DTS's Greatest Hits

In the past two weeks, dramatic things have happened in Times Square. Exploding SUVs, evacuations and coolers filled with, GOOD GOD, MAN ... water bottles. You know what hasn't happened? This blog.

I'm guessing it's pretty obvious that I've semi-abandoned this thing. Will I ever write on it again? To be honest, I'm not sure. Don't get me wrong, Times Square continues to be as mindblowingly WTF-worthy as ever. But, perhaps, I've said all I've needed to say on this subject. Then again...who knows? Perhaps a Dingy Fozzie will one day step out of the shadows of a building, ask me for money and once again inspire me to take fingers to keyboard.

Until that day, though, if you've somehow taken a wrong turn on the Internet and landed on this site, I thought I'd round up a handful of what I think are some of my better posts and put them all in one place for your reading pleasure. After all, they aren't all comedy gold (some of them barely get a sad Duane Reade honorable mention ribbon).

And, in a moment of rare seriousness, to all those who have followed and read my blog over the past year, thanks so much for reading, friends! It's meant a lot to me.

Without further ado, in chronological order, I give you DTS's Greatest Hits:

Dingy Elmo
The Swedish Chef Better Watch His Back
Reason #73 Not to Get Killed Off of Lost
Go(eth) Knicks!
With Great Power...
Life is a Highway...I Want Off at the Nearest Exit
It's Official: They Are Building an Army
Say it With Swim Trunks
No Intel Inside
This Look Is Aces
Now the World's Most Famous Strip Mall!
No One's Gonna Save You From the Beast About to Strike
They're Going Global
The Silver Lining
Until We Meet Again
And What Happens When You Flush?
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

And, in case you're absolutely itching for more, some Relatively Decent Hits:

Land of the Pilgrim's Pride
Sea No Evil
Tiled and True
Dancing with the Stools
'Post' of Shame
The #1 Argument for Pocket Mace
Virtual Insanity
Willy Nilly Killy Old Bear

Copyright Infringement: The Silent Killer

If you've ridden the NYC subway in the past couple of years, there's a good chance you've seen Rubik's Cube guy. He walks around giving a mildly amusing spiel about the Rubik's Cube's claim to fame as the predecessor to PlayStation - and then he sells cubes for a dollar. Usually, he sells a few cubes per car. Is it slightly annoying to hear anyone talking loudly on a morning commute train, sure. Is it deserving of a profanity-laced meltdown worthy of Christian Bale? Yeah, not so much.

Try telling that to the tan, blonde, sunglasses-on-the-subway douchebag who first decided to tell Rubik's Cube guy that he was wrong to call it a Rubik's Cube since that's a brand name and what he was selling was a generic cube. And then decided to follow this unusual but valid point with a loud 5-minute tirade involving the words "asswipe," "fuckface" and about 30 other iterations of the word "fuck." And after poor Cube-man had made his way down the train in the face of such open hostility, another brave/sadistic commuter decided to engage Rage-man with a question about why copyright infringement matters so much to him. His response? "Because I'm a writer!" And then something about how he makes $9.50 an hour. The iPod earbuds were in, so I didn't get to hear how exactly this relates but, as someone who is a writer of sorts on her better days, can I just say on behalf of anyone who's ever put pen to paper - "writer" is not synonymous for "carte blanche to be a dickhead." Being a writer doesn't make you better, more entitled or even more perceptive than anyone else. Although, let's face facts, it probably does make you slightly crazier.

And Rage-man? With your totally uncalled for outburst, I think you managed to vilify yourself - thus turning the mildly annoying Cube-man into a temporary hero of sorts and his wares into a stand against douchebaggery. Which is why I think he sold about 4x the amount of usual cubes on the car this morning. And why Marvel is on the phone with him as we speak to develop a gritty origin story. Well done.

One Down, Only 11 More To Go

In Times Square, home of the Oblivious, it's exceedingly rare to find someone who is refreshingly self-aware.



Thank god this man knows how obnoxious he is.

Of course that doesn't explain phenomena like:
a) why he's talking to Spider-Man
b) why Spidey looks like he's about to slip him an unmarked envelope
c) why he continues to ask me if I like comedy. Every. Damn. Day. There is a step after Acceptance, Annoying Comedy Salesman. It's called step #2.

Sometimes I Wish ESL Hadn't Worked For Me

Trudging through the pedestrian traffic in Times Square at any time of year means that - despite my best efforts to render my eardrums useless via the 8th incarnation of my earbuds - I will inevitably be forced to overhear a conversation that will blow the very fabric of space/time with its stupidity. Trudging through said TS traffic during the holidays raises the stakes of the equation thus: Tourists from the Midwest (x 10 to the power of 7) standing 9 across the breadth of the sidewalk (+345% likelihood) x the probability that I left my good headphones at my parents' house = a 745% increase in blown space/time fabric.

Case in point, here is what I heard not 10 minutes ago, verbatim.

Tourist #1: So which one is the famous museum in New York City? You know THE famous one.
Tourist #2: That's the art museum.
Tourist #1: Yeah, that's the one.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

You know it's holiday time in Times Square when:



1) Dingy Elmo changes out his pimp hat for a Santa hat.



2) Santa's silhouette juxtaposes with the Lace stripper silhouette to make this striking high-art image.



3) I finally find out who those mannequins around the GMA holiday table are supposed to be and it suddenly makes so much more sense that it's Carrot Top in that weird Satan worship pose.



And that Donny is actually, er, missing and Marie is instead holding court with Wayne Newton, with Bette Midler presiding. In a Big Bird head.

Did I say "makes more sense?" I meant "makes everything infinitely creepier."

But I choose to look at this as GMA's subtle homage to The Nightmare Before Christmas instead of A Precursor to ST's Vivid Nightmares. Because believing in miracles is part of the holiday spirit.

Let Us Entertain You

About two hours ago there was a fatal shooting on 46th and Broadway. You can read the details here.

This is scary and tragic and someone has now lost his life.

However, this doesn't stop the tourists of TS from continuing to do what they do best: being tastelessly overexcited and stationary in the most inappropriate places.

Far from staying away from the swarms of cops now at the area, most were crowding around to get a better snapshot for the family album. Quoth one: “It’s my first day in New York, so it makes very real what you see in the movies!"

Another one cited to a New York Times reporter that this was one of the more exciting moments of her trip - and that included such epic dramas as losing her luggage at Port Authority AND scoring tickets to 'Wicked.'

We're ever so glad NYC can continue to provide the type of exciting "real-life" entertainment that is sure to make Times Square a popular tourist destination forever more. And we in turn thank you, tourists, for providing both material rife for endless mocking in the midst of the most grave situations and excellent resistance for my much-needed elbow workouts. Seriously though, wouldn't you be happier vacationing elsewhere next time? I hear L.A. is fabulously safe this time of year.

Celebrating Yuletide Traditions...DTS-Style

I pass by the Good Morning America studios every morning on my way to work. Even though there have been some questionable things/people on display there at times, I haven't written about it yet because I usually put my head down and hope to make it past the corner in less than 10 minutes.

This morning, I saw that they had put up their Christmas windows. The first window was a large but rather classy wreath which simply said "Season's Greetings from Good Morning America." The second window was this:



Right, I don't know why we're being welcomed to fabulous Las Vegas in Times Square - maybe that's where GMA is hosting its Christmas week programming? But forget that oddness for a second. Forget the tacky, overflowing holiday table that this "family" is sitting at. And let's take a closer look at the family itself:



Those don't look like standard issue mannequins to me so I'm just wondering: are they made in the likeness of GMA anchors? Is that supposed to be Diane Sawyer?! If so, why is she wearing Big Bird's hide as a hat? Is this a subtle homage to the Muppet takeover in TS? Or is this GMA's way of giving her the bird for leaving them to go anchor the nightly news?

Also, this is happening underneath that jolly Christmas table, by the by:



A medieval idol-worship ritual? An homage to that unsupervised 8-year-old cousin who got into the egg nog? A friendly yuletide reminder as to how to avoid Sudden Infant Death Syndrome? I have no idea. But yeah...Season's Greetings from GMA and DTS (and thanks for saving me the trouble of having to make my own holiday window; that classy wreath had me worried for a sec).