Big white dyke: You know what we should do? We should call Hugh and all our slutty friends. They could all come over and get drunk, and we’d put on some rap.
Big black dyke: What?
Big white dyke: No, seriously, I was at my friends’ party and we put on a Biggie Smalls album. Fifteen minutes later it was the sleaziest party I’ve ever been to.
–Brooklyn bound Q
Overheard by: Benjamin
Little boy: How come every time you come around, my London, London Bridge…
Father: I told you, I don’t like that song. Stop singing it.
Little boy: …wanna go down, like London, London, London…
Father: If you don’t stop singing it, I’ll kill you.
Little boy: …wanna go down, like London, London, London…
Father: That’s it, I killed you. You’re dead. No one can see you now.
Little boy: I can’t be dead. I have to pee.
–Uptown 2 train
Overheard by: Ashwini
Girl #1: So what do you see in him?
Girl #2: Well, he sorta reminds me of Brian, from Family Guy. Y’know, the dog?
Girl #1: You can NOT date somebody on that basis!
Girl #2: But he’s adorable… I am NOT a pedophile!
–Morningside Heights
Girl: I just heard a Britney Spears cover. It was odd.
Guy: I like her cover of… I think it was a James Brown song.
Girl: "My Prerogative"?… oh, no, that’s Bobby Brown.
Guy: It was some brown person.
–57th & 8th
Guy #1: You know that Anton Webern’s Quartet for the End of Time was performed in a concentration camp? Crazy.
Guy #2: Yeah. He died real weird. I forget how. I think the Nazis shot him.
Total stranger: Actually he was shot by Allied soldiers. He was breaking curfew smoking a cigarette, and they mistook him for his brother-in-law, who was an alleged Nazi spy.
Guy #1: Oh, I see. Thanks.
Total stranger: Any other questions? I just ride this train all day waiting to answer questions on twentieth-century music composition. The next car has an expert on Chekhov, and the conductor studies philosophy.
Guy #1: So anyway, Slavic girls are pretty hot.
Guy #2: Yeah, for real.
–7 train
English girl: The Strokes could do anything and be hot.
Friend: Yeah.
English girl: Even, like… hmm, I was going to say even if they were having a gay orgy, but —
Friend: That would be hot anyway!
English girl: Yeah! So they’d still be hot even if they…
Friend: Were peeing.
–MAC, Spring St
Tween boy: Then Tom Cruise and Will Smith get married and have babies.
–74th & Amsterdam
Overheard by: Rachel
3 year old: Ahhh, my mouth is on fire! My mouth is on fire! Help me, Tom Cruise!
–89th & Broadway
Overheard by: Alex
Man to girlfriend: Shit, I like that Martha Stewart. She a gangsta in disguise.
–Kmart, Astor Place
Guy: He is like the L. Ron Hubbard of Teach for America.
–Lenny’s, 77th & 2nd
Overheard by: Rebecca
Crazy guy: You fuckers don’t deserve to be here! John Lennon died for peace and tolerance! Get the fuck out of here, queers! John died for peace and humanity!
— 72nd & Central Park West
Overheard by: emily
Chick on cell: Yeah, he wouldn’t watch my kid last night because he was hanging out with Wilmer Valderrama.
–1st Ave between 12th & 13th
Hobo: Betty Boop killed Martin Luther King!
–1 train
Overheard by: Harriet Vane
Teen girl: Wow! I just realized I haven’t been online all day!
–34th & 6th
Overheard by: Different Generation
Middle-aged woman: 50% of the population is allergic to wheat. They just don’t know it. It’s true– I read it on the internet.
–Port Authority
Guy: You should start a fight with her on MySpace.
–75th & Amsterdam
Guy: I’m pretty sure my cat has Down’s syndrome…You can read about it on my MySpace blog.
–Spice, Chelsea
Overheard by: DJR
Thug: MySpace is like crack, yo. I’m addicted to that shit.
–F train
Overheard by: Laurence Lau
Girl: Google is, like, totally taking over the world!
–Terminal 4, JFK
Overheard by: Jess McGins
Girl on cell: We need, like, a slutty web-designer friend we can bring in on this.
–Harlem
Overheard by: Buttons
Scruffy dude: I should just bring her a bunch of photos of my ex-girlfriend and slam them down and be like, “Find one, just one of these, that you’re hotter than.” I can’t believe she wouldn’t give me her e-mail address. She must be out of her mind. I mean, just give me a fake one. Like, something at hotmail.com. Anything!
–54th & 10th
Overheard by: Waiting for The Colbert Report
Guy wearing t-shirt that says “You are so off my buddy list”: So I am thinking about creating another website that’s Jedi-friendly.
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Palmala Handerson
White girl on cell: Wait, you’re watching BET? Well, do you feel black and/or entertained?
–Union Square
Overheard by: Casey
Black guy: So you see, white bitches just don’t understand that I have a big ass penis.
–St. Mark’s
Teenage black girl: See those buildings over there? That’s where I stay. Yeah, it’s nice and shit. I like it. Too many white people moved in, though. That’s why I’m KKK…Krazy Kracker Killa!
–Uptown 1 train
Overheard by: aq
Black guy to white girl: You’d better not stay in the rain too long; sugar melts!
–117th & 5th
Overheard by: robin b
JAP: It’s not like I don’t like his parties, I just don’t fit in. Hello! I’m white!
–8th St & 5th Ave
Black guy: Well I have black friends, but they just don’t understand. You know what I’m sayin’? Certain races, dog.
–LIRR
Overheard by: Jess McGins
Ghetto girl: What was these two white bitches doing in Harlem at 2:30 in the morning? You know how white they was? They so white they names was Ashley and Haley. That’s how white they was!
–Uptown 5 train
Midwestern tourist points to a black guy and says, to his tween daughter: You see that guy over there? You see how he’s a different color than you? You see that sometimes in big cities.
–Downtown 6 train
Overheard by: Gwen
Black girl to black friend: Yo, man, you’re acting like a black person.
–N train, Ditmars Blvd, Queens
Juicer: Oh, shit! We got customers in the store! We gotta stop acting so black!
–Jamba Juice, University Place
Frustrated woman, who has been trying in vain to hail a cab: What am I, black?
–21st & 6th
Black girl to black friend: We never gonna get a cab unless we start hangin’ with some white folks.
–Orchard & Houston
Overheard by: white folk
Teenage girl: But Bob Dylan is Jewish. That’s kind of black.
–Upper West Side
Black girl: Why we gotta be black all the time? Why can’t we be white for two minutes?
–Wendy’s, W 34th St
JAP: I hate being white!
–66th & Broadway
White teen girl: Now I know what it feels like to be a minority.
–Chinatown
White woman to black woman: I feel like I understand the black struggle because I feel I was black in a past life.
–Penn Station
Thug on cell: Black people like catfish also, nigga!
–110th & Broadway
Overheard by: Mappy and Chocolate
Ghetto girl at crosswalk: Ooh, lil’ white man tells me to walk, so I’m walkin’!
–Times Square
Overheard by: bully
Girl #1: He’s a hip-hop artist; he has to have an Asian girfriend.
Girl #2: He already has one.
Guy: If he’s a real hip-hop artist, he has to have two.
–Spring & Sullivan
Overheard by: inge
