I recently spent twelve days in New York, the city where I was born, attending a family memorial and doing research for several writing projects. This is the first of several essays I am writing to help me understand what those days meant to me.

Dear Mayor of New York New York,

A quick story. The last time I drove in New York was when my mother died back in 2015, and we rented a car for a day or so. That was ten years ago. So I’m driving in the Bronx when I hear sirens. An ambulance is coming with lights flashing, siren blaring, screaming, Get the f@ck out of my way. Knowing California driving laws, I assumed I should pull over to the side of the road to let the ambulance pass. Apparently, the driving rules in New York are different. No one else pulled over. The other drivers continued their course. It was a lesson learned. To this day, my family laughs about it, reminding me that New York’s driving rules are often made to be broken or ignored.

Fast forward to 2025, and I can honestly tell you; you have a problem. It then became my problem. To probably no one’s surprise, drivers in New York are aggressive, irritable, spiteful, reckless, dismissive, and unabashedly selfish (wow, I should have felt right at home considering freeway driving in Los Angeles in Cool Driving). Twelve days of driving crazy on narrow highways (compared to us, have you ever driven on Orange County’s ten lane freeways?), narrow one way streets with double parked cars, sudden U-turns in the middle of Westchester Avenue under the El train, I quickly realized that this city of yours (it was once mine a very long time again), this majestic BIG and I mean BIG city, an urban metropolis where everyone the world over (including me) comes to experience too much stimulation, titillation, arousal, inspiration (hence, my writing these New York New York essays) and damn too much provocation for one driver (that’s me) to absorb. Seriously, have you ever entertained the proposal to ban driving crazy in New York, where the damn

GPS, A Quaint Technology. When it works. 
It seems that in Manhattan, 
New York New York, 
if you happen to be using a 
Global Positioning System (
GPS for you non-science types) 
with your CarPlay app, 
the directions on the screen seem determined 
to have you drive into buildings,
into Central Park where there is no road, 
in circular routes 
(wait, haven’t I been here before), 
and why am I going west 
when I should be going east? 
I was convinced 
by the end of my twelve-day trip 
that GPS was determined 
to take me on the best route 
for a toll or that new fee when entering 
and exiting midtown Manhattan. 
But the best story is 
when I was taking my brother 
from the Bronx to the bottom of Brooklyn, 
not far from the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge 
and somehow, someway, 
I’m driving down the 278 
(Interstate 278 is primarily known 
as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway BQE. 
It also includes 
the Gowanus Expressway section 
in southern Brooklyn, 
before transitioning into the BQE) 
when suddenly the artificial voice 
breaks out in an alert 
Bear left, Bear left. 
But the sign says Williamsburg Bridge. 
When the hell did they move 
the Williamsburg Bridge 
so that you had to cross it 
from Brooklyn into Brooklyn 
instead of Brooklyn into Manhattan? 
So, I figured, they moved it and didn’t tell me. 
Damn if I didn’t finally find myself crossing 
from Brooklyn into, you guessed it, Manhattan. 
Well, was I fooled? 
Then, it’s a trip down 
the east side of Manhattan 
down to a tunnel (there’s a tunnel?) 
under the East River back into Brooklyn. 
Needless to say, I had no interest 
in the return to the Bronx 
taking me 90 minutes.
No, the return was through the same tunnel, 
up the west side of Manhattan 
away from the Bronx, 
up to the George Washington Bridge, 
where I had a small heart attack. 
I’m going to New Jersey to go to the Bronx? 
Thankfully, I turned east instead of west 
across the slash in the earth 
called the Cross Bronx Expressway 
to my sister’s and brother’s house 
in the Castle Hill section of the Bronx. 
I think I shaved at least 
five minutes on the return.

I imagine a city where everyone stays in their lane

But there's panic in lane two
while throttling my rental

a meager Corolla

up Second Avenue for the first time

middle of the afternoon
middle of the week
a business day

plenty of company
plenty of neighborhoods
plenty of cars, trucks, and buses

zigzagging

zigzagging

on a wide street

we’re all going in the same direction

twisting

meandering

serpentine

circuitous

driving in my lane

thought it was my lane

cars taxis pedestrians bikes

curvy

thought it was my lane

I think the people next to me
beside me
in front of me
behind me

they swore it was their lane too

I have to ask myself

there are lanes, aren’t there?

There are rules, right?

coiling

turning

bending

driving as if
 there are 
thousands of other drivers 
alongside them

refuse to double park 
and block narrow streets

don’t make sudden lane moves 
across three lanes of traffic

on a city street just 
so they can jump 
into a parking space

that they are convinced 
will be vacated in the next hour

thereby blocking one more lane

curling

tortuous

Driving Me Crazy

Parking on hell street. And don’t even talk about that parking in any of the boroughs of your magnificent city, we affectionately call New York, New York. It’s a battle for survival with signs warning you Park Here and Die. I love a challenge.

Twelve days of driving crazy, I gotta tell you, it charged me up. It was breathtaking, electrifying, exhilarating, invigorating, intoxicating, dare I say it, mind-bending, and mind-blowing.

I mean, here in L.A., cruising lazily in those same damn lanes at sixty (okay, seventy, seventy-five, eighty) miles an hour can be monotonous. Twelve days of driving crazy in New York marked by GPS directions that I faithfully followed, leading me to unfamiliar places, addresses that weren’t the ones I wanted, and loops that would make a circus acrobat proud, rushing through the gauntlet of clogged streets, while screaming into the ether, horn blaring, wishing that the cars, trucks, buses, bicyclists, jaywalking pedestrians would all just

damn, I felt alive.

Sincerely yours,

An expat who is unsure if he misses it all.

But thank you for the high.