#while i have recently talked some shit re: nyc i will readily say that the fact that i have effectively no plans to ever spend extensive

[unopenablebox]

unfortunately i am covetously watching the eater video that's just a tour of zabars

[americathedepraved]

Shit Talk

Navigating NYC is a tricky task; all the more so given that the sidewalks seem to always be covered in shit. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I was of the opinion that it was in fact Paris, and by extension the Parisians, who were known for their shitty sidewalks– French dog owners being too haughty to pick up after their furry excrement-machines and whatnot. It seems nyc has decided to give Paris a run for its money.

That said, a friend of mine recently brought it to my attention that, possibly, some of the shit plastering our sidewalks like some de Sade inspired fresco isn’t really of doggo origins. Let that sink in for a moment– you remember that crap you stepped in the other day, the one you so readily blamed on your instagram-famous neighbour’s pomeranian whose food costs half your rent? Well, you might have to redirect that scorn.

But, at who?

Chances are there isn’t some group of fecal-fetishists running about getting off on the idea of spaying your building’s entrance with their waste. If not them, then who? If not for, well, shits-and-giggles, then why relieve oneself in the middle of the sidewalk (or, every so often, the planters and tree pits)?

Need and necessity! I don’t think those dumping on your doorstep do so out of fun, but rather because they have no other option. Who are those who have little to no other option (regarding bathroom choice). The homeless.

Now, in line with American tradition, we should wholeheartedly blame individuals for their lot. You’re poor? You should have worked harder, you should have decided to not be poor. You’re homeless? That’s your own fault, god dammit! You shat on my sidewalk because you had no other option? There’s always an option, always a choice, you scoundrel.

Most nobel responses, indeed.

But what if, and just bare with me on this one, we not point our fingers at the homeless themselves, and instead at the system which allows for and (re)creates the many crises leading to homelessness? Granted this is quite the absurd thought, but let’s go with it for a minute. Let’s say, just as a hypothetical, that the type of choice characterised by ‘your money or your life’ isn’t really a free choice. And that, whether someone is poor, or homeless, or is forced to relieve themselves on the sidewalk, is maybe more than just the sum of their ‘flawed’ decisions in life. Maybe, just maybe, there are larger factors at play.

Maybe next time you’re waiting for the L train to carry you back into Brooklyn, standing next to a mound of crap, you won’t be so quick to direct your disgust towards the homeless individual collapsed on the ground a few feet away, but instead at a system that continually throws people under the bus, that is accepting of having people live in such hardship and squalor.

Haughty as they may be, at least the Parisians make the effort to offer a temporary solution– public restrooms. Though one is right to be a little dubious as to whether this is a first step towards improving things at large, or simply a means of masking the broader issues at play (with a sanisette-bandaid), it does provide a great deal of people suffering from homelessness with an alternative bathroom option to the sidewalk. Paris has over 400 public restrooms, free to be used by anyone and everyone. Have you ever been in dire need of a place to piss or shit while walking through the streets of our beloved nyc? If not, I wish you the best of luck when the time comes; looking for a public restroom in nyc is a little like trying to find cheap holiday flights. Well-intentioned, but utterly hopeless. Currently there are only five in all of greater nyc. As said, best of luck.