Queer: New York is a gay-Jewish city; of course everybody complains!
–6 train
Overheard by: Secondhand Nose
Queer: New York is a gay-Jewish city; of course everybody complains!
–6 train
Overheard by: Secondhand Nose
Young black guy to another: You know, Obama is to politics what Richard Simmons is to exercise.
–PATH Train
Guy standing outside bar: And she was like, "What, like Gary Coleman?" and I'm like, "No, not like fucking Gary Coleman!"
–4th & 10th
Girl to boyfriend: Well, Tom Green only had one testicle. It's totally fine.
–E 11th St
Overheard by: j
Suit on cell: And I was like, "Fuck you, Ryan Cabrera"!
–Bedford & 6th St
Black girl on cell: I told you, we're like the Paris Hiltons of Liberia.
–Borders, Wall St
Overheard by: step
Guy (after taking picture with Jeremy Piven): Damn! I can't put this on MySpace. I'm wearing the same shirt I wore when I met Chazz Palminteri!
–Outside Barrymore Theatre
Overheard by: Pasta…Salad
Jamaican girl: You know what I think about a lot? I think I must have been white in my past life, but I must have done something really, really horrible to get stuck in this black body.
Boyfriend: Jeez, you do think about that a lot.
Jamaican girl: Oh, not 90 percent of the time. Just 10 percent.
–Subway to Archer Ave
Overheard by: Just a girl
Urban Man #1: Man, I can’t stand these black folks movin’ into our neighborhoods, man!
Urban Man #2: You’re black.
Urban Man #1: Pygmies an’ flapjacks!!
–Malcom X and MLK Blvds.
Man on cell: Yeah, so do you know that show Dancing with the Stars? They got the idea for it from the camera in my shower.
–6th Ave & 55th St
Overheard by: Alicia
Aging badass to lady friend: Yeah, I totally got escorted out of a Tom Petty concert for dancing in the aisles.
–17th St & 5th Ave
Overheard by: Original Badass
Black guy: Hey everybody! Stop what you're doing! There's two black guys about to dance on this train! That's something you don't see often!
–A Train
Flamboyant gay man to friend: You can't sashay in there. There's no room to sashay at all.
–Outside LGBT Community Center, during Fur Ball
Overheard by: pandarants
Drunk Asian girl: It's always time to dance in North Korea.
–2nd St & Ave B
German tourist #1: We went to the Jewish Heritage Museum yesterday and the security was crazy! The metal detector reacted to the button of my jeans, they didn’t let me carry my bag, and I had to hand in my jacket as well. They didn’t even do that when we toured the UN building!
German tourist #2: Maybe you were just racially profiled.
–Staten Island Ferry
Older man hugging younger man: Wassup, my nigga?
Younger man: Dad, cut it out. We’re white.
–Leonard & Lafayette St
Overheard by: Big Larry
Man: You look like the black Sigourney Weaver.
Woman: I’m not black.
Man: Are you Sigourney Weaver?
–Oasis coffee shop, Hunts Point
Overheard by: Jake Glazier
Black street dealer: Coke? Weed, my brotha?
Desi dude: I’m not black, I’m Indian, my nigga.
–St. Mark’s & 3rd
Overheard by: Innocent XXX
Belligerent white woman: Could you get of the way?
Black teen: I be trying!
Belligerent white woman: You should speak gramatically correctly!
Smartass: “I be trying” isn’t ungrammatical. It’s standard usage in African-American vernacular English.
Belligerent white woman: Oh, what would you know?
Smartass: I have a Ph.D. in linguistics from MIT.
–A train
