NEW RULES!

I gather that, by now, you fine folks know exactly where I stand on red-staters and other tourists accosting my city. Friday is "Black Friday", named for the fact that many retail stores expect the day after Thanksgiving to put them in the black and whisk them away from red debt (Hmmmm...Red = debt. Iiiinteresting.). For me, it is the beginning of the acceleration of my New York nervous condition which was issued to me along with a mini box of Tide and 4 laundry quarters in the mail upon my arrival here. In the spirit of Bill Maher, my favorite Libertarian, here's a list of New Rules for the holiday tourists:

1) If you are looking up at a skyscraper, like the Chrysler Building, you can have 5 SECONDS to appreciate the beauty. After that, you must reacclimate yourselves to your surroundings, have some common courtesy and respect, and MOVE ON. Do not stare at the sky like morons! No, money and hot men/women will not fall from it and it will not suddenly make you cool.

2) For the love of Christ, stand TO THE RIGHT on the subway escalators. Keep in mind that you are invading someone else's city and mooching off of people who have to go to work to pay exorbitant taxes so Central Park stays nice for you lot. LET THEM THROUGH.

3) There is now a Bloomingdales in SoHo. Please use that one and leave the 59th Street one ALONE.

4) If you see fit to take pictures of elevator doors in a certain landmark that just happens to be WHERE PEOPLE WORK, be prepared for those people to pass right in front of your cameras on their way to their offices. Kindly keep in mind, you are disrupting THEIR day, not the other way around, so don't dare bitch at them or I'll send my Arab colleague down to the lobby to issue beheadings. Let me tell you, he has NO problem with violence.

5) A single-file line means just that. SINGLE-FILE. Do not pour out into the streets. Remember, they are not corn fields. People drive on those streets, plus, you are an eyesore to fashionable people.

6) Be decent enough to leave space on the sidewalk for people to walk by you. No, nobody thinks you're fabulous enough to stop and stare at.

7) Please be aware of the following parking rules: Absolutely no parking of people or cars ANYWHERE but Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, the Central Park ice skating rink, major museums in that area, SoHo and Canal Street. You may visit Ground Zero so long as you realize that it is not a tourist attraction and it is NOT YOURS. We know how you people get (please see my September 11th 2004 entry for info on what I mean here). Please understand that tourist zoning laws are necessary for the sanity of your hosts.

Happy turkey day, people!

I Don't Want to Stop Smoking, part deux

This morning as I went to get my coffee, I saw one of the Chrysler Building rent-a-cops holding a little piece of paper in front of him that looked like some sort of city ordinance or something. The people who usually congregate under the canopy in the front of the building are now, as of 8 am this morning, forced to come out from under their shelter and smoke in the rain, even though their spot was technically outside and not really subject to ordinances and the like. When I came out of the coffee shop, I saw about 5 or 6 people standing in a group right in front of the rent-a-cop staring him dead in the eye, each with a cigarette in their mouths. They looked to be staging some sort of protest, which I thought was funny and that's why I mention it. I know it wasn't the rent-a-cop's fault. It is a very unlucky job to have to be one of the people to enforce the stupid laws the mayor makes around here, as if he doesn't have bigger fish to fry, like maybe the growing rate of poverty in the city (by the way, NYC was the only city in America to have the rate INCREASE over the past year rather than decrease). Needless to say, you'll never catch me in that profession, whose reps, by the way, are known to recruit in subway stations. Really, they approached my out-of-shape self to be a cop while waiting for the N train. Can you imagine? Me, a cop? They're like those Marine recruiters in Flint, Michigan (see "Fahrenheit 9/11"). So pathetic it's funny.

And a special thanks to the delegation of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. It is because of them and the "secret meeting" they held with Mr. Annan that the conference room level of the UN building is the last place in the city where one can smoke without consequence. Now I really don't understand why the Cold War happened for so long. Russians are pretty damn cool people. They can look quite menacing, so I understand some of the confusion Old Man Reagan and his lot suffered in the eighties, but really they're very nice. Secretive and peculiarly non-chalant is all. My new boss is Russian, and he's very laid-back, as if he's doing bong-hits in his office or something, and he listens to great music. Hey, maybe we could get Bossman Kofi to establish some kitschy bar in the basement of the UN building. He'd have a hell of an opening night and would make great business. he could really leave a lasting impression on his way out if he did that.

I Don't Want to Stop Smoking

Not that I smoke like a chimney. But this judgemental, moral high horse that people get on nowadays has to stop. The following link is to an editorial by my favorite writer/cartoonist of the moment, Marjane Satrapi. She is an Iranian who now lives in Paris. Check it out. I paid to bring this link to you!

http://satrapi.page.nytimes.com/?8hpib

(the link doesn't work, so you can cut and paste into the address field in your browser. have a lovely day, folks!)

The State of the City

The NYC mayoral election is over and done with. Given my previous advocacy of and encouragements to vote, you lot may find it surprising that I sat this one out. The preliminary polls showed that Ferrer was way too behind Bloomberg to win anyway, and there was no chance of some hidden faction coming out and voting to tip the scales (not in Queens anyway, quite possibly the most apathetic boro of the 5), so I didn't bother, and I don't regret this. Plus, I didn't want to be one of the people held responsible for letting Bloomberg back into City Hall. Best to leave the blame to the dollar chasers. However, to the credit of the rich, WASPy liberals of NYC, they went Ferrer, probably in retaliation for Bloomie bending over and taking it from the Republicans and letting a city openly hostile to Republicans host the RNC, for the love of Pete. Of course, Bloomie went on to deny New Yorkers their consitutional right to assemble peacefully in protest of this traumatic experience on their most beloved turf, Central Park. Hmmm, denying people constitutional rights....sound familiar? By the by, did anyone see Ferrer's campaign ad depicting Bloomie and Bush canoodling atop a horse, Georgy in his cowboy costume and Bloomie toting a wad of cash? A last ditch effort, but funny as hell.

According to someone on the DailyKos website, Ferrer went on the air and said something like "Manhattan is better than it was four years ago. What about the other Boros?" The KOSguy said that given that Washington Heights/Inwood and the Harlems were in Manhattan, this was a stupid question. I do not agree at all. Washington Heights/Inwood, my ex-hood (thank God) and the Harlems are undergoing gentrification the likes of which are not often seen. The rate of fancy, completely unaffordable restaurants sprouting up on Broadway between the GW Bridge and 181st Street, of all strips, is blinding, and of course in another 5-10, the barrio will be unrecognizable. The people there now will have been pushed out, which is of course tragic, but I'm not so sad for those people. Do you remember how I said some New Yorkers aren't worth my pinky? These are them. Let them go fuck up another neighborhood, I say. But I digress. Yeah, what ABOUT the other boros? Sorry to say, but we in Queens got bobkes for the past four years. I used to love Queens and looked forward to going back. Now that I am there, I have been pretty disappointed with its comparatively sorry state, save for the Thai restaurants in Woodside and Jackson Heights. Shouts to Queens' most ethnic of populations! Of course it could also be that when I first lived in Queens, it looked so good to me because I was still an idealist, fresh from Sarah Lawrence College with quite a rosy outlook. Now I'm just a jaded New Yorker nursing ever more fragile nerves and a shrinking supply of patience.

Brooklyn is doing quite well by comparison, in the sense that everyday it looks and is considered more like Manhattan. It is somewhere people go for culture, good food and shopping and homes in which to raise a family. Queens has the Sunnyside rail yards. It used to be that if you said you lived in Queens or Brooklyn, people looked at you funny, with a little pity. Now that just happens if you admit you live in Queens. But actually, let me be careful in asking that the mayor turn his beady eyes over to Queens. After all, I would like to be able to afford my apartment for the next couple of years and maybe the occasional scraps from the horrible supermarkets we have to contend with (while Brooklyn gets Farmer's Markets).

On another note which is only somewhat related, it has occurred to me that, until I save up more money, I'm really stuck here. If I have no money for the interstate move, for my new apartment (no, I am not living with daddy. Sorry, pop) and to haul the cats down there, I can't make any move. I don't earn enough money to really save anything. But more than that, my lifestyle is just not conducive to saving money, not that I'm proud of that. I spend money "like a house afire," as daddy says. I am probably the only person in the under$50K bracket that has set foot in Kittichai, an ultra-chic and ultra-expensive Thai fusion joint in SoHo, or who is a member of Equinox, a $130 a month gym. And if I am not home, you can probably find me at Bloomingdales or on the Lower East Side with Jessica trolling the boutiques. Oh well, at least all that is tempered by my penchant for White Castle and cheap ethnic food (Jefe, I miss you!!). At work, the powers that be are rumoured to be dangling money in our faces again. Well, they best dangle quickly then give it up. If I can manage to get more money out of these misers, I'm free to move about as I please. We'll see.

Bloomie notwithstanding, I still have confidence. This city will regenerate and reinvent somehow, and I expect that the essence of the City, which I can't quite articulate right now, will always exist in its original form somewhere, in some corner or alley. Conversely, there will always be something to piss me off and that reeks of times ahead: the Times online made it so now I have to pay $10 a month just so I can read my favorite columnists, Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman. As my old friend Tamara used to say, after a loud gasp: "Fuckers!"

A Mea Culpa, issued in advance

This past March, I expressed the opinion that Europeans don't have such issues with race as the United States does. I can still express that opinion and it will have some truth to it. After all, and correct me if I'm wrong here, Europe didn't have laws in place barring black folks from education and voting that lasted well into the twentieth century. However, for a week now, there have been racially-charged protests in Paris. Apparently, two kids, one Tunisian and one from Mauritania, were accidentally electrocuted while hiding from police in a power station. The police of course denies having chased after them. This ignited night after night of violent protest at unemployment and perceived lack of opportunity for the community of color and the immigrant community, and one elderly white man, who was attacked by a hooded man last week and was in a coma, is the first confirmed dead as a result.

Anyway, I got a lot of crap from my parents for making the comment back in March, and it continued for months. You will remember of course my comment was in reaction to a racist, elitist article by a conservative asshole, and I couldn't help myself. However, let us keep in mind that I have not read any other article like that in any newspaper from any other country but the United States. Maybe I should just concede that Americans have more balls than most and are willing to admit they're full of shit in public.

My parents are in Argentina right now, and if they are watching the news about Paris, they will no doubt come at me and say "we told you so". So in anticipation of that moment which may or may not (if I'm lucky) come, I make the following statement:

"I apologize for having put forth an opinion that was proven wrong 7 months later. If I should ever again come up with an opinion that has even the tiniest chance of upsetting a conservative member of my family, I will keep it to myself. Now let it go."