"Im Walking Here, And So Can You!"

As summer approaches…oh, it’s already here? As summer is here, the streets of New York City will be flooded with extra tourists, homeless, and the mole people who emerge from the sewers to escape the heat and hot urine smell they grew up with. So as a public service for all visitors to our city, here is a guide on How To Walk In NYC.

So you want to explore the sites of the greatest city on Earth, but going to Urlabari in Nepal is expensive, and you’ve settled for the big apple (named for its abundance of orchards). But they haven’t invented teleportation devices yet (they have but the government doesn’t want us to know) and you need to see what’s under the Brooklyn Bridge or the amazing Arbor Day window displays at Macy’s. What to do? Most people opt for walking. But walking in a crowded city is different than walking in Madison Wisconsin from your car to the Cheesecake Factory. Here are some tips!


• Look up! There lots to see! Thousands of immigrants didn’t make these buildings so tall and these movie posters so big to not be gawked at. Is that barely legal girl in leggings and nothing else on that American Apparel ad looking at you? You bet she is! Did Toys R Us flash a Care Bears Blowout sale you need to know the details for? Hell yes! Is that you on the big screen for Kodak cameras waving at your friends as they try to take a picture of a picture? It sure is, and you just may be discovered dead in an alley Make sure to stop for no reason and point with mouth agape. The locals bumping into you love it. If they scowl and jam their finger in your spine it’s just their way of saying “Hey, thanks for noticing the great city we have here, and if there’s anything I can do for you, like tell you what sweet nuts are, or push you in front of a bus, let me know”

• Walk in zig zag patterns! You know who walks in straight lines? Predictable thoughtful people. Mix it up! You’re on vacation. Oh my God is that an Angry Birds ski cap on the other side of the sidewalk. You better walk right in front of people to see if it is. Just realized you passed the McDonalds you wanted to visit to see if their fries taste different than the ones back home (they don’t)? Double back at lightning speed knocking the cell phone out of the local’s hand who trusted you not to do that but totally understands that you are a monkey who saw something shiny and will forgive you.

• Lock arms and don’t let go! Want to make sure you experience everything with your group of friends leaving no man behind? The best way to do this is to lock arms and walk “Last Supper” style down the street. Two, three, or even ten of you doing this, all wearing your bright yellow “Kalamazoo Crew Vacation 2013” shirts sends the message that you are here to have fun, and also that you keep your money in your fanny packs. By forcing the locals to Red Rover through your group, you are keeping the fun spirit of the city in your hearts, and making them slow down so they too can enjoy every single second of crossing Fifth Avenue.

• It’s raining, grab your giant umbrella! Many people who visit New York have never seen rain before. Very simply, this is water that falls from the sky. No one knows where it comes from or its harmful effects on humans, but rest assured, as long as you follow these instructions, you should be ok. At the first sign of droplets on your person, look at whomever you are walking with (you remember walking right? We covered that earlier) and announce “That’s just our luck right Susan?” ( or whatever the name of your best friend is who just recently divorced and is going to put that man behind her by going crazy in the big city by doing tequila shots at a…gay bar!! ). Then, reach into your M&M oversized shopping bag, or Jansport backpack and retrieve your Bio Dome sized umbrella and open it as soon as you can shoving children to the street. Be sure to keep it as close to your head as possible, poking out a few retinas of passerby’s as you continue your journey to the American Girl store. When you’re finished, pack up the umbrella, and keep it under your arm so it sticks out like a sword piercing people behind you in the stomach to let them know, “Hey, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one on this sidewalk”.

• Jaywalking! Do it. Get out there no matter what’s coming down the street. Do it. And do it often

• Escalators! Most people enjoy the lazy carefree experience of an escalator. It’s a chance to unwind and pretend you’re in that Serendipity movie. Stand on either side, left or right. It doesn’t matter. If locals are trying to get past you, just smile and tell them to stop and smell the roses (or vomit, or whatever’s around). I mean, if they were in a hurry, why didn’t they take the stairs? Which brings us to…

• Stairs! Be sure to use the zig zag technique on these as well, especially if you have a cane, are holding a baby, or are obese, like really obese, like Michelin Man obese. Older people should make sure to stop every three steps and sigh loudly to announce to everyone “Where am I, and how have I survived here this long?”


Well, I hope this helps. It can be a pretty daunting task getting around, but you can do it. You saved up all year, got that great group hostel rate, and Grouponed the Hell out of Broadway, so walking around is as easy as pie. We’ll see ya this summer!

"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking"---Nietzsche

“I like long walks, especialy when they are taken by people who annoy me" --Noël Coward

Things we lost in the Shire

If I were a Mayan right now Id be nervous. 2012 is here, and you are going to look like a dick if the planet doesn't implode like the house in Poltergeist or Angelina Jolie's stomach. TOPICAL! Here are my predictions for 2012. Meet back here in a year to see if I was right.

CRAIGSLIST There will be new listings, such as Assholes Renting Rooms, Very Formal Encounters, Pissed Connections and Mayans seeking Trannys. People will still advertise stoop sales in neighborhoods in Brooklyn that take 4 trains and a bus to get to.

New York New York will add a sixth borough that houses Homeless Hipsters who make their own cheese and shorten their already slanged za for pizza to a sound that is one click of their tongue. It will be on a floating garbage barge in the Hudson called Deathcab and will never touch another piece of land. It will still rank above Staten Island in popularity.

LOST Ill re watch the whole run thinking I might enjoy the ending better and wind up throwing my 4D television out my studio apartment window in Deathcab crushing a girl in dreadlocks playing a mandolin singing a song she wrote about her pet turtle who doesn't have the right to vote.

THE BTK BAND My improvised storytelling band will tour abroad, going to Germany, and lose 9 members in an Oktoberfest accident. They will be replaced by 18 midgets with a drinking problem.

Here are some things I learned, so use my advice next time you're in 2011.

Floods Put things you love and want to keep under your bed. That way, when a pipe bursts in the middle of the night, it ruins them, and you can keep warm with the memories when you're looking for a new place after your landlord told you your alcoholic room mate you found on Craigslist hasn't paid rent in three months even though you paid him, and now he wants to evict you. Stupid floods

Money Sometimes I have money and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I pretend Pez dispensers are money and I have the most coveted one,and I get my food free from Seamless Web...or it seems like its free since it goes on my card and I forget that when I'm chemically enhanced, just like the one time I got a message from EBAY saying I didn't win the Jukebox I bid on....what jukebox?

Evangeline I shriek like a wounded ferret when I see any pics involving her and Lord of the Rings.

May the new year find you before the cops do!


From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining---Leonard Bernstein

So, the ST Paticks day party I crash every year...I think I mentioned it...was canceled this year. The recession finally touched me. So, some mates of mine (Too British? ) Freund's of mine sweet talked a very dead Japanese place into giving us 4 beers each and an appetizer for 20 bones. It was the fourth place we tried, but our new Malaysian friends Tim and Ricky helped spurn a new St Paddys tradition: Rock shrimp and Asahi.

If NYC turns into LA...I don't know where Ill go. Its slowly happening. Theres more and more places that put on little crappy shows, more places selling fish tacos, and now, more people dressed in ratted out costumes. I saw a Grinch, a cookie monster, a Mickey Mouse, and two Elmos that looked like they crawled out of the Hudson into Times Square and were charging five bucks a pop for your kid to hug them, and take a picture of them contracting the plague. If that was a real Mickey, thered be two handlers, a photographer, and Roy Disney's frozen head watching the whole thing.

I actually had a really nice time in Sheridan Wyoming. Almost had a threesome with a very drunk well endowed...ya know what...I dont have to write everything.

WIll do my taxes on my next day off. Since I don't have a job, I really don't have a "day Off" so Ill have to wait till that happens first.

South Park is still the funiest show on tv...on the flip side, did we really need a brand new Parenthood?

By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry' - Gary Larson, The Far Side

Clap your hands

I realized if you brush your teeth to the syllables of "If you're happy and you know it" 15 times, you will have brushed your teeth 2 minutes, and 30 seconds, so don't thunk I didn't learn anything today. And yes, I meant to write thunk.

I oft-times give money to street musicians or subway singers,not because I'm nice, but more because I want them to tip me in a year when I'm playing Pachelbel's Canon on a nose harp at the Queensbourough Plaza and wearing a jacket I found. Actually, technically, I do wear a jacket that was found, but I didn't find it. Pete did. Gave it to me. So, that's a gift not garbage right?

Anywho, on the D train tonight, there was a guy that looked a lot like Bilbo Baggins dressed as Mozart. A stocky grey haired , long finger nailed guy playing the clarinet. And quite well actually for a Hobbit maestro. And I wanted to give him a buck. But I don't like people seeing me do it. Because usually people look at someone when they do that with anxiety.,like, "I'm not gonna tip...damn, do I tip now? " So I was already anxious about that, cause a lady saw me go for my wallet. Then the anxiety built more. And as he approached, I reached out to give him the grand prize of one dollar, I saw he was blind. This increased the anxiety, and instead of putting it in his hat, I shoved it in his fist and yelled "Here. It is one dollar" way too loud hitting each syllable really hard. ONE DOLL ER. I think I frightened him.

SO that happened.

There is either a cat in heat, a car alarm, or dolphin porn outside my window right now. Again.

The Superbowl is the Saints and Colts. Just like the Bible predicted.

I cant sync up my bicycle kicks. I can play guitar, but cant figure out left arm, right foot....

I thought had more blog. But I'm tired. Don't give me that look. Ill have good stories when I get back from Washington this weekend. Pittsburgh was great if you like bridges, and you like jumping off of them.

I googled myself before googling yourself was cool

Ive done it, you've done it, everyone does it. Google yourself and remember things you probably forgot for a reason. As I was searching the Internet for a job, and by job I mean searching Craigslist for used PS3 games, I thought in between bites of my Reeses Pieces infused granola bar, (my new years resolution...eat more bad foods disguised as healthy foods) that its been a while since Ive googled me, and I was wondering if Ive done anything new lately. My bio for the improv troupe I'm in comes up, plus some random sites Im listed as an employee, and some pictures on Flikr. Scroll down and my IMDB page pops up with my one entry: Narrating a documentary about mold. Then, a Flixster account I apparently have, followed by an ad for a failed show I did with a friend in which we got stinking drunk in front of the audience. Why didn't that work? Then, a Rory sighting at a party back in 2006 for Pepsi Jazz. The days when I was a socialite. Day...And then more randomness: a sketch troupe I'm no longer in, a comic book writing contest list of runner up names, (I was in it...Helios) classmates.com trying to get me to find my missing friends from high school, and then... a video that may or not be me as I would have been loaded if I was in it. A Tiger called Rory singing about how great everything is since Rory's here. Awesome! Stage time is stage time I guess. (www.getacd.org/listen_klSBjkUVTO4/mov00343). I also discovered I'm a goldsmith.(Scholl is a highly valued master goldsmith. Mr. Scholl emigrated to Italy from the United States in 1977 and opened his first studio in 1979.) SO, Ive done a lot more with my time then I thought.

Where was I? Oh yes...ps3 games. If you have any you want to trade, let me know.