A "How-to" Guide for New York

I've joked about creating a pamphlet for new New Yorkers for years, witness as I've been over the years to a certain amount of crimes that are wholly unnecessary, but I've been told by more than one person that "common sense isn't so common" and I've certainly found that to be true. You'd be amazed how many horribly performing people there truly are in the world, major businesses included. Once I quickly got my bearings in business (because I had to), I spent a lot of time observing the human condition as I went about my day.

You see, unlike the "diva" designer who is only qualified to set type in a layout, I was trained to do just about anything, which naturally opened me up to ridicule among less talented workers, after I graduated to begin my apprenticeship. I was prepped for it at art boot camp, where the first salvo of the day was often delivered by that famous author you read at the library, in front of some extremely wealthy diplomat's kid, so shame and embarrassment over something like hard work became impossible for me to feel in any workflow.

Unlike putting on typical "airs" about being a native New Yorker (another way of "separating the wheat from the chaff" among so many avidly striving out-of-towners seeking fame and fortune in our fair city), I just did the work, like my forefathers who built this city. I didn't talk endlessly about it, because I worked with people who wouldn't have been able to understand or tolerate any of our real history (in lieu of so much posing and phony posturing), so most of the time I listened and spoke only when necessary, which is a great survival strategy for anyone working in a town full of strangers that you already own, they just didn't know it....yet. Today you do!

After so much time spent listening to other people's fantasies about who they want you to think they are, I would slowly drink my pint (that was put to scrutiny too, for not "being fast enough" around certain desperate yenta's from Long Island who needed that second round badly to try and keep pace, or conversely for being "too fast" to a certain type of reticent, slow-witted people out west) and take it in, as part of my ongoing studies about the human condition. I became a sort of covert cultural anthropologist without really knowing it, and in your repetition I became a master of the human arts.

And so, without much further ado, I present to you my fairly glib but actually totally valid list about rules to New York City living, for the slow and the stupid, as well as the rich and insane. You thirsty natives already know what to do, so do it.

#1 - Do not spit on the subway tracks. Chinatown, this means you. We will fine and ticket you for it, plus it's totally disgusting, which is part of the point, I'm sure. Next time we're on Mainland China, I'll be sure to spray Lysol around while ripping off your dumb face masks. Getting a fucking grip! If you don't like us "Gweilo", then go home. Good luck not starving to death in a labor camp. NO SPITTING.

#2 - Do not ride the subway after midnight, especially if you are a woman. If you can't afford the cab fare home, don't go out with your co-workers who may want you drunk and vulnerable on a train ride by yourself. Pickpockets like drunks asleep on the subway, too. 

#3 - Look both ways before crossing our city streets. This is mandatory. You can be run over by a passing car, cab, truck, or biker in a second, and not even know what hit you. Dumb-ass. Stay home!

#4 - Stand against a pile-on while waiting for a train to come into the station to avoid the crazies, like rouge slashers (yes, I follow the local news) and phantom pushers of people onto train tracks. Plus, you'll line up with the car doors, because conductors use them to align the trains. You're welcome. Assholes.

#5 - Yes, there are maps and schedules for subways, but things happen quickly to underground trains that are hundreds and hundreds of years old immediately after leaving Brooklyn Yard. Adjust for it, muthfucka, or just fucking leave. People get sick, trains derail, rains flood low-lying areas (duh, you dick) and shit just simply breaks from all the use. Get a fucking grip, and always leave ahead of time to reach your destination. Dick!

#6 - Expect serious delays and re-routing on the weekends, because that's when we service those trains you take for granted, shit-head. Expect to tack on additional travel time, because you will have to run an obstacle course so severe, people get panic attacks over it. Really. We can't do a lot of rail work during commuting hours, because millions of jobs and lives depend on our labors, so again, just fucking deal. Ass. Stay home!

#7 - Watch your bag and wallet AT ALL TIMES, no matter where you are in the city. Urban areas are rife with crime, just like Rome, London, or Tokyo, you ignorant fucking hick. Keep an eye on your purse!

#8 - This goes without saying, but there is NO SLEEPING ON MASS TRANSIT. Shit pops off quickly in the fastest town on the planet, and I know your khaki-wearing, office-working ass cannot handle it. Just stay out of the way while warriors do their jobs.

#9 - Last, and not least, summertime in the city smells bad. Really fucking bad. Get out of there. We're like Europeans: the city shuts down most operations during the summer, so get out of town and enjoy it. Take a bus or train to the beach or the mountains, but just go. What do you think that bum who reeks of piss and crap smells like, simmering to a near-boil in the heat of summer? Yep, that's what it is like underground. Best to avoid it, if you can.

There you go. Now, get out there and succeed! Just think about my rules as you're crossing over the GWB, looking at the massive skyline, and remember this: we conquered all that first. We built this city.



***UPDATE*** In lieu of this morning's snow (combined with your general lack of ability to STAY HOME and have a nice three-day weekend), I'd like to add to my list of rules regarding weather and other typically human conditions:

1A - If you are not an emergency worker or crisis manager for the City of New York, nor part of our government, or the crux upon which an entire business stands, stay the fuck home. I thought that would be obvious with a Friday morning snowfall, but New Jersey, I saw you dumb fucks clogging the tolls to get onto the GWB this morning and by the looks of your vehicles, you are definitely NOT in the leading minority that runs shit, you broke-ass mutha-sumptins. Next time, stay home or the Governor will seal-off town again. Do you really want that?! No?! THEN STAY HOME. Enjoy a freakin' snow day for once...jeez...

2A - ALWAYS PUT TRASH INTO THE PROPER RECEPTACLES. Believe it or not, New Yorkers are not dirty animals who love your filth, you tourist fuck. I know you think this town is here for you to piss away your money on dumb sidewalk crap, but unlike Las Vegas, we do not like seeing topless hookers in Times Square on a weekday afternoon with children rolled around in their prams by their well-meaning parents. That is not our culture. Keep your coked-up hooker shit in Nevada where it belongs! It's legal to die there from an overdose of cocaine and several highly toxic human diseases. Here, we take the time to throw away our garbage into the many, many obvious trash cans that are all around town, along with those pretty flowerpots you see in Spring that are maintained by city workers. We care about our home. We care a lot.

3A - RECYCLE. RECYCLE. RECYCLE. It's the law, and it is mandatory. It's the way to keep our towns relatively vermin-free and our immediate environment clean, with long-term health benefits to every single living thing on this planet. You do not have a choice because (and this is key), recycling is mandatory in New York. Violate our "green-clean" ethos and we will fine the fuck out of you, chasing you all the way back to your much cheaper po-dunk town, because here we don't have time to work through your mental static when a good hard hit to the wallet is much more effective. Get it? Good!

Y

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA

Lately I've been seeing stories about the "homeless problem in New York City" which (once again) suggests we are immoral, unfeeling, uncaring moneygrubbers with no thoughts or empathy for the chronically ill of our society. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike the "lily-white" self-entitlement of sequestered elite populations around the globe that are part of any sharply divided society, we live a rather open communal life that is jarringly American in its familiarity and democracy. 

Whereas well-monied royalty overseas can traverse their entire lives without ever touching any really gritty urban pavement, softly moving from their cushy chauffeured-driven limos to their thickly carpeted pied-à-terre, New Yorkers have no real understanding about this type of divide that separates people, because each and every native New Yorker (no matter how rich or how poor) uses mass transit almost every single day of some kind, so much so, that its heavy usage is problematic for many daily commuters. It's that well-integrated and designed for our type of mobile lifestyles. In fact, I can't imagine never having the kind of upclose-and-personal experience that typifies that rather humorous mash-ups that define the New York City commute. 

It's both funny and painful at the same time. Ever had a newly-arrived Eastern European emigre with brightly dyed white/yellow hair, thick dark black brows and unshaven armpits put it right there in your dainty face unwashed in the middle of the hottest summer ever, as she reaches up for an arm-grab to the bar above the seats that steadies us during our bucking ride home? No?! Oh, I have. Ever seen a 6'3 drag queen in full-length evening dress covered in bright green spangles and sporting a large red wig with 6" inch red pumps transfer drunkenly between subway stops after midnight? No? I have! Hands up if you've ever had that kind of thing happen to you at least once, New Yorkers...wait for it...there it is: every single hand shot up. 

We don't have these artificial divides that block normal day-to-day interactions between societal strata like other countries do, not that I really wanted to see some esse take a leak into a garbage pail at 8:00 a.m. as I humped it to the Brooklyn courthouse a couple of years back. I think he was wearing an MTA safety vest, too, hence the sense of entitlement about taking a piss in one of his co-workers cans to clean that morning. Fuck. That's rough to see. It's the same thing with our chronic homeless, people. We know they're mentally ill and addicted, yo. That's why they get kicked out of places. Come on, you honestly think we don't know? What kind of dude doesn't wash for weeks on end, preferring to wear a plastic bag as underpants over his winter wear while sleeping outside on a warm subway grate? Do you have any idea what kind of stench that is when he manages to shake it off and walk it downstairs onto a train? 

You know what I mean, New Yorkers. Yeah, baby: it's a trick subway car that seems magically empty during the height of rush hour, because we've all done it. You step onto the car and then it hits you: the lovely smell of throw-up, piss, shit, puke and rotten b.o. that's been heated up in the car and simmered to a nauseous, vomit-inducing perfection. I don't ever want you to think that we don't know about our homegrown problems here, because here's the thing, peeps: any one of those "bums" you see on our streets could be that crazy drunk uncle from your family, or that drug-addicted prostitute of a niece who seems to disappear every few years for another few years, and that's how you know she's back to using, because she's "mysteriously" absent from jolly family gatherings around the holiday Christmas tree. 

You feel me? Of course we know! The Mayor of New York himself has a daughter who suffers from a chronic mental illness and an openly justice-minded wife (http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/24/politics/de-blasio-daughter-depression/). Who better than they to advocate on their own behalf?! These are our families. Why the fuck do you think that each and every single member who joins their local branch of the YMCA pays part of their dues towards housing for the sick and homeless? Because we know, a'ight? We fucking know. Now, pony up for the common cash-kitty. We need lock-downs and mandatory check-ins supervised by the expert people we pay to monitor our sick populace and their coming-and-goings with an access key-card because winter is out there, and we know it. That's why. So fuck you! Whachoo think? We don't take care of our own? Nuh uh, brother. Not on my watch. Now, get to steppin'. I have real work to do.

http://www.newarkymca.org/main/supportive-housing/

https://thrivenyc.cityofnewyork.us/do-you-need-help/ 

Say Something

9/11 brought many changes to the New York lifestyle, chief among them being an awareness about security and our vulnerabilities. 
It seems laughable now that we had such open systems, but in the quest for freedom, we sometimes skew towards the lax instead of what is actually reasonable. The first popularization of what has become the country's motto began in the subways of our fair Gotham, with one very powerful slogan that deeply reflects our inherent honesty as a culture, with this sentiment: If you see something, say something. (https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something)

I tried it out for myself one Sunday afternoon, traveling by train from Rockland County through Secaucus Junction in New Jersey, on my way back to Park Slope in Brooklyn, after visiting my mom over the weekend. An average, middle-aged white woman left behind a medium-sized bag on the rack above the seats; something that's typically expected from a city tourist, but not the commuting locals. 

I immediately noticed it, and said something to the very next ticket agent I saw coming down the aisle. The woman in question happened to be an off-the-clock transit worker who left her belongings behind, but that didn't deter me at all from doing the right thing. You shouldn't be swayed by some slight (and temporary) discomfort, either: http://web.mta.info/mta/security/.

We built this society as free people, and it is up to us to maintain it properly. I submit to you as an example that of my upstate people, who relish this current opportunity to partner up with law enforcement, so that we may catch our criminals who escaped (with inside help, of course) from our state prison, as they head(ed) north to another country. It is not our way to leave problem-solving to our neighbors, because we patrol what we love. 

One more to go! Keep up the great work. Be safe, follow the law, respect our officers in times of crisis, and always defer to the trained authorities who work extremely hard to track our society's convicted murderers: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/us/new-york-prison-break/. You're doing a phenomenal job.

 

1-888-NYC-SAFE

Cybercrime

Much hype and paranoid thought is devoted to "Cybercrime", a word right out of bad sci-fi, if ever there was. Truth be told, shoplifting (http://wordhistories.com/2014/08/16/shoplifting/) is as old as the hills, as any ole descendant of a penal colony will tell you....or maybe not. Crime is crime, and criminals exist within any strata of society because evil, pathology, and bad DNA (much like cancer) does not discriminate.

I do have discriminating tastes however, and the two incidences of theft against me that occurred in my life were way before the common usage of computers. The one happened while I was in school and working solo (One of three part-time jobs I had while enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design. Yes, one of the hardest schools on the planet, I know.) at a pizza joint in Providence, Rhode Island, and the second involved a shopping spree in Virginia (caught by the card's red flag system for atypical purchases) because the thief dumpster-dived for old credit card receipts in Brooklyn which led me (through the credit card rep's sage advice to me over an old-fashioned land line rotary phone) to a lifelong habit of shredding old mail that has personal information printed on it.

In other words, crime exists everywhere people are, and some places where they are not. You can hedge your bets by being smart, careful, and level-headed as I am, by using common sense. Here's a quick primer: #1) DO NOT go jogging in Central Park after dark and/or at night, (no matter what century it is), #2) always have your back against a brace when the train comes into the station, as a guard against psychos who push people onto tracks and #3) dancers on the subway are cool to give money to but #4 (and this is an add-on bonus) buying candy in a subway car is a front for drugs because junkies use their kids to collect change by ripping off bodegas on the street for the candy, and then forcing their homeless kid to shake down white tourists on the train for some change. You're welcome!

Same thing with the Internet. No, you are not interesting (nor is your email, or Facebook page, or etc...) but you do want to keep your wits about you. Treat online content and engagements like you are meeting someone for the first time at a cocktail party. Do you tell them about all your surgeries or the nasty details of your perhaps fictional sex life? Hell, no...unless you're as crazy as the person talking to you.

Be careful out there, kids. Life can be one heck of a dangerous wild ride, so wash your hands often (but don't become OCD about microscopic germs), change your underwear, too (but don't get hooked on laundry as a cure-all for anxiety like some desperate suburban housewife), and most importantly, be kind (if you can) to those around you who deserve it the most.

And register with credit agencies like the ones pictured below that I am holding. Add on a security level or two (called "security freezes" and "fraud alerts") et voila! You may now buy from an online retailer, which is safer than talking to a human over the phone who might write down your information, because (and this is very important) a computer is a machine with no agenda that is only as good (or as bad) as the human who programmed it. Now get back out there and live!

Register with one, you register with all. Safety should always be this easy!

http://www.equifax.com/home/en_us 
http://www.experian.com
http://www.transunion.com/

P.S. - Recent emigres please note: the IRS does not, repeat DOES NOT collect taxes over the phone. They use our federal agency for mail called the "United States Postal Service" for official business (unless you're a criminal), because post offices use legal things like dates and time-stamps for verification purposes. Postal workers are also agents for the government. You should be able to trust them (unless they're having a really bad day, and look like they may go "postal". See link here for our lingo: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=go+postal.) Then, call 911 for help.

Poetry in Motion: Twilight

Bus ride home in twilight.

To the Reader: Twilight

Chase Twichell

Whenever I look

out at the snowy

mountains at this hour

and speak directly

into the ear of the sky,

it’s you I’m thinking of.

You’re like the spirits

the children invent

to inhabit the stuffed horse

and the doll.

I don’t know who hears me.

I don’t know who speaks 

when the horse speaks.

Around Town: The answer is love

Love is the answer

Around the Way: Earth Day Lorax, for 2013

Earth Day Lorax

I took this shot of a subway poster awhile back, when the movie premiered in NYC, because I thought the graffiti added a more ominous element. The Lorax gushes oil from its' eyes, a harsh reminder that we need to move further away faster from our dependence on fossil fuels, towards a brighter, healthier future.   

Heed the warning signs.

Poetry in Motion: Mary Ruefler

 




















Voyager

I have become an orchid

washed in on the salt white beach.

Memory,

what can I make of it now

that might please you—

this life, already wasted

and still strewn with

miracles?

http://www.mta.info/mta/aft/poetry/poetry.html?year=2013&poem=5
http://www.maryruefle.com/ 

Around the Way

a seriously bad sign, Marie Doucette 2012

 

Attention readers: Our friends in the wild need our help. Wolves are at risk for a mass killing operation in Alberta, Canada. 

Please follow the link and sign the petition.  

Let's end this before it starts.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/tar_sands_wolves/?rc=fb_share1 

Subway Series

Subway Stained Glass, © 2011 Marie Doucette

Construction on the F Line, © 2011 Marie Doucette

Subway Platform, © 2011 Marie Doucette