What’s the point of taking your music everywhere if you can’t inflict it on everybody?

Dear hoodlums from ‘80s movies:

You had it all wrong.

Now, I’m not saying there wasn’t a certain logic to your approach. I can see what you were thinking, with the giant radios. Intimidation, sure. And obviously, you were operating under the constraints of the times. Unless you wanted to entrust local DJs with the responsibility of providing your soundtrack, you were going to have to carry tape cassettes. And tape cassettes are way bigger than mp3s.

(Relying on the radio would have been unacceptably risky, too. What happens when your train goes underground and there’s no signal anymore? What happens when your station all of a sudden plays “Could I Have This Dance?” Disaster.)

But how menacing can a person really be when he’s schlepping what amounts to a giant electronic suitcase? You can’t chase anybody when you’re weighed down like that. In any case, you can’t catch anybody in that state.

Also, the huge, blasting beats—too obvious. You want to create dread. Think of the tensest moments of a horror movie. You want to give the audience a sense that something horrible is certain to happen. That’s way more powerful an emotional experience than if something horrible is happening right now. Something horrible happening right now will just push people into survivor mode. It’ll get them to start coping. You don’t want coping. You want dreading.

So what I do—and I realize you all didn’t have the technology for this, so I’m totally not ragging on you, you did the best you could with the tools at hand in your time—but what I do is I take a set of Philips portable stereo speakers (with “Power Pack”), I drop one speaker in each jacket pocket, and I loom ominously while playing “Teach Yourself Danish” audio lessons at 40% of max volume.

That gives people the serious creeps, I tell you what. And if they run, I can chase. I’m so light on my feet, you wouldn’t believe it. Plus both hands are free for grabbing.

You want to spread fear and unease on the subway? I’m sayin’, y’all. Philips portable stereo speakers. That’s the way you do it.

Oh! And a codpiece. I forgot to say.

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