An Open Letter.

Dear Residents of Levittown / Hicksville / Bethpage / Westbury / Wantagh / Long Island in general:

On behalf of all runners / joggers / speed walkers / old people walkers, I request that you do the following, to make the lives of those of us who are trying to improve our lives through fitness just a little bit more enjoyable...

1. Keep your fu*king dogs inside your house after sunset. Often times while running, I am sort of in my own world, not really paying attention to my surroundings.. just running. So you can imagine what it may be like while running down a street, just minding your own business, when a 240 pound mutt comes charging at you from inside of a fenced yard. It's enough of a scare to make you skip around and look like a Nancy boy.

2. Keep the lids on your fu*king garbage. I have found that the absolute worst night to go for a run on Long Island is Thursday Nights. Why? Because apparently every single township has some kind of garbage or recycling pick up on Friday morning. So every single person on this Island has their garbage out, and being the mass consumers that we are, there is never enough room in 2 garbage pails for all our shit, so of course there is an overflow garbage just sitting on curbs and pails overloaded. Mix this with the extreme heat humidity of a Long Island August, and the whole town is literally covered with a nasty stench. If I wanted to go for a 12 mile run with the constant smell of old gross garbage in my nostrils, I would just run from Staten Island to New Jersey.

3. Chill with the fu*king light sensors. Just tonight, I was running down Spindle Road, and I was approaching the last 800 meters of a 15 mile run. You know, sprinting time. I was in the street, away from anyone's personal property, and I was just switching my iPod to my power song (Let's go Crazy by Refused). As I was about to being my sprint to the finish, some idiot house's light sensor goes off, and the next thing I know theres a 40,000 watt light shining on me. I'm man enough to admit that I acted as if I saw the great Ghost of Lester Bangs, and I ran the fastest 800 meters of my life, which is cool, but my heart rate also rose to all time high.

4. Put your fu*king sprinklers on when your supposed to. Everyone knows that your supposed to water your lawn either early in the morning, or at night. It's better for the environment, conserves water, and supposedly its actually better for lawn. Coincidentally, it's also the time when most runners are out running their routes. And while some female runners are scared of getting wet, clydesdale's like myself who sweat a gallon a minute like the occasional sprinkler to run through and perhaps get a quick refill on water.


I expect these changes to be made quickly, Lawn Guyland.

Thank You

Sean