---"When I shop in the supermarket here in New York, I always try to buy foods and beverages that I know for a fact my roommate either dislikes or cannot eat or drink for medical reasons. This purchasing strategy increases my chances of opening the refrigerator inside my apartment without being shocked and disgusted to find that the level of that food or beverage was significantly lower than it was after I last ate or drank that item."
---"When I tell other New Yorkers that I am sober on a 24-hour-a-day basis, they always reply that I must have had a first-rate addiction-treatment counselor, and would I be willing to offer them his name and phone number? It never occurs to any New Yorker that it's possible to live in this city without ever developing a life-threatening addiction."
---"I get tired of being asked all the time here what the title of my memoirs will be. Everyone assumes that my retirement years are primarily devoted to writing my famous last words to offer the world in print, before I drop dead. I am not in quest of self-entombment, no matter how elegant the tomb that some publishing company is offering to put me in."
---"I honestly don't know where Grant's Tomb is situated. It's a famous tomb primarily because everyone likes to ask, 'Who was buried in Grant's Tomb?' as a party joke when you're drunk. But no one ever told me exactly where General Ulysses Grant was buried. I assume it was in D.C., but I may be mistaken. I don't think New York can claim to offer his tomb as a tourist site, unless the tomb gets moved here from D.C."
---"I find it tragic that the African-Americans of New York have chosen not to honor General Ulysses Grant's birthday with a huge annual birthday bash in his name. It was General Grant who made it all possible for African-Americans throughout North America to enjoy freedom from slavery. If he had lost to General Lee, the whole issue of civil rights for African-Americans would have been a moot point. I feel there's a posthumous racial discrimination against General Grant by our city's African-Americans that I cannot help but deplore. In my opinion, Grant is profiled unfairly here as a lily-white inconsequential type."
---"I get so depressed by the homeless problem here that some days I try to limit myself to walking in areas where no one is going to beg for money. I have even drawn a map of New York that highlights the street intersections here where I am LEAST likely to be approached by a homeless person demanding money from me. I've memorized that map of mine as if it were my personal Bible. It helps me to minimize my stress factor on days when I just cannot handle another sob story as I'm awaiting for the crosswalk signal to say 'Walk'. I always know that 90 percent of those sob stories would never be getting uttered if they stopped drinking alcohol and stopped consuming illicit drugs. Since I do neither type of substance, I'm the last person in the world to be sympathetic to their plight."
---"Maybe the best response to the homeless is to keep coupons with you at all times, such as a gift card to a grocery store. Then if a homeless person is persistent, you just hand them a gift card to a nearby supermarket, with the very clear restriction to that card that NO ALCOHOL OR TOBACCO PURCHASES OR MARIJUANA PARAPHERNALIA PURCHASES ARE COVERED BY THAT GIFT CARD. TO ME, THE ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE FOR ANY GOOD SAMARITAN LIKE MYSELF is to hand a homeless person here a nice $10 gift card to a local grocery store, only to then see him emerge from that store with a pack of cigarettes, a six pack of beer, a package of rolling papers, and a smirk on his face."
---"Most New Yorkers fantasize about romantic relationships. I am rare, in that I fantasize about platonic relationships that are strictly mutual-consent. There are plenty of New Yorkers I would like to invite to lunch, if I were sure they could conduct themselves in a platonicly polite manner. I don't want to get hugged on first meeting, and I don't want any exchange of body fluids with anyone--especially not in this city. Also, I don't want to hear about sex when I meet with them over lunch. Maybe I could provide them with a list of ground rules for our luncheon outing, and then have them sign a pledge promising not to offend me in any of those categories."
---"If I were in charge of the public schools here, I would sponsor a weekly 'Career of the Week' program that each week highlights a new and different honorable career in which you can earn enough money to hold onto a rental apartment unit here. I think that should be the goal for any public school administrator here. He wants to be completely sure that his students won't graduate into homelessness and despair. If they develop a career-minded focus while in school, they'll naturally going to study harder in order to qualify for that career."
---"Maybe there should be a special Recent High School Graduates and Recent College Graduates fund that New Yorkers could apply to for financial aid. I agree with you that if you just graduated from high school or college, nine times out of 10 you won't be earning enough to put a roof over your head here in Manhattan."
---"One of the toughest balancing acts for any New Yorker is trying to figure out how much of a background check you can do on anyone after you invite them to a dinner party inside your home. Can you insist on seeing their driver's license when they knock at your front door, then have that ID card processed through a security company before you decide to let them into your home? This is one of those very awkward questions that all of us face."
---"People ask me what I do during my off-duty time, and I frankly admit that I spend much of my time attempting to develop a suicide-prevention strategy for New Yorkers I have chosen to befriend. It seems to me that so many of my neighbors and friends and acquaintances are verbalizing suicide threats on a daily basis, and I feel it's my duty to take those threats very, very seriously. I want each of them to enjoy a full and medically healthy and prosperous life, and I sense that they believe me when I tell them that. This is why I'm considered to be a philanthropist here. I am lacking in 'CI', which is something of an oddity here. I guess I'm a bit like Norman Vincent Peale: Think Optimistically, I tell everyone, and you CAN have a future."
---"Maybe there should be an annual Suicide Prevention Day involving a joyous 'we're glad to be alive' celebration throughout all of Manhattan. It's the type of event that our stock brokers might especially appreciate. 'We are less likely to take a flying leap, because of this annual event,' as they might declare in an inspirational press release. The focus could be to help lower our citywide suicide rate through teach-ins and symposiums and workshops and public speeches and films dedicated to promoting reasons for pursuing a full and natural medical lifespan here."
---"Whoever's in charge of public relations for the national government in Israel should get fired. Every time Israeli troops kill unarmed Palestinian civilians, I immediately identify that tragic news as yet another public-relations disaster for Israel. But the head PR guy there never gets fired, and I can't understand why. Maybe Israel doesn't care about its reputation with other countries. So in lieu of PR sensitivity, Israelis exhibit a bizarre form of defiance toward the norms of good PR that most nations adhere to."
---"Whenever I buy a product from Israel in the department store, I take pains to explain to each of my friends and relatives that my purchase of that product DOES NOT mean that I condone the killing of unarmed Palestinian civilians. I am just the opposite, in fact. I very emphatically deplore those incidents. I wish I could wear a special type of armband around New York that clarifies my identity as a Jewish gentleman who is also a conscientious objector to many of the allegedly brutal policies being pursued by the Israeli government."
---"I honestly don't know where Grant's Tomb is situated. It's a famous tomb primarily because everyone likes to ask, 'Who was buried in Grant's Tomb?' as a party joke when you're drunk. But no one ever told me exactly where General Ulysses Grant was buried. I assume it was in D.C., but I may be mistaken. I don't think New York can claim to offer his tomb as a tourist site, unless the tomb gets moved here from D.C."
---"I find it tragic that the African-Americans of New York have chosen not to honor General Ulysses Grant's birthday with a huge annual birthday bash in his name. It was General Grant who made it all possible for African-Americans throughout North America to enjoy freedom from slavery. If he had lost to General Lee, the whole issue of civil rights for African-Americans would have been a moot point. I feel there's a posthumous racial discrimination against General Grant by our city's African-Americans that I cannot help but deplore. In my opinion, Grant is profiled unfairly here as a lily-white inconsequential type."
---"I get so depressed by the homeless problem here that some days I try to limit myself to walking in areas where no one is going to beg for money. I have even drawn a map of New York that highlights the street intersections here where I am LEAST likely to be approached by a homeless person demanding money from me. I've memorized that map of mine as if it were my personal Bible. It helps me to minimize my stress factor on days when I just cannot handle another sob story as I'm awaiting for the crosswalk signal to say 'Walk'. I always know that 90 percent of those sob stories would never be getting uttered if they stopped drinking alcohol and stopped consuming illicit drugs. Since I do neither type of substance, I'm the last person in the world to be sympathetic to their plight."
---"Maybe the best response to the homeless is to keep coupons with you at all times, such as a gift card to a grocery store. Then if a homeless person is persistent, you just hand them a gift card to a nearby supermarket, with the very clear restriction to that card that NO ALCOHOL OR TOBACCO PURCHASES OR MARIJUANA PARAPHERNALIA PURCHASES ARE COVERED BY THAT GIFT CARD. TO ME, THE ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE FOR ANY GOOD SAMARITAN LIKE MYSELF is to hand a homeless person here a nice $10 gift card to a local grocery store, only to then see him emerge from that store with a pack of cigarettes, a six pack of beer, a package of rolling papers, and a smirk on his face."
---"Most New Yorkers fantasize about romantic relationships. I am rare, in that I fantasize about platonic relationships that are strictly mutual-consent. There are plenty of New Yorkers I would like to invite to lunch, if I were sure they could conduct themselves in a platonicly polite manner. I don't want to get hugged on first meeting, and I don't want any exchange of body fluids with anyone--especially not in this city. Also, I don't want to hear about sex when I meet with them over lunch. Maybe I could provide them with a list of ground rules for our luncheon outing, and then have them sign a pledge promising not to offend me in any of those categories."
---"If I were in charge of the public schools here, I would sponsor a weekly 'Career of the Week' program that each week highlights a new and different honorable career in which you can earn enough money to hold onto a rental apartment unit here. I think that should be the goal for any public school administrator here. He wants to be completely sure that his students won't graduate into homelessness and despair. If they develop a career-minded focus while in school, they'll naturally going to study harder in order to qualify for that career."
---"Maybe there should be a special Recent High School Graduates and Recent College Graduates fund that New Yorkers could apply to for financial aid. I agree with you that if you just graduated from high school or college, nine times out of 10 you won't be earning enough to put a roof over your head here in Manhattan."
---"One of the toughest balancing acts for any New Yorker is trying to figure out how much of a background check you can do on anyone after you invite them to a dinner party inside your home. Can you insist on seeing their driver's license when they knock at your front door, then have that ID card processed through a security company before you decide to let them into your home? This is one of those very awkward questions that all of us face."
---"People ask me what I do during my off-duty time, and I frankly admit that I spend much of my time attempting to develop a suicide-prevention strategy for New Yorkers I have chosen to befriend. It seems to me that so many of my neighbors and friends and acquaintances are verbalizing suicide threats on a daily basis, and I feel it's my duty to take those threats very, very seriously. I want each of them to enjoy a full and medically healthy and prosperous life, and I sense that they believe me when I tell them that. This is why I'm considered to be a philanthropist here. I am lacking in 'CI', which is something of an oddity here. I guess I'm a bit like Norman Vincent Peale: Think Optimistically, I tell everyone, and you CAN have a future."
---"Maybe there should be an annual Suicide Prevention Day involving a joyous 'we're glad to be alive' celebration throughout all of Manhattan. It's the type of event that our stock brokers might especially appreciate. 'We are less likely to take a flying leap, because of this annual event,' as they might declare in an inspirational press release. The focus could be to help lower our citywide suicide rate through teach-ins and symposiums and workshops and public speeches and films dedicated to promoting reasons for pursuing a full and natural medical lifespan here."
---"Whoever's in charge of public relations for the national government in Israel should get fired. Every time Israeli troops kill unarmed Palestinian civilians, I immediately identify that tragic news as yet another public-relations disaster for Israel. But the head PR guy there never gets fired, and I can't understand why. Maybe Israel doesn't care about its reputation with other countries. So in lieu of PR sensitivity, Israelis exhibit a bizarre form of defiance toward the norms of good PR that most nations adhere to."
---"Whenever I buy a product from Israel in the department store, I take pains to explain to each of my friends and relatives that my purchase of that product DOES NOT mean that I condone the killing of unarmed Palestinian civilians. I am just the opposite, in fact. I very emphatically deplore those incidents. I wish I could wear a special type of armband around New York that clarifies my identity as a Jewish gentleman who is also a conscientious objector to many of the allegedly brutal policies being pursued by the Israeli government."
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