After brunch, we decided to go over to the park at Union Square and take up residence on a bench, so that we could continue our discussion on viral marketing, interweb traffic, and other people’s sex lives.

Grand, eh?

ANYWAYS…

We’re just sitting there, gossiping about all kinds of goodly things, when some random young fella decides to come on over to try and give us his Magical Pamphlet. He started asking us if we believed in God, and since my two comrades suddenly got a case of the me-no-speakies, the following exchange took place:

Baptist Dude: “So, do you believe in Jesus Christ?”
Me: “I’m pretty sure he must have existed, so yeah, I suppose I do!”
B.D.: “But have you taken him as your Lord and Saviour?”
Me: “Um, no – all three of us are Jewish, dude. So, like, no, no we haven’t. I’m not hating on the guy, but it’s not my thing.”
B.D.: “But do you believe in God? What about your religion? You DO believe in God, don’t you?”
Me: “Actually, that’s pretty personal. I have a rule – I do not talk about politics, religion, or abortion with people. And before you ask, it’s because people cannot have those discussions without becoming emotional. So I’m gonna have to stick to my convictions here and say that topic is personal.”
B.D.: “But what if I agree to not become emotional? Please, tell me about your relationship with God?”
Me: “Nope. It’s personal, like I said. You might wanna go back and re-read The Gospel Of John, dude. Mad respect to you, and believe whatever it is we all need to believe to get through this life, but it’s so personal I don’t even talk to my wife about it.”
B.D.: “Not even your wife? Why? Please, indulge me and tell me about your relationship with God? What if I were to assume…”
Me: “Dude? What happens when we assume? PERSONAL. Period.”
B.D.: “Okay, sorry. I meant no offense. It’s personal. I get it. So, I promise I’ll leave you alone if you could tell me which one of these charts (in his Magical Pamphlet there are two very distinct charts, elaborately colored to show how his beliefs in God are much more important than everything else, and how in my supposed worldview, I am superior to his idea of God, thus marking me as an egomaniacal human damned for all eternity) best represents your relationship with God?”
Me: “Man, I told you it was personal. But, in these black and white terms dictated by these little charts? I’m over here on The Left, sitting on that throne where I belong.”
B.D.: “Wow, okay. Well, thanks for your time, and God bless you.”
Me: “God bless you, too!”

As soon as homeboy trotted off with his Army of Pamphlet People, one of my friends said – “Jesus, Sean! You have a lot of patience!”.

I don’t think I’m as patient as I am understanding, you know? We all gotta get through this shit somehow. And me sitting there and making fun of his beliefs, or talking shit to him for walking up on us would only strengthen his misunderstanding for people who
don’t share his beliefs.

See?

I’m not a total monster.

Please keep in mind that this was compiled from hours upon hours of research and “man on the street” style reporting – basically, I just asked people what drives them nuts about commuting, and they pretty much gave me these answers*.

PART II: WHEN RIDING THE SUBWAY

1) Have some fucking patience – I live in Childrensburg, where you are quite likely to end up watching up to three L Trains pass you by during the morning commute before you can even THINK about working your way onto one of them over-crowded fuckers. I see people every morning trying to fuss and fight their way onto trains that don’t even have room on them for Bridget The Midget, let alone the seven or eight hungover idiots trying to sardine their way up in there. Getting pissed off and threatening to beat someone’s ass is never a good thing to do before 10AM. Unless of course some trick-ass mark just stepped on your new kicks.
2) Glide to the side, and we all ride – The rules are quite simple, people: step to the side and let the people OFF the train, which makes you getting ON the train so much easier. I have ended up feeling like Moses on far too many occasions (usually at Penn Station, where people are dickheads who think The Known Universe revolves around their ass). It is a pretty basic principle of Metropolitan Commuterdom, and I am still shocked that people are this lame and selfish. Yes, I am looking at you Pantsuit Ladies and Five Percenters. Shame, shame!
3) Stow that backpack, Spacehog– riding the subway is not some Arctic Expedition, people. There is no discernible reason why I keep on seeing people with backpacks big enough to smuggle people into the country from Guatemala. It takes two seconds to take that beast off of your back, and set it near your feet, or to turn it around to the front of you, where it would be out of the way and create MORE ROOM for fellow commuters. And while I’m at it – pay attention to your added circumference whence wearing one of these fucking things – hitting someone with a backpack is rude. Say you’re sorry, and take the fucker off.
4) USE YOUR GODDAMN “INSIDE VOICE” – nobody wants to hear about your coke-fueled escapades at the rooftop party where you blew six Jamaican guys (you racist!) and stole someone’s Adderall. Especially before 10AM. Just shut the fuck up and get a blog like the rest of us. Listening to some asshat yammering on and on and on during the morning commute is akin to shoving rusty thumbtacks into my urethra. And yes – Spanish might be a sexy language and all that business, but hearing people speaking it loudly during my commute is no bien, holmes. SILENCIO!
5) All teenage riders must stay in their own car – Why, you ask? Have you not had the privilege of being stuck in a car full of them? Fucking scallywags, the lot of them. Goddamn little hormone inflicted monstrosities, breaking every unwritten rule and guideline from the dawn of man until now. Screeching. Farting. Sloppily eating Doritos and Cheez Doodles and talking with their fucking mouths full. Running about the car like little jackals. Harassing old ladies out of their seats. Haranguing little Asian men when they haphazardly gaze in their general direction with hate-bombs like the following: “WHATCHYOO LOOKIN AT, YOU OLD MR MIYAGI LOOKIN’ M’FUCKA, YOU LIKE MY TITS?!?!”, or the ever-popular “GO EAT A DOG, YOU OLD FUCKING CHINESE LAUNDRY NIGGA!!!” Any questions? I didn’t think so.
6) Shut the fuck up with the Crazy-Crazy Off-Key singing, Part Deux – much like #6 in the Walking The Streets section, but with a little more definition. The same basic rules apply, but with an added twist. Not only do we not want to hear you signing in your helter skelter manner, we would also appreciate if you stopped MOUTHING ALONG WITH THE FUCKING SONG, too. It’s hard enough not to stare at you when you’re dancing with yourself, but when you start doing that shit? Man alive! And when you start stuttering and mumbling out the words to whatever twee shit you’re faking rocking out to, we just want to skullfuck you right there in front of everyone. And yes, I used we as in The Royal We. Oh – and you little wannabe thugs who like to rap running monologues about your supposed thug lives, and about how much you wanna kill you a pig or some shit like that? Your flaccid attempt to menace people is weak. Remember this one important factoid, wannabe subway rapper thugs: Ron Artest sold more records than you.
7) MEN – STOP TURNING AND CONTORTING YOUR ENTIRE BODY TO OGLE THE WOMENS, REDUX – here we go again, fellas. You think the women of The City are fucking stupid or something (no, they are not)? They know why you choose to stand over them when they are sitting, so why not just man the fuck up and ask them to show you their tits, instead of you continually trying to sneak peeks down their tops? Scumbags. And no – posting a Missed Connection on Craigslist to “The Boricua with the great knockers on the Downtown E Train” isn’t going to do you any good, either. Commuter Porn only exists in your mind, fool. Just take your quick look and move on, like the rest of us married guys, okay?
8) Oh, is that your bike? – Baffling. If you have your bike with you, WHY AREN’T YOU RIDING IT? I can understand maybe bringing it along with you late at night, when the ridership is down, but in the middle of rush hour? Please. Get the fuck out of here with that shit, son! Unless it is some magical fold-up bike you can slip into your back pocket, get to pedaling! As a side note – (and this really should have been part of Part I: When Walking The Streets) I have no problem at all with people using bikes as transportation. Really. But, it is called a SIDEWALK, not a SIDERIDE. Get that fucking bike off the footpath and into the streets with everything else that has wheels on it, Chief.
9) NOBODY WANTS TO SEE YOU CLIP YOUR NAILS – it’s gross. Gross. Just fucking gross. This is a private moment, and you choose to share it with all of us? No, son – FUCK THAT. Keep that shit at home. Please.
10) Don’t be rubbing up on me, Garlic Face! – Why, oh why must this kind of shit happen? I swear I’m not trying to be insensitive or anything like that (yeah, right!), but if you know you chewed half a clove of garlic before you left the house that morning, why the fuck must you be rubbing up next to me on the crowded-ass train and be all breathing that shit up in my grill? Call me silly, but that’s not very neighborly at all, not to mention the fact that it might make it more difficult for you to make friends. Tic-Tacs are nice. So is gum. So is not brushing yo teefs with garlic-flavored toothpaste. We’d all appreciate it, Stinky McStinkmouth.

*Maybe, maybe not.

There is nothing that pisses me off more than the way most of the Undead wander around The City all aloof and stupid-like. So, this here manifesto is a Call To Arms, so to speak. A sort of Commuter’s Guideline, if you will.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR NYC COMMUTERS

PART I: WHEN WALKING THE STREETS:

1) Walk with purpose – nothing ruins a day faster than getting stuck in the swarm of bodies that are traversing the streets of The City. Please, for the love of all things NYC, act like a fucking New Yorker and stop dilly-dallying around. Just like on a Freeway, if you are slow-footed, please move yourself to the RIGHT and stay there until you reach your destination. This will allow those of us who are trying to get from Point A to Point B with a little pep in our step to get there without wanting to bash your skull in with whatever junk we find laying on the sidewalk.
2) Stay in your designated “lane” – do not stumble around like Otis from Mayberry after getting loaded on moonshine and a heaping helping of Aunt Bea’s rhubarb pie – stay to the RIGHT with the rest of the sloth-like movers and shakers. If you are unable to walk a semi-straight line, you should not be allowed to leave your house. If you are physically handicapped in some way, this rule does not apply to you. It does, however, apply doubly so to your caregiver, as they should be more conscious of your impact amongst our physically capable comrades.
3) Do not stop in the middle of the fucking sidewalk – Whatever text message you just received on your Crackberry or iPhone will still be there when you move yourself out of everyone else’s way, which is exactly what you should do in that moment. Hell, you can even step off the sidewalk and into the street for a moment to return the volley, and I can bet you most people would APPRECIATE the sentiment. Do not stop in the middle of the sidewalk to admire some over-priced bullshit in a storefront window. Just step into the alcove of the store and look at it from there, and stop acting like a mouth-breather. If, whilst walking, you happen to run into an old college chum, please follow the same directive. Nobody wants to have to side-step you and your pal reminiscing about the time you had your little circle jerk in the dorms at the Tisch School, okay?
4) Walking Two Wide should be enough – large groups of people spanning the sidewalk’s entire width is borderline retarded. So, your little group has left the office to go to Happy Hour, and you’ve decided that it’s awesome to walk to the bar four or five wide, so that you can all talk amongst one another about how much your boss is a dick, right? YOU CAN WHINE ABOUT THAT SHIT TOGETHER, AT THE FUCKING BAR – all you’re doing is pissing off your fellow New Yorkers by acting like a gang of fucking tourists and putting yourselves at risk – sooner or later someone is going to bust one of you in the fucking mouth for your collective asshattery. Ladies – I hate to be the one to break this to you, but this is not your own very special episode of Sex In The City – TWO WIDE IS MORE THAN SUFFICIENT.
5) Stop fucking spitting aimlessly – this is quite possibly the most douchey thing anyone can do while walking in The City, and I see it all the time. I see motherfuckers just spitting all over the place with total disregard for anyone in their vicinity. I once grabbed some teen hoodlum by the neck when he almost hit me with his loogie, and I shook that little bastard up right good on the spot so badly, that some nice lady had to grab my arm to hit that Reset Button in my head before I threw his body out into traffic. It’s one thing to be a kid and spit off the Subway platform onto the tracks – it’s almost a fun little game. But when you’re out on the crowded streets just spraying away, you’re bound to hit someone much meaner than I at some point. Or, if you’re really unlucky, you might catch me by accident when I haven’t had a cigarette for a few hours, which will almost certainly equal your demise.
6) Shut the fuck up with the Crazy-Crazy Off-Key singing– nobody fucking cares what shitty Hot 97 garbage you’re listening to on your iPod, so stop singing out loud and just walk along with the rest of us, fuckface. This will reappear later in the section about riding the subway, so I hope you are paying close attention.
7) CONTROL YOUR WOMB-FRUIT- do I even need to go into details here, or is it pretty self-explanatory?
8) MEN – STOP TURNING AND CONTORTING YOUR ENTIRE BODY TO OGLE THE WOMENS – I have it on good authority that this behavior will NOT get you laid, so knock it the fuck off, okay? It’s one thing to give a second glance at someone, but it is another altogether when you impede the flow of foot traffic just to get a good long look at a caboose. Contrary to what you learned from your older cousin Sonny, but making some guttural sound while leering at a woman isn’t really an inviting situation from her point of view – it is actually quite disconcerting. So is making a very audible comment about her derrière. I know, I know – stop using words that have more than two syllables. Sorry.
9) Get thee off of the steps going down to the Subway – another that should be self-explanatory. Why the fuck do so many people find it necessary to congregate at the top and/or bottom of the stairs leading to and from the Underground Railroad system all of us wage-slaves need to use to get around? Again – this is something that could easily be solved by moving out of the fucking way and to the RIGHT. Or, with a cattle prod. Or maybe a well-timed “slip”, or a size 11 ½ in the ass. Goddamn. Taser, anyone?
10) Umbrellas are lethal weapons – and need to be treated as such. Look, I am a normal-sized MAN-THING. 72 inches tall. Right around the height of the little pokey things on the end of your sissy umbrellas all of you break out at the slightest hint of precipitation. Those pokey things fucking hurt. Thankfully I wear glasses, so I have something resembling eye protection. Some of my more vertically challenged friends have it much worse than I do, as well. The combo-platter of most commuters being painfully aloof and an umbrella is something that all forward-thinking humanimals need to take into consideration once the skies go grey. I have seen some disfiguring accidents on the street involving umbrellas, and they never turn out well for either party. This is why I am morally opposed to even using one. I carry a raincoat thingy that I roll up into my backpack/satchel. Y’all might wanna invest in one. AND WATCH WHERE YOU SWING THAT THING, WILL YA?

Stay tuned for PART II: WHEN RIDING THE SUBWAY…

Needless to say, it is not for the squeamish, nor is it for the easily offended…

I had an odd situation arise at work the other afternoon.

There is this sales guy that works out of my facility, but we hardly ever see him. His office is up in the front part of the facility, out of the way of all the real work going on up in the joint. This cat works fucking banker’s hours – he rolls in around 11, and usually slinks out around 4. Which is good, because he’s a fucking idiot. I mean that, too. An idiot of the Highest Order, the kind of moron that refuses to come and do a little bot of production work, which would ultimately do nothing but help him sell our services to potential clients. Duh, right?

He also refuses to clean his office, which falls under the jurisdiction of SEAN IS KING KONG UP IN THIS PIECE, AND ALL Y’ALL MUST DO AS HE SAYS OR PAY A FUCKING PRICE. I sent the Director of Sales some phone pics of this fool’s sty of an office the other day, and needless to say, the DoS was not a happy man. Maybe twenty minutes later, I received an e-mail from the slovenly sales guy that said “Cleaning isn’t my forte, bro – I’m still a bachelor!”

Yeah. I bet you can imagine my response, right? Good.

His office is now as clean as it can possibly be, and he is not happy with the fact that I threw out his gym bag full of dirty clothes. He was also unhappy that I tossed out his stash of fuck-books he had under his desk. Whatever – I’m running a business here, it’s not like you’re staying with your weird Uncle Felix for the summer – we do work here. God forbid a client comes to the shop or something like that.

ANYWAY…

Today, as I was in the front part of the office cleaning out the server closet, I heard some fucking bizarre sounds coming from The Bachelor’s office. His door was a little bit ajar, and the sounds coming from inside almost sounded like homeboy was sick and groaning. I edged a little closer to his office, and heard that he was definitely making some grunting sounds, and he seemed to be shifting around in his chair a bit.

Concerned, I called out to him as I pushed his door open with the palm of my hand -

“Yo, son – you alright up in there, or do I need to call you an ambulance or something?”

That motherfucker must’ve jumped out of his chair as fast as humanly possible, because his foot hit that door with the quickness, slamming it shut so hard it jammed my wrist.

“I’m okay man! I’m just on a call – I’M OKAY, THANKS!”

Right then it hit me dead solid:

This motherfucker was up in there whacking his nut!

I couldn’t stop laughing. I realized that the groaning I was hearing was some porno shit he was watching on his laptop, and the shifting around sounds I had heard were him, sitting in his chair, punching the fucking clown. AT WORK, NO LESS.

“Dude? They make bathroom stalls for that shit, don’t fucking rub one out in the office, that’s not fucking classy!”

I went outside to smoke and called my boss to tell him the story, and he was laughing so hard I could hear him crying on the other end of the phone. We decided to leave him alone about it for a few days, but starting Monday – SHIT IS ON, SON. I am going to razz this kid until he dies.

By the time I went back up front, his office door was wide open and as dark as The Congo – The Office Whacker had bounced out to avoid being confronted for his inability to NOT jerk-off at the office.

I love New York City, don’t you?

That being said, the immortal and revolutionary Rock Steady Crew will be celebrating their 31st Anniversary from July 24th-July 27th. The four funktastic days of festivities will include a Celebrity Benefit Basketball Challenge, B-boy/B-girl Battles, 5 on 5 Crew Battles, and live musical performances from artists like Kurtis Blow, The Beatnuts, Soul Sonik Force, and Craig G & Marly Marl.

More information and locations of the events can be found on their official site.

This is the perfect opportunity to get out from behind your semi-fancy Swedish ‘puter desk thingy and shake your ass, all while witnessing something that is way more indigenous to the 5 Boroughs than Gordon Gekko and Alex Rodriguez.