Robert DiNiro's Boxer Shorts
August 25, 1996

Since I never found time to go anywhere this summer, between writing and cutting meat, I decided to take a little day trip this past Sunday. Saturday was my last day of work, since I'm off to college this upcoming Wednesday (don't worry, Feff World is staying put), and I didn't want to spend my Sunday watching golf with my dad. So I went with my father and step-mom to the Big Apple: New York City. If I had to describe the City in one word, I would probably choose `interesting'. But luckily this is my Whack, and I can use as many words as I wish.

New York City is the type of place where I would have to apply the old and over-used saying: `it's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.' But it's true, I love visiting the city, but I would hate living there. The main reason is simple: no place to play wiffleball. I mean realistically, you don't have many choices. It's like, "OK, anything fielded cleanly on the ground is a out, hit it pass the pitcher and it's a single, pass the bum playing `I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy' on his recorder is a double, pass the newsstand selling pornography is a triple, and over St. Patrick's Cathedral is a home run." Not exactly a plausible solution if you ask me.

Talking about pornography, New York City has a lot of pornography. You just can not go anywhere in the city without running into some form of pornography. Every block is either a newsstand selling magazines such as `Women Over Forty,' `Black Inches,' and `Horny Slovakian House-wives,' or a theater showing such movies as `Forest Hump,' and `Riding Miss Daisy.' I also saw this one theater that specialized in strange fetishes with such movies as, `My Left Foot,' `My Friend Flicka,' `Dances with Wolves,' and an instructional video: `To Thrill a Mockingbird.' Personally, I was shocked. I've been to Boston and Washington D.C., and neither of those cities compared to New York City in sheer volume of pornography. People make a big hub bub over all the pornography on the Internet, and the dangers facing our children; but I think that there are a lot more kids growing up in the City that are exposed to it on a daily basis than on the Internet. It's funny you don't hear any politicians or activists talk about it though. But I try not to let stuff like that worry me much, life is too short to try and make sense out of it.

Anyhow, moving on, I saw a few blind people walking around the City. It must be strange walking around New York City, and not being able to see. Ninety-five percent of the experience of being there is all visual. You don't really feel much, except for pain in your feet from walking around all day. All you hear is a bunch of cars honking at each other, and random homeless guys walking around having imaginary conversations with George Bernard Shaw. And all you smell is..., well I wouldn't know where to begin to try and describe what you smell in New York City. But if you can't see the majestic buildings reaching for the heavens, all the people bustling to and fro, and of course all the pornography, what's the use of being in the City? It just doesn't make sense if you ask me. But I don't want to criticize the practices of blind people, especially if there are any reading this. Wait a minute.... uh, never mind.

On the subject of senses, New York City is definitely a great place for food. You never have to go far in the City to find a good restaurant or deli. There also are a lot of those theme restaurants like Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, Motown, and Harley Davidson's. I saw this one that looked really interesting. It was called Jekyle and Hyde's, and it had sort of a horror theme. Basically what the gist was, was that you go there, you eat, and they try and scare you. And this place is for real, they even have a sign outside warning people with heart conditions. Personally, I don't really think I would like that. When I eat, I like a nice relaxed atmosphere, not some guy wearing a hockey mask wielding a blood-stained chain-saw trying to scare me. It's a pretty crappy way to try and get a tip if you ask me. So instead of there, we decided to eat at Planet Hollywood. It was neat place. I mean where else can you eat a full course meal while sitting underneath the shorts worn by Robert DiNiro in `Raging Bull'? The only thing was that when I went to the bathroom, they had one of those bathroom attendant guys. My original plan was to go in there, take a piss, and then try and leave without having to tip him. But after I relieved myself, I made the mistake of going to the sink to wash my hand. First the guy turned on the water for me, using just the right combination of hot and cold water, and then when I reached for the soap, he already had the dispenser in his hand and he proceeded to squirt two drops of soap on my palm. After that, there was just no going back. I ended up giving him quite a generous tip, but it was worth it, nobody has ever brushed my teeth better than he did.

And on that note, I think I will bring this trip to an end. So to conclude for this Whack, I have the same tennis racket bag as the one Sylvester Stallone used in the movie `The Specialist'; with all the pornography, no wonder New York is the city that never sleeps; and it would take a pretty damn good shot to hit a wiffle-ball over St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Now for this week's special feature, Feff's top ten cities around the world that he would like to visit some day:

10. Cairo

9. Rio de Janeiro

8. Mexico City

7. Moscow

6. Rome

5. Tokyo

4. London

3. Hong Kong

2. Paris

1. Cleveland