You'll Hate Central Park!

Central Park is evil.

Yea I said it. New York City's number 3 tourist attraction behind Times Square and the city's collective pretzel vendors, was designed, landscaped, and is preserved by Satan himself.

Is it stunningly beautiful in autumn? Sure. Is it a blast to chill in during the summer? Sure. Is there anything like it anywhere in Manhattan? Not even close. But, don't be fooled ladies and gentleman. Underneath its painting-esque foliage and sprawling grandiosity is unspeakable evil.

Most are naive to this evil, but I saw it head on today while half-marathoning. In fact, the only way to get a glimpse of it is to run around the park. It's a lot like the story of Faust. Mephistopheles in this case is the New York running community. Everybody talks about what a great course Central Park is for running and how all the elite athletes run there to train, and so on and so forth. They lure you in with these tales of instant greatness only to allow the park to slowly suck your soul when you run.

See, there are hills in this park that the most daring climber of Mt. Everest would shudder at. And these people expect you to run up them. Hogwash. It's all a ploy to strip you of your morality. The logic goes as such: You aspire for the glory of having raced in central park, you nearly lose use of your legs while running, knowing it's a lost cause during the race you pray to the park for mercy, the sky gets dark, you begin to smell evil (in Central Park this smell blends naturally with all of the horse droppings), and magically you're 21 grams lighter and flying up those hills like Charles Lindbergh. Want to know what just happened? You just made a deal with the devil and you didn't even know it. Sneaky.

Now my purpose here in this city is a dual one folks. Not only am I honing my filmmaking skills, I am also on a mission to reclaim my soul. I will be enlisting a band of followers as soon as I finish my film to exorcise Central Park and make it safe for runners and tourists alike.

Well... I may leave tourists to fend for themselves.

Ryan