Posts Tagged "trains"
05.07.2012
Of Mondays and Men

I’ve long considered myself a pretty big fan of the weekend. Maybe not the biggest fan ever, but I’m definitely up there. Nonetheless, I can say with some certainty that I was not a fan of this particular incarnation of the weekend in the least. I think the problem started somewhere around the time I didn’t consume anything except coffee, beer and some kind of weird, milky Korean sake on Friday, and ended somewhere around the time I got hit by a bus after not consuming anything except coffee, beer and some kind of weird, milky Korean sake on Friday. Anyway, try not to worry too much about me. I am still very much alive, and, if anything, the whole experience actually only reinforced my belief that I possess a mutant healing factor. Now, if only I could say the same for my phone.
In my long history of bus crashes, I’ve learned one valuable lesson: no vehicular accident is without some causalities. Maybe you escape with life and limb intact, but maybe your 32-oz Big Gulp took a tumble on your recently-cleaned upholstery. Maybe your fancy phone cracks under the pressure… literally. Or maybe you spend an hour coming to terms with the fact that you may never see home again, marooned on the side of the road in Milwaukee, while your maniacal driver and her comrades tape a refrigerator box to the gaping hole in the side of the bus caused by said maniacal driver plowing through a traffic light.
So, aside from this weekend, another thing I happen not to be a fan of… buses. They’re just mental hospitals on wheels as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, enough talking, more pictures! Reading is hard! Here are a few crusty shots to better reflect my crusty disposition.




Man, if my photography keeps getting worse, I might as well just sign up for instagram, amiright?
I’m not too keen on posting up photos of myself, as that will only help lead to my eventual arrest, but I buckled under the weight of my own narcissism this time. Just kidding. Well, kind of just kidding. The story behind this one (since I’m apparently in a story-telling mood), is that I pretty much never get the chance to take a photo out of the front of the train and finally did (only to squander the opportunity since this came out a blurry, reflecty mess). Also, I loved that hat and never saw it again after that time I got hit by a bus. So try to live with that on your conscience, inconsiderate bus driver who sideswiped a very dehydrated man and didn’t even stop to check if you had killed him, or worse still, destroyed a very fashionable piece of headwear.
Updating a blog at 10 PM is kind of like screaming into an abyss, but that’s okay, because I like to yell. Also, there’s a reasonably good chance the world will still exist tomorrow - and more importantly, the world wide web will still exist tomorrow - when my abyssal shouting will be ready to be heard anew.
04.09.2012
These days go by like trucks and trains
You know, dedleg might be my baby, but it’s a damn good thing websites aren’t actually anything like real children. For one thing, children stink. And for another, if websites were like real children, this one surely would have gotten itself arrested or impregnated by now. Most importantly, though, is that you just can’t ignore a real child for, like, four days without facing some pretty negative consequences. Negative consequences that are even worse than getting locked up, or knocked up, for that matter… not that I know of anything worse offhand, but I’m told such things do exist. Hey, we live in a scary world. Get used to it.
In any case, I feel like I was traveling all weekend… and so does my camera.

Noisy, not unlike the act of taking a train itself. Not unlike Grand Central itself. So deal with it.


This thing was weird. Is weird. Has been weird. Whatever. Looks like it belongs on a NIN cover or something… not that I would know. I only listen to the hardest of gangster rap, haven’t you heard? I’m as OG as they come, best believe, man.

Don’t mind me, just overdoing it in post. Carry on.
02.20.2012
Winter Warmer
I’m a bit hesitant to jump the gun when it comes to meteorological issues in general, since even the guys paid to predict this shit usually get it wrong, but with 58-degree-temperatures tentatively scheduled for later this week and February quickly approaching its abrupt end, “real winter” is looking like less and less of a possibility this year. Is it a sign of the end times? Who fucking cares! If the weather’s going to be this mild in hell, I’ll book my ticket in advance.
Nonetheless, last Saturday saw bitter, merciless wind and even a passing snow squall — perhaps a gentle warning that winter’s still got it, and maybe we shouldn’t push our luck. Rather, we should push our skateboards and enjoy the snow-free streets while we can. And who knows, we might just end up pushing straight on to spring.

The best part of a snowy, winter weekend night? The thought of heading home to a cold beer, oddly enough.

It occurred to me around this time that taking the long way home may have been a poor choice.

Nonetheless, walking through Prospect Park late at night is great if you, like me, wish your daily commute looked a little bit more like the Elven-outpost of Rivendell.


Magical as the view may have been, my fingers, numb from the biting wind, were turning into clumsy, bloated sausages by the minute. It was definitely time to head home and fill my blood with the warmth of an mildly alcoholic buzz.
02.18.2012
Our destinations have turned to smoke
Figured I’d put up a few flicks since it was kind of dedsville around here towards the end of the week, and it’s a Saturday and I’ve got nothing better to do so… yeah… here’s my last resort. I’m so bored I’m actually updating my blog. Just kidding, I love you Dedleg. Yes, that’s right, I love me. You should love me, too.

Some graffiti artists work in ink, some in paint, some in… a harder medium.…

Utah catching permanent tags, son.

Brew, for two, please.

Fill-ins are nice and all, but bathroom wall art is really the purest form of street art. Even if it’s not, uh, actually on the street, but whatever. It’s not all pee pee and poo poo talk, and drawings of weiners and vaginas, and “you’re gay” this and “call this guy’s mom for a good time” that. I mean, it is all those things, but there’s so much more. There’s some real insightful shit to be found in bathrooms the world over, and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that I just happen to be the most insightful while I’m shitting.
01.17.2012
Heads (and eyes) will roll
If you don’t make the most (or better yet, the least) of the time you have off, there’s really no point in having time off at all. However, in updating this blog, I’ve already destroyed any chance of me choosing the path of least resistance, but it’s good to have goals, anyway.

If there’s one thing I like more than a good view, it’s a good view obscured by spattered filth. Also, taking pictures out of train windows while said train is in motion proves infinitely troublesome.
These are a (very) few shots I took some months ago while visiting the bustling village of Sleepy Hollow. If you like Halloween or went to grade school in America, chances are good you’ve heard of this place, thanks to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Curious enough, the “legend,” as it were, is really not so much a legend at all — it’s merely one of the earliest examples of American fiction written by Washington Irving — and a reasonably entertaining film inspired by the legend, starring Edward Scissorhands — based on the actual legend of the Headless Horseman, which is a motif of European folklore that dates back to the Middle Ages.
In any case, while I was in town, I made sure to visit the Official Sleepy Hollow Cemetery™, where Washington Irving once slinked amongst the graves, finding the names for his characters upon the many headstones.


While there, I stumbled upon a literal bridge over troubled water. Hearing the faint drumming of hoofs bearing down hard on the damp earth in the distance, I decided to cut my visit short.

And then my camera ran out of battery at the worst time possible. Always travel with a spare, a good memory only goes so far.
Also, don’t bother to check your calendar, you’re not crazy. I’m just a weirdo. It is, in fact, Tuesday, January 17th. Really, a fairly humdrum day in the middle of the winter, far from the ghoulish festivities of October 30th. Nonetheless, ghoulish festivities are never far from my heart, which I happen to keep in a jar on my desk.
12.01.2011
Enemy of the State of Mind
Between a formidable pile of professional projects and a bullshit court date that has been haunting my schedule since late October, Dedleg has been more like Dedsville this week. If your preferred method of time-killing happens to be following me on Twitter, you’ll know I spent the first half of this crisp December 1st watching poor schmucks get busted for making illegal right turns and not taking their prescribed anti-psychotics in court. An hour and a half of sitting around later, my name was called along with the charge, “disobeyed park sign.” I think I even heard someone in the back murmur, “sick bastard…” Nonetheless, the judge pardoned me of my considerable crimes (well, the one crime they knew about anyway), and sent me back onto the hard streets. It seems I will live to skateboard in public parks after dark another day, after all.

And now, what better way to celebrate my legal victory than with some relaxing, well-deserved illegality of the herbal variety? Oh, and yeah, I guess I should put up the first respectable batch of content this blog has seen all week, while I’m at it.

Yeah, I guess putting up these two photos is kind of an art faggy thing to do, but if that’s the case, well… then I don’t want to be art straight, mom!

If you write both “no pissing or shitting,” it can only mean there has been a history of people pissing, and most definitely also shitting outside of your window. Something tells me it wasn’t merely a precautionary measure, smell me?



Hope I could help you get through the long, will-shattering final hour of your work day. We’re almost there, gang. And by “there,” I mean the weekend, which is really less of a physical location than it is a state of mind.
07.28.2011
The Sticky, the Icky and the Sticky Icky Icky
Easy Ways To Tell You Smoke Too Much Marijuana #9: You find yourself googling “did hobbits really smoke weed?” out of genuine curiosity.
In high school, my friends and I used to skate a bank in the back of a grocery store, often after participating in less legal teenage fun. To get to the bank, we’d have to walk through a sort of alley-way, where it was clear other young miscreants liked to spend their off-hours. Almost as a welcoming committee, the side of the store sported all kinds of flaking graffiti, my favorite of which was an aging mural of a crudely-drawn, stereotypical alien smoking a huge joint. It was retarded, and I loved it. However, it was not the first drawing of an alien smoking weed, and it will not be the last — it is part of a rich tradition of depicting aliens enjoying marijuana, and so too is my latest drawing.

This drawing was inspired by a few particular strains of weed… particularly potent, as I’ve been told: Martian Mean Green, Trainwreck, and Sour Diesel. Get it? Before anyone asks, yes, I am aware this is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever drawn for this website… and that’s really saying something around here.
Anyway, no tribute to this whimsical and thought-provoking genre of art would be complete without a collection of compelling examples.

Maybe I’ve been watching too much Ancient Aliens lately, but this is probably true… just btw.

Sentient, non-organic aliens are still aliens.

I truly believe this is the best the Internet can offer as far as images of aliens smoking joints go. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.

Hey, he’s an alien too.

Okay, so he’s not an alien. In fact, he’s never even played an alien. But he’s no mere man, either. I still got mad love for you, Arnie.
07.18.2011
Big Drag
Getting off to a bit of a slow start this week… It seems that, to no one’s surprise really, weekends are still considerably more enjoyable than working. Anyway, these photos may look like the ones most people delete on their way to the group shots at the bar, but what can I say? I’m a pretty abstract dude.


“Oops, I didn’t realize my camera was on.” Nope, believe it or not, this was a very intentional composition. Seriously…

You might not realize this, but it can be a little tricky to take a decent picture out the window of a moving train. At the very least, it makes for some interesting vantage points.

Okay, now this is probably getting a little too self indulgent… sunsets and clouds all last week, sunsets and clouds again already this week. It’s almost like summer rerun season, only with new, and yet completely unoriginal content! But don’t worry — I’m submitting some of my photography to an upcoming show, so you’ll get to see the actual reruns soon enough.

05.18.2011
Trainspotting
A little tour through the underground and into the aboveground. The title says it all. Pictures of Ewan McGregor’s shlong have been redacted.



Just posting this one for street cred.

The whole train ride I kept trying to get a decent in-focus shot of a train passing by — not the easiest task considering the subject is going by at 80 miles per hour. Snapped this one and managed to catch a dude snoozing. In general, I don’t really agree with the idiom, “you snooze, you lose” — mostly just because I love to snooze. But in this instance, had I been snoozing like our snoozing friend here, I wouldn’t have gotten the shot. Lesson learned! Don’t sleep your lives away, kids.

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in New York City any more. Power lines and trees… there’s even the faintest suggestion of a sunset that was. Ahh, that’s more like it.
04.11.2011
Postnuptial depression
Here’s a small selection of photos to start off the week. Kind of a mixed bag, but if my long history of eating and enjoying eating mixed nuts taught me anything, it’s that variety is delicious.


I like to check out manhole covers whenever I get the chance — you just never know when a teenage, mutant, ninja turtle might be hiding under one.

Pardon my brevity, but I’m a little dazed this morning, since I spent yesterday as witness to the blessed sacrament of marriage. Having to endure an Italian wedding on Long Island seemed like a cursed fate at first, but once we got to the “drinking for hours” part, it was actually pretty fun.
04.05.2011
N.Y. Electric
Is it too soon to call it? Has Spring finally begun to, uh, spring? Disasters of precipitation have been known to happen in April, and I’m not talking about the famed showers, either. Hell, it managed to squeeze out one last dumping of snow a couple weeks ago. At the very least, this video I’ve had sitting in my drafts for like 3 months isn’t quite entirely irrelevant yet… so here’s some cool footage of a train going by during the The Great and Terrible Blizzard of 2010, which makes a snow shower at the end of March seem pretty tolerable by comparison.
That must be why they tell you not to ride on the outside of the train. Makes sense now.
Four hundred tons of train, 25 mph of snowstorm and 625 volts of electricity. Sparks fly as the subway passes between Parkside Avenue and Prospect Park stations during the blizzard of December 2010 in NYC.
Ah, a distant memory now. Goodbye Winter, you were fun while you lasted, only not really.