Oh…the Irony!

I just got back from a weekend getaway in Toronto, Ontario. Fantastique! I felt right at home. Basically, Toronto is the NYC of Canada sans the smells and apathy.

Wanting to be productive, I did a guest spot at the Laugh Resort Comedy Club
(Which I’m still trying to decipher. I’m not sure if they are trying to say that this is the last place in the world that will make you laugh or this is the last place in the world where you would think you would laugh).

I was slightly concerned that my American references wouldn’t be understood but Toronto is renowned for being one of the most diverse cities in the world so they were all well informed.

Unsurprisingly, the three other Canadian comics at some point in their act described Americans as slow, dim-witted gun-toting people.

Since I was raised in Texas and served in the USAF, you would think that I would be slightly patriotic but I my lost admiration for Uncle Sam long ago when I read Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Heller’s Catch-22 when I was a teenager.

As much as I agree with Canadians, it gets grating after an hour and a half. Although, it’s hard to defend America while Bush is still in office. So I let them have their fun. Who cares? The only myth that I wanted to dismiss was their continued attempts to paint NYC as a crime-riddled city where you are lucky to get mugged instead of being raped or set on fire (or a combination of all three). This really annoyed me because it simply is not true. I’m not saying there isn’t crime but it is a very safe city. If you’ve ever read Freakonomics, you’d know why. Roe vs Wade, yay! I’ve lived here since 2001 and I have never felt this safe anywhere else in the country. I live in Astoria which was predominantly Greek but now is becoming one of the most diverse areas in Queens. It’s extremely safe and you feel a sense of community.

With that said, I got back to the States and turned on my phone to find six voice mails and six text messages.
Here’s one of the text messages: “Someone got shot and killed at our Broadway stop tonight. Beer kept me safe and off of my normal train.”

Here’s an excerpt of an article written about it:

“The victim lay in a large pool of blood in front of the token booth - his long black hair a bloody mess on the station floor, witnesses said. “The lady inside the [token] booth was almost crying,” said Ricardo Peris, 42, of Astoria. “I was even scared.”

I love that he said “was almost crying” implying that she’s seen worse and could hold it in. An my absolutely favorite part “I was even scared” kills me. I’m assuming Ricardo lives in a haunted house on Riker’s Island filled with bees.