New York Subway System Invaded by Bare-Legged Performance Art Terrorists
We were sporting our long johns all weekend, so we would have looked horrible at Improv Everywhere's annual No Pants Subway Ride. Luckily Gawker operative Stephen Kosloff was there to take pictures of all the panty raiders for our amusement.
If you'd prefer to see all the pics on one page, click here.
Improve Everywhere, what? You or your loved ones have heard of them? They do an annual No Pants Subway Ride, and that went down yesterday. This was the column of soon-to-be-pantless folk that massed in Williamsburg. In the dappled light they converged silently, grimly, on the Dekalb Ave stop on the trusty L line.
Improv Everywhere was thoughtful enough to provide security for the unpantsed. Shortly after this photo was taken the pantless duo in the background exited the train and proceeded directly to couples therapy.
For just pennies a day you can buy this congenial hipster a pair of god damn pants.
Here we have an image of a pants-popper reading the highly regarded Zen and the Art of Being a Nordic Goddess.
The irony of this picture is that the gentleman in the blue cap invented pants.
This gentleman wasn't planning on participating, but he had soiled himself so the pants had to go.
Participants take their bare legs and their positive, "can-do" attitudes out of the MTA system and into Union Square Park. This was my second No Pants Subway ride, and I'm happy to report that this year I did not find among my pictures of the event a shot of a guy with his johnson hanging out of his boxers. Unlike last year.
The atmosphere was festive in Union Square, and there were many opportunities for dialoging. Mostly about pants, and not wearing them. I suspect that the man on the right was not in fact some casual pantsless business man, but was instead an agent of Improv Everywhere. Just look at that moustache. Ditto with his be-capped poster pal.
After receiving a flood of batch-processing errors—defragmented motherboards and what have you—Verizon sent an technician to Union Square. That employee has since gone missing. The authorities are now conducting a frantic house-to-house search in theaters near you.
Of course the question on everyone's mind after standing around freezing their genitals off in Union Square for an hour was "Hey where can we go get drunk?" For the subjects in this photo the answer was the Crocodile Lounge over there on 14th Street. Free pizza!
The best part was when unsuspecting pants-wearers walked into the bar and dozens of raving lunatics would start screaming at the top of their lungs "TAKE THEM OFF!! TAKE THEM OFF!!" It made me proud to be a New Yorker, and yes, most of the time the people took their pants off. Those that didn't received a complimentary acupuncture session next to the pizza oven.
Speaking of free pizza at the Crocodile Lounge, this guy was like "Hey look at this tattoo of a bunny rabbit on my chest." I was like, "That's not a rabbit that's an owl about to put the smack-down on a demon-viper." Meanwhile, in the background, as I'm sure you've realized by now, is Thomas, my comrade-in-legs and coincidentally the coolest bartender in New York, who does not work at the Crocodile Lounge. Thomas and I are not gay for each other (yet), but the prognosis is favorable.
My business card is in this woman's pants, but I didn't put it there. Her name: Marianna. Her nationality: Venezuelan or Colombian, I don't remember? Her occupation: visual merchandising for [redacted: a trendy computer company]. Her mission: to be kind of hot and to not wear any pants. You can feel free to literally stand up in your cubicle or bedroom and give her a round of applause.