Category: Non-Fiction

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Arm Rest Ash Trays

As a young child (as one does) I imagined quite a lot and explored with my mind and hands;


So oddly enough I became randomly enamored with empty ash trays in the arms of the backseats of old cars –


It was like discovering a little hidden pool or crawlspace in an otherwise bland landscape.


Beneath the fake wood as my mom drove us around in my grandfather’s 1970s landboat

I found a world of wonder in these mini metal trap doors originally meant for other people’s cigarettes.

They were clean and unused, though still a bad look for kids to play in –

They were (in my mind) little hot tubs, bunkers, a random place to put my fingers,
somewhere where I could put my toys as they came along for the ride.

I became fascinated by hidden ash trays, almost like an art form it felt like finding the smallest of elegant little spaces

that harked back to a time and space when the adults in the room were not only the only voices, but tobacco filled, gritty sounding voices that carried like the feeling of rubbing your palms against loose gravel.


While I learned the lyrics to ‘It Takes Two’ by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock and my light up sneakers flickered brilliantly, I still yearned to know more about yesteryear,


and like a tiny early 90s archaeologist I always searched for the hidden compartments until I found them – the ever classy built-in ash tray; an unlikely calling card to my childhood.


They’re all but gone now, surviving only in especially well-preserved chariots of the mid to late 1900s, but for a time they were an iconic part of my world – a call to love the world for what it was; a place to explore. – RSM

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Red Hat Basura

The world spins round and it’s all up and down,

To me at least it feels like it when I walk around downtown

It’s terrible, deplorable, the world I see surrounds me

Red hats galore bring the activist out of me

I feel like a bull and they want me to chase them

They see my people and want to erase them

So what other choice do we have but to stand strong

While the grand old cowards look down on us like we don’t belong

It doesn’t really matter what the comfortable ignorants think

Because sadly they’ve been taught to not think for themselves

But gladly I do, and even if my own people ‘other’ me,

Puerto Rico is beautiful, and I’ll see the haters in hell. – RSM

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Wow, Sean. I Looked Up To You.

The first rap song I ever learned was

‘Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems,’ first grade, it was all over the radio,

I heard it so much and I would rap it on the daily, bro,

I asked my mom and dad if I could get a little boombox for my room, had it on Z100 for a while, but then I found Hot 97 on the dial,

It was wild! I was a huge hip hop fan since I was a young child.

Bad Boy Records dominated NYC, MTV, and everything else hip hop that you’d see,

I learned ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ before I ever heard of the band The Police

I was PROUD that Puff Daddy went to Mount Saint Michael in my neighborhood

and how he lifted up so many other artists all the way up beyond the stars, this,

Super fly business savvy young dude from Harlem and Mount Vernon

Putting on for the city and the culture, but I’ve learned,

That what once was “cool” in the past often changes

The same way every generation has their entertainment favorites,

Bad Boy Records was the door that opened into my love for hip hop

and my whole life I was motivated by the phrase “CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP!(Eh-eh, Eh-eh)” 

I joined the track team in the 6th grade, around the same time that Diddy ran the city,

Ran through Biggie’s whole catalogue – took it on my OG white brick iPod to school with me,

“Everybody sing it now PASS THE CARVOURSIER!”

Oh sure, yeah, dude, I still love all the music, 

But truly, how does hip hop culture get through this?!

He’s not the only one for sure, just look at Hollywood,

there are far more media moguls making mad shady happenings happen and for decades it’s been happening 

So how was I so naïve to think that the rumors may not have been true,

about one of the most successful dudes from around where I grew?!

The rumors aren’t true – because the truth is actually far WORSE

And it’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of an entertainment industry that’s so perverse,

And now here I am, a true student of the game, and I’m looking at Diddy, like, 

“What a fucking shame.” – RSM

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Straphanging. Part 1

The following is a collection of stories that have recently taken place on or around the trains, platforms, and buses of the Greater New York City Area. They are all true. And awesome:

Kung Fu Car Transfer

So I walked aboard the F train headed to Queens at Lexington Avenue – 59th Street Station. In my train car it was just empty enough that there were a few seats available here and there. I went for one of my favorite spots when I’m feeling tired, the good ol’ corner seat, all the way at the end of the train. I like this seat for a few reasons: being right across from either a map or a window as well as being right next to two exit doors, and if you needed to transfer cars, you could do that too (although it’s illegal, no one really cares).

A few stops in, I was lounging as comfortably as I could along the steel rails and plastic seats and began to doze off as the train went further into Queens. I was just about to fall asleep, eyes closed and all, when I heard a loud and sudden “HYAAAA!” that practically catapulted me to my feet. I woke up, startled and confused, to see a black man wearing a silver and black North Face coat in his 30s right in front of me with his leg in the air, from what was apparently a roundhouse kick straight into the car transfer doors. This guy legit roundhouse kicked the door open, with Bruce Lee sound effects and all. It blew my mind.

This of course sparked much laughter from the rest of the train, most of which coming from my own mouth. One Latino dad-looking kind of man and I could not stop laughing. It was quite the wake up call; after that I didn’t even feel like sleeping.

The Ridiculously Bad Saxophone Player

Last summer I got on the train really late, around 2 or 3 am. I was on the 5 train, headed downtown. At 125th Street a man with a black square suitcase and multicolored cornrows got on the train. At that point I should have known he would pull some off-the-wall-type shit. He was a middle aged African American with neon red, light blue, neon green and yellow cornrow braids, about 5’6, a shorter guy, wearing a white tank top and acid wash jeans.

He was talking to younger man as they both got on the train, saying things like “Yeah man, check me out on SoundCloud,” and “Look out for my documentary.” The young man bade him farewell as he sat down with a smile, but then looked at me, looked at the multi-colored cornrow man, back at me, and just shook his head. I didn’t know what to expect. Neon Cornrow Man (that would be a great superhero name) began opening his suitcase. He started introducing himself as he revealed a saxophone from its case. After a rather long shpiel about his social media presence and upcoming documentary, he began to play the sax.

His saxophone skills were out of control in the very worst of ways. It looked like a 5 year old playing Mortal Kombat for the first time as he mindlessly mashed all the buttons along the instrument, and sounded something like a mutated ambulance siren. He had strong lungs, I’ll give him that much credit, especially since his sax was blaring at a surprisingly loud volume for almost 10 minutes. He did not really know how to play. He just blew all the air he possibly could into that saxophone and randomly pressed on the valves, occasionally holding an excruciatingly high note for several seconds.

Me and the man across from me had our sides splitting. It was hysterical. Many of the other passengers were rudely awakened by this mysterious, and possibly intoxicated multi-colored cornrow man. After what seemed like an eternity of the most belligerent saxophone solo I had ever heard, Multi-Colored Cornrow Man finally transferred to the car next to us. My train car breathed a collective sigh of relief as he took his ‘talents’ next door.

He began playing his out of tune tirade of a performance in the next car, but there were several gangsters on the next car that were just not having it. After about 30 seconds a few young men in snapback caps and bandanas approached Multi-Colored Cornrow Man and angrily asked him to stop playing. After a few words exchanged between the young men and Multi-Colored Cornrow Man he packed up his trusty saxophone and left. The young thugs did passengers a favor that night, surprisingly; their aggressive act of kicking Multi-Colored Cornrow Man off the train literally helped everyone else sleep that night. I’ll never forget though, aside from laughing harder than I had all year, the look on Multi-Colored Cornrow Man’s face as the gangsters kicked him off the 5 train that fateful night: disappointment, sadness, and frustration written all over it.