Wit and Wisdom of New Yorkers, Part V

Had I continued living in New York City ever since 1986, I feel very sure that I would have overheard the following comments on the streets of Manhattan:

---"The other day I met a guy who said he's a professional baker here in New York, so I asked him what his specialty is. His response was that he specializes in marijuana brownies, and would I like to buy a Baker's Dozen from him? He then added that he has Cordon Bleu training, so his gourmet marijuana brownies are the finest in all of New York. I declined his offer. I politely explained that I prefer my brownies without any marijuana in them. Then I made mental notes to myself about what this guy looked like, and what he was wearing, and I immediately called 911 to report him to NYPD. My only worry is that he might figure out I turned him in to the authorities, and he might retaliate by breaking into my home and injecting marijuana into my bloodstream during my sleep. Can you imagine how disgusting that would be, to wake up on your bed and immediately sense that you'd been raped by a marijuana pusher during your sleep?"

---"Do you know how I can find the drug-treatment specialist in New York who has the best success rate at curing anyone who's addicted to speed? I've got that illiict-drug problem myself, and it all happened because I was under heavy pressure at my job to get tons of projects completed for my boss ASAP. So I started taking speed, thinking it would increase my productivity, and now I'm addicted to that evil drug! It's like being in hell! I'm so frenetic and irritable all day that even my girlfriend is complaining that I'm no fun to be around anymore! She's threatened to move out on me, unless I get cured of my speed addiction ASAP!"

---"I think all New Yorkers are experts on how to identify whether a new acquaintance they just met is a drug addict. Personally, I always look very closely at their fingernails. Then I look very closely at their arms, to see if I can identify any pricks on their skin. I screen out any and all drug addicts from my own personal life, and that makes my life here much more enjoyable. I don't trust drug addicts, and I also hate the fact that there is always is a drug dealer in their life who links them to organized crime!"


---"Congratulations, you should get a 'Most Stalked New Yorker' award! I've never heard of a case like yours before, in which you have had to get 30 different court restraining orders against 30 different stalkers of yourself! Maybe you should change your name and emigrate to Iceland, if you could handle the weather up there!"

----"It sounds like you've turned into an expert on death threats here, just by living in New York and being subjected to death threats every day of your life here! Maybe you should enroll in NYU's program that will get you certification as a criminologist, so you can at least get paid for all the factual research you have to do on criminal types!"

---"The death threats I'm subjected to here in New York on a year-round basis aren't all that bad. A high percentage of New Yorkers are pathological liars, so this means that when they threaten to kill me, they're lying to me about what their actual intentions are! What they're really doing is they're trying to accelerate my aging process by raising my blood pressure level and inflicting frequent sleep deprivation on me! No one ever gets charged with a crime when they do either of those things here in New York! In the Big Apple, as you know, it's perfectly legal to be a royal pain in the derriere to all other New Yorkers!"

---"I'm still searching for a nice Italian breakfast restaurant here that will offer me an Italian-sausage omelette for breakfast. I love Italian sausage, but can never find a restaurant that will offer that to me in omelette form for breakfast! Maybe I should contact the Italian Embassy here and ask them if they know the right place for this type of item!"

---"My friend Alex is so intrigued by the obscene graffiti messages left by vandals on the alley dumpsters of New York that he's decided to do an entire PhD dissertation on that topic. Alex's theory is that New Yorkers who feel trashed by others are drawn to dumpsters in order to make a public statement about their self-degradation. My reply to Alex is that his theory does not explain why many of the New Yorkers who feel trashed by others choose to put their obscene graffiti statement on subway cars instead. I also told Alex that he will have a very difficult time defending his dissertation when it goes before a faculty committee. And if he doesn't get his dissertation approved, Alex will be the laughingstock of our entire city as word gets around that he spent years evaluating dumpsters of New York only to get his entire project trashed by NYU!"

---"Ramona told me yesterday that ever since she saw the Al Pacino movie 'Scarface,' she has refused to date any single guy with a scar on his face. Ramona told me her worst nightmare as a single lady here is that she might go all the way with a guy on a date, only to find out the next morning from an associate of his that he is a Mafia thug! Ramona figures that if she eliminates all the single men with scars on their face from her dating life, she can spare herself of the indignity of ever performing fellatio on a Mobster! It's a major point of pride for Ramona that she will never be in bed with the Mafia, so to speak, and I don't blame her! Ramona's very high level of integrity is a good influence on our entire city! If all the single ladies of New York would follow Ramona's rule, that would put an end to organized crime here in a matter of weeks!"

---"I find it ironic that you are a native of a city that you fondly refer to as 'The Big Apple', but you have never once done any research to find out which variety of apple has, in fact, accounted for the world's largest apple. All you have to do is consult the 'Guinness Book of World Records'. How can you possibly call yourself a New York City chauvinist if you can't even tell me when and where the world's biggest apple came from."

---"I think everyone who lives in New York City is more likely to cite the apple in metaphorical terms in our everyday lives. We honorable New Yorkers typically refer to criminal New Yorkers as 'rotten apples', for instance, which suggests that if only the criminal types would get de-wormed, maybe they'd go straight. I've always found that metaphorical implication humorous in a grim sort of way. In our romantic life, we New Yorkers are more likely to refer to prospective dating partners we enjoy as 'the apple of my eye.' There's a sense of Garden of Eden-like temptation, without any hint of evil being unleashed here. I'm surprised I haven't found a New York City greeting card that declares, 'You are the Big Apple of my eye!' There's an institutionalized apple-mindedness to being a New Yorker, it seems to me, and part of this derives from George Washington's great history with our city. Everyone also associates George Washington with apples. But actually, it just now occurs to me that I may be mistaken on that. I realize now that George Washington is associated with cherry trees. It was a cherry tree that George Washington confessed to having chopped down during his youth. I was thinking of Washington State---that's the Washington and apple connection that had come to mind for me. Lots of apples raised in Washington State, and it's interesting that some of Washington State may be at or near the same latitude as New York City, which again reminds me of the pervasive Big Apple motif that New York has rightfully claimed as our own."

---"So who coined our city's 'Big Apple' nickname, anyway? To me, it's outrageous that most New Yorkers don't even know the answer to that question. The cultural illteracy rate in New York these days is a disgrace, so much so that I can imagine Mayor LaGuardia rolling over in his grave!"

---"I find it odd that I never hear of anyone being served a Big Apple Cake on their birthday here! With all the people here who call themselves New York City chauvinists, the least they could do is honor our city on their birthday through their choice of cake."

---"My husband, Raul, is very obsessed with designing and building a new home for our family that will be classified as a revered historic building here in the 22nd Century. Raul says this is the best shot our family has at earning a spot in New York's history books, so Raul is spending zillions of dollars on making our new home a favorite of architectural historians in the year 2100. My reply to that is that the City of New York might declare our home dilapidated in the year 2100 and order immediate demolition. At that point, Raul's posthomous claim to fame goes completely out the window!"

---"I think every New Yorker cherishes his most tender steak-eating experience from his entire life of dining out here. To me, the year 1997 was a peak year for me from that standpoint. Fortunately, I had my cell phone with me when I dined in a first-rate steakhouse in Manhattan that night, so I was able to take a photo of my tenderest-ever steak before I devoured it at the dining table! That photo is now among my all-time favorite scrapbook items."

---"One of the things I miss whenever I dine in a veggie restaurant here in New York is that the menu does not offer me a Veggie Steak option. I'm a steakhouse devotee, so I prefer to order steaks whenever I dine out."

---"My husband and I recently agreed that for our wedding anniversary, we should head for a restaurant that features massive and crazy-looking salads. Our entire married life has been one big crazy salad experience, so we've decided that ordering a huge salad we could both share would be very appropos. It's remarkable that neither of us has ended up in an insane asylum yet, after all these years of driving each other crazy!"

---"I think every New Yorker should devote an hour per month to talking with a friend about whether Mafia penetration of our City is on the increase or decrease. Personally, I wish our mayor would issue a monthly report exclusively evaluating whether Mafia infiltration of New York is up or down. That type of public statement each month would be very reassuring to me. It would suggest that the City has finally set a goal of fostering one percent decline or 2 percent decline in Mafia activiites here. That baby step in the right direction could save a lot of lives."

---"What I'm hoping is that our Mayor will hold a press conference to exclusively explain to all of New York the specific actions he has taken as mayor to prevent Mafia infiltration of the Mayor's Office. I don't know of any Mayor here who has been willing to hold a press conference of that type. If our mayor does that, I might even call him up and invite him to lunch, provided that we first verify through NYPD and the FBI that the restaurant where I'm going to treat him is not Mafia-controlled."

---"I think anyone who lives in New York City experiences a special sympathy toward the ancient Romans who died very suddenly in the Roman city of Pompeii. Even though we don't have a volcano nearby that might erupt on us, all of us in New York can easily imagine sudden-disaster scenarios here that would annihilate our entire city in a matter of minutes. Our only consolation is that if that ever happens, at least we'll all turn into historic relics for a very popular future museum somewhere that will attract millions of visitors per year. They might even label our posthumous museum exhibit as 'Pompeii II'."

---"The leading crime fighters here in New York aren't NYPD officers. The're the professional actors who portray New York police officers in popular television shows. Those actors are teaching the youths of New York City that crime doesn't pay. To me, the actors who do those shows deserve a very nice crime-deterrence award from our police chief and mayor. Vicky, do you remember ever hearing of an awards ceremony of that type here? I myself do not, but I don't claim to follow the local news shows here every day of the year. The real-life crime news here is so painful to hear about that I can't possibly handle the local news shows here every day of the year!"

----"The crime news here about victims who are under age 18 are the stories that make me especially angry. To me, every New Yorker, no matter what their religious or political beliefs, should be guaranteed of enjoying their first 18 years on this planet without anyone molesting them or assaulting them at any time. Our city's public message to criminals here should always be: 'If you must assault or attack another New Yorker, please, please be careful to pick someone age 19 or older as your victim!'"

---"Personally, I think many of the kindergartners at New York public schools could benefit from a field trip to Reiker's Island. I don't know whether the school board would approve a field trip of that type for kindergartners, but it could remind those children to behave themselves or they might end up in jail for the rest of their life! To me, age six is a good time for deterring juvenile delinquency. But I'm sure that other parents would disagree with me on that."

---"When my 8-year-old daughter accompanies me to the Bronx Zoo, she gets very nervous and upset whenever she looks at the gorillas on display. Amy tells me that 'King Kong' was one of the scariest movies she ever saw, and she is worried that one of the gorillas at the zoo will escape from his cage and suddenly turn into a monster gorilla as scary as King Kong. I don't blame Amy for her concern. In fact, I blame myself for having let Amy watch the classic movie 'King Kong' with me earlier this year. Ever since then, my daughter has been having nightmares about giant gorillas breaking into our home and kidnapping Amy. All I can say to Amy to reassure her is that our home has been gorilla-proofed, since we had a home security expert state to me in writing that no current or future King Kong could ever get into this house! That seemed to calm Amy down quite a bit."

---"My 15-year-old son says he's found the perfect strategy for becoming a millionaire here in New York! Carl says he's invented a new board game in which each contestant picks a card that cites the name of a street in Manhattan. The contestant is then expected to cite the name of one business or public landmark that's situated along that street. If he can't answer that correctly, he has to draw another card, and the opposing player gets his turn in the game. The first player to run out of all of his playing cards is declared Mayor of New York for a day! Carl says it's a perfect strategy for paying his college education. He's hoping to attend Columbia, since he wants to remain here for his college education."

---"I sometimes wish that the mayor and City Commission members here would each be required to publicly swear their allegiance to the City of New York before they are allowed to assume office. Maybe if we drew up a special loyalty oath specifically referring to our city we could reduce our local-government corruption rate by 10 percent. That would be a step in the right direction, at least."

----"I tend to assume that all heavily-tattooed New Yorkers are alike. Maybe I should enroll in a college class on the 'Sociology of Tattoos in New York'. My only problem with that is that even after I complete that class and earn an 'A' from that course, I'll still feel like vomiting whenever I see a heavily-tattoed New Yorker. It takes acting skills these days to not let the heavily-tattoed New Yorkers get to you when you face them on the subways and streets of Manhattan. Fortunately, we have so many actors here in New York City that acting ability rubs off on everyone, even a non-actor like myself. I think every New Yorker has learned the art of suppressing revulsion in their facial expression."

---"I had a wonderful dream last night during my sleep. The sign greeting tourists in my dream declared, 'Welcome to New York City, Where the Undesirables Always Outnumber the Desirables'. My dream had a happy ending, though, since in my dream all of New York City's undesirables enrolled in special educational workshops designed to help them turn into desirables. So my dream ended with the sign at New York's city limits declaring: 'Welcome to New York City: Haven for Desirables'. It was such a marvelous transformation of our entire city in my dream!"

---"I think a lot of actors here wish they could obtain official resident status in both New York State and California during the same time period. But I don't believe that even the best of Hollywood agents can do that for the actors who routinely fly from New York to LA every month. Besides, that might also imply that the actors would be paying income taxes in both New York and California, and they probably wouldn't like that."

---"What I'm looking for is a bagel that's high in monounsaturated fats, since 'Prevention' magazine says that those types of fats are the ones I need to lose weight. So why isn't there a bagel on display in your bakery that you can promise me in advance has lots of monounsaturated fats?"

---"There probably should be an American Children's Day, which would encourage all of us to send a nice greeting card to a child under age 13 whom we are friendly toward. We have a day of each year for fathers, a day of each year for mothers, but I don't know of any children's day that's celebrated throughout our country. So which U.S. senator from New York do you think would be the most likely to agree to sponsor this in Congress?"

---"What I'm looking for is a new database website that will tell me immediately the location of the nearest whatever it is that I'm looking for. Maybe the website could be called 'FIND.NEAREST.com.' I'd love to find out the nearest natural warm springs where I could swim in the middle of winter, but I don't know where that is. If we had an online database that provides me with info of that type that I need, it would definitely boost my morale as a New Yorker. There are days, and maybe I'm thinking of how that famous New Yorker FDR loved to bathe in warm springs, when I want to head to the nearest indoor or outdoor natural warm springs and bathe or swim. Doesn't that sound thrilling, when it's 10 degrees outside?"

--"I would love to send out more 'thank-you' cards to other New Yorkers who are nice to me, but I don't want to give out my return address when I write to someone I don't fully and completely trust. This is the classic dilemma that every New Yorker faces on a frequent basis. Should you write and mail a thank-you card to a friendly acquaintance without citing your own mailing address on the envelope or on the card itself? And if you leave out your own mailing address, might that come across as aloof, which defeats the whole purpose of writing a thank-you card to that new acaquaintance or stranger who befriended you here."

---"A lot of single women in New York are naive about the bachelors they meet who claim that they're employed by NYPD. Those single women tend to think, 'Gee, that means he passed a thorough criminal-background check, so it's safe to date him.' What those single women are overlooking, though, is that the single guy they're talking with may be LYING about whether he's employed by NYPD! If the single lady asks him to present her with his NYPD badge for the sake of verification, it may just be a phony badge! What I recommend to all of my single friends is that when the guy they just met boasts about working for NYPD, she should reply with, 'So let me verify that on my cell phone, before I go any farther with you. What's the name and phone number of your immediate supervisor at NYPD, so I can give him a quick call?' But of course, there's always the possibility the guy you just met will be prepared for that question, and he'll have a friend of his waiting for a phone call from you in order to fake his own identity as the immediate supervisor of that guy!"

---"Everyone assumes that you feel on top of the world when you reach the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Personally, I've had just the opposite experience. You look down on New York City and the people below you down there are as tiny as insects, and you realize that you're part of one tiny ant hill yourself, and that's all it amounts to, so this can be a very, very depressing moment of truth to any New Yorker!"

---"Whenever my wife and I visit Washington Square, she likes to point out that she cannot remember any funny comment that George Washington ever made. So I always reply that it's probably just as well we don't have any Broadway play here honoring George Washington, since the audience couldn't handle all that witlessness for two or three straight hours!"

---"Whenever I wisit Washington Square in Manhattan, I remember the only thing about George Washington that ever stuck in my memory. He warned us all to avoid entangling alliances. So whenever another New Yorker asks me to do a personal favor for him, I reply that I'm a big admirer of George Washington, in that I try to avoid entangling alliances. When I put it that way, they're less likely to call me a jerk."

---"It is impossible for a man to live in New York without being called a jerk by someone at least once a day here. I should be hardened to it all at this point, since every other man in New York is also being verbally abused that way every day. I admit, though, that being called a jerk is demoralizing to me. I wish I had a good come-back line when I get called that, since it's bad for my self-esteem to not have a good come-back line. I have to find a come-back line that won't trigger physical assault. I want a come-back line that speaks up for myself without daring the other guy to physically attack me. This is the classic New Yorker's Dilemma: How to be Assertive Without Inviting a Fist-fight!"

---"Whenever I refuse to buy chewing gum for my 8-year-old son Andrew, he always replies that the New York Yankees all chew gum during their pro baseball games, so Andrew should also have the opportunity to chew gum for hours on end! I wish I had a good reply to that."

---"We have so many famous people living in New York that whenever I see photographers rushing up to take someone's picture, I immediately ask myself, 'Do I recognize that famous person's face?' If I don't, I immediately classify him or her as a 'Miscellaneous Celebrity.' In my book, the only celebrities who count are the ones I can actually identify by name when I see them up close."

---"We have so many Miscellaneous Celebrities here in New York that I wish we had a special website entitled, 'Miscellaneous Celebrities in New York.com.' That website would help me to identify the famous faces here that otherwise would have been very obscure to me. It's probably good to know their names, at least, even if you're not likely to ask them for their autograph."

---"We've had so many celebrities here undergo a religious conversion that I wish we had a special website devoted to that one topic. It might be called 'New York Celebrities Religious Conversion Experience.com'. Madonna is one of the most famous ones, but I frankly forget what her current religious affiliation is after she had that conversion experience. It was her conversion that made big splashy headlines, another sensational and wild adventure for her."

---"One thing about New York: For every one total adult younger gentleman who admires you here, you will find 50 older men who admire you. If you agree to date the one total adult gentleman younger than yourself in age who admires you, you'll be harassed and stalked forever by the older men."

---"Why is it that 99 percent of the conspiracies here feature New Yorkers plotting and scheming to harm someone? Aren't there any conspiracies here in which dozens of New Yorkers are plotting and scheming to actually HELP someone? Conspiratorial philanthropy, I guess you could call it."

---"If you were Catwoman, which tall buildings of Manhattan would you climb the most often?"

---"You enjoy Batman so much that maybe you could write an essay for your English class in which you compare and contrast Batman's real-life character, Mr. Wayne of Wayne Enterprises, with Mayor Bloomberg of Bloomberg Media Company."

---"David Letterman's TV show is the best possible advertising that his cardiologist ever gets. Everyone knows the name of his cardiologist, and when they see David Letterman looking alive and well on his talk show, they immediately see it as proof that his cardiologist works miracles."

---"My 9-year-old son wants to know if New York City has an official municipal flag of its own, and if so, which colors are featured on our city's official municipal flag? I told Robert that he should write to the Mayor and ask him that question, since I don't know the answer myself. I'm too busy trying to make rent every month to bother with questions of that type."

---"To me, the unsung heroes of New York are those guys who have the courage to lift manhole covers and actually go down below into the darkness and dirt to help keep this city functioning properly. Those municipal emlpoyees of the City who do that are so low-key that no one even knows their job title. And that's why I feel we should honor those guys with a special annual tribute to the manhole cover lifters throughout our entire city, or whatever they're called."

---"One of the questions that I need to ask Mayor Bloomberg is how many languagues does he speak fluently? I'm hoping he will cite at least three languages, so I can use that as ammunition when I'm trying to persuade my 10-year-old son Will to take his foreign language courses more seriously. I plan to smile sweetly at Will and say, 'So you see, son, if you turn trilingual you can also get elected Mayor of New York someday!'"

---"If I did volunteer work for a Travelers Aid society here in New York, what would prevent me from being at the mercy of con artists who falsely claim to be stranded here with no money?"

---"My 15-year-old son, Ted, recently commented to me that the Statue of Liberty is shocking to him because it presents women as having their clothes on all the time. Ted pointed out that it isn't natural for a woman to have her clothes on 24-hours-a-day, and never reveal herself in the nude at any time, Ted said. I told Ted that he's becoming so over-sexed at age 15 that he might as well apply for a job at 'Playboy' magazine. At 'Playboy,' he can get paid to ask an X-rated artist to draw sketches of the Statue of Liberty in the nude."

Wit and Wisdom of New Yorkers, Continued, Part IV

Had I continued to reside in New York City, New York, ever since 1986, I feel very sure that my daily eavesdropper's report from it all would have included the following additional contributions from New Yorkers:

----"I have mixed feelings about this trend toward financially-desperate New Yorkers charging $1,000 to a Manhattan merchant in exchange for an advertisement tattoo emblazoned on those New Yorkers' arm or neck or face. I question how many New Yorkers are turned on by walking billboard messages of that type."

----"The tattoo mania in New York is getting so perverse and so intense that the other day I attended a wedding at which a tattoo artist was asked to preside over the ceremony in lieu of a priest. The tattoo artist brought his machinery with him right into the church for the wedding, and he emblazoned the message 'Mary and John in Marital Bliss Forever' on the necks of each of the newlyweds in full view of everyone attending the ceremony. I found it disgusting and vulgar to watch, and I felt like vomiting. Right at that point, I was asked if I wanted to sample the wedding cake, so I asked if I could have it to-go style. I didn't want to vomit in front of the other guests."

---"Anyone who lives in New York becomes an expert on the history of parades. Whenever I refer back to each the milestones in my own life here in Manhattan, it was almost always accompanied by a parade. And there was one occasion when I was actually in that parade."

---"One of my biggest surprises as a newcomer to New York is that I haven't found a History of Parades Museum here. New York is more parade-minded than any city I've ever been in. New Yorkers will pounce on any opportunity they get for a ticker-tape parade. I think they enjoy creating artificial snow, it makes them feel a bit like God when they do that."

---"I love the idea of enrolling in a community-college class here on the History of Parades in Manhattan. I would get lots of goose-bumps from seeing all the proof that New Yorkers finish first at everything they pursue. And just think of all the famous faces I'll see in the videotapes our instructor shows us, truly great ones like Babe Ruth and Mayor LaGuardia. But now I must sound like an unbearable New York chauvinist. Well, at least I'm in the right city for that, since no one here will complain about it."

---"New York is the type of city where if a pitcher for the Yankees pitches a no-hitter, you are immediately invited to attend a ticker-tape parade in his honor. No accomplishment gets overlooked here, when it comes to ticker-tape parade opportunities. In fact, I would expect anyone who pitches a one-hitter for the Yankees gets a parade in his honor here. They probably draw the line at two-hitters, unless they're looking for an excuse for another ticker-tape parade."

---"Next time I attend a ticker-tape parade here in Manhattan, I plan to bring binoculars with me. Otherwise, I could miss out on all the action because of all that confetti shower that makes it very difficult to see the faces of the heroes being honored in that parade."

---"These ticker-tape parades in New York with the misty conditions from all that confetti go beautifully with art of the impressionist era in Europe. Isn't it a shame we can't revive one of those great impressionist painters, in order to invite him to New York to put a ticker-tape parade here on canvass!"

---"With all the trend toward commercial ties with China these days, it might be savvy for New York to re-name a street here as China Boulevard. That would definitely curry favor with the Chinese government, which could help my corporation to land more business deals with China."

---"I have never heard any New Yorker complain that he gets too much sleep at nighttime. That is probably the only type of complaint you will never hear in this city."

---"She is so obsessed with sexism that she wants to do a study analyzing what percentage of the persons honored in ticker-tape parades in Manhattan were male, and what percentage were female. Her thesis is that because of gender discrimination, female New Yorkers are less likely to get honored in a ticker-tape parade than male New Yorkers are."

----"Maybe there should be a Mayors' Day ticker-tape parade every year that honors each of the current and former mayors of New York who are alive and not in prison."

---"Can you imagine what it's like to be Mayor of New York and to have your staff ordering you to showcase the Garment District of your city in everything that you wear? If you wear a tie designed in Italy or France, you immediately lose votes from the Garment District crowd."

---"I consider that detective for NYPD to be beyond reproach. He's survived all five of the internal-affairs investigations he's had done on him in the last year. That's what I call integrity."

---"Here I've been eating pretzels from these street vendors for years, and I've never once thought to ask for a whole-wheat pretzel. Do know which street vendors sell whole-wheat pretzels? I need to go the whole-wheat route, since my doctor tells me I have too much white flour in my bloodstream. Come to think of it, do you know which of the street vendors here sell unsalted whole-wheat pretzels? My doctor also tells me I'll get a heart attack if I don't reduce my salt intake."

---"I think everyone who lives in New York turns into a pedestrian-rights activist. You can't live in New York without doing lots of walking, and the people I hate the most here are the owners of shoe companies who put out these fancy dress shoes that destroy your feet when you actually wear those shoes on the sidewalks of New York. I have sometimes suspected that the owners of shoe companies are accepting bribes from podiatrists, since these shoes that destroy the feet are generating lots of business for the podiatriasts of Manhattan."

---"I have divided my life here into 24-hour segments that begin at 8 a.m. one day and end at 7:59 a.m., and 59 seconds, the next day. Each morning when I wake up at 7:59:59 a.m., I have an opportunity to celebrate going through 24 consecutive hours while still remaining alive and well here in New York. That's no mean feat, judging by the many murder stories I read in the New York 'Post' every day. In fact, next week I plan to host an 'I'm Alive and Well Party' to celebrate my amazing success that way here in Manhattan. My only concern is that there are so few New Yorkers I trust enough to let them enter my apartment as party guests and help me celebrate. It would be very ironic, and very tragic, if I invite the wrong person to my 'I'm Alive and Well Party,' only to have the party turn into a flippant newspaper headline in the 'Post' the next day. Can you imagine how that headline would read, something like 'Irony Abounds in the Big Apple: 'Alive and Well Party' Host Fatally Stabbed by Guest'."

---"I think anyone who lives here ends up turning into a scholar of New York history. Myself, I plan to find out what 'La Guardia' translates into. That was the last name of the mayor of New York that most people remember the most fondly. He was a tiny little man, but his bold last name suggested he could protect our entire city against any unwanted intruder. I'm assuming that 'La Guardia' is Italian for 'The Guard' or 'The Guardian'. Quite a heroic image for that tiny little man who was our mayor decades ago, wouldn't you agree?"

---"Do you ever hallucinate here and think you can see Batman flying in the sky to rescue yet another victim of crime here? I think every New Yorker has hallucinations of that type, since all of us are victims of crime and all of us yearn for a Batman here who will save us from villains and the incompetence of NYPD."

---"Whenever I call NYPD for help, I always end up getting the blues. No wonder they used to call that TV series 'NYPD Blues'. The New York City police are so incompetent and so corrupt that they give everyone here a case of the blues whenever we New Yorkers call NYPD for help. It's depressing to live in a city where calling 911 for help is a bit like gambling in Las Vegas: Your chances of success are slim to none."

---"I've been victimized by crime so frequently here in New York that whenever I meet anyone who resembles Batman or Robin, I immediately shower them with generosity and kindness, hoping they will help me nab the latest criminal in my life. Then I suddenly learn that this Batman-lookalike or Robin-lookalike is not even interested in fighting crime. He'll confess to me that he identifies with the bad guys in Hollywood movies. That is all the proof I need that he's with the Mafia and should be removed from my party list ASAP."

---"I attended a support group meeting for victims of stalking the other day, but the meeting room was so full of people that I got intense claustrophobia and left. It seems that everyone in New York is a stalking victim these days!"

---"I have one cell phone for business calls only, and another cell phone for personal calls only. That way, I always know that if my personal cell phone rings in the middle of a high-priority business meeting for me, I completely ignore that caller. My wife hates it when I do that, but this focus on my business life keeps me competitive. Every week I tell my wife that if I weren't competitive like that, I could never afford to pay our monthly rent here in Manhattan. We might have to move to someplace like Buffalo. She would hate living in Buffalo, I tell her, and that seems to shut her up. In fact, I'm grateful for Buffalo since it is the place I cite the most often to my wife as the kind of place where she would not want us to have to move to, even if I have to be 'Mr. Businesslike' all the time in order to keep us here."

---"I think every Anglo New Yorker has days when he wonders what how he would have responded to the situation had he been black here instead of white. Myself, I'm sure that I would have said 'no' to any and all tattoos had I been black. That would have made a nice statement about my having pride in who I am, and in my skin as is, so to speak. Also, I would have used clean language at all times. I would have thanked everyone who said I sounded like 'Uncle Tom', and I would have told them that Uncle Tom is a favorite uncle of mine. Also, I would have said 'no' to cocaine whenever that came up. The tough part is that if you say 'no' to cocaine and the drug dealer who's talking to you gets offended, sometimes they might retaliate against you. So there may be a special etiquette required if you're black here in New York. You have to say 'no' to cocaine without getting the drug dealers here angry with you. This is one of the reasons why I'm grateful to be white in New York. Cocaine dealers know to stay away from me, and I never get invited to any cocaine parties here. Everyone knows I would walk out immediately if I ever saw or sniffed cocaine at a party I'm attending. In fact, many people know I would call NYPD if I ever saw or sniffed cocaine at a party I'm attending in Manhattan. I'm Mr. NARC, and proud of it. As a white man, I get a lot more respect for being a NARC than I would have gotten had I been a black NARC here in New York. It takes a lot more physical courage to be a black NARC than to be a white NARC in New York."

---"It surprises me that none of the rap-music performers that New York is famous for are offered a professorship in sociology at a college here. Many of these rappers are experts on 21st Century American Sociology. Or maybe I should say they are experts on 21st Century American Scatology. Wouldn't that make a fine title for an endowed professorship at CUNY----a 'Professor of Sociologically Scatological American Studies'? It would be the type of professorship in which every other word he utters in his lectures would make his white students blush. It is harder to tell if the black students are blushing, so that's why I say the white students would be the ones who would serve as the litmus test for ultra-obscene speech during classroom lectures."

---"One of my hopes is that some movie-maker here in New York will do a new documentary movie that features a variety of white New Yorkers each describing in detail how they would live their life if they had themselves instead been black and African-American. That type of movie would promote lots of healthy racial dialogue, in a city where we have too many racial fist-fights and not enough inter-racial empathy. One of my favorite lines in this documentary, by the way, will be the moment when a white New Yorker confides before the camera that 'I would probably eat collard greens for the first time ever. I have always been curious about collard greens, but was afraid to try them. The ethnic aura to collard greens was daunting to me as a white New Yorker. I lumped them together with the high-fat black ethnic foods like hog jowls, I believe they're called. I don't know what a jowl is, come to think of it. Is that a cross between the hog's bowels and the hog's jaw? But that would be physiologically impossible, the bowels and the jaw are on opposite ends of the hog's body. It's one of those questions that as a white New Yorker I never had any inclination to ponder. But now that I'm black, I can see very logically that eating collard greens will not give me a heart attack. Dietary experts say that collard greens are very healthy for you---I know I've read that somewhere. I cannot imagine being a black New Yorker without making a comment to someone at some point that I find it awful the way most white New Yorkers overlook the beauty of collard greens. I might even comment to a friend that I plan to host a Collard Greens Party in my home just to encourage everyone who hasn't tried collard greens to sample them and see what they think. The party will feature collard-greens dip, to make it perfectly clear that the entire party is a tribute to collard greens throughout.'"

---"New York is the first city I've ever lived in where I have to constantly apologize to everyone for not being into inter-racial dating. If I point out that I feel I generally am more compatible with and feel more intimate toward other Anglos, the wiseguy I'm talking with shouts that I could face a discrimination lawsuit for talking like that here in New York!"

---"If you're looking for an inter-racial date, New York is definitely the right place for you. The only racial group I haven't dated here are natives of Antarctica, but otherwise I've covered all the continents very thoroughly in my romantic life. Everyone tells me I should relax my policy on bestiality, and find a penguin to date here in order to live it up Antarctica-style. I don't care what they say, though, my own values are firmly against dating penguins, regardless of whether they could add to my continents of the world repertoire."

---"I wish I could find a webpage exclusively containing a list of all of the quietest restaurants of New York where you can actually hear the other person talking to you if you're on a date here. I cannot tell you how many of my dates here in New York have suddenly collapsed on me because I couldn't hear what she was saying. When I keep asking her to repeat herself, she suddenly asks me if I am deaf, and if so, she prefers not to date a 'hearing-impaired type'. I try not to react to that insensitive comment, but then the date ends abruptly in the middle of our fried calamari appetizer. She angrily stands up and loudly says to me that 'Our date today was Very Dysfunctional, and you are definitely not my type!' Then I stand up and shout at her, 'Well, you are not my type, either, since you didn't even thank me for the calamari!', and this infuriates her, so she grabs a piece of calamari and throws it right at my face as she storms out of the restaurant. My only consolation was that the calamari was not hot enough to burn my skin. I felt like shouting at her, 'Don't you want a to-go bag for the calamari? You can always pop it in a microwave and offer it to your next hot date if he gets that far with you! But at the rate you're going, you're never going to eat an entree on any of your dates, since you'll ditch every one of your dates seconds after the appetizer has arrived!' I didn't say any of that to her, though, since I take pride in being a true gentleman. New York doesn't have enough true gentlemen, and I always feel that that class of men in this city has to begin with me, since I don't know who else it would begin with. It's not like I have a list of adult guys in New York whom I would classify as being true gentlemen! I fully admit that the list of New York men who are true gentlemen would be so tiny that it could take months for me to come up with 10 names! But that's no reason for her to throw calamari at my face, as if I were like all the others she had ditched here in New York!"

---"I've had so many New Yorkers approach me and ask me how things are going along 52nd Street these days, and I have to tell them that I never spend any time on 52nd Street, I'm strictly a 43rd Street person myself. Then the lady who approaches me will say 'Excuse me, you must have a twin sister who lives on 52nd Street' and then I'll say, 'Please ask her to say hello to me at any of my 43rd Street hangout spots, maybe we could then arrange to meet sometime at an in-between place like a 47th Street coffeeshop to see if maybe we have a parent in common we don't know about. There are a lot of mothers in New York who give birth to children out of wedlock, and they don't tell their biological offspring about that surprise child whom they secretly put in a foster home. So this is why it wouldn't surprise me if a lady along 52nd Street looks a lot like me. In the old days, if she had been a boy, they would have called her the bastard child. But I don't know what they used to call a girl who was born out of wedlock. To me, it would not have been fair, even in the old days, to call a girl born out of wedlock a bitch. I feel it's insensitive to label anyone as a bastard or a bitch merely because they were born out of wedlock. And who knows, maybe I could invite her to my next family reunion, provided she's prepared for some hostile reactions from relatives of mine who don't think much of those who were born out of wedlock. Personally, I don't feel it's the girl's fault that she was born that way. It's not as if she had any say over which womb she was in during her pre-infancy period."

---"Forgive me if I laugh when you ask me if I have ever been molested here in New York. To me, the question should have been, 'Do you know of anyone here in New York who HASN'T been molested?' My answer to that question is 'No, of course not.' Molestation is so widespread here that I'm surprised there isn't an annual symposium specifically bearing the title, 'Molestation As a Fact of Everyday Life in New York'. In fact, any day now I expect to see NYU establish an endowed 'Professorship in Molestation Studies'. After that professor gets hired, the clever profile on him in 'The New York Times' will emphasize his view that New York City is the perfect location for molestation research projects, since New York is believed to be the Molestation Capital of the entire country, with the possible exception of Newark, New Jersey. 'The prevalence of molestation as a societal phenomenon here in New York will definitely enliven my class lectures at NYU,' the professor might comment to the Times. That same professor might then add that he plans to ask for a show of hands on the first day of his molestation course. Students would be asked to raise their hand if they can recall having ever been molested in New York. Then the professor would ask the students who didn't raise their hands to come to the front of the class, so can denounce them all as liars in front of all the other students."

---"We've all heard the old saying, that New Yorkers tend to be manic-depressive types. Personally, I see it differently. Anyone who lives here on the 27th of each month will experience instense mania, almost to the point of hysteria, as he attempts to make next month's rent. Then after he somehow scrapes together enough money to avoid eviction and homelessness and despair, on the fourth of the following month he might even experience some euphoria. I call it pseudo-ecstasy, since it is too short-lived to qualify as true ecstasy. He might even celebrate his monthly success by treating himself to a nice meal in a five-star restaurant in Manhattan, which has the ironic effect of draining his checking account balance. Then the morning after his celebration from dining out, he wakes up with a hangover and experiences his monthly mini-depression. He is nearly certain at that point that he can't repeat his previous month's achievement of making rent. That mini-depression eventually jars him into frenzied action, as he madly scrambles to find the dough he needs to keep a roof over his head in the Big Apple. That's why I call it a vicious circle, or vicious cycle, and I'm not sure which is the correct term. He never gets out of that vicious cycle unless he wins the state lottery, and the odds on that are 1 in 10 million. If he does win the lottery, he can buy a home of his own on Long Island, which means that the manic-depressive period of his life has finally come to an end. For the rest of his life, he is astonished to discover each month that he is not experiencing hysteria anymore on the 27th of the month. This is what I call a fairy-tale ending here in New York: when a New Yorker finally extricates himself from the vicious cycle that apartment tenants face every month. But there's always the risk that someone will break into your home, since home invasions are very common these days. So owning a home is no guarantee of living happily ever after in this metro area. That's part of the charm of New York life: you can never take anything for granted, since disaster scenarios lurk around every corner."

----"If you want to meet Superman here in New York, the person you should invite to lunch is the Secretary General of the United Nations. He's the closest we have to Commander of the Universe as we know it. He doesn't wear a cape, as Superman does, but it's possible that the United Nations has a special costume they expect him to wear at ceremonial functions. This is purely guessing on my part, though."

---"I don't think of New York in terms of romantic dates. To me, romance is entirely beside the point in this city. New York is all about power dating. You invite to lunch whoever you believe will most advance your career prospects. It's all strictly platonic, no kissing of any type, and you keep your clothes on at all times here, unless you're meeting them in a Japanese restaurant that asks you to take your shoes off before you enter. And if the New Yorker you invite to lunch turns you down, at least they'll admire your chutzpah. New York is the one city in the entire United States where people exhibiting audacity are admired by almost everyone. 'Audacity is mandatory here,' that might as well be the unofficial motto of all New Yorkers."

---"The one place I don't recommend proposing marriage to a lady in New York is the top floor of the Empire State Building. If she is repulsed by the idea of marrying you, she'll feel so dizzy up there that she might even vomit. And that could be very traumatic for you, to get not only a very painful personal rejection but an outpouring of vomit in response to your romantic overture."

---"Whenever I think about the Empire State Building, I think about all the New Yorkers who carry suicide notes with them up to the top floor of that building, only to change their mind after they reach the top floor. Wouldn't that make a nice museum exhibit, in fact, all the New Yorkers who tore up their suicide note that they had brought with them to the top floor of the Empire State Bulding? To me, it would be very poignant to study those pre-suicide notes that were later nullified when the New Yorker found one good reason to live from the top floor. But it would be very difficult to compile all those pre-suicide notes and put them on display in a special exhibit here. How can you collect all those those tiny bits of paper and reconstruct what each of those suicide notes had said? Maybe they could install a special hidden camera that photographs each of the suicide notes that distraught New Yorkers review from the top floor before they tear their note into shreds."

---"I can't decide whether I would have struck out with Joe DiMaggio, had he been alive today and had I invited him to lunch and conversation in some nice Italian restaurant in Manhattan. What do you think? Do you think Joe would have enjoyed my companionship during that meal?"

---"To me, the biggest surprise about New York is that there isn't any restaurant here named 'Chutzpah'. I'm talking about a restaurant where the waiters and waitresses greet you with unmitigated gall and brashness. They make presumptuous and arrogant comments to you throughout your entire meal. When they deliver your meal to your table, they immediately boast to you that everything you are about to eat is the very finest dish of that type in the entire world. And when it's all over you'll receive a bold handwritten note from your waiter, asking you whether you agree with him that he is the very finest and best waiter you have ever encountered in your entire life?"

---"The networking parties here in New York are fun, because the first thing your hostess will say to you is, 'Hi, I'm Joan, and what do you have to offer me in the way of professional contacts?' That sets the tone for the entire party, and guests are expected to try something similar. The sheer audacity of networking parties is so very, very New York. For instance, a lot of New Yorkers will habitually approach each of the other guests at networking parties and ask them, 'So tell me, which CEOs are personal friends of yours?' Another favorite question to pose to other guests at networking parties in Manhattan is: 'Pretend I'm Donald Trump, and I'd like to make a deal with you. You tell me the most powerful CEO you can list as a contact of yours, and then I'll tell you the most powerful CEO I list as a contact of mine.'"

---"You're raising an interesting point. How many stories does a tall building in New York have to have before it gets classified as a skyscraper? It sounds like your 8-year-old son is asking good questions that you don't have the answer for. Maybe we should collaborate on a new factual guidebook entitled, 'Answers to the 1,000 Most Frequently Asked Questions about New York City.' I'm sure your son would love you for it."

---"The closest thing I've ever had to a born-again experience was the day when I swam five laps in a YMCA here in Manhattan and felt elated. Then I suddenly remembered that YMCA has a Christian heritage, so I felt like thanking Christ for my success in the pool that day. But I don't think of Jesus Christ as a swimming coach. In fact, I'm not sure that he ever swam. He reportedly WAlKED on water, but he never actually SWAM on water, from what I can recall of what my Christian friends have told me. Can you imagine how funny that would be, if I tried to walk on the water here at the YMCA?"

---"I've developed a secret code for communicating with my friends at cocktail parties here in Manhattan. The minute I suspect that a single guy I just met has organized crime ties, I rush up to my female friend and whisper into her ear, 'That one's OC.' The secret code works, since no one else in the entire party knows that 'OC' signifies 'organized crime'. And my friend is spared from dating a Mafia thug, since I warned her in advance about that one."

--"I love the idea of eating vegetable soup when I dine out here in New York, but have you ever actually eaten vegetable soup? Do you know how unbearably bland vegetable soup can be? Maybe there should be a Vegetable Soup Cook-Off here that challenges the greatest chefs and greatest amateur chefs of New York to come up with a vegetable soup that's actually interesting to eat. Or perhaps I should say dreat, since you're half-drinking your soup and your half-eating it. The word I just coined, 'dreat', combines the words 'drink' and 'eat' in a very clever way, I feel. Do you like that proposed new word for Webster's dictionary, 'Dreat', to be used exclusively in the context of consuming an item that is part-beverage and part-food item? I like that word for what I do with soup so much better, since I always find it so awkward to say that I'm eating my soup. Do you feel the same as I do on that, or do you think I'm just being a linguistic snob?"

---"One of my friends has a habit of saying that she is 'slurping' her soup. But to me, that sounds vulgar. Here in New York, we take pride in being more refined than places like Cincinnati. You can slurp your soup in Ohio, but not here. Here, you savor your soup; and I'm not sure exactly what else you can do with your soup inside a five-star restaurant here. Whatever you do with your soup, it must be elegant or you might as well be banished to Buffalo."

---"When you say that she's a snob, what exactly do you mean? Is she a language snob, a gourmet-foods snob, a high-fashion snob, an etiquette snob, or a fine-arts snob? Personally,I always find that the gourmet-foods snobs here are less likely to be offensive than the etiquette snobs are. It's impossible to live in New York without committing at least five 'faux pas' gaffes of your own each day. And if you associate with an etiquette snob, she'll be devoting several hours per day to telling you all about each and every one of your most recent five faux pas blunders that she's identified. It's a bit like being raked over the coals on a 24-hour-a-day basis when you associate with an etiquette snob."

---"It's a given of life here that you're meeting snobs all the time in New York. What makes New York so interesting is the great variety of snobs you meet. For instance, just yesterday I met a Whole-wheat Gourmet Pizzas snob who refuses to enter any restaurant that fails to offer whole-wheat gourmet pizzas on its menu. That eliminates a lot of dining-out options for him. But he insists he has found his calling in life. He says he plans to write a book on the Gourmet Whole-Wheat Pizzas Scene in the near future. I didn't want to be a snob myself, so I told him, 'It seems that you've found your niche here in New York. That's very impressive.' I feel a bit insincere for having said that, but I always try to encourage other New Yorkers when they cite a creative project idea that actually sounds legal. Half the time here in New York, you're hearing about creative project ideas that are flagrantly illegal---so much so that it's only a matter of time before the FBI does a sting operation on that guy."

----"My rule of thumb is to never refer to anyone in New York as a snob. Instead, say that the New Yorker you've just met has strong opinions and has a strong sense of having lots of expertise in that topic area. You will feel a lot better about the rest of this city if you merely note to yourself that New York is full of people who have strong opinions and a strong sense of having personal expertise in that topic area."

----"To me, etiquette in New York demands a constant and year-round devotion to the art of euphemistic language. If you encounter a beggar panhandling for money at Times Square, you never refer to him as being a homeless person or a bum. You instead comment politely to a friend that he appears to be 'in between homes' and he 'appears to be searching for the right fashion statement he can offer the world at Times Square.' As a New Yorker, I always feel much more elegant and cultured when I describe the world around me in sugar-coated language."

---"I would estimate that 90 percent of the New Yorkers who come across as cocky or cocksure are actually lacking in self-confidence. True self-confidence is sorely lacking here."

---"Lately my friend Paul has turned into an Artisan Breads snob. If he enters a bakery and does not see any bread on display that's labeled as an Artisan Bread, he immediately demands to speak with the manager about that shocking oversight. When I asked Paul to please define Artisan Breads for me, he told me I was being very rude to ask. Furthermore, he said, how could I have lived in New York for 10 years without being able to offer a detailed reply to that very basic question?"

---"As a New Yorker, I have banished the word 'flunkie' from my vocabulary. If I started to refer to other New Yorkers as flunkies, I think I would develop a nasty habit of labeling every store clerk I meet that way. And then they might retaliate by short-changing me!"

---"One of my biggest surprises as a newcomer to New York is that I never found a five-star restaurant here named 'Gotham' or 'Gotham City'. At the very least, I expected to find a fancy restaurant here named 'Batman' or 'Caped Crusader' or 'Robin'. It seems that that this city refuses to embrace its Gotham City heritage, even though the vast majority of Americans think of Manhattan whenever they watch a 'Batman' movie."

---"My friend Ted is so obsessed with terrorists that in his personal life he refuses to associate with anyone who owns a cell phone. My friend claims that the terrorists and outlaws of New York all own and use cell phones as their preferred method of communication. Personally, I feel that Ted is being simplistic. I told Ted he shouldn't punish the law-abiding New Yorkers who happen to own cell phones. Ted is profiling all of New York's cell-phone owners in a very unfair way, and that's like character assassination. After all, I assume that our mayor owns and uses a cell phone, but he's definitely not a terrorist type. And he's no friend of the Mafia, either. So Ted is really being very discriminatory and capricious when he arbitrarily excludes Mayor Bloomberg from Ted's prospective friends list."

---"My friend Sally got this wild idea that she could camp out at Central Park in a tent in order to commune with nature. So I told her that if she puts up a tent at Central Park and tries to camp there overnight, all she'd be communing with at Central Park would be criminal types. Then a full hour after the criminal types had raped her and stolen her watch and cell phone and fled from her tent, an NYPD officer would arrive on the scene to announce to her that she was under arrest. The NYPD officer would bluntly inform Sally that she had the right to remain silent, and that she was being charged with having failed to obtain the City's prior permission when she attempted to camp overnight at Central Park."

---"Whenever I visit Washington Square here in New York, I wish I could enter a time tunnel in order to spare George Washington from the pain of wearing wooden teeth in the late 18th Century. I think evey dentist here has fantasies like that, we all would like to help put an end to the suffering that so many of the truly great dentally unfortunate Americans have experienced in our country's history."

---"My theory is that the restaurants on Long Island like to offer asparagus as a menu option because they're proud of the long narrow shape of their island and they want to celebrate it through the vegetables they offer."

---"My 8-year-old son told me that he had expected the pizza being served in Long Island restaurants to be long and rectangular in shape, like the island itself. I explained to my son that the restaurant owners of Long Island are not legally required by the State of New York to replicate the outline of the geography of their island through their menu offerings."

---"I cannot imagine dining in a restaurant on Long Island without ordering a seafood dish. To me, anytime you travel to Long Island you should be thinking fish, shrimp, crabs, oysters, and the like."

---"There may well be a need for a study to determine whether the residents of Long Island eat more seafood per capita than the residents of New York City do, and if so, how much more seafood do Long Islanders eat, when compared with New Yorkers. That might make a fascinating research project for Long Island University."

---"My friend Paula claims that body heat is the biggest untapped source of energy here in New York. She claims that whenever it snows here, the throngs of pedestrians here serve as human snow plows that melt the snow very quickly and efficiently. I told Paula she's being naive. Her theory only applies to snow removal on sidewalks or on designated cross walks, since that's where the pedestrians are found. I also pointed out that there isn't much human body heat impacting the snow when pedestrians walk on the sidewalks here, since it's mostly just boots or shoes that are having contact with the snow. Paula looked deflated by my reply, as if I had just denied her a Genius Grant from the McArthur Foundation. I felt bad for her. It was as if she had just been caught in a blizzard of logic that defied her current lifestyle as a New Yorker."

---"Paula claims that the body heat generated by thousands of New York pedestrians brushing up against one another on the sidewalks of New York is a very progressive source of energy, since it's renewable and very green. No fossil fuels being consumed, she points out. To me, Paula is very naive about what's going on on the sidewalks here. The primary 'green' I observe on the sidewalks of New York is the shameless greed of New Yorkers rubbing up against me. They are all hoping to get their grubby hands on my beautiful and elegant purse. They see my lovely outfit, they see my dazzling purse, and they immediately think Green, as in $100 dollar bills and Greed Gone Berzerk. This is what so much of New York life is all about: Greed Gone Berzerk! I don't blame them for envying me, in fact I take pride in being one of the 100 most envied ladies in all of New York! This reminds me that I wonder why I haven't seen my name in a list of that type in the 'New York Post'. Maybe I should call my friend at 'the Post' and ask her to write a column listing the 100 most envied ladies of New York, and I'm sure my friend will remember to put my name in bold-face type for the sake of good PR."

---"I find it odd how little I hear in New York about fresh-water lakes that are nice places to escape to on weekends. Maybe I should take a survey of my coworkers to find out which fresh-water lake they recommend that's within a 100-mile radius of New York. Then I'd have to consult my fashion consultant to find out whether my salt-water bathing suit and salt-water bath towel would be just as successful for me in a fresh-water lake context. It seems likely that fresh-water lake fashionwear would differ somewhat from salt-water fashionwear. But I haven't discussed that issue with my fashion consultant yet."

---"Maybe we should trade notes on how much money you spend every year on the fashion consultant you meet with here to review possible additions to your wardrobe. My own rule of thumb that I don't want to spend more than 10 times more per year on consulting services from my individual fashion consultant than I spend on buying fashionwear that I actually wear on my body here in New York. Wouldn't it be illogical, for a New Yorker to spend 20 times more on fashion-consultant services in their personal life than they spend on actually buying new fashionwear---or do you think I'm being unfair, to talk this way? There's a lot to be said for devoting a lot of thought to the fashion statement you plan to make before you actually wear that outfit in public for the first time here in New York."

---"My 8-year-old son, Peter, told me that for his birthday this year he wants to go island-hopping with me. He wants to start out at Staten Island, then jump to Long Island for more fun, then head for Coney Island for the main event. I told Peter that I'm very impressed by the creativity of his birthday party idea, but I would have to hire an island-hopping tour guide to make the party a success. And that could cost thousands of dollars that I'd rather spend on Peter's college education someday. So I asked Peter if he would settle for Coney Island this year, then we could hop to Staten Island for next year's birthday party. Then a year later, we could celebrate Peter's birthday on Long Island."

---"My 10-year-old son, Eric, asked me if I could tell him the first name of the man named 'Long' who discovered Long Island. I told Eric that I don't know the answer to that question, since I don't recall reading about a famous man named Long from our state's history. I also told Eric that he should do research on that question and write a new reference book. His reference book could be entitiled, 'Answers to the 1,000 Questions that are Uppermost on Eric's Mind, but That No One Else in New York has the Answer To.'"

---"When I recently told my 12-year-old son, Paul, that the greatest governor in New York's history was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he replied by asking me, 'So who was the second-greatest governor in our state's history?' Paul loves to stump me with difficult questions that make me feel stupid. I was completely unable to answer his follow-up question, so I told Paul that he should do a Google search using the phrase, 'second greatest governor in New York State's history' as his key words."

---"What I hate about going to bakeries here is that I never get to request a Baker's Dozen of anything. I love the idea of ordering a Baker's Dozen, but I live alone and I certainly don't want to get 12 times fatter for having visited that bakery. Maybe I could throw a Baker's Dozen Party once per month, and invite 11 of my friends to attend that party. Everyone would get to eat one baked-good item from that gourmet bakery at the party. What's nice about a party like that is that it won't go on forever. As soon as they're through eating their one allotted croissant or bagel, they would lose interest in staying at the party. They would come up with an excuse for leaving, such as that they had forgotten about an appointment they had for later that day. It would be a mini-party, which makes sense since I live in a mini-condo unit. In fact, I'm proud of the fact that my condo unit is the smallest of anyone I know here in Manhattan. I'm wondering, in fact, if 12 people could fit into my condo unit in order to hold a party."

---"I've heard so much about pederasts preying on 8-year-old boys here in New York, that when an older man commented to me in church last Sunday that my son is 'well-groomed', I nearly went hysterical. I told the older man that 'no one is grooming my son for anything, and I make double sure my son gets to bed every night by 9 p.m. with full electronic surveillance throughout our home at all times.' I then added, for good measure, that 'I never permit any male person age 10 or older to be alone with my son for more than 60 consecutive seconds.'"

---"I feel that the parent-teacher organization for my kid's school should sponsor a Pederasty-Prevention Educational Documentary film for all of the elementary-school students at my kid's school. That film should feature interviews with a variety of boys and girls who have been sexually molested, and it would emphasize the severe harm to themselves and their families from the child-molesters."

---"I keep a diary that's exclusively focused on Enjoyable In-Person Conversations I've had with other New Yorkers during my leisuretime. So far for the year 2012, I've got one total entry in that very special diary of mine. But I do savor that one conversation from my personal life that I enjoyed this year. Maybe if I invite that person to lunch or dinner next week, I will get to add a second entry to my Enjoyable Conversations in New York Diary for 2012."

---"I'm planning to sponsor a 'Great Conversations of New Yorkers Film Festival', with 'My Dinner With Andre' from the 1980s among the featured films. That movie was shot in Manhattan, so it will make a perfect movie for that film festival here. What I'm hoping to instill in my fellow New Yorkers through this film festival is a devotion to philosophical depth and idealistic zeal in our leisuretime conversations. Doesn't that sound great for New York?"

---"One of the educational workshops I want to sponsor here in New York is a crime-prevention workshop entitled, 'What To Do If You Sense that a Friend or Acquaintance or Coworker or Associate of Yours May Possibly Have Ties to the Mafia'. To me, this is one of the most important educational workshop themes that we could possibly sponsor here in New York, since New Yorkers get so little guidance on this. And it's obvious that the less you associate with individuals who have Mafia ties, the safer and happier and healthier your own life will be."

----"So which of the first-rate Italian restaurants of New York is least likely to attract Mafia thugs? I guess what I'm looking for here is a high-quality Italian restaurant that has the courage to post a warning sign in its lobby that boldly states, 'We Reserve the Right to Throw You Out of this Restaurant At Any Time and Not Serve You if We Ever Suspect that You Might Possibly Have Ties to the Mafia'. I'd also like to see a sign in the lobby of that restaurant that declares, 'One Percent of all Net Profits from Our Restaurant are Donated to the 10 Leading and reputable Non-Profit Groups that Seek to Deter Mafia Activities, including the Institute for the Study of Organized Crime that's based at Indiana University in Bloomington'."

---"I don't blame the Italian-Americans of New York for complaining about ethnic profiling. My only response to their concern is to pose a question to them: 'So tell me,' I want to ask those Italian-Americans, 'what percentage of our city's Italian-Americans do, in fact, have ties to the Mafia?'"

---"One of the documentary films about New York Life that I feel would be particularly poignant would be a series of interviews with the parents and spouses and children of illicit-drug dealers from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. I feel very sure that type of documentary movie would earn lots of praise from the handful of movie critics here who aren't drug addicts. As for the other movie critics, I hope they would be decent enough to admit in writing that they cannot review that movie, since they have a conflict of interest. They might even mention in that confessional column that they are so hopelessly addicted to marijuana or cocaine, that they are incapable of writing reasonably about the pervasive injuriousness to others from illicit drug dealers."

----"You mean to tell me you have lived here in New York for 50 years, but you don't know which tree in New York City is the tallest? Forgive me if if I sound shocked by your ignorance about your own city. I guess I just assumed that everyone knew as much as I do on this subject. Maybe I should compile a new reference book entitled, '1,000 Facts about New York City that Anyone Who Lives Here or Visits Here or Wonders About New York City Should Know.'"

---"When I get a lot of clicking on my phone line here, how do I know for sure that it's because a foreign government is spying on me? Couldn't it just be that my phone is in need of repair, so I need to call AT&T and ask for a repairman?"

---"Personally, I would divide this city into those who truly believe in healthy mutual-consent platonic personal relationships and those who don't. The cynical New Yorkers are the ones I try to steer clear of. If you send them a thank-you card, they immediately tell a friend of theirs that you are trying to get into bed with them."

---"I always find Washington Square here to be a big mystery. What exactly happened on this site, from a historical standpoint? Did George Washington do something famous at this site, and if so, why is it that no one here ever mentions exactly what he did at this very location?"

---"Why is it that I have never heard of any famous person crossing the Hudson River, when everyone knows that George Washington crossed the Delaware River, for instance. When you hear the name 'George Washington', in fact, you immediately think to yourself, 'He was famous for crossing the Delaware River.' So who was famous for crossing the Hudson, and why does nobody ever talk about that famous moment in New York City history?"

---"I think every New Yorker who works in a skyscraper secretly yearns for parachuting lessons during their leisuretime. That's assuming they could find a parachuting instructor who doesn't charge more than $100 an hour. If I worked in a skyscraper, I'd want to keep a parachute near my desk at all times. I'd also find someone to teach me how to parachute successfully from my office building, in the event of an emergency evacuation. It just now occurs to me, though, that I would probably want that parachuting instructor to teach me without ever having me take a mid-air leap during my lessons. If I had an accident while taking instructions on how to parachute, that would defeat the whole purpose of learning that skill. Why take a flying leap myself unless an actual life-threatening crisis is facing me at that very moment?"

---"Do you find that the percentage of New Yorkers you observe on the subway cars whom you attempt to undress in your imagination decreases or increases as you get older? I raise that question primarily because I sense that it might make an interesting topic for a sociological study about long-term trends in societal customs here."

---"Probably about 95 percent of all New York City residents would flunk a pop quiz about upsate New York. When you mention 'upstate' to a New York City resident, their facial expression turns into a sneer and they then they reply with visceral anger in their voice: 'It's up yours, fellow, if you think I'm going to talk with you about Upstate! That's the last place in the world I'd ever want to think about!"

---"The only Rochester I ever heard about was the famous servant of Jack Benny, that Jewish comedian. But I don't know for a fact that Jack Benny's African-American male servant named Rochester ever visited his namesake city in upstate New York. Probably it gave him a bit of an ego trip to mail a postcard to a friend of his from Rochester, New York, that cited his own name as 'Rochester.' So who was the individual who lent his name to Rochester, New York, if it wasn't the famous African-American servant of Jack Benny? But it just now occurs to me that Rochester, New York, was probably founded long before Jack Benny's servant Rochester became famous for having that name. And I hope you can't tell that I'm high on weed right now. I fully confess that the city of Rochester, New York, has never inspired me enough to read its encyclopedia entry in the Encyclopedia Americana. I don't blame Rochester, New York, for that. But it is, after all, a srictly upstate sort of place. My own attention is directed downstate, to this hub of the universe metro area we call New York."

---"When I say 'New York', I'm never thinking upstate. I'm always thinking New York City and its suburbs. This focus simplies everything for me. Call me callous if you like, but the upstate people are inconsequential. They are like the final names that flash before your eyes at the end of a movie you just watched in the theater. You tend to banish those final names to oblivion. They had a role in it, but that role was to tiny and minor that you almost wonder why their name was even mentioned."

---"The upstate people are there, so they are not here. The people who are here are the people who matter."

----"Personally, I always find it ironic that Washington Square was named after a man who was famous for his honesty. Do you ever see anyone at Washington Square who looks like they could pass a lie-detector test, much less a drug test?"

---"I'm hoping the Census Bureau will administer a lie-detector test to New York City residents in the next official census here. That would then tell me whether the percentage of New Yorkers who are liars is 90 percent, as I have suspected for years, or only 80 percent, as my friend Harry claims. To me, the 80 percent estimate is flagrantly incorrect. It implies that 2 of every 10 New Yorkers you meet are honest, and that's a huge overstatement, based on what I've seen and heard."

---"I just came up with a great title for my autobiography. It will be 'Down and Out in Downstate New York.' I don't want my autobiography to gloss over the enormous human suffering I've endured on a daily basis here in Manhattan. I want my autobiography to tell the entire world in excruciating detail how miserably I subsisted here for decades. It may sound self-pitying for me to go into all that detail on the subject, but I think the more enlightened readers will thank me for my detailed devotion to profound realism."

---"I dread meeting New Yorkers who live in the boroughs. The first thing they ask me is, 'Do you know anyone who can help me escape from the Bronx and relocate in Manhattan ASAP?' I always reply that I don't know anyone who can perform miracles for them."

---"My theory is that people who get showered on with acid rain, as we New Yorkers do, reflect that in their sense of humor. It tends to be scathing and nasty to the point of acid. That's why I refer to it all as 'Acid Rain Humor'. There's obviously a biological basis for that all-too-prevalent cynical style of humor here in New York. The taxi drivers are the leading exponent of acid-rain humor, and I find that a bit perplexing since they are in their cars all day so they aren't subjected to acid rain all that much. Maybe they inhale the acid-rain fumes into their lungs merely by driving their taxi cabs around Manhattan."

---"Personally, I feel they should relocate the state capital building to New York City. If New York was good enough to serve as our nation's capital back in the 18th Century, then New York is also good enough to be our state's capital city. I just don't feel that Albany was a good choice for state capital. And it's so far up there that most people from the City aren't willing to travel to Albany to meet with state officials. So Albany is arbitraily denied much of the great brainpower that this City has to offer. It's like a great braintrust here in Manhattan that Albany desperately needs, but never has access to."

---"Personally, I tend to think of upstaters as slackers. If they had half the work ethic and drive that we people in Manhttan have, our state's problems would all get solved in a matter of days."

---"Personally, I think the name 'Buffalo' was a poor name for a town. When I think of Buffalo, I think of endangered species at risk of extinction. Would you want to live in a city at risk of extinction, a bit like that famous case of the ancient Roman town Pompeii that went extinct in a matter of minutes after that awful volcanic eruption there? I guess the only thing Buffalo has going for it is that there's no volcano nearby."

---"I always feel bad when I visit a bookstore here and I notice that the upstate New York section of that book store is either non-existent or so tiny that it's almost impossible to find. I might as well be searching for factual books about Micronesia, that's how obscure the subject tends to be here. Personally, I always keep in mind that every time I enjoy dining out hee in the City, I should be thanking those upstate farmers for the fine crops they produced that made it all possible."

----"Maybe we should offer an 'Upstate New Yorker of the Year' award right here in Manhattan. The upstater who wins that contest would get a free pass to each of the live-theater productions on Broadway for an entire year. This would promote greater cultural dialogue between Upstate New York and the City."

---"Maybe there should be an Upstate New York website that exclusively offers impressive facts about that region of our state. This would help to persaude some of us cynical big-city types to make one annual trip per year outside of our metro area and still inside our state boundaries."

---"Maybe we could promote more appreciation for upstate New York if our New York City zoo had a buffalo on exhibit. If we have one, I'm not aware of it. A live buffalo on exhibit would give me the subliminal reminder I need to travel up to Buffalo and discover that it has charms to it that I had not previously been aware of. I like the fact that Buffalo has a subway system, which is more than most cities can say."

---"It would be interesting to find out if there is an American Indian community in Buffalo. Historically, as you know, the buffalo was a favorite wildgame animal among our American Indians. They probably even had a special prayer they chanted to thank their Indian God every time they prepared to eat buffalo meat for dinner. But I don't know for a fact that if you travel to Buffalo, any of the fine-dining restaurants there would offer Buffalo Steak as an option. And it's very unlikely that any of those restaurants serving Buffalo meat would routinely provide you with a copy of a favorite Indian prayer thanking God for the bufffalo meat on the plate."

---"It's very simple. New York State is divided into under-achievers and over-achievers. We have no in-between group in this state. The under-achievers tend to live in the upstate region, since they're not being held to as high a standard of job performance up there and they figure they'll get away with it. The over-achievers are found in Manhattan. The only disadvantage to that is that over-achievers are so driven they either get a heart attack or they give other people a heart attack from being so demanding."

---"Our state has two classes of people: those who love New York City and those who despise New York City. Myself, I fall into either either of those two groups, depending on my mood that day. Some days I love this City with a passion; other days, I hate this City with a passion. At least I'm never apathetic about the City; and that's another tribute to New York City, that it never elicits a bored response or a yawn from anyone. New York City either enchants or it alienates, never in-between."

---"I think what Upstate New York needs is an Upstate New York Chamber of Commmerce and Visitors Bureau that maintains a well-publicized office right here in Manhattan. That would help to persuade people here in the City to include Upstate New York in our travel plans. And the New York City residents traveling upstate will serve as fine ambassadors for our City, too, since they'll spread the word among upstaters about great places here to visit and buy things. I love the symbiosis of it all: We scratch their backs, through that Manhattan office space we offer to the Upstaters, then they scratch our backs by visiting our City more often and puring more money into New York's economy."

---"I get tired of all this talk about the cultural inferiority of upstate New York. Instead of criticizing upstaters, why not donate lots of money to establish a special new live-performance theater here named 'Upstate'. I'm talking about a theater that exclusively performs and promotes plays written or directed by residents of the upstate region of New York. If we showcase Upstate New Yorkers at their best, maybe then we'd dislike them a lot less. We might even make friends with some of those upstaters."

---"A lot of New Yorkers think of their wedding in terms of making a big splash at Niagara Falls. What they forget, though, is that when their quickie marriage abruptly ends in divorce, they'll also be making a big splash in the news media from the alienation that the estranged spouse verbalizes to reporters. And that's not the type of big splash you want to have. It's much better to spend two years of getting to know someone really well under fully open and straightforward circumstances involving mutual criminal-background checks, for instance. Then, if you still decide to marry each other, the marriage might actually last."

---"If I lived in Buffalo, I think I would develop a hobby of collecting as many Buffalo nickels as I could find. It would be a way of declaring to myself and everyone else that I am proud to live in a city named after a species that almost went extinct. In fact, as a coin collector in Buffalo, I would help organize an annual Buffalo Nickels Coin Show that would showcase my upstate town at its very finest."

---"It's really quite remarkable that an entire pro football team in upstate New York is named after a dubious character from the Wild West. The Buffalo Bills through their team name are apparently exalting Wild Bill and I forget his last name. I fail to see how a 19th Century man who was probably trigger-happy drunkard should be the cited mascot for that NFL team from Buffalo. Maybe if they changed their name, it would boost their team's morale and they would win more games."

---"As a resident of The City, I don't like being reminded by an NFL football team that I'm heavily in debt. To me, whenever I hear that team from Bufffalo being mentioned in news broadcasts, all I can think about are all the oustanding bills I have accrued from dozens of creditors. I find that very demoralizing! It almost makes me want to flee to Australia and ask for a grand tour of the biggest museum there that honors the debtors' prison inmates who settled Australia."

---"When I first learned about White Plains, New York, I was very excited by that city's potential as a site for a great new national park. Something a bit like the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, which I happened to visit during a trip of mine to Vail, Colorado, several years ago. But if you actually visit White Plains, New York, you don't find yourself convinced that this is the site for a new national park."

---"When I first learned about White Plains, I assumed it had been settled by white people fleeing from New York City. To those panicky white people, a city devoted to the theme of whiteness no doubt had lots of appeal. Lately, though, I've been reading factual accounts about the history of White Plains that prompt me to wonder if there might be some other explanation for that city's name. It's entirely possible that there was no racial motive behind the naming of that town."

---"As little time as I spend in Upstate New York, I would appreciate a new and factually reliable website bearing the title, 'Best of Upstate New York, By Category.' I could then quickly glance through that consumer's guide website to identify which of the upstate cities or towns or hamlets would be worthy of a special trip."

---"I find it ironic that a vegetarian restaurant in tiny Ithaca has somehow acquired more fame and glory than any of the vegetarian restaurants of New York City! I own the 'Moosewood Cookbook' from that Ithaca eatery, but I don't own any cookbook from any of the veggie restaurants here in the City. Isn't that a classic example of David slewing Goliath, assuming that the vegetarian restaurants in Ithaca and New York City are engaged in mortal combat pitting Ithaca against the all-mighty New York City."

---"I find it very sad that while France is famous for having donated the Statue of Liberty to New York City as a gift, New York City has not donated any great statue to Paris, France, as a form of reciprocation. So why in God's name hasn't our City of New York attempted to right this historical injustice? Shouldn't there be an official contest here to invite design plans from New Yorkers for a new statue that expresses our great admiration for the people of Paris and France?"

---"I developed a habit of dining inside French restaurants here in Manhattan to boost my French-speaking skills. But after six months of this educational strategy, I am $1,000 poorer for it and my waistline is three inches bigger. And my French vocabulary is still laughably tiny. I partly blame my waiters, since so few of them were natives of France. They admitted to me that they had studied Berlitz tapes for their crash course on the French language. I would have been better off if I had enrolled in a French language course here that was actually taught by a native of France!"

Urgent Need for Additional Crime-Research Institutes in U.S.A.

The following (see below) proposed new research institutes could provide invaluable factual information to any and all members of the general public in the USA who each seek to enjoy a crime-free day, a crime-free week, a crime-free month, and an entire crime-free year in their own life.

These possible new clearinghouses of crime-deterrence information will truly be life-savers. This is especially true since it is often very, very difficult in any given city (Austin, Texas, for instance) for a law-abiding and very honorable adult gentleman or adult lady residing in or visiting that city to achieve the personal goal of enjoying a crime-free day featuring 24 consecutive and uninterrupted hours of never once at any time during that 24-hour-period ever at any time being directly victimized by crime.

Among the additional crime-prevention-minded non-profit research institutes that are urgently needed in the United States of today are:

---An American Institute for the Study of Truly Outrageous and Observably Violent and Medically Injurious Crimes Actually Occurring Inside the U.S.A. that All Law Enforcement Agencies in the U.S.A. Have Refused to Acknowledge Are, In Fact, Occurring.

---an American Sex-Crimes Research Institute.

---An American Institute for the Study of Continuous Sex Crimes.

--An American Institute for the Study of Increased Risk of Cancer and Other Medical Illnesses to which Victims of Continuous Sex Crimes and Continuous Personal-Injury Crimes are Subjected Against Their Wishes.

---An American Institute for the Study of Sexual-Slavery Crimes Occurring Despite the Victim's Repeated Protests and Repeated Attempts to Free Himself or Herself from those Sexual-Slavery Crimes.

--An American Institute for the Study of Deliberate and Willful Infliction of Sexually-Transmitted Disease and Other Illnesses Upon Either Involuntary Sex Partners or Mutual-Consent Sex Partners.

---An American Institute for Studying Involvement in Criminal Activities by Americans Who Exhibit Zero Self-Critical Aptitude and Apparently Possess Virtually No Conscience of Any Type.

---An American Institute for Studying Outrageous Involvement in Crime by Persons Who Identify Themselves as Being Anarchist or Anti-Government.

---An American Institute for the Study of Outrageous Crimes Committed by Loners and Hermits and Societal Pariahs.

---An American Institute for the Study of Sex Crimes Involving Outrageous and Repulsive Intergenerational Exploitation of Adult Younger Persons.

---An American Institute for the Study of Inter-Racial Rape as a Form of Hate Crime that is Both Very Enraging, Very Alienating, and Disgustingly Repulsive to the Victim who himself or herself has a Very Different Racial or Ethnic Identity from that of the Assailant.

---An American Institute for the Study of Rapists who Take Pride in Knowing For Sure that they are Truly Hideous-Looking and Very Physically Repulsive to their Rape Victims.

---An American Institute for the Study of Sex Crimes and Personal Injury Crimes Victimizing Longtime Celibate and Law-Abiding Single Adult American Citizens by Criminal Individuals and Criminal Groups that Fail to Fully Acknowledge the Legal and Human Right of Each Law-Abiding Single Adult American Citizen to Live Alone in their own home or apartment and to Enjoy Full and Year-Round Celibacy Without Any Physical Contact or Any Sexual Contact from Other Persons Aside from Any Strictly-Mutual-Consent Handshakes That Might Occur on Occasion.

---An American Institute for the Study of Sex Crimes and Personal-Injury Crimes Victimizing Apartment Tenants Inside Their Own Bolt-Locked or Locked Apartment Units.

---An American Institute for the Study of Violent Crimes Inflicted on Sleeping or Unconscious Victims. .
The purpose of this institute would be to exclusively research and help deter any and all forms of violent crimes and sex crimes or sleep-deprivation-infliction crimes that victimize a person during a time period when that individual is asleep and unconscious inside the bedroom of his locked private residence.
The scope of this institute might also include social-science research aimed at helping to deter the attempted kidnapping or attempted enslavement or attempted personal injury or physical abuse of someone by an illegal intruder or sinister law-breaking assailant during a time period when the victim is sleeping alone on his own bed and is himself completely unconscious.

---An American Home-Invasion and Home-Burglary Crimes Research Institute.



---An American Institute for the Study of Building Break-In Crimes In Which the Illegal Point of Entry Into the Building Is Difficult for Police to Identify.

---An American Institute for the Study of Violent Crimes in Which Alcohol or a Drug Played a Major Role in Those Crimes.

---An American Institute for the Study of Crimes Committed Under the Influence of a Foreign Substance.

---An American Institute for the Study of Felony Crimes In Which Gambling That Involved the Expenditure of Money Played a Role.

---An American Institute for the Study of the Role of Profane or Lewd or Obscene Speech in Criminal Conduct.

---An American Institute for the Study of the Role of Tobacco Products in the Perpetration of Crimes.

---An American Institute for the Study of Violent Crimes In Which Either No Witnesses are Ever Found, or No Witnesses Ever Agree to Testify in Court.

---An American Institute for the Study of Felony Crimes In Which Either No Witnesses are Ever Found, or No Witnesses Ever Agree to Testify in Court.

---An American Institute for the Study of Violent Crimes of Retaliation or Vengeance.

---An Institute for the Study of the Many Contributions from Snitches and Vigilant Persons and NARCs to American Society.

---An Institute for the Study of Serial Homicide Inside the U.S.A.

---An Institute for the Study of Mass Murder Occurring inside the U.S.A.

---An American Institute for the Study of Sadomasochistic Conduct that Also Violates the Penal Code.

---An Institute for the Study of Violent Forms of Sadomasochism in American Society.

---An Institute for the Study of Criminal Forms of Physical and Mental Torture in American Society.

---An Institute for the Study of Thought-Control Projects that Violate the Penal Code.

---An Institute for the Study of Brainwashing or 'Deprogramming' or Kidnapping Projects or Hostage-Taking Projects that Violate the Penal Code.

---An American Institute for the Study of Criminal Enslavement of Minors and Other Crimes Involving Intergenerational Exploitation of Youths.

---An American Institute for the Study of Snuff Movies Featuring Real-Life Victims of Homicide and Attempted Homicide.

--An American Institute for the Study of Crimes of Violence Aimed at Accelerating the Aging Process in the Victim Without the Assailant Ever Being Charged with Attempted Homicide or Homicide or Manslaughter or Any Other Crime.

---An Institute for Studying American Popular Culture's Perverse Delight Throughout American History in the So-called 'Perfect Crime' or the So-called 'Perfect Murder'.

---An Institute for Evaluating the Romanticization of Violent Criminals and Convicted Felons in American Popular Culture.

--An American Institute for the Study of Crimes Resulting from Individuals' Abuse of Power of Attorney Authority.

---An American Institute for the Study of Felony Crimes Perpetrated by Americans Against a Cited Spouse or Mother or Father or Aunt or Uncle or Sister or Brother or Son or Daughter or Stepson or Stepdaughter or Grandchild or other Cited Relative of Those Americans.

---An American Institute for the Study of Deliberate and Willful and Prolonged Infliction of Noise Pollution on Others in a Context that is Medically Injurious to or otherwise Injurious to Themselves.

---An American Institute for the Study of Felony Crimes Committed Against Medically Ill or Handicapped Persons Who are Patients or Residents Inside Hospitals or Nursing Homes.

---An American Institute for the Study of Vigilanteeism-Related Crime.

---An American Institute for the Study of Modern Forms of Lynching and Other Illegal Mob Actions.

---An Institute for the Study of All Organized Crime Families in the USA.

---An American Institute for the Study of Verbalized Death Threats and Attempted Homicide.

---An Institute for the Study of How to Reduce the Incidence of Attempted Homicide in American Society.

---An American Insitute for the Study of Non-Sicilian Organized Crime.

---An American Institute for the Study of Latin American Mafia.

---An American Institute for the Study of Far East Asian Mafia.

---An American Institute for the Study of Illicit-Drug Dealers

---An American Institute for the Study of Marijuana's Role in Crime.

--An American Institute for the Study of All Motives Behind Felony Crimes.

---An American Institute for the Study of Reverse Hate Crimes Perpetrated on Others by Militant Minority Groups or by Militant Minority-Identified Individual Terrorists.

--An American Institute for the Study of Terroristic Crimes and Terroristic Threats Perpetrated on Others by Citizens of the USA.

---An American Institute for the Study of DNA's Growing Role in Successful Criminal Investigation and Prosecution.

--An American Institute for the Study of Felony Crimes Involving or Spawned by Electronic Media.

--An American Institute for the Study of Violent Crimes Committed Between the Hours of Midnight and 8 a.m.

--An American Institute for the Study of Felony Crimes Committed on Weekends.

---An American Institute for the Study of Violent Crimes Committed Inside or On Property Owned or Leased by a Religious Group or Clergyman.

---An American Institute for the Study of Stalking-Related Crimes in the USA.

---An American Institute for the Study of Truly Outrageous Crimes Perpetrated on an American Citizen in Retaliation Against Him or Her for Refusing to Himself or Herself Have a Sexual or Physical Relationship of Any Type with Anyone More than 1 year older in Legal Age or Biological Age than that American Citizen.

---An American Institute for the Study of Criminal Forms of Religious or Political Persecution of Very Honorable American Citizens inside the U.S.A.

---An American Institute for the Study of Modern Forms of Bataan Death Marches Occurring inside the United States.

---An American Institute for the Study of Outrageous Criminal Activities Sponsored by Either Religious Groups or Anti-Religious Groups.

---An American Institute for the Study of Crimes Committed by Persons who Exhibit Defiance of and Contempt toward Others' Legal Right to Criticize Themselves or their Self-Identified Community of Choice.

---An American Institute for the Study of Crimes Committed by Intellectual Elitists and by Those Seeking to Censor the Religious or Political or Personal Beliefs of Others inside the United States.

---An American Institute for the Study of Alleged Factually-Verifiable Ties to Organized Crime by the Self-Identified Gay and Homosexual and Lesbian and Transsexual and Bisexual and Transvestite Community.

---An American Institute for the Study of Crimes Inflicted on American Society by Self-Identified Hedonists and Partyers.

---An American Institute For the Study of Crimes Perpetrated Against and Inflicted on Americans Against their Wishes who are Themselves Labeled by Others as Being 'Too Straight for Our Tastes'.

---An American Institute for Studying the Outrageous Crimes Perpetrated on American Society by Law-Breaking Persons Who Exhibit Heterophobia, or an Unjustifiable and Outrageous Malice and Antipathy Toward Heterosexual Women and Heterosexual Men, Toward Biological Parents, and Toward the Young Children of those Biological Parents.

---An American Institute for the Study of Crimes Perpetrated Against Noble and Very Honorable Members of the Anti-Mafia Community.

---An American Institute for the Study of Crimes Committed by Those who Refuse to Acknowledge the Constitutional Right of Other Americans to Set Their Own Priorities and Set Their Own Course in Their Own Life, and to Live Their Own Life Accordingly.

---An American Institute for the Study of Truly Outrageous and Truly Enraging Crimes Committed by and Inflicted on American Society by Alcoholics and Drug Addicts inside the U.S.A., Regardless of the Sexual or Gender Identity or Political Ideology or Cited Religious Affiliation or Cited 'Socioeconomic Status' of the Criminal Alcoholics and Criminal Drug Addicts.

--An American Institute for the Study of What Sets Criminal Persons Apart from Honest and Law-Abiding Persons.