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JUNE 2005  WELCOME BACK!!! wait, it's you who is supposed to welcome me, isn't it? well, i will pretend you just welcomed me back, and you can continue reading without being embarrassed! i don't know if you read last month's column or not, but i went to new york. how this happened is a bizarre whirlwind of a tale. for years i have been drawing pictures and putting them at toothpastefordinner.com. this has gone on without incident or fanfare, and then i got offered a book deal. i took the deal, of course, and in september my book "toothpaste for dinner: hipsters, hamsters, and other pressing issues" will be out both in the US, UK, canada, and australia in most major bookstores. so there was a big book convention in new york last month, and i went to it to meet industry people and sign promotional copies of my book. there was a huge ridiculous party at a huge hotel overlooking times square, and drinks were eight dollars. i left after about an hour, because i got free drink tickets (being an author) and ended up standing on a chair and giving the finger to all of the computerized twenty-foot-tall ads hanging off all the buildings. here is a secret: when you see times square on television, they speed it up so the cars fly by. they do this because times square is gridlocked and horrifically clogged with taxis, and they move slower than the pedestrians. also, they do not show the rappers in time square. they stand around and sell their rap CDs. i bought a CD from "chedda boy", and if you have the chance to check it out, i recommend track 17, which is called "chedda boy". anyway. the book convention was okay. except, like new york streets, it was choked with people, and i had to force my way through and say "excuse me" a lot. except, this is another secret about new york: people do not understand what "excuse me" means! other things they do not understand: "please", "thank you", "have a nice day", or "no, i do not have any change." i can't help it. i am from the midwest. people are so polite here. you can yell at a clerk and tell them that you're never coming back in the store again and that you will murder their family, and they will just look sad and tell you "well, sir, i'm sorry that you had a bad experience here, i hope you have a nice evening." in new york, you can hand a hundred dollars to a man to pay for two days' worth of parking, and he will tell you "okay, here are your keys, get your car outta here right now" but enough of these stupid observations. i will tell you an observation that really matters. now, you know, in new york, you walk everywhere, right? you walk around and you walk to the subway and take the subway somewhere and walk more from there. you walk around and you get thirsty and you stop somewhere to get a three dollar bottle of water. and then you have to pee. and there is nowhere to pee. NOWHERE. YOU CAN NOT PEE ANYWHERE IN NEW YORK. if you want to pee, you have to know which stores or restaurants will let you pee if you buy something. everything is super-expensive, so if you need to pee, you walk into a chain restaurant, carrying your bottled water, and buy a three-dollar fountain soda, and get a token for the bathroom. but then the token for the bathroom doesn't work, so you summon a restaurant employee, but she is eating her lunch and refuses to get up and unlock the bathroom door. so you go back up to the counter, and you try to ask the clerk about the bathroom, and you get yelled at to wait in line. the security guard marches over and before you can say a word, he says, "hey, get in line buddy, or you're leavin." so you wait in line again, and six minutes later, you tell the clerk, "the token for the bathroom doesn't work. i just bought this soda (lifts soda up to show her) and i need to use the bathroom, can you get someone to unlock the bathroom?" and she tells you to go back to the dining room and someone will be out to unlock the bathroom in a minute. fifteen minutes later, you leave. you did not get to use the bathroom. the soda was watery. how do you pee in new york? i don't know. i pretended to pass out, and stumbled into some bushes, where i stealthily unzipped my pants and opened the flood gates. that is my recommended solution, i guess. in the midwest, you could climb into someone's open window, use their bathroom, and when you came out, they would ask you if you wanted a soda or some potato chips. i'm not going to new york again, at any rate, unless some company wants to put out another book of my cartoons. they will probably call it "toothpaste for dinner", because that is the way life works in the big city. and if i ever sign a contract again, it will have a provision for a catheter. and i'll change the title of my book to "toothpaste for dinner: tape a thingy to my thingy." (back to the writing index page) |