An Ode To The New York Post

Oh, how I do love you, New York Post.  Each day, in a new and different way, you find a reason for me to waste another 50 cents of my girlfriend’s loose change.  Let me celebrate you.

I’m a lifelong, die-hard Boston sports fan (born and raised in Newton).  I’ve also lived in New York City for 13 years.  When I first moved here just after college in the fall of 1995, the internet was still just a baby, pooping in its diapers and loading Geocities pages at 14.4 Mbps.  This meant no Globe or Herald online, no Dirtdogs… and no Redtube (Definitely NSFW).  These were dark, dark times, my friends.

There was one “international” magazine shop near my shitty temp job in Midtown that carried the daily Globe (only after 2pm), and they jacked the price up, but what else was I going to do, read the fucking New York Post?  NFW.  Each afternoon, I’d trudge across Park Avenue, pick up the Globe, throw out everything but the Arts and Sports sections, trudge back to my temp job, and head to the bathroom for about 40 minutes.  I wasn’t missed.  By the way, here’s something you probably already know: temping sucks.  It’s like committing suicide each day, but nobody ever finds your body.

After a few years, the Interweb’s balls dropped and we could all get the latest infuriating Shaughnessy column wherever we lived.  But by then, something weird had happened:  I’d fallen in love with the New York Post.  It changed in the spring of 1996.  Though I hadn’t yet become a loyal reader, I made a point back then of at least glancing each morning at the entertaining-yet-often-factually-incorrect front page.  I even decided to create a game for myself, where I would try and guess what the daily blaring headline would be.