Look Both Ways. Twice!

Seattle is the home of the J-walking ticket.  Believe it or not the cops in Seattle have so little to do that they will cite you walking against the light or not in a designated crosswalk.  So its just funny as hell to me when someone comes to visit from Seattle and I see them standing at the crosswalk in downtown Manhattan waiting for the light like a bullwhipped puppy. 

You see, New Yorkers don't wait for anything.  If they see a break, a hole, or crack they'll slip right through it.  Where we are all going in such a hurry I haven't quite figured it out completely.  Personally I've always walked too fast (talked to loud, laughed too much... more on that in another post) so this feels just right to me. I suppose it has something to do with transportation.  Its all on a time schedule and so are we.  You are always running to catch a subway that you don't even know if its there.

When you do decide to dart out into the street through that break in the traffic you definitely want to look both ways, regardless of the fact that almost every single street in NYC is a one-way.  Not because some crazy cabbie may be screaming in reverse.  No, they are actually the least of your worries.  The closest I've come to getting run down in the street was not by something yellow with four wheels.  It was by a darkly dressed creature whose body resembled the narrow tubular frame he rode with two wheels. 

Cyclists; they are the most dangerous things on the road. They will come flying at top speeds of 30 mph going the wrong way on a one-way street through an intersection without so much as a flinch much less a pause.  And when they nearly mow you down they yell obscenities at YOU!

This kind of crazy, balls-out intensity has been glamourized before in movies like the Japanese film "Messengers" and "Quicksilver" the 1986 cheeseball flick staring everyone's favorite drinking game host, Kevin Bacon.  But the most realistic one is the soon to be released "Empire".  It's all NY and it's all cyclists.  Set in the classic Warren Miller fashion of jammin' music and edgy footage.

Watch this 4 minutes and 22 seconds of "Empire" and for godsakes look both ways when you cross the street. Twice!