Tips For Urban Living
First and foremost, avoid being stabbed. Being shot is usually worse than being stabbed, of course, but there is an inevitable element to a bullet wound. They seem to be preselected for us, like phone numbers. Stab wounds, however, are imminently avoidable. A stabbing is an intimate dance in which both parties participate. There two types of people, those who have a propensity to get stabbed, and those who do not. I belong to the former category, personally, though I have avoided the fate so far. Most people do not know their status concerning this issue, despite two useful predictors 1) if you are a stabber, sooner or later you will be a stabbee, 2) if anyone has ever threatened you with a knife for any reason, you belong among the potential stab victims as well. Owning knives seems to have nothing to do with it, the problem seems to be the act of thinking about the act of stabbing.
Second, don't do crack. Crack leads to stabbing, and to various manifestations of toothlessness.
Third, don't do meth. As above, but faster and more inevitable in consequences. It was not necessary to write this in 1999, because meth was formerly restricted to hillbillies. The club kids have brought it downtown since then.
Don't, drink bleach either. Not for any reason.
When you go to the ER, because you've been shot, or stabbed, or are flipped out on crack, tell the story right. Emergency rooms are not the place for spin doctoring. Don't say "I wasn't drinking at all, I just stopped in a corner liquor store for a bag of chips....". Everyone else in the ER was doing something equally stupid (these are tips for urban living, make note). Tell your friends and loved ones to tell the story right as well. We all know the truth. Lying about it informs us of the inevitability that a permutation of the same event will happen again soon.
Late summer and early fall are the killing season in Chicago, as are the first warm days of spring. People dish out a lot of stray phone numbers those times. These random numerals fall in a hazy cloud around certain vehicles and addresses. Avoid Monte Carlos and Olds Cutlasses during killing season (that was 1999, in 2009, avoid men in white T shirts). Having anything to do with people who routinely stand on the street for no apparent reason, all day long, will cause the phone numbers to follow you in a wispy stream. Don't park near them. Avoid knowing their names.
It never hurts to seem a little crazy, in a halfway-house kind of way. Develop a nervous tic.
One other thing-rats are harmless, perhaps even allies. I prefer to think of them as "mobile rent control technicians". This also applies to cockroaches, although I know few people who can stomach a different rent control arthropod swimming in their coffee every five minutes. Neither species carries any important pathogen that is not also streaming from a five-year-old's fingers.
Speaking of that, avoid hospitals. That is where the really scary microbes hang. Refer to tip number one. Make that hospitals and IV drug users, which reminds me, don't shoot up. If you are so concerned about wasting a drug that you cannot simply smoke it, then you already have a serious drug problem.
That said, there is ALWAYS enough money for a 40 ouncer. It is the unstoppable calculus of urban life that any substance that falls into the food and entertainment budgets simultaneously is imminently affordable if it comes in a 40 ounce container and gets you fucked up. Each brand is a different sensory adventure. I strongly recommend a couple of hits of marijuana, an UP-Time, and a 40 ouncer of St Ides. This high costs six dollars, and , when combined with the Beastie Boys "Check Your Head" is better than a hundred dollars worth of cocaine off some asshole's table.
"Why do drugs at all?" you ask. Read no farther, you are not living an urban adventure, you are wasting your life.
Speaking of the above, pick a transient hotel. Find out how much it costs to stay there, and if there is a deposit. Even if you never spend a night there, it helps to know where to go if you become down and out, probably because you broke rule number three or four. In Chicago, the Ascot on Belmont, the Mark Twain on Division, and the Diplomat on Sheffield are three fine choices. You can probably do better. (Since 1999, the SROs have perished. The new alternative seems to be the friend's couch. There seem to be more couches here nowadays).
It goes without saying that you should avoid cops. The act of disliking them, however, seems to draw them to a person. They can smell contempt. If you encounter cops, make good eye contact and speak in full sentences, this will convince them you can hire a lawyer if you need to (Never say lawyer in their presence unless they are arresting you, or it will anger them. Not wearing a shirt also attracts police.
One other thing, you don't have any change. Read it aloud I DON'T HAVE ANY CHANGE, SORRY MAN. You can't break a 10 either. In fact, you can't count and are suspicious of strangers. Anyone who asks you to break a bill has pegged you for a fool. People who actually need to make change walk into an Amoco station and buy a pack of gum, or better yet, a 40m ouncer.
One other thing. If anyone approaches you, and is stuck, their family member in the car, needing to get to the hospital, but out of gas, you only speak Czech. Or Tongan. Maybe Afrikaans. This person is a con artist and there is no reasoning with them. Do not make any attempt to help them because the help they need is to be truly in the same plight and to discover that their behavior has created a world where nobody can risk helping anyone else. Anyone who needs train fare to get out of the city to some clinic or shelter, same thing. They never know the actual fare, test this if you wish. They rarely know which train they need to take to get there either. There is some sport in fucking with these people, but that puts you inevitably into the category of people likely to get stabbed.
The human drama of urban existence is absolutely free for the taking. Comcast will not charge you for it. I recommend spending time in any district where pushcart vendors routinely roam, especially if the signs are not in English (Daley has eliminated most of these, like the rats, since 1999. Douchebag.) Wear sunglasses, so that the woman with the infant over her shoulder band the cases of beer in her stroller does not notice you watching as she jaywalks across 4 lanes of heavy traffic. (Note to readers, except for gender, the stroller, and the jaywalking, I am now this person.)
This all brings me to the subject of diners. Diners are magical places.
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