Conversation with a New Yorker

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot SPOT
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot - "Big Yellow Taxi" Joni Mitchell in 1970

Bergdorf Goodman‎, Fifth Avenue

The phone rang. It was evening. My American friend was back from her trip to Florida. I sat back, and listened.

"I hate coming back from being in the country-side. I turn back into New York person. I hate what I become here. I am not a nice person in New York.

I feel like punching people in the face. Hitting them hard. I hate the way people walk in front of me. I hate how they stand in supermarket lines. I hate what they look like and how they walk. They are either too slow or too fast. I don't like how I am in New York.

I went to a little town in Florida last weekend. BORING. You have no idea.

Everyone - men and women - they all looked like Bernie Sanders. It was a place people go to die. I wish they would just die and get it over with. And the food! My god. The food. What can I tell you.

And the stuff they talk about. I had to go out to dinner with a bunch of them. Two couples. Don't ask me their names. I can't remember. I couldn't remember their names when I was sitting next to them.

It was peaceful there. But BORING. I was really relaxed. There was space.  You didn't have to rush like you do here. Well they couldn't really rush. They all have 'medical conditions'. 


Subway on the 6 Line

And big churches. Huge. All new with white marble columns. Yes I went to church. I don't go to church but that's what they do there. They go to church.

And they watch plays. Amateur plays. I went to one called "Hands on a Hard Body". And the 'body' was, can you believe it, a big red truck. And people put their hands on it and each person had say a story about a truck. Like, 'When I was a boy I really wanted a big truck.' And seeing a red truck makes me thing of running away with my yoga instructor.' I fell asleep.

Then I came back here. Christ! People everywhere. People pushing. Rude people.

Trump? Yes well ha ha. We must look like fools to the rest of the world. So embarrassing. And that idiot Ted Cruz - a nasty, nasty man., You realize he's an evangelist.

You have to understand why people follow Trump. There are poor uneducated people out there. They feel betrayed by the system. They can't get jobs. It isn't like New York out there in the rest of the country. It's depressing.

Spring in Central Park

Well yes, there are plenty of jobs in New York. We have it good. We are lucky to be here. We have everything we need. We have real restaurants and galleries. And taste. We just take it for granted.

I wouldn't live anywhere else. If you want to see what it's like in the rest of America go to Florida. The west coast that is. Miami is OK. But the west coast. My god. Did I tell you what we ate for dinner? You wouldn't believe it.

Or Denver. Have you SEEN Denver? Full of pot heads. Or Nebraska. Or West Virginia.

Yes there is only New York. But did you hear Ted Cruz talking about 'Noo York values' like it was a bad thing. What a fool. We are proud of our values. Yes we have New York values. New York - well Manhattan really.

It is the only place to live in America."