Wit and Wisdom of New Yorkers, Part XII

Had I remained in New York City, New York, ever since 1986, I feel sure I would have overheard the following snippets from other New Yorkers' conversations as they conversed with one another in public places:



----"My cousin in Chicago, she counts sheep every night in order to fall asleep. Myself, I count floors of the Empire State Building when I can't fall asleep at night. By the time I've reached the 12th floor, my insomnia problem has ended and I'm sound asleep. That works out well for me, since I'm not sure that there is a 13th floor in the Empire State Building. Whoever designed that building probably wanted to avoid having a bad-luck floor there, and I don't blame them. The number '13' has always scared the daylights out of me, ever since my childhood in Manhattan. So the Empire State Building may well skip from 12th floor to 14th floor. I have never bothered to call over there and ask any of the people who work there if they have a 13th floor. I like using the Empire State Building to fall asleep by since it lends a nice New York motif to my dreams. We aren't called the Empire State for no reason."


---"You remind me that I would love to write a book exclusively devoted to the subject of 13th floors of buildings here in New York. Is there any truth to the widely held belief that those who work or live on the 13th floor of a building are more likely to be struck by tragedy? Another angle to my book would be the buildings of New York City that are at least 13 floors in height, but where no 13th floor is actually listed as an option when you ride an elevator in that building. Do the people who live on what is called a 14th floor, but which is actually a 13th floor in reality, tend to suffer more tragedies than those who live on the 12th floor, for instance? That would make a fascinating comparison for my book."


---"I still find it odd that Samantha spends so much time at the Russian Tea Room, but she never once tells me that she drank Russian tea there. Why do they call it 'Russian Tea Room' if the people who dine there don't even order Russian tea as their beverage? To me, it's disrespectful to enter a place highlighting Russian tea when you never even try that beverage, and it's obviously their House Favorite beverage over there. They probably even have special Russian Tea biscuits as a featured item that goes well with all the tea-sipping over there. That reminds me that I have never seen a Russian Tea Biscuit in my entire life. Maybe I should visit the Russian Tea Room just to find out what a Russian tea biscuit looks like. But there are so many tourists there, and I try to avoid going anyplace in New York where the tourists hang out. Maybe that's irrational on my part, but my own personal guide to New York tends to eliminate any place where I'll see lots of tourists. I would never get caught dead in the Empire State Building, and I avoid Rockefeller Center like the plague."


----"Maybe I should write a book about the stupidest questions that tourists to New York have posed to those of us who actually live here. To me, the stupidest question I ever got was from this lady from Detroit who approached me along Park Avenue a few years ago. She asked me which park does Park Avenue highlight. I told her it highlights Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and this is a well-kept secret here in New York City, I told her. I pointed out that some famous New Yorker, and I think it may have been Teddy Roosevelt, had played a major role in the establishment of Yellowstone National Park, and this is why an entire avenue in New York City still to this day honors that famous park in Wyoming. We don't have any geysers along Park Avenue, unfortunately, I says, but the most savvy insiders here think about Yellowstone National Park whenever they walk along Park Avenue or drive along that street, I told her. 

I thought for sure the Detroit lady would get angry and accuse me of lying to her. But she was so naive and gullible that she actually thanked me for that helpful information and she turned to her husband, a guy named Frank, and told him they were very lucky to talk to a real insider about New York City that day, all without my charging them a fee for that very interesting insider's tip about New York, she tells Frank. I had a hard time keeping a straight face. When I later told my friend Harry about that idiot lady tourist from Detroit, he couldn't stop laughing about my budding career as a 'tour guide' here."


----"I'd love to do a documentary film featuring a variety of New Yorkers who each participate in separate oral-history interviews in which they are each asked a two-part question. The two-part question would be phrased something like: 'Do you recall the occasion or moment in your own life when you personally sensed that you had fallen OUT of love with New York City? If your answer to that question is "yes," do you recall what happened that prompted you to fall back IN love with New York City?'"

-----"To me, a truly first-rate documentary movie about New York City should also feature interviews with New Yorkers who each declare that they currently love New York, and that they never on any occasion ever once fell OUT of love with the City at any time in their entire life. That would make for a more balanced and more convincing documentary."


----"Personally, I'd love to do a documentary television program featuring interviews with a variety of New Yorkers who each say their home or apartment has never once been broken into on any occasion in the last five-year period. The show would focus on strategies those New Yorkers pursue to keep illegal intruders outside of their own home. The only possible problem I can foresee is that a lot of the New Yorkers whose residence has not been broken into would be afraid to be seen on television talking about their success story. They would be afraid that the criminal element here  would look upon that television publicity as an invitation to challenge those New Yorkers' home-security system with a break-in attempt."


----"I would love to see a new book containing an photo-illustrated anthology of mini-essays and tentative impressions from first-time visitors to New York City who came here from somewhere else in the United States. I don't think we New Yorkers give enough thought to how our city comes across to people who have never been here before. For instance, we all take for granted the rudeness of our city's taxi drivers. But to a first-time visitor, that rudeness could be very offensive to the point of shocking. That reminds me that I wish Mayor Bloomberg would insist that all taxi drivers here must each year successfully complete a New York Hospitality course in order to continue working as taxi drivers here. If our taxi drivers were friendlier, we would get a lot more visitors to New York every year."

----"With all the New Yorkers who try to commit suicide by jumping from bridges in our city, I have never once seen any book on that subject in our city's bookstores.  As a sociologist, I find that oversight by our city's bookstore owners to be very disappointing.  The type of non-fiction book I'd be looking for might be entitled: 'New York's Death-Defying Bridge-Leapers'. Another possibility that comes to mind is: 'Leaps of Non-Faith: A Recent History of Distraught Bridge-Jumpers of New York City'. It is likely that NYPD has even developed a profile of the flying bridge-leapers of New York that cites particular demographic traits most likely to be found in a flying bridge-leaper here."


----"Personally, I am always hoping that some philanthropist here will establish a new non-profit  counseling program designed to exclusively help New Yorkers who have a proven history of leaping from either bridges or buildings or subway station platforms here.  That type of counseling service could be publicly identified as: 'Leaping Forward' or 'Life Beyond the Leap' or 'No More Fatal Leaps, Please'."

----"The flying leap suicide is so deeply embedded in the psyche of all New Yorkers that I'm surprised I haven't seen a menu item in any of the restaurants here that is named 'Flying Leap Fudge' or 'Flying Leap Salad', or 'Flying Leap Flambee', or something along those lines."

---"It's important to distinguish between suicide attempts in New York that feature a flying leap, and all other types of suicide attempts here---the pill-overdosers, for instance. I think every New Yorker in the back of his mind recalls the many stock market brokers who jumped from upper-level floors of buildings after the stock market crashed in 1929. When New Yorkers take a flying leap, they're paying a subconscious tribute to that very dramatic time period here. The flying leap  carries with it a certain undeniable New York authenticity, and so many New Yorkers are determined to be authentically New York at all times, even when they drop dead on a whim. Flying leaps from buildings or bridges are to New Yorkers what self-generated disembowelments are to Japanese men who experienced humiliation and later commit suicide. Personally, I tend to look at flying leapers of New York as persons who could have exceled at diving into a swimming pool, if only they had learned to jump above a pool of water deep enough and safe enough to handle them."

---"To me, the flying leap suicides of New York City are a breed apart from all other New Yorkers who attempt to commit suicide. I'm struck by the sheer athleticism of the flying leap, as if the flying leap somehow signifies that the individual jumping off of a building or bridge here wanted to make a statement to the entire world about his having lots of athletic talent. I don't think the flying leapers devote enough thought to the question of whether their flying leap is, in fact, a true athletic accomplishment. All they have to do is jump, and I frankly don't see any athletic talent being revealed by a jump of that type. And besides, even if you can sense some athletic talent in the guy jumping off a building here, you also know all along that no talent scout for any pro football team is going to contact the guy and attempt to recruit him after the fact."

----"There's a certain bold machismo to the Flying Leap Suicides of New York. Maybe they were hoping to be cited by name in a special public monument here honoring each of the flying leapers who dove to their death from a building or bridge in New York City. Or maybe they were hoping that some Hollywood movie director would highlight their life story after the fact, so to speak, so they might earn a posthumous award that way as a 'ghost author' of the script for that movie---no pun intended. But why would anyone want a posthumous award, when pre-humous awards are much more enjoyable. Now I'm trying to recall if I have ever seen the word
 'pre-humous' in 'The New York Times' newspaper. I don't believe that I have. Maybe I should submit that proposed new word to some dictionary editor and ask him if he'll add it to his next edition of that dictionary. I'd love to be able to boast that I invented a new word for the English language."

---"I have stopped identifying anyone here as strange. Whenever I complain to a friend of mine that I just met the strangest guy I've ever met here in New York, I find one week later that I have to retract that statement. I am constantly having to admit to a friend of mine that the guy I had cited one week ago as the absolute strangest of all time was, in fact, only mildly strange, in retrospect, when compared with the most recent '100 Percent Strange to the Point of Deranged New Yorker' whom I met this most recent week. If I ever do write a non-fiction book profiling the '50 Strangest New Yorkers of All Time', I would have to constantly be revising and updating that book to reflect my most recent and fully up-to-date ranking, as of this very moment, of the 50 New Yorkers who stand out as the all-time strangest in this city's entire history."


---"Personally, I don't think Alice is being fair to her 10-year-old son Kirk when she tells him that he's already as tall as Mayor LaGuardia was, so her son has no excuses for his own failure to achieve greatness here at his own current height. It makes me wonder, in fact, how many of our city's mothers are citing Mayor LaGuardia as a weapon for verbally abusing their sons."


----"I have always wondered what Mayor LaGuardia's occupation was before he got elected Mayor of New York. What we desperately need here is an annually updated 'Miscellaneous Facts about New York City Almanac' or online database of that type that I could consult at any hour of the day. As a New York City native, it would mean a lot to me to learn that Mayor LaGuardia was the owner of an Italian restaurant here before he entered politics. It's a nice colorful detail about him, assuming it's true, that makes his accomplishments in government all the more impressive."


-----"True democracy in New York would be overwhelming to the point of impossible. If everyone in this entire city contacted the Mayor's office and requested a 10-minute meeting with Mayor Bllomberg, our Mayor would be spending the rest of his life holding 10-minute meetings with his constituents.  The only thing that would spare Mayor Bloomberg from doing those meetings for the rest of his life would be the simple fact that his term of office would end in the middle of his 7,000th meeting with a constituent."


----"New York is one city where umbrella fashion counts a lot. So many of us judge other New Yorkers by their taste in umbrella fashion---and after all, when it's raining here about all you are seeing of the other New Yorkers is the umbrella they are holding as they rush to their workplace or rush to the subway or rush to a restaurant during their lunch break. Personally, I dislike all-black umbrellas. They are too funereal for my tastes. But I'd be the first to agree that many of the alternative styles are way too gaudy for my tastes. Only a tiny percentage of New Yorkers would earn my admiration for their fine sense of umbrella fashion."


----"I don't consider it too personal or intimate if I ask a complete stranger sitting next to me on the subway to please tell me which brand of cologne he is wearing. As a New Yorker, I am always trying to improve my own body scent by finding an even better cologne than the one I currently use. I need all the help I can get if I want to develop a romantic life here. Anytime I smile at a young lady at this city, I'm always aware that there are thousands of New York single men competing with me for the opportunity to land a date with her. The competition in my romantic life here is even more cut-throat and intense than the competition in my career life is."


-----"Whenever I board the subway here, I always think of that famous Hollywood movie in which Robert DeNiro falls in love with Meryl Streep after meeting her for the first time ever on a subway car here. This is one of the reasons why I try not to concentrate too hard when I read the newspaper on the subway. I want to always give myself the opportunity to glance away from my newspaper and attempt to decide which other passenger within view of me might be the most likely to elicit love at first sight from me. Then if we do get married someday, I'll make a point of inviting Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep to our wedding. I'll ask Robert DeNiro to be my Best Man, and Meryl Streep can be the Bride's Maid. That's the least that my new bride and I can do to thank Hollywood for serving as our match-maker. It's really ironic, too, since I used to associate Robert DeNiro with the mob based on his previous Hollywood movies. Until I saw that subway romance movie, I would never have thought of asking Robert DeNiro to be my best man at a wedding. He was always a brutal Scar Face Mafia thug to me, unless I'm thinking of Al Pacino instead. I don't know why I get those two mixed up, maybe I should get photos of each of them and spend an hour staring at those two photos until I decide which of the two Italian-American guys made love to Meryl Streep in a Hollywood movie.  In a way it's surprising that I would have difficulty deciding if that love scene featured DeNiro or Pacino. It's not like they are Italian-American twins,  and no one has ever told me that they are related to each other as cousins. I don't even know for a fact that they hang out in the same Italian restaurants, or even that they like the same dishes when they dine out in Italian restaurants!"

---"The store clerk at the supermarket who said 'Thank you, Man' to me this afternoon brought out a sarcastic streak in me. I snapped back at him that I appreciate his confirming two things for me about myself: that I am a biological male person possessing a penis and manly hair on my chest, and that I am age 18 or older. According to state law in New York my being age 18 or older means that I technically qualify as a legal-status adult and should no longer be addressed as 'Boy' for that reason. I then added that in the future I would prefer that the store clerk please address me as 'Sir.' I expect to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the very near future, I told the store clerk, so I need to rehearse for that royal-ceremony in England by asking all the store clerks I encounter here in Manhattan to please address me as 'Sir'."


----"I'm hoping to get invited to an Umbrella Fashion Show here in New York. To me, umbrella fashion is one of the leading fashion statements that we New Yorkers make about ourselves, since the umbrellas are visible to everyone else within 100 yards of where I'm standing. My own umbrella is purple in color, since I've always identified with royalty and purple is a royal color, from what I've been told."


----"My friend Freddy is a great entrepeneur, and he is in the process of developing a special snow umbrella for New Yorkers that is designed to handle snowfall and snowstorms better than regular umbrellas do. Freddy told me not to tell anyone else about his great invention idea, since he plans to get it patented and he doesn't want anyone to beat him out on that. I think most New Yorkers are very much that way: we all have an idea for  potentially patented item in our minds at all times, and we're always terrified by the possibility that some other New Yorker will somehow find a way to read our mind, then rush down to the patent office with that idea they had stolen from our own brain."

----"Sue is so militant about her feminism that she says she plans to organize a petition to change the name of  Madison Square Garden to 'Dolly and James Madison Square Garden'. To me, Sue's idea is ridiculous. But Sue maintains that Dolly's  first name has to be included in that public facility's name, or it will reek of sexism, she says."


----"As a mother here in Manhattan, I wish I could convince all of our city's news media to please include in their crime news stories the following statement, when applicable: 'He was reportedly under the influence of marijuana at the time when he allegedly committed that felony crime'. I want my 15-year-old son Joe to see and hear that very pertinent information on a year-round basis. Lately Joe has been arguing with me during our dinnertime discussions by declaring very loudly that marijuana does not play any role in any of the violent crimes or any other felony crimes that occur in New York City! Joe claims that marijuana has a well-known mellowing effect on whoever consumes it, so that any and all New Yorkers who are high on marijuana would never commit a violent crime or felony crime of any type, Joe says. I keep telling Joe that he is completely incorrect! But unfortunately, the news media reports here in New York don't back me up on that.  The media here seem to shy away from giving any bad PR to marijuana, which is very frustrating to me as a Manhattan mother! I will be outraged if my son Joe turns into a pothead because our local news media failed to adequately warn Joe about the harmful effects of marijuana! And I'll be doubly outraged if I ever learn that 10 percent or more of all the news media professionals in New York City are themselves potheads! It's obvious that pothead reporters and pothead editors will NEVER be willing to pursue a story exposing the harmful effects of marijuana!"


----"I'm planning to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in an Irish-style restaurant here in New York. I think I know what the entree options will be, but I have no idea what the Irish dessert menu consists of. In my entire life, and I'm part Irish in ancestry, I've never once eaten or seen an Irish dessert. Do you think they serve cloverleaf-shaped mini-cakes that are dyed green? Actually, come to think of it, they may well offer Potato Cookies as a dessert item, since the potato seems to figure prominently in every part of the Irish menu plan. I have never eaten a Potato Cookie before, so that will be a first for me."


----"If I ever do take a plane flight from Kennedy International Airport to Dublin for a vacation, the first thing I'll want to look for over there is their giant 'In Praise of The Potato' public monument. I'm just assuming they have one, since everyone knows that Irish people are the most potato-crazy nationality in the entire world. I can't imagine any other nation in the entire world that would feature a massive potato-shaped public statue specifically honoring the potato and its contributions to the cultural and economic and religious life of that entire nation. Which reminds me that I will have to visit a bookstore in Dublin and purchase a biography there on the Irishman named 'Russet' who developed the Russet Potato. It's odd that his first name is never cited, but his last name is very famous. I'm hopeful that the public statue in Dublin that honors Mr. Russet will tell me exactly how old he was when he developed that great new potato for the entire world."

----"Personally, I find St. Patrick's Day depressing because it reminds me of yet another benevolent person who was unfairly persecuted and martyred. He turned into a saint of the Roman Catholic Church only after he was martyred. As a New Yorker, I know what it's like to be unfairly persecuted by others, and I'm always striving to avoid the grim fate of martyrdom in this city. That's one of my top 10 goals, any day of the year here. I have no desire to die before age 100, and I have no desire to be honored posthumously. I want all my awards to be PRE-humous, if you will. Posthumous awards offend me greatly, since they don't give me the opportunity to deliver an acceptance speech at an awards banquet. Nor could I get to enjoy the delicious food at the awards banquet if I'm lying unconscious and lifeless in a coffin somewhere."


----"I don't consider it arrogant for Sandra in her will to refuse to have her body cremated after she dies. She is definitely one of the greatest VIPs here in New York, and she knows that many people of the future here will find it inspirational to visit Sandra's tombstone and read about her life after she's been buried the conventional method. I personally feel that Sandra is actually being very generous and empathetic toward future generations when she insists on a conventional burial for herself after she dies 50 or 60 years from now. Sandra knows that many of her leading admirers will be New Yorkers of the 22nd Century and beyond. And many of those admirers will be willing to pay good money in the year 2063, say, to have Sandra's corpse exhumed for a very thorough and truly comprehensive and factually authoritative posthumous medical examination of Sandraa's entire body and all of her internal organs.  Results from that posthumous medical exam should serve as a very effective refutation of NYPD's repeated public stand in recent months that Sandra was never victimized by crime on any occasion in her entire life."

----"I have made it clear to all of my relatives, and to the cited administrator of my estate, that under no circumstances will I permit my own body to ever be cremated after I die. My will also specifically provides full funding for comprehensive posthumous investigation by a first-rate forensic medical team of any and all sources of foul play that might have accounted for tissue damage, nerve damage, damage to my circulatory system and bloodstream, damage to my heart and brain, and damage to my arms and legs and eyes and spinal column that that forensic medical team identifies. After I die and NYPD true to form fails to arrest anyone and charge them with homicide, I am demanding a full and complete expose of each of the relatives of mine and former acquaintances of mine and so-called friends of mine and Mafia organizations and marijuana-madness freaks and hippies and militant minority extremists and ideological enemies of mine and outrageously unethical and injurious media companies and sinister Satanic religious groups and vicious atheist groups or anarchist groups and corrupt government institutions or agencies, who each played a role in my having been robbed of my full and natural and fully vital medical lifespan and creative longevity. On behalf of that very thorough expose, my will also states that my own body must be exhumed on an annual basis and be thoroughly examined by impartial forensic medical researchers once every 12 months until any and all suspects have been identified and formally charged with a felony crime in connection with my own premature death by homicide."

----"I have so many enemies here in New York that I have had my will rewritten to include a 'Foul Play Clause'. That 'Foul Play Clause' provides for a $100,000 reward to each and every medical researcher or investigative reporter or private investigator or government investigator or civic group or vigilant private citizen, regardless of who that might be, who contributes factual information to NYPD or the Manhattan District Attorney or the FBI that leads to the arrest and conviction of at least one additional suspect for having played a role in the truly outrageous and heinous murder of myself. I am one of the very best and most benevolent people that New York City has ever had, and I am very determined to  emphatically and in a law-abiding manner punish anyone---even if I have to do that on a posthumous basis----who played any role in robbing me of my own full and fully vital medical longevity and lifespan. My mother and grandfather died in their mid-80s. Any lifespan for me that is less than 85 is an automatic basis for a full criminal-law investigation and first-degee homicide charges being filed on my own behalf!"

----"As many Hollywood stars who live in New York City, I was very surprised to learn that there is no counterpart here to that famous theater in Beverly Hills or Hollywood, California, I forget which, where great Hollywood actors and actresses get their footprint or handprint permanently displayed outdoors on the sidewalk. Something like that here could help boost our city's tourism business, and God knows we need all the additional tourism we can get here in Manhattan!"


----"I find it galling that that visitor from Kansas says New York City, New York, should become an official Sister City to Manhattan, Kansas! The similarities between Manhattan, New York, and Manhattan, Kansas, are virtually nonexistent!"


----"I would love to host a party exclusively honoring five or 10 of my favorite actors here in New York. The whole purpose of the party would be to identify which of those actors sound articulate and philosophically wise and authentically human when they are not reciting a memorized line that some scriptwriter had provided to them. The high point of that party will be the moment when I as the party host offer an award and cash prize to the 'Most Impressive Off-Duty Actor' or 'Most Impressive Impromptu-Speaking Actor' or 'Most Impressive Human Being Actor', based on how they express themselves off-duty and in person when their lines were not provided to them in advance."


----"Personally, I would like to see an annual award and cash prize to the Broadway actors who most successfully portray an enlightened and benevolent mother or father on stage here in New York. I don't claim to be a successful mother myself, so I want my 8-year-old son, Paul, to accompany me to a Broadway theater performance that offers him the inspirationally wise and loving mother figure he has a great need for.  To me, that's one way in which I can compensate for my own shortcomings as a mother---by introducing Paul to truly outstanding mother figures on stage. Then after the play, I can help Paul get a friendly autographed message from that mother figure actress. I feel sure that with help from inspirational Broadway actresses, I can reduce the risk of Paul turning into a juvenile delinquent."


----"You know it's odd that I have never met the top manager at Macy's, as many times as I shop there. You would think that after the 1,000th occasion in which I have purchased perfume or some other crucial item at Macy's Department Store here in Manhattan, a loud bell would go off and the top manager in that entire store would suddenly rush up to me to congratulate me in person for my 1,000th purchase as a Macy's customer! I don't know what I'd say, I'd probably ask them for their autograph, since my 10-year-old daughter collects autographs of famous New Yorkers. My daughter would be thrilled to add that to her collection."


----"New York is famous for being the home state of the most prestigious handicapped man in all of world history. That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, of course. Maybe there should be a Handicapped Greats Hall of Fame somewhere in upstate New York, and FDR could be the very first exhibit in that museum. That reminds me that polio still exists, even today, and I've got to ask my doctor under which circumstances I would need to get innoculated against polio. That's one of the overlooked advantages about being a New Yorker: you are always thinking ahead in order to avert a worst-case future scenario for yourself."


-----"I find it sad how few New Yorkers ever visit Mount Rushmore in order to see FDR up close. For some reason, South Dakota almost never gets cited as a favorite destination of New Yorkers. Maybe most of us are content to simply look at a photo of FDR's profile at Mount Rushmore."


----"I think every New Yorker can identify with the Easter Season, regardless of whether we are Christian. We would all like to see the dilapidated ghetto sections of New York get resurrected through urban renewal projects that put a new face on them. That's about as close to sounding like a Christian that I myself will ever get, and it's strictly in the context of the urban renewal theme."


----"Whenever I enter Sylvia's home in Manhattan, the first thing I face is a sign on display in her foyer that declares, 'THIS HOME HAS GONE 111 DAYS WITHOUT A BREAK-IN!'. I can't decide if I find that message inspirational or depressing. I try to avoid asking the obvious follow-up question, 'So what happened 111 days ago?', because I don't want to cause Sylvia's smile to collapse after she had just greeted me with a very gracious display of Northern Hospitality."


----"My friend Sam works for NYPD, so I thought I would call Papa John's pizza and ask them to deliver him a nice pizza for lunch this Friday at NYPD headquarters. But then it crossed my mind that the deliveryman for Papa John's would have to pass all kinds of security clearances at NYPD headquarters before he could hand that pizza to Sam at Sam's desk, and by the time Sam is actually handed that pizza, it would be cold and unappetizing. I guess that's one of those downsides to being a police officer here in New York: You can never get a temperature-hot delivered dish from any restaurant."


----"To me, one of the lowest points I have ever experienced as a New Yorker was the day I attended church service here and I observed another member of my congregation actually removing money from the collection plate that had been intended for our pastor. I was tempted to raise my hand and announce to the entire congregation that I had just observed an example of a Satanic force within our own church. But then I decided it would cause so much of an uproar that it would be better to remain silent. So instead I waited until after the church service had ended to approach the pastor and discreetly report the theft of the pastor's money by a member of his own congregation. The pastor very politely thanked me for that report, and said that he planned to mention that theft incident in his next sermon. I told the pastor that's fine with me, as long as he doesn't cite me by name as the one who snitched on another member of our congregation. A lot of the other members would inflict holy hell on me if they ever suspected me of snitching on them!"

---"I think every New Yorker secretly fears that the biggest gorilla in the entire Bronx Zoo will somehow escape from that zoo and head straight for Manhattan. It will all be like watching the horror movie 'King Kong', and any and all pedestrians in Manhattan will be shouting with hysteria that we need a hero from the movie 'King Kong' to suddenly appear and save everyone.  Unfortunately, though, most of us don't recall who the hero in 'King Kong' was, so it would be very difficult for our city to quickly respond to that terrifying monster. Maybe we should all carry a 'New York City Almanac' in our pockets at all times, in order to answer questions like that and save lots of  lives."

---"I think every New Yorker is always aware of having an urgent need to add recent photos of himself to his computer's photo images collection. We New Yorkers do that for personal survival reasons. We figure that if we get kidnapped by a criminal person, the FBI will need those photos of ourselves to find us and rescue us from the kidnapper."


----"There's nothing vain about getting yourself photographed on a frequent basis here in New York. Every New Yorker has to have as many recent photos of himself as possible, since he knows that NYPD someday will ask for those photo IDs in order to then rescue that New Yorker from his kidnapper."


----"Personally, I would like to see a New York Hobbyist of the Year Award. That would help me to remind my 8-year-old son to take his hobbies and pastimes very seriously. Then someday he might even get honored at a banquet here as New York Hobbyist of the Year."

---"I'm planning to establish a 'Put Your DNA on File with NYPD ASAP' service here in the very near future. For a very reasonable fee of less than $5,000, I will guarantee each New York household  the chance to have all of their household members' DNAs on permanent record with a law-enforcement agency, in the event that one of their household members ever gets kidnapped or runs away from home or mysteriously vanishes. That DNA on file will make it much easier for the FBI to then track them down. I am not currently including pets' DNA samples in the package deal, since I don't believe that any law-enforcement agency currently works with pet animals' DNA samples."


----"To me, New York City has two classes of  people: the convicts and the pre-convicts. I never look upon anyone I meet here as innocent. Innocence is not something you will ever find in New York. It pays to be suspicious of everyone you encounter here. Even your love notes here should be carefully worded, since they might take advantage of you if you offer them too much."