I wonder if he’s been puffing on the magic dragon…
March 1, 2007, 7:50 PM
So I’m on the Metro, on Breda 3040. I got on at Mt. Vernon Square, and rode all the way to Huntington. Most people board the Yellow Line at Gallery Pl-Chinatown or L’Enfant Plaza. Those who want seats board at the former. This guy got on at Gallery Place and sat in the seat in front of me. He was a middle-aged white guy, and appeared to be coming home from work.
Why is this notable? He started singing on the train. He’s sitting there, and he’s got his MP3 player with headphones, and he’s singing to himself, somewhat loudly. It wouldn’t be that bad in and of itself, but this guy could not sing to save his life. He was oblivious to the fact that everyone around him was making fun of him. I took the additional step of pulling out Big Mavica and recording him. I’ll put that up when I get home. He sang a bunch of different songs. Two that I knew were Age of Aquarius and Puff, the Magic Dragon. He was awful. He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. The other people on the train wondered if he was not exactly all together. I suggested that he probably just didn’t care, or that he thought he sounded good.
And he sang all the way to Huntington, and kept on going as he walked down the platform towards the north mezzanine.
At Huntington, I turned around and doubled back to King Street, to visit my friend Tristan. I showed Tristan the clips. Tristan agreed – he was awful. Tristan wondered if he’d been puffing on the magic dragon, i.e. if he was on something.
We certainly covered some distance while he was singing. In my recordings, you can hear him going as we cleared the Braddock Road tunnel, Braddock Road station, King Street station, and Eisenhower Avenue. You can hear station announcements, Randi Miller chimes, ands Breda rehab motors in the background.
It reminds me of what Bill Cosby once said about the New York Subway. They not only get you where you’re going, but they also go out of their way to entertain you – they put a nut on every car. This guy was the nut on Breda 3040. And he was certainly amusing…
Web site: Snopes.com article about Puff the Magic Dragon
Song: Puff, the Magic Dragon, which I now have stuck in my head, in his awful rendition of it, no thanks to the guy.
Quote: "Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea..."