Laurent Courtines Free Online

If you have known me over the last couple of years you have heard me say "New Yorkers can't have nice things". The reason this comes up is because the things that work in the rest of the United States don't work here.  Here is the list of things that are awesome everywhere but here:

Target

Wal-Mart (so much so we don't even have one)

Public Bathrooms

Minimum wage workers being decent

Nice cars

Clean streets

National fast-food chains

National family restaurants (Red Lobsters, Applebee’s etc)

Home gyms

Big dogs

Public schools

Federally funded anything

Live on social security

Smiles

Being nice

I could go on and on and I know this sounds like a negative piece but it isn't.  New York can't have these things because it is unique.  It doesn't fit into the business models of big box retailers where people can drive up with cars.  It doesn't fit into municipal areas where a new shopping area can be built on the outside of town where old man Johnson had his farm.  In New York for some thing new to come, something old has to go.  We are a fixed city.  Manhattan can't get bigger or expand.  New York is an experiment of scale - it’s the ultimate reality show where we find out if 20 million people can work on an island that's 2 miles wide 10 miles long.  (Yes I know about the other boroughs but I'm talking about working)

There is desperation here.  Desperation for the poor to survive and a stranger desperation for the rich to survive.  We don't have time for nice or smiles - the person behind you is right up your ass and the person behind them needs their coffee now.  Speed and efficiency have more value than "good morning sir, nice weather we're having”. All the New Yorker is thinking is  "what the fuck is wrong with this guy what do they want from me? take that bullshit to Oklahoma. Get me my coffee and get the hell out of the way".

 We can't have nice things because we don't expect them or know what to do with them.  We expect the good times to be fleeting and for someone to try and take them away.  I'm getting mine before it's gone.  We act that way in stores, we act that way on the street and we act that way because we have to.  

This is going be a doom and gloom "you member" post. Sorry, its just what long time New Yorkers do.  NYU is the most guilty of causing soul destruction.  They grab real estate and slap together generic ugly looking edifices. 
The latest is taking over the prime Broadway location of the Old Nobody Beats the Wiz and Unique Warehouse.  Unique was the best! It was a giant second handish clothing store.  You could find hip second hand clothes and just browse for what seemed like hours.  So central was the location that it was the de-facto meeting place for the latin club kids from uptown. 
In something that was almost reminensent of the Zootsuites, club kids with their funky unique (not because of the store) look milled out front of Unique handing out flyers for the latest club.
Being in my early teens at that time it was just wonderous.  Everything was new and the look of those kids was absurd and wonderful.
NYU is going to sterilize that memory for me with another purple and white exclusionary building that the general public can't use.
Universities are on of the forgotton causes of blight, their buildings are used only by their students, during the school year, by people who are transient.
In downtown Manhattan you have a whole district of buildings not in use at night that no one has any bond to.   Think about it,  walk around Washington Square Park in the evening in the Summer - dead huh? NYU.
F U NYU!

So I got a ticket for riding my bike on the sidewalk two blocks from my house.
Couple of things to note:
There were no people on the sidewalk
I would have had to ride against traffic
The godforsaken projects block any route thru.
The cop had the nerve to say "sorry its a big initiative of our new Captain"

Fuck you NYPD!

Fun little game to play!  Tell me where am I in New York City?  Post the answer in the comments.

Anyway no special feat but I was proud of myself nonethless.  Ran about 5 and quarter miles. This shot was taken between 86th and 90th street. Facing north towards Engineers (Runners) Gate.

Taken from the downtown train platform towards end.  There has always been an odd gap in the columns in this spot.  Image is of the uptown platform.

So yesterday for the first time I can remember I got poisoned by food.  What an awful and craptacular experience (no pun intended)  Spent the afternoon feeling ill and the evening with a fever.  Thank God for my wife, who took care of me!  These are the things that make being married awesome.  When you are ill there is someone there to look after you.  When you are sick and single,  you look for good old mommy.  Anyway,  down with Bully's on Broadway off the corner of 8th street.  They can suck it and they'll never be on my eating list AGAIN!