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‘Bigging Up’ New York - As The Jamaicans Say....
‘Bigging Up’ New York - As The Jamaicans Say….
There are times when I marvel as to how blogs come to fruition; believe it or not, with a teeming mind, potential blogs vie to come to life. This is a time, especially now, when I am between work assignments, when the Divine Muse that was bestowed on me by the Lord, has a harvest a plenty of blogs in my mind wanting to see ‘life,’ to be read, and to be critiqued. With the plethora of topics that I can opine on, the Muse said I should write about New York where I reside… in essence, I should ‘Big Up’ New York - as the Jamaicans would say when they like a given subject matter. As it has been my wont lately in my blogs, I have used certain songs, as marked by the hyperlinks, to help flesh out the themes of a given blog and I have done so here too by using songs from Frank Sinatra, Alicia Keys, and Ace Frehley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btFfXgUdIzY
If I recalled correctly, it was LL Cool J who rapped that a city so nice that they named it twice (New York, New York). As a point of reference, I came to the Big Apple in 1990 on a scholarship to NYU from California… and though my taking a security guard job cost me that NYU scholarship, I ended up at John Jay where I met my better half, who so far, has given me three children, all of whom were born right here in New York, New York.
I must confess that when I first came to New York - I hated it, so much so that my beloved brother, who virtually had grown up here, told me that I should go back to Cali. Eventually, the Big Apple grew on me, whereby, I have been taking many bites and continue to do so… steadily learning to appreciate New York, NY. Living in New York, one must get to appreciate New York, New York city’s dry, Black humor. In Hollywood, when a movie contains the death of characters, among humorous dialogue, such a movie will be deemed a “Black Comedy.” So it is that it seems that many aspects of living in New York mirror a "Black Comedy" and to that end, I am told by my brother and other native New Yorkers who said that they have witnessed fellow New Yorkers urging would-be suicidal jumpers to jump.
I thank the Lord that I have not witness such callousness about life, as described in the previous paragraph, but I can truthfully testify that New York has a sense of callous dark humor. Case in point, when I got married some sixteen years ago, my wife and I exited the Limo and while waiting to cross the street to get to the reception, some New Yorkers, in a SUV, came by and stopped to tell my wife and I that our hours long marriage was not going to last - I say to you that my wife and I stood there laughing.
I love the ‘street cred‘ that I have received outside of New York for being a resident of the Big Apple. Years ago, my bud and I used to drive from Law school, down in Ohio, to New York and we would stop off at these little towns where girls would literally ask us if they could come New York. These ladies wanted the ‘shine’ of knowing someone from New York - incidentally, they knew or supposed knew that we were from New York because we had New York caps on our respective heads. In addition, there are those from outside of New York who swear that they could gauge that one (a visitor) was a New Yorker simply by looking at the visitor's attitude - so I have been told times and times again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMX1sc3eOTE
The state of New York or the city is not hurting for tourists, but we can never have enough visitors because of all the tourists’ attractions that New York offers. My very wife has tried to give me some culture - because of the Philistine that I am - by taking me to the various museums; and I too have taken my daughter on the bus tour to see the monuments like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. To that end, I must convey that one of the greatest secular books that I have read was The Federalist Papers and it must be noted that one of its authors, Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s “Founding Fathers” is buried in a miniature grave yard down in the Wall Street area.
Lest I forget, there are various types of dishes one can feast on in New York, New York, which also is a testament of the ‘Melting Pot’ that New York, New York is. If one feels like dining on Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Jamaican – whatever… it is readily available; and it is available usually anytime – after all, as the song says, New York is the city that never sleeps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKdHy18rZcI