Would you like to pet my turtle?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a video of an all too common occurance on the subway. Some dude whipped out his junk in front of a woman in the middle of crowded train and a passenger video taped the incident. There's no weiner in the video though, just his victim screaming at him. I think the great part about this is the guy she's yelling at looks totally shocked like, "My dick has a mind of it's own. I had no idea it got loose from it's cage!" By her reaction, I think it's safe to say this woman is a true New Yorker. She tells this guy she's going to personally escort him to the police this station. Love it!!! All I can say is this guy is lucky this wasn't me because I would have drop kicked his balls a good foot into his abdoman. My grandpa Harry, may he rest in peace, gave me this advice when I was 8-years-old: "Andy, if a man every tries to grab you or hurt you, you kick him in the balls and run." Thanks grandpa! I will! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIlObKYwUyI&feature=player_embedded

Learn the alphabet by riding the subway

Late night travel on the subway is just ridiculous with all the cuts by the MTA. I went into the M/R station at 36th St in Queens, where an E train pulled up and let me out on the F track in Manhattan. Hurumph!

Ruminations on This Week

Things that occurred this week:

- Credit card and cash actually blew out of my purse and down the street. I managed to recover the card but not the cash.
- Went to the gym and when I got home to shower there was no hot water. The hot water got fixed only to not work again this morning.
- Got on a 5 train downtown that only went as far as Grand Central and let us out on the uptown track; transferred to a 4 train that took nearly 30 minutes to get to Wall Street. I was only slightly late to supervise a TV shoot with one of Tiger Woods' mistresses (for serious).
- Left my house without my wallet and only realized it when I got to the subway and had already swiped my Metro Card. I walked back to my apartment, got my wallet and when I swiped my card again it said "just used." An incredibly nice man offered to swipe me through with his card. Nice people do exist in New York!
- My best friend got bodychecked into a building by a crazy homeless guy.
- I hit on a guy at a bar dressed as Elmo.
- I met Robyn Byrd, queen of late night smutty TV, at a party.

Taking Multi-Tasking to a New Level

Twas my birthday this week and I had me a little party; nothing special, just drinks with friends at a pub. I lost track of drinks after number 5 but I can hold my shit so it was all good. The same could not be said for a guy I saw on the street as I was heading to the subway. It's not uncommon to see someone puking in the streets at 2am on a Saturday night, but this guy was running down Bleecker Street like he was running for his life, phone to his ear and twisting his head to the side to puke midstride. I could only watch in horror as a couple he was heading straight for froze like deer in headlights. I really thought he was going to knock them over and puke all over them but at the last moment he zigged and they zagged and a major catastrophe was avoided. When I finally caught up to him at the end of the block the poor bastard was still puking.

Dear Roaches: Don't Squeeze the Charmin

I'm just going to cut to the chase. I woke up this morning, took a piss, went to grab some toilet paper and a G-d damn giant roach falls from the roll onto the floor. After staring in disbelief at the roach flailing about on its back for a good minute, I manned up, scooped it up with a tissue and flushed it down the toilet. Luckily, I haven't seen any of the roach's family members back for revenge.

I can't make this shit up

Last weekend I get home around 2am after a night out with friends all excited to just put on my jammies and crawl into bed. I put my key into the door to my apartment and what happens? When I go to pull the key out of the lock the whole lock cylinder comes out of the door!!! It just came out in my hand! Like an idiot I put the lock back into the door thinking it will magically just fix itself. Of course, it doesn't. I look at the sticker on my door knob for a 24-hour locksmith and call the number, but that number asks me to call another number. Now, at 2am and a bit tipsy I had no patience for this and no ability to remember or write down this number. Exhausted and so not in the mood for this shit, I call my friend on my phone, which is blinking red indicating "battery death is immenent." I managed to eek out a short and simple message: "Locked out, phone dying, coming over now!". I stayed the night and got up the next morning, hair a hot mess and stinking from cigarettes, and headed to the locksmith.

Now, this locksmith, Danny, put in my deadbolt when I first moved in so I knew he was a nice guy who did good work and he came right over to work on the door. It took him about 30 minutes just to get into the apartment because the lock had actually fallen apart inside the door and little pieces of it jammed the whole thing up. According to him, mine is not the first crappy old lock that has locked someone out in this building, however I do have the distinction of having the only lock to totally come out of the door. My Super walked by my apartment while this whole ordeal is going on and the only thing he can say is, "When you talk to the management company tell them you didn't call me." Well last time I checked all he did was paint, move garbage and vacuum so yeah, NOT a locksmith. This whole thing cost me $425 and I haven't heard a peep from my management company about it yet. Why am I not surprised?

Taxi Drivers Wanted, No English Necessary

If you were to randomly pick 100 cabs in NYC, I would say 90 of those cabbies are foreign born and English is their second language. The other 10 percent is also foreign born but doesn't speak a single fucking word of English. How do these non-English speaking guys get licenses? They don't. They're hacks. They pay licensed drivers for the use of their cabs when they're not on shift.

A few years ago, I got into a cab with friends and asked the driver to take us to a bar downtown. After a few minutes in the cab it was clear the guy didn't speak a single word of English. He started driving towards the East Village, which was the totally wrong direction, so I ask him, "Sir, where are you going?" He mumbles the only phrase I think he knew how to say in English, "Where you go?" I tell him again where we are heading and he turns the cab around and at least starts heading back in the direction we should be going. But, then he makes a few turns and again we're not heading the right way. So, fed up, I ask the guy where he's going? But this time, there's no response and the cabbie is just driving and I have no idea where we are going. I start to yell at him to pull over and let us out but he keeps driving. So I start to scream "Pull over the cab now!" At this point, I'm kind of freaking out. I'm dreaming that we're involved in an elaborate kidnapping plot by Al Qaeda. When the cab comes to a stop at a red light I yell "Everyone out of the cab now! Now!" We bail out and I think I yelled something like "Fucking learn English!" aat the driver. Fully expecting the guy to curse us all out for bailing and not paying, I was shocked that the guy just drove away. It was definitely one of the weirdest and scariest cab rides I've ever had.

The Second Ave Subway: Opening 2000 Never

When my father was just a boy growing up in Borough Park, Brookyln, the Second Ave Subway project began. My dad is just a few years away from retirement now, and I live an avenue over from the Second Ave. subway construction. The MTA has had decades to get this project right and yet I guess it never occured to them that perhaps blasting holes in the middle of the road with dynamite might not be so good for anything - people, business and and homes - on Second Ave. Tennants are actually being made to evacuate their homes and put up in hotels because the blasting has made buildings so unstable. Now I ask, while the idea of a Second Ave. subway sounds amazing, I've lived here for 10 years without one and managed just fine. Is it really necessary to go ahead with the project if it means destroying every business and home on the street along the way? I'm going to say NO! The express bus works just fine.

Chase is a pretty shitty bank...literally

This just cracks me up. Someone left a huge pile of horse poop in the vestibule of the Chase Bank on Second Ave. and 10th St. I'm wondering if this has something to do with people angry with the gentrification of the East Village. Where the bank now stands used to be the famous Second Avenue Deli, which had to close because the landlord jacked up the rent.

I look friendly, even when I'm barfing.

I had the great misfortune to come down with some nasty food poisoning this weekend, which I think may be from a funky steak at Outback (that's what I get for being a New Yorker and eating at a chain restaurant) or the cheap-ass nasty hot dogs at Gray's Papaya. What's worse is I started to feel ill right in the middle of a Broadway show. I somehow made it through the whole show without tossing my cookies, and decided to take the subway home because getting a cab near Times Square on a Saturday night just wasn't going to happen. I get onto the platform when a wave of nausea hits me, and I start to hover next to the garbage can. Right before I'm about to puke a guy comes over to me to ask if he's on the correct side of the tracks. I just tell him yes (which was wrong) and puke as he walks away. Not one damn minute later, I'm hanging onto the garbage can and some other shmuck comes up to me and asks me if this is the uptown side!!! I mean, really people? Was everyone else on the platform so damn scary that your only alternative was to ask the vomitting girl for help? Or, how about looking at the enormous signs all over the subway!!

A Salt and Battery

This morning I was crossing the street (in the crosswalk - with the light!) when a salt truck about 10 feet away from me turned on it's jet-powered salt sprayer and pelted me with rock salt, ruining my clothes. It was a super awesome way to start the day! That was a first for me. I've been splashed by cars driving into puddles, but never have I been a-SALT-ed. Wacka, wacka, wacka! Kill me.

I feel a draft

Yesterday was the No Pants Subway Ride, an annual event organized by an improv comedy troop where people ride the subway in their underwear. I actually think it's a brilliant and hilarious idea, but I have a feeling if I was actually on the subway with pantsless dudes it wouldn't be all that hot and sexy. There's no rule that says you actually have to a) have a good body or b) wear clean underwear to participate.

When the shit goes down, you better be runnin'

Last night a woman was shot in the neck just around the corner from my apartment by her angry ex-boyfriend. It happened around 11:30pm. Luckily, I wasn't anywhere near here at that time. I'll remind everyone, I live in a "fancy" part of town. Also, the only reason I knew this even happened was because I read it on Gothamist.