new york, new york

“How to thrive in New York City with no money and no prospects”

1. Be under twenty four.

2. Shop at the fence across from Max Fish. Make friends with old woman who finds clothes in garbages and in her attic and hangs them on the fence.

3. Have an equally as poor girl friend who wears found clothing and wears it till it rips and withers off.

4. Offer to crouch down in cabs and lay across peoples’ knees to feign invisibility when there are too many people and when you have no cash.

5. Pick up lost hats, scarves, and jackets from bars. Return if it happens to below to one of your friends.

6. Ask people for sips of their drinks.

7. Befriend notables but only if they come up to you first, unless they are men.

8. Live in Chinatown, eat cold tofu in the dark.

9. Eat raw vegetables and up to six oranges a day.

10. Somehow get the government to send you a monthly check. Find mail key so as to finally receive check.

11. Keep mentioning to notables work that is not yet being seen but always being worked on.

12. Ask guys you like if they would like to contribute to your non-existent zine.

13. Dance and don’t talk to anybody. Don’t look at anybody.

14. Stare at people when they’re not looking. They can tell.

15. Ask friends for half-bumps.

16. If you attempt to throw yourself into traffic one night, breaking down before startled individuals, you must go out the next night to redeem yourself.

17. Always bring a friend to the bathroom.

18. You don’t need to shower unless your spirit needs cleansing too.

19. Ask near strangers or new friends if their cab is going to the east side.

20. Get used to walking long distances.

21. Get used to walking long distances alone, stoned, wasted, freezing, starving, with ripped contacts, late at night as the sky brightens, when the birds sing.

22. Offer cab drivers oranges.

23. Flirt with boys and girls.

24. Look people in the eye when you meet them.

25. Ask for drags of cigarettes. Turn down whole cigarettes. Stick half cigarettes behind your ear.

26. Take ecstasy and end up somewhere alone but in public and chill with new friends who seem really happy to see you.

27. Ask to be punched in the arm or the stomach or slapped in the face. Kiss them.

28. Make out with boys and their best friends. Make out with your best friends.

29. Go home with one person in protest of the absence of another.

30. Leave before he wakes up.

31. Leave behind your ring or tattered leggings.

32. Ask people who ask you for cigarettes if they have weed or cocaine?

33. All men in this scene are intimidated and obviously cripplingly shy.

34. He loves you too much to look at you in the morning.

35. Say yes to everything.

36. Go along with people you run into wherever they may be going.

37. Ask for Indian rug burns. Offer Indian rug burns.

38. Sit down at notables’ tables without being asked. Don’t bother to introduce yourself.

39. Take mushrooms every month or so to redeem positivity. Bad trips also redeem positivity.

40. The mystery number that texts t “see how you are” wants to sell you cocaine and is not doing so well.

41. Wear stolen crosses.

42. Ask drug dealers if they take credit.

43. Pick up pennies if they are heads up.

44. Flip corns to make decisions. Two out of three.

45. Astrologically analyze all potentials.

46. Make friends with gay guys because they will be your best friends and have an innate understanding of your general hopeless despondency.

47. Treat everybody the same; the rich, the poor, the very young and the very old.

48. Be content with your own head. Laugh when reality obliterates fantasy.

- Anonymous