You're walking down the street on the Upper West Side Sunday after having a
                      brunch of buttermilk pancakes at E.J.'s Luncheonette.  A homeless man asks you
                      for a quarter, you hand him your styrofoam container of leftover pancakes and
                      as you walk away the homeless guy shouts, "What?  No syrup?"

                      You're walking back from a Saturday night party at three in the morning on Sunday
                      and before you get to your apartment you stop to get falafel from the Palestinian.
                      You don't know the name of the falafel place you just refer to him as the Palestinian.
                      Then you get the Sunday New York Times, available in the City at about 7:pm on
                      Saturday evening, and stop in the bodega on the corner for milk for your coffee
                      when you wake up "Sunday morning" at about two in the afternoon.

                      You're sitting at a café on St. Mark's Place on the Lower East Side. The man across
                      the street is selling bootlegged CDs, the gentleman on the corner is selling incense and
                      on the other corner an adolescent has books for sale.  You imagine these items were
                      taken from somebody's apartment but the baby-blue cop car doesn't stop to ask questions.

                      A tall, lanky guy with a three-day subtle runs down the street holding a color TV in both hands.
                      He stops to talk to you, "Wanna buy a TV?"  You stare.

                      "It works," the man says, as if the only possible objection to buying electronic equipment
                      under these circumstances is lack of warranty, "You can plug it in if you want."

                      Before he can finish his sentence a fellow in a Yankee baseball cap charges
                      around the corner shouting, "That's my fuckin' TV! That's my fuckin' TV!"

                      Your TV salesman takes off running.

                      You're on the 7 train to Queens to see a Mets game.  At each stop more Mets fans get
                      on the train.  You look around and think about how John Rocker (formerly of the Atlanta Braves)
                      told a reporter that this train was his worst nightmare with all the mixing of races, apparent
                      homosexual and other "freaks."

                      Apparently you're not the only one thinking this, a bunch of guys with Piazza jerseys start
                      singing to the tune of Camp Town Races (or whatever that song is called), "Rocker takes
                      it up the ass, dood-da, dood-da!"

                      Pretty soon the entire train is singing the song, including the Hasidic Jew and the Chinese
                      immigrant whose only words of English are "Thank you," "Hello" and "Rocker takes it up the ass!"

                      You are always flat broke.  You don't know how you are going to make your outrageous rent.
                      You call your friend and ask, "Where do you want to eat tonight?  Southern Italian?
                      Northern Italian?  Chinese?  Indian? Thai? Mexican?  Cajun? Southern?"

                      When you finally decided on where to eat that night you go to your stove, because your
                      apartment is so small, and the fact that you always eat out, makes the stove a good place
                      for your shoes.

                      Living in New York is full of these moments.  Some of them are just wonderful slices of life,
                      some of them are somewhere between hilarious and disturbing but it is all interesting.

                      And you can get real pizza.

                      I love ya, New York!
 

                      © Stephen Sacco.  All rights reserved.