Times Square - The Unnervingly Bright Heart of Darkness

New York City's Times Square is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world, partially because it is eternally festooned with giant undulating logos from the most recognizable junk food brands on the planet. If you came to New York City looking for fun, Times Square is the wrong place. In the '70s, Times Square was a haven for people looking to spend hundreds of dollars on hookers and shady drug deals. Now it's a meat grinder for tourists looking to spend hundreds of dollars on bags of M&Ms that only have one color of M&Ms inside, and paper weights that have pictures of the World Trade Center on them. In other words, it's gotten MUCH worse.

As you ply the flabby, cow-eyed crowds for escape routes to less morbid parts of the city, you will be accosted by various loud and slovenly men - some homeless, some promoting comedy shows, some selling guided tours. They may ask you where you're from, what brings you to the city, or even suggest that you resemble a glamorous celebrity, but don't be fooled- each and every one of them just wanna get inside your cute little wallet. Hold your money close and cherish your time with it, because if you aren't careful, that wallet will end up spread-eagle in the doorway of a double-decker bus before you realize you don't look anything like Robert Downey Junior.

If you take my advice to stay away from Times Square, but get lost and end up there anyway, I recommend keeping your feckless brain alive with lunch from Sbarro, an authentic Italian American Airplane Food Court Dining Experience. As foreign men shout at you to order from behind warm, Dali-esque stacks of languid pasta and saggy cheese, you will pay an alarmingly high price to coat your roiling intestines with the fluorescent orange oil of commerce. Now that I think about it, eating at Sbarro is alot like visiting Times Square.

Bon ah-pa-teet!

Don't Hassle Me, I'm New Here

About a year ago, I up and moved to New York City (or as Japan jokingly refers to it, the "Capital of the World") from a sleepy little border town called Tucson, Arizona. In Tucson, the bars close at 5pm and lawless bands of Mexican drug dealers roam the National Arizona Saguaro Forest in search of innocent patriots to kidnap and ransom for American jobs. One half of Tucson's population lounges on a myriad of dilapidated porches, "freeballing" in cutoff shorts and gorging on plate after plate of tepid gringo food. The remaining two quarters consist of severely impoverished folks, and Unbearable Californians. As I am descended from a long line of impoverished Unbearable Californians, and often wear the same pair of pants until the legs fall off at the knees, Tucson instantly felt like home to me upon my very first visit, and I made fast friends with many of the local students. I was happy, but I was riding the crest of a social wave that would soon break on the shores of change.

All of Tucson's young eventually grow to embark on leisurely Volvo rides to Portland, an age-old custom which is outlined in the Tucsonan books of law. As an Unbearable Californian, I was expressly forbidden from participating in this ritualistic exodus, and was forced to watch my friends pack up their dusty Southwestern lives to reinvent themselves as organic tea baristas, or artisanal doughnut makers, or whatever else people make careers out of in Portland - so with a tear on my collar and a tiny, shiny shred of my own red heart left buried behind in the Sonoran desert, I headed east instead.

You might imagine that as a child of America's Great Vapid West, I could easily elect to dismiss -or even resent- the Eastern coast of the country. What's living in the Big Apple to mountain men? Tiny one-way streets, abusive public odors, entire neighborhoods composed of burglars, Loud Fucking Trains, and people who possess the fashion sense of Karl Lagerfeld, but the social graces of Oscar the Grouch. Sure, it sounds like a bummer, but somehow the end justifies the means, and some wafting, beckoning swath of cartoon pie steam dragged me by the nose all the way out to my bug-ridden bed in the City That Never Sleeps.

"New Yorker" is a loose term, as anybody you meet here is as likely to have lived here for 20 years as they are to be visiting a cousin for two weeks before they go back to Boston, but New Yorkers all share one similar characteristic, regardless of tenure - they sure have alot of silly ideas about where I came from. I'm not a New Yorker, and though I do love this great city of opportunity, I figured I'd go ahead and give a little back. I'm gonna review New York City. Objectively, of course.