[Warning: This post contains one bad word, and some pro-French sentiments. If you don't feel that you can handle either, then please shut down your browser now.]

I love Serge Gainsbourg.

He was this "too cool for school" French singer. His stuff is ridiculously good.

One of my favorite songs of his is "J'ai vu New York." That translates to "I've seen New York."

That's pretty much how I feel now. The opening lines go like this:

This roughly translates to:

It's interesting to think about how many songs have been written about New York. So many, in fact, that it's a cliché.

By comparison, songs about Yakima, Washington would still be very fresh. There aren't a lot of songs about Yakima. I don't know of any myself, but I'm sure some proud Yakimanian has jotted down a few lines about it.

Maybe it wouldn't go like that. I don't know. Maybe I underestimate Yakimanian pride. Maybe I'm in for a barrage of hate mail from the three Yakimanians who have internet connections.

But I don't think I've underestimated New York pride.

A friend of mine from work, Chris Jackson, noticed that I had mentioned on my blog that I was thinking about making the trip down. He's generally a quiet, laid-back, meditative sort, but he accosted me in a hallway and made it very clear that his intentions were to drive me to New York City whether I wanted him to or not. He was forceful with his words, and my will bent under him like a spoon at the hands of a fraudulent magician.

He wanted to see the look on my face the first time I saw Manhattan. He thought it would make the gas, the time, and the effort worth it.

We set out last Saturday morning. On the way down, we quickly burned a couple hours while chatting about XML, web services, Microsoft, and the usual conversational fodder. He's a good talker, and the drive felt exceptionally short.

We talked about the East Coast versus the West Coast. I was saying that I thought the West Coast was like the NASDAQ: young, dynamic, unsure, wrapped up in tech, a bit crazy, and that the East Coast was like the DOW: old, slow moving, rather stable, conservative, and rich. He one upped me, though, by saying that the West Coast is the internet, while the East Coast is the phone company. Nice.

I didn't have time to prepare myself for what followed, though. It felt like we had just left New London when we turned a corner, and my jaw dropped. All I remember is that I couldn't stop saying "wow" for a couple minutes, and that Chris kept glancing over, repeatedly saying something to the effect of "See? This is why I wanted to take you! To see the look on your face the first time you saw New York."

So, I've seen it. And, I can report that it is, just as Serge described, pretty !@#$ing haut. It's haut, New York - New York, USA. Oh! C'est haut.

I've been to a few big cities. I've lived in London and Paris. I've seen quite a few of the "must see" cities in the States, but I hadn't seen anything like Manhattan.

The Bronx and Brooklyn - I've seen similar places. If you took Philadelphia and the Mission District in San Francisco, stuck them in a blender, and then poured the result in a bowl, you'd have something like Brooklyn. If you covered it in graffiti and stuck some muggers in, then you'd have the Bronx. That's fine and all, but not really my cup of tea.

My cup of tea, it turns out, is the island with all the buildings on it.

I've been there, and I still can't believe that human beings managed to assemble it. Paris, London, Rome: They're all short, rather squat cities. This isn't a bad thing, but it's what they are. They look possible.

But New York seems like it must have been immaculately conceived. I don't see how it could have been built. I'm convinced that it just happened.

Chris and I parked the car in Brooklyn. We spent a little while visiting with his cousin and his cousin's wife. We sat, plotting our plan of attack on a map, drawing lines and circling destinations. We weighed the pros and cons of getting on a tour bus to view the sights. I've always been fairly anti tour bus, but time was preciously limited, and I wanted to See It All. After some back and forth, Chris and I agreed to start out at the Staten Island Ferry subway stop and walk up to the place where we could catch the tour bus, which just happened to be about a block off of Times Square.

Those of you who have been to, or who live in, New York have probably realized something, perhaps with a little bit of a smirk: That's pretty damn far.

We didn't know that.

We got off at our first subway exit and walked up to the shore from which we could see the Statue of Liberty. I had absolutely no desire to get on a ferry and take a fourteen million hour detour just to go get closer, so I was satisfied with a view of the statue, which seems to have been built before the great discovery of oxidization. Talk about patina.

Another few minutes, and we had made it to Ground Zero. I wanted to see it just to see it, but I can honestly say that I wasn't moved. At this point, it just looks like a normal construction zone. The only hints that anything ever went wrong in the area are the people standing around, selling 9/11 "memorabilia" to tourists from Topeka who didn't know anybody who died in the building, didn't know anything about why the attack happened, but who simply found a place to target their anger. I don't know what they're angry about, though. Maybe having to live in Topeka. That would probably do it.

From there, we walked up to China Town. I suppose that the modern, Politically Correct term would be "The Asian American District," but at the risk of offending a few people, I'm just going to call it "China Town" so that I don't have to use a name that sounds like it's been scrubbed, washed, burned, and then sterilized of all humanity and life in preparation for surgery (the offended would probably just be white people, anyway - I don't have any Korean/Japanese/Chinese/etc. friends who refer to themselves as "Asian American," but I know plenty of crackers who would blow their stacks about not using the PC label).

China Town is really something. The first thing I noticed is that it was the only place in New York where I didn't feel like a midget. I don't know what they're putting in the kids' food nowadays, but many of the people living in New York seem to be almost as tall as the buildings. Maybe it's similar to how pet fish will reach their maximum sizes based on the size of the aquariums in which they're kept. Whatever it is, I felt like I was constantly in danger of being stepped on.

Except in China Town. God bless China Town and its reasonably sized inhabitants. They tended to crowd on corners, checking over strange, spiny fruit, and poking at vacuum sealed bags of whole squid, which sometimes slowed traffic down a bit, but at least I could see over their heads. Until you've spent a lifetime being on the somewhat short side, there's no way for you to appreciate how wonderful this is. Thank you, Asia, for making me feel like I'm not a mutant freak.

After China Town, we took a walk through Little Italy. Except for the roads that were straight and orderly, it actually did remind me a bit of Big Italy. The pedestrian streets and sidewalk restaurants brought back memories of my one and only trip to the boot-shaped country, which, I must confess, I don't remember all that well on account of the heat wave that had driven the air temperature to something around 114 degrees Fahrenheit, and which cooked part of my brain, leaving me with an IQ of precious little more than about 190. I've managed to get along, though, even without those brain cells. I'm a survivor.

At this point, we still hadn't stopped walking. We hadn't eaten anything, nor had we sipped on any nice, cool beverages in the ample shade provided by buildings so tall that they probably cause vitamin D deficiencies in those who never get out of town, and who have probably never seen direct sunlight.

Chris and I continued our trend of not stopping by continuing on and walking through SoHo. I'd heard quite a few nice things about the area, and I wasn't disappointed. The one problem I did have is that I have a real weakness for nice clothing, and there was store after store of the stuff there. It wouldn't have been a problem except that I couldn't afford the duds in the windows. Truth be told, I probably could have picked up one or two things, but there's nothing more depressing than a big city shopping experience from which you walk away with nary but a pair of shoes. So, nice as SoHo was, I found it very taxing on the ol' self restraint. If for any reason it had been necessary to remain there any longer than we had, then I probably would have cashed out my retirement accounts and walked away dressed head to toe in Chic Gear that cost me a fortune, and which would be "out" by next week. Ho-hum. Such is life.

Then we walked.

We walked, and we walked. We walked, and walked, and walked, and walked.

We passed through Union Square, went by the Empire State Building (no time to go inside), and limped our way up the street until we came to a deli across from the New York Public Library where we tried to order food, but were almost entirely unsuccessful.

The guys behind the counters spoke with thick accents, Mediterranean in origin, but where specifically, I couldn't tell.

Guy: "Hallo! You want buy cheekeen wrap?"

Chris: "Actually, do you just have a menu we could look at?"

Guy: "Of course! Menu - 'ees 'ere, 'ees 'ere" [thrusting a photocopied list of foody things at us]

Chris and I sat down for the first time that day and looked over the menu. My feet throbbed. You could have checked my pulse by just looking at them. My legs itched from the "inside" as blood, for the first time in hours, realized that it could finally travel upwards again, not to be slammed back down to earth again by my feet pounding the pavement. I felt parts of my brain that had long-since lost their supplies of oxygen yawn, wake up, and come back online to say "Hello."

I don't know what Chris was feeling, as he has his own body and his own feelings, but I suspect that it was something very similar. Basically, just a mix of sweat, fatigue, lightheadedness, hunger, thirst, and exhilaration.

We found what we wanted. The veggie sandwich and the paella. Perfect.

Guy: "No! 'Ees no veggie today! 'Ees no paella!"

Rory: "What about the pizza? Can you do a pizza?"

Guy: "No! 'Ees no pizza today! On-uh-lee Monday 'ees pizza."

Chris: "Is there anything on the menu that we can have today?"

Guy: "No! Menu 'ees for Monday-ah. Today you want buy cheekeen wrap."

Chris: "I'm a vegetarian."

Guy: "What you say?!"

Chris: "I'm a veg-e-tar-ian."

Guy: "'Ees vegetables 'een cheekeen wrap! 'Ees good!"

Rory: "Give me a cheekeen wrap, please."

Chris: "Ugh."

Chris wound up taking a "Greek" wrap, which was a piece of cucumber inside a tortilla with olive oil drizzled on top. He got it for the low, low price of $7.00.

This wasn't the high point of our trip.

Once the culinary parties in our mouths had died out and the revelers had gone home, we swung our legs back into action and hit the sidewalk once more. I don't mean, by the way, that we literally hit it. I mean, there weren't any differences to settle between us and the concrete. It's just an expression. To say that we "hit the sidewalk" is just a way of saying "we started walking" without being totally boring.

We were about to leave the area entirely when we spotted some activity across the way. It looked like some street performers were just getting set up in front of the library. Chris explained that it's a New York tradition of sorts for random groups of people to assemble spontaneously and perform various acts for whatever audience they can attract in the immediate vicinity.

Hey. I'm down.

We sat and watched the show, but I wasn't exactly blown away. It was neat that the show took place at all, but after all the hooting and hollering about how "THIS IS NEW YORK, Y'ALLS, GIVE IT UP!" I expected something a little flashier. Maybe some pyrotechnics, nude dancing girls, and a motorcycle flying through a flaming hoop that's being held in the teeth of an albino Bengal tiger being ridden by an S&M dwarf who's whipping himself while being juggled by The Bearded Lady. Instead, we got a somewhat lackluster display of third-rate breakdancing. I shouldn't be too harsh, though. It was much more impressive than anything I could have done, but when you have your donations bucket out there, and when you're pounding your chest to get people excited, you might accidentally raise their expectations right out of your league. I guess the lesson to learn here is not to get people too excited, or else they're going to want something akin to watching a shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral.

And life goes on.

Leaving the breakdancing in our wake, we arrived at Times Square. I think that, when my peepers absorbed their first few bits of Times Square neon, Chris and I had been walking for four hours. You're probably expecting me to say that I wanted to collapse, and that Times Square overwhelmed me, but the effect was much different. I was so worn out by the time we arrived that the neon, the crowds, the music, the music fighting that music, the exhaust, the trash, the ads, and the disease-ridden troops of wide-eyed children, hardly affected me. I didn't have the energy to try to make sense of my surroundings, so I just accepted them.

Looking back on the experience, standing in Times Square felt like standing inside of one of those game machines that are filled with stuffed animals and other prizes which are won by the deft manipulation, via joystick, of a claw that has the approximate gripping power of eroded denture glue. I was half-expecting to see the claw hovering over my body before pausing, and then lowering, only to wrap its metal talons around my head, trying to grip, and then failing entirely to lift, the talons simply sliding up the side of my face as some disappointed kid, pressing his face against the glass, curses his luck and the poor decision making process which led him to believe that gambling away his last dollar on the hopes of winning some Made-in-Taiwan junk toy was a good idea.

The claw didn't come, though. Chris and I marched on, pressing through the chattering throngs. Chris was trying to figure out where the tour bus was, and I was trying not to contract any airborne illnesses. If you want to go someplace where your chances of picking up some sort of microorganism that could turn your flesh to liquid and make your eyes pop out while shriveling your internal organs, I can highly recommend Times Square. If you'd like to double your chances of disease, then buy a hot dog from a street vendor.

Notice that I didn't say to eat the hot dog. This is because I'm of the opinion that there is such a profoundly diverse and sizable population of human-eating bacteria in Times Square that the act of simply coming into physical contact with anything would be good enough to kill you (or worse). Note that, if a hot dog is out of your price range, you can just grab a random person on the street and lick him/her. That'll get you sick, too. In New York, there's so much of everything that you always have a choice.

We emerged from the other end of the crowd unscathed. Barring the possibility that I've picked up a pathogen that will remain dormant for the next several decades before waking up to melt my bones, I think I made it past the stinky breath, the uncovered sneezes, the consumptive coughs, and the sweat that wasn't mine without being infected by whatever the commoners were carrying.

And there, on the other side, waiting like a double-decker chariot to heaven, was the tour bus.

Which was closing up. We were too late, but it didn't matter. In all of our walking, we managed to cover almost the entire area that the tour bus would have hit. There were a couple things here and there that we didn't get to see, and which the tour bus would have allowed us to glimpse before driving on to the next location, but I like to think that our way was better, even though it probably took several years off of my life.

Chris and I agreed to call it a day. The joints were aching, the sun was setting, and we had seen much of what we came to see. We got on the subway, headed back to Brooklyn to pick up the car, and drove back to New London, finishing up the night with some fine conversation.

I went back again the next day by train to visit an old friend I had met in Paris. It was a bit more relaxing. We simply went to a quiet little restaurant and then took a cab ride across town at something just below the speed of sound (the cabs aren't allowed to break the sound barrier because of city ordinances - the sonic boom, you see - wakes people up while shattering their windows).

We took her dog for a walk in The Park. He's an American Husky, and attracted quite a bit of attention. One large man approached us with his family, stopped us, and the following exchange ensued:

Guy: What kind o' dawg is dat?

Allison: He's an American Husky named Pepe!

Guy: See, Ah knew it was a "he." Hey [he was calling to his wife]! Come ova' heah! Get 'dis girl's phone numba'!

Allison: Huh?

Guy: We got one o' dese, too, and she eight yeahs old, and she ain't neva' mated. Can you believe dat? Ain't neva' had a mate! It's a shame [shaking his head]. Hey! I said get ova' heah! We gotta get dis girl's numba'!

Allison: Um. We're actually in kind of a hurry.

Guy: Ah, but jus' howld on a second. You come to dis park often?

Allison: Oh, yeah, often enough, you know...

Guy: Das great! I'll jus' look fo' you!

Allison: Uh-huh. OK, now. Bye-ee.

[as soon as we were out of earshot]

Allison: Propositioning my puppy for sperm in the park? I don't think so, motherfucker!

That was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I appreciated the other guy's brazen honesty about his desire to get Allison's dog to deposit its genetic information in the vagina of his own dog. You don't get that sort of thing often.

I met Allison's boyfriend: a Dutch French Caribbean documentary film maker who had a habit of picking up random cats, "cocking" them like shotguns, and then firing at anything in the vicinity. I don't know what he calls this activity, but I like to think of it as "12 gauge pussy."

After taking a few rounds to the chest, I ran off, just barely catching my train back up to New London.

What a freaking fantabulous city. I've never really had a lot of American pride about anything, but New York gave me a new perspective on things. I honestly didn't think that I'd ever find a city in this country that would impress me the way Rome, London, Paris, etc did, but it's incredibly cool that there's this gigantic metropolis, part of the distributed center of the world, that I can enter and exit as I please without a passport.

Some cities also have the ability to "wake" me up. It's as though the neurons up in my noggin are a string of Christmas lights. Before getting to New York, one of the bulbs in the sequence was obviously missing, breaking the circuit and causing the entire string to not light up. During New York, however, and even after, I felt the neurons winking on and off in a satisfying order, New York obviously having been the missing bulb. London had the same effect. It's hard to describe, but better than any drug (not that I've tried any drugs (that I'm going to tell you about, anyway)).

People talk about the States as being a sort of melting pot, but I've never agreed. It's always felt more like a TV dinner to me. You've got your peas in one tray, your Salisbury steak in another, and a nice little dessert off to the side.

New York is a bit different from that TV dinner. Everywhere we went, there were Frenchies, Limeys, Italians, weirdoes. Everybody and everything that exists can be found in some quantity in that city.

The city.

It's great.

And we didn't even get mugged.

I'm going back.

After Blog Mint [?] :

Brian Jepson linked to something rather disturbing which I hope doesn't become a trend: Being judged by employers based on the content of your blog.