Saturday, August 06, 2005

Hipster Profiling

Recently, my friends and I had a brief discussion about the lunacy of the newly invoked random bag searching policy that the NYPD has started here in the City. At that time, I stated that this was a topic ripe for discussion in this forum but that I did not want to write about since I figured every hipster with a keyboard would be screaming about HOW AWFUL THE POLICY IS and HOW THEIR RIGHTS WERE BEING VIOLATED, etc. etc. etc. In reality, they should be more concerned about how the NYPD may find their three pounds of marijuana or that bag of coke stealthy stashed up their poop shoot. (yeah I said poop shoot, fuck off, it's nine in the morning) As such, I was not going to throw my hat into this forum but like with everything in my life, I changed my mind.... But only for a limited purpose...

Before I explain that purpose I would like to blame Chuck Klosterman for the remainder of this entry. Chuck is a pop culture guru and writer who has written Williamsburg favorites like "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" and the recent, "Killing Yourself to Live." I like him because he has this uncanny ability to interject everyday observations of the human race into his writing no matter how unrelated this observation seems as you read it and then make that observation unquestionably relevant.

As a result, the reason why I blame him is that on the G train the other day, I was quietly reading his most recent book and thinking about this specific ability. And then in reaction, I started to look around the train in order to people watch and I could not stop. (For the record, I wish this blog had footnotes so that I could write these random thought somewhere else besides in my actual entry. I also wish that I had Tommy Lee's penis and could dunk a basketball but what does that have to do with the price of cheese? And I don't even like corn.... But back to the point of this random interjection, people watching or gawking or drooling is done by everyone in this City of ours and so blatantly that no one even seems to mind or notice it anymore)

Anyway, I proceeded to do exactly the same thing (people watch) when I transferred to L train. Note: a transfer in this situation means that I am a lazy fuck because my transfer is for one stop which is completely unnecessary and instead is easily walkable.

All of this watching got me to thinking that the NYPD is going to have one hell of a time searching bags prior to passengers getting on the train if they focus on the people who utilize my subway lines. For example, on the train back home that day there was this dude who we will now call Suspect A. Suspect A was wearing a Salvation Army quality tailored suit (brown i believe) and the required aviator sunglasses to match. He was also decked out with a fresh new haircut and a smug look of judgment planted on his face. And then to top it all off, he was carrying a lampshade. Now clearly, he had probably purchased this lampshade in the City. And even more clearly, he probably bought it at some cheap retail store or in true retard form, upped the fucken ante and purchased it at an over-priced antique store.

Regardless of where Suspect A purchased it, the point is this, Suspect A was the least suspicious looking person on my train as my train ran the gammet from the homeless to hippest. In fact, he looked completely normal for where I live. And that is why this new policy is a fucken farce, because no matter what we do and who we search, there is no way to tell who could be carrying a bomb or whatever and who could not be. The reality is that if someone really wants to blow my ass up like Jenna Jameson during a gang bang, they are going to do it.

And that is why I hate this policy because it is another band aid measure to combat the "war on terror" implemented solely to make joey from the Bronx and rosemarie from Brooklyn feel safer when in fact they are no safer than they were before the policy existed. Sadly, I do not necessarily have the answer to making ourselves safer although I think alot of it has to start with a better intelligence network that acts not for political gain but for the sole purpose of protecting the citizens who fund it. But until then, we are left with New York City's Finest trying to determine if Suspect A is a potential bomber or just another dude who spent way too much on a lampshade.

1 comment:

Greg Tito said...

It's amazing how no one really seems to notice that all of this country's anti-terror policies (i.e. the color-coded terro alert, searching in airports) actually does nothing to combat terrorism. They are merely there to, as you say, band-aid our psyches into believing that something, anything, is being done. That may have sounded a little too Air America for y'all but it's the truth.