All I ever wanted to do was rid the world of zits and transform the New York City subway into the rainbow kingdom of my dreams. When I used to visit the Big Apple as a little Ziz, nobody was buying anything they saw on the train. I would see rotten ads for cigarettes with the F-word spray-painted over it. Dirty pieces of cardboard soaked in asbestos. Manilla posters warning people that gingivitis was coming for your kids. I vowed one day I would move to the city that never sleeps and clean up the subway like a monthly all-purpose chemical peel.
I can proudly say that after seven years of popping pimples and preventing blackheads, my dream became a reality.
RAINBOWS! LISTS! STARS WITH WORDS IN THEM! Everything you could want in a banner ad. This is the New York I always dreamed about. A New York for me. A New York I could call home. Looking up at this, I remember thinking, "How the hell could you live anywhere else?"
But somewhere down the line, subway ads went astray. Dazzling eye-grabbing spots fell out of favor only to be replaced by egg-sucking liberal jabs, Nazi propaganda and deals on breast augmentation. Nowadays, you can't get anywhere in NYC without being insulted, seduced or scared out of your daily moisturizer. The fight to be the boldest has turned our once great city into a big pile of eczema.
So I've decided to leave NYC. The city is broken and you people wouldn't know a good ad if it jumped up and gave you incurable rosacea. Sure, it feels like giving up. But I've come to terms with it and decided that I have nothing left to prove and I no longer recognize this place. I mean, just look at this bulls**t.
How is storing things liberal? More importantly, where are the rainbows?! Where's the candy falling from the sky? Where are people leaping up and down? Nowhere. And look at these poor bastards riding the train. Great complexions! But where are the smiles?
Look out, it's Adolf Hitler! Just kidding. But I'm serious!
I used to ride the rails and dream. It used to have dignity. It used to mean something. And now it all belongs to somebody named Bethany Mota.
But bottom line, I'm not bitter. I had my run and now it's time for a new generation. And if I'm being honest, I've spent so long listening to people tell me "THANK YOU, DR. ZIZMOR!" but I never took the time to thank the city that made me everything I am.
Stay Beautifully Clear, New York.
Dr. Jonathan Zizmor M.D.
212- 594-SKIN
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