My 12 X 6 of Pure Hell...

There was an art exhibit a few years back where a guy advertised a "Studio Apartment" for rent in New York City.  It's price:  $400 dollars.  It's dimensions:  8 feet by 4 feet - the approximate dimensions of a casket.  He got thousands of calls.

"Hey, Roomie...?!"

The exhibit was the constant looping of all the crazy New Yorkers looking for their own affordable little slice of Heaven... I remember the exhibit - it was the answering machine on a small coffee table inside a plaster boarded rectangle with the same dimensions as what was advertised...

"Ha-Ha" We Angelenos all laughed at those silly New Yorkers - how funny their desperation was.... Out in California: we have an overabundance of space, sunshine and false humility.  Those poor New Yorkers all desperately clumped together like so many lobsters in a pot of boiling water - desperately trying to crawl over each other's dead carcasses to get out.

                              I'm not laughing anymore

Last month, I was cast in a play that heads to New York - great play, great cast, great theater - a summer in Manhattan while my wife and kids spend their sun-laced days in upstate New York - couldn't be better.... right?

Wrong.

In the last two weeks, I have made 63,458 phone calls, emails, and website visits in the hopes of finding a decent space that isn't much bigger than an Art exhibit.   Check out this great spot on AirBnB:

 $90 bucks for this blow up mattress in the kitchen....Sweet, right?!?!?    This was not what Frank Sinatra had in mind when he sang, "NY, NY"....

I tried to contact the lady renting it to ask her, "What the hell are you thinking?!"  But, unfortunately, someone beat me to the punch and the place was already rented.     $90 dollars for a air mattress in a kitchen.... Start Spreading the News...     I can almost hear Frank Sinatra warming up, right, now....

Alan Aymie is an award-winning playwright, actor & performer.  He can currently be seen in the critically-acclaimed, "A Child Left Behind".  This summer he will be found on various NY street corners singing for loose change from his cardboard box.