Wit and Wisdom of New Yorkers, Continued: Snippets from Conversations 'Overheard' in Manhattan, Had I Been Residing There Today

Had I somehow resided in New York City, New York, ever since 1986, I feel sure today that I would have overheard the following 21st Century comments uttered by one New Yorker to another within earshot of me:

---"I think every New Yorker devotes at least an hour of his time each week to trying to identify the individual from his current life who exhibits the most alarming C.I., or criminal intent, toward himself. It's a weekly puzzle that every New Yorker faces---a bit like a 'Who Would Do It?' mystery novel in which a heroic figure in that novel attempts to solve an expected homicide case in which he would have himself been the murder victim here in New York."

---"This is the only city I've ever lived in where I don't need an alarm clock to wake me up in the morning. The honks from motor vehicles outside on the street below my apartment unit are my daily wake-up service."

---"What New York City desperately needs is a Non-Mafia-Italian-Americans Appreciation Day. It would be one day of every year that exlusively honors all of the law-abiding Italian-Americans of New York who have no ties to the Mafia. Then when a total of 100 Italian-Americans show up for a parade honoring non-Mafia Italian Americans of New York that day, at least it will be a step in the right direction. And I, for one, plan to salute those 100 commendable Italian-American New Yorkers by asking each of them for their autograph."

--"Whenever I'm out late at night in New York, I start to worry about all the New Yorkers who are obsessed with vampire movies. What do those New Yorkers turn into after midnight? Maybe I should be wearing special bite-proof clothes after midnight in this city, to thwart the would-be vampires here."

---"It used to be that all I heard about was the Black Power movement. Now, all I hear about is the Solar Power movement. I feel as if I should be worshipping a Sun God, but so far no church here is asking me to pray to any Sun God. I do notice that I'm wearing sunglasses more often these days when I go to Yankees games. Too much Solar Power can be blinding."

----"I wish I could find a Comeback-Line Coach, assuming I had the money to pay the $100 an hour that he'd charge me. This is the only city I've ever lived in where I need a good come-back line every day of my life. I cannot go through one day here without some New Yorker verbalizing a major insult to me."

--"It's probably just as well that the Yankees are not using Solar Powered baseball bats in their games. I doubt the National Baseball League would permit that."

---"Do you know what the odds are that I'll go deaf here in New York City from being subjected to unwanted noise pollution that I did not generate myself? I need that statistic to guide me whenever I experience popping in my right ear. And tonight is yet another night here in New York in which my right ear is popping ferociously."

---"I find it rather eerie to be hearing so much about Solar Power these days in New York. It sounds like something from ancient Egypt. Weren't they the last ones to worship a Sun God, or am I mistaken?"

---"Everytime I return to New York from London, I wonder how a double-decker bus would do over here. But what is the point of a double-decker bus, anyway? Is it a British strategy for raising their number of miles per gallon, on a per-passenger basis?"

---"My 8-year-old daughter had a cute comment about Fifth Avenue the other day. 'Fifth Avenue', she declared, 'is not just a yummy candy bar! It's also a street that makes me hungry for a candy bar!' Now that's 8-year-old wit for you!"

--"I hate to admit it, but the ancient Egyptians may have had the right idea. The Sun God was their focal point when it came to worship."

---"I find it troubling that you say the ancient Egyptians had the right idea in worshipping the Sun God. Aren't you forgetting that the ancient Egyptians also worshipped slavery?"

--"I forget, is this is a Grid System city or not? D.C. is Grid System; here in New York, though, the Grid System might put too much logic into the chaos here for anyone to actually go for a Grid System in referring to our city's streets. New Yorkers thrive on chaos, from what I've observed."

--"I still find it tragically ironic that Superman was the most powerful man on earth, and then he suddenly turned into the most paralyzed man on earth and died young. What was the name of that actor, anyway? He was like a poster boy for the ultra-powerful; then he became the poster boy for the powerless. I can almost see those phrases on the jacket of the best-selling biography that someone is going to write about him, if only I can remember his name. It was easier when he was just called Superman, but when he died, he died with two names, a first name and a last name, and that's more difficult to recall. Not Clark Kent; he didn't die as Clark Kent. I hope that the name they used on his tombstone identifies him all three ways, for those of us who cannot recall his real-life name as a human being. Superman deserves top billing on his tombstone; then the other stuff could be way below that on the tombstone."

---"If Superman is buried in New York City, and I'm not saying that he is, would there be any krypton in his casket, if someone were to dig it up?"

---"Maybe there should be a special Life Insurance policy for persons who die from Global Warming Effect-related catastrophes."

---"I'm still shocked that the City of New York hasn't commissioned a special statue honoring Superman and Batman as the two finest residents in all of New York City's history. But there are those who say that Gotham City was not New York City, so there's room for debate on that."

---"I thought of applying for a professorship in the Center for the Study of Addictions at Columbia University. However, it suddenly dawned on me that if I studied addictions on a year-round basis, I would probably develop an addiction of my own from over-exposure to that topic. The last thing I need is cocaine-snorting in my life. My nose was definitely NOT designed for cocaine-snorting."

---"With all the hysteria about bed bugs here, I'm surprised that Macy's still lets you try fashionwear on before you purchase it. If I had bedbugs on me, and I decide not to buy the shirt I'd just tried on, I'd be inflicting a plague on someone else."

---"It's too bad that New York City doesn't have its own local board of censors when it comes to rating movies that are shown here. Generally speaking, anything that's got lot of flesh and violence in it would be PG-rated in New York. That's parental guidance suggested. The parents of New York would be expected to sit in the movie theater with their children and instruct them to look away from the screen whenever anything of interest comes up."

---"I've always wanted to dine at the United Nations Cafeteria here in New York. But first I have to make sure the UN Cafeteria is open to the general public. I love the idea of eating Peruvian chicken pie for my entree, followed by Mango pudding from India for dessert."

---"The most surprising thing about New York is that we don't have more statues of our residents on display here. We have more egomaniacs per capita than any city in the world. So you'd expect them all to bequeath money in their will for a posthumous public statue in their honor. Which reminds me. Where do you expect the posthumous public statue honoring Donald Trump will be situated?"

----"One of my friends here has a hobby of memorizing every year in which no New York athletic squad in any sport won the national championship. Each of those years he likes to cite as proof that New York is on the decline. I tell my friend that he's too pessimistic. Wouldn't it be better if he had a hobby of memorizing every year in which at least one New York athletic squad DOES win the national championship?"

---"I need to find a list of New York City's has-beens. They are the ones I plan to invite to my next dinner party. I figure they'll be a lot more grateful as party guests than the ones who are currently VIPs. I love hearing my party guests say to me, 'Thanks for remembering me, even though everyone else in New York has consigned me to oblivion status. Whenever I go on an outing in Manhattan these days, I'll hear comments like, "There goes yet another walking asterisk in our city. In fact, I can't even recall his name, that's how insignificant he is these days."'"

---"New Yorkers are determined to never be too sentimental with anyone. I just left a tanning salon where the hostess asked me what the point of my getting a tan would be, given my age and current physique?"

---"I prefer the Hollywood movies shot in New York, since they make a statement to the entire world about America being opposed to urban sprawl."

--"Don't ever ask your primary-care physician in New York City to predict your expected medical longevity. All the doctors here tend to be pessimistic, so they significantly demoralize you with their reply."

---"Living in New York City is like Thanksgiving on a year-round basis. Wherever I go in New York, I'm thinking to myself, 'I'm so grateful I am not like her' or 'I'm so grateful I'm not married to him.'"

---"Everyone thinks it's romantic to kiss on an elevator if the two of you are alone. But then the elevator suddenly makes a stop and your kiss gets interrupted by a scowling face. It's worse than coitus interruptus!"

---"My niece chose her apartment in Manhattan based on a study she did of all the air pollutants being released into the air within one-fourth mile of that apartment complex. It took her forever to get that info from the EPA, but she told me she's reasonably satisfied with the air pollutants being released in her particular neighborhood. She still worries she's going to get lung cancer, though. So I told her to stop smoking cigarettes."

--"My broker is very excited about the Global Warming Effect, since he tells me that everyone is thinking Solar these days. That's the best possible advertising for solar power, my broker says, since the subject is always in the back of your mind. My broker also says I can make millions if I put all my money in corporations doing solar power research and development."

--"I'm surprised we don't have a Solar Avenue, as big as the sun news has gotten lately. I can't go through a week without reading about the latest global disaster news on the Global Warming Effect. Come to think of it, maybe we should have Global Warming Boulevard, just to keep New Yorkers honest. They'll get so sick of that name that maybe they'll come up with new technology to restore the ozone layer and save this planet."

---"I used to think of the sun as my leading source of vitamin D. Now I think of the sun as my leading source of impending disaster."

---"I envy the English people during the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Everyone admires their grass courts. But if you asked tennis fans to tell you the name of the court surface used for the U.S. Open at Flushing Meadows, most people wouldn't know. All they'd say is 'non-descript hard court,' which proves once again that New York is out-done by London."

---"So tell me, who's your favorite skyscraper architect?"

--"My favorite elevators are the express elevators that carry me to the top floor without any interruptions."

---"Isn't it ironic that I have lived in New York City all my life, yet I could not tell you the name of the man who invented the elevator. To me, this is the one city in the entire world where you'd expect to find an outdoor statue praising the inventor of the elevator. But our Mayor has apparently overlooked that major contributor to New Yorkers' quality of life."

---"The elevator ride is so central to our New York experience that I fully expect to read a 'New York Post' account this year about the first-ever wedding that was conducted inside an elevator during an elevator ride. The presiding clergyman could insist that the elevator travel both upward and downward during that wedding, in order to underscore the ups and downs that that young couple will be having in their married life."

---"So tell me, what's the job title for the individual who conducts the elevator during elevator rides? I want to show respect for him, and I don't think that it would sound refined for me to address him as 'Hey, Porter'."

---"My relatives in Ohio all assume that I'm an expert on cheesecake, since every cheesecake they ever hear about has the name New York attached to it. I tell them that isn't true. I would flunk a cheesecake literacy test, in fact. I frankly don't know what distinguishes the New York cheesecake from other types of cheesecake. It sounds like a good question for answers.com. Or is that questions.com?"

---"No, brushing up against someone by accident is not a crime. If that were the case, everyone in New York City would be in prison."

--"The sort of museum that New York City needs the most is a New York City Environmental History museum. That museum would vividly depict historic moments of environmental disaster in New York's past. I'm sure our tourists would be intrigued by it."

---"My cousin got into a fistfight merely because he accidentally mispronounced the name of the New York Knickerbockers basketball team.
The guy he was talking with at time accused my cousin of a racial slur and hate crime, and punched my cousin in the eye."

---"Life in a burrough is a bit like being a chipmunk. Chipmunks have a way of burrowing underground. Or is that the prairie dog? Maybe we New Yorkers are all prairie dogs at heart. We have a strong burrow identity, so to speak. And myself, I'm a bit of a burrough snob. I feel that my burrough is better than your burrough, regardless of which burrough you claim as your own."

---"I get disgusted when I go to a store here and the clerk accuses me of sexually harassing them because I smiled at the store clerk while she rang my transaction up. She said that New Yorkers never smile at store clerks unless New Yorkers have an illicit motive toward that store clerk. She also told me I was very lucky she didn't file criminal charges against me through the New York City Police Department."

---"The last time I asked a restaurant manager in New York for the recipe to a dish of hers I particlarly liked, she asked me if I was trying to ruin her business? Was I a spy for a competitor of hers, she demanded to know."

---"I find it astounding that New Yorkers ever trust each other enough to go out on a date together, much less to cross the altar together at a wedding ceremony. To trust a fellow New Yorker who's a mere acquaintance is to invite comments from your friends and family that you dwell in a state of delusion."

---"The last time I had a flat tire in New York City and tried to get help from strangers driving past me on the roadway, all I got was loud shouting from passing motorists that 'you're a fool if you think I'd fall for your flat-tire scam! So scram, or I'll call the cops on you!'"

---"The last guy I dated told me during a date that I reminded him of the protagonist Carrie from 'Sex in the City'. When I asked him why he compares me to Carrie, he replied that 'it's obvious that you and Carrie both like to sleep around quite a bit.' Then he had the nerve to ask me which type of mattress I like the best, from all the beds of New York City's eligible bachelors that I've obviously slept on?"

--"To me, the biggest mistake that Carrie made as a newspaper columnist in New York is that she failed to augment her income through a part-time career as a consultant to a variety of mattress-sales businesses. Carrie knows all the mattresses of New York backward and forward, based on what I've seen of her TV series 'Sex and the City'. She is probably the leading expert on beds and mattresses in all of New York!"

---"So tell me, did Carrie in her 'Sex and the City' TV series ever get to ride a float at a Macy's parade? What I also need to know is whether Carrie was lying or sitting on a bed on top of her float."

---"There are days when I recall the TV series 'Sex and the City,' and I think of that entire series as having been ghost-authored by Erica Jong. You will notice that the word 'love' in that series is only used to refer to something you make in bed with help from another person."

---"To me, the most profound statement that Erica Jong ever made is that it helps if you like the man whose penis you are sucking on. I find myself wondering, though, what percentage of the men whose penises she sucked on were men whom Erica did NOT, in fact, like as human beings? No doubt we'll get the answer to that question in Erica Jong's published memoirs."

--"My friend is urging me to pursue strategic dating in New York, as he puts it. He tells me I need to date a Madison Avenue advertising executive. My friend tells me that it would all rub off on me, since 'you obviously need to work on your public-image problem,' as my friend put it. 'if you date an advertising executive, you'll improve your PR in a matter of days!'"

---"You have told me you question whether New York City's finest are police officers. So which occupational group would it be? Our firefighters, our playwrights, or what?"

---"I question the wisdom of my friend's EEOC employment-discrimination complaint alleging that he was denied a job in a skyscraper office building because he experiences fear of heights. My friend claims that's his disability. My friend cannot explain, though, how a skyscraper-based employer can be expected to accommodate his cited disability. Does my friend expect that coompany to burrow into the ground and create a special new basement office with one desk in it just for his benefit?"

---"The big advantage my friend cites to her underground home is that it's much tougher for burglars to break in. The burglars don't even know that her home exists."

---"My friend claims to have the quietest home in all of New York. I asked him what his secret is, and he told me he insisted that his home be built entirely underground. None of the honks from above ever get heard in my friend's home, he tells me. I told my friend he's very naive. What about when the City of New York orders underground drilling on a sewer line? Won't his ears feel thoroughly assaulted by that street-improvement project?"

---"It doesn't surprise me when you say that New Yorkers are more goose-like than the people of any other city in the world. New Yorkers honk their horns more often, and louder, than the residents of any other city on this planet. If there were a New York Goose Appreciation Day, probably half the residents here would show up for that civic event."

---"Have you ever noticed that romantic relationships in New York City have a way of ending in the middle of the month, which gives each of them time to find a new roommate."

---"My friend is so keen on subways that he recorded the clanking sound of our city's subway system and actually listens to that as background music inside his apartment!"

--"Whenever I visit Central Park, I think of the Hollywood movie that gave Jane Fonda her first big break. Wasn't it 'Barefoot in the Park' that made Jane Fonda famous, or am I mistaken?"

---"I'm always grateful for Hollywood movies that highlight northeastern places other than New York. To me, the movie 'Mystic Pizza' was exciting primarily because it reminded me to visit Mystic, Connecticut, during a three-day weekend. I did, and I ate pizza in Mystic that entire weekend. I came back to New York 15 pounds heavier!"

---"My cousin is so naive that she told me she had always assumed that Pepperidge Farm cookies were all made from scratch on a picturesque farm in rural Connecticut!"

---"People who see me walking outdoors in New York always assume that I'm auto-erogenous. They see me patting my back pocket of my slacks about 10 times per minute, and they think I'm getting obscene with myself. Actually, all I'm doing is checking to make sure that my very large Italian-designed wallet is still there."

---"I never trust a man I see wearing gloves in New York City. Isn't it obvious he is trying to avoid having his fingerprint traced by NYPD?"

---"I chose my career based on research I pursued to identify which occupations attract the lowest percentage of persons who consume tobacco products. So now I'm in nursing school, and I'll probably spend the rest of my life taking care of hospital patients who contracted cancer from smoking cigarettes or cigars."

---"The first thing I look at when I meet a prospective dating partner in New York is to inspect his fingernails. If he smokes cigarettes, his fingernails will tell me everything I need to know. I cannot possibly ever date a smoker---not in the 21st Century period of my life!"

---"So tell me, what percentage of the state legislators in Albany maintain a primary residence in New York City?"

---"Do you sometimes wish that our Governor would give us all a nice Roosevelt-style Fireside Chat on the radio?"

---"When I found out she works in the Garment District, I decided not to ask her which type of garment she specializes in. Depending on her answer, it could have put me in a very akward position during our first date. I felt it would be a huge mistake for me to go all the way with her on our very first date. So I plan to ask her the type of garment she specializes in during our third date, if it gets that far."

---"She's so chauvinistic about New York that she refers to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota as a nice tribute to a Governor of New York, Franklin Roosevelt."

---"Your business needs a brain trust if you want to survive the 21st Century. Otherwise, I dread the day I'll be reading about you in the bankruptcy-news section of the newspaper."

---"The only new position of employment that the 'New York Post' has created this year is a full-time Bankruptcy-News Beat reporting position. The reporter they hired for that new beat at the 'Post' is obviously a flunkie, from what I've seen of his stories so far."

---"If there were a new company called Chipotle, I'd love to buy stock in it. 'Chipotle' is a Mantra for millions of Americans."

---"I make a point of having at least one friend at all times who's a stock-market analyst. When I'm having a problem with my investments, I call my stock-market analyst friend and get free advice on how to protect my assets."

---"I wonder what percentage of the persons employed by foreign embassies here in New York are actually spies for that foreign government. I get a creepy feeling when I think about it."

---"I can never understand why none of the foreign embasses here in New York host parties to honor the most honorable of us New Yorkers who have ancestry from that foreign country. I would love to be honored by the British Embassy and the German embassy at a party of that type. But I never make it on their party lists, for some reason."

---"You worry about spies for foreign governments operating here in New York. Myself, I worry about spies for rival companies who try to steal company secrets of mine. All of my competitors are on my enemies list, and for good reason."

---"New Yorkers tend to be more thorough about their enemies lists. They not only compile enemies lists on a year-round basis. They also compile potential-enemies lists on a year-round basis. That way, they won't get caught overlooking anyone."

---"I find it ironic that two of the three most recent U.S. Presidents prefer Harlem over any other burrough of New York. Am I overlooking something about Harlem's charms that especially appealed to Clinton and Obama?"

---"My attorney advised me not to learn the Heimlich technique, so I'll always have the 'I don't know' excuse if a guest of mine inside my home begins to choke on his food."

---"My attorney is so thorough that he advised me not to learn how to perform CPR. This way, no New Yorker can sue me for negligence if I fail to perform CPR on a complete stranger I see lying unconscious outdoors in New York."

---"I chose my attorney partly because I wanted someone who'd look intimidating to a witness on the witness stand, should my situation ever end up in a courtroom."

--"I'm like a lot of New Yorkers. I am neutral toward the Mafia. My policy is that unless a Mafia thug is pointing a gun at me, I will maintain a 'mum's the word' policy toward all things Mafia in our city. In fact, my attorney advises me to never report any crimes I observe in New York, since many of those crimes I observe are organized-crime related, my attorney tells me. If I report a crime of that type to NYPD, this would definitely offend the Mafia. And Mafia who get offended know how to retaliate. My personal finances would suffer for decades of punishment of myself because of one total report I make to NYPD."

--"The only thing that protects me as a New Yorker is that everyone knows I am poverty-stricken. They have no incentive for breaking into my apartment unit. All they'd get out of it would be things I bought at a Goodwill store for $10 or less."

---"I have never met anyone who directly tells me that he has ties to the Mafia. Do you think the criminal element stay away from me, and that's why I've been so lucky?"

---"I always dread it when I'm at a cocktail party in Manhattan and the gentleman I'm speaking with wants to know whether I support legalization of marijuana. If I tell him no but I'm polite about it, he then asks me if I would like to smoke a reefer with him? He explains that he happens to have a nice baggie full of marijuana inside his jacket that night, so it would be very easy for the two of us to light up a joint together, he says. Then I have to figure out what to say to all that without offending him. Maybe I should write to an expert on manners to ask her for advice on how to say no to a marijuana invitation without offending anybody."

---"I dread rooftop parties in Manhattan. When I glance around at the other party guests at those outdoor parties, I am always shocked to see how many of the party guests will stand one inch from the edge of that rooftop and gaze downward for seconds on end. Another tipoff is the many guests at those rooftop parties who order a drink with the word suicide in the name of that drink."

---"I think everyone who rents in Manhattan is secretly hoping they will win a Publishers Clearinghouse contest and finally have the money to buy their own home. But their chances of their ever winning that contest are one in a billion."

---"Whenever I host a social party in New York, I first hire a private detective to dig up dirt on each of the persons I plan to invite to my party. If my private detective comes up with lots of dirt on any of the proposed party guests, I immediately remove their name from my party list. There's only so much scandal I can handle in my life."

---"So when was the last time you concluded a dining experience inside a restaurant in Manhattan by commenting to a friend of yours, 'I've just added 10 years to my longevity!'"

---"I'm a sauces freak. I compile lists of each restaurant in New York that offers the best alfredo sauce, the best homemade tartar sauce, the best marinara sauce, the best homemade ranch dressing, etc. Then when I'm in the mood for my all-time favorite tartar sauce place, I will invite my friends to join me for a meal there. The rest is mere background, to me. My dining experiences are always centered on the sauces."

---"What I always find odd about dining out in New York is that it starts out like love at first sight for my waitress or waiter, when they visit my dining table the first time. Then after I've left my tip and I glance back at the waitress or waiter as I'm walking out, I suddenly notice that the look of love has vanished from their facial expression. It's always a shock to me to see that dramatic change in their facial expression and demeanor."

---"I get the impression that none of the waiters of New York believe in reincarnation. All of them will urge me to order a very rich dessert after my meal. Then the waiter invariably adds, 'You only live once, so why not live it up while you can?' When I then good-naturedly ask my waiter if he is trying to give me a heart attack, he will reply, 'But at least you'll have a blissful smile on your face as you are carried by ambulance crews to the hospital!"

----"My biggest humiliation as a New Yorker occurred the day when I honked loudly and repeatedly at the motorist in front of me, only to suddenly notice that the driver in front of me was my boss from my workplace! I immediately stopped honking, but my boss was shooting the bird at me from his motor vehicle! My only hope is if he didn't see that it was me!"

---"When it comes to ordering pizza, I can never decide whether to do it Sicilian-style, Chicago-style, or New York-style. Or is there some other style that I've overlooked? There are a lot of days when I'm looking for option four."

----"You seem to spend a lot of your life at rooftop parties. Myself, the only parties I ever get invited to are basement parties. So what does that say about me, do you think?"

---"I can never decide whether to speak up and politely tell the young man standing in front of me that his underwear is showing. He might thank me for sparing him from a major embarrassment. But he might also accuse me of trying to cramp his style as a bachelor. I get the impression that a lot of single guys in New York show off their underwear in public to let the ladies of New York know that those single guys are eager for a date."

---"Can you imagine what your first date would be like, if you actually agreed to go out with one of these single guys who show off their underwear in public? He'd be boasting to you inside a hamburger joint that his keen sense of underwear fashion is the secret to his success in his romantic life. You would then be asking him how many other single ladies had fallen for him based on his fashionable underwear. He'd then reply with a triumphant smile that the answer would be in the hundreds. You'd then ask him what he generally talks about on his second dates with ladies, once the topic of underwear had been covered very thoroughly on the first date. Then he would suddenly have a panicky look on his face, as if you had just discovered his Achilles heel."

---"I'm probably better at seeing THROUGH the New Yorkers I meet than at seeing INTO them. It's difficult to be empathetic toward someone when all I'm hearing inside my head is 'He's a jerk, and you know it!'"

---"I try to live a life with as few 911 calls as possible. That's primarily because I don't trust the EMS crews and police here in New York. How can I be completely sure they're not on the take?"

---"Whenever I buy a product from Italy, such as cheese, that appears to be to be very innocent and wholesome, I see it as my way of helping to fight the Mafia. As a consumer I'm promoting reputable businesses in Italy, and this helps to reduce the role of the Mafia in the Italian economy. I'm assuming, at least, that you won't find any Mafia Dons inside the cheese factories of Italy."

---"So what would you say to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, if you happened to attend a party and the hostess introduced you to him?"

---"As a New Yorker, I'm feeling lots of social pressure to make sure that everything in New York makes a nice statement on behalf of the United States. We are the host city for the UN, and UN delegates from all over the world are judging our entire country based on what our city offers. Maybe we need a special public-education campaign that urges our criminal element to refrain from mugging anyone who looks like they might be employed by the United Nations."

---"I'm always grateful for the immigrants from foreign countries who live here in New York. For every complaint I hear about life here in New York, those immigrants come up with 10 or 20 complaints about what their life was like in the foreign country they fled from. It keeps me appreciative of New York, thanks to those very grateful newcomers here."

---"You call me a nobody. I, however, refer to myself as a VIP who has not yet been discovered as a VIP. And the fact that no one but myself has identified me as a Very Important Person, is an indictment of how shallow and stupid the rest of this city is!"

---"To me, the Statue of Liberty makes the most ironic public statement in our entire city. I feel like a year-round slave here in New York, since I never have any money left over after I've paid my monthly rent on my efficiency apartment unit. I agree with her statement about my being 'tired,' but that is the only point I agree with her on. I have to also note, though, that I'm a native of this country, so her invitation to the 'tired' of the world to emigrate here would not even be applicable for me."

---"What I like the most about New York City is that because of the thousands of medical specialists we have here, I have lots of opportunities for getting second opinions and third opinions from new medical doctors I consult after I don't agree with the diagnosis from the first doctor I tried."

---"I am trying to convince my teenage son of the value of studying French. So I plan to take him to the United Nations and introduce my son to a translator for the State Department who speaks fluent French. I plan to then tell my son that if he throws his heart into his French studies, he might someday land a job with the State Department."

---"Maybe what we need in New York is a special new outdoor monument that declares, 'United States at War' or 'United States at Peace', depending on what the current situation is like. If we're at war, the 'United States at War' display would be lit up on a year-round basis. If we're at peace, the 'United States at Peace' message would be lit up on a year-round basis."

---"New Yorkers are the best argument I've ever seen for the value of court-ordered capital punishment for attempted homicide. If we had a new state law of that type here in New York, half of our city's thousands of violent thugs would vanish and turn into court-ordered tombstones."

---"Does living in Manhattan make you at all curious about what the Old Amsterdam is like?"

---"My attorney assures me that the Freedom of Non-Association clause that's implicitly contained in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution fully protects me. I'm free to NOT associate with anyone in New York who triggers a rejection or alienation from myself. My party invitation lists are tiny, it's true, but at least I trust all the people I invite who attend my parties. I never have to hire a private detective to frisk my party guests as they enter my apartment."

---"Living here in New York always prompts me to reflect on how to identify the point beyond which I might criticize a fellow New Yorker for being materialistic."

---"I'm hosting a trendy party, and I need to know the name of a Solar Baron who lives in New York. He'll be a big hit at my party, since everyone wants to make friends with Solar-Power billionaires these days."

---"When you prepare to attend a party in New York, you always have to bring at least 50 business cards with you. That's primarily what our party scene here is about: Everyone trades business cards with one another, in the hope that some other invited guest at that party will help them in their career pursuits."

---"As a party host in New York, I have a zero-tolerance policy toward party crashers. It could be the Queen of England at my front door, but if she isn't on my party invitation list, I will call the cops on her and have her arrested."

---"I find it crazy how few New Yorkers tell me they want to visit the foreign country that inspired New York's name. I admit to being ignorant about England myself. If York or Old York is a county or whatever they call it in England, I have no idea what that county's capital city would be."


---"If you polled New Yorkers to ask them whether they are more concerned about the future of Israel or the future of New York City, eight of ten would say that Israel's future is more important to them than New York City's future. The standard reply would offer this explanation: 'If New York City goes down the tubes, I can always move into a nice suburb and center my life on that suburb of New York. It doesn't really matter to me whether New York City proper is going to hell, so long as the commuter train into Manhattan is still working and I still have my job there.'"

---"Maybe there should be a special landmark in Central Park that bears the name of each of the thousands of persons who have been mugging victims in Central Park. That would provide a helpful warning to everyone that you should NEVER let your guard down in Central Park!"

---"I worry about the dead-end streets of New York. The posted signs announcing them as dead-end streets could have a very depressing effect on our many residents who have been diagnosed as terminally ill. Isn't there some way the City of New York could post alternative signs on our dead-end streets that are cheerfully worded to avoid adding stress to the lives of our city's many terminally ill residents? Personally, I like the idea of 'Alternative Street Advised' sign that re-directs our motorists to streets that won't suddenly die on them."

---"So which internal medicine specialist do you recommend when you have an urgent need for a second opinion?"

---"I must have a thing for the desert. I have been addicted to Camel-brand cigarettes ever since I turned 17. Maybe if I made a special trip to the Saraha desert, and I got stranded there without water, I'd lose my appetite for Camel cigarettes."

---"I'm suspicious of any New Yorker who has never made an appearance in the Macy's Day Parade."

---"The only New Yorkers I trust are the ones who have been in the Macy's Day Parade."

---"I'm surprised the State Fair of New York doesn't feature a Biggest Apple of the year award to the farmer or 4-H Club member producing the Biggest Apple in our entire state. Then the Mayor of New York would be expected to stand next to that farmer in a nice smiley photograph promoting our own beloved New York."

---"I've never understood why the gangsters of Chicago are more famous than the gangsters of New York. Everyone remembers Al Capone and Chicagoland, but the most famous gangsters from New York are long forgotten by most Americans. Maybe that's one category in which Chicago has outdone New York. I don't know if it's grounds for envy, though."

---"Do you think there should be a special new museum here on the History of Deficit Spending in the USA? Maybe a museum like that would wake us all up."

---"Personally, I find it perverse that there are best-selling Italian cookbooks these days that promote the favorite dishes of famous American Mafia men. Why should we assume that these Mafia dons are experts on Italian cooking? It's not as if any of them ever won any awards in that field. The only sauce they'd know about would be marinara sauce, since it's the closest the Italians have come to what human blood looks like."

---"Have you ever thought of attending a Mayoral Press Conference? It's possible Mayor Bloomberg would invite members of the general public to pose a question or two after the 'New York Post' and 'Newsday' reporters had had their turn."

----"One word you will never find in the New Yorker's vocabulary is 'incorruptible.' Absolutely NO ONE in New York City is incorruptible. In fact, the ONLY context in which you might ever verbalize the word 'incorruptible' here would be to candidly declare that 'The word "incorruptible" is completely inapplicable to New York life. Everyone in New York is either on the take or potentially on the take. And that includes our city's meter maids."

---"If I were a Christian in New York, I would probably request a 'Going to Heaven' pledge from a religion that doesn't require a lot of good deeds from me. There is so much misanthropy going on here that it's hard to feel philanthropic. Why should I waste my money on New Yorkers who if I fell unconscious, would rush to steal my wallet from me as I lay on the ground. In lieu of calling 911 to save my life, those New York no-goods would gleefully rush to tell their friends that I had obviously meant to include them in my will, since my dropping dead within inches of them was proof of my unconscious desire to befriend them."

---"We all hear about Born-Again expeiences. But what about the Dying-Again Experiences? To live in New York City is to face constant challenges to the premise that you can only die once. In my own life here in Manhattan, I would estimate that I have died at least 50 times. My most recent death here occurred when I went homeless for two weeks because I couldn't afford to my $1,000 rent on my apartment unit."

---"After I moved into my loft apartment, I had to install 10 ladders to actually get around inside my apartment unit. My biggest fear is that I may fall to the floor while climbing the ladder inside my loft apartment. I have accident insurance, but I don't believe that type of accident would be covered."

---"Sometimes when I lie in bed in my loft apartment, I am haunted by the factory workers that must have been in that same building before it was converted into a loft-apartments condominium. I can almost hear them grunting in pain at 2 a.m. as they stood grimly at their assembly line."

---"Everyone expects me to be much more successful in my career as an artist, now that I've moved into a loft apartment. 'So when's your first exhibit going to be?', everyone is asking me these days."

---"It is possible to be an artist in New York without living in a loft apartment."

---"I never say 'yes' to the single men who ask me to join them in their loft apartment for a drink. I know that if anything develops from the visit, I'm at risk of falling out of his dangling bed and plunging to the floor like a fallen Spider Man star!"

---"I may live in a loft in Manhattan, but there is nothing lofty about my perch. I sometimes feel like a Japanese Air Force pilot whose plane has just been shot down during World War II. He is desperately trying to guide his doomed plane toward an American warship for a kamikazi attack. But this is all nonsense, since I'm not Japanese in ancestry. Why would I want to attack an American warship when my own plane plunges to the ground? I resent the precariousness of my own position, but I shouldn't blame American society for subjecting me to the friendly fire that downed my plane."

---"I can never understand why anyone with a fear of heights would move to New York. There are plenty of other cities where you don't have to travel up a skyscraper."

---"My boss doesn't believe in the concept of leisuretime. He says that 8 hours of my day should be devoted to what I do while on the clock, and the remaining 16 hours of my day should be devoted to career-related homework assignments. If this were the Christmas season, I might nominate my boss for Scrooge of the Year Awards. But I am not even sure that he'd win. There are so many bosses in New York who are more ruthless and mean than my boss is."

---"Never agree to any job situation in which your work supervisor is in the process of getting a divorce. Every moment in which he is feeling rage toward his former wife, he will lash out at you instead!"

---"I would love to travel more on weekends, but my big fear is that if I leave my locked apartment unattended, some New Yorker will interpret that as my inviting them to break into my home and rob me blind. If they get caught at it, they will then claim in a court of law in Manhattan that my 'welcome' mat in front of my locked front door had specifically conveyed the message that they were welcome to take anything from me that I myself was not using that particular weekend."

---"The only way I can explain the high theft rate in New York is to theorize that 50 percent of New Yorkers have extensive daily fantasies about living in a commune where all the property is communally owned. No individual owns anything. This is the fantasy that guides at least 50 percent of New Yorkers these days as they attempt to justify their latest act of defying the 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' commandment in the Bible."

---"If the story of my life were a float in a Macy's Day Parade, I can't decide what the theme for it all would be. Would my theme be 'Why Hasn't My Talent Been Discovered Yet?' or would my theme be, 'Here's Your Chance to Meet New York's Finest Undiscovered Talent'? I am leaning toward the latter, since it sounds more confident and perky."

----"Everyone says it takes chutzpah to survive in New York. But you should keep in mind that if you show too much nerve with your fellow New Yorkers, they might punch you in the nose. You're a guy, so you are more likely to get punched in the nose if you offend someone here. Maybe the women of New York are safer when they make brash comments. I've never seen a woman in New York getting punched in the nose because she make a bold comment to a complete stranger."

----"I have always assumed there would be a public statue erected that honors Barbra Streisand as New York's most famous Jewish lady. But probably 90 percent of the Jewish community here would try to veto that proposed public statue for her. 'If only Barbra had been less abrasive and more tactful, then I could have considered supporting this cause,' as one Jewish New Yorker might put it. "However, I suffered a lot of emotional duress because of Barbra's antics and severity. Because of her, all of America equated Jewish women with the B-word, and I won't even repeat that B-word since I take pride in not being nasty or mean myself."

---"I used to think of Niagara Falls as my leading definer of the word 'pristine'. These days, though, I am at a complete loss to say where the virgin territory of New York State can be found."

---"My wife has solved thousands of New York Times crossword puzzles in the last several decades. But whenever my wife faces a real-life puzzle or real-life mystery, she is completely baffled and bewildered."

---"You can't have a set time for anything in New York. If you have a set time for jogging, some evil stalker with bonoculars will be waiting for you, and he'll regard your punctuality as an invitation for him to prey on you."

---"What is the point of your spending $5,000 on this king-size luxury bed, when we all know this is the City That Never Sleeps! Beds are completely useless to New Yorkers! We do everything wide awake, either standing up or sitting! The prone position is a complete impossibility in this city, and you and I both know it!"

--"The salespersons I feel the greatest sympathy for are the ones trying to persuade New Yorkers to buy a bed. Why would any true New Yorker want a bed in The City That Never Sleeps? Beds are the antithesis of what New Yorkers are all about. We're all erect at all times, alert at all times, and talking at all times!"

---"Your claim that New Yorkers aren't supersititious is easily refuted. Notice in this elevator we're riding today that there's a button for a 14th Floor and a 12th Floor, but no floor in between! The architects and engineers of New York will never admit that they provided for a 13th floor in the skyscrapers they designed or built!"

---"My 10-year-old son gets teased mercilessly for his last name of Gambino. When Eric came in second place in a race at his elementary school, the kid who beat Eric in that race shouted at Eric, 'So how do you plan to avenge this humiliation I inflicted on you? Do you plan to send a Mafia hit man my way?' Eric has had to explain to all of his classmates that he is no relation to the Gambinos who had Mafia ties. But none of his classmates believe him!"

---"I admire your courage in keeping the surname you were born with. There must be many New Yorkers who would change their last name if they were born with the last name of Bambino!"

---"The elevators here that challenge me the most are the ones that identify floors using Roman numerals. I am doing fine until I get to Floor IX. That's the ninth floor in standard English, but when I see the button for "IX" light up, it always freaks me out and I get all confused. I hated studying Latin back in my childhood, and the "IX" always reminds me of Latin tests I flunked!"

--"Whenever I think I've come up with a really creative three-day-weekend-getaway scheme that no one else has tried, I get in my car to drive to that obscure destination in a tiny village in Maine, only to find that it's bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way, with 100 other New Yorkers having the exact same idea on how to get away from all other New Yorkers for the weekend! We might as well be one big New Yorkers Caravan Club, all hellbent on traveling to the very same obscure village in Maine to get away from New Yorkers!"

---"Whenever I am looking for a respite from the New York accent and plan a trip to Maine, I find upon arrival in Maine that the manager of the hotel where I'm staying has a very sharp New York accent! He explains that he moved to that small town in Maine to get away from New Yorkers!"

---"I always dread entering an elevator in New York if there is a pregnant woman aboard. What if the elevator were to suddenly stop working between ttwo floors, and we'd all be stranded in mid-air only to learn that the pregnant woman is having labor pains! If I had a background as a nurse or medical doctor, I might welcome that type of challenge, but I don't. All I could do is pray that the firefighters would rescue us all in time!"

---"Many of the New Yorkers who are terminally ill don't look it. That's why I recommend that you never date a guy for more than four consecutive weeks without hiring a private detective to find out whether he's terminally ill. A lot of the guys who have only six months left on this planet figure they should live it up in the meantime with a beautiful single lady like myself! It never occurs to them that they have a moral responsibility to let me know in advance that they are dating me primarily because they're too old to take a trip to Disney World for their final fantasy adventure! And I very much resent being their 'last amusement ride' before they drop dead!"

---"New Yorkers love to stand erect all day, so much so that I can almost imagine a market here for a new type of vertically-directed bed that allows you to stand up while enjoying the comfort of the mattress beside you. A mattress like that would be a big hit in this City that Never Sleeps!"

---"Whenever I travel outside of New York City, the local residents I meet always ask me how many hours of sleep I average each 24-hour day in Manhattan. They are shocked to learn that I average 7 hours, since they have all been told that we Manhattan types never sleep!"

---"The Statue of Liberty is a classic case of false advertising. She suggests that if you are tired and you emigrate to this country through New York, you will suddenly feel very energetic here! In fact, living in New York can be very fatiguing. Tired people who are anemic in Serbia will turn into VERY tired people who are MORE ANEMIC THAN EVER in New York!"

---"Now that I'm in my 40s, I prefer to go tea-parlor-hopping instead of bar-hopping! Would you be up for a jolly night of tea-house hopping with me in Manhattan?"

---"Does it ever bother you to recall that the very first deal struck in Manhattan was a deal in which some naive American Indians got rooked by white men?"

---"I find it ironic that New York has a strong Dutch heritage, but I have never had Dutch coffee, I have never drunk Dutch tea, and I have never had a Dutch entree inside any local restaurant for all the years I've lived here! Do you know why our city is determined to spit defiantly at its Dutch heritage?"

--"Personally, I would love to see a Little Amsterdam section of New York But I don't believe there is any historically-Dutch section of New York. In fact, I've never even seen a windmill anywhere in Manhattan! Is it any wonder the Dutch feel betrayed by us?"

---"I'm very rare here, since I don't know of anyone I want to bribe or blackmail or stalk or spy on. What would be the point of spying on a fellow New Yorker to officially confirm what I already knew about them?"

---"New York City police are so corrupt that if you are victimized by crime here and you file a criminal-law complaint, they'll re-write your complaint to designate YOU as the suspect! So you end up getting arrested for a crime you never committed, while the guilty guy throws a big party to celebrate his latest success at bribing our city's cops with lots of mula!"

---"I'm surprised I don't ever see any fistfights when I ride elevators here in New York. Maybe the thugs of our city are afraid that at least one of the other passengers on the elevator would be willing to testify against them if it went to court. It's not as if those other passengers have the excuse of claiming that they saw nothing. Inside an elevator, you can't avoid being a witness to anything criminal that develops."

---"So tell me, which wallets do you sell that are guaranteed to be mugger-proof?"

---"The funerals of New Yorkers who committed suicide are doubly tragic, since everyone at the funeral knows the life-insurance company won't pay anything to any of the cited beneficiaries in cases of suicides. I can never be sure whether the mourners at those funerals are crying over the loss of the person who committed suicide, or crying over the loss of thousands of dollars to themselves that would have otherwise received from the deceased's life-insurance company."

---"You spend too much time analyzing the cracks in the sidewalks of New York City. Isn't it enough that our city HAS sidewalks, when most Americans live in cities with entire streets that have no public sidewalks along those streets."

---"The economic downturn in our Wall Street city makes me wonder why we don't have an entire cemetery here exclusively reserved for New Yorkers who commited suicide because they're depressed about the economic Depression. The new cemetery could be called Suicide Cemetery, and it might even turn into a major tourist attraction. Tourists from out of town love to find fresh evidence here that living in New York leads to tragedy."

---"When was the last time you met a New York single man who wasn't cynical?"

---"Never date a New Yorker for more than six months without demanding a full and reliable and thorough medical-checkup report from himself. Many of the single men of New York have been diagnosed as terminally ill, and they may look upon you as their last opportunity to have a fun time before they kick the bucket. They are going on dates with you as an adult alternative to what terminally ill children do when they visit Disney World in Orlando for a last chance at a fun adventure. You, a pretty New York lady, are expected to provide an enjoyable amusement ride for a terminally ill New York man----and despite this, he has no plans to cite you as a beneficiary in his will! Isn't that outrageous?"

---"The elevators of New York would make a perfect site for a wedding here. During that ceremony inside an elevator, the bride's maid could be asked to punch the right buttons to make the elevator travel several floors downward, then several floors upward, in order to replicate the ups and downs of married life. An elevator wedding in New York would also have the advantage of minimizing wedding expenses for the bride's family. There would be no room for an organ or organist on the elevator, and the total number of invited guests to feed would be limited to five or fewer. Furthermore, the cost of renting the elevator for 30 minutes would be very minimal."

----"To me, there should be a special new public statue erected here that honors the inventor of the express elevator---the speedy elevator that allows you to get to the top of that building or the first floor of a building in 10 seconds or less. We New Yorkers rely on express elevators more than anyone else I know in the entire country. I would rank express elevators among the top 15 contributors to my quality of life as a New Yorker."

---"I finally came up with an Oral History project that's tailor-made for New York. I plan to interview each of the current and former elevator operators of New York City, including retired persons who used to operate an elevator in New York. I like the idea of a New York Elevator Operators Oral History Collection, housed inside the New York Public Library. There could be a special elevator carrying library patrons to that special elevator-theme collection."

---"I can never figure out why there isn't a restaurant critic columnist in New York who exclusively reviews restaurant dishes he eats that he's been told in advance are nutritious, low in saturated fat, and good for the health."

---"The cell phone has dramatically transformed New York life. We've always taken pride in being the most talky city in the entire world. Now, because of cell phones, every New Yorker is going hoarse at least once per week from talking non-stop every day of the week. Our city's ear, nose, and throat specialists are getting a lot of business out of it. And oncologists here who specialize in cancer of the larynx and cancer of the esophagus are also getting lots of new patients these days."

---"I think every New Yorker fantasizes about what it would be like to jump from the top of the Empire State Building into a comfortable trampoline outdoors that catches them five feet above the ground. But it's obvious that a leap of that type would be very foolish. It would be a fatal leap, every New Yorker inevitably concludes when they reflect on the laws of physics. And besides, how can you be sure that you would land on the trampoline, rather than on the pavement? That thought is also on the back of every New Yorker's mind as they devote a few seconds to pondering spectacular gymnastics fantasy of that type."

---"So tell me, which building in New York is the best suited for rooftop parties, in your opinion? I have never found a 'Ratings Guide to Rooftop Parties in New York'."

---"Whenever I mention New York Strip to her, she thinks I'm referring to a hangout spot for playgirls and 'Cosmopolitan' magazine devotees. I have to explain to her that I'm referring to a type of steak you actually eat at a dinner table."

---"I wish she would spend more time getting to know the single men of New York before she invites them into her apartment unit for a visit. Maybe she could ask each of them to submit to a polygraph test before she would consider inviting them into her apartment unit for a social visit. If they flunk the polygraph test, she could ask them to please find someone else to seduce."

---"Your idea of a fun outing strikes me as perverse. Why do I need to visit and inspect the exact spot in New York where John Lennon was murdered?"

---"So how can you tell the difference between the insiders of New York and the outsiders who live here? For my personal upward mobility scheme to work, I have to cozy up to as many insiders as possible while ignoring the outsiders."

---"A lot of New Yorkers give me the impression they were banished to New York City from someplace else. Do you think the Buffalo City Council approved a resolution banishing that individual over there from Buffalo, and ordering them to relocate to New York City for the rest of his life?"

---"Here in New York, you hear 10 times more hard-luck stories than good-luck stories. New Yorkers think it looks fatuous and naive to declare to anyone that your own life in this city is consistently successful."

---"Play-flopping parties are among the most enjoyable parties in all of New York. The entire troupe of actors and stagehands who just got their pink slips will sponsor a fabulously lavish party to celebrate the demise of their theater production. There's a humility to the 'we just failed' party that I find very refreshing!"

--"My cousin from Toledo is so morbid that the first thing he asked when I gave him a tour of New York was to please show him the exact spot where the largest number of Wall Street executives in 1929 committed suicide by leaping to the ground from an upper-floor window or balcony along Wall Street."

---"It must be the cultural inferiority complex of the rest of America that makes them so preoccupied with every tragedy we've had in New York. They refuse to acknowledge our city's many triumphs, and they focus instead on our crises and disasters."

---"So tell me, which all-vegetarian restaurants in Manhattan have earned five stars from restaurant critics? I'm vegetarian myself, and I prefer to dine in five-star restaurants as much as possible."

---"Every New Yorker from time to time ponders whether the U.S. Government should impose a ceiling on the number of immigrants from one foreign country or another who are allowed to be here."

----"Every New Yorker is a sociologist at heart, and much of the sociological commentary he comes up with relates to the sociology of human aversion. He devotes a lot of his time to generating theories to explain why any particular subpopulation or subculture of New Yorkers consistently alienates and repulses him."

---"Why should I worry about invaders from outer space, when I habitually refer to the vast majority of my fellow New Yorkers as being alien invaders from another planet."

---"What our city needs is a warning sign greeting all newcomers and all visitors at our city limits. The warning sign we need here should be worded something like: 'You Are Entering The City: Where Only the Strong Survive.' Those who lack creative talent or powers of endurance should make evacuation plans from day one, since New York has a way of kicking the untalented and the weak back to wherever they came from."

--"Nine times out of 10 when a newcomer to New York flunks his great opportunity here and retreats by moving to another city, that individual turns into New York's revenge on the latter city. There is no resentment like that of an Ex-New Yorker who moans that he was unfairly deprived of his chance to prove himself in the Big Apple. The people in his new city of residence all suffer emotionally from hearing this flunkie's repeated story about how he definitely had the talent for New York, and he is very sure that some agent or book publisher in New York City will soon learn about that great talent of his and will send him a free plane ticket to return to the Big Apple for a job interview."

---"I've never been big on trenchcoat fashion, so I feel that the terrorism scare in New York has brought good news to our men's fashion scene. All the men of New York are afraid to wear a trenchcoat, for fear that someone will identify them as an Arab terrorist and immediately dial 911 on their cell phone to demand a response from NYPD."

---"I would love to add an 'Elevator Encyclopedia' to my reference-books library inside my home. I feel that any New Yorker should own an Elevator Encyclopedia, in fact. For instance, which elevator on this planet offers the fastest transportation from gound level to the 15th floor of a building? That's just the type of elevator-facts information I need to have at my fingertips at all times."

---"I need to find a Cliff's Notes guide to each and every opera I agree to attend in Manhattan. I hate going to the opera here and then being completely baffled by what is going on during that performance. If I owned a Cliff's Notes guide to each of the noteworthy operas being performed in New York, I could at least fake a comprehension of what I had just witnessed."

--"I agree with you that it is humiliating to feel like an Opera- Illiterate New Yorker."

---"Whenever anyone comments on my apparent lack of comprehension of the most recent opera I attended here, I always reply that I wish I had found the time to study the Italian language. I had to choose between Spanish or Italian during my college years, and I chose Spanish. I thought the Spanish would help me in my quest for a lucrative career, since so many of the job openings these days are for individuals who are fluent in English and Spanish."

---"Whenever my wife and I visit a skyscraper in Manhattan, I insist on walking up the stairs all the way until we reach the floor we want. My wife, however, insists that we take the elevator. She says she does not like the idea of entering an office with beads of perspiration on her face and neck. I always reply that that minor inconvenience is far preferable to her dying from a heart attack because she didn't get enough exercise inside our city's skyscrapers."

--"You call him a Great Philanthropist in New York. I call him a great Tax-Dodging Con Artist who knows exactly which loopholes he needs to exploit to reduce his federal income-tax burden."

---"So why doesn't the City of New York sponsor an annual essay contest inviting newcomers to New York, including emigrants from foreign countries, to each write about and reflect on their initial impressions of New York City? The winning essayist could get a free all-expenses-paid trip to our state capital, where the Governor would proudly shake their hand."

---"So how would my graduation from a martial-arts training program help me if King Kong actually does invade New York?"

---"It's remarkable what half-asleep New Yorkers accomplish every day at their workplace. New Yorkers tend to be sleep-deprived, so they eternally at risk of dozing off at their workplace."

---"It bothers me whenever I hear anyone comment that New York is the City That Never Sleeps. Isn't that like saying that New Yorkers are slaves who are eternally being whipped by a Simon LaGree----an infamous slave-owner who insists that all New Yorkers must be fully efficient and productive on a 24-hour-a-day basis?"

---"If Rome is the Eternal City, then New York is the City where Everyone is Eternally Hoping to Get Some Sleep."

--"I think every New Yorker has a love-hate relationship with his alarm clock. He loves the idea of being on time for work, but he hates hearing his alarm go off at 3 a.m. in the morning to remind him that he needs to be at work by 5 a.m. that morning."

---"It is not enough to be an Achiever here in New York. You must be either a Hyper-Achiever or a Super-Achiever or an Over-Achiever. Otherwise, you'll soon find yourself in New Jersey."

---"So tell me, what is the official motto of the City of New York? Is it 'The City That Never Sleeps', or something else?"

---"I think every New Yorker's worst fear is that he will be in the middle of a high-priority project for his boss at his workplace, and then he suddenly falls asleep while on the job. We sleep-deprived New Yorkers are eternally at risk of dozing off at crucial moments while on the job. When that happens, our boss wakes us up by splashing our face with cold water and then handing us a pink slip. If he's a nice-guy boss, he'll hand us bottleful of No-Doze tablets after firing us."

---"Do you know of any New Yorker who isn't sleep-deprived?"

---"The next time you accuse another New Yorker of being abrasive and irritable with you, keep in mind that he probably got only four hours of sleep the night before. Empathy can be helpful, even here."

---"My eight-year-old son wants to know why we can't climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty. I had to explain to Harold that this is not a rock-climbing exhibit."

---"As a New Yorker, I always find that the closet in my bedroom is never big enough for all my clothes. I'm under heavy pressure each year to buy the latest fashionwear, and every year that changes dramatically. I could donate my out-of-date fashionwear to Goodwill, but I'd rather sell those items. Do you know whether I could sell my out-of-date fashionwear on
E-bay, or or does E-bay prohibit sale of used clothes?"

---"So which season of the year is Four Seasons' finest, in your opinion?"

---"Four Seasons is definitely the most famous restaurant here. That's why I need to find a postcard of Four Seasons that I can send to all of my friends and relatives around the country. It would be a golden opportunity for a 'Wish You Were Here' postcard. They'll all be insanely jealous when they get that card from me!"

----"I'm new to New York, so I have to ask you about Four Seasons restaurant. Do they call it Four Seasons because it offers separate menus for the winter season, the spring season, the summer season, and the fall?"

---"If I dined inside Four Seasons for the first time in a fall month, I'd be afraid that they'd feature dead leaves falling onto my dinner plate in the middle of my meal. I wouldn't find that authenticity to be appetizing."

---"I'd like to buy the type of home alarm system that is sound-activated to go off if there's even a crick in the middle of the night. I can't imagine a burglar entering my Manhattan apartment without causing even a crick of noise."

---"The 'I Love New York' tattoos you see on so many of the bodies of our residents are tacky. Even worse are the tattoos declaring ardent and undying romantic love for someone. The minute a New Yorker rejects a romantic partner, the romantic-love tattoo looks pathetically obsolete."

---"So why isn't there a museum here that exclusively features a history of the live-theater scene in New York? It might be fun to find photographs of Mary Martin doing Peter Pan. I'd also find it intriguing to see a museum exhibit showing each of the stage crew members during a Spider Man performance as they fell to the floor and got injured in front of a shocked audience."

---"As a married man and father of a young child, I have to have higher standards in deciding whether to become personal friends with someone. The ffirst question that I ask myself is always this: 'If I put that adult acquaintance alone in the same room with my 8-year-old son for one straight hour, would I be completely sure that my adult acquaintance would keep his hands to himself, keep his clothes on, and offer nothing but G-rated comments to my son the entire time?' Then, as a follow-up question, I will ask myself, 'Can I imagine that new acquaintance in a police line-up for which a witness is identifying someone as a child molester?' I would not even consider becoming friends with an adult acquaintance of mine unless my answer to the first question was a definite 'yes', and my answer to the second question was a definite 'no.'"

--"My six-year-old daughter asked me a cute question the other day. She asked me, 'When New Yorkers die, do they go to a Manhattan in the Sky?'. I then told her I am very sure that there are no traffic jams in Heaven, so it's not at all like Manhattan."

--"If you listen closely to the anti-Semitic New Yorkers inside our city's restaurants, they never request Jewish rye bread for the sandwiches they order. They will instead request pumpernickel bread or whole-wheat bread. If they ever do order rye bread for their sandwich, they always drop the word 'Jewish' from the name of that bread when speaking to their waitress. 'I prefer my rye bread without any carraway seeds,' they often add. If you inquire further, they will often claim to be allergic to the carraway seeds found in Jewish rye bread. In fact, I myself have never once heard of any case of a New Yorker who has been medically diagnosed as being allergic to carraway seeds."

---"As a New York single lady, I'm the exact opposite of Barbara Walters when it comes to men. Barbara has famously stated that she feels insulted if a gentleman she's chatting with fails to flirt with her. With me, I feel insulted if a gentleman I'm chatting with DOES flirt in my presence! I already know I have nice breasts; why do I need another man to gaze at my breasts with fondness and then comment to me that he feels as if he is basking in my beauty. Besides, I'm more interested in a gentleman's ideas, moral values, and personality than his kiss or romantic appeal or seduction skills. Barbara goes for hugs from men; I am very happy with handshakes."

----"A lot of New Yorkers refuse to shake hands with anyone because they apparently believe they could catch herpes of the hand if they had physical contact of that nature. My answer to that is that there has never been a documented case of herpes of the hand. If herpes of the hand were a possibility, every U.S. President would have contracted herpes of the hand months or years before he got elected to the White House. And no such medical news has ever come out of the Presidential campaign, from what I can recall."

---"I realize that New Yorkers are expected to be night owls, but I myself am very much of a Day person. I am terrorized by the nighttime here in New York. What if the nighttime security guard at my apartment complex is financially strapped, so he accepts a bribe from a criminal who plans to to break into my apartment unit and steal my most valuable jewelry?"

---"There are two types of New Yorkers: Those who are hard-up financially and those who are hard-up romantically. I happen to fall into both of those categories."

---"I thought of going beach-combing along Long Island, but I have to first convince myself that the seashells there are as first-rate as they are along the beaches of southern New Jersey. I guess that makes me a Seashell Snob."

---"Does it ever worry you to sense that New York is the number one showcase city in our entire country? What are we showcasing here? The latest 'innovations' in crime news? The latest trends in fashionwear that might as well be Strip Tease Performances in front of all of New York? The latest in obscene speech trends?"

---"I think every New Yorker dreads the moment when they're having a nice conversation with a criminology professor from Columbia, and that professor suddenly volunteers that you fit the profile of---. He then stops speaking and his face turns beet red with embarrassment. So when you say 'of what, Professor?', he hesitates but finally replies with, "I really can't elaborate, since it's not fair to compare you to the victim of a homicide we recently had in New York."

---"What I love about New Yorkers is their ability to always distinguish between the major murders and the minor murders in this city. New Yorkers have a way of keeping two separate counts in their mind at all times. Major murders they define as murders in which a relative or friend or professional associate of theirs was killed. Minor murders are murders in which anyone not fitting that description was killed. This, of course, gives New Yorkers the opportunity to brag in December of any given year that 'fewer than 1 percent of the murders here this year were major murders. I'm very grateful for that, too, since I find it very draining to attend a funeral for someone I actually knew. When I attend a funeral in New York, I never know whether I'm supposed to bring a present with me or not. Especially when I attend a Mafia funeral, everyone expects a present from me of some type. It's the Mafia way---extortion even at the Mafia funerals! But I do attend non-Mafia funerals, too, which gets me all confused about which presents the family of the deceased would prefer."

---"My favorite wall display inside my apartment unit in Manhattan is the one I created for myself that declares, 'Home Sweet Home: 131 days without a break-in of this apartment unit!' Every day in which I inspect my apartment and don't observe any evidence of a break-in or burglary at my apartment unit during the most recent 24-hour period, I increase my total cited number of days of joy by one."

---"So why isn't there a Crime Prevention Czar employed by the City of New York? If they ever do hire someone for that job, that's the one City of New York official I'd like to invite to meet me for lunch. I figure that if I hang out with a crime prevention expert, my luck at thwarting burglars will improve."

---"My aunt is visiting from Ohio, and she says she cannot understand why the delicatessen employees in Manhattan don't butter their freshly-baked bagels before they serve those bagels to customers. I tried to explain to my aunt that it would be redundant to butter a bagel and then spread cream cheese all over it. She only replied that back in Ohio, she has never heard of bread without butter on it. It's un-American, she told me, to serve bread without butter on top. So I finally told her to look upon the cream cheese being slathered on bagels here as a SUBSTITUTE for butter. 'Don't look upon the stuff they put on bagels here as cream cheese; look upon it as a BUTTER SUBSTITUTE,' I told her. That explanation seems to have helped, since she told me that even in Ohio, she will occasionally rely on sugar substitutes when she sweetens her hot cup of coffee in the morning. And she never feels unpatriotic, never once feels as if she is spitting at the American flag, when she relies on sugar substitutes to sweeten her coffee, she told me."

---"I tell my boss at work that it's inhumane of him to require his employees to report for work on ozone-warning days when the air quality in New York has been judged to be medically harmful to our health. Why can't my boss just give us all a special homework assignment on those days that we can each pursue indoors without leaving our home? But whenever I offer this good advice to my boss, he responds by threatening to fire me! Here he should be praising me for a bright idea, and he punishes me instead!"

---"My 8-year-old son recently commented to me that our city's world-famous Statue of Liberty lady doesn't have a smile on her face. To me, that's bad PR for New York City. Maybe there should be some renovation work done on that statue, to let the entire world know that she's very happy and delighted to be here!"

---"So when was the last time you heard of an employer in New York that actually provides generous financial bonuses to employees who submit helpful suggestions in that company's suggestions box? You're very naive if you think that Manhattan employers will reward employees who rock the boat at their workplace."

---"I blame the Statue of Liberty for the failure of most New Yorkers to smile throughout the day. A lot of New Yorkers are influenced by the grim facial expression she presents to the entire world. She does not convey a sense of joie de vivre, which to me is the type of public statement that would help to boost the morale of our entire city. As for those who say her facial expression suggests that if you move to New York, you will feel profoundly liberated, when was the last time you heard any newcomer here tell you that he was feeling profoundly liberated as a New Yorker?"

---"Do you think the Statue of Liberty that France donated to our city is actually France's revenge on the United States? I ask that because if you will notice, she is not even smiling. Even Mona Lisa in France managed to offer a smile that the entire world could admire. So why couldn't the French have given us a statue of a woman with a Mona Lisa smile, at the very least?"

---"New York is so commercialized these days that whenever I hear someone talk about 'freedom' in New York, all I can think of are those pantyhose commercials emphasizing freedom of movement if you buy the right brand of pantyhose. We've all been brainwashed by Madison Avenue."

---"I have a bias against Madison Avenue, since whenever I travel along that street I think of all those slick television commercials that I used to believe, and I now regard as elegant scams in the guise of salesmanship."

---"President Madison would roll over in his grave if he learned what Madison Avenue, a street named after him, is all about these days. I'll bet he even warned about the dangers of dishonest advertising in some of his letters or public speeches."

---"I have heard that Wall Street brokers tend to be manic-depressive. When stocks are up, they're elated; when stocks are down, they are very, very down emotionally. If you ever become friends with a Wall Street broker, you spend a lot of time attempting to cheer them up. Then when they're feeling absolutely elated, you find it so overwhelming that it almost depresses you to sense that you never achieve anything that triumphant and phenomenal yourself."

---"Here I've lived in New York all my life, and I don't even know the symbol for the United Nations. I know the symbol for every company on the stock exchange, but not the symbol for the United Nations---unless it's that ridiculous "UN" word, just the letter "U" followed by the letter 'N.' That reminds me of that famous commercial for the soft drink 7-Up, declaring that it was the UN-Cola. That commercial left me wondering what, exactly, IS 7-Up? I feel the same way about "UN" as an abbreviation for the United Nations. They're just declaring that it is NOT this, without saying what it IS!"

---"So tell me, what is the mascot for The United Nations? New York's mascot is the Statue of Liberty, obviously; but I have never seen any mascot for the UN. To me, the UN has a desperate need to hire some Madison Avenue advertising team to come up with a popular mascot or symbol for the UN."

---"It would be interesting to find out whether a recent zoological study of Central Park has come up with a total number on all the various species and genuses of animals and botanical plants that can be found there. This is a world where big numbers talk, and I want to impress my friends when they come to New York for a visit. They tend to assume that nature is nonexistent in New York, so I'm sure that the stats on Central Park will be an eye-opener for them."

---"New York is the first city I've lived in where whenever I meet someone for the first time, he asks me to tell him how many languages I speak fluently. I sometimes get the impression that half of New York either works as a translator for the UN or aspires to become a translator for the UN! I realize, though, that multinational corporations doing business overseas need employees who are multi-lingual. So possibly it's a compliment to myself when another New Yorker asks me how many languages I speak fluently. Maybe he wants to recommend me for a job opening at his multinaional corporation, but he can't do that until he's verified that I am fluent in at least four languages."

---"I find it ironic that for all the enjoyment of farm produce from upstate New York that we New Yorkers convey whenever we dine out, we never sponsor an annual awards ceremony in Manhattan that publicly rewards the counties and farmers of upstate New York that delight our palates the most frequently!"

---"Whenever I present my credit card inside that dress shop, I always notice that the store clerk is scrutizing my credit card to see whether mine is prestigious enough and solid enough for her tastes. From what I've seen, she winces at credit cards that she suspects a person with bad credit could have qualified for."

---"With all the ladies of New York who wear high heels, I wonder why there isn't an orthopedic high heels shoe on display at Macy's these days."

---"I never agree to date anyone who enjoys attending professional boxing matches at Madison Square Garden. If someone I'm dating can smile while one boxer is bloodying the nose of the other boxer, what kind of romantic partner for me do you think that individual smiling at it all would be?"

---"To me, there's so much institutionalized inhumanity here in New York, and it bothers me quite a bit. When was the last time you saw a boxer at Madison Square Garden suddenly pick up a cell phone inside the ring and call 911 for an ambulance crew to come and save his opponent's life after he'd just KO'd his opponent inside the ring?"

--"It surprises me when I hear that NYU has not conducted any recent studies on New Yorkers' fear of heights. We have lots of people here who get dizzy every day from traveling up our city's skyscrapers. They would make perfect subjects for a medical or psychology study of that type!"

--"Everyone else in America finds it very entertaining to watch a crime show set in New York. The entire family in that non-New York household is sitting together watching a New York crime show in their family living room, and the mother is telling her 8-year-old daughter: 'You are very lucky that your father and I chose against raising you kids in New York! Think of all the crimes we spare you kids from, since we chose the peace and quiet of Scottsdale, Arizona, for our family!'"

----"Have you ever noticed that all of the most gruesome crime shows on television feature New York as the host city for it all? It's as if the people of New York are so full of rage toward one another that if they happen to own a gun they had purchased, they interpret that as prior permission from the government to shoot at anyone they have a conflict with. New York's unofficial credo is a bit like the official state motto of New Hampshire, with an odd twist to it. In New Hampshire, they declare their state motto to be, 'Give me liberty, or give me death!' In New York City, we apparently declare our citywide motto to be, 'Give me a Statue of Liberty with no smile on her face, and give me death by homicide every day of the year!"

---"I would love to find an astrologer who could accurately predict for me the one day of the current calendar year when no homicide will be reported to NYPD at any time during that 24-hour period. To me, that will be a very special day for New York, a day I plan to celebrate by dining in a wonderfully peaceful and serene restaurant in Manhattan with a trusted friend of mine. My only worry is that while we're sampling our hors d'ouevres together, my dining companion will cause me to lose my appetite by confessing to me that he murdered someone at 12:01 a.m. that day, and the homicide hasn't been reported to NYPD yet!"

--"In New York, the biggest news story any day of the year is the astonishing news story that no murder was reported to NYPD during the most recent 24-hour period. I notice, though, that none of the local news shows here in Manhattan ever lead with that phenomenal cultural achievement for our city."

----"The rest of America watches crime shows set in New York for entertainment. To me, as a New Yorker, these crime TV shows shot in Manhattan are more like punishment. I am not the least bit entertained. As a New Yorker, I feel as if these crime shows are beating and whipping me for having chosen to live here. 'Don't you know that you are just a future victim here, and nothing else? Can't you see how stupid you are to live in a city where your chances of enjoying a full medical longevity and dying of natural causes are slim to none?', they might as well shout at me from my television set."

---"The only two disasters you won't find here in New York are tornadoes and hurricanes. Everything else is very, very possible, depending on the day and depending on the hour of the day."

---"I was naive when I moved here. I just assumed that all the Mafia people here in New York would sport handkerchiefs featuring the capital letter "M" monogrammed onto them that acknowledged their crime-family ties. In fact, the Mafia people here are much subtler than I thought they'd be. I have never once seen a New Yorker wearing a T-shirt that declares, 'I'm Mafia and I Murder People for a Living.'"

---"You ask me the name of my favorite bar in New York. To me, the more pertinent question would be: What is my favorite place in New York where I like to go to sober up? The best sober-up joints in New York, and I happen to have a favorite teahouse here that I frequent, deserve more recognition than they currently get. The sober-up joints are life-savers. I have been spared from numerous fist-fights and auto accidents all because I've developed a habit of heading for a sober-up joint immediately after I leave my favorite bar in Manhattan."

---"My vegetarian friend went with me to Coney Island, but angrily complained that she could not find any soybean Coneys there. She told me she plans to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the vegetarian community against the hot-dog vendors of Coney Island. I told her that's a waste of her time, since the judge will denounce her lawsuit as frivolous."

---"I resent having to share the same zip code with so many of the disreuptable people I encounter here who are claiming the same zip code as myself! Why can't they move to another zip code, so that no one will confuse me with themselves?"

---"Having a zip code in Manhattan is one of the least intimate places in which to have a zip code. I'm sharing the same zip code address with millions of other New Yorkers, and 80 percent of them are people I would not want to invite into my condo unit!"

---"I was expecting to join the Low-Sodium Dinner Party circuit here in Manhattan. But so far, none of the dinner-party invitations I'm getting here are for Low-Sodium Dinner Parties. I had always assumed that the party hostesses of New York tend to be very health-conscious. But perhaps I was naive about that."

---"Come to think of it, I've never been offered low-sodium caviar at any of the cocktail parties I've attended here. You would expect the party hostesses here in Manhattan to insist on offering low-sodium caviar as an option. Or do you think I'm expecting too much from our city's party hostesses?"

---"The biggest scandal story about Long Island is always the fact that a high percentage of the beaches there are privately owned. To me, that should be a front-page scandal story in 'Newsday' or 'The New York Times'. The general public is being robbed of the opportunity to enjoy many of the beaches of Long Island! But so far, the New York media have yet to expose that scandal. I suspect that many of the newspaper reporters and editors here are getting invited to private beach parties on Long Island---they're being bribed into submission!"

---"The male store clerk who handled my transaction asked me to please state my zip code, and I felt like slapping him. I told him it was very personal and intimate information about myself, and I refused to share that type of information with a young man who obviously wants to unzip my dress!"

---"They call it Long Island. But to me, Long Island will never be long enough to meet consumer demand here. There are millions of New Yorkers who would love to see the island grow 10 miles longer, which would give them more options for beaches to explore. Maybe they should increase the length of Long Island using technology like the Dutch used to reclaim land from the ocean."

----"I feel sorry for all the recent high school graduates and college students who would like to attend a live-theater production in Manhattan, but are denied that opportunity because of their limited income. Shouldn't there be a Poor Persons Live Theater on Broadway that would serve the recent high school students and college students?"

----"The whole concept of upward mobility has become obsolete during the current economic crisis. I would describe him as someone who's 'laterally mobile,' which is one notch above downwardly mobile. He's a bit like the quarterback in pro football whose lateral passes always lead to completions for a total gain of one-half yard. He's trying hard, but going nowhere."

---"So tell me, when was the last time you developed an acquaintanceship with an elevator operator here in Manhattan?"

---"The pro hockey players here I respect the most are the ones who have never lost any of their teeth. I think there's something very wise about those particular pro hockey players."

---"I need to find a boss who lets his employees take three-day weekends. That would give me the chance to fly to the Canary Islands for a fun three-day outing. But it would be ridiculous to do that during a two-day weekend."

---"I feel as if I'm a Medici type here in New York. I end up befriending so many of the aspiring young artists. I'll do that by paying for their enrollment in a drug-treatment program after they finally confess to me that they've developed an addiction to cocaine or marijuana. I would say that 1 percent of the artists I befriend that way actually kick the habit for good. That 1 percent group can be gratifying. Often they will celebrate their amazing success by hosting an art exhibit in my honor. It gives me goosebumps, even though I'm not the sentimental type. But I don't ask for the public recognition at their art exhibit. I'm a lot more low-key and modest than the Medici family was in Italy during the Renaissance Era."

---"Here the United Nations is right in our backyard, yet I never hear of any UN awards being given to the countries represented in the UN that recycle the most extensively on a per-capita basis. To me, the UN overlooks so many opportunities for conferring awards on countries that deserve it. I don't know which country would win that award, whether it would be Sweden, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, or some other nation."

---"Do you ever have nightmares about the outbreak of World War III occurring right here inside the United Nations complex in New York? I find it frightening to imagine a United Nations Security Council meeting that triggers so much conflict that two countries declare war against each other! But I have to consider the alternative, of no UN Security Council meeting, and the even greater certainty of a World War III scenario. So thank God for the United Nations, even if it gives me nightmares from time to time."

---"I've always wanted to date an airline pilot, since I thought it would be lots of fun to listen to him tell me all about the cities he's explored through his career. But then it occurred to me that I might find it tedious to hear that as the only topic during a romantic date. At some point that evening, I'd be asking the guy whether he loves Sydney more than he could ever possibly love myself?"

---"One of the primary reasons I moved to New York is that I knew this would be a good city for finding airline pilots to date. However, whenever I go out on a date with an airline pilot, I experience severe jet lag the next morning from listening to all his stories about each of the cities around the world where he has landed."

---"The United Nations would be a perfect site for a dream-studies research project. You could analyze the nocturnal dreams of the head delegate representing each country in the UN Security Council. You could then compile the results from each of those dream studies into one big book. The title of the book could be: 'Dreaming for Peace in the World.' You could then translate that book into 10 foreign languages, and it would be a guaranteed best-seller."

---"I have never been ticker-taped upon in my entire life. That's why I say that I'm a low-profile New Yorker. The high-profile New Yorkers have all been showered with ticker tape while traveling in a parade here."

----"She is so anti-male that she recently told me she objects to the island we're living on being called 'Manhattan.' She would like to change the name of our island to 'Womanhattan.' Now, doesn't that strike you as a ridiculous? It's a bit like that absurd proposal by some anti-male feminists in England to change the name of Isle of Man into Isle of Woman."

---"One of my favorite questions to ask new acquaintances is: 'Have you actually met our mayor in person?' Many of the self-proclaimed VIPs of New York will confess to me that they have never once spoken with Mayor Bloomberg. They almost always look sheepish, too, when they admit that to me."

---"I think every New Yorker imagines Heaven to be a restaurant in the sky that offers all-you-can-eat pastrami on rye sandwiches. It is dificult to imagine eating more than two of those all-time-favorite New York sandwiches in one sitting. But everything is different in Heaven. Everything in Heaven would be unlimited, so there would be no limit to the appetites of the ex-New Yorkers ordering Pastrami on Rye sandwiches on a year-round basis up there."

---"I never give away recipes of mine to another New Yorker. If I do that, this means that the next time I attend a party in New York, I will be listening to the party hostess declare that she used a secret recipe handed down through her family for decades. Then I will sample the party dish she's talking about, only to discover that the recipe for that dish came from me!"

---"I've had so many of my favorite recipes stolen from me that I plan to copyright all of the recipes for dishes I come up with on my own inside my kitchen. That will give me a chance to file a lawsuit the next time a New Yorker steals a recipe of mine that I had created on my own!"

---"She is so prone to procrastination that I recently witnessed her at the bedside of her dying mother, asking her mother to recall for her the ingredients and quantities cited in each of her mother's favorite family heirloom recipes. Unfortunately, the dying mother was not able to provide fully accurate information at that point in her life. I felt bad for the daughter, since her mother's last words to her from her bed were, 'I don't recall if that dish requires two teaspoons of vanilla or one.' They were very dull last words for the daughter to have to later recall to everyone, whenever anyone asks about her dying mother's final words from her bedside."

---"New York is a great place for anyone obsessed with their expected afterlife. Here, they get a daily reminder of what Hell is like, and they also get an occasional glimpse of what Heaven is like. Heaven, to me, is the pastrami on rye sandwich. But I don't claim to represent all New Yorkers when I say that."

---"To me, New York is a lot like the purgatory that the Catholic Church expects many of us to travel to after we die. In New York, you always have this strong sense of being in transit toward some destination. And unfortunately, much of the time here we find that the destination proves to be Hellish. Some of the time, maybe 10 percent of the time, our destination is Heavenlike."

---"I think New York is a great place for manic-depressives. When their day was Hell for them, they get mired in their depressive phase. When their day in Manhattan was Heavenlike for them, they explore their manic side. We probably have more manic-depressives per capita in New York than any city in the entire world. Manic-depressives are drawn to New York, since they secretly thrill to the very high highs, and the very low lows, that New York life offers you."

---"As a restaurant waiter here in New York, I dread manic-depressive customers of mine who are feeling down that day. Of course my tip will be only a fraction of what I'd get when they're having a manic period. When they are in their manic phase, New Yorkers are very generous tippers. I'm always elated when I get to wait on a manic-depressive type during their manic phase. They always tip with exclamation marks during that period. And many of my manic-depressive customers will even leave love notes for me during their manic period. They'll declare that I'm the greatest and most lovable waiter they have ever had in their entire life! They'll then add that they feel sure that they experienced love at first sight from day one when when I waited on them several weeks ago! And what an appetizing dish I am, they will add! It is so gushy that I feel sure some book publisher will want to publish those love letters I get from my customers. The title of the book will be, 'Love Notes to a Hearthrob Waiter.'"

---"I've always felt that Wall Street brokers are all secretly drawn to Coney Island. They regard it as a cathartic experience to ride on a roller coaster on Coney, since that brilliantly replicates exactly what their life is like on Wall Street. 'That was convincing proof that life is fundamentally a roller-coaster ride,' as the Wall Street broker delights in quipping to a friend upon completion of his latest roller coaster ride on Coney Island. 'And I've also just offered you proof that I'm a gentleman with clever wit to me. I just came up with this very clever metaphor, that riding a roller coaster on Coney is just like being a Wall Street broker. And I don't remember ever hearing any of my colleagues come up with that quotable comment. Maybe I'll get invited to contribute my clever quip to a new book that's entitled, 'Wit and Wisdom of Wall Street Brokers.'"

---"Here I live in New York, but I don't recall the name of the leading university based in the Bronx. You'd think that school would be called Bronx University, but I'm sure I've never heard about anything called Bronx University. The only educational institution I've ever heard about in the Bronx is the Bronx Zoo. There, though, all the instructors are the animals on exhibit. We human beings are the ones trying to learn from those animals."

---"What was your most profound thought when you visited the Bronz Zoo?"

---"Her favorite question when she meets a prospective dating partner here in New York is to ask him which animal at the Bronx Zoo is his favorite to observe in person. She tells me she gleans lots of insight about that single guy based on the zoo animal he cites as his favorite to study."

---"I've never understood the concept behind undergarment fashion here in New York. Why spend so much time and money buying attractive undergarments when no one ever sees them? The only context I can imagine in which she'd ever reveal her undergarments would be when some single guy is begging her to remove her undergarments ASAP. He lacks credibility as a fashion judge in that type of situation."

---"My son tells me that he plans to follow the lead of Woody Allen by dropping out of college in order to become rich and famous. My reply to that is that Peter is very mistaken if he thinks that turning into a college dropout will put Peter's name on the marquis at theaters. Woody Allen succeeded DESPITE dropping out of NYU, not BECAUSE he dropped out of NYU!"

--"No matter what everyone says about Woody Allen, he's a college dropout, so he's a bad influence on my teenage son!"

---"If I were a sociologist, I can't decide which subpopulation of New Yorkers I would most want to study. I think I could handle studying billionaires. Most of those billionaires would want me to interview them on their private yacht, and I might find that enjoyable."

---"It doesn't surprise me that I've never seen a statue of Woody Allen anywhere on the NYU campus. He dropped out of college there, and the NYU administration does NOT want to encourage anyone to follow Woody Allen's lead!"

---"I have a very literal-minded friend who loves to point out that Central Park is incorrectly named. Central Park is not situated at the exact geographical center of Manhattan, she says. She claims they should either move Central Park to the exact geographical center of Manhattan, or rename Central Park altogether. I always reply that my friend is too pedantic for this city. If she relocated to London, England, the people there would welcome that type of trivial point of scholarship being raised."

---"Sarah admitted to me recently that she feels morally negligent that
a friend of hers recently died from melanoma. Sarah says that if she had been more attentive, she could have saved her friend's life. Melanoma is the most preventable of all the fatal diseases, and Sarah says that all the mourners at the funeral here in Manhattan looked ashamed that they had allowed it to happen. When they cried at the funeral, it was obvious they were actually crying for themselves with self-pity. I also sensed from what Sarah told me that many of the mourners were angry with the deceased for having made them look complicitous in that premature death!"

---"Whenever anyone in New York dies from melanoma, all members of their immediate family should be immediately disqualified as prospective beneficiaries. Here they saw the victim on a year-round basis, but they failed to remind her that she had an urgent need for dermatological testing and treatment for her early-stages skin cancer!"

---"I think everyone in New York is secretly hoping for eternal life. We might as well call this the Eternal City, based on the hundreds of New Yorkers I know who are desperately gulping down guava juice, mango juice, acai berry juice, and pomegranate juice on a year-round basis! I'm very sure, in fact, that if you were to travel to the Eternal City of Rome, you wouldn't find that kind of desperate quest for immortality there!"

---"My friend Robert admitted to me recently that he has developed a personal strategy of cultivating friendships with at least 10 Arab-Americans. Robert says that if he gets a reputation for being friendly to persons of Arab ancestry, this will spare his own life when the next Arab terrorist attack occurs here in New York. Being seen in public with a designated quota of Arab friends is a bit like a life-insurance policy, according to Robert. Robert even told me he's given thought to establishing a non-profit group here entitled, 'Friends of Arabs', that he could also use as a tax write-off."

---"Do you get the impression that every apartment building in New York has at least one 'resident drug-pusher' who sells and delivers illicit drugs to that building's tenants? Or am I being too cynical when I verbalize that theory of mine?"

---"I find it disgusting to hear his claim that his marijuana-brownie habit will never get noticed by NYPD, since there is no odor or scent whenever he eats those marijuana-laced brownies. He'll still be high on marijuana, and that will naturally invite suspicion from NYPD. They could easily get a search warrant to enter his apartment and search his entire refrigerator and cupboard for leftover brownies. And when he ends up in court, the planned defense he's cooked up that he had no idea the brownies he ate were laced with marijuana, is likely to fall as flat as a bad souffle. He could spend the rest of his life at Attica State Prison, with the type of legal defense strategy he's prepared in anticipation of his arrest."

---"My teenage son has such a perverse sense of humor that when he heard his little sister has joined the Brownies, he immediately wanted to know whether they were spiked with pot."

---"Are you pro or anti on the subject of mace? I think every woman in New York inevitably gets asked that question."

---"One of my biggest disappointments about New York is that I've never heard of any Dutch Botanical Garden here. To me, that's the least we could offer everyone, to show appreciation for Manhattan's Dutch heritage. But I have never heard of a Dutch-style garden. Do you think it might be a bit like a German Beer Garden?"

---"So tell me, do you celebrate New York City's birthday every year? If so, would that be the day of the year when New York got incorporated, the day of the year when the Indians sold Manhattan Island to the Dutch, or some other day?"

---"To me, it makes sense for us to celebrate New York City's birthday by dining out in a first-rate Dutch restaurant. Maybe we should call the Dutch Embassy here to ask which restaurant they recommend. I am not knowledgeable about the Dutch-restaurants scene in New York. I would prefer a restaurant with a windmill on top of that building, but I realize that might be asking for too much."

---"Can you imagine being the Mayor of New York on our city's birthday? He must get tons of invitations from all over Manhattan to join one family or another for a dinner of celebration that day. I wonder how he decides who to say yes to. Does Mayor Bloomberg flip a coin, or what?"

---"To me, the best way to celebrate New York City's birthday each year is by dining out in the restaurant with edible food that has the best skyline view of our city. So which restuarant offers the best upper-level view of New York's skyline? That's the one we should head for, unless you have a better idea."

---"So tell me, which flag design do you like the best, the official flag for the City of New York or the official flag for New York State? I'm new to Manhattan, so I haven't had a chance to compare the two flags."

---"As a motorist in New York, one of my leading anxieties is that my motor vehicle will suddenly die on me while I am driving through a heavily-trafficked and dimly-lit tunnel here. Can you imagine anything more hellish than to have your car break down inside one of those tunnels here?"

----"As a New Yorker, I've planned to read the official biography of Mayor LaGuardia every year for the last 10 years. Maybe next year I will finally achieve that goal. It truly is remarkable what that tiny Italian-American man accomplished. He even had an airport named after himself, though John F. Kennedy later KO'd him for that honor. Maybe there should be a special new history museum here honoring the most outstanding short persons in American history, which might reclaim some fame for Mayor LaGuardia. He would definitely be one of the leading exhibits in that type of history museum."

---"In all the years I've lived in New York, I have never once found out the name of the Italian restaurant here that Mayor LaGuardia liked the best. Wouldn't that make a fun research project? We could visit the New York Public Library to find what Mayor LaGuardia had to say about each of the various Italian restaurants here."

---"I find it refreshing that when we talk about Green Power these days in New York, we aren't talking about New Yorkers displaying $100 bills in big quantities. We're talking about renewal of our global environment. I regard the new Green Power movement here as a perfect foil to our city's Mafia thugs. Those Mafia guys love to show off their $100 bills in large quantities. But the Green Power movement of today is very lacking in that type of crass materialism. It's the opposite of what the Mafia are all about."

---"As a New Yorker, I'm wondering whether I should pray to an Ozone Layer God. Otherwise, maybe our entire city and our entire world are doomed."

---"I've always found as a New Yorker that whenever I pray for something or wish for anything, I get the exact opposite. My current strategy is to pray for more intense sunshine, in the hope that my prayers will then trigger lots of rainfall and cooler weather. If we get too much rain, I'd pray to the Rain God for eternal rain, and the exact opposite would then occur here."

---"I've heard that the pretzels being sold by street vendors in Philadelphia are possibly more delicious than the ones sold here in New York. However, I can't justify the expense of traveling to Philadelphia just for the sake of a pretzel-eating comparison."

---"What I'd like to see is an investigative story by some media company here that exposes the 50 most gasoline-wasteful motor vehicles currently owned by the City of New York. In the year 2011, the City cannot justify owning any motor vehicles that fail to get at least 25 miles per gallon, in my opinion."

---"When I visit the United Nations, I want it to be on a day when the most eloquent English-speaking speaker in the entire General Assembly is scheduled to give a speech. As a New Yorker who gives lots of public speeches myself, I benefit from observing the finest speakers during my leisuretime."

---"I hear so many put-downs of New Yorkers of Puerto Rican ancestry that I'm determined to take a plane flight to Puerto Rico for a three-day weekend. I feel sure that will give me something nice to say about our Puerto Rican community the next time I hear them being slandered here in Manhattan."

----"I've never had a Puerto Rican-style breakfast. Do you think that would include a seafood omelette, since their heritage is so very centered on the sea, I would assume. I don't find myself craving shrimp in my breakfast seafood omelette, but maybe the Puerto Rican-American chefs here find a way to make the shrimp inside the omelette taste fine for the early-morning crowd."

---"I've never actually met anyone here in New York who reminded me of Maria from 'West Side Story'."

---"Her hobby is collecting autographs from stagehands when she attends Broadway plays. She is the only one there who's asking for autographs from the stagehands, so her collection of signatures is much bigger than mine is. I limit myself to asking for autographs from the leading actors in each play I attend here."

---"I consider it unethical to request an autograph from a famous New Yorker and then tell him to write a special inscription praising you for being a favorite person of his, when he has never met you before in his entire life!"

---"With all the media companies here in New York, it's surprising that no media company has ever pointed a camera and microphone at my face and asked me for a comment. I just know that when that does happen, it will be on a day when I'll be stumped by the question they pose to me. I usually am brimming with opinions, but on that particular day, I'll be asked a question that I know nothing about. My only hope is that they will quickly direct their camera at someone else."

---"I can always tell who the the New Yorkers of substance are. They are the ones who focus their gaze at my face and facial expression. The other ones, the superficial New Yorkers I call them, have a way of staring at my feet, my waistline, my breasts, my legs, and my behind. Isn't it obvious that the New Yorkers who focus on your face are more likely to have philosophical depth to them?"

---"When I dine inside the Russian Tea Room here in Manhattan, I am never quite sure how many of the customers I see dining there are secret spies for the Russian Government. Maybe I should just walk up to their dining table and ask them if they enjoy their career as a Russian spy? At least they won't ignore me, if I say something like that to them."

---"Whenever anyone asks me if I've had a facelift, I always reply that I'm glad my wrinkles are harder to see now, but I won't divulge my secret."

---"I think every New Yorker worries that if they develop an intergenerational friendship with a child and they're both seen together in public, someone in the background will dial 911 and report it all to NYPD as an alleged sex crime. If only those New Yorkers knew how G-rated my own life is, they wouldn't be so quick to dial 911 when they see me accompanying a child to a Walt Disney movie!"

---"So tell me, would your own life story in the form of a Hollywood movie be G-rated, R-rated, or X-rated?"

----"To me, a comunion service in the churches here should feature distribution of Aloe Vera lotion to each of the ladies, so they can remove wrinkles from their faces. That, to me, is what a true communion should offer to our New York ladies."

----"My clergyman here in Manhattan finally explained to me what going to Heaven is like. He said it's like taking an express elevator that travels one billion floors upward, instead of the usual 15 floors here in New York. Until my clergyman explained that to me, I could never conceptualize what going to Heaven will be like for me."

---"To me, the biggest mystery from Katherine Hepburn's life is how she ever got anything accomplished. She once admitted that she took seven showers a day. Assuming that each of her showers lasted 30 minutes, that means that Katherine Hepburn devoted three hours and thirty minutes from each of her days to taking a shower. Assuming that she required eight hours per day for sleeping, that left her with only 12 hours and thirty minutes available each day for doing everything. How she found the time to write her autobiography, is beyond me!"

---"What the United Nations sorely needs is an actress as glamorous as Audry Hepburn was to promote the United Nations fund helping needy children. Here in New York today, do you really think we have a widely-admired and glamorous actress who's willing to champion the UNICEF cause?"

---"I would estimate that 60 percent of the marriages in New York today are strictly marriages of convenience. Neither the woman nor the man in that marriage could afford to pay the exorbitant cover charges in nightclubs here. So they flipped a coin to decide which of the available bachelors or bachelorettes they might be willing to room with, and they later decided to dignify that mutual-consent cohabitation with a no-frills wedding ceremony and a quickie Honeymoon on Long Island."

---"Whenever a New York wedding results in a honeymoon of no more than three days, that's a clear indication that their marriage won't last. They might as well pre-schedule their quickie divorce trip to Las Vegas during their honeymoon!"

---"I'm fully aware that 'Fiddler on the Roof' made arranged marriages look romantic and endearing. But the fact of the matter is that arranged marriages are slavery! I will not condone any marriage here in 21st Century New York that was pre-determined and arranged in advance!"

---"The only thing I envy about upstate New Yorkers is their lungs. Can you imagine how clean their lungs must be, compared with the lungs of those of us who dwell in Manhattan?"

---"Anyone who lives in Manhattan should make a point of consulting a lung specialist. The lungs of anyone who lives here in Manhattan will always be vulnerable. It's just a fact of life for anyone in New York City. That reminds me. I need to find a good website that lists each of the foods and beverages I can eat or drink that will help me to avoid getting lung cancer."

---"I'd say that a sense of shared medical vulnerability in our lungs is probably the one thing that gives all New Yorkers the greatest sense of camaraderie. To live in Manhattan is comparable to smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. All New Yorkers empathize with one another in that way. When you see two New Yorkers hugging, they're often revealing their devotion to protecting the medical health of each other's lungs."

---"With all the New Yorkers who die of lung cancer or heart attacks, don't you think we should have a special American Cancer Society cemetery and an American Heart Association cemetery in Manhattan that exclusively serve those who died because of lung cancer or a heart attack? It would be a great way to remind all New Yorkers of today to do everything they can to avoid getting lung cancer or heart disease."

---"When I attend cocktail parties in New York, one of the first things I like to ask the other party guests is whether they know of a lung specialist they can recommend. This is one city where everyone is more than happy to refer anyone who asks to their own favorite lung specialist."

---"To me, it's very surprising that I haven't heard about any Lung Health Research Center here in Manhattan. That would be the most obvious topic area for a new medical research center here, since everyone who lives or works in New York City has vulnerable lungs."

---"Whenever anyone asks me about the medical vulnerability of New Yorkers' lungs, I try to remember which Greek God or Roman God protected mortals from lung disease. I could then post a portrait of that Greek or Roman God inside my living room. I could also write a book about the relevance of that Greek or Roman God for New Yorkers, and I'm sure the book would sell well here!"

---"It seems to me that the number of days of mourning has quadrupled in the last 10 years here in New York. Now we all have September 11 to mourn, and I, for one, am mourning April 20 every year now. April 20, or National Pot Smokers Day, is the day of the year when according to my teenage son, marijuana smokers all over the U.S. all smoke lots of marijuana that day to flaunt their illicit-drug activity. Can't we at least increase the number of days of rejoicing over good news, to make up for all this grimness amd depravity in our lives of today here in Manhattan?"

---"What thrills me the most about my rooftop garden on top of the 15-floor apartment complex where I live is that I always know that when it rains in New York, my outdoor garden will be the very first garden here to get rained on! My lavender and rose plants appreciate the multi-second advantage I've given them over the other garden plants of New York! My garden plants prove that to me by blooming faster and more fully than the other lavenders and roses of New York! It's not that I'm hyper-competitive about my gardening. I just that I like being the first one to give my plants the natural rainwater they need."

---"The tickertape parades here in New York always remind me of a big wedding, except that it's bits of paper, not rice, being showered on everyone. Tickertape parades are all about one person, or a group such as the New York Yankees, getting married to fame and glory in a very public, very ostentatious way. No exchange of rings is needed, since tickertape parades are about a very different kind of love from romantic love. They are about love of pageantry, love of publicity: the sheer joy of New York-style egomania."

---"The only criticism I have never heard about any New Yorker is that he lacks egotism. New York City is the world headquarters for egomaniacs! If there were an Egomaniacs Unite rally here in New York, half of the city's residents would turn out for that civic event!"

---"The word 'humility' has been banished from the vocabulary of New York men ever since their childhoods. You won't find any men in New York City who are persons exhibiting humility."

---"Personally, I would like to see the City of New York protect our city's taxpayers by not spending any more money on cleaning up after ticker-tape parades. The corporate sponsors of the tickertape parades should be the ones required to pay for clean-up after those public spectacles that are about as pompous as the Roman Emperors used to be."

---"Personally, I would like to find a comprehensive listing of each and every person who has been honored in a ticker-tape parade here in New York in the last 80-year period. My theory is that at least 50 percent of the persons who were honored that way did not deserve that type of public worship."

---"New York City is definitely the wrong place for the bumpersticker on motor vehicles that urges other motorists to 'Honk if You Love Jesus'. The last thing New York needs is more honking, regardless of whether it is religiously inspired. Furthermore, we have lots of New Yorkers who definitely do NOT love Jesus Christ. They will be so infuriated by that bumpersticker message that they might even smash their vehicle into the one parading that message in front of them."

---"When I approach a street vendor in Manhattan, I never ask him to give me his name. I guess I'm like most New Yorkers, I assume our city's street vendors want to remain nameless and completely anonymous."

---"I feel sorry for all the New Yorkers over age 30 who confided to me that they do smoke marijuana on occasion. I feel sorry for them because they have lost me as a friend or acquaintance. Had they been age 29 and made that disclosure to me, I would have of course given them a one-year probationary period. If they continued to consume marijuana in any form at any time after they turned age 30, they would have to endure the rest of their life without me. That's my firm policy. But even if they are shameless potheads at age 30, which so many New Yorkers obviously are, they can always visit my website and enjoy my blog in their 30s and 40s. They will always have that one opportunity to keep up with me, after they turn age 30 and are hopelessly addicted, at that point."

---"She is so desperate for money that whenever she witnesses a crime in New York, she immediately calls the local Crimestoppers organization and demands to know how much money they will pay her if she provides them on the telephone with a good description of the suspect. She says she never calls NYPD anymore, since 'there would be no money in it for me if I called the cops,' she says."

---"One of her favorite pastimes is to stand at the scene of an accident or crime here in Manhattan and count the number of persons who witnessed the incident but walk away or drive away from the scene as if nothing happened. To me, it's a rather grim pastime. She claims otherwise, since she says it spares her from any tendency toward idealizing her fellow New Yorkers. She says she once counted as many as 35 witnesses to a crime who either walked away from the scene or drove past the scene without stopping their own vehicle. When I then ask her why she herself never reports any of the crimes or accidents she herself witnesses here in New York, she replies that she is too busy monitoring the negligent ones to call 911 herself."

---"I try to be nice to all the bums I see in New York, since you never know when it's a billionaire dressed in rags. If he is, he might award me $10,000 just for being nice to him that day. You would not believe how many times I have gone out of my way to be nice to bums here in New York. So far, none of them have later contacted me to let me know that they were a billionaire in disguise. But I'm always hoping that my luck will get better soon."

---"I would define a rich person in New York as someone who has the money to buy an entire season's tickets to all the Yankees games."

---"The biggest etiquette question I ever face here in New York is whether to shake hands with the other side after a court proceeding in which I'm the plaintiff. I've had to file so many lawsuits here in New York that I spend about half of my time in the courtroom. Personally, I always feel better when I shake hands with the respondent after the lawsuit proceedings are over. It makes me feel like a good citizen and all. But many times, all I get from the respondent I've just sued is a very clammy or limp-wristed handshake!"

---"I have filed lawsuits against more New Yorkers than the number of New Yorkers I would currently cite as personal friends of mine. Isn't that a curious coincidence?"

---"I've always wondered how many New Yorkers apply to emigrate to a foreign country after having been exposed to this city and its residents for at least 12 conesecutive months. I get the impression that New York has a way of converting lots of people into pursuing citizenship in another country. Maybe they'll be happier in Canada, or Australia, or wherever they flee to."

---"We thought of holding our family reunion on Ellis Island, to celebrate the great wisdom of our ancestors in emigrating to this country. However, the majority of my relatives voted not to hold our next family reunion on Ellis Island. I am still trying to figure out why they voted that way. I think some of my relatives here actually wish we had all stayed in the Old Country."

---"I wish there were uninhabited islands off the coast of New York that are up for sale. That would give me incentive to become a billionaire and then purchase one of those islands from the State of New York so I could turn that island into my personal playground."

---"There must be a lot of billionaires in New York City who are worried that they could turn into millionaires overnight, if the economy here gets any worse. Can you imagine how traumatic that would be, to suddenly wake up one morning in your Manhattan residence and learn that you are merely a millionaire now?"

---"I've heard of Millionaire's Pie, but I have never once dined inside a restaurant here in New York that offers a Billionaire's Pie on its menu. Isn't that a surprising oversight, as money-crazed as we New Yorkers are?"

---"This is the only city in the world I know of where, if you ask a friend of yours what they would like for a Christmas present, they reply that they will gladly provide you with a list of their favorite stocks and bonds."

---"I never trust any restaurant in New York until I've met the owner in person and I'm fully convinced that he isn't with the Mafia."

---"There are days when I think every New Yorker wishes they were like Peter Pan or Superman and could fly all over Manhattan without any traffic jams. I could sure get to my business appointments a lot faster if I could fly around town like Peter Pan. But unfortunately, I have not yet heard of any personal body propeller I could purchase here that would enable me to fly all over town without any risk of a crash landing."

---"I'm glad I don't own a greeting card shop here in New York. New Yorkers tend to be very suspicious toward anyone showing personal interest in themselves like that. And the sentimentality of greeting cards is the antithesis of what New York is all about. When a New Yorker drops dead, the first reaction his surviving relatives verbalize is, 'I hope to hell that our city's grave diggers are NOT unionized! Unions charge way too much money for everything they do! I can't bear the thought of getting charged an arm and a leg just to have our most recent family stiff buried at a cemetery here in Manhattan!'"

---"I've been hoping to join a New York Ground-Level Apartment Unit Tenants Association. However, I have never been invited to a meeting for a citizens group like that. And everyone knows I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Because my apartment unit is ground level, I'm the most vulnerable to break-ins of all the apartment tenants of New York. One of my pet peeves is that I am fairly sure that the apartment insurance premium I get charged is higher than what Joe on the third floor pays for his. I take much better care of my apartment than Joe does, but because I'm a first-floor tenant, I get charged a lot more for my apartment insurance coverage!"

---"Have you met that neighbor of ours with three bolt-locks to the front door of his residence? It must take a fair amount of time for him to unlock the front door whenever he wants to go outside! If there's ever a fire in his home when he's there, he'll have a tough time trying to flee from his home before the flames devour him! I can almost imagine the headlines in the 'New York Post' the next day: 'Bolt-Locked to Death in Big Apple! Homeowner unable to flee from fatal fire!'"

---"My wife has launched a crime-fighting campaign inside our Manhattan apartment. She recently bought a pair of binoculars from Macy's, and she's been sitting for hours on end near the window to our 15th-floor apartment while staring through her binoculars into the 15th-floor bedroom of the romantic couple in the apartment complex across the street. My wife says that if anything criminal ever develops from that relationship, my wife will be the first on our block to report the incident to NYPD! My wife is so thrilled by her crime-fighting project that I think she expects to be nominated for Vigilant New Yorker of the Year Award! I keep telling my wife, though, that no one's been arrested yet, so her crime-fighting efforts are all completely in vain at this point! If my wife presented to the District Attorney what my wife has observed so far through her binoculars, the DA would laugh in her face!"

---"New York City is so ethnic-obsessed that I couldn't even say where you could buy fresh home-baked Scottish shortbread here! Everything in New York has to have an Italian or Greek or Asian or Jewish accent to qualify as interesting! I keep telling everyone, though, that Scottish is 'ethnic' in its own way! Why shouldn't Scottish Shortbread be intriguing to the New York palate?"

---"If I lived in a Penthouse Apartment in Manhattan, I would contact a parachute manufacturer and special-order a new type of emergency-escape-parachute that would enable me to jump to safety from the balcony of my 15th-floor Penthouse Apartment unit, should a fire or other crisis ever occur in my apartment unit. I think anyone who lives in a Penthouse Apartment in Manhattan has a great desire for a life-saver parachute of that type. Many of us would even be willing to pay $10,000 for something like that. I would want it to be a foolproof parachute, so that I wouldn't face a sudden surprise in the middle of my jump."

---"As a New Yorker, I find it demoralizing to note how many of the characters in soap operas set in New York are plotting to kill someone. I have never once plotted to kill anyone. It's always been the other way around in my own life. I often sense that a gang of New Yorkers are plotting to kill me. Unfortunately, no one at NYPD has ever agreed with me on that. They keep telling me my conspiracy theories are purely theoretical. Nothing is tangible to NYPD unless I can provide our city's police department with actual DNA evidence and actual fingerprints along with the proof that someone was pointing a gun at me, and that I have wounds on me from the incident. The juries in Manhattan will not convict anyone unless you can show them very dramatic wounds, from what I understand. Superficial wounds will not do, not here in Manhattan!"

---"It's a point of pride for me and my friends that the neighborhood of Manhattan where we live is never featured on any of the fictional crime shows. We like to joke that we live in a crime-free zone, since the Hollywood actor police officers and their camera crews are never seen on our block."

---"My cousin from Connecticut has asked me where she should go here to order a slice of Big Apple Pie. She told me she's used to apple pie, and she assumes that the apple pie being sold to customers in The Big Apple will be twice as large as regular apple pie. I'm searching all over Manhattan to find a place that will offer my cousin the very thick and very tall slice of apple pie that she's craving. I would not want to disappoint her, since she drove all the way from Connecticut expecting a Huge Apple Pie to be the highlight of her trip to New York."

---"My friend plans to photograph chimneys all over New York City and then compile them all into a new book highlighting the Chimneys of New York in 2011. I did congratulate my friend on his creative book project. However, I find it sobering to think that he'll be spending hundreds of hours standing close to chimneys where air pollutants are being released into the air! I hate to think of my friend choking on the air pollution coming out of those chimneys! Maybe he should wear a gas mask while he takes those photographs! But even if he wears a gas mask, isn't he at increased risk of getting lung cancer from a project of that type?"

---"You always brag about being a leading expert on New York. So tell me, which commercial building in Manhattan is the tallest building that gets its electricity primarily or partly from solar power?"

---"Don't you wish you could enter a New York City Trivia Contest promising $5,000 to the winning contestant? That might be almost enough prize money to pay your next month's rent for your one-bedroom apartment here in Manhattan."

---"The subterranean buildings here in New York scare me. An underground building could catch on fire, but no one in that neighborhood would be aware of it. There would be no clouds of smoke in the sky to alert anyone, and our New York City firefighters would be left completely in the dark!"

---"I think I know why half of New York stays up until 2 a.m. every day. They are constantly telling themselves that if they stay up just one more hour to think hard and brainstorm, they will generate a very original and bold new idea that will earn them a big bonus from their employer. So when was the last time that you ever heard of any employer in New York giving out big bonuses to their employees in exchange for great ideas they came up with on their own?"

---"Of all the cities of the world where monogamous marriages are truly amazing, New York City may well be number one in that category. Every day, New Yorkers who travel around town are reminded of thousands of very attractive persons here who might have been available for a romantic date, had they themselves agreed to it. Only a tiny percentage of all married persons in New York are resolutely responding to these daily sources of temptation in the flesh by noting that their own response to that individual would never go any farther than a handshake, at most."

---"When you live in New York, you tend to think in terms of harnessing the adrenalin as much as possible. My boss always expects me to be an overachiever at all times, and to get everything accomplished in a matter of minutes or seconds. Do you know of any highly-rated doctor here in Manhattan who specializes in helping New Yorkers get an adrenalin rush at least 10 times per day? A doctor like that could help me save my career---and God knows I need all the help I can get. My boss is such a slave-driver that he makes Simon LaGree look like a polite Southern gentleman!"

---"I have never understood why any true New Yorker would want to travel outside of our metro area in order to attend a Mets game. What would be the point of being out-shouted and out-clapped by the home-team's fans throughout the entire game?"

---"New Yorkers tend to be so hyper all day that you have to think this would make a fine city for a comprehensive Adrenalin Studies research project. I would volunteer to participate in that study myself, if they offer to pay me enough money to make it worth my time. To me, no volunteer project should ever be pursued in New York City for less than $1,000 per month in compensation. That's my philosophy as a New Yorker. Call me hard-nosed, if you like, but I have to make rent every month. That's the bottom line that keeps everyone in New York very pragmatic about their idealism."

---"Whenever I get home from my very frantic workplace in Manhattan, I need to have a nice pet animal welcoming me. I finally figured out that if I find the right pet animal to raise inside my home, I will be much calmer and happier every day here in New York. Do you know of any recent research finding from NYU social scientists that identified the pet animal most likely to help lower your blood pressure? A super-pet like that could add 10 years to my lifespan! Just think of how much more of Long Island I could get to know, if I had 10 additional years for doing vacations! I might even teach a class on beachcombing, as much spare time as I'll have for becoming an expert on the beaches of Long Island!"

---"As a New Yorker, I take pride in never hating the many prostitutes I see in this city at all hours of the day. I instead focus my hatred toward the pimps and madams of New York. Many of those pimps and madams forced those young ladies into a life of prostitution! What we need is a special website that lists all of the New York City residents who have been convicted of being a pimp or a madam in the last 30-year period. I will then make a point of excluding all those individuals from my party invitation lists."

---"As a female New Yorker, I am very grateful that I never get approached by any prostitutes here in Manhattan. The female prostitutes can somehow figure out that I'm not lesbian or bisexual, and the male prostitutes here are able to figure out that I'm not the type of woman who'd ever say 'yes' to them. In fact, I didn't even enjoy the movie 'American Gigolo', and I wonder why I ever saw that movie. I must have been very bored during that period of my life."

---"I would let my 8-year-old son invest in the stock market, except that he'd be crying inside our home every time his stocks went down. I couldn't handle all that additional crying inside our household! My wife says I could just tell my son that there was no news from the stock market on the days when his stocks went down. I kind of like that strategy, but my son would probably figure out we're withholding something from him on the bad-news days."

---"New York is the first city I've lived in where the clergymen all want to know which corporations I recommend investing in. I think the clergy of New York City expect free financial advice from me in exchange for their doing everything possible to get me into Heaven."

---"I'll bet they've had to increase the number of security officers stationed at the top of the Empire State Bulding! With the economic depression we're headed toward, they'll need as many security officers as possible to prevent New Yorkers from leaping to their death from up there!"

---"If I were a Wall Street analyst, I would post the Best Wall-Street News Days from my entire career on the wall of my office. That way, no matter what the stock market news is like on any given day, I could always think of Wall Street at its finest, to cheer myself up."

---"My ideal job in New York would be as a talent scout. I love the idea of spending all my time discovering talent among teenage New Yorkers and 20-something New Yorkers. I would then have the opportunity to match them to creative jobs they might actually enjoy. Think of all the years of misery I could spare them from, if they actually landed a job they like while they're in their late teens or twenties!"

---"I shudder to think of all the New Yorkers in their 20s who are told they have to pay their dues at a low-paying job before they can qualify for a decent-paying job they actually enjoy. Who decides the total amount of dues being charged to talented young New Yorkers before their dues-paying days suddenly end?"

---"I keep expecting someone to give me a New York City IQ test, in which case I would flunk the portion of that test that asks me about illicit drugs. I've been told that cocaine looks a bit like snowflakes, but that's as far as I could go if I were asked to describe cocaine. Maybe I'd get a multiple-choice question about cocaine, which would increase my chances of giving them the correct answer. I think I'd pick 'C' as my answer, since cocaine starts with the letter 'c'. But with my luck, the correct answer would probably be 'A'."

---"I wish there were a special edition of the 'Guinness Book of World Records' that exclusively cites world records that have been set in New York City. One obvious example would be the world's longest continuous honk from one motor vehicle. There would be thousands of New Yorkers who each claim to have accomplished that feat for the Big Apple."

---"Before I buy a pet dog for myself here in New York, I need to contact NYPD and find out which types of dogs are the most likely to get dognapped here. I would want to own a type of dog that is NOT on NYPD's Most Kidnapped Canines List."

---"Dognappings are so common here in New York that I wish I could train my French poodle to push her paw onto a 911 panic button on her body the minute that any stranger tries to grab her. The only difficulty would be if NYPD's 911 dispatcher asks my poodle for details."

---"I don't blame the people of Tokyo for carrying oxygen masks with them wherever they go in that city. Whenever I board an elevator in New York, I'm secretly pleased that I'm the only passenger on that elevator who is carrying an oxygen mask inside my attache case. If the elevator suddenly stops and we're stranded there for hours, I will need all the extra oxygen I can get. Come to think of it, though, I would probably also need an oxygen tank. Maybe I should look for a small-size oxygen tank that could also fit inside my briefcase. But I have to keep in mind that someone else on that same elevator might try to grab my oxygen tank and oxygen mask away from me. New Yorkers can be very aggressive when they sense that their life is at stake! And so many of them have first-rate attorneys on retainer who would protect them from ever going to jail if they got charged with oxygen-mask theft of my property!"

---"You should never be surprised when someone verbalizes a death threat against you here in New York. Verbalizing death threats is a favorite pastime of many New Yorkers. And most of the death threats you get here are just New Yorkers being New Yorkers. Their personal bible is a perverse guidebook on how to insult as many people as possible. The key to survival in the Big Apple is knowing the difference between a bad-manners death threat, and a criminal-intent death threat from someone who actually plans to point a real gun at you and shoot. I'd recommend that you enroll in a special New York Survivalism Studies class that's dedicated to that one subject. 'When Is a Death Threat in New York City a Real Death Threat?' might even be the title of that course, if I remember correctly. If you do well in that class, you could add 10 years to your lifespan! And if you flunk that class, you could always get a generous life-insurance policy for yourself as one consolation you'd have, assuming that you are completely sure that the individual you cite as the beneficiary doesn't seek to kill you."

---"I try to make it to at least two Madison Square Garden events per year. If I completely stayed away from Madison Square Garden, I might get labeled as a hermit or misanthrope. But I refuse to attend any boxing matches at Madison Square Garden. If I want to see bloodshed, all I've got to do is watch the nightly news reports on television about the military conflict in the Middle East."

---"My nephew has figured out a great way to strike oil here in New York. He's established a New York Newcomers professional service that is designed to meet all the needs of first-time residents here who have lived in New York City for less than one year. So many of the newcomers here are terrified that they will turn into New York rejects and have to move back to wherever they came from. My nephew tells me that his professional service for newcomers is brilliantly exploiting newcomers' hysteria and intense anxiety while charging them each $500 for his services. Then if they fall flat on their face in New York and end up having to flee from the Big Apple, my nephew is hoping they will eventually read the fine print on their contract with him. That fine print clearly states, 'Membership in New York Newcomers does not guarantee you that you will be able to financially afford to contine residing in New York City for any period of time--not even five consecutive days.'"

---"My writer friend came up with a great idea for a new architecture book on New York City. His book will be entitled, 'The Best Architecture from Each Zip Code of New York City.' His alternative title is, 'A Zip Code Guide to New York City's Finest Architecture'. Unfortunately, my friend hasn't found a book publisher that's excited about the idea. I told my friend he should keep trying, the zip code theme has lots of potential to it."

---"She is so upward-mobility-obsessed that she drives out of her neighborhood whenever she does her laundry in a public laundrymat here in New York. She selected a laundrymat in East Manhattan where the yuppie crowd is the biggest and most attractive, she says. This gives her the chance to strategically exchange professional calling cards with handsome, refreshingly cleancut young men whenever she does her laundry. Personally, I question whether it's a good idea to cozy up to a male stranger in the middle of his rinse cycle. He might mistake that for a sign that she'd air his dirty laundry with others, if she ever had the opportunity to embarrass him that way. After all, she's getting glimpses of his underwear swishing about in the washing machine when she strikes up a first-time conversation with him inside that laundrymat. The sublminal message from it all is very, very awkward."

---"My 8-year-old son asked me the cutest question this week. He said he wants to know the first name of the Statue of Liberty lady. My son said he wants to write her a fan letter, and he needs her first name in order to mail his fan letter to her. The Postal Service will not deliver a letter addressed to 'Statue of Liberty' unless her first name is cited, according to my 8-year-old son. I told my son that the Statue of Liberty's first name is 'Marie', since that statue was originally a present from France and nearly all French women have the first name of 'Marie'."

---"Personally, I'd like to see New York join an American Island Cities Association. I realize that we're not 100 percent an island city, since Manhattan island is only a portion of New York. I feel confident, though, that New York City would be admitted into a non-profit group of that type. And there's even a chance we could host an American Island Cities Symposium that would be good for New York's economy. That symposium would draw people in from island cities throughout the United States, and they'd spend millions of dollars in our city's hotels and restaurants."

---"I'd love to find out which borough of New York is visited the least often by the top four candidates during a mayoral election campaign here. Maybe that borough should be sent a special sympathy card from City Hall."

---"The art museums here in New York that I admire the most are the ones that let me purchase replicas of each of the artworks in that museum that I particularly like. I then hang those replicas of great artworks all over my apartment, and I boast to my friends that I specialize in Great Replications Art. One advantage to my hobby is that no burglar who breaks into my apartment will ever steal any of my artworks. He'll immediately recognize them as worthless fakes. I also point out to my friends that even if I had the money to purchase the original of a great artwork, it would not be fair to deprive everyone else of the opportunity to view that masterpiece in person. My hobby is my way of helping to make the original artworks as accessible as possible to the general public."

---"My cousin was so worried that someone would break into his condo unit in Manhattan that he posted a sign on his front door that declares, 'Warning: All of the Artworks You'll Find Here are Very Cheap and Worthless Replications. Please try another Condo Unit if You're looking for Valauble Art to steal!'"

---"Any gentleman who has lived in New York City his entire life, as I have, reaches a point when he looks into the mirror in his apartment and he asks himself, 'Am I more of a Robin than a Batman?' This moment of self-reflection can be traumatic for that New Yorker, until he suddenly remembers that Robin got to drive the Batmobile whenever Batman was being tortured and abused by a villain."

--"Ever since my husband insisted on our going to Atlantic City for a three-day weekend, he's been completely addicted to gambling! Is it any surprise that I hate New Jersey, after what it's done to my husband and our finances? Al admitted to me today that he has lost $10,000 in the casinos of Atlantic City in the last two months. It's like an income redistribution plan in which we New Yorkers get robbed in order to boost the per-capita income in southern New Jersey! What a Garden of Evil Temptations New Jersey has been for Al and me!"

---"I think every New Yorker fantasizes about attending a film festival that exclusively features the best elevator-ride scenes from the American cinema. I distinctly recall an elevator-ride scene set in New York City that gave Sandra Bullock one of her finest moments as an actress. I think a lot of New Yorkers would enjoy watching that elevator-ride scene from 'As Good as It Gets', since she brilliantly conveyed the idea that Sandra Bullock was at her absolute nicest while riding inside a New York elevator."

---"Have you ever noticed how few of the waitresses in New York's Italian restaurants could actually pass for Italian if they visited Rome?"

---"With all the fashion emphasis here in New York, I'm surprised we don't have a Little Milan or Little Paris section of town. Then again, I can't remember ever commenting that she or he looks 'very Milan'."

---"I sometimes go for Biscotti inside coffeeshops here in New York, and I always look around to see if my dentist is a customer there that day. My dentist has warned me that these trendy Italian-style hard biscuits could cause me to lose one of my teeth. I find it very impressive that my dentist has advised me against eating Biscotti. It proves that my dentist cares about me as a human being. I do wonder, though, what the dentists in Italy say when their patients ask for advice on that subject."

---"So tell me, who's your favorite protagonist in a novel set in New York City?"

---"My English professor at NYU loves to talk about male protagonists in novels set in New York. But in my own life, I find that the only men I ever meet here do nothing but antagonize me. They're either anti-heroes or villains, and I can't decide which. To me, a villain is a male adult New Yorker with a felony conviction record. If they don't have any felony convictions against them, they could still pass for semi-likable anti-heroes."

---"What our city desperately needs is a New York Literary Protagonists Symposium. It would be the type of literary symposium that highlights heroic characters from 21st Century novels set in New York. That type of symposium might help to boost the self-esteem of all of us after the many nasty attacks on our city's reputation that we've all suffered from."

---"One of the great tragedies of married life here in New York is when you suddenly realize that if your spouse were a character in a novel, she or he would be depicted as an anti-hero. That makes it very tough on Valentine's Day. What do you declare that day? Great and undying love for your anti-heroic spouse whose success at not being a villain per se presumably makes her or him very special?"

---"There are some very rare days here when I can feel the perspiration on my forehead and I want to know the mentality of the blue-collar workers better. So I'll buy a copy of the 'New York Daily News'. I always regard that as a noble display of sociological empathy on my part. But none of the blue-collar workers here ever come up to me and thank me for reading the 'Daily News' that day. I think they may sense that my commitment to reading the 'Daily News' only lasts for that one day of the year when I'm determined to feel sympathetic toward our blue-collar community. It's not as if I'm ever going to join their labor union or spend any time at their favorite hangout spots."

---"I find it very tragic. Here my nephew Ted enrolled in Columbia University, a prestigious Ivy League school. And despite this, Ted professed to be shocked when he found out that Columbia University's Administration has no official ties to the druglords of Colombia. Ted, who was never good at spelling, claims that he had delighted in all things Colombian throughout his high school years. He was very hopeful that Columbia University's official name proves that celebration of Colombian culture is that school's primary mission. Ted even told me that he had expected Columbia's administration to provide all incoming freshmen with a free year-round supply of marijuana reefers as part of their liberal-arts education there. I had to explain to Ted that the term 'liberal arts education' is not synonymous with getting high on marijuana. I pointed out that Ted is misinterpreting the term 'liberal' in that particular phrase when he claims otherwise. Ted is such a hopeless pothead, at this point, that he says he plans to only enroll in classes being taught by known drug addicts. Apparently Ted plans to bring a bong with him into each of his classrooms at Columbia, in order to publicly display his solidarity with each of his marijuana-friendly instructors."

--"My teenage son likes to boast that since he's leading a celibate lifestyle as a virgin freshman at Columbia University, he's 'Columbian Pure'. I told him his word games are NOT amusing to me. I know full well that Sam during his study breaks at college has consumed more than his share of marijuana from the nation of Colombia. My only consolation is that NYPD has never caught Sam in the middle of his reefer madness. Maybe Sam will get the addiction-treatment he needs before he ends up on Reefer Row at Attica State Prison. But that's wishful thinking on my part. Sam worships the marijuana leaf. In fact, smoking dope with his classmates inside his college dormitory is Sam's proposed conterpart to taking communion in church. Sam's lifestyle at Columbia is so perverse that I feel like puking!"

---"I would define the term 'Progressive New Yorker' as 'Someone who insists on riding in taxis that are as energy-efficient as possible, and that adequately protect the safety of the passengers and driver in the event of a collision.'"

---"Don't you find it intriguing that people who live in Manhattan are brainwashed into being very hat-minded in their sense of fashion? I'm a psycholinguist here, so that explains why I'm particularly aware of this subliminal theme. If you deconstruct the name of our particular borough of New York --- ManHATtan --- you are immediately reminded that this is a place for people who love to wear hats. I'm sure that my hat collection is much larger than it would have been had I lived in Philadelphia. I'm surprised, in fact, that I don't ever get invited to any Hat Parties here in Manhattan. Everyone here has so many different hats they like to flaunt in public, and a Manhattan Hat Party would give all my friends and me a perfect excuse to wear the one hat we each adore the most."

---"Isn't it sad that a former mayor of New York City would choose to live somewhere else during his retirement years. You'd think they would be very proud of how much they had helped to improve the quality of life for everyone here. If they stayed in New York City, they could reap lots of tangible rewards from the enlightened policies they pursued here as mayor. They would be showered with praise and words of gratitude on a year-round basis wherever they travel in New York, and they would have the opportunity to delight in the very rich cultural life here. For a former mayor to flee from New York City is about as illogical as the very popular Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan suddenly announcing that it will relocate to New Jersey because New Jersey is famous for being the 'Garden State', and Four Seasons highlights fresh garden vegetables quite a bit."

--"What we need above all else is a fully-reliable and annually updated New York City Crime Statistics Almanac. For instance, just today I was trying to figure out whether I'm more likely to get car-jacked as a motorist when I'm driving through an alley behind a building, or when I'm driving on a regular thoroughfare in Manhattan. My theory is that the alleys of New York attract the criminal element more than the regular thoroughfares do. So I'm a lot more likely to get carjacked if I drive my Buick into an alley here than if I am driving on a regular street in Manhattan. Unfortunately, though, I don't have any reference book that will give me the statistical probabilities info I need."

----"I spend much of my life here in New York preparing for the day when I bump into the one New York City celebrity I admire the most. I've already planned exactly what I will say to that famous person when I'm suddenly standing a few inches from them inside the post office here. But every year, the results are the same. He is never standing in line at the post office when I am, and he never frequents the delicatessen that I frequent at the same time that I do. And if I ever do run into him someday, it will probably be a day 10 years from now. By then, I will have forgotten what I wanted to say to him. All I'll be able to do is smile appreciatively, and I will spend the rest of my life regretting that I had nothing to say to him when I had my one big chance here in New York! My only consolation is that I can tell all my friends and relatives about the day when I blew my one big chance to say something special to this celebrity I admire quite a bit. I will have that intriguing ancedote to tell everyone whenever I run out of stories to tell all my friends and relatives and acquaintances here in New York."

---"Do you ever get the impression that living in New York City is a bit like playing a year-round and continuous poker game in which you are expected to out-trump your opponent each week by claiming to have just met a more famous and more popular and more affluent celebrity than your friend claims to have met here in New York during the most recent one-week period. But it isn't always clear who out-trumps whom. For instance, last week I shook hands with Donald Trump, while my friend claims to have shaken hands with our city's Mayor. So who won that round in our poker game? Was it me, or was it my friend? My friend and I have been debating that point throughout this entire week."

--"As a parent here in New York, I'm very grateful for the 'Walking Tour of New York' educational videotape series I recently purchased for my family's living room library. The series is designed for children ages 13 or younger. What I love about that watching that series with my children inside our Manhattan home is that they are learning all about our city without being victimized by it. None of the usual pederasts or kidnappers or reckless motorists or drunkards or drug addicts can harm my kids when they are watching those educational videotapes inside our double-bolt-locked home."

---"Personally, I don't agree with my daughter's complaint that the 'Walking Tour of New York' videotape series I'm showing her inside our home is lacking in aromas. She says she likes to use her nose in learning about new subjects, since she remembers something better if she has sniffed it for at least 10 seconds, she points out. My daughter says she can see the various buildings and monuments being highlighted in that videotape, but she can't sense how they smell. I told her she just has to use her imagination to experience the smells of New York when she watches that videotape. I also told her that the next time she watches that educational videotape series with me in our living room, I will make a point of trying to personally simulate each of the aromas of each of the places of New York being highlighted for her. That seemed to reassure my daughter that her tour of New York experience inside our family's home would be fully authentic."

--"You'd think this would be a great city for a full-time geneologist who charges by the hour. Everyone in New York is very acutely aware of having a family history that gives them a profound link to a foreign country. And about half of all New Yorkers are more proud of their country of ancestry than of New York or USA."

---"I would love to meet a legal scholar here in New York who is studying the various ways in which media companies and non-profit groups and schools and businesses and government entities flagrantly violate the law by harboring or aiding and abetting a person in a context in which he is guilty of the deplorable felony crime of stalking someone. New York is one city where stalking generally does not involve a solitary individual doing it all by himself. He is aided and abetted in his felony crime by dozens of other New Yorkers. So when that stalking-crime case finally leads to a criminal prosecution in a criminal-law court here in Manhattan, as many as 1,000 New Yorkers could each be convicted of conspiracy to stalk, or aiding and abetting, the convicted stalker. The mathematics of it all are mind-boggling, as are the 1,000 additional prison cells needed to accommodate all those convicted criminals!"

---"So tell me, which newspaper in New York is the most reliable source of gossip? I love gossip, so long as it's completely accurate."

---"What I hate the most about living in New York is that I have to threaten a business with a lawsuit before the owner of that business will take me seriously. The business owners here are very bottom-line oriented. They won't show any interest in my complaints until I warn them that my attorney plans to sue them."

---"I wish I had a nickel for every time I've had to threaten a business owner here in New York with a lawsuit. I would be as rich as Donald Trump!"

---"So tell me, which restaurant would you recommend as a place to celebrate if I win the lottery here? I always like to think ahead, since there's always that billion to one chance I'll win a lottery someday."

---"I like the way he phrased it. He told me he is pre-employed. He isn't unemployed, but pre-employed. It's just a matter of days before he lands a job here in Manhattan. I love his optimism. It's something that New York needs a lot more of!"

---"I don't recommend that you ever admit to a fellow New Yorker that you're unemployed. New Yorkers have a way of kicking you when you are down. You should tell everyone here that you are self-employed. Don't volunteer that you are paying yourself a salary of zero dollars during this period."

---"I would like to host a party here in honor of each and every New Yorker who has been fired by Donald Trump. That would make a very interesting group of people, those flunkies from Donald Trump's world."

---"Do you notice that the television commentators on ESPN almost never mention the city where the U.S. Open Pro Tennis Tournament is being held this year? I think they're afraid for security reasons to state the name of that city on Long Island. The camera shots of Manhattan that accompany the US Open TV coverage even suggest that it's all taking place in Manhattan. That's very misleading!"

---"One of my favorite places for meeting eligible bachelors is the waiting room of my dental clinic here in Manhattan. I find that single men who care about having a nice smile and keeping all their teeth intact are far more likely to be date-able than the single guys who never see a dentist. I can't handle the idea of dating anyone who refuses to brush his teeth or floss. Dental hygiene is a very high priority for me. I also like knowing that the single guys I meet in the waiting room of a dental clinic are much healthier than the single guys I meet in the waiting area of a hospital emergency room here in Manhattan."

---"I shudder to think of all the famous New Yorkers who died in automobile accidents. Vitas Gerulitis was one of them. It seems like only yesterday when I was watching Vitas compete at the U.S. Open pro tennis tournament. It was great to watch him, since Vitas was a wonderful legal-immigrant success story for New York! He was from either Lithuania or Latvia----I get those 'L' places in eastern Europe mixed up. I am fairly sure it was Lithuania or Latvia, anyway. I think New York has an urgent need for an outdoor monument honoring each of the great or famous New Yorkers who were killed in motor-vehicle accidents here. That might help to wake everyone up, so maybe we could do more to prevent fatal collisions! But I don't meant to suggest that near-fatal collisions are of no concern to me. Maybe the Traffic Victims Monument monument in Manhattan should cite the names of both fatal collision victims and victims of near-fatal collisions here. But that might confuse a lot of people. They'd ask why they had just read the name of a victim at that monument, only to learn that he is still alive and well here in New York!"

--"I thought of becoming a dues-paying member of the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime. But as a lifelong New Yorker, I feel sure that I'm already an expert on organized crime. There isn't anything I haven't seen here in the way of organized crime. I've also seen more than my share of dis-organized crime here. I'm referring to the handful of crimes we get here each year in which no one can finger the Mafia or an illicit youth gang for that crime. I've seen it all here, from A to Z. So why would I need to subscribe to a newsletter about organized crime, when I could already qualify as a walking encyclopedia on that subject. In fact, any day now I'm expecting to learn that NYU has awarded me an honorary degree in Criminology based on what I've observed here on the streets of New York."

---"So tell me, who do you think defines New York City the most successfully? Would that be our Statue of Liberty lady or Liza Minnelli in the classic 1970s movie 'New York, New York'?"

---"I think every New Yorker has had nightmares during his sleep in which he picks up the 'Daily News' to face the dramatic headline, 'Statue of Liberty Kidnapped by Terrorist Group! Huge Ransom Demanded!' If someone ever did try to kidnap our world-famous Statue of Liberty, I don't know anyone here who would be willing to pay the ransom on that. All we could do is ask our City Government to award a contract to a sculptor for a replica of the original. If the terrorist group wants to repeatedly torture or threaten to behead the kidnapped Statue of Liberty, it's not as if she'll be screaming in pain. She isn't alive, so she can't feel any pain."

---"I have no way of estimating how many of the New Yorkers I've met are Palestinian-American. I have never met anyone in this city who volunteers that he's Palestinian-American. I can understand why they might be reluctant to give out that information. They sense that it could hurt them in their career and social life. But many New Yorkers are sympathetic toward Palestinians. After all, how could any reasonable New Yorker say he opposes the right of a person born in the Middle East to be granted citizenship in the country where that person was born."

---"Anyone who lives in New York for more than a month feels as if he's earned an unofficial degree in Criminology. I would call it an Honorary Degree in Criminology, except that there is no sense of honor to being a victim of crime here on a frequent basis. Most of my knowledge about crime that I've gleaned here derives from my being a frequent victim of crime. I'm an expert on pickpocketing, for instance, since I've been pickpocketed seven times in the last three years of living in Manhattan. I'm amazed that the thugs who rob me still haven't figured out that I'm low-income. They have no reason to steal from me, since I have NOTHING to offer them! Maybe I should wear a special T-shirt everywhere I go that declares: MUGGERS OF NEW YORK BEWARE: I DO NOT CARRY ANY CASH IN MY WALLET!"

---"I thought of hiring a bodyguard, but I've heard that many of them accept bribes from the criminal element. I'm not sure that I would have enough money to pay the bodyguard in order to prevent him from accepting a bribe from the Mafia. So if a Mafia hit man comes along and I need my bodyguard to help protect me, my bodguard might pretend he was distracted by a pretty woman nearby and didn't see the guy firing shots at me. I can even imagine the bodyguard testifying in a court of law, after I've turned into a corpse, that he hadn't heard anything, either, because of honking from nearby motorists. That odious jerk would then have the audacity to file a claim against my estate in which he insists on being paid a generous hazardous-duty compensation in cash for the emotional duress he sustained from being my bodyguard at the time when I got murdered here in New York!"

---"New York is a good place to move to if you have a history of being an under-achiever. New Yorkers have no patience with under-achievers. This citywide intolerance toward underachievement helps to motivate you to ACHIEVE!, ACHIEVE!, ACHIEVE!, at a frenzied pace and on a daily and year-round basis. The only risk from it all is that you might become so maniacal about achieving something big in the Big Apple that you suddenly collapse from a heart attack and die young. Your only consolation is that your epitaph might read: 'He died an over-achiever in New York City.'

---"Living in the Big Apple is nothing like that slogan my parents always repeated to me in my childhood. 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away,' they would always say. In view of the stress-related heart disease I've contracted in the Big Apple, my current outlook on it all is, 'A Big Apple a Day keeps the doctor very, very busy and frequently near by bedside in a hospital!"

---"I wish I could host my dinner parties outdoors on the balcony of my sixth-floor apartment. I always say I have the best view of New York's skyline of anyone in Manhattan. However, my attorney has advised me against hosting any party on my outdoor balcony. If one of my party guests drank too much alcohol and somehow fell over the rail, I would immediately be facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit, my attorney says. I would have to file for bankruptcy, and then I'd probably have to retreat to someplace for losers, like Buffalo or New Jersey."

---"I sometimes wish that the City of Buffalo would consult a marketing specialist from New York City. For instance, Buffalo doesn't currently feature any live-buffalo exhibits in their municipal zoo, from what I understand. To me, that's a squandered opportunity for promoting the city of Buffalo's namesake. But they're so dense up there in Buffalo that it never occurred to anyone up there to feature a Buffalo exhibit at their city zoo!"

---"I agree with you about Buffalo failing to make the most of its PR opportunities. When I visted Buffalo last year, I was looking forward to the opportunity to order Bison while dining in a local restaurant. But my waiter just laughed at me. 'Our city's name has nothing to do with our menu,' he said with a sneer on his face. 'If you're looking for buffalo meat on a restaurant menu, you should try Wyoming or Montana instead.' I felt so insulted by his comment that I told my waiter that his entire city might as well be a near-extinct species, since I myself will never return to Buffalo after the verbal abuse from a waiter that I got here!"

---"When I invited my psychotherapist to have lunch with me at Four Seasons restaurant, she immediately replied that it would not be ethical for her to accept the lunch invitation from me. She added that it was obvious that I was undergoing a period of transference in which I was attributing to her a maternal devotion to myself that was not in touch with reality. Needless to say, I felt very hurt and offended by her condescending response to my lunch invitation. She basically told me flat out that her relationship with me is strictly limited to my psychotherapy sessions with her inside her clinic! If I ever run into her inside a bookstore in Manhattan, she'll pretend that she hadn't seen me! The real story here is that in her eyes, I exist only when I'm lying on a couch in her clinic and telling her about my fears and anxieties and crises! She can't handle the idea that much of my life is NOT dysfunctional, and that there is a lot of vitality to my life that is NOT contingent on my attending psychotherapy sessions with her!"

---"I ran into a former acquaintance of mine near Times Square the other day, and he had the audacity to greet me by declaring loudly that he was amazed to be running into 'the infamous Rob Eppenstein' again! I immediately shot back that at least I'm someone he's identified as having fame here. Infamy is far better than anonymity, since I'm a big fish here, I told him. He, on the other hand, is so inconsequential to everyone that no one can even remember his name! He's the tiniest minnow we have in this entire sea of people called Manhattan! When he dies, he won't get more than one inch of obituary space in 'The Times' obituary section---and even that one inch is definitely stretching things! His entire life is so trivial and minor and unoriginal that the entire obituary announcement for him might as well be situated within parentheses! I can even imagine 'The Times' running a retraction the day after that one-inch obituary appears in that paper. It will be a very rare type of retraction in which 'The Times' apologizes for having devoted as much as one inch of its precious newspaper space to noting the birth and death of the infinitessimally inconsequential Noah Nobody, or whatever his name is, whose life was far less noteworthy to 'The Times' than the lives of seven million of his contemporaries here in New York City, 'The Times' wishes to announce belatedly, and with the benefit of hindsight."

----"Lately I've been trying to remember my most enjoyable bagel-eating experience from my entire life here in New York. It's the type of peak experience that I want to highlight in my next personal blog. But at the moment, I can't remember where I had that peak experience for me here in Manhattan. In fact, I can't even remember if it was an onion bagel or a garlic-flavored bagel. Those are my two favorite types of bagels, so the odds are high that it was one of the two. If it was an onion bagel, I must have been pleased to discover that it didn't cause me to cry when I ate it. I had always been led to believe from my hyper-attentive New York mother that if I ever stand or sit within six feet of onions, I'll be in tears. She was always so good at warning me about worst-case scenarios that never happened for me. I guess that's why everyone says she was the best possible mother I could have had. She was very creative at imagining tragic setbacks for me every day of my life. Maybe I should become a playwright and specialize at writing theater plays that always threaten a tragic ending, but always end very happily instead. Then someday I'll get interviewed by 'The New Yorker' about my playwriting success, and I'll have that chance to publicly declare that my wise Mother always taught me to spare people from shedding tears, whenever possible. Attending my plays is the exact opposite of peeling an onion, I plan to tell 'The New Yorker' magazine."

---"My secret for staying optimistic in New York is simple. Whenever I experience 24 consecutive hours here in which I WASN'T victmized by crime that day---last Sunday, for instance, I found no evidence that anyone had broken into my apartment unit here in Manhattan, much to my astonishment---I make a point of celebrating that amazing moment. I'll spend $200 on a wonderful meal for myself and a friend of mine at Four Seasons restaurant. Since it's only one day out of 365 days each year in which I have any reason to celebrate, my tradition doesn't cost me much on an annual basis. In fact, I have established a special savings account I draw upon for the one crime-free day of each year that I can actually celebrate. I call it my Annual Crime-Free-Day-Celebration Fund."

---"Here I've lived in New York City all my life, and it just dawned on me today that I don't know the official motto of my city. The only thing I ever seem to recall is that famous slogan, 'Give us your poor and your tired.' That's what our Statue of Liberty lady is famous for telling everyone. I never felt comfortable with that famous line as a motto for our city. That quote from our Statue of Liberty suggests that only those who are poverty-stricken and anemic should move to New York City. This is not the place to move to if you're fatigued. Just going through one total day in New York can be very, very exhausting, no matter how energetic you are. If you're feeling tired, there's always Florida as an alternative destination. You can lie on a beach all day in Florida. That doesn't take much energy. I think anyone who complains of fatigue should head for Florida, not New York."

---"It's significant that I met her for the first time on the fifth floor of Rockefeller Center. To me, the symbolism is obvious. When we get married, we will want to have five children, and we should celebrate our wedding anniversary each year by eating oysters Rockefeller. Another interpretation of it all is that our marriage will last exactly five years, and that we will be blessed with Rockefelleresque wealth throughout our marriage. That still leaves me wondering how much money I'll have left after the divorce settlement. Maybe the only one with any wealth after our divorce will be my ex-wife."

----"Why is it that in this state that takes pride in building an empire for everyone, I always feel like the proverbial colonist or slave who never sees any of the empire's wealth myself. If New York City were an Eyptian Pyramid, I would be the slave construction worker breaking my back while carrying stones to the ground-level start of that pyramid-construction project."

---"Don't you think it's a bit perverse that half of New York could cite the favorite recipes of famous mobsters here. But almost no one in our entire city knows the favorite recipes of any of our city's best law-enforcement officers. I, for one, cannot recall any favorite dishes of our most current police chief. I don't even know his favorite restaurants. I never once saw him in any of the restaurants where I was dining."

---"Every month of my life here in New York, I try to identify the one New Yorker I spoke with that month who has the most potential of becoming creatively successful here even though he or she currently isn't successful. I then add that person's name to my next party-invitation list. It thrills me to have this citywide reputation for promoting up-and-coming talent here in New York. I'm a bit like Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Ed Sullivan."

----"New Yorkers are so competitive that I recently ran across a website that rates party hosts of New York City. I was among the party hosts who have been rated at that website, and I found it humiliating to learn that I'm near the bottom in those rankings. One of the primary online complaints about me was that I didn't offer a big enough variety of alcoholic beverages at my parties!"

----"I finally figured out the best time to have a talk with our Mayor. If I arrive at his office at 4:59 p.m., I'm guaranteed of a chance to speak with him. I'm assuming that he's very punctual about leaving his office every day at 5 p.m. sharp. If I'm lucky, I'll get a full 30 seconds to introduce myself and pose a question to our mayor. I should carry a tape-recorder with me, so I can quote our mayor's exact reply to all my friends and relatives. That sound-byte from the Mayor of New York City can then be added to my family's oral-history collection. Someday, one of my grandchildren will enjoy listening to my mini-press conference with our famous Mayor."

---"My brother Eric has such an X-rated mindset that when I told him I plan to spend some time in the Garment District, Eric immediately asked me where the 'Take It All Off District' is located. Eric said that's his own counterpart for an ideal district of New York to visit. So while I'm gazing at elegant fashionwear for hours on end, Eric plans to occupy himself by staring at naked ladies' breasts and vaginas and behinds in the 'Take It All Off' District. My brother has a contempt for clothing on women, since he regards all clothing on women as an evasion from their most authentic fashion statement. That's the fashion statement they make in the buff, according to Eric. Whenever I listen to Eric talk about wanting to see all of the ladies of New York do a strip-tease dance of some sort, I get this horrifying flashback to Jack the Ripper of Victorian England. I realize that Eric is not violent. But I can almost imagine Eric resembling Jack the Ripper as Eric suddenly rips a designer dress from a New York lady's body in order to get a better look at her, as Eric might later explain his conduct to NYPD officers. Eric naively assumes that every lady in New York is either currently affiliated with a nudist colony or a prospective recruit for a nudist colony. I completely disagree with Eric on that. So tell me, how can the same family produce the very best and the very worst that New York has to offer?"

---"Teresa's over-active imagination is making her hysterical with intense fear and anxiety whenever she walks along Avenue of the Americas. Ever since Teresa read a book about the most terrifying predators of South America, she has been worried sick that if she walks anywhere along Avenue of the Americas, she'll get devoured by a school of piranha fish or an anaconda snake. I have to always explain to Teresa that none of the buildings along Avenue of the Americas are named after the Amazon River or any of its vicious predators. Then I have to once again remind Teresa that she has never once encountered quicksand or iguanas anywhere along the Avenue of the Americas. She's at no risk of being eaten alive merely from walking along that street in Manhattan."

---"Teresa is so outraged by the druglords of South America that she recently announced that she plans to boycott the Avenue of the Americas here in New York. Teresa's position is that the Avenue of the Americas is the major thoroughfare in Manhattan that most conspicuously reminds her of the despised South American nation of Colombia. She plans to punish all of the businesses and residents along the Avenue of Americas by taking alternative routes to get wherever she's going. I told Teresa that her zeal was admirable, but her plan on behalf of crime-deterrence was not well conceived. If she wants to protest illicit-drug activities originating from Colombia, she should send a signed letter of protest to the United Nations in which she deplores the failure by the UN member nation of Colombia to put an end to illicit-drug activities in that South American country. None of the businesses or apartment tenants along the Avenue of the Americas are responsible for the nation of Colombia's governmental system or policies."

----"Herb has such a perverse sense of humor that when I recently took him on a tour of the Avenue of the Americas, he asked me why there isn't a South American-style Amazon Jungle amusement park along that avenue. According to Herb, Avenue of Americas would be the perfect location for an amusement park that scares the daylights out of millions of children by replicating what a safari through an Amazon Jungle in South America is like. 'Think of all the kids who will scream in horror as the narrator for their amusement ride suddenly announces that they are about to get devoured by an anaconda!', Herb commented with a smirk on his face."

---"I think New York City is suffering from a multi-decade sense of anti-climax. We had that triumphant moment of a sailor being photographed kissing a lady at Times Square on V-Day in 1945, and everything after that has been downhill. I don't recall any moment in New York City's entire history since V-Day that can compare with that."

---"My neighbor is so naive about infant care that she told me she plans to feed her baby cheesecake after buying some Baby Watson cheesecake from the store the other day. Myra told me that she assumed from the product name that that particular brand of cheesecake had been specially endorsed for consumption by babies. I just hope she doesn't kill her baby from her complete ignorance about how to take care of six-month-old Sue!"

---"I find it ironic that New York City has a strong Dutch heritage, but we don't even have a Dutch Dishes Festival here every year that I ever hear about. That would be one international foods festival I'd be willing to attend here in Manhattan. And that reminds me. I would love to learn more about the Dutch counterpart to Swiss fondue. With all that cheese in Holland, I feel sure the Dutch have something a bit like fondue, but with a Dutch accent."

---"As a new resident here, I need a list of all the streets and buildings of New York City that contain Dutch names. I want to be one New Yorker who is very in touch with our city's Dutch heritage. It keeps us Americans humble, I think, to be aware that our city could have turned out very differently----dikes along the entire edge of Manhattan Island and windmills all over the place, that sort of thing."

---"You can usually identify the pick-pockets on the subways here just by glancing around your subway car. The pick-pockets are the ones who, if they're holding a daily newspaper, never fully convince you that they are actually reading any of the articles. The newspaper they're holding is merely a decoy they use to hide their criminal intent. And if you ever do note to yourself that they might in fact be reading their newspaper, and how unfair of you it was to have been initially suspicious toward them, the very next thing you know, your wallet or purse has vanished from your life forever."

---"I've been amazed by how many of the store clerks here in New York say to me, 'Have a crime-free day' as I leave their store. I get the impression that they think it would be too syrupy sweet, and too unrealistic, if they said 'Have a nice day'."

---"I recently had such a surprising crime-free day here in New York that I thought of celebrating my 24-straight-hours of not being a crime victim. I thought it would be fun to treat a friend to a meal inside an Italian restaurant that we both like quite a bit. But then I started to wonder. How can I be sure that the owner of that restaurant has no ties to the Mafia? I thought of asking the owner for a sworn affadavit assuring me in writing that neither he nor any of his employees have any ties to the Mafia, and that all of his job applicants get carefully screened for Mafia ties to eliminate any risk of Mafia penetration of his restaurant. All that legal paperwork sounded very complicated, and was beginning to give me a headache. So I dropped the whole idea of celebrating."

---"I've never understood why we New Yorkers don't have more of a sense of our being a natural sister city for Philadelphia. I would love to see more in the way of bi-city groups involving New York and Philadelphia. But every time I mention the bi-city concept to my civic group here in Manhattan, my proposal gets booed by at least one member of my civic group. Personally, I feel that it's very rude to boo and hiss a fellow civic group member. But I realize that New Yorkers take pride in being frank and outspoken in their response to everything."

---"New York is definitely one city where we need an annually updated almanac of local residents' opinions. Every day of my life here, I'm hearing a fellow New Yorker reply to my comment by saying, 'My opinion on that is...," followed by their own view that invariably differs, of course, from my own. If we had a 'New York Almanac of Opinions', I could look up each prominent New Yorker in the index to find out his or her opinions about selected topics. In the 'T' section of the index, for instance, I could find the name 'Donald Trump,' followed by the various topics on which he has publicly stated his opinion. One of those topics would be 'bankruptcy, significance of,' and I'm very sure that Donald Trump's opinion on that subject would be very outspoken."

---"I have never understood the difference between a philharmonic orchestra and a regular orchestra. This is why have an urgent need for a 'Guide to Cultural Literacy in New York' that offers me a succinct explanation on that. I would hate to ever come across as culturally illiterate here. Without a guidebook of that type, all I can do is guess from my knowledge of Greek that a philharmonic orchestra has a greater love of harmony than other orchestras have. I know that 'phil' is Greek for 'love'. Maybe a higher percentage of the music being performed by the New York Philarmonic Orchestra is going to be hamonious in nature, as compared with other orchestras here in New York. But I'm not sure about that."

---"I wish that the graffiti artists of New York would refrain from using spray paint. My primary objection to spray paint is that it is not designed with a sense of eternity behind it. When future archaeologists want to study the 21st Century subways of New York, the spray-painted graffiti messages in those subway cars will have all faded into oblivion. That's quite a tragic loss of a valuable cultural artifact from our Babylon of America, as future archaeologists will no doubt classify New York. Maybe we should ask our Mayor to obtain samples of graffiti art from public properties throughout our city and put those graffiti art samples into a specially designed and massive time capsule that will endure well into the 23rd Century. I would hate to think of some archaeologist in the year 2222 complaining to one of his colleagues, 'What a tragic loss to humanity that we have no way of studying up close the graffiti from New York's ancient subway system. That graffiti could have told us as much about American civilization in the year 2010 as the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt told us about Egyptian civilization from that time period'."

---"My cousin from 50th Street tells me that he defines illiteracy as not knowing at least one public building or landmark from each of the streets of New York City. He has memorized all that information, and he expects me to do the same in order to prove that I know New York as well as he does. My reply to that is that my time is valuable, and I don't mind it at all if he knows New York better than I do. I have no desire to ever be employed as a taxi driver. I told my cousin that if he thinks it's so important to know every street of New York, maybe he should pursue a career as a taxi driver or tour guide. That's about all he can do with his precious Phd in New York Street Studies he's into all the time."

---"Herb is so sophomoric that when he went with me on a leisuretime outing to see the Statue of Liberty up close, he asked me if I knew whether the lady depicted in the Statue of Liberty is wearing a bra? I told him that her breasts are completely irrelevant; it's her face that the entire world looks at. Herb, though, replied that it would be a major scandal for New York City if the Statue of Liberty is, in fact, a bra-less female. Herb maintains that there are far too many bra-burning feminists here in New York."

--"If I had to pick a medical specialist to cultivate a personal friendship with here in New York, I think I'd pick an ear, nose, and throat specialist before any other doctor. The ENT specialists I invite to my dinner parties here in Manhattan are helping me to avoid going deaf here from all the noise pollution we get in this city. I'm getting that help through the free medical advice that my ENT specialist friends are offering me at my dinner parties. My strategy is simple. I pepper them with questions about my own hearing-loss experience here until they offer me suggestions at my party on how to prevent the onset of deafness in New York."

----"George, do you ever sense that the next-door neighbors at this condo complex are living proof that sadism is nearly always accompanied by masochism? I'm asking that question because whenever our next-door neighbors host a party, they blast our entire block with noise so intense and painful to hear that all my friends say I must be a masochist to remain in my condo unit during that party. My friends say I should flee to a designated quiet zone in New York, but I never do. I think I'm afraid that if I leave my condo unit during that party, one of the drunk party-goers would break into my condo unit and try to steal one of my artworks."

---"So tell me, where are the designated quiet zones here in New York City? I need a quiet place here where I can do my daily transcendental meditation exercise with complete and serene privacy."

---"As you know, I've been honored at several ticker tape parades here in New York. The one I enjoyed the most was the one that combined a snowstorm with a constant shower of ticker tape pouring down on me. When I held out my tongue to taste those lovely snowflakes, I found that all my tongue caught was ticker tape! It was truly an overwhelming experience, and it was also a powerful born-again experience for me. I realized later, after I converted to Christianity, that God had decided to shower me with snowflakes during that parade to remind me that God also admired me---and God definitely wanted to honor me in his own way during that special event! That was the best reason I've ever had for converting to Christianity---my realization that God Himself had publicly praised my stature as a Chosen Person here in New York! I guess that makes me a 'CP' for short here in New York---which inevitably prompts me to wonder how many other CP's there are currently living in Manhattan!"

---"Barbara says the single man she's dating here in New York claims to be very devoted to complete equality between the sexes. Whenever they dine together in a restaurant in Manhattan, he insists that each of them pay exactly 50 percent of the check. When Barbara pointed out to Craig last evening that his entree inside Four Seasons restaurant that evening was $20 more than the entree she ordered, he told her that was beside the point. Complete equality between the sexes means that each partner must pay exactly half on all bills presented to them, he said. How is that for unmitigated audacity?"

----"Helen is so neurotic about Washington Square here in New York that she says that whenever she's there, all she can think about are the wooden teeth of George Washington--the man who lent his name to that public square. Helen also says she's very worried that her boyfriend may end up with dentures by age 50, if he doesn't learn to floss better."

---"One of the biggest ironies of New York life is the large number of persons you see at Washington Square who don't pass the George Washington Test. It is impossible for me to imagine President Washington shaking hands with the ones I'm talking about---much less sending them a reply letter."

---"Isn't it ironic that this city full of shysters is the very city where our most famous public square is named after the famously-honest George Washington? Maybe Washington Square was named that way to remind all New Yorkers to please, please, try to be more like George Washington and surprise everyone by being honest and honorable---even if it's just for one day of every year!"

---"With all the panhandlers of New York City, I'm surprised there isn't a New York City Beggars Association that represents them in negotiations with the city government."

----"Whenever I see a beggar here in New York, I try to pretend that he's a very honorable member of that order of monks of the Roman Catholic Church who as part of their calling are expected to beg for money on a frequent basis. When I imagine the beggar before my eyes as a monk in disguise, I'm less likely to shout at him that his lack of work ethic is disgusting to me."

---"Anytime I try to talk about New York City's future with this friend of mine, all he will say is, 'So who holds the Donald Trump card?' I get so tired of the glib cynicism and flippancy of so many New Yorkers these days!"

----"I hope NYPD will send undercover agents into the 21 Club to find out just how many of the patrons there are age 20 or younger. From what I hear, it's quite a status symbol for the pre-21 crowd here in New York to pose as a 21-year-old and attempt to enter the 21 Club as a paying customer."

---"Whenever I hear that my teenage daughter has a male student teacher this semester, I immediately call that student teacher and warn him that if he tries anything with my daughter, I'll write the Superintendent and the School Board in no time flat to demand his immediate dismissal from the school district. I don't even want him shaking hands with my daughter. She is very impressionable at age 16, and she might interpret the handshake as a sign that he wants to get physical with her. She is eager for an 'A' in that class, so she'd probably say 'yes' to anything her student teacher asks her to do, so long as it boosts her GPA at New York Public School Number 22."

---"Isn't it odd that New York City used to be viewed as a refuge for persons who had been abused or tormented or persecuted elsewhere? I've heard of New Yorkers fleeing from THIS city in search of a refuge, but I've never heard a convincing case of anyone who claims that moving to New York City actually boosted his dignity and personal safety as a human being. Let's face it. Everyone who lives in New York experiences what it's like to be shat upon on a year-round basis. The excrement factor here is quite considerable."

---"I was very impressed when I heard that the environmentalist crusader being honored with a ticker-tape parade here is insisting that all of the ticker-tape paper being used for that parade must be paper that's been previously recycled at least once."

---"I dislike the way so many New Yorkers still refer to their 'hometown' as the place they lived in just before they moved to New York. I think they're preparing themselves emotionally for the day when they fall flat on their face here in New York, and have to retreat to the place they came from. But that's no excuse. They should not insult New York City by failing to acknowledge that it is their current hometown."

---"I think every New Yorker expects to spot a dead body in the Hudson River, at some point during their life. They also expect that they will take a quick photo of that scene, using their cell phone, in order to tell all their relatives and friends about that moment of sudden discovery here in New York. It will be a moment that they might even decide to announce with a sensational U-Tube photograph open for viewing by millions of people all over the world. What a perverse contrast all of that is to the days when 'discovery' meant an explorer from The Netherlands landing ashore at Manhattan Island for the very first time."

---"I think every New Yorker privately suspects that Manhattan is primarily a setting for foreign spies gathering top-secret info and sending covert intelligence reports to their native country. What alarms me the most about that spy-dominated view of New York is that it implies that our city is filled with traitors claiming to be American citizens. Those traitors are willing to betray their own country by sharing all they know with any foreign spy willing to pay lots of money for that top-secret information. The traitors' excuse is that they have to pay their monthly rent here in Manhattan, and they were not able to obtain a loan from anyone."

---"It's impossible to avoid turning into a voyeur here in New York City. When you lie in bed at night, you are often listening to grunting sounds emanating from the apartment above you. I regard myself as an involuntary voyeur, no matter what others may say. The loud grunting noises from my neighbor directly above me are definitely NOT my preferred background music when I'm trying to fall asleep at night. I'd be thrilled if the guy living above me gives celibacy a try---even for one week, and I realize that kind of experiment is virtually impossible for him. Every day and every night of his life here, he seems to be competing for New York's Most Sexually Active Bachelor of the Year Award. It's an award that no doubt features a lavish banquet in which a naked lady suddenly emerges from a giant cake to proclaim him the most orgasmically prolific bachelor in all of New York City."

---"I can assure you that I'm not half as manipulative as you are. Aren't you forgetting that you began dating a stock market analyst here not because you liked him, but because you wanted to get free advice from him on how to improve your investment portfolio. You turned each of your dates with him into consultation sessions aimed at boosting your own income, and your stock market analyst dating partner was the one who got stuck with the bill on each of your so-called romantic outings. Whenever you kissed him, you were actually kissing President Grant instead, since you are primarily in love with $100 bills that feature Grant's portrait. To me, what you did was calculating and sly in a very cold-blooded way, and I have lost all respect for you as a result of your disgraceful exploitation of that unsuspecting gentleman."

----"No matter how many languages you speak here in New York, there will always be someone come along and say to you, 'So why haven't you learned Mandarin yet? Don't you know that knowledge of Mandarin is crucial these days if you want to conquer China on behalf of your corporation?'"

---"I love the way any accident in New York City can be classified as an international incident. First you see a guy falling on the ice while attempting to ice skate at Rockefeller Center. Then, 10 minutes later, you learn that he's a delegate at the United Nations, and the foreign country he represents blames the United States Government for the skating conditions on the ice at Rockefeller Center having been less hospitable than they should have been. Was this, in fact, a deliberate provocation from the U.S. Government, a spokesman for the injured man demands to know from the Kremlin in Moscow. Before you know it, we're all at the brink of nuclear war, all because one Russian citizen employed by the Russian Government fell while attempting to skate outdoors in New York City."

---"I'm new to New York, so tell me. Where do I find the archives featuring taped oral-history interviews with each of the previous mayors of New York City? I would like to devote an entire weekend to listening to each of those oral-history interviews. I feel the time will be well spent, since it will give me the crash course on New York City that I have a great need for."

---"I realize that we have a Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. But why do we stop there? Why isn't there also a Metropolitan Museum of Pre-Modern Art and a Metropolitan Museum of Ancient Art? The way we've got it now, I feel as if something very important is definitely missing."

----"Fortunately for us New Yorkers, I've never heard of any busjackings here. I have heard of car jackings and plane jackings, but never once has anyone tried to kidnap and hold hostage an entire busful of passengers. So that's a definite advantage to riding a bus here: You're less likely to get kidnapped or held hostage."

---"My friend Suzy has never been convinced that Bin Laden is dead. Her permanent policy is that she automatically excludes from her own life anyone who even remotely resembles Bin Laden. I feel that's a bit unfair. It's as if Suzy is saying that if you were born with features at all like those of Bin Laden, you have to undergo plastic surgery and have your entire face redone in order to qualify for the opportunity to shake hands with Suzy. That's a lot of money to spend, and it doesn't guarantee you that Suzy will agree to become your friend!"

---"Sarah is so domineering that when I asked her to describe her relationship to her husband, she replied that theirs is a reverse Muslim- style marriage. Sarah makes all the major decisions in their household, and she expects her husband to smile acquiescently and remain silent at all times. And whenever her husband goes out in public, Sarah requires that he wear a veil covering his face and legs and arms. That's designed to thwart the female sexual maniacs of New York City who, according to Sarah, would attempt to rape her voluptuous husband if they had the opportunity."

---"With all the tall buildings we have here in New York, I would certainly hope that we have the longest chandeliers of anyplace in the entire world. But I don't know that for a fact. Maybe I should consult the the 'Guiness Book of World Records' to find out if we are number one in that category. It means a lot to me to sense that New York City has the world's longest indoor chandeliers. I've always loved chandeliers, they sparkle and they epitomize what elegance is all about. So it matters a lot to me for New York to be number one in that category. And if we're not number one in that category, I can always write to Donald Trump and urge him to install the world's longest chandeliers in the lobby of the next new building erected in his honor here in Manhattan."

---"To me, Peter is one of the leading definers of avant garde here in New York. Peter plans to open up a new art museum that exclusively features artworks created by animals. That includes the beautifully constructed webs created by spiders, the pearls created by oysters, the beautiful honeycombs created by bees, and cleverly designed nests created by birds. Peter's premise is that our current conception of art suffers from anthropomorphic bias, when many of the finest masterpieces from world history were produced by living beings other than humans. Peter's outlook is so revolutionary that I feel sure his art museum here in Manhattan will usher in a new era in art history."

---"Her primary complaint about Paul is that whenever they go out on a date together, he suddenly asks her whether she would like to make a deal with him that evening. Paul is a devotee of Donald Trump, and it is ruining Paul's romantic life. Several of the ladies he's dated in the past here in New York have slapped Paul in the face after he asked them what they are proposing to offer him in the way of a deal that night. Paul always professes the greatest of astonishment and complete shock whenever he gets slapped. Paul then adds, as he always loves to point out, that 'Everything I ever need to know about life is found in Donald Trump's book 'The Art of the Deal'."

---"Sheila and her husband never can agree on anything, much less on the metaphors they live by. Sheila often complains that the many one-way streets of New York City are not good for marriages here. The one-way streets of New York falsely imply that each partner in a marriage is always going in the same direction, according to Sheila. Most of the time, married life in New York is more like a two-way street in which you are trying to avoid a fatal collision with the motorist driving toward you from an adjoining lane. That's Sheila's outlook on marriage. Sheila's husband's reply to all that is that he is dismayed by Sheila's metaphorical thinking. Why can't she just look upon their marriage as a marriage, rather than a potential crash between her Buick and his Mercedes Benz?"

---"I cannot imagine any New York family photo album being complete without at least one photograph of you or a relative of yours standing at the top of the Empire State Building. It's the one photograph that every New Yorker agrees is an absolute requirement in any family photo album here."

---"Personally, I think a photograph of you and your relatives smiling in front of the Statue of Liberty is the one photograph that any New York family photo album has to feature. So I have to disagree with you about the Empire State Building photo being the one that every New York family's photo album has to have."

---"To me, the one photograph that every New York family photo album has to have is a photograph of you and one of your relatives or friends kissing each other at Times Square. Ever since V-Day in 1945, it's been a family tradition for every New York family that they must include at least one kissing-scene photograph at Times Square in their family photo album."

---"I think I know how to define senility here in New York. Senility is not remembering any fact about Fifth Avenue aside from the candy bar by that name. Lately that's all I seem to recall about Fifth Avenue--and it's a vivid recollection from my elementary-school days, when candy bars were uppermost on my mind at all times."

----"It's odd how the Fifth Avenue candy bar is vividly etched in my memory. It must be my New York background that makes the Fifth Avenue candy bar so memorable for me. I distinctly recall the day my second-grade year here when I entered a busy retail store in Manhattan and I stood in front of the Fifth Avenue candy bar display for 30 minutes. I spent that time wondering what would happen if I stole a Fifth Avenue candy bar from that store by hiding that candy bar in my pocket. Was there a chance that some store clerk would catch me? If so, was I at risk of being put in jail for that crime? And if I was put in jail, how long would I be incarcerated there? Also, how would I keep up with my schoolwork if I was in jail? Fortunately for me, I resolved the entire matter by deciding NOT to even touch any of the Fifth Avenue candy bars on display. That eliminated any risk that I'd get into trouble. Besides, I didn't like the idea of the President of Fifth Avenue Candy Bar Company making a public statement criticizing me at age 8 for having attempted to steal one of his candy bars. I didn't want that type of notoriety, at age 8, particularly since I was already being harassed by classmates of mine at New York Public School Number 103 that school year."

---"I was very surprised when I moved to New York City to discover that there is no Love Canal anywhere in this city. New York City is supposed to be a good place for lovebirds, according to the Hollywood movies I've seen that are set in Manhattan. So I just assumed I would have the opportunity to board a gondola here with my girlfriend. We could then kiss passionately while traveling on the Manhattan Love Canal in the evening. But it all turned out to be a tragic misconception. There is no romantic love canal here where you board a gondola with your hot date. Manhattan is not Venice, as one local wag put it to me very bluntly in explaining why I should buy plane tickets for Italy if I want to board a gondola with a female dating partner."

---"I guess I was naive about New York City. I had heard back in the 1980s that television anchorwoman Jessica Savitch had spent some time with her boyfriend at a Love Canal in New York, I thought it was. So I just assumed when I moved to New York that I could easily board a gondola with my dating partner some evening and we'd travel on the Manhattan Love Canal together at a leisurely pace. The more I think about it, the story I'd heard about Jessica Savitch in connection with a canal was not about a gondola ride she had with her boyfriend. It was a love story with a tragic ending, and I need to avoid tragic endings as much as possible here in New York. I just now remembered, in fact, that the Love Canal story I'd read about New York was all about toxic wastes. Which reminds me. What a waste of New York City's potential this is, not having a romantic canal here that we single adults can travel on with our mutual-consent dating partner in the evening!"

---"I wish our mayor would find the courage to issue a public plea to all New Yorkers to please contact NYPD as soon as possible and turn in the name, address, and phone number of their current drug dealer. That one phone call to NYPD by millions of New Yorkers could help to eliminate illicit-drug activities throughout our city overnight."

---"It's easy to call her a manic-depressive type, but if you pay closer attention, you realize that there are days when she's on quaaludes and doing everything very, very slow. Other days, when she' on speed, she appears to be doing everything very, very fast and frenetic. She isn't a true manic-depressive. But she is a true drug addict."

---"I feel sorry for the millions of drug addicts here in New York who worry that their fingernails will give themselves away during their job interiew. Many of the employers here are very savvy about how to spot drug-addiction evidence by glancing at the fingernails of a job applicant during his interview. No matter how well that applicant does in his responses to questions, his tell-tale fingernails disqualify his application."

---"There are days I wish that New York City had continued as our nation's capital city. If we had continued as our nation's capital, everyone in New York might have strived to act statesmanlike at all times. As it is, I often feel as if half of New York is preparing to do battle in civil war against another U.S. state. All that's holding those New Yorkers back is their inability to reach an agreement on whether their number one enemy is New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Illinois, Florida, or the entire South."

---"It's funny. My cousin Sammy doesn't speak a word of Italian, but whenever I read about him in a magazine account, it always refers to Sammy as a member of the papparazzi. That attributes to him an Italian heritage that far exceeds his level of sophistication. Sammy likes to eat spicy meatballs in our Italian restaurants, but that's as far as he goes for knowledge of Italian culture. Sammy knows how to hold a camera and shoot a celebrity whenever it's the most unflattering to that celebrity. That's the only talent Sammy has ever had. Sammy is the exact opposite of Norman Rockwell: Sammy is all about American Anti-Sentimental Chic."

---"The one college course I wish I'd taken at NYU is the History of Subways. I find it fascinating----this instinct toward burrowing into the ground that we subway passengers reveal. I think every subway passenger in New York identifies with groundhogs, though he may not admit it to you. There's a strong sense of subterranean identity that permeates all of New York life. It's ironic, in fact, that we don't currently have any citywide civic event honoring groundhogs---who are so very, very similar to us New Yorkers in their pursuit of underground travel. Think of all the worms that we New Yorkers have the opportunity to observe while we wait underground for our subway cars. And groundhogs must also be very keen observers of worms, I would think."


---"Fred had a brilliant idea recently. He told me he plans to establish a new civic group here in New York that will attract millions of members in that group's very first week. The name of that group will be New York City Crime Victims Association. Fred says he's sure it will attract lots of members because everyone in New York will definitely agree that he has been a victim of crime at least once in the last 12-month period. The only requirement for joining Fred's group is that you must present a copy of a certified NYPD police report from the most recent 12-month period that cites yourself as the victim of a crime. Fred says that if he charges annual dues of just $5 per member, and 7 million New Yorkers sign up for our group, potentially our new group could collect $35 million in dues in our very first year! Fred says he's very grateful to the criminal element here, since they're making it possible for him to land a successful new career as a non-profit tycoon!"

---"I have been shocked by how few New Yorkers are willing to talk with me about their aspirations for New York City in the 22nd Century. Most New Yorkers are so fixated on trying to pay next month's rent that they cannot begin to address the needs of New Yorkers 100 years from now. I shed a tear whenever I ponder the dismay on the faces of New Yorkers of the 22nd Century as they review what our generation left behind for them. New York City historians in 2111 will judge us very harshly, I'm sure."

---"I applaud the trend toward alcohol-free cocktails on the restaurant menus here in New York. I am sure that my ancestors who lived here in the 1920s would be thrilled by this new type of cocktail that does not require you to enter any speak-easy in order to drink it. This new type of drink might resemble a cocktail that has alcohol in it, but I'm sure that local police officers can tell that you show no signs of inebriation. You would definitely pass a blood test, if NYPD asks you to take a blood test to prove you aren't drunk."

---"I thought of inviting Donald Trump to this big dinner party I'm hosting. But then it occured to me that if Donald Trump doesn't like my style as the host, he might shout at me at an early point during the party that I was fired. He'd then add that he was inviting immediate applications from anyone seeking to replace me as party host."

---"I thought of making a phone call to Donald Trump to ask him for some financial advice. But then it suddenly dawned on me that I don't know his middle name. I'm sure that there must be at least 50 Donald Trumps listed in the New York City phone directory. So how can I tell which of those 50 Donald Trumps is the one I need to call?"

---"I think every New Yorker secretly expects to come up with an idea for a great new invention at some point during their life. One example would be an idea for new technology that doubles the speed of elevators in high-rise buildings without causing passengers to vomit from nausea. I'm also very sure that every New Yorker keeps a secret file in his home that contains the name and phone number of a first-rate intellectual property attorney. Every New Yorker expects to call that attorney for immediate assistance in obtaining a patent a matter of seconds after the New Yorker senses that his idea for a new invention is, in fact, revolutionary."

---"As much walking as we New Yorkers do every week here in Manhattan, I feel sure there's lots of consumer demand here for a new website that lists each of the 20 most fashionable brands and styles of men's, women's, boys', and girls' shoes, respectively, that are each designed to handle lots of walking, are very comfortable to wear, and protect your medical health, including your feet, your arches, and your ankles."

---"The one item I've never seen any mugger here steal from a New Yorker is a pair of shoes being worn at the time by that New Yorker. But I wouldn't rule out that possibility. If you had a scenario in which a Manhattan mugger spots very fancy and flashy shoes being worn at the time by someone at Central Park, that mugger might try to knock the victim down and then pull the shoes from their feet in order to then flee the scene with that stolen item. The one certainty about the criminal element here in New York is that their propensity for committing unprecedented crimes is limitless. Warped imagination directed toward innovations in perversity has definitely found a hub right here in New York."

----"I have been trying for weeks to enroll in a New York City Survivalism training program. But so far, I haven't found the type of class that I need. For instance, I need an educational course that will teach me how to respond when the elevator I'm riding in here in Manhattan suddenly stops unexpectedly in between floors. I also need guidance on how to respond if a dispute arises about whether the taxi I'd called for that just arrived at Madison Avenue and 30th Street is for me or, instead, for the other New Yorker standing three feet from me who insists that the taxi was instead for himself. I also need to know, from a statistical standpoint, which hours of the nighttime or evening or early morning are the most unsafe hours in which to be walking outdoors or driving a motor vehicle or taking the subway here in New York. That information will remind me of which hours are the best hours for me to be situated inside my double-bolt-locked apartment and safey removed from the crime scene here."

---"So tell me, what is your response to my doctor's contention that eating one bagel here in Manhattan is the equivalent of eating two slices of bread? Should I search for mini-bagels here to lower my caloric intake when I eat a bagel? Or do you recommend that I search for normal-sized bagels that were specially developed to be low calorie?"

----"I find it very sad when I reflect on the many New Yorkers who, though they died from natural causes, passed away in their 40s or 50s and never had a chance to enjoy retirement living. They were in the middle of their career, working themselves to the bone, when they suddenly vanish from the Manhattan scene from a fatal heart attack that inflicted on them one of the most painful deaths that anyone could possibly endure. Just think of all those wonderful dreams about retirement living that are being destroyed and annihilated every day here in New York because of heart disease. That's one of the reasons why you won't find me asking for cream cheese when I order a bagel in my favorite delicatessen here in Manhattan. I am determined to have a full longevity and enjoy my retirement years to the fullest. I feel sure that my tennis game will be at its best when I'm age 70, since I definitely have not begun to hit my stride in tennis and it should take me 20 more years for me to reach my potential in that sport. So this is why I always order my bagels plain, even if it shocks my waitress when I ask for my bagels that way. I'm determined to never add my name to the list of victims found on a public monument we must have somewhere in Manhattan that cites by name each of the New York City residents who died from a heart attack in the last 50-year period. I don't want to be someone whom everyone in New York refers to by saying, 'Oh, he died young from a heart attack. His life might have otherwise been productive, if it weren't for that heart attack he had after eating a big meal inside his favorite delicatessen'."

---"One of my biggest surprises as a newcomer here in New York is that I have never seen any public outdoor statue here featuring a sculpture of a giant bagel. New Yorkers probably eat more bagels per capita than the residents of any other major city in the world, with the exception of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Doesn't it seem logical that New York City should feature a statue somewhere in our city that honors the bagel?"

---"Some call me a chauvinistic New Yorker. But to me, it makes perfect sense. As a consumer here in New York, I try to buy food products and manufactured products that come from the 10 U.S. states or foreign countries that in the most recent full calendar year accounted for the biggest influx of tourism dollars here in New York City. Why shouldn't I scratch their back, since they are good enough to scratch my back as a
retail gift-shop owner here in Manhattan. And by the way, I'm especially proud of my "I HEART New York" purse that I carry everywhere with me. You could even compare me to an Empress ruling over our Empire State. At least, that's what my husband always says. Harry likes to joke that he is very lucky to be a member of my Royal Court, since otherwise he'd be just another peon here."

---"In the old days, I only employed a personal attorney on a retainer basis. But after I moved to New York City, I identified an urgent life-or-death need to also employ a private detective on a permanent retainer basis. Every month, my private detective who's a native of the Bronx compiles for me an authoritative 50-page special confidential report that identifies for me in very thorough detail which person or persons currently exhibit the most alarming criminal intent toward me here in Manhattan. If it weren't for my first-rate private detective, I'm very sure that I would have died from food poisoning after taking a bite out of this Big Apple city. Either that, or I would have taken an eager big bite out of this Big Apple city only to discover that a lethal razor blade had been planted inside that apple by a gangster here."

----"I have a great need for a new website that cites each of the current residents of New York City who became millionaires strictly through honorable and law-abiding means. That website would help to boost my morale as a defender of the capitalist system. I say this because on any given day here in New York, it seems that the only local millionaires I hear about are the ones who are infamous for their ties to illicit-drug trafficking. "

----"As a dog-lover myself, I'm wondering where Leona Helmsley's pet Maltese dog is buried. I would love to visit that dog cemetery here and lay a wreath in front of her lovely dog's tombstone. I'm assuming that her dog died recently after Leona passed away at age 87. I always thought it very special that she left behind $12 million for her pet dog in her last will and testament. That reminds me that I should look for a reference book here that profiles each of the most noteworthy dogs of New York City's history. The local cemetery where the most noteworthy dogs are buried will have lots of appeal for dog-lovers like myself."

---"Every time I watch a televised State of the Nation address from our nation's President, I ask myself why our mayor here in New York doesn't offer us something similar. I'm sure our mayor could find plenty of things to talk about if he gave us a 30-minute 'State of the City' Address every six months that reaches out to each of our boroughs. Maybe 20 minutes of the speech could highlight Manhattan, and the remaining 10 minutes could highlight each of the other outlying boroughs. I wouldn't want anyone who lives in The Bronx to feel left out by our mayor's speech in any way."

----"The only type of bagel that my boss won't let me eat during my lunch break here in Manhattan are garlic bagels. My boss says that whenever I eat garlic bagels in a local bagel joint and then return to my workplace, it ruins my breath for the rest of my workday. I have lots of interaction with customers durng the afternoon portion of my workshift, so garlic bagels at lunchtime are a complete disaster for me, my boss says. My boss adds that he doesn't know of any breathmint I could buy that would effectively eliminate the scent of garlic from my breath. So I don't have the option of trying to hide the garlic scent from my breath in the afternoon, my boss says. I did point out to my boss that possibly he is reflecting an anti-Italian bias, since he equates garlic with our city's Italian heritage. I reminded my boss that he has never once forbidden me from eating jalapeno bagels during my lunch break. It's a well-known fact that jalapeno bagels reflect our city's Hispanic heritage. But everyone knows that jalapeno breath is just as bad as garlic breath. I think my boss has less prejudice against Hispanics than he has against Italians, and this is the reason for his ridiculous double standard."

----"One of my biggest surprises as a visitor here in New York is that I never saw a statue of a bull or a bear anywhere on Wall Street. I've always heard about New York City in terms of a bullish market or a bear market, but there was no such mascot-theme statue that I ever saw in the financial district. To me, that's a bit like false advertising. It's not that I have any suggestions on who the sculptor of that bull-and-bear statue should be. It's just that I had assumed this type of public outdoor exhibit would be a major tourist attraction here."

---"My wife is very proud of her firm belief that New York City should always be dedicated to constant and year-round and continual renewal of this entire city. Otherwise, Sandra says, we wouldn't be living up to our city's name. 'Why call it "New'" York unless we're always trying to make our city sparkle with novelty and rejuvenation,' Sandra recently commented to me inside our Manhattan apartment. Sandra plans to schedule a one-to-one meeting with our mayor to ask him what one project here is doing the most these days to revitalize our entire city. She then plans to quote the mayor on that at every cocktail party we attend here in Manhattan. I'm thrilled, since this New York Newness campaign by Sandra has made her a lot more cheerful lately. She has been looking for a cause celebre for years, and revitalization of New York City has finally given her a project that she loves to champion."

----"I don't blame her for having mixed feelings about her job as a translator for The United Nations. She says she's always worried that if she makes a mistake in her verbalized translation of an English-speaking delegate's speech into a foreign language, that could trigger World War III when a representative for a foreign government is outraged by that misquoted speech. She has frequent nightmares about that type of scenario. I think she has developed an Atlas Complex from it all. I keep telling her that her fears are unfounded, that World War III could never result from an accidental mistranslation during a speech at a UN Security Council meeting. World War III is much more likely to result from very sinister violence against American citizens by a spy from a foreign government who is himself operating inside the United States. That's my theory, anyway, about what might trigger a World War II scenario inside this country.."

---"You will find that any New Yorker who follows The United Nations on a year-round basis loves to talk about what might trigger World War III. That is one of the favorite themes of so many New Yorkers, even though the subject can be very grim at times. My own theory is that World War III will be triggered by a foreign political leader who is either drunk or high on an illicit drug at the time when he orders a military invasion of a neighboring country."

---"Anyone who follows The United Nations Security Council on a regular basis inevitably wonders why we don't have any documentary movies here with a title such as, 'Doomsday Predictions: New Yorkers Discuss Their World War III Scenarios'. Here in New York, that type of educational movie would be a smash hit. Most New Yorkers agree that a World War III is likely; it's just a matter of when, and who or what will trigger that global nuclear war."

----"I don't like his style of religion. Peter admitted to me yesterday that he plans to establish a new religion here in order to avoid paying property taxes on a building he owns in Manhattan. He says he plans to hold monthly church meetings in that building of his, in order to have the building designated as a church. He is already bragging about the thousands of dollars he'll save each year from his scheme. I told him that he might just end up getting arrested for fraud, since he admits his new religion is obviously just a tax dodge. If he ends up in prison, he'll lose all of his property and experience what hell is like."

----"My husband admitted to me yesterday that he has had a lot more emotionally uplifting experiences with food here in Manhattan than he's had with other people. I told him it's his fault that he doesn't savor the people of Manhattan as much as he savors the gourmet food of Manhattan. So then Fred got very angry and started throwing fried zucchini sticks at me in the living room of our condo unit. I told Fred that was spouse abuse and grounds for divorce. I plan to tell the judge that the hurled zucchini sticks were the straw that broke the camel's back."

---"I was amazed that Anna expects me to be sympathetic! She told me yesterday that her leading objection to the fall and winter seasons here in New York is that they don't adequately highlight her outstanding figure. Anna says the bulky jackets and coats she has to wear during the fall and winter here detract from her ability to elicit lust-filled glances from the single men of New York. I told Anna she's being very immature about this. After all, she still has the spring and summer seasons in which to get the looks of adoration from bachelors that she claims she has a tremendous need for. Besides, Anna can always take her jacket or coat off whenever she's inside a public building here in the fall and winter seasons. But Anna refuses to see it my way. She says she cannot ever feel fully vital as a New York single lady unless she is getting looks of idolatry from the handsome single men of New York on a 24-hour-a-day basis!"