What Mayor Bloomberg Should Control
Since His Honor manipulated the law to get a historically illegal third term, and is clearly on his way to proclaiming himself Ming the Merciless and renaming Manhattan “Mongo,” and Flash Gordon is nowhere to be seen, perhaps with his emphasis on demanding breast feeding in hospitals and prohibiting large, sweet drinks everywhere, in his omnipetance he could focus on some important issues:
• People who talk back to movie screens. This is neither cultural nor entertaining. It’s annoying and self-absorbed.
• Stores “going out of business” for 15 years.
• Cabs that smell like a goat was recently cooked and consumed in the front seat.
• All messenger bikes, which are a greater public health hazard than a large drink of pure sugar.
• Anyone walking down a sidewalk with a family of four abreast, requiring everyone following to walk at their speed of zero miles per hour.
• Truck deliveries, which should be confined to the hours of 7 pm to 7 am, so that cross-town streets could actually be used for travel.
• Any theatrical event beginning more than six minutes late. Give everyone their money back and demand the talent provide an extra 30 minutes at the conclusion.
• Cutesy hotels with no name or number outside the door. Where are we, Marrakesh?
• City buses that block intersections. Fire the drivers, that will cure it.
• Tour buses of any kind, the hawkers who solicit riders, and all the advertising.
• Turning the lovely, iconic Tavern on yhe Green in Central Park into a generic fast food joint with a take-out window. Even the zoo animals won’t go there.
• Happy-talk news, where everyone is having a good time laughing at each other’s wit, there’s a sex-kitten meteorologist or trafficologist, the sports guy never stops grinning, and the news is lost because a light drizzle is the main story of the morning.
• His ego.
I would also suggest that if all women with small children in movies were forced to breast feed, there would be a lot less talking to the screen.
© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.
Juan Llanos
Couldn’t agree more! I would also add:
– People loudly talking on their cell phones on buses.
– Rental brokers who promise spacious 2-beds in mint condition which are actually not
– Patrol cars with blaring sirens at 3 am when streets are empty
– $100 tickets purchased online to which a $2.50 convenience fee, a $6 service fee and a $12 facility fee are added
– Rude office building doormen
– Offensively smelling pan-handlers in the subway
– Etc.
Ed Brodow
Very witty article, Alan. I enjoyed it immensely. All the classic frustrations of the sophisticated New Yorker, and you don’t even live there!
Alan Weiss
But I am there frequently, seeing two plays next week, visiting great restaurants.
Ed Brodow
Give my regards to Broadway!