Saturday, April 22, 2006
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masturbators
I think I have mentioned before that one of the things I love most about living in New York is the presence of people from many diverse cultures. As it always has been, NYC is a city of immigrants, and that multiculturalism combined with gross overpopulation makes life here interesting. The city is full of characters, and because everyone is so crammed together, a New Yorker is confronted on a daily basis with some vastly different personality or behavior. For example, you can get great ethnic food, like Ethiopian. I thought that they didn't even have food in Ethiopia! It turns out they actually have delicious food, just no silverware. Also, I learn lots of things from my friends. My buddy DulapVara has taught me all about the cutthroat world of recreational Cricket in the swamp provinces of southern India. Bienvenido-a-Miami teaches me all kinds of dirty phrases en espanol, like "let me suck on your sugar cane, baby" (although I'm not sure that she didn't just make that up...I suspect that if were to say that the next time I bed a Cuban I'd be laughed at). The point is, the variety of people usually represents the proverbial spice of life with many benefits. However, not everything about extreme heterogeneity is great. In fact, sometimes you come across folks who are much less savory.
The other night, I went out with Broadway Annie, an old friend from high school who also resides on Manhattan Island. Over martinis and dinner we got to discussing one of the more negative aspects to NYC's collection of wacky personalities; specifically, how New York is rife with public masturbators. Almost every person I know who has lived in New York for at least a year has a story about some creep beating off in full view of an unreceptive crowd. Broadway Annie is an aspiring singer/dancer/actor, which means she's also a bartender. Because of her bar hours, she gets to encounter sexual deviants who wander around Alphabet City and flash her as she leaves work in the wee hours of the morning. Many of our respective other friends have seen someone exposing himself to people on the subway, a favorite spot for these skulking sleazebags because there, they have a captive audience. My first whacker was a cab driver who decided to jerk off while driving me uptown at 5 a.m. on the fucking West Side Highway. That was a little scary, since we were on the highway and I couldn't just jump out. I had visions of Ice-T investigating my rape and murder with the other dedicated detectives of the Special Victims Unit who investigate these vicious felonies. The scene went something like this:
Razzy: "What the fuck are you doing?"
Masturbating cab driver: "Heh heh, nothing. You're sexy."
Razzy: "You're not doing 'nothing'! You're jacking off! I can hear you! For that matter, I can SEE you! Stop it! That really bothers me. I'm serious."
Masturbating cab driver: "I'm not doing anything. Which exit?"
Razzy: "125th Street. This exit. Take it NOW...I want out of this fucking cab immediately."
Cab driver grabs a napkin off a stack on the dashboard to clean up after himself.
Razzy: "OH MY GOD! STOP IT! I'm going to call 311 and report this! I'll have your medallion, you pervert!"
Fortunately, he did heed my threat and drop me off per my request. Unfortunately, since I was drunk, I couldn't remember his medallion number, so for all I know he's still out there, skeezing out unsuspecting fares with his horrifyingly unprofessional behavior.
Anyway, Broadway Annie and I must have been psychic, because this morning, I saw my second public masturbator. This morning (at the asscrack of dawn, because I'm pulling a 14 hour day in lab today), I took the dogs for a walk around St. Nicholas park. As we passed by the park playground, I happened to notice there was a guy standing in the door to the men's room there. I normally wouldn't have paid much attention to a guy standing around (loitering at the park is a favorite activity of many Sugar Hill residents), but the park was quite empty at 8:00 a.m. on a rainy Saturday, and he was wearing a conspicuous red sweatshirt that caught my eye. Once I saw him, however, I noticed something even more conspicuous than his hoodie. Namely, his exposed penis (which was quite small by my estimation). He caught me looking and gave me a leery little smile. He had small, creepy teeth, crazy hair, and resembled a lewd, Hispanic version of Gollum. I couldn't help myself. "God, gross!" I said quite loudly, then hurried off with the dogs before this guy could otherwise engage me in conversation. I've now got two sightings of icky creeps pleasuring themselves in public under my belt in as many years. What the hell? New York's finest really should put Detectives Benson and Stabler on this, because there is a freaking masturbatory crime wave going on, and as a sexually-based offense, I have to agree with the NYPD's characterization (or at least "Law and Order's") of it as "especially heinous." To look at. So please, make some room in the jails for these nasty motherfuckers, because I'm getting really tired of stumbling upon them doing their business when I'm trying to mind my own.
The other night, I went out with Broadway Annie, an old friend from high school who also resides on Manhattan Island. Over martinis and dinner we got to discussing one of the more negative aspects to NYC's collection of wacky personalities; specifically, how New York is rife with public masturbators. Almost every person I know who has lived in New York for at least a year has a story about some creep beating off in full view of an unreceptive crowd. Broadway Annie is an aspiring singer/dancer/actor, which means she's also a bartender. Because of her bar hours, she gets to encounter sexual deviants who wander around Alphabet City and flash her as she leaves work in the wee hours of the morning. Many of our respective other friends have seen someone exposing himself to people on the subway, a favorite spot for these skulking sleazebags because there, they have a captive audience. My first whacker was a cab driver who decided to jerk off while driving me uptown at 5 a.m. on the fucking West Side Highway. That was a little scary, since we were on the highway and I couldn't just jump out. I had visions of Ice-T investigating my rape and murder with the other dedicated detectives of the Special Victims Unit who investigate these vicious felonies. The scene went something like this:
Razzy: "What the fuck are you doing?"
Masturbating cab driver: "Heh heh, nothing. You're sexy."
Razzy: "You're not doing 'nothing'! You're jacking off! I can hear you! For that matter, I can SEE you! Stop it! That really bothers me. I'm serious."
Masturbating cab driver: "I'm not doing anything. Which exit?"
Razzy: "125th Street. This exit. Take it NOW...I want out of this fucking cab immediately."
Cab driver grabs a napkin off a stack on the dashboard to clean up after himself.
Razzy: "OH MY GOD! STOP IT! I'm going to call 311 and report this! I'll have your medallion, you pervert!"
Fortunately, he did heed my threat and drop me off per my request. Unfortunately, since I was drunk, I couldn't remember his medallion number, so for all I know he's still out there, skeezing out unsuspecting fares with his horrifyingly unprofessional behavior.
Anyway, Broadway Annie and I must have been psychic, because this morning, I saw my second public masturbator. This morning (at the asscrack of dawn, because I'm pulling a 14 hour day in lab today), I took the dogs for a walk around St. Nicholas park. As we passed by the park playground, I happened to notice there was a guy standing in the door to the men's room there. I normally wouldn't have paid much attention to a guy standing around (loitering at the park is a favorite activity of many Sugar Hill residents), but the park was quite empty at 8:00 a.m. on a rainy Saturday, and he was wearing a conspicuous red sweatshirt that caught my eye. Once I saw him, however, I noticed something even more conspicuous than his hoodie. Namely, his exposed penis (which was quite small by my estimation). He caught me looking and gave me a leery little smile. He had small, creepy teeth, crazy hair, and resembled a lewd, Hispanic version of Gollum. I couldn't help myself. "God, gross!" I said quite loudly, then hurried off with the dogs before this guy could otherwise engage me in conversation. I've now got two sightings of icky creeps pleasuring themselves in public under my belt in as many years. What the hell? New York's finest really should put Detectives Benson and Stabler on this, because there is a freaking masturbatory crime wave going on, and as a sexually-based offense, I have to agree with the NYPD's characterization (or at least "Law and Order's") of it as "especially heinous." To look at. So please, make some room in the jails for these nasty motherfuckers, because I'm getting really tired of stumbling upon them doing their business when I'm trying to mind my own.
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