ETIQUETTE IS DEAD, IT'S ALL MAIN CHARACTER SYNDROME...

Welcome back to the pod! I’m Mike Dreyden Figueroa and this Unscripted and Unrehearsed, where I share my take on events of the day, things that I’ve seen, heard and experienced.

It seems, to me, like people have forgotten simple courtesies and basic etiquette. Single mindedness is prevalent. Main Character syndrome has taken people over.

I happen to come across Dontrell Britton’s posts on Instagram. His posts on how young men should carry themselves is a great resource. He said “using etiquette isn’t about being proper and shouldn’t be performative. It’s about being the person whose presence elevates every room one walks into”. That struck me.

Finding his post sparked a memory and a draft post I had saved but didn’t get around to posting. So, I dig it up so we can discuss and explore it, but first…

Reviewing the week. Taxes and Insurance. Winter to Spring to Winter! RFK comin for DD sugar! Bostonians sound off! arget Boycott Continues! More Perfect Union Pod predatory loans. Puerto Rico troubles and World Baseball Classic.

TOPIC 1: I blame quarantine!
TOPIC 2: Lessons we learned from…
TOPIC 3: The obvious shit!

NOW YOU TELL ME: Do you follow etiquette? How does it affect you when someone no etiquette/courtesy?  Do you even care… No judgements.

UNTIL NEXT TIME:
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Etiquette is dead. It's all main character syndrome. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the pod. I'm Mike Draden Figueroa, and this is Unscripted and Unrehearsed, where I give you my take on things that I've seen, experienced car horns, uh, and heard over the past week. Give me my take on it. Um, listen, it seems to me like uh etiquette is really dead. It's doesn't exist. Simple the simple courtesies of life just have evaporated. Um single-mindedness is prevalent. Uh main character syndrome is taking over people. And it's it's making life a little difficult. In my opinion. Allegedly. No, all drugs aside, um, it it is a problem. And having good etiquette and and um being courteous goes a long way. I know I have my moments where I have uh, you know, I'm short, I'm short fused, or but I always seem to not go out of my way to be rude unless people are rude to me. Uh and this all came to light and as a as a topic of discussion when I came across um uh Instagram post by Dontrell Britton. Uh his posts on how young men should carry themselves as a real resource. Um, and he says using etiquette isn't about being proper and it shouldn't be performative, it's about being the person whose presence elevates every room you walk into or one walks into. And I like that, and that struck me, and I wanted to talk about that. Um again, not main character syndrome, but because of your etiquette and common courtesy, you elevate the room and you infect other people and how they carry themselves, I think. Um so finding this post sparked a memory of a draft post that I wanted to work on a long time ago uh on theater etiquette. Because some of the shit people do when they come to the theater is baffling. Um but I couldn't find all those notes because I really wanted to include it here. But I'll do some out of memory. We'll we'll we'll explore that. But first, I did my taxes this week. Um, I procrastinated a lot and I updated my or renewed my insurance. So this is where I made extra work for myself. And because I'm not obsessive about getting it done right away, because before I would have been, I gotta get it done. Um I did my insurance first, and based on the new laws and what they didn't what they didn't do in Washington, um, I would have been paying like$300 and some odd dollars a month for uh decent insurance with dental coverage for at least cleanings and you know all the major stuff that needs to happen. Um seeing my doctor. Copais would have gone up a little bit and prescriptions would have gone up a little bit, but it's not more than what I was doing now, which was kind of cool. Um of course, for you know, your uh prep uh doctor visits and all of that, the majority of that's covered by the well, New York State to begin with. Uh so I wasn't too worried about that. But I was like, oh, trying to I you had to see me trying to manage my budget on how am I gonna pull out$90 something dollars a week to put aside for insurance. Um and it was gonna be, I was I was not gonna be able to do it. So uh Monday, last Monday, I uh filed my taxes and I realized I made less, and you know, mostly because I was off in the summer. Um, I made less than I thought I made, and uh I misread my W-2s when I was doing the uh the insurance updates. So I called my insurance and we refiled it, and it brought me back down to what I have now, which is great. I have no monthly premium, I have uh some copies. Um uh I think it's like 25 bucks if I want to see a specialist or whatever. Um cleanings are covered, dental cleanings are covered, um and whatever stuff like that is. Um preventative health is covered. And um, yeah, it was quite an interesting experience. I I was not, I don't know if it's because of my meds, but I was not panicking the way I normally would panic on getting it done and how it would turn out. I thought I would be like so fucked that I'd be like, you know, until I got over it. But um, yeah. And I had until the 31st to like get this done because if I hadn't filed my taxes, you know, in time, I would have been stuck in a because the open registration time is still now. So I did it. I hope you guys are having better luck with your insurance because I know how fucking crazy it is. Um listen, uh, this spring, this winter to spring to winter again is bullshit. I mean, uh this week we had like 70 almost 70 degree weather, people were out. It was there's a meme going around. I hope you I hope you get to see it. It shows Washington Square Park at during the blizzard like two weeks ago, and how it looked. And then it's like flash forward two weeks later, people in shorts, sunbathing, the pets are running around. It's it was bananas, and I'm like, oh my god. We just don't have seasons in New York anymore. It's just like from hot to cold to frigid to brick to cold to brick, and then hot. I don't know. It's it's fucking crazy. It's part of why I I don't know if you can hear I really am under the weather. I don't feel so great. I've been coughing, I've sneezing, my allergies are fucking with me, I've got to chill. It's like my my system is is wigging the fuck out. And I'm very I'm very colorful in my language this morning. I don't know why. Oh wait, I know why. I need some of this. Coffee. I don't normally um curse. I don't know. My Brooklyn is showing today. Um so yeah, I was walking Max the other day, and I had him in just his uh spring sweater, and I was wearing uh just a hoodie, and there were kids in the park, and the screaming and the running around on the playground was so adorable and made me filled me with so much joy. And Max was chasing the squirrels and damn near pulling my arm out of his socket as usual. Um, and the jet what killed me was the gentrifiers and their short shorts and their string top, you know, showing all the goods, and I'm like, and all the old Spanish ladies looking at them like they'd what are you doing? You're half naked walking down the street and flip-flops, and it it's it's not for me. Um yeah, but and and people running in the park over here in Jey Hood Wright Park and laying out in the sun, and it was just beautiful. It was like a taste of what's to come, but it was a rude taste. Um, RFK is coming for your Duncan Donuts, yo. He believes that uh the sugar count in in your Duncans is um uh too much and it's unhealthy, and it has to stop. Uh, so I was listening to this is all from Pod Save America, and those guys make me laugh a lot because they're smart and they're funny and it's great. Uh, so the news hit, and this is what Bostonians had to say about this. Um, this one dude says, Is it not the promise and the beauty of the freedom we get in America to get however much fucking sugar you want in your coffee, in your Duncan coffee? And then another guy said, Um, the guy that snorted coke off a off a toilet. Wait, I can't I can't read a guy that snorted coke off a toilet is trying to take my Duncan and I'm going to let him Bobby coke Bobby baby. You must have done one too many lives. Uh then another person said, uh um uh RK sleep with one eye open, bitch. Listen, uh our our cousins from the north, you know, they started the revolution, remember? They sunk ships and blew them up. Fuck your tea. Oh my god, that was the funny shit. I'm walking Max laughing my ass off. People because my hoodies have covered my earphones, so people looking at me like okay. Um, which brings me to another um ridiculousness. That look for first of all, that the official target boycott is not over. It's not. Uh Pastor Jamal Bryant declares the boycott is over. It ain't. No, it didn't. It never stopped. His fast that he was preaching from his pulpit may have. His conversations with uh Target, the new CEO, and all that may have changed his view. Listen, and I got this from um this update from uh the Breakfast Club. Uh people were calling in and saying, This person doesn't speak for me. I am boycotting. The this other the three people who officially jumpstarted this new boycott, they're like, he don't speak for us. You know, your fast is your fast, and your congregation is your kind you don't speak for us. The boycott is still happening, and this and this is part of the the stupidity of it all. It's making him look bought off in my eyes. And uh there's I'm alleging this, and there is no proof that he was, but the way he's speaking now is like you had conversations like, what are you getting out of this now? Because your fast is over. The boycott still stands, and this is how tone deaf target is. They're at their mark mark mark market call, I believe, and this I I learned from um Prof. Markets, on the call, they were talking about you know things they're doing to revamp the stores, to uh pull in traffic. And the issues are the fact that they dumped the DEI program, the people of color products that they just stopped offering, uh, the way they went about it, the new, the way they broke into the news, and they were like, we don't care, are they're tone deaf. Dollars, people of color dollars are not coming back to Target. They're not. They're not. It doesn't matter how much remodeling you do, how fancy you make it, how target you want to go back to the way you used to be, it's not gonna happen because you fucked up and now you're finding out. You just don't do that. I mean, whatever's happening in the government right now is right now, I you know, we're all hopeful that things stay normal and when we have the elections out and the new comes in. Governments change in a normal world. Your business model, even if it evolves, cannot be disparaging to where the money is. People will go somewhere else. Do you do then I've talked to a lot of not a lot, I've talked to a few uh neighborhood stores here in Washington Heights. And I'm like, hey, by the way, how's the traffic in your store been? And a lot of them are like, oh wow, thanks for asking. It's been crazy here. Locals are supporting locals, the restaurants, the takeout stores, the delis. I go to my deli over here, there's 24 hours, it's always packed, and it's never been like that. But people are in there buying from them. Some of the stuff is a little overpriced and it's gourmet and all that, whatever, but it's packed, and it's never been like that. And I asked the the lady that that owns the place, I'm like, what's going on? She's like, I don't know, but it's great. You know, our business is up, and you know, I'm happy. So people are not doing the box chains anymore. And it's heartening. It really is. We're not coming back to Target. Um, on a more perfect union, I listen to so much stuff, and it just makes my like, hmm. Um so this was just by accident. Um, I think it was uh on Instagram or Facebook, I can't remember, but it was uh from a more perfect union. Um they were talking about how poor people or people with not the best of means, but they're they're managing, are being sucked into these predatory car loans uh through these two uh lending agencies. And it's um really putting them in these really messed up positions where one woman who got a car because she needed to take her kids to school and go to work, etc. Um, these these loans, pardon me, are are ballooning after so many, uh so many months or so many or after a year, what have you, um, and to a point where there it's not sustainable, you know, where you were a few hundred dollars a month or every every few months is cut turned into two or three thousand dollar payments. And I'm like, I don't ever know of a car loan that went up in the thousands. I I don't know anybody who even when I had my car back in in the late 80s, early 90s, well, it's a different time, I shouldn't compare those that time, but I mean I don't know anybody now who has a car note or their insurance is in the thousands. It's crazy. Um and it turns out that the cars that they were they were getting that these uh used car dealers or mostly used car dealers, because that's all these people could afford based on you know these attractive ad sales uh ad uh everywhere, they would get pulled into these uh inflated loans with a lot of fine print that you don't notice right away. And then it turns out the cars are lemons. And like a one month in this one woman said she needed to have her uh whole chassis was messed up. There was a huge crack that she didn't even know. Then it wasn't it was a crack, it became a huge crack. Uh this other woman uh had issues with the the system itself. Um and I'm like, how do it just reminds me of my days in real estate how people would right before the the the bubble, the 2000s bubble burst. I'm like, if you're doing the math and you're looking at the numbers, just because they're telling you you can afford this now does not mean you can afford this later. And how can you swindle somebody out of their money just to make a buck yourself? Just breaks my brain because it there's I'm j I guess I'm too too I have too much of a conscience. I don't know. I can't I can't do that to people, and I don't know how these people can do that. There are people out there who will do this, and it just I think that's why I ask a lot of questions too, because I'm like, if something doesn't sound right to me, I'm gonna keep going until either you break and you tell me the truth, or you're just gonna be like walk away from me because you can't take it. So I'm looking at my beard. I got my hair cut the other day and I'm I'm not happy with it, but my barber was out, so I went to the other guy. Uh anywho. Oh, do you remember? All right, so do you remember all those South Africans that were fleeing South Africa because of genocide and their farms were being invaded, and they were they're all moving back. Genocide where? You're not afraid for your life anymore. It's too tough in America. So it turns out, um, and this is from the humanists report, Mike Figueroa huge fan. Um, he was reporting that the the South Africans that were uh relocated here were given all these opportunities, you know, like uh resources for a year to get you on your feet and get your your citizenship acclimated and all that, given the red carpet treatment. Um and he said it outside, you know, you come from South Africa, you get the red carpet treatment. You come from Mexico, and they're, you know, they want to send you back to Venezuela, you know, stuff like that. Uh you say the the there's one repatriation website has said they've seen, and these are from people who have been here before this uh current uh uh immigration of South Africans, who've been here for years. I'm living in California, all over. The repatriation website to go back and get your citizenship back in South Africa has jumped 70%. And the main reason they say they're doing this is quality of life slash cost of living. Uh another reason, health insurance. Um another reason, state of our school systems if you're not rich, and uh the number one recent reason is the orange turd and the ice cube people all the all the stuff that's been in the news and what they've done in Wisconsin and and all that jazz. A lot of the places where these South Africans were moved to and relocated to is happening around them and they're freaking out. They're like, oh my god, this is And now they're leaving because apparently that's what they were fleeing over there. Genocide my ass. So I thought that was a cute admit. I don't know. I I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I have played with the idea of leaving. I've looked at different things and I just since I had to move and move into this apartment, I am I have no resources to do something like that. It's all, you know, emergency funds only. Um so but yeah, I th I thought about it. I'm like, where would I go? No, I don't want to go to Canada because you know I hate the fucking cold. Um, I would love to go to Puerto Rico, but the infrastructure there is crumbling if you're not, you know, a millionaire who's d deferring all your taxes because it's a tax haven and and just sucking the blood and resources out of the economy there. Which recently, to my next point in Puerto Rico, things are things are crazy. The economy there is really struggling hard. Um not notwithstanding uh recent events like the Bad Bunny residency and uh tourism up during that time, it really, really did help from what I'm to friends that I've talked to and other uh reporters that I follow and uh the the Senate, Puerto Rican Senate people that I follow and how they're sounding the alarm on a lot of uh stuff that um we're doing as well the United States is doing to the island as far as uh gentrification and land grabs and and uh destroying norms. Um and the displacement. It's it's it's crazy. And another issue that's really m got people very, very tense and nervous is all the military activity in the Caribbean that we're doing because you know, Venezuela, we're still there. You know, it's not in the news lately, but it's it's still going on. There's an embargo against Cuba again. They're not getting oil from Venezuela, so now that's another problem that nobody asks for. So yeah, it's uh it's it's become it's become hard again because what what I keep talking about is the fact that a lot of the public land on the island is uh for the people of Puerto Rico, public land. Just because you buy a house here and there's a beach there, that's not yours. You know, and to put up a fence and claim that it's yours, and if the realtor sold you that, or if anywhere in your document said that it's not true. That you you were you were lied to. Um and the fact that they're trying to demolish the rainforest there in Yunke. Not and when I say demolish, I mean um develop it. It's protected land, it's like the only um rainforest of its kind in this area outside of Brazil. Is that right? Yeah. It's treasured, you know, it's it's it's terrible. And uh the section of Puerto Rico that I was um thinking about last time I was talking about this, um Cabo Rojo, it's on the uh southwest part of the island. It's like where they want to redevelop everything. And it's already like one of the nicest. It's like if you're in New York, it's like the upper west side of Puerto Rico, or the upper east side of Puerto Rico, to some extent. You know, the nicer houses, the better infrastructure. It's you know on the west coast, you get the better lighting, all of that. Um it's it's kind of like that. Um and the property taxes, the property values are spiking beyond uh what people have come to expect. And I have friends who own houses there. I haven't talked to them lately about you know how things are going for them, as far as that goes, um, or if they're selling to move on or what have you. But um I say, listen, to the Puerto Rican diaspora, if you have a few dollars, invest in something, buy something there. There's plenty of apartments to buy, there's plenty of houses to buy, there's a lot of fixer-uppers. Invest that money. Do do the do the hard work to keep Puerto Rico Puerto Rico Puerto Rican because the more land we own, the more property we own, the harder it will be for them to just dismiss everything and and and uh just take it over the way they normally do. It'll be harder. I know there's a lot of facets to that entire conversation I just had, but um try it. I mean, I'm still hopeful to to work something out. Um and it's a process. One of the one of the difficulties in hurdles is the generational um uh what's the word I'm looking for? Um uh ownership. Because just because a property is there, it's owned by someone, and whether they passed on, there might be a relative somewhere else in the diaspora who is entitled. I think it's right of first refusal for the lack of a better term. Um or if they cannot be found, then there's a time frame in which they respond and then it's taken and then sold or what have you. So I know I have no relatives left in Puerto Rico if if my aunt is right, because my all my uncles have passed on. I think all my cousins have moved to the the lower 48. So people I've never met, but I would love to meet. Um, which brings me to this, and this oh my god, this is so cool. I was okay. Baseball is not just a great American pastime, and I was today years old when I found out about the um the uh uh my god, uh, the world baseball classic. I had no idea. I had no idea. And so I've been so up until I think the other day, Puerto Rico was undefeated, the Dominican Republic is still undefeated, and uh USA I think is has one loss. Um, but they're going. I would I happened to catch um the Puerto Rico versus Panama game. That, oh my god, they fucking the plays were amazing. They were amazing. Everybody really busted ass. There was this one play where the Panamania Panamanian player uh was like he had hit hit his run, uh, hit the ball, went to did his run to first base, and thought he was just gonna like mosey on down to the plate because he thought the ball was you know still in the outfield. So he got to the home base to get the runner out, and then the home base threw to what first base, and the guy just cut and he just walked over to him and just tapped him because he still hadn't stepped on the base. Oh my god, it was hilarious. It was it was the best. It was the best. No notes at all. That was great. Uh, and it's fun to see all these other countries playing. Canada really was great, Japan was great to watch, Italy was great to watch. Um, the US really um they were good. At first, I was like, I'm not I'm not rooting for the US, but you know, there's a bunch of Yankees. Well, Aaron Rodgers is on the on the on the team. I've just been following Puerto Rico because I'm like, I had no idea there was an official Puerto Rico baseball team, and I was wondering, you know, that PR hat, what that was. I thought it was just a novelty hat, but I realized that's their the baseball team hat. Um, which by the way, I went to buy some new baseball hats. All of the hats are there's no need to be that expensive. It's stupid. It really is stupid. I'm not spending$55 on a fucking baseball cap. This one was not$55. And I bought this at the Yankee shop in Times Square before they closed. Um all right, so that's pretty much the stuff that stood out for me this past week. But um talking about etiquette and and courtesy, I blame quarantine mostly because it was, I mean, for a year and a half-ish, mostly, you know, just over a year, you know, people people were on their own. They didn't need to be, didn't have to worry about other people's feelings or uh other people's thoughts or what have you. It was all about home workouts, it was you know, cooking at home, it was, you know, online everything. Uh socialization uh skills seemed to take a back burner to having how to conduct yourself in public or you know, being a model citizen, I suppose. Um there was just no need, and it's like the the internet the internet um internet anonymity seems to be carried over into the real world. It's like people think they can say or do whatever they want, and there's no repercussion, as they would do online, you know, type shit, whatever, you have a weird handle, nobody knows who you are. I've seen it happen, like you know, people say stuff and they just like don't expect a response, and then when you respond to them, they're like oh that's crazy. Coffee, it just hits. Um yeah, and there were no boundaries either. No boundaries, like uh on my way home yesterday, uh waiting for the subway. Train was approaching. I stepped forward to get ready to hand come in, and this woman, you know, it just slowed down. So she saw the door she wanted to get in on, and she just started following the door until you know it stopped because she wanted to get a seat. And you know, all of us standing there were just not, so she just pushed shut shoved past us, and nobody said anything to her. And I looked at her and I said, you know what, that was rude. You could have simply said, excuse me, I would have stepped aside. You didn't have to push me. And she's like, Oh. And you know what? She stood the whole ride home because there's nowhere to sit. So I kind of know if you get on the train and there's nowhere to sit, don't wait like where the doors are. If you want to get a seat and you just run for a seat, move in. Because when someone gets up, if you're lucky, it'll be the person sitting in front of you right in right in the seat. There you go. You got a seat. I've been on my feet for like five hours at that time. All of that pushing and shoving, she stood the whole ride, and someone got up in front of me, and I sat down, I looked right at her and smiled. That was petty, but hey, it's Pisces season. Why the fuck not? So, yeah, there are no boundaries. Stuff like that. And I think that a lot of our etiquette we learn from as men. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna reference this for men, I think, because I don't know, I it it just seems in general. Uh but most of the most of the everything I really learned about common courtesy and etiquette, I learned from my mother. Um some stuff I learned from my f from my stepfather mostly. Uh, but I but a lot from my mom. Um and it was more like it was more don't you fucking dare. Um how to use a fork and knife, you know, how to speak, all those, all those things. It was mostly from my mother. My stepfather had a a handle in that, hand in that. Um, but it was just simple things, you know, yes ma'am, thank you, no, thank you, things like that. Um but specific etiquette I learned, you know, sitting at a table and you know, lap napkin in your in your lap, um, you know, how to dress, what to how you know, taking your hat off when you enter somewhere, things like that. I learned I learned all that from soap operas. It's true. Uh this is gonna sound silly, but you know, watching Dynasty and the Colby's back in the 80s, uh, The Young and the Restless, um, as the world turns, um, all that stuff. It's like you you saw how these fake rich rich rich people on soap operas did things, and you thought, oh, that must be normal. So, and it just seemed because nobody ever corrected me when I, you know, used in something in etiquette. I don't know. I don't know if I'm making sense right now, but the a lot I learned from from watching that. Um, and people in restaurants too, you know, you see you see what they're doing and how they're eating, how they're speaking. You're not yelling at the table, you're just having a normal volume to your voice. Um, um, and sometimes some of my family uh being around them. It's not really a great a great uh example, but um there was a contrast as to what you did at home and how you carried yourself in the world. So it helped to solidify that. Oh, yeah, I can't do that outside. That that would not be not be right. Uh but I think it's time to revisit those things too, right? Um books on the basics, you know, how to dress, what not to wear in public. Um, I think. Because I mean, I don't know if this is sexist or what have you, but in general, you know, I know it may be 90 degrees outside, but I really don't want to see the outline of your crotch, you know, or you know, your your boobs are half falling out of your your string tank taw. It's it's a lot. It's a lot. Um I'm no by no means a prude, but I'm like really so you're in the street right now, but you're gonna go into a business somewhere. You're gonna buy something to drink or get something to eat, and then that this is how you dress, and some I don't know. I feel uncomfortable. I'm not judging. I'm not judging. Am I judging? I'm not judging. You know what it is? I want to touch it, but I can't, because we're in public. Okay, that's the truth, I think. I'm like, I don't want to stare because I like to stare. Is that the truth? Did I just analyze myself here? I don't know. I'm thinking it over. If you're listening to this, it was not dropped. I'm just like reconsidering what I just said. I I like it, but there's a time and place for everything. That's why I like the beach, the nude beach anyway. Alright, I digress. Um yes, we need to revisit, you know, there are books on the subject on great etiquette and common courtesies, um, especially how we treat each other, and letting go of the minor uh inconveniences. Uh, we just got to because it'll help you, I think, be more courteous. I know it I try not to let things bug me as much as I normally would. Um yeah, it just makes life easier, I suppose. Yeah. And then there's uh just the the basic shit. I mean, the obvious shit that you need to I like, I don't want to like tell you what to do and what not to do. It's just that these are the things that I'm I'm witnessing and observing and experiencing. And I think my biggest friggin' ripping peeve is people who fucking smoke on the subway. Do you believe you hear they they do this, they do this on the platform? They're smoking weed, smoking cigarettes. I get on the train, it's a bunch of kids just hanging out right before they they jump and run off the train, they're all smoking weed. The entire car smell is a cloud of smoke. Some are homeless, they light a cigarette, they just start smoking. And I'm like, oh my god. But what kills me the most is uh people, people who know better. MTA workers. Hey, MTA, if you're watching this or if you happen to see this, a lot of your workers, when they're switching shifts, again, they'll light a cigarette standing on a platform smoking. It's it's it's infuriating. Um, and there's never a cop around when you need when something like that goes down. There's a lot of cops around when something goes down and they're after the fact, then their presence is known, and then all of a sudden they're gone, there's no foot traffic, there's no no one on the beat, and you got you know all kinds of stuff going on, you know, loud music playing on the cars, people using their speakers. I mean, it's it's stuff like that where you're disrupting the peace of everyone else around you, and no matter how loud I've got my earbuds on, I can still hear what's going on around me, even with the noise cancellation, especially when you get other music is playing, you know. It's it's it's hard in a confined public space to have to deal with that. Um smoking on there in front of entrances to like build, like I had words with a neighbor who like she was sitting in my on the stoop smoking, like you there it it's clear in our lease. There's no smoking anywhere right here, in there, over there, nowhere near the building. You gotta be away from the building if you're a smoker. Okay, fine. Don't smoke in front of the building. I don't want to walk through that. I have neighbors on the first floor who they used to smoke weed right in the the courtyard. I'm like, I am all for your weed smoking. I don't want to smell it. Do it. I don't I love it. I d I s I have my little one-shotter there for my, you know, mental health. Uh, but hey, I there's other people in the world. Am I ranting? Am I complaining? I'm not I don't want to complain. I just I just think it could be better. In public areas too. Um, read the room, man. Like if you're if you're in the park and there's a bunch of people just chilling out, nobody's smoking, don't light up a fucking cigarette right near where the people are. Just go somewhere else. A lot of office buildings, too. They have big signs that say no smoking within 25 feet of this building. And so what happens is if everybody on the block has that sign up, you gotta go like across town on a whole other block to go smoke. So just quit smoking, quit smoking. It'll be better for you. You'd be happier. Um, blocking spaces, too. This is another uh etiquette thing. I like street corners, and and and tourists are mostly at at fault for this or are at are are culprits of this. Like they'll just stop right at this crosswalk. They just cross the street and they stop and they start looking at them like keep it moving. They get run over and and drowned by a wave of other people coming through. This is New York City. You cannot stop moving when you're on the street, especially crossing the street in Times Square or Harold Square or all of that. Just keep going. Step to the side, step to the side. Um, there's that doorways and sidewalks. Just walking four across on a New York City sidewalk, you're gonna get hurt. You're gonna get hurt. Because there's two lanes on the sidewalk, just like there are two lanes in the street. You're gonna get hurt. Uh throwing trash on the street. Oh, well, throwing trash on the street is you know a peeve. But picking up your dog shit. I don't know what happened this winter. We had two blizzards, everybody was taking their dogs out and just letting it melt in. Because you know, it's hot shit melts into the snow, it disappears under the white, and then all of a sudden here comes, you know, the snow melts, but shit don't. Pick up your dog shit. It was everywhere, it's still everywhere. I don't understand. I understand. Like when I take Max for a walk, I go up to the avenue over here, and then around the back. I usually let him decide which way we're gonna go. So we'll go up that way and cross Haven Avenue, and it's just from 172nd to 173rd, it's just dog shit everywhere. And I'm like, this is either one really sick dog or it has to go out a lot because it's all the same color. Um, or what? There's like multiple dogs out at one moment just filling up the block. It's crazy. Yeah. This is the obvious shit. Yeah. Excuse me. Nice. I feel like this is I mean, I think this is gonna be it for today. I don't feel like I covered a lot, but listen. Do you follow Conetiquette? Are you courteous? Do you poop out at parties? No, honestly, I I I you tell me, I want to know. Are you do how how much etiquette do you follow? And how courteous are you? That's alright. I mean, how does it affect you when someone does is is uncourteous? Rude or has no etiquette? Does it does it bother you, or do you feel like uh I don't give a shit? It's okay if you don't care. No judgment. Mike, I don't give a shit. I'm in my own space. Fuck them. That's fine. I like I'd I'd rather hear that too. If you made it this far, thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate you. Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 57 years old, and it would mean the world to me if you dropped a birthday cake emoji in the comments, please. We have 57 candles on top. Well, I don't know, it just shows three candles, but that would be nice. I appreciate it. Um, if you're listening, again, thank you. Uh please rank the five stars. It's great. It gets it gets it gets me up there. My uh I'll be honest with you. I looked at the stats the other day. Still the number one post was the one about me voting for mom donnie. It's still the outpaced all the other episodes so far. It's great on on Buzzsprout. I'm so so happy about that one. I don't know if it's because I the title I'm voting for the hot guy with the beard. He's still the hot guy with the beard. Um, so yeah, if you're listening, you know, five stars would be nice wherever you listen. I appreciate you. Um, if you're watching on YouTube, like, subscribe, and and the ring a dingy bell bells and all that jazz so you know when the next episode is ready and up and for you to consume. And of course, head over to uh Patreon for all the the cool stuff there. I don't think there's a bonus episode for this week. Um and I'm working on some stuff. Uh I think you guys are gonna like it so much. And and like I said before, I'm trying really hard to keep this ad free. So any support would be great. Um keep it, keep it coming and uh help me to produce more than add on all the stuff I want to add on, because you know, I think you guys would like it. A lot of traffic today. I don't know if you guys can hear that. I hope you guys can hear, because that means I gotta edit it out. If you don't hear any noise, that means I edit it out. Alright, everybody, have a great week. I love you all. Peace out.