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
Tammy Ealom: When I’m in New York, I eat way too much Chinese food.
Dude: Did you go to Chinatown?
Tammy Ealom: No, just some place up the street. When you come from Denver, pretty much everything is good.
–Dressy Bessy show, Sin-e, Attorney & Stanton
Overheard by: Hobo Whisperer
