Last month The New York Times published a popular article that weighs heavy on my mind about Americans being under the impression that Frenchwomen know the secret to aging well since they seem to have mastered the art of looking attractive at any age. Any age means still looking good over 40 and before death, but the optimist in me suspects that they can look just as lousy as their pudgier American counterparts full frontal in rude light. What I got most out of this article is that Frenchwomen view exercise as a form of torture. They stay thin by not stuffing themselves with crap and walking. That works for me, so after polishing off a few fistfuls of my new favorite vice, dark chocolate covered pretzels, I went for a stroll through the streets of Gotham where I photographed some signs that caught my always roving eye.
This inviting sandwich board I saw sitting outside Puffy’s Tavern, a watering hole on Hudson Street in TriBeCa near where I work, but I resisted the invitation to chat up the bartender and kept walking.
Free - my second favorite four letter f-word.
When I crossed Hudson at Duane, this message drew my attention considering that I earn a get rich slow salary forcing me to live much more like the Flintstones.
I wish.
While walking down Reade Street toward the Adeline Adeline bicycle boutique, I encountered some more nostalgia in the guise of sidewalk snark.
Street philosophizing.
According to Dictionary.com the term yuppie originated in 1980-85. It’s a noun for “a young, ambitious, and well-educated city-dweller who has a professional career and an affluent lifestyle.” As with the Jetsons, this type of person is essentially another relic of the past.
Back uptown in my Upper West Side stomping ground, I traipsed over what I first thought was a sideways rocket ship before determining that it was a street penis.
Upper West Side street penis on permanent display.
I wondered who was compelled to draw a dick in wet cement, and imagined it was a guy with penis envy. This impression made me recall the time I witnessed one cab driver rear end another on Columbus Avenue some years ago. The Rear Ended cabbie stepped out of his vehicle, as did the Rear Ender. They immediately got into a shouting match, with the Rear Ended cabbie tugging at his crotch and screaming repeatedly at the Rear Ender, “Suck my dick!” Not to be undone, the Rear Ender grabbed his junk and shouted back, “You suck mine!” My social anthropologist side found this tirade intriguing for I could not imagine two irate women in a similar situation stroking their nether regions while demanding of each other, “Eat me!” If these two cabbies were indeed compelled to perform sixty-nine together, I was baffled how this would have provided the solution to the problem of the busted taillight.
Returning to the subject of the street penis, it is located on the sidewalk in the foreground of the grey building in the middle of the three residences pictured.
Street penis building.
I wondered if when the residents order take out or invite friends over, they identify their building by address, their apartment number and a landmark comment such as, “Look for the penis in the sidewalk. That’s my place.”
Lame Adventures 