...of why I hate New York City.
See, by definition, practically everybody in New York City wants to be there.
Either they have lived there all their lives and haven't the intellect required to operate a tollbooth and escape, or they moved there, having been born some hayseed Kansan who dreamed of Broadway for some unknown but no doubt perverted reason.
These people all consider themselves sane, and they all want to be New Yorkers, and so they assume that all other sane people do, too, but we just couldn't scrape up the bus fare or something.
So, since they have control of the TV cameras because we refuse to drop cluster bombs on Rockefeller Plaza for reasons that have yet to be clearly explained to me, we in the rest of the country have to watch them writhe in ritual sackcloth and ashes when one of their former mayors shuffles off his mortal coil, so that we can vicariously share in their Big Appleness.
Dear New York City: If only there were some way I could possibly convey to you how little of a ____ I gave about your dead ex-mayor, I would, but I'm afraid that my amount of concern strays dangerously close to the Planck length, and is therefore so tiny that it's hard to convey to physicists, let alone drama or business majors.
Well..NYC does have the largest demographic and it is local news to the big three which hear all the time they need a local flavor.
ReplyDeletePersonally I was cheering Godzilla when he ravaged new york, but since I don't live there, what do I know.
Thank you, Tam, for once again putting into most excellent prose my exact thoughts.
ReplyDeletejf
I still think that Documentary that came out in the early '80s about building a Giant Wall around Manhattan would be a Good Idea.
ReplyDelete*snif*
ReplyDeleteGod I love you, Tam.
*wipes away a tear*
Speaking as a poor unfortunate soul who had the misfortune of being born in Queens, indoctrinated for a dozen years in that bubble, and still bears the faint scar of the dialect...
ReplyDeleteI can't agree with you more. There is a not-insignificant list of national ills that could be cleared up tout suite by jamming NYC's signal emissions.
I've had quite enough of being tisk-tisked as being a blinkered provincial by people whose entire material, spiritual, and intellectual existance is contained on a 2 x 13 mile concrete island.
Xman
I shudder at the thought of living in NYC, but do not begrudge anyone the choice to live there. For one thing, it keeps them far away from me.
ReplyDeleteI can disregard their serene belief that they are the pinnacle of creation, that NYC is not only the center of the universe but its entire justification to exist, and that the rest of us cluster pathetically at the shop window, noses pressed to the glass, yearning to live in a 600 sq. ft. apartment for $3500/month.
No, what really chaps my tender little heinie is their pretense of tough independence and gimlet eyed realism, yet they slavishly follow the dictates of their masters. Bloomie says no more Big Gulps, they nod wisely and say "Thank you Sir, may I have another?" Bloomie takes the salt shakers off the restaurant tables, they gravely thank him for his enlightened leadership. They gladly surrender their guns in order to be safe and proudly suffer the ministrations of New York's Finest in all their arrogant, corrupt and incompetent splendor. They're a bunch of bleating sheep, each one convinced that he's the biggest baddest grizzly bear on the hill, surrounded by millions of only slightly less big and bad grizzlies.
Please let me explain this clearly to you. We don't drop cluster bombs on Rockeller Center because they would be the wrong munition.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking MOAB or GBU-28 penetrator both would be better choices.
Gerry
Cluster bombs be damned. Bearing in mind that I live well within range of any fallout, I gotta say "nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
ReplyDeleteAll you wannabe Curtis Lemays are overlooking the fact that you're going to need some highly-trained meatware to sever the fiberoptic and copper tendrils fanning out under the East and Hudson Rivers.
ReplyDeleteXman
I remember the day I found out Stevie Ray Vaughn died in that helicopter crash. I thought to myself "Why couldn't it have been... New Kids On The Block?"
ReplyDeleteSo today all I can muster is "Why couldn't it be Bloomberg?"
Xman: Hard to send a Signal down the Line when the Transmitter is Fried due to EMP. Just Sayin'...
ReplyDeleteGood, I thought I was the only one who didnt want to hear about Ed Koch and was wondering why he was front page news. I cant tell you the names of my cities former mayors, much less their breathing status. Maybe we can start a Midwest channel somewhere near Terre Haute. Turner networks tried to be non-East Coast for a long time, but that has passed. We need a voice for the flyover country. Can I recommend we have a non-"reality" gun show on primetime?
ReplyDeleteThank you Tam, Snake Plissken could not have said it better.
ReplyDeleteFormer Mayor Ed participated in a Ricky Skaggs video, where he was a cabbie reading the racing form and eating a donut, lip synching. the video features a good deal of Ricky's talented guitar playing and Bill Monroe buckdancing. Other than that, I cannot figure out a reason to even think of Ed.
ReplyDeleteDing dong! Bloomberg is dead! Oh. FORMER. Nevermind.
ReplyDeleteEscape from New York...more accurate and truthful than Micahel Moore's drivel!
ReplyDeleteCloverfield. Not only does the island get isolated and destroyed by the giant space monster but some lucky Slim Pickens devotee gets to drop a TNW from a B-2 on the smoldering remains.
ReplyDeleteDon't be shy Tam, tell us what you really think :lol:
ReplyDeleteI will admit that the love/hate relationship with the city of my birth has trended more toward the latter over the past few years, but I still enjoy a weekend there every 3 or 4 months.
Also, I am a Brooklyn boy, rather than one of those pervy Manhattanites, from Gerritsen Beach, a little peninsula jutting out from the south-east part of Brooklyn. Essentially a small European fishing village still stuck in the 1950's and populated with some very tough Irish and Norwegian people who wear watchcaps and belt knives without the slightest bit of affectation.
The kind of people who look out at an approaching storm front and wonder if they will be holding vigil for relatives and friends who won't be coming back. It's a real place, not the shabby circus you'll find south of Harlem and north of Battery Park.
But I was hooked on Broadway at an early age, and the kids love shopping in Chinatown. There is something spiffy about being guided down dark alleys and into diamondplate covered fortresses behind false walls to get 90% off on brand name merchandise along Canal St.
All while looking over your shoulder for cops. A while back, significant other was inside a perfume place while I was outside on the sidewalk inspecting the zoo. There is a slightly science fiction flavor to Canal Street, as if I was in the Bazzar scene from Blade Runner or transported back through time to Sodom and Gommorah shortly before the fall.
I grew up multilingual, and I like to eavedrop on the conversations of the rich foriegn tourists who are Manhattan's sole reason to exist anymore. Middle Americans are usually priced out of the place for more than a day trip or very occasional weekend.
The Spanish speakers, uniformly lilly white upper caste South Americans, are actually kind and pleasant people simply looking for good deals on merchandise and a shot at the tourist attractions before they go home. They might as well be Rotarians from Duluth.
The Germans drip contempt, more or less justified, but still seem uncomfortably aloof.
The young Russians, consistently some of the most physically attractive and well dressed human beings I have ever seen (as well as TALL) bear witness to the fact that the old Commie Nomenklatura had access to all the best looking women for several generations, and now that they are "Capitalists", they are still buying the best wiggle Mother Russia can provide.
But talk about parasites. Everyone I heard was a totally empty-headed twit. Comes the revolution, when Doctor Guillotine is rolled out......
Anyway, Charmer is in the perfume store looking at bottles of Foo-Foo, and I walk in with my Carhart jacket and round pink Irish face. The very attractive Chinese lady at the back of the shop pushes everybody back a few feet, grabs a rolldown steel door and yanks it down, slaps on a padlock, then disappears through a hidden door in the side wall at a flat run.
Gotta luv those ethnic stereotypes. At 20 yards in a thick crowd, my looks still scream cop.
Really, people pay good money to visit the Bronx Zoo, while Midtown, Chinatown, and Greenwich Village are free to walk through and a better show.
The NYPD estimates there are two million unregistered firearms in New York City, and they're in the attics and cellars of the bluecollar people who actually make the place run, rather than the parasites and sociopaths who live within 4 or 5 subway stops of "Midtown".
When it all goes in the pot, I hope that's enough firepower to get them through the zombies and across the line into America.
They're almost as bad as San Francians whose petulant little goatee'd disease has spread down the Peninsula like syphilitic gangrene - and while we can look forward somewhat to an earthquake, cluster bombs on the opposite Coast are hoped-for but unforthcoming...
ReplyDeleteRe:Ed Foster,nice travelogue sir,but as a native of upstate NY,where we all put up with the liberal politics and had to pay higher taxes because of the nanny-state gov't of NYC,I was glad to get out and to this day I can't stand to hear that NY accent- anywhere I go in the world it seems there are escpees from the City.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was younger,NYC floated an idea to break off from the rest of the state and become another state.They meant it as a threat(something like,if you don't treat us better and pay for our share of the welfare,crime and neccesary public works,we'll leave)and we all said Go,then and good riddance!
Now I'm in NC,and all the escaping Yankees are coming here,and talking about how wonderful it was to walk around the Big Apple,and I remind them they can always go back.
Bill
If you built a wall around it, they'd never notice.
ReplyDeleteAt least until you cut off the electricity and the water.
I've had to point out to some folks in the past that the outrage, anger and thirst for vengeance after 9/11, as well as the outpouring of support in personnel and relief supplies, was, for many of us, in spite of the fact it was NYFC that got hit, not because of it.
ReplyDeleteAh, but don't you know that mayor of NYC is the "second toughest job in America"?
ReplyDeleteThat's what John Lindsay's mayoral campaign claimed in the 1960s.
BillF, I spent many a happy summer day up around Kerhonksen, and think kindly of upper New York State.
ReplyDeleteSadly, there isn't much difference between the city and the state anymore, as upper New York State has lost most of it's jobs and younger working people. Like Maine, it is mostly populated with old folks collecting Social Security and whatever bones the local and state governments are willing to throw their way in exchange for a lock on their vote.
Congratulations on escaping the madhouse. I feel the same way up here in Connecticut, especially whenever I get out of the friggin' cities and off into the rural parts of the state, which haven't changed appreciatively since I was a kid.
Odd. I was a Navy Brat and we moved around a lot, but our home field was Floyd Bennett NAS in Brooklyn. I loved the ocean (again, Gerritsen Beach/Sheepshead Bay), enjoyed playing hookey over in Manhattan, but my heart was always on my Grandparent's farm up in Killingworth CT.
Tin cans and .22's in the pasture next to the house, squirrel hunting with the uncles, cranking wrench on everything from tractors to the '64 New England K Stock champion Ford.
Now I'm a few years from retirement, and I still like playing hookey in Manhattan, but want my woods when I'm in the real world, along with as much salt water as possible.
Plus ca change, plus ce la meme choise.
@Ed Foster One evening spent at The Diner in the meatpacking district had my jaw on the ground. As someone deep in SEC country, I'd seen pretty ladies before, but my weak mind couldn't cope with the achingly gorgeous women heading out for the evening. Besides that and the other skyscrapers (of concrete and steel construction) the big apple does little for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes I meant appreciably, just looking over my shoulder for the boss and not concentrating.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a quick thought about Ed Koch. His conversion to conservative was several decades too late, but quite heartfelt. His articles in the New York Post and some of the conservative magazines had all the more zing because he, like Reagan, used to be a "name" among the left wing cognosenti.
Some of them, at least, must be bright enough to recognize the innate intellectual dishonesty of their tribal predjudices when they are pointed out by former "liberal" champions.
It won't change their stance, they're sheep who can't function outside the herd, but it might give them some moments of thought when they're away from their brethren.
Henry, it is tempting, isn't it? It's the only place outside D.C. where a well dressed hetero guy in his 60's gets hit on by legitimate model types. Son Two went to Columbia (the school, not the country) and worked nights at TGIFridays in Times Square. All models and dancers/singers, and easy pickings.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the generally accepted statistic anent Manhattan is that half the resident male population is as bent as a twig.
How somebody else tickles his plumbing is his business not mine, as long as I don't have to pay for his AIDS treatments, and it certainly ups the odds for us straight guys.
But there is something a tad unsettling when you see all these sixtyish guys with heart stoppers of 24 hanging on their arms wearing a desperate "Clear off Bitch, this one is MINE" look on their face.
Though it is amusing to hear the nice forty-something tourist ladies from Iowa say to their husbands "Doesn't he look rediculous!"
Of course the husband says "He sure does", while thinking "You Lucky Son-Of-A-Bitch!"
Seriously, take the place as a visit to the zoo and it's a wonderful time for all. Just remember that it is, in Cole Porter's words, "A great place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there".
"At least until you cut off the electricity and the water."
ReplyDeleteFuzzy, they'd just complain about the lack of signal and how much the price of coffee's gone up.
Cut off the Village Voice and the Red Army ca. 1946 couldn't take the place back.
gvi
I knew a guy for years before I found out he was Jewish and born in Brooklyn.
ReplyDeleteHis family moved to the Bay Area when he was about 12 yo. When I questioned him on his lack of accent, he told me the story of how some kids came to his door and asked his mom if he could come out and talk funny to them. He decided to do something about how he sounded.
If he concentrated, he could dredge up a flavor of a Brooklyn accent.
New York is the center of the universe, just like everywhere else.
ReplyDeleteThis is why we read Tam. Thank you.
ReplyDelete"Nice guys with guns aren't nice guys." Ed Koch.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why I care very little about that Kochsucker's passing.
I'm pretty much on the same page as the rest of ya.... evacuate all the workin' stiffs and apply 5-10 kilotons on the point of the Chrysler building. doable.
ReplyDeleteStop the presses, I've your solution.
ReplyDeleteThere's no need to use cluster bombs, or any lethal payload for that matter. Just load up a couple B-1Bs with p-mags and Big Gulps and commence carpet bombing ops. The unpossibility fallout will cause heads to spontaneously-combust.
You're welcome.
For some reason I now have a strange desire to buy a few cases of the generic, pre-filled salt shakers you find in most restaurants and go to NYC on vacation. I could spend a pleasant day or two just going around various eateries and leaving them on tables.
ReplyDeleteBGM
Even more fun that just leaving them on the tables: leave the tops just barely screwed on. It is a classic practical joke as the 3 tablespoons of salt pour onto the food. Although probably a felony in the city limits.
ReplyDeleteI rather enjoy living in New York. Even if it does smell like garbage and BO.
ReplyDeleteWhile y'all are gushing on the prose and openly dissociating yourselves from self-absorbed twits that consider the backbone of America "flyover country," my geekness was tickled by Tam's physics reference.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tam.
I was actually more interested in what Punxatawny Phil had to say this morning...
ReplyDeleteThat dead ex mayor was also a combat infantryman in WW11.
ReplyDeleteAnon 4:26,
ReplyDelete"That dead ex mayor was also a combat infantryman in WW11."
How many other ex-WW2 combat infantrymen died that day?
Quick!
Tick-tock, tick-tock!
Buzz,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad when folks appreciate the details. ;)
MY DEAR TAMARA
ReplyDeleteYOUR "I HATE NYC" TIRADE THOUGH AMUSING UP TO A POINT IS ALSO RATHER SAD YOU HIT A NERVE WITH ME I SAW THE TOWERS COME DOWN ON 09-11 (NOT ON TV ASK ME ABOUT IT SOMETIME)
YOU WOULD ACTUALLY CONDONE THE DESTRUCTION OF SOME OF THE GREATEST COLLECTION OF ART DECO BUILDINGS ON THE PLANET ? TO SAY NOTHING OF COLLECTIONS OF ART POINTS OF HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INTEREST SOME OF THE BEST INSTITUTIONS OF HEALING HIGHER LEARNING COMMERCE AND TRADE SOME 25000 EATERIES OF EVERY DESCRIPTION INCLUDING 6000 CHINESE RESTAURANTS AND ABOUT 12 MILLION PEOPLE TRYING TO MAKE A GO OF IT (THE CENSUS SORT OF UNDER COUNTED US JUST LIKE THE RECENT ELECTION RESULTS WERE FIDDLED WITH) AS A LIFE LONG BROOKLYNITE WHO HAS TRAVELED THE WORLD
SEEN FIRST HAND HOW OTHER PEOPLE EXIST HERE AND OVERSEAS WE HAVE IT PRETTY GOOD NYC HAS ITS PROBLEMS BUT
HAVE A HANDLE ON MANY UNLIKE OTHER COMMUNITIES AT HOME AND ABROAD
YOU AND OTHERS BOAST YOU DONT WANT TO VISIT HERE THEN IT IS YOUR LOSS HOWEVER I AM AVAILABLE TO CONDUCT YOU
AND ANY OF YOUR LIKE MINDED COLLEAGUES OF A TOUR OF OUR FAIR CITY THAT FEW TOURISTS WILL NOT SEE AND YOU WILL VERY LIKELY ENJOY IN SAFETY YOURSELVES STEREOTYPES PREJUDICE MISSTATEMENT OF THE FACTS AND DEMONETIZATION OF PEOPLE WHO DONT AGREE WITH YOUR POINT OF VIEW IS NOT THE WAY TO STRENGTHEN THE REPUBLIC
YOU AND SOME OF YOUR FELLOW BLOGGERS DID NOT AGREE WITH THE LATE MAYOR (WELL I DISAGREED WITH HIM ON QUITE A FEW ISSUES) HE HONORABLY SERVED OUR NATION IN A COMBAT INFANTRY UNIT IN THE EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS IN WWII HIS SERVICE TO HIS CITY STATE AND NATION WAS CONSIDERABLE DURING HIS TENURE AS A CITY COUNCILMAN CONGRESSMAN AND MAYOR HE INSTITUTED MANY REFORMS SO YOU DONT WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE OR RENDER HONORS DUE HIM YOU ARE THE LESSER FOR IT HE BY AND LARGE DID A GOOD JOB
IN MY NOT SO HUMBLE OPINION WE NEED TO FIND COMMON GROUND WITH CITIZENS OF EVERY POLITICAL PERSUASION REMIND AND EDUCATE THEM OF OUR REPUBLICS HERITAGE AND APPEAL TO THEIR BEST INTERESTS TO SUPPORT OUR RIGHTEOUS CAUSE THERE IS A LIMIT TO GRATUITOUS "SNARK" AND CHEAP SHOTS
I REMAIN AS EVER MOST SINCERELY YOUR
NAVIGATOR
NAVIGATOR,
ReplyDeleteIn today's post, I suggest eliminating child labor laws and putting the kids back in the coal mines.
In other words, I wouldn't take any single post here too seriously. I'm sure I write something every day that will give one or another demographic a serious case of butthurt.
(BTW, I'm sure Ed Koch was a fine mayor. Lots of cities had fine mayors.)
WE CAN STILL BE FRIENDS
ReplyDeleteMY OFFER IS STILL OPEN TO ACT AS YOUR TOUR GUIDE AND INTERPRETER WHEN YOU VISIT THE CITY TAKE THE TRAIN LESS HASSLE AT THE AIRPORTS AND MID TOWN TO MIDTOWN
ReplyDeleteNAVIGATOR,
ReplyDeleteIt really is nothing personal, but I drive from Indy to Knoxville via Louisville rather than Cincinatti because OH refuses to honor my CCW permit (although I may get a Utah Non-Res to avoid the indignity of disarming in order to drive 12 miles on OH interstates.)
I drove hundreds of miles out of my way to get to Dallas without crossing IL because they deny me my rights.
I do appreciate your offer, though! :)
Talk about butt hurt! Navigator needs to get with reality. NYC has great people. And places and food. But NWO bravo sierra laws and Authortarian Unconstitutionally. Have Got to go. Or let them Secede. NYC and NY state will never get another dollar from me or mine. They are all set!
ReplyDeleteI know some fine New Yorkers who live in "The City".
ReplyDeleteBut, NYC made me actually GLAD to see the sign that said "Welcome to New Jersey".
And I literally broke out in hives the first time I drove through NJ.
It would take a lot* to get me to willingly set foot in Le Petit Roi Bloomberg's fiefdom.
Yeah, the earlier comment about quite a few people supporting NYC after 9/11 despite NYC being a major target, rather than because it was NYC, is not far off...
*(Of course, these days a dozen PMags, a decent BCG with a stripped upper & a lower, or a case of M193 could qualify as "a lot". {chuckle})