Living in NYC

The other day I was walking through Washington Sq Park. It's really nice now. All refurbished, renovated, and improved. As I was walking along I saw this guy sitting on a park bench covered in pigeons. Of course I instantly labeled him a complete nutbag. I walked over and snapped a few photos discreetly and he didn't scream at me to stop, which was nice. Nutty people do nutty things in public and then when you take a photo of them they act like you barged into their house and shot them taking a dump. You invaded their privacy. I approached him very slowly so as not to disturb the pigeons and introduced myself.

"I'm Stephen."

"Hello, I'm Paul, but people call me the Birdman. Would you like to feed the birds?"

"No thanks Paul, I got crapped on twice last week."

"It wipes off, Stephen."

Then I said something stupid like "Do you have favorites?" He smiled and said that CoCo was very nice and mentioned one that was very aggressive and how one bird in particular pecked harder than all the others when eating. One always sat on his knee and allowed no other bird that spot. He said that they were mostly all brothers and sisters from the same flock and have been visiting him for about 3 years. He told me he had been feeding birds and squirrels in the park for 9 years each day at around 4:00pm. He was actually a very nice man and I felt guilty for passing judgement so quickly. A friend asked me, "What if he gets bird flu?" I responded that it probably would have happened by now after 9 years of birds climbing all over him and using his head as a toilet. She agreed. That made me think... I wondered how many millions of times Paul had been crapped on or whether the birds knew not to poop on the hand that feeds them... Nahh, I bet he goes home after feeding them looking like he was in the greatest paintball battle of all time. The Normandy of paintball battles. Did you know that birds don't pee? Nope, everything comes out of the same hole. Ahhh, the mystery of life.

Here's a joke.. Why don't birds where underpants? Because their pecker is on their face.

Paul "The Birdman"

I was walking through Chinatown with my friend Richard and he said, "You gotta see this place." We zigzagged down the narrow streets and came upon this little barber shop tucked among the Chinese shops. There it was...Mei Dick. We stood there grinning like two 13-year-old boys, pointing and giggling at the sign.

"No way."

"Way."

There was this nicely dressed guy who looked like a guard or bouncer standing out front. I asked him if the place was actually pronounced My Dick. He barely glanced in my direction and answered yes obviously having answered the same question 400 million times. I can hear the conversation in my head when the owner applied for the business license.. "So let me get this straight Mr. Ching, you want to name your barber shop My Dick?"

Crazy redness.