I don't need no fuckin' reason

I love New York. I always have, and I always will.

This week, New York Magazine gives us a whole list of reasons to love New York. But if you have to look for a reason, you're lame. You don't get it. You're a loser, or, more likely, what we used to call "Bridge and Tunnel". (OK, I know...Brooklyn doesn't count as B&T anymore.) Or from the Midwest, hoping to find more meaning to life than whatever kind of hick town you grew up in gave you.

But I don't need a reason. With the exception of high school, when my family moved to Jersey so we could have "a better life", I have always been from New York City. I am passionately from NY. I loved it as a child, in the 60s. I love it even though they experimented on us with "New Math" and I have never been able to multiply. I loved it in the late 70s, with the dark doorways, graffiti and skanky clubs. I loved it in the 80s, when fashion was everything and boomboxes ruled the subways. We all moved to the same beat, whether we liked it or not.
I got a new tattoo this week, which has nothing to do with that stupid article. While contemplating a potential move to LA, I wondered what I could have with me that would always be New York. This tattoo around my left ankle is the result. it was done by Myles Karr at Bowery Tattoo. It's the skyline as if it was drawn by Dr. Suess. It's exactly my New York. All you newbies and tourists, welcome to Paradise. There is a reason this is the Greatest Show on Earth - and you don't need a reason to define it.