Waiting for the train this morning in the brisk air, I was again impressed by the smoking guy that stands about 30 feet from the tracks, and smokes his last cigarette before boarding the NY bound train.

It must be hard for a smoker these days, in the bitter thin air of winter. And with so many train delays, who knows when your next nicotine fix will come your way? This is why people drive cars.

It must be rotten being couped-up in a train for 55 minutes, then fighting the crowd in Penn Station with an unlit Marlboro clenched in your teeth. Climbing slowly from the tracks to the street level, finally free to light up, and become the city-walking-smoking guy.
 
From my recent observations, it stands to reason that cigarettes actually keep you warmer. So many folks outside without a coat, hat or gloves, and a burning ember in their lips, these portable Lung-Johns are ideal for people on the move. We must find a way to return to the Mad Men days of Don Draper, where smoking on trains, and everywhere, was part of life.

Don Draper has got me thinking. Our solution is right here in our hands, and that would be a cigarette made of coffee. Bear with me, but how different can nicotine and caffeine really be? I’m no chemistry wiz, so I’ll leave the details up to the experts. I think we need to put Starbucks on the case, with some small funding by Altria (Philip Morris’s new identity- the slick name that says “I’ll try ya!”).

Coffee beans are already exotic, and I don’t think anyone on the train, in a movie theatre, in the office, would be opposed to the idea of coffee that never gets cold, because it’s actually on fire. These beansmokes could be as harmless as a cup of Joe, and they’ll taste like French Roast!
 
Our trains would be safer and kinder. No spilled coffee. No disgruntled passengers waiting to light-up. And just imagine the new tax revenue! 

– jersey jim

Thanks to Netflix and the woeful state of primetime television, The Missus and I have been checking out the first season of Mad Men on DVD this week.

Generally speaking, I’m a second season sort of guy. I need to listen to a groundswell of people tell me what a great show something is during the first season (The Sopranos, Entourage) before I start tuning in for the second season.

So that makes the Mad Men season one viewing more fun, especially when we know that much more about the characters, their secrets, their back stories, their fates.

I noticed the commuter train plays a much bigger part in the first three episodes. Clearly the creators are trying to show the great discrepancy between the shimmering city to the south and the sleepy burbs to the north, with that hurtling, dark, smoky train connecting the two worlds.

The pilot had Don Draper stepping off in Ossining and stumbling to his giant car, and episode three had him mocking a Volkswagen Beetle ad in the paper, then being spotted by an old army buddy who outs him as Dick Whitman. Later in the episode, Draper is unwinding with a smoke on the train when a friendly conductor hands him a newspaper he’s dropped. Draper/Whitman slips the conductor a ticket the size of a dollar bill. Still later, he’s to pick up a birthday cake for his lispy kid when he goes AWOL. Drunk, he wakes up in his car with the red lights of a train crossing reflecting off the windshield, a train flying by.

There’s much less Metro-North, or whatever it was in the early ’60s, in the subsequent seasons of Mad Men. Presumably the creators were less obsessed with the great divide between city and suburbs, and more interested in developing the characters they’d had some time to flesh out. (Mind you, there is one memorable recent episode where one of Don’s young paramours–the guy gets around more than Tiger Woods–ambushes him on the train before jumping off at the next stop.)

Too bad–the train scenes are terrific.

Just a smattering of what people Googled to end up at Trainjotting this week.

betty boop ipod nano skin

guy pushed me on the g train

john rocker crotch

pleasantville central woman found dead in school

sweating profusely wearing tie coat on subway train in summer

trainjotting [Editor’s Note: Yay!]

why is nj transit so slow

black lawn jockey for sale

best wiffle ball field

don draper’s house cost

drunk girls having sex on subway trains

old gals

scary fat “black drag queens”

snakes on a subway

where is the bad part of mamaroneck

white horses wont drag me away

“morning train (9 to 5)” chords

lightning mcqueen sneakers

milf blow lawn boy

4 popped collars guy

weeble wobble train

And finally…

worlds most boring stories

Yup, we got those here.

The guy holding up the line on the stairs at Hawthorne station because he was playing Connect Four on his smartphone.

Sir.

It was the end of the long workday, and we all just wanted to get down the stairs at Hawthorne station, climb into our cars (or, in the case of three people in the whole of Hawthorne, climb onto our bikes), and head home for dinner and a Don Draper digestif.

You, Sir, were in no such rush. No, you took your own sweet time heading down the stairs. You were, in fact, engrossed in a game of Connect Four on your Blackberry.

Yes, when I finally had the slim opening to pass you, I saw the bright glow of your PDA screen, with the Connect Four board shining in the dark mid-Westchester November night.

Connect Four! That mid-’70s Milton Bradley creation, a barely entertaining mash-up of checkers and tic tac toe (frankly, neither of its forefathers was all that entertaining either, so it’s no surprise the offspring ended up dull).

In fact, the most lasting legacy of Connect Four would have to be the commercial: a bowl-cutted lad outfoxed by his sister, if memory serves, offering up a defeated “Pretty sneaky, Sis!” with equal parts dejection and respect.

That’s what occupied your mind, fellow traveler, and that’s what held up the masses behind you.

What’s next for you, Sir, a Hungry Hippos app?

Frustratedly,

Trainjotting

Finally, a little commuter action for Ossining’s most famous commuter, Don Draper.

Mind you, we’re a little late getting to watch Mad Men this week, the downside of 10 p.m. shows and having small children that wake up early.

In the most recent episode, Don is leafing through a broadsheet newspaper as the train ambles down the Hudson line. The train is darkly lit and the seats and walls are the most humdrum beige imaginable.

The scenery, on the other hand, is full of color. Hints of blue water can be seen through the window. It’s fall and the leaves on the trees along the Hudson are ablaze.

So is Draper’s libido when his young teacher paramour pops up in front of him, looking to talk. Don is, as Van Halen so eloquently stated in the era of parachute pants, hot for teacher. She tells him she tried to catch him on the platform but missed him. She wants to know why he didn’t call when he said he would.

There is awkwardness. The conductor calls out “Scarborough-Briarcliff Manor! Scarborough-Briarcliff Manor!”

The hottie teacher exits. Draper goes back to his paper. The train ambles onward.

In case you were wondering, all signs indicate that Don Draper, when not occupying his Manhattan hotel doghouse or traipsing through coke communes in SoCal, lives in Ossining. He takes Metro-North each day (thought it may have been called ConnRail or somesuch back then), then drives home to his manse in the Chilmark section of Cheever Country known as Ossining.

Here’s the link:

I missed the premiere last night but will watch it tonight.

I like Mad Men.

I’m not gaga over it the way some of the more talented television viewers out there are, but I recognize the quality and enjoy watching these badly behaved but still intriguing ad guys do their thing. Typically, the Missus watches, while I half-watch as I read the Sunday Times.

The most recent episode featured a party at the Draper house in the ‘burbs. One attendee said he took the Saw Mill Parkway to get there; another mentioned having lived in New Rochelle; another said his idea of fun was sailing from Old Lyme to Larchmont.

So Draper lives in Westchester, off the Saw Mill. But where? I missed the whole first season…do they ever say where he lives? If not, let’s see what we know: Stately colonial on decent property. No water within sight. Mrs. Draper enjoys horseback riding (there’s riding in Pleasantville and Pocantico Hills, and certainly points north).

So is it Tarrytown? Dobbs Ferry? Ardsley?

Perhaps further north in Cheever country, like Ossining?

Anyone out there know, or care to venture a guess?

And how come they never show the ad guys on the train back to the ‘burbs? With all the drinking they do, surely someone pulls an Accidental Tourist now and then?