A Snowflake on the Sun

     I need a miracle on 34th street today. You see I've tried desperately hard not to become a raging, fearful gay man that's immune to joy and bitter towards human interaction in general. I wonder if I've failed my quest to be a happy person? I find myself standing atop the Empire State Building cracking up at all the ridiculous tourists packed excitedly into elevator lines like beakless chickens crammed into a tight pen. It's a congregation of cuddles I'm not interested in as a person showing all the symptoms of clinical Agoraphobia. I'm a thirteen year veteran but I thought it was time to become a tourist myself in my own city and do all the things I forgot to do all these years I was too busy to care. In fact I purposely avoided tourist traps like this like the plague. Could I potentially revive my fading love affair with the city by hitting up all the famous land marks? It's worth a shot. It was just that in fact.....a passionate love affair way back when I thought I was going to be starring in Rent by twenty. But even now my goals are shaky and my financial fears leave me breathless and on a total economic freeze.

      Little traveling couples fuss around the binocular quarter machines while fisting hot dogs and pretzels into their fat mouths. A dad buys a little yellow plastic taxi toy car and a stuffed statue of liberty doll for the two kids at home while mom is snapping and clicking away, capturing blurry images from high above the busyness and chaos that she'll never really understand. It's a first hand account of the absolute worst mid town has to offer. This is the city of dreams as far as they know. The country bumpkins from god knows where remind me of that small town softness that I grew up with where people don't care what they look like and don't dress to impress for anyone. I like that lack of pressure to perfect a personal image and its easy to feel good about yourself if you try even just a little bit. Nasty little key chains and snowball paper weights with fake 3D sky lines fill the sketchy gift shop that could use an HGTV Devine Design makeover with Candice Olson as soon as possible. All the high busted suburban families wearing matching pastel Walmart T-shirts (to help keep track of one another I suppose) branch out and get fancy with the dinner plans and decide to eat I-talian at the Olive garden instead of the usual Applebee's or TGIFridays. It's usually followed by either mezzanine seats at Mary Poppins or the Lion King I'd almost bet. Unlimited soup and salad never fails a Midwestern family of six if you know what I mean?

    "Why do they need fences and nets over the edges daddy?" says a little girl noticing the emergency safety nets bracing the high rise outer ledges. "I think..............I think it's for all the cell phones people drop sweety?" dad fumbles to answer. I giggle because I know the real answer little lady. But do you need to know so soon is the real question? What these rolly polly mid westerners don't realize is that these huge nets are there to catch the stressed out suicidal bodies of desperate New Yorkers who just can't take one more god damned minute in this fucking town or planet.  There's no stopping somebody who's completely given up from flinging him or herself to a very nasty, public death. But I can think of gentler ways of leaving this world than decorating the sidewalk with my exploding brains and tear stained eyeballs. That's some seriously unnecessary drama. Thankfully these situations are avoided because of the strong efforts of a realistic insurance press-team for what is probably the most famous building in the entire city's history. They most certainly have a plan B, C, and D, with nets under nets under more nets just to be sure.

     The Brits whisper politely and sip on Cinnamon tea. Three foot tall identical Asian businessmen are bordering on smackable as they huddle in a little cluster shouting about how to change the battery in their matching cameras. This place is like a Benetton add from hell itself. Pretty red headed corn fed boys from Iowa gaze out onto my city with beautifully naive eyes having no idea the steel you have to be made of to last more than a month here. I may enjoy a good blog bitching session now and then but I wont be doing a cannon ball onto 34th street anytime soon that's for damn sure! I would consider something along the lines of relocating to a peaceful environment or immersing myself in self help clinics and Omega retreats before I would take the dirty leap. Can you imagine nailing one of those Big Apple Tour buses on your way down and the sheer photo opp that would present itself for the traumatized passengers? Genius! They could say that they had the ultimate New York experience upon returning home to Columbus Ohio stunned with years of nightmares to work through with a psychotherapist. The sun is setting over Manhattan in a soft pinkish blue that would be virtually impossible to capture on a canvas or some flashless (any)G IPhone snap shot. I'm choked by the uncertainty of things but I've always prevailed and I guess I will continue to do so.

    

         When should one leave Manhattan is the latest question among my generation of New York show biz professional VIPs? Is it when you start talking to yourself on the subway like a crazy person (or your dog)? Maybe it's when you see a young woman doing the all too familiar subway surfing dance unsuccessfully. She can barely hang on to the metal straps while teetering and toppling over in her fierce stilettos, spilling her seven dollar late all over her pink IPad cover. I could easily give her my seat but I wait. Then I wait a little more until the Southern boy in me can't take it anymore and hops up and gives in. It's the questioning like this that makes me think I need therapy basically immediately. I will usually give up a seat for a woman regardless of the spectrum of age but it's the hesitation that brings my manners into check because my mother wouldn't be proud. I also have a serious weak spot for the feeble, injured, or elderly in a city of stairs and walk up prewar apartments. If you break your foot in this town you are shit out of luck in my opinion. My stark attitude and heel spurs contribute to the blinders I have up to others in equal or greater need. I want to scream at the inner city kids that wouldn't bat an eyelash to the preggers patrol forced to stand right in front of them totally uncomfortable and ignored. I'll break my busted 32 year old back to hoist a baby stroller up two flights of stairs because the visual of a tiny Mexican mama killing herself to drag a huge stroller and tiny illegal baby up the stairs is more than I can bare. I don't know how these little women do it all alone in a city where elevators are as scarce in the train stations as actual trains. Days must be strategically planned around physical convenience.
         
     Schlepping uptown...downtown....uptown....year after year swiping my unlimited metro card makes me completely dizzy. The MTA owns you if you swipe with abandon like I do basically every day all day long. People actually become Chinese dividers standing motionless in the way as you frantically try and scramble through Times Square to get to the Actor's Equity building before it closes the sign up for yet another six month required call of Mamma fucking Mia. Instead, these blob-like suburban soccer moms are transfixed with their own image being projected on a gigantic LED billboard through reflective cameras. These proud PTA members stand frozen like Kabuki statues creating the obstacle coarse of doom and gloom. My patience is tested in every way in that part of town unless I'm en route to a Broadway theatre to go to work which is.....well.... never. Big juicy ladies wearing pajama jeans and fanny packs become a wash as I pass through them like clumsy lightning perpetually fifteen minutes late for everything I try to do in that immediate zip code. Spacial awareness is a joke around the TKTS booth for discounted Broadway shows and quick choices are crucial in navigating the streets like Captain Kirk through a sudden asteroid field. Fleshy gunts spill out of spandex stirrup pants reminding me that I have to add 'the people of Walmart.com' to my favorites list when I get home. When you start referring to your fellow brothers and sisters in life as a waste of your precious space it might be time for a perspective intervention stat! I'm on high alert and I wanna keep things light and sweet like my coffee because it's a very slippery slope to jaded.