An Imaginary Rock-Rap Concert on the L Train

It’s late. I’m in a damn good mood. Got me some new jeans that are a lot better fitting than my old ones. Hell yeah. It doesn’t even bother me that it takes ten full minutes to unravel my ipod headphones after I fish them out of my jacket pocket.

Alright, I’m lying. That always bothers me.

The fact that I never put my headphones away properly is beside the point. It’s one of the lessons of life that I have chosen to always break – just because I’m a moron. But tonight, in this fantastic universe called New York, the moron in me is feeling like he’s not such a moron after all.

Yup, I’m slightly drunk.

So I’m bobbing my head, listening to my ipod while I strut my way on to the L Train to Brooklyn. Like I said, it’s late. Too bad, I think, because now there aren’t many people to notice how cool I’ve gotten all of a sudden. In fact, there’s just two other dudes and they both are listening to their headphones too. Fuck them, I say to myself in my best pretend bad-ass internal voice.

My staged animosity quickly dissolves however. Dude on my left, an obvious hip hop cat with a big expensive jacket on, Yankees cap, relaxes back in his seat and starts getting into his music. I mean.. getting into it. He starts spitting silent lyrics like a cross between KRS-One and Helen Keller. It’s almost as if he thinks he is alone. Then I remember that in New York City only seeing two other human beings at the moment is basically the same as being alone.

The mood turns infectious. Dude sitting across from me, scrawny, 30ish, rock and roller drunk on his own kool-aid as well, feels the vibe. In a split second, he’s set up an imaginary set of drums in front of him and he’s using every bit of it. He’s on the cymbals, on the kick drum, the snare, and about five other things I don’t even know what they are. I’m more than halfway expecting him to fake spinning the drum sticks in his fingers. If you can’t tell, I’m ecstatic at this point, utterly entertained as this imaginary rock-rap concert unfolds before my eyes. It’s like I’m seeing Run-DMC and Aerosmith mime “Walk This Way” live. Unreal!

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, dude across the way effortlessly moves from a hard rocking session of knee drums to finger plucking what looks to be a heavy, low slung 8 string guitar… with, what’s that called… a whammy bar? I kid you not. I didn’t even know they made those.