Feral Idiocy

When a city changes, there people to blame. Not me, even though I’m a person. But I float above the rest of the citizens, ensconced in stained carpet and lead paint from the unnatural boundaries of a mediocre walk-up. 

I first noticed it happening a few years ago. Change, that is. I’d walk down the street and someone, invariably named, “Joey,” sitting in an idling cab would be drumming on their steering wheel with cheap chop sticks. Not the durable kind you find in restaurant supply stores. But those pieces of shredded wood that risk adding a splinter to each piece of unagi. It could’ve been the solo from Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” or the opening snare from the theme to 2001. But here, Joey Boy would have his window down, annoying me beyond measure while polluting the pristine environment.

I’d turn a corner and suddenly there’d be a woman feeding pigeons from a park bench. Her name was always, “Susan.” These Susans didn’t understand the dietary restrictions of pigeons and instead of handing them loose seed or the last bits of a stale bagel, they’d hand out pieces of foie gras ignoring the cannibalistic overtones. 

I couldn’t even cross the street without someone, usually a “Doug,” bumping into me. When I moved to New York, I was renting the entire city. 

My boring critics accuse me of being a NIMBY. However, I am obsessed with everyone else’s backyard. This is much, much bigger than me. I don’t even have one. I can look out on a concrete slab to see if my downstairs neighbors understand how to water their plants. And I don’t have a God Complex. I have a God Simple. Since it’s simple that I am a walking, talking urban deity and among the city’s chosen few. It’s only authentic if I say it is. 

I have it on good authority that the day before I moved into my apartment the city was exclusively black and white. My arrival ushered in a moment living color not seen since the Wizard of Oz. My moving day is considered among the greatest moments in the history of the city, alongside the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and when Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Canarsees. Of course the worst three days in the city are, in no particular order, 9/11, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and the closing of CBGBs. 

Capitalism has ruined this city. When I moved to the city in the early nineties it was a strictly barter economy. In fact, there were bodegas that still accepted wampum. 

Every New Yorker should have an ID card to show how New Yorkerish they are. That way, I, and I alone, can determine if they should be allowed to remain in city or banished to somewhere like Yonkers, which will put a damper on their tax forms. It’s amazing how everything bad in New York is caused by the people and forces I hate. Funny how that worked out. And my famous open-mindedness is narrowly focused on only what matters. 

When a plane crashes most people are concerned with the people on board. Not me. I’m worried about the plane.