Around the time when I as getting ready to leave for the city back in August, I got a flood of advice from every angle on what to do, who to talk to, who not to talk to, and I’d spent enough time in New York before to know what to watch for and watch to watch out for. But there’s definitely one thing that everyone neglected to tell me before I got here, and that is that one in every three people, roughly, is LEGALLY INSANE. So ok, I’m exaggerating, but honestly, every day is the day that I think to myself, “Hey, maybe today will be the day that some stranger doesn’t do something completely abnormal,” and every day I’m surprised yet again.

The other night I almost made it home without incident, but then in my home station sat a delirious woman with no top on heckling passers by. My commute to and from work is a colorful rainbow of people talking to themselves, imagining threats, exposing themselves, and a wide array of other disturbing and amusing entertainment. Usually it’s just interesting to watch, but more than once, including a month or so ago when some totally random old drunk man muttered something about the Irish and then tried to fight me in Grand Central Station.

And this is no full moon occurrence, these people don’t seep out of the woodwork as soon as the sun drips below the horizon, this is on my way to work, this is on my way to dinner, this is constant, to the point where people just carry on with their conversations while the man next to them on the subway is complaining that “Uranus has spies everywhere!!,” and if it was up to him he’d outlaw space travel. It’s not as if it really bothers me, anymore, either, but I think there should at least be a law on the books that requires those are truly nutty to wear a shirt or something that declares their insanity (like this one here), you know, just to save all parties some hassle. Now, with the addition of blue-tooth headsets to the average commuter’s wealth of electronic devices, it’s sometimes hard to tell if someone is talking to themselves (the actually crazy), or just talking to someone on a wireless headset in the other ear (the apparently crazy). Also, I'm not even mentioning that in New York, you also have to periodically run into clinically insane celebrities like Andy Dick.

Everyone has their own stories, too. Friends of mine have been spit on, urinated on, assaulted, heckled, had someone’s genitals exposed to them, and other things that are even too obscene to mention in this blog. And it might just be me, but I get the feeling that New York is unique in its variety of loony foliage scattered on the branches of its subways and streets. Blame it on the water, blame it on the Reagan administration’s move to deinstitutionalize thousands during the mid-80s, even blame it on the moon, it definitely adds something special to living in New York.

Oh yea, and Mel Gibson.

Yo-Ho-Ho, a pirate's life for me...

The entire New York Corps just finished putting on Camp City Year 2007, a week-long camp engaging youths from three different communities in the city. And lucky for me, as I've always thought they are the coolest ethnicity, it was pirate themed.
I led a group of seven third graders on a treasure-finding, eye-patch-wearing, plunder-undering week of pirate savagery, consisting mostly of fun, games, and snacks and fieldtrips (The picture below-left is of my group and I at the Museum of the City of New York. The girl in the center was one of my voluneers). Best part of all, however, was that I got to dowse myself in pirate regalia and talk in a crude pirate accent all week. The kids loved it, even my class, which was one full of children who normally don’t give a second thought to anything that happens in school and have been subjugated to a classroom in their school for “problem children.”
The weekend after camp finished my roommates and I decided to throw a pirate party at our apartment using all of the leftover pirate decorations, of which there were mountains of, tattered and forgotten construction paper cutouts that we would now resurrect to serve in creating true pirate ambiance! But alas, our toilet broke the day of the party, so we had to cancel. Can I get an ARGG? It turned out to be a good thing, for me anyway, as I ended up going salsa dancing in the heart of Harlem, complete with free lessons beforehand which I badly needed. I’m planning on hitting the same joint at least once a week, it was a blast!
Even better was the next night: While attending a vegan potluck hosted by a co-worker I met a girl who writes and performs her own music frequently. Well, there were some guitars there so we started a little jam together, and she was feeling it so much that she asked me to come along to her gig that night and play. So, a couple hours later I’m laying down a solo or two with her band in some random coffee house/bar deep out in Brooklyn. Vox-Pop was the name I think, and I had a blast. It’s supposed to posted on youtube.com in the next few days, so if I find it, I’ll link to it. Pretty jam-packed weekend, god I love this city.

I’ve got to split for now to go in-kind some door-prizes and munchies for an upcoming event – luckily I’ve got it in my blood from growing up with NCPR…’til next time!