Joe Biden & Xi Jinping Meet on Hamptons Subway

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Those noting the blinking lights and dazzling effects in the subway car between Sagaponack and Bridgehampton last Monday morning at 8 a.m. say it was our good friend Lady Gaga heading off to the Bridgehampton Commons.

SPECIAL TO THOSE LAID OFF

Hamptons Subway now offers rides at a 20% discount for those who have been laid off from their jobs. To qualify, bring your birth certificate or proof of green card or citizenship to the ticket booth on any platform along with the letter you received showing you were laid off and it was not your fault, and you will receive the discount. It’s one per customer.

BIDEN HUDDLES WITH XI ON THE SUBWAY

President Joe Biden and Premier Xi Jinping of China held a subway summit, the first of its kind, on the Hamptons Subway last Sunday. The president flew in to Frances S. Gabreski in Westhampton Beach from Washington, D.C. The premier flew into Gabreski from Beijing. The topic was freedom of the internet, with particular attention paid to Google, which Biden claims Xi has been meddling with. It did not go well.

Both men were to have boarded in Westhampton for a trip around and around our subway system until they had things sorted out. Xi boarded first, but the motorman, thinking Biden was already on board, closed the doors and headed off. Biden was, however, on the platform, making final remarks to the press, and so Xi went all the way around once by himself, a 45-minute trip, before coming back.

Biden got on then, and this time the two men went off together, but without an interpreter, and so, as they reported later, they smiled a lot and gave thumbs-up and waved to one another for the next 45 minutes going around the system.

The third try resulted in the interpreters getting on with them and also the techies with the computers in the cars, both ahead and behind the media. Xi and Biden did discuss things, but it was found that the internet did not work aboard the subway, as you might expect, and so demonstrations of alleged offenses were quite limited.

Upon arrival back in Westhampton, everybody got off and the various entourages went back to the airport and flew off to where they came from with a handshake, a nod and a “no comment” all around.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL COMMENTS ABOUT XI-BIDEN

Like the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate and the Reagan-Gorbachev Sauna Debate in Iceland, Hamptons Subway considers it a great coup that this international couple selected our very own Hamptons Subway for this tête-à-tête, and we hope they come back soon.

As for the couple that shall remain nameless who snuck on the subway car claiming they had been invited, we shall punish them to the fullest extent of the law, and we sincerely hope that in their upcoming appearance on America’s Best Tap Dancer, they get what they deserve.

RIDING SAFE

Riders using the Hamptons Subway are now enjoying their second week using the new state-of-the-art X-ray machines at all the turnstiles, as we begin the required full-body searches for explosives on our straphangers’ bodies.

Riders undergo a slight delay when going through the X-ray machine. Nobody has to take any of their clothes off (although there are exceptions) but it takes between 25 and 30 seconds to do the complete body scan, so there may be lines. After that, riders can be on their way with full confidence in the safety of our service.

Hamptons Subway is the first subway system in America to install X-ray machines. The machines, modified from X-ray machines made for hospital use, do not give off radiation in anything approaching a legal dose. Also, our technicians will be placing a blurring lens over the faces of all who pass through. Nobody will know who anybody is.

HOTSPOT PROBLEM

One of the last things that our most recent marketing director did before being fired two weeks ago was set up an active internet hotspot so that people all along the subway route could access their email.

This service has, unfortunately, been suspended due to misuse. High school and college students board the subway in the morning with their laptops, augmented reality glasses and Xboxes and spend all day down there online texting and emailing and otherwise entertaining themselves as the subway cars go around and around on the 65-mile oval that is the subway system. Handicapped people cannot get seats. Last week, four passengers were injured by kids using special goggles to play virtual tennis matches, hit by racket swoops and overhead slams.

“I still think there is something between the internet and the subway system that is good,” said the commissioner. “We just don’t know what it is.”

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S WEEKLY MESSAGE

I am pleased to announce the appointment of our new marketing director for Hamptons Subway. A man with many years of service with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and before that with the New York City school system when it occupied that old Victorian structure in Brooklyn, Pete Bashington has lots of experience, rising from sanitation associate to assistant chief sanitation associate at FEMA in just seven years.

We expect lots from him. His first advertising campaign, which will begin in Dan’s Papers in two weeks, will be his “No Straphanger Left Behind” effort, which was inspired, he says, by the “No Child Left Behind” campaign that he administered as assistant marketing director of the New York City school system before becoming the assistant chief sanitation associate of FEMA.

We wish him the best.