I’m not big on site-seeing. It's not really my "thing." Does me not traveling anywhere ever besides Mexico where I blacked-out for seven days straight and drank a lot of warm Coronas play a factor in this opinion? Yes, I’m sure it does. But I’ve never been big on the idea of walking around strange cities, asking bitchy people where the nearest entrance to the fucking tube is, and carrying a fanny pack with cameras and phones and gum and nine packs of cigarettes or whatever other shit Europeans carry in those things. Fuck that. As I’ve said before, give me the beach and some beers and the dishwater green Atlantic to look at and this guy is GOLD. Need a translation book upon arrival? Eh, maybe next year...
But for some reason, people LOVE to come to New York and fuck around in Times Square. And I have one simple question for these people: WHY? Why would you EVER willingly make a trip to Times Square? Hanging out in the canned goods aisle of a supermarket right before a hurricane hits is more fun. Times Square is the waiting room for Hell. It is more congested than Jon Daly’s plaque lacquered arteries. There is nothing to do...wait, let me clarify: there is nothing worth doing. Literally, there isn’t a fucking single fun thing to do in Times Square except stand around and look like a dick or go eat in a chain restaurant that you already have down the street from your house in Skokie, IL. It's a bunch of assholes yelling for you to visit some shitty comedy club, panhandlers who think that they are charming when they are actually vomit-inducing, and a bunch of stupid chairs thrown into the middle of blazing hot pavement that is emitting toxic fumes.
I will never understand the allure of this place, and more importantly, I will NEVER understand the allure of it on Times Square on New Years Eve. It's a meeting of the morons if you ask me.
"Hey everyone, want to buy an overpriced plane ticket to New York City, fly into to JFK after a 75 hour layover in Atlanta, sit in traffic on the Van Wyck for 4 hours in a cab that smells like the bathroom floor of New Orleans brothel, trudge into Times Square in -5 degree weather, and then STAND around for 17 hours, pissing in a Gatorade bottle while waiting for a fucking Light Bright ball to drop and for a bunch of frozen assholes to sing Auld Lang Syne and then call it a night?"
Ummm...FUCK NO I DON’T.
If I was ever forced to do this as a kid, I would have become a Crystal-Meth addict out of spite. Just writing that past paragraph literally made me even more anti-Times Square on New Years Eve, if that's possible. Holy shit, if I’m ever handed a Styrofoam container full of broken glass and an invitation to Times Square on New Years Eve, and I’m forced to choice one, looks like it’s the warm and sweet embrace of Death for me.
I don’t get the Economics of the place, either. How are there 6,985 carts selling I Heart NY t-shirts with cuffs so tight they cut the circulation off from your hands? The math does not work out. Same goes for the 600,000 hot dog and falafel carts. No way those guys are selling enough cans of fucking Pepsi to make a living off of it. I know in Mexico every street vendor was offering me cocaine when I walked by. That was a little disconcerting, to be honest. But seriously, they were yelling "hey, coke? Coke?" like they were offering me Skittles. Not weed. Not pills. COCAINE. You’d see an old man selling empanadas or some shit and say, man that poor old guy is stuck out here peddling, and then all of a sudden he would be like, "Heeeeeey Gringo, want some coke? Coke? You want some (long sniffing sound)? You know, some Cocaeena?"
It made sense in Mexico. And look, I’m not saying that’s the racket the Times Square guys have going on, but would I be shocked? Not a fucking chance, my friend.
I think seeing tourists frequenting the food establishments makes me the most angry. Really, Applebee’s? Really? You are waiting on line with one of those fucking seizure machines for a table at Applebee’s? There are 20,000 places to eat in NYC and you want to get the sizzling shrimp dipped in lard with a side order of bacon fries and a chocolate shake even though your picture is up on the stupid wall of the stupid one in your town back home because you go there every Tuesday night with your bowling team? BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS, ASSHOLE. I am the most vanilla motherfucker on this planet and even I refuse to eat at dumps like Applebee's. Middle-Americans think all true New York City cuisine is poisoned with gayness or something, and they're afraid it's contagious. Well guess what, Hank? It's not.
/ties shirt through collar
//watches "Dear John" of Blu Ray
A few months ago I went to the movies in Times Square. Obviously that was mistake #1. Needless to say, it was like watching movie in a mall food court filled with ADHD riddled 4 year olds, minus the 4 year olds. I wanted to hang myself with my belt in the bathroom within the first 30 seconds, and I would have had I not spent $13 on a motherfucking ticket already. The theater may have been half full, but every fucking person in there was chatting it up. It was like a fucking therapy group or something. I’ve been to movies where there are a few random assholes blabbing away or letting their phone ring away for ten minutes, but the majority of people talking like they're sitting in park? Never seen it before.
Obviously that day was the straw that broke the camel's back. I decided that I never have a reason to go back there, and never will. I will skip Times Square forever. No exceptions...Wait, what's that you say? There's a free open bar in Times Square with Shake Shack providing free food? Steven Seagal is there and he's reenacting scenes and dialogue from “Out for Justice”? Brooklyn Decker and Bar Rafaeli are playing beach volleyball in a portable sand pit? Someone is giving out free heroin? Someone reanimated Jim Morrison's rotting corpse and he's performing a one-time only concert right there underneath the Times building? Well, maybe you didn't hear me well enough before, but I'll reiterate: NO THANKS, PAL. You can take your invitation and give it to that guy over there with the map of greater New York hanging out of his jorts. He’ll enjoy standing chest-to-back with a 380 lb man who emits the smell of German coleslaw just for a peak at a blinking sign and the inside of Dave & Buster's.
