rant · moment 5 of 14
Riding the S-74 Bus Through Staten Island
from Bring Back The Mob · #62
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
6 minTim and Ray recreate their present-day bus ride along Staten Island's S-74, riffing on its endless stops, disabled riders, an old lady with a MetroCard problem, and comparing the bus experience to being led to slaughter.
- 12:07Tim describes his broke commute days: taking the Staten Island Ferry in brutal cold while eating oatmeal from a plastic cup he'd prepared at home.
- 13:14Taking public transportation in Staten Island, a place where you're supposed to have a car, is absurd.
- 13:50On the ferry, Tim and his friend encounter a group of kids and an old lady knitting a medieval tapestry while making bizarre T-Mobile phone comments.
- 14:36The S-74 bus weaves through Staten Island, which is only 14 miles long but feels massive because the bus stops on every single street.
- 15:07The bus stops at every liquor store and meat market, though consolidating stops is difficult because disabled people genuinely depend on them.
- 15:28Tim reflects on poverty as being stuck: people trapped on buses with no real way out and no network of people who can lend them money.
- 16:12Many people on the bus never acquired basic skills like customer service or communication, preventing them from even simple jobs like travel agency work.
- 16:34Tim jokes about someone who can't hold a travel agent job because they can't stop saying fuck while describing vacations.
- 16:53Tim observes couples riding the S-74 for an hour and a half through Staten Island with no real destination in mind.
- 17:09After an hour and a half on the bus to the transit center, Tim and his friend get off, walk through a strip mall, and buy cigarettes and black label scotch before boarding again to nowhere.