From the Daily Intelligencer:
Stephen Colbert Does Not Get Along With Public Transportation
Justin RavitzThey’re breaking ground (again) on the Second Avenue Subway today, perhaps even as we speak. In honor of the occasion, we present you with Stephen Colbert’s thoughts on the matter, which we learned at the Hoax premiere last week.
Your show’s on the West Side, not the East Side, right?
West Side. I love the East Side. I can see it from the West Side. It looks great from there.Well, you probably won’t care, but they’re breaking ground, finally, on the Second Avenue Subway —It’s gonna be on an ancient burial ground! Blood on the tracks. Just pools of blood, and ancient Indian spirits that smite us all! It’s gonna happen in the mid-Seventies. It was the rich people who kicked those Indians out.
What’s the worst commuting experience you’ve ever had?
I was once beaten with chains on the Chicago El.Seriously?
Yeah. Beaten by a motorcycle gang with chains.Did they take your money?
No, they were just mad. At anybody. There was a security guard on the train, and he didn’t do anything. Viciously beaten.
Check out the site for the picture of Stephen at The Hoax party
That made me tear up a little bit. Poor Stephen! I couldn’t imagine!
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Isn’t it awful? I know it’s a long time past, but I can’t help being upset by it. Poor, poor Stephen!
(It’s incidents like that one that probably contribute to my mom’s paranoia every time I mention having worked unusually late and taken the metro home.)
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And that, is why one carries a shotgun on the subway. It’s the law here in Toronto. You have to tell the bikers, moose and bears who’s boss.
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Uh… wow.
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Um. Did that really happen? Clearly, I am not in the know, and thus my fan status must be revoked.
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All I know is what’s in the post. He certainly could have made it up (this was an exchange that took place at The Hoax party), but . . . but . . . still disturbing.
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Hmm… On the one hand, The Hoax party; on the other hand, Stephen has never told a lie! Clearly, a conundrum of much confusion.
*feels rather silly* Will try harder to be an It-getter in future. :)
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Aw, I know I should feel bad about this – but I can’t really take that claim seriously, more likely Stephen was just joking. Sure the CTA has problems getting its buses in on time, but nothing as bad as roving motorcycle chain gangs on the subway. They ride the Metra, anyways.
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@Lackadaisical –
‘They ride the Metra, anyways’ ??
LOL – by ‘they’ do you mean motorcycle gangs? Riding Metra? I never knew!
‘They’ who ride Metra are what we in Chicago used to cal ’708-ers’ – the suburbanites who did not have the Chicago 312 area code. (Yea, that’s all changed now too with the addition of more codes).
I like to believe Stephen is familiar with the ‘El’ if only because of the time he spoke about ‘Demon Dogs’ under the Belmont El station – anybody living in Chicago who rode the El would know about that.
As for the claim about the bikers – I rode the El day and night for 8 years and never had a problem… but I’ve heard some true stories worse than this one. Would have to see a video of him telling the story to catch if it was true or not.
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Why would bikers be on the El in the first place? They’d be on their bikes. I don’t believe it for a minute.
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But why would he lie specifically like this? His humor is pretty dark, yes, but this is amazingly dark, even for him, if he was joking.
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I would just like to clarify that Demon Dogs was underneath the FULLERTON Station. It is no longer there. I had a direct view of it from my dorm room one year (Go DePaul, wooo!).
But anyway… Assaulting a fellow passenger on the CTA will get you ten years. I don’t know what this law was put into place, but I imagine it has been a while.
I hope Stephen is pulling our leg. I have never seen a motorcycle gang on the El!
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Exactly vigwig. A motorcycle gang without motorcycles? That’s just lame. Perhaps the ridiculousness of the image of a bike-free bike gang was a clue?
I’m pretty sure that “Upper East Side Burial Ground Curse” will be a bit in TCR’s future. *calling it*
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Please, folks, patch your bleeding hearts. You’re talking about a man who told Morley Safer, “I truck in insincerity. With a very straight face, I say things I don’t believe.”
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I hope Stephen was joking. It’s much harder to tell in type.
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