I mean, have you been here?

Or here?

Or here?

I’m just saying…

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Ah, to be a metropolitan baby, idling the hours away in one’s stroller, jetting down the Manhattan subway while some strange weirdo takes your photo with his phone.

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Here’s a sign I like. It was either written for kids or by kids.

Or maybe just in the international language of pee pee.

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For the second consecutive year, I won the pool at Caprice’s Super Bowl party. I got the whole enchilada; halftime and the final score.

I’d like to thanks my friends, my fan, Eli Manning, and the random numbers that appeared on the squares where I placed my name.

Yours in victory,
J. Keith van Straaten

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Plan B.

The horses didn’t hold the people back. So naturally, the police are letting in cars. Just one lane, though. I mean, they don’t want anyone to get hurt.

As each car inches forward, they’re greeted and swallowed up by the crowd. It almost looks like each car is a player in the Pro Bowl, coming out of the tube after his introduction.

These drivers though are just regular folks who happened to be motoring down 7th Avenue at the time. Their reactions are mixed, as their suddenly greeted by unexpected cheering and attention.

All the cab drivers high five everyone, though meekly.

The women blush and hide their eyes, never rolling down their windows.

The men in SUVs assume we were all there waiting for them to arrive, and emit primal WOOOs and YEAAAHs, and turn right so they can come back around and do it again.

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The Royal New York Mounted Police have shifted tactics from monitoring the crowds to moving them. The horses are now mixing in and attempting to part the blue sea of Giants celebrants back to the sidewalks.

The will of the crowds keeps spilling to the streets. It really is like watching waves crash back down.

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The 5th time around the ticker, I finally got the shot.

The square continues to fill up. It reminds me of one of the things that LA is lacking: a central gathering place.

Let’s say LA ever got a pro football franchise. Where would the people there go to celebrate its championship? Or its existence? There’s no place in LA that can even accommodate more than a couple hundred thousand people, let alone be able to communicate with them, direct their attention to a giant screen/dropping ball/boarding area.

I’m just saying; it’s nice to be with people sometimes.

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Things are getting nuttier here. The cops just shut down traffic access to 7th avenue between 43rd & 44th, as Times Square is swelling with people. There is NYPD on horseback keeping things in check, but still, revelry. Lots of honking and cheering. I pray it stays positive.

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There’s no place like New York when it comes to a shared experience among citizens. My favorite thing to share with people here is revelry. Giving me money and Raisinettes is a close second.

The Giants just won the Super Bowl and people are out in the streets. There is hooting and hollering and it seems genuinely gleeful and celebratory. Buses and garbage trucks are honking their impossibly-loud horns, and as I approach Times Square, I am becoming enveloped in a cacophony of noise and cheers and sirens that seems only partly infused by an affinity for alcohol and a distaste for Boston.

People are happy. Not end-of-Ghostbusters II happy, but really happy and you know it clap your hands happy. And here’s a place where you CAN clap your hands and you CAN stomp your feet and honk your horns and scream and shout.

And I can’t help but think how much this city deserves it. Sure, it has New Year’s every year. But since 9/11, there’s been no citywide accomplishment to celebrate… Certainly nothing of this national magnitude with international attention and with such an unexpected and satisfying outcome.

Yes it was millionaires we’ll never meet playing a game many don’t fully understand, but they played it against a “perfect” team in a gritty, hard-nosed, never-quit way, right up until literally the last second.

A firetruck just drove by on 42nd street. Its lights were flashing. Its horn was honking. But there was no emergency. The mean in their reflective jackets were waving their arms in victory.

This wasn’t just a football game. This wasn’t just a win.

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Or maybe ON the Academy Awards, at least.

Make sure to check out my take on Oscar-related stuff at Yahoo! Movies. It’s rarely guarded by a cat.

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