A city on the cheap.

Second and 47th, yesterday

Every morning, public radio station WNYE switches from its overnight broadcasts of the BBC at 6 am, and starts its local, New York oriented programming. The first service announcement usually runs something like this.

Hello. I'm Bill Thompson, City Comptroller. Every year, phony lawsuits cost the City of New York tens of millions of dollars a year. That's money that can be spent on schools, roads and sanitation. If you know someone who's falsely suing the City of New York, please call the NYC Fraud Hotline on (212) 669-4747...

It's generally followed by a PSA that asks New Yorkers to join the Parks Volunteer programme. Public spirited citizens can volunteer to rake leaves, pick up trash, or tend garden beds, among other things. Because it's like your own backyard, the Parks Commissioner concludes.

Does this sound like a city that has its fiscal act together? I pay New York City sales tax, and income tax. Enough to pay somone to rake up the goddamned leaves, I would have thought.

It really makes me miss Tokyo; a larger, denser, more complex city, but one that runs like clockwork. I look forward to Germany, which, I assume, manages its cities with similar efficiency. Why can't Americans?

Top of the Rock, September 2006

Top photo entered in the  Photo Friday Challenge "Geometric", 8 June 2012

Bavariations.

Kandinsky: Houses in Munich

News: I'm trading in The City That Doesn't Sleep for A City That Doesn't Smell.

Many of you may know that my partner (who, for the purposes of this anonymous blog, is called Master Right) and I have been servicing our relationship long-distance. Me in New York, him in Tokyo. That's about as long a distance as you can get and still remain on the same planet.

The villain of the piece is the American Theocracy. Almost everyplace else on said planet, the immigration laws will either recognise us as a couple, or give us an easy work-around. But not in the good-old US of A. Homophobia is alive and well.

So, I've taken some time to look for a job abroad. And I found one. From mid-May, I'll be moving to Munich, where I will hold, perhaps, one of the grooviest jobs in all of adland. I'll be the Global Strategic Planning Director on a Very Prestigious German Car Brand. No, not the one you're thinking of, but one of the other ones. Is that sufficiently informative, but still anonymous?

I have found a temporary flat for a couple of months im Maxvorstadt, amidst the bustle of Munich's cafe life. Master Right will join me soon, and we'll look for a permanent place.

I could not have hoped for a better outcome. Why, if I weren't an atheist, I'd feel the need to be grateful to something. So, let me just be grateful to the universe. Prosit dem Kosmos.

So as life in the big apple gets down to the vinegar strokes, stay tuned for more posts about how New York pisses me off, right down to the last minute. I'm sure it will.