THE FUTURE DOES NOT COMPUTE

New York is well known for its plethora of curious and strange characters and this man is no exception. I present to you the Human carpet. I literally bumped onto ‘Georgio’ at a party in Brooklyn. It was a rusty and dirty auditorium annexed to what seemed to be a church or chapel. Hundreds of people exuberantly dressed as brides and grooms for the ‘Winkel and Balktick Wedding’ party. Underneath the bar, a strange figure laid wrapped under a carpet. He was wearing big black eye googles as to disguise his identity. He urged people to stand on him. Party goers had no other option but to do so if they wanted to order a drink as this man was clearly in their way. It quickly dawned on me this was the famous Human Carpet, a rumor and novelty amongst the nightlife of New York. I reached for my camera, the closest friend and snapped away:

The more people who step on the carpet, particularly if they are women in heels, the happier the man is. Some are timid, others are audacious. Some dance on the man. Some step on him while ordering their drinks, completely unaware that a live body is underfoot. Some just stand there, frozen, looking totally freaked out.

The New York Times has a great article on him, giving you a little insight on this strange man from Malta.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/fashion/14carpet.html?_r=1

You can also see the rest of my ‘Wedding of Winkle and Balktick’ party pictures here.

This shocking video shows the negligence at a Brooklyn’s hospital as doctors, nurses and guards walk by a dying woman and do nothing to help her.

According to the Daily News:

Green, 49, taken to the unit for “agitation,” keels over out of her chair at 5:32a.m., according to the time stamp on the video. She had been sitting about 3feet from an observation window. Two other patients were in the room.

Green is lying facedown on the floor, her legs splayed, when a security guard strolls by at 5:53 a.m., looks at her for about 20 seconds and then walks away.

She is writhing on the floor, thrashing her legs, about 6 a.m., when her medical chart contends she was “awake, up and about, went to the bathroom.”

Green rolls on her back at 6:04a.m. She stops moving at 6:08 a.m., but two minutes later a security guard pushed his chair into camera view.

He never gets out of the chair, but looks at Green and scoots away. A female patient who was in and out of the room finally brings a clinic staffer to check the woman and a crash cart is summoned.

How can we be world’s super power and yet have the worst health system. Anyone seen Sicko recently?

via Gothamist.