I feel your pain, Dan. – cb

You can’t swing a bat in New York without hitting a tourist. I’ve tried. They’re everywhere. Walking the two blocks from the subway station to my office on Wall Street is like walking down Main Street in The Magic Kingdom, except the guy in the Goofy costume doesn’t work there, and he might stab you. This is why New Yorkers are said to be “hard” or “rude”: because if I’m not being paid like a celebrity I don’t want to dodge flashbulbs on my way to work.

It’s not our fault if you think about it. Imagine living in Cleveland or Baltimore and you’re drunk and on your way to work and all you want is a cup of coffee, except you can’t get to the coffee shop because there is a throng of backpackers staring at . . . whatever people go to see in Cleveland and Baltimore. The point is, we don’t care because we’ve already seen it. We know all about it. In fact, we’ve seen it so many times, we’re not even surprised when someone is peeing on it. To you, seeing it superficially for the first time, it may be the most novel thing since Stonehenge. But in the same way that the Native Americans felt a oneness with this land before we stole it from them, native New Yorkers feel a kinship with the city – like a friend who acts tough and crude and eats at The Olive Garden, but we’ve seen him cry at Big Fish.

Sometimes, though, the city will surprise you. Like this past weekend when I attended a roving theatrical tour called Accomplice. Me and eight other people signed up to meet a shady man dressed in black at the South Street Seaport. He gave us photos, a tape recorder and four plane tickets, which it was now our job to deliver. From there we followed the clues to each destination, meeting our “accomplices” along the way, helping them pull off the caper of a lifetime.

What can something like this teach you, you ask? A few things:

1. The word “caper” simply cannot be used anymore;

2. If you are on the lookout for shady characters in New York, you will find them everywhere;

3. In Chinatown, you can buy a live frog for $3.00;

4. Actors from Indiana trying to do New York accents always sound like actors from Indiana trying to do New York accents;

5. Despite living here my whole life, there are still new experiences to be had in New York; and

6. When in doubt, never ask a lady in a vinyl skirt and fishnets the location of the “special package.”


- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame