Off the Rails

Owing to the increasing unpredictability of the C train, I arrived late to a release party thrown by Public Transport Magazine (PTM). “Good small talk for this crowd,” I thought to myself. But soon after arriving at Nothing Really Matters, a bar located inside the 50th Street station, I sensed something was off. In place of the transit nerds I had expected to find were aspiring comics and aficionados of the funny pages. There had been signs, of course. The promotional flier advertised a “punchline contest,” and the conversations I overheard before the stand-up got going went something like this:

“Do you have a day job?”

“I used to.”

PTM is a project of Al Mullen, a comic and sometimes contributor to the New Yorker whose editorial mandate consists in platforming cartoons, gags, and humor writing that often, but not exclusively, concern commute-related ails. He leaves copies of the hand-stapled zine in strategic places throughout the MTA system so that one encounters the publication as one does the leaflets for Keano “the Spiritual Consultant,” tucked into the corners of subway ad boards.

As for the soirée, amateur comedy turned out to be a welcome change from the self-serious readings that are a hallmark of the New York City magazine launch party–industrial complex. Cameron Bradford rattled off one-liners about an alternative Fast & Furious franchise, in which Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto is superhumanly good at navigating the MTA rail network. Musician and stand-up Marcia Belsky assured everyone that her contribution to a previous edition—about the NYPD controlling the weather—was “very well researched.” PTM’s commitment to the bit is admirable. I can certainly think of worse subway companions to have.