Last week I heard the two most beautiful words that can be uttered in the English language: case dismissed. First, I'd like to thank the wonderful people at The Midtown Community Court for their expeditious handling of my case. I'd also like to thank the rookie MTA cop who completely overstepped his bounds, bungled the writing of my summons and generally wasted the taxpayer's time and money. To him I say, "Way to go, Barney Fife, you'll certainly make detective with all those using-restrooms-after-closing-time busts."

While not being busted for criminal trespassing is wonderful--and doesn't completely deny me a place on the Democratic ticket in 2008--I can't help but feel for those in my same position--for those who may fall into the same trap I did. Why is it so hard to find a public restroom in NYC? Why is it hard enough that a lame About.com guide wastes her time listing the few clean toilets in Manhattan (including the one I got busted for using)? I would have been better off pissing in the street like a common FDNY cadet (there was one on the docket in front of me up for public urination.) Of course I wouldn't have been stupid enough to get caught--oh wait, maybe I would have been.

My freedom has really taught me something: I really would have hated prison, or wearing one of those orange jumpsuits and cleaning up cigarette butts around the Port Authority, or even a $50 fine. It's not like I was one of those copyright infringers, solicitors, panhandlers, or, God forbid, loiterers that were lining the benches of the courthouse. The guy next to me didn't fool me with his fancy suit and briefcase; I know a turnstile jumper when I see one. The chick with the $150 haircut next to me had jaywalker written all over her. Damn, what a bunch of hooligans they were.

I was only the fourth person to be called to the bar, and the fourth in a row to have my case dismissed. Amazingly the guy called right before me had the exact same infraction I did. The summons was so similar that the prosecutor asked if we got busted at the same time. "Yeah," I said, "It was a fuckin' bathroom break sting in the food court." Okay, I didn't say that, but I certainly thought it. The prosecutor looked at the summons. The judge looked at the summons. Both of them looked at each other and shrugged. That was all it took. I was out of there.

My first act as a free man was to walk the five blocks to work, put down my bag in my office and settle my free ass on a toilet in the restroom for a good long dump. Thank you U.S. Constitution. Thank you unalienable rights. And thank you Mr. Kohler wherever you are.

Where do the geniuses at Fox come up with this shit? Seriously, this is some briliantly wacky stuff. There must be a whole room full of crystal meth addicts sitting around the Fox offices thinking about how they can screw with that thing we have dubbed reality television. Who cares if it's misogynistic or asinine? Who cares if it pushes the line of good taste and goes out its way to infuriate PETA? We're Fox, man! We'll have a sumo wrestler play tug o' war with an orangutan. We'll have a $19,000 dollar a year construction worker pretend to be a multi-millionaire to prove that woman are pretty much money-grubbing biatches after all. We'll show drunken rednecks fall and fall and fall. Shit, we'll even let you watch Danny Partridge beat the crap out of Greg Brady. Is there anything we won't do? Well, we've never made you watch hot chicks eat pig rectum, or tortured you with the daily life of a fat, stoned former Playboy bunny with the IQ of a dead beetle.

I just can't believe these freaks get paid to sit around with their feet up on their desks shooting Nerf hoops and dreaming up ways to screw with humanity. Okay, I know this isn't how television development works, but there is some evil genius over there who actually greenlights shows depicting horrendous car crashes (World's Scariest Police Chases), people being mauled by wild animals (When Animals Attack!), and obese side-show freaks eating until they puke (The Glutton Bowl).

Seriously, who needs another sitcom about some stupid family and their wacky in-laws/neighbors/friends when we can have carnage, treachery and monkeys? Thank God for the geniuses at Fox. They're always keeping us on our toes and making us wonder what kind of crap they're going to pull next.

I like to call it The Boulevard of Porn and Trinkets. The urine-soaked man in the wool pants belted with a rope calls it home. The Guardian Angels are headquartered here, and that giant fireman statue has been parked here since that fateful day in September of 2001. Where is this oasis of which I speak? Why, it's 8th Avenue between 41st Street and 49th Street, of course!

If you're looking for a $4 "New York Fucking City" hat or a Statue of Liberty pen, then take a stroll up The Boulevard. If you need the latest Buttman video or the very special jelly dildo, you're in luck! I've been offered everything from a toothless hooker to crack cocaine. I've seen German families being enticed into the many peek-a-boo theaters that dot the streets. I've wondered a million times why anybody would want to go to a fucking Joe Franklin themed restaurant.

I love my little walk to work. Those Gray Line sightseeing tours representatives have an uncanny ability to spot tourists among the locals. Never once have I been offered one of their shiny pamphlets or their elaborate Spanish-tinged sales pitches. I love my walk back even better, as the pimps and drug pushers really turn on the heat after 8PM. My favorite line ever came from a man in a purple suit with no shirt and snakeskin boots. He pointed at a woman whose gut literally went straight south, and who had about four teeth in her head, "This bitch can go all night. Ooohwee! I tell you gentlemen, she's one hot date!" His lady tried to smile but only managed to make her right eye droop as she staggered off the curb and almost ended up eating a fire hydrant.

Such is the life on The Boulevard, where you can pay $5 to jerk off in a small booth while watching a naked crackhead dance behind a glass wall and then go two doors down the street to buy a $5 t-shirt that advertises "I went to New York City and all I did was pay $5 to jerk off in a small booth to a naked crackhead who danced for me behind a glass wall." Awesome!

Things don't get much uglier than the experience I had last night. The bar I went to was filled with the scariest bunch of folks I've ever seen--and I've been to a couple bars in Canada! Seriously, there's nothing uglier than a woman in a gut shirt dancing on top of a plywood plank covering a pool table. The thing that made this scene truly ugly was the fact that these chicks were dancing to the off-kilter karaoke warblings of other disgusting ABBA fans that stuffed themselves onto a tiny stage for all to see. (I found a picture of the place on the karaoke company's website.) It was as if ugly exploded all over the walls.

Normally I'm not a snob about looks or ladies wearing clothes that they shouldn't be wearing, but I was shocked by the sheer number of beasties packed into one NYC bar. It was as if a weird bus from Skokie stopped in front of the bar and dropped off its cargo onto the unsuspecting populous of Manhattan. There was also a drunken midget of a man standing in front of us intermittently staggering and farting. I think God was trying to tell us to leave.

After standing gape-mouthed (and seriously wondering when flannel came back into style), I finally realized that I was no longer hanging out on Earth. I had obviously been transferred to some awful corner of Planet Jersey where the hideous can congregate without us normal folk gawking and pointing. Did I mention that half the freaks were making out with each other? Ah, ugly spawn.

In my seven years of hanging out at the awful bars in my old UES neighborhood, I can't collectively remember seeing as many bizarre people as I did in one night in this joint. I guess I can look on the bright side: this chick wasn't there.

CITY KIDS

When I was a kid I ran everywhere. I had boundless energy. I couldn't stand being inside, and when I was I ran around the house pretending to be a running back, baseball hero or The Bionic Man. All of my friends were the same way. We ran up to the cul-de-sac to play baseball, and when it was raining, we played hamper basketball. Surround this with games of tag, pickle, and general rambunctiousness, and you have what amounts to your average American adolescence.

Thinking back, I'm sure it wasn't easy for any of our parents to keep up with us. I'm sure they were sick of treating the cuts and scrapes. I'm sure they got sick of me begging for a Diamond Back dirt bike, and wearing holes in pair after pair of Zipps and Kid Power shoes. We were bundles of energy with bowl cuts.

I grew up in a major metropolitan city, mind you. It's not as if I lived in a cornfield in Nebraska, and had nothing better to do than practice my punting to earn a football scholarship to Iowa State. We had The Galleria for God's sake!

Granted, there were times when we stayed in to play the baseball grand tourney on Intellivision, or watched some Starsky and Hutch, but for the most part we were happy running around in the San Fernando Valley smog. Then I see the poor kids walking from their schools in Manhattan--although walking is a generous description. It's more of a teetering motion. These kids don't seem to have enough energy to even lift their feet off the ground. They look as if they have two prosthetic legs that don't bend at the knee. Walking in this manner concerns me.

I don't know if it's a matter of poor nutrition, lack of exercise or the fact it has become okay to simulate physical activity by playing sports on Playstation. These listless children don't seem to have any spunk or motivation. They don't seem to have the energy that young children should have. Go out to any school in the suburbs, and you'll see children laughing, jumping and running from the schoolyard. Not so with the city kid. They are a rare breed that have been so maligned by lack of space, that even their movements have become minimized.

I'm sure there are studies somewhere that say that the city kids of today are on the average overweight and stunted in their physical development. Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe I just hate getting stuck behind a mob of these kids on the way back to work, but somebody really should do something about this. Maybe I'll start a fresh air camp for the physically constrained in Jersey somewhere.

God, this sucks.

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