(Clark’s hit, not entirely incidentally, was written by Tony Hatch, the British songwriter, and was one of several in that decade-“Downtown” was even more popular-in which Brits used a borrowed American vocabulary to describe a mostly mythical New York.) By the time Leifer was doing standup, in the eighties, the meaning had changed: only a fool would risk his health, or love life, by sleeping on the No. Oh, hey, don’t shave with a Ginsu knife.” Well, sleeping in the subway, in Petula’s time, was a sign of charming heedlessness, like walking barefoot in the park, the kind of thing eccentric and lovable characters might have done in a mid-sixties comedy. “What kind of guys is she going out with that she’s gotta tell them these things? You know, ‘Don’t wash your face with Clorox. ![]() As I was getting off the train, he said, ” I take numbers too”….“Don’t sleep in the subway, darling,” Petula Clark crooned, back in the sixties, leading the wonderful standup comedian Carol Leifer to ask, a couple of decades later, just what kind of men Petula might be dating. ![]() I didn’t have my Raybans on and he said, “You have beautiful eyes.” I said, “Thank you.” He continued looking at me, and he still had the dollar in his hand. The other day I gave this particular guy a buck and then we both happened to be waiting by the door to get off at the next stop. HOLD THIER HANDS!!!!!!!Īnd the pan handlers….sadly, there are just tons of them.īut I do have a favorite. My eyes dart furiously from mother or father or nanny to the kid or kids. I hover pretty close, sometimes just circling them and other times with both feet planted squarely at the ready in case one of those little darlings should wander toward the tracks. There is also another one….I have become a helicopter bystander to mothers, fathers and nannys with little kids in tow. Actually that one is not solely meant for subway riders, pedestrians up above also get accosted. I also do this thing now, when if I sense someone looks the least bit confused about where they are going, I immediately ask them if they need help. Mostly I’m ignored, sometimes I get a nod from someone who is thinking the same thing but has more restraint than I do. Like, when the escalator and the elevator are both not working, I just say out loud “I guess someone wants me to get my exercise today”. And I blurt out complete sentences I may be thinking at a particular time. Maybe it’s an age thing, but I find I speak to everyone. AND I have recently realized I have developed a certain “subway character of my own”. Part of it is, I just want to be alert, but I try not to think about Terror and instead concentrate on the characters I encounter. Instead I look at everyone thru my Raybans. I always have something in my bag to study, but I never end up taking it out. No one is looking back, everyone’s heads are down in their phones. I have always been a people watcher, but now more than ever. It’s quite fascinating looking at the throngs of people I pass throughout all the different stations. Because of my crazy hours at work for a good number of years, most nights I took car service (that’s what we called it then, haha, no Uber), so my subway presence was mainly in the mornings.īut now I am on the subway at all different times of the day and evening. Of course, when I was working it was every day and usually about the same time in the morning, during rush hour. I am on the subway A LOT!!! Almost every day. I do remember that song by Petula Clarke “Don’t sleep in the subway darling……” I don’t know of any famous songs from the show. ![]() That’s actually the name of a 1962 Broadway musical.
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