Tommy Karr

Category: Stories

  • Hey MTA… you want to take care of this problem?

    After work today I popped onto the A train at 34th Street, found an empty seat (always a pleasant surprise) and began watching a podcast to occupy my time as the train lurched down the track. At 42nd Street I was pulled out of my iPhone trance when I felt a sharp, stinging WHACK on…

  • Why Hazmat Suits Should Be Worn on the Subway

    Taken at the NY Transit Museum My morning commute was interrupted by two instance of absolute repulsion. Granted, it is not shocking that a ride on the subway included moments of uncomfortability (foul aromas, howling babies, etc.) but today I was attacked by an entirely new level of WTH! In all my little subway adventures…

  • Art Isn’t Easy

    Portrait, Goldie Hawn, 1996 I accidentally (and to my horror) left a collection of my own artwork in Alabama when I moved to NYC two years ago.  But my friend Lynn was good enough to send it to me (although I realized the other day that one painting is still in a closet at the University… gotta…

  • Terror at the Theatre (or Swings with Wings – thanks Ash!)

    In the 1999-2000 season, I was cast as a swing in Tapestry: a Review Based on the Music of Carole King at the Clarence Brown Theatre back home in Knoxville, Tennessee.  My female swing-counterpart was one of my best friends, Ashley. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been a swing before but they are typically…

  • How Time Warner Cable is Like Flan

    Let me clarify first by stating emphatically that I detest flan.  It is somewhat fluffy and looks like it would be wonderful… then when you get your own and taste it you feel a little slimy and a lot unfulfilled. That is precisely my experience with Time Warner Cable. Our bill came in yesterday and,…

  • Take the A** Train

    I am all for comfort and one’s ability to enjoy his or her conveyance from point A to point B.  But, when your comfort impedes mine, I get a little perturbed. Today I enjoyed a short day at the office (thank you Good Friday) and then a great meal with friends at the Rocking Horse Cafe in…

  • Yes, Monterey, there is a Santa Claus

    Mervyn’s Department Store, Monterey, California… 1990. My dad had taken my brothers and I to the mall to pick up some gifts for our mom for Christmas. We’d stopped by customer service, for either gift wrap or package pick-up, and while my dad spoke to the clerk at the counter my brothers and I were…

  • The Day I Got Accosted on the A Train

    It was bound to happen eventually. I got accosted on the subway today by this big, lumbering guy who was not 100% with his senses. Meth, crack, or some other unfortunate issue plagued him and somehow made him into the world’s friendliest weirdo. With iPhone playing, headphones on and a wicked game of Scrabble going…

  • Nell Carter… a zombie?

    I think if you’re going to have a nightmare, as I did last night, it should be a full-out nightmare and not just a bizarro-creation from the deepest regions of your subconscious. Mine… the bizarro-creation. I was traveling through New York (or some German expressionistic version of NYC) on a school trip (odd, since I’m…

  • I CAN’T FIND A SPACE!

    This may not seem like a huge tragedy but I have lost my space in NYC for our graduate showcase. We were hoping to be in the Signature Theatre’s Peter Norton Space like we were last year but we lost out to a rental with a 10-week contract. Who can blame them? Not I. Now…