NYC is a cesspool. in The Devil Beneath My Feet

I do not enjoy New York City. Cities in general, but NY in particular, they’re just one of those things that you either really love or REALLY hate. Every time I go, words from my grandfather resonate with me. “New York is wonderful, if you have money and a lot of it. If you don’t, it’s a prison.”

I grew up and currently reside just a few hours north of NYC, but it’s easily accessible by a long and boring train ride. Somehow the ride home is infinitely worse than the ride there, there are about 20 more stops along the way and when you’re tired, that train is absolute torture. Just when you get to nodding off, the intercom comes on at about 2,000 decibels and the conductor yells the name of the next stop, jolting you awake again. Rinse and repeat about 86 times.

I don’t go to the city often and when I do I regret it just about the moment I arrive. Yesterday was no exception.

When we pulled into Grand Central, Eric and I were a little hungry and decided to buy a sandwich to split. $14 dollars later we each had half of a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of water. We found someplace to stand and eat, there were no tables or chairs left in the lower level of Grand Central. We each took a bite, and both remarked on the sandwich actually being close to worth the price, it was extremely good. We took another bite. Eric looked at me.

“…oh my god do you smell that? It smells like piss.”

“Oh god it’s so strong what the fu-oh.”

It was then we noticed that while we were standing there minding our business, a homeless man had sauntered up near us just to piss himself all over the place. The smell was unreal. Years of hygiene neglect with the added aroma of what was clearly beer induced piss, I was pretty close to gagging. 7 minutes into the city and I was ready to call the entire evening off and go home, this staunch reminder of what we were to encounter for the next 4 blocks looming in my mind. We walked off, disgusted, and ascended to street level.

Immediately after getting off the escalator, another homeless person, “AY GURL YOU GOT TWENNY DOLLAHS?” “No.” “C’MON GURL YOU GOTTA HAVE SOMETHIN FOR ME!” “Fuck off and freeze to death.” “OH U MAD” he shouted after us for a handout about 30 feet before a policeman told him to shut up with one hand on a riot stick.

Going outside of Grand Central terminal, you’re immediately hit with so many different smells it’s almost sensory overload. Hot, honey roasted nuts from a cart to the left, Gyro meat and shishkebobs to the right, cigarettes from every angle, vehicle exhaust, and the smell of sewage almost overpowering it all. Not to mention the sound, the cacophony of city life. Bus engines, honking cars, the street itself rumbling from the trains underneath it, police and ambulance sirens, the howling of shitty street performers while they bang on empty 5 gallon buckets and pots and pans, people talking, shouting, laughing, and the endless lamentations of the homeless, who crowd the terminal hoping to prey on tourist’s heartstrings and sympathy.

It was about 4 or 5 blocks to the PlayStation Theater for King Diamond and Exodus. Even walking, in New York, is a pain in the ass. You have to walk fast, there is no sauntering in New York. The PlayStation Theater is in Times Square, which is about as close to hell on earth as it gets.

If the walk to Times Square didn’t disgust you enough, Times Square itself almost always will. Between the endless hordes of people moving and writhing around each other like bees in a hive, the smells of 15 different ethnicities of food cooking and mingling horribly with each other, the 500 street performers all playing different types of music on top of each other, the people dressed up as unlicensed versions of Disney and Sesame Street characters literally grabbing at you and trying to force you into photos with them that they will then demand money for (I fuckin threw down the gauntlet with Elmo a few years ago for grabbing me by the waist), and lest we forget the protestors. There are always protests in Times Square, usually something to do with Jesus coming to kill us all because of abortion or gay marriage. Last night, outside of the venue, it was some guy screaming for hours about white privelage and how the black panthers are at your door, blah blah blah.

The concert was great! The actual show was phenomenal, King Diamond really does put on one hell of an act. They played one song from the album Them, one from Eye of the Witch, a couple Mercyful Fate songs (I know they played Welcome to the Sabbath but I forget what the other one was) and the entire Abigail album, it was amazing. Exodus opened for them, and, lel. Oh Exodus. That’s all I have to say.

Once the show was over we were super tired, and hoping that maybe some of the crowd outside had dissipated, it was after 11pm. New York really is the city that never sleeps, if anything there were more people outside. After the world’s most torturously long train ride we made it home and fell asleep literally about 5 minutes after walking in the door at about 2:30am.

This entry is serving as sort of a harsh dose of reality for anyone wondering what the city is like but also serving as a REMINDER FOR ME of how fucking awful it is so I don’t have another Alzheimer’s episode and think, “Oh let’s go to New York and see band name !” Ever again.