Ambit

As gross as I find 8th Avenue, I find myself walking up and down it quite often. Last Saturday, I made about 2 complete circuits between the Port Authority and the UCB theater. Hell's Kitchen and Chelsea are becoming my new college campus. The apartments are as big as dorm rooms. I have class. I have a job. I know where the cheap places to eat are. I try to get laid in the bars. It's almost a perfect substitute.

I'm not wild about the area. It's constantly dirty, no matter how much the 34th Street Alliance men in their green jumpsuits try to sweep. The gutters have pools of off-color liquid stewing near discolored refuse that you wouldn't pick up on a dare. Melting snow and rainfall knock dirt and debris off of the aged office buildings. Every block has a porn shop, bedazzled in neon flashes and misspelled signs. One shop has "condons", another sells "lubs" and a particularly racy one sells "S.M" porn. Scandalous.

The people are a special breed of disappointed. The faces are greasy and wrinkled, the voices are smoke-stained, and the health is fleeting. Young men walk down the streets with bats, and try to rough up shoe store emplyees. Family fights occur in the middle of the avenue and traffic rolls right past them. A man will scream on his cellphone about STD's as a man tries to sell you "NEWPORTS! FI' DOLLAHS!" I'm pretty sure those aren't Newports.

It's a weird sociological obstacle course for a floppy-haired white boy in his tattered barn coat.

The iPod helps.