Well, now everything totally rules..

Listen, dudes: I overreacted about New York. It wasn't trying to kill me. My life didn't suck. I just needed to wait it out a minute, and good things were bound to come.

And here they are:

I'm working as a bike messenger. Being a bike messenger in NYC is a pretty big leapfrog up the street-cred totem pole.

Felony conviction: check.
Bike messenger in NYC: check.
Methamphetamine smoke-off against Gary Busey: pending.

The funny thing is (and what a lot of Youtube-watching bike fags from the suburbs (aka me) might not know) that New York is probably the easiest city on earth to get a job as a bike messenger. There's HUGE demand (even now) for messengers be they walkers or bikers or motorcyclist. It's a comission-based job, so it's really not sweat off the employer's back if you're slow. They'll just give you less runs. And at least half of the dudes on the streets doing it are old alcoholics from the projects riding around on shitty mountain bikes. The impeccible hipster asteed a perfect pink-Phil-hubbed Velospace show bike is a myth out here. There are a few rad bikes, but most are pretty beat up.
The job is very unglamorous. I have to walk into the back or side of most buildings, typically at a loading dock or some nondescript brown double-doors. Then I have to go underground or take a slow-ass freight elivator or sometimes get my ID scanned and a visitor's pass issued. Finally I get to where I drop the package off or pick it up, typically the messenger center. There, I must interact face-to-face with a messenger's arch-enemy (other than cab drivers): the blank-faced hoodrat at the desk.
"Just print here, please," I try.
They don't even look up from text messaging for at least 30 seconds.
"Print here, please."
"Who dis from? You needa write who it from. Yo, Darrel, hey, come sign for this."
"Just print here, please."
"Hode awn, hode awn."
Meanwhile they haven't moved.
"Please print here please."
finally they slowly reach out for the package, then look at it with contempt, trying to concoct any excuse to not accept it and save themselves the work of putting it IN A FUCKING BOX!

Anyway, it isn't really that bad. Usually. But most of the time lost as a messenger is in locating the messenger center, then geting through security, then riding an elevator, then dealing with people in messenger centers (who obviously aren't on comission). These snags add up when you have to do it 30 times a day.

The job is not all bad, though. For a lot of the day, I get to ride my bike at breakneck speed through the insane traffic of Manhattan. You can tell that death is inevitable if you do this long enough, but it's REALLY fun. An eight-hour shift can go by in like fifteen minutes if you're busy all day. My dispatch is in the Viacom building in Times Square (MTV, Nickelodeon), which seemed really cool until I had to ride through 8 million pedestrians a day for a few days. And sometimes I get to go to famous buildings like the Flatiron or 30 Rock or the Letterman Show or the Waldorf Astoria.

I've already gotten SO MUCH better at the job in three-and-a-half weeks. I'm familiar with most of the buildings I go to, so I save a shitload of time knowing exactly which door of the skyscraper to ride up to and which stairs/elevator/maze of hallways to go down. Also, I can more-or-less ride down an avenue without ever having to stop, whether the lights are red or green, traffic or not. But I'm still not baller enough to ride into the major crosstown streets and figure out how to get through like the dude in the Pittsburgh hat who text-messages through red lights at 42nd st or the guy in a one-piece Carhart suit who rides with no hands between buses while rapping and gesticulating, going as fast as I can on an open avenue. But I'm creeping up working my way toward baller status.

Actually, this video explains it better than I ever could:


Othen than the job, everything else rules. I'm hangin' out with a sexy lady who I probably shouldn't talk about any more here.

I've met more people. I'm busy as hell. I'm never really bored. I'm still poor as fuck, but at least I get paid every week so now I can buy apple cider at Union Square pretty much whenever I want (apples are REALLY cheap here), or go out to dinner once in a while, or drink coffee, or brunch, or buy mixtapes or stretchy gloves, or earrings off the street if the mood strikes me.

I wish I had a camera to document how fucking ridiculous this city is, but you've seen it on TV. For instance, I ride down this street, through all these cabs and buses, through this guy at least 10 times a day:
Anyway, I'm gonna miss this huge, insane, hell-hole.