion, every day should be no pants on the subway day!

    Flocks of Improv 101 geeks and assorted hangers-on will brave Saturday's 26 degree weather and disrobe within the screeching bowels of the subway system. It's all for the annual No Pants Subway Ride. We applaud the quickly shrinking balls of participants, but wonder if organized chaos can top the subway's spontaneous lunacy.

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    Given the assorted characters who've enlivened or terrorized New Yorkers' commutes, the Improv Everywhere folks have their work cut out for them. Here's a small sampling of these underground oddities:

    1) Earth Angel puts a modern, urban spin on the term itinerant preacher. The famed wacko claims to have been sent to earth to find his angel, in this case any hot girl in his subway car. Earth Angel steels itself for this quest with a plastic shopping bag, a...bible of sorts and, most indelibly, a jet-black bouffant.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ticUdOfSGuA&feature=related[/youtube]

    2) Snooki. We warned you before. But in case you missed it: the diminutive wop who won't stop has left her throne as Princess of Poughkeepsie to hang out in the Bleecker Street subway station.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSIniGbOBJc[/youtube]

    3) Murderers

    4) Out of Control Dance Troupes: An oldie but goodie, this footage of a break dancer kicking  a baby

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daAUkCtB6AU[/youtube]

    5) Heroes: New York plunged into earnestness when it embraced Subway Hero Wesley Autrey. The adoration reached enough of a tipping point to be lampooned on 30 Rock. But this guy was awesome, making a far better Letterman couch guest than 90% of the professional schmoozers who wind up in Ed Sullivan theater.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq9mNhXL_Ao[/youtube]

    Don't even get me started on the indecipherable PA system, bedbugs, unexplained station closures, the mythical third rail and that homeless guy I saw taking a dump on the F train last week.

    If anything, this weekend's exposed gams will be a welcome, reassuringly normal distraction.