The Big Apple ... is rotten to the core.
I had a debate this morning with a coworker who said there was no logical way for me to say that I can't stand New York City if I'd never been there.
I give thanks to Octobrax and the rest of the Frankish Pantheon of Deities for my early adolescent days of watching Dragnet reruns in the basement of Die Alte Allison Haus for my riposte: "Look kid, I don't need to jump into a pit of vipers to know that I won't like it."
I have several friends who live there who want me to come out and visit ... but all I can think of is noise, garbage-strewn streets, the unrelenting stench of urine and feces, loudmouths, filthy vagrants and a myriad of stereotypical Noo-Yawkahs whom I wouldn't think twice about lining up against a the side of a bus, covering them in petrol and then gunning down as casually as eating a hamburger.
My best friend's family hails from Brooklyn and even he says he only goes back to visit family because the thought of living there makes him want to vomit. He once said to me, "It would be like a boat person wanting to go back to Southeast Asia to live - fuck that!" (emphasis his, NOT mine.)
Here's a few things about New York I "vicariously" don't like:
Fashion: Ninety-nine percent of the clothing I've seen in magazines that comes from the Cesspool On The Hudson shouldn't be worn to a shitfight.
Art: Around my house, "Art" is just a guy's name ... but seriously folks, I really can't think of a major artist or genre (except maybe the exception of Andy Warhol) that has come out of this particular Toilet Town that has resonated with me. Hey, feel free to remind me of something if I'm wrong, but "graffitti art" is an oxymoron. If the Frankish Imperium were ensconced in power tomorrow, "taggers" and "bombers" would be hunted down like feral dogs in the night by state-paid snipers, just like the shotgun-toting folks on the open land at DIA who shoot geese and other birds to keep them from causing bird-strikes. Just doin' the public a service.
Modern art? Gimme a fucking break, Nell Carter! Most of that rubbish could be produced by a mongoloid five-year-old. Yeah, remember Congo the painting chimp? Nothing different than the New York art scene ... in fact, I could probably shoot a few of them in the face and get away with calling it "performance art."
Urban planning: Stacking more shit on top of other shit for the record of the World's Tallest Stacks of Shit? Shove it up your keister, Giulliani. A flight attendant friend of mine tells me La Guardia Airport is euphemistaclly dubbed "La Garbage" because it was built on a landfill. DIA may be out in BFE but for cryin' out loud it's not built on a pit chock-full of used Huggies, rancid milk cartons and half-eaten Ball Park Franks.
*sigh* ... why do I fucking care. Pass me the mustard, will ya?