Idiots, imbeciles and rampant incompetents....
Having been able to pass through security here without showing any kind of ID whatsoever; without having to declare my name, my business or even the location within the Building where I'm attending school, I arrive here today (Saturday) to discover that because it's the frigging weekend everything has changed. NOW state picture ID is required at every turn, every guy in a black jacket is chief of homeland security, and I spent 10 minutes having my bag passed back and forth through their stupid xray machine to see if my books are really books and not some variety of a shoe-bomb in disguise. GRRRRRRR@THEM.
I could understand it if they ramped up security because of the forthcoming holiday (though really, considering 9/11 and its implications for tall buildings that are icons of America - I hadn't heard of the World Trade Center before 9/11 but who hasn't heard of the Empire State Building? - security here ought to be at least this stringent all of the time) but that isn't the case: it's because it's the weekend, not the weekend before 4th of July....
How dumb is that?
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Oh, and I met my 2nd real Nooooo Yawwwwwwwwker today. In the McDonald's on Fifth Avenue, directly opposite the Building. A diminutive black kid of eighteen or nineteen, whose exceptionally loud and exceptionally foul mouth was equalled in size and unpleasantness only by his villainous attitude - directed towards two hapless counter-clerks who'd done nothing but serve him what he'd asked for, and then help this jabbering ape with the highly technical task of swiping his McD's charge card. Being unable to determine what 'balance' meant on the receipt he had to have it explained to him - at which point he erupted into an effusion of such filthy language at the cost of what he'd bought that I found myself quite taken aback.
The clerks, however, being themselves natives of this disgusting agglomeration of filth, sweat, stench, noise and confusion, took it in stride and gave this grimacing monkey its quietus by calling a donut-eating cop over and making a complaint - looking on in smiling satisfaction as he was dragged away for 'threatening an officer' - by raising his fist and shaking it under the cop's nose while calling him a 'honky child-molestin motherfucker'.
A charming young monkey - one of the best yet.
I met my first real Noooo Yawwwwwwker yesterday morning, crossing Fifth Avenue back to the Building to start class. Being a non-native (and English to boot) I'm still in the habit of saying 'Good morning' to complete strangers. Which I did while, as I say, crossing the street. The greeting I received in return? 'FUCK off.'
What a foul place this is, and occupied by foul people. When Jesus comes back in his spaceship, perhaps he'll have sense enough to beam up the Building (sans occupants) and then nuke the rest of this immense cess-pit along with everything that crawls through it - 'human' or otherwise.
I have decided I do not like New York - even Richmond is starting to look good by comparison: that's how much I don't like New York. I return tomorrow, thankfully, and will blog about my adventures then and subsequently - such as they've been.