Joan Jedell. Robert De Niro at the Women's Foundation gala

Everybody knows that driven, anxiety-laden type-A New Yorkers (um, is there any other kind?) love to vent about everything that gets in our way. So here are my top vents.
Joan Jedell. Robert De Niro at the Women’s Foundation gala
Traffic trauma: Thanks to Mayor Mike, navigating the city is like a cross-country road trip. You’ve gotta race to QUEENS just to come back and make a left turn down Fifth Avenue. Then signs direct you all the way west to come back east all the way to Third Avenue and then scramble through gridlock to get back to where you wanted to make that turn. How tempting to just make an illegal turn—the option I usually take! (Of course, there’s a cop at every corner to entrap drivers like me.) Hey Mike, Let’s get back to the way it was—why fix it when it wasn’t broken?!!
And forget all BIKES and monster TRUCKS— bikes tear down the wrong side of the streets, and you have to drive on sidewalks to avoid the trucks, which block streets to accommodate the bike lanes where there aren’t even any bikes! Yikes!
And Broadway is a complete traffic mess with people lounging on beach chairs clogging up traffic. If they want to lie out in the sun, they should take a hike and head to the countryside! This is a city, not a resort!!
Cab scams: Cabbies who claim their air-conditioning is busted just to save on gas or that their credit card processors don’t work just to avoid % charges should be forced to drive straight into the East River.
Parade paralysis: And speaking of traffic choke-up, every other week there seems to be a parade that strangles Manhattan. Let’s have ONE parade a year that combines them all—from Puerto Rican and Irish to Israeli, Greek, and gay—and how about in mid-August when every New Yorker is OUT OF HERE? NYC is for the unstoppable ... if you want to wave a flag or sit on a float, go to Mardi Gras. And if you want to have a LIFE, jet to the Hamptons, or better yet, move to Idaho!
Fashion police: Manhattan is the world’s style epicenter, so why has Midtown turned into a Midwestern mall—babes in tracksuits and sneakers or rags that look shredded by vandals. We need cops on the beat to remove all slobs on the Upper East Side between Fifth and Park Avenues—and evacuate them anywhere between First and Lex. Anyone on the tony avenues should show proof of designer labels on cloth- ing, bags, and shoes (sorry, only Jimmy Choos, Christian Louboutins, and Manolos allowed). Though designers should also take note: Please don’t make dresses or baubles that demand an extra pair of hands to either zip or clasp, so that if you’re sans boyfriend or hubby, you don’t have to ask your doorman to dress you!
And oh yeah, all hip-hoppers with pants down to their ankles should be deported to the outer boroughs. No one should have to witness one of them from BEHIND! OMG!!
Waiter wars: When you’re in the middle of a vital power lunch rap session and a server
sashays over to recite a half hour of house specials or ask, “Is everything okayyyy?” diners should be permitted to shoot on sight. I mean, if everything wasn’t OK, don’t ya think you’d hear from MEEEEEE?!!
Mad manners: Many New Yorkers may be proud of their bad manners, but some are just maddening: How about people who return your call when they know you’re out, or else have a compulsive repetition disorder—didn’t they hear themselves the first time they told you what invitations they’d lined up for the week? And what about when you pay somebody a compliment and they ask, “What?” You know damn well they only want to hear it AGAIN!
News junkies: New Yorkers at the top of their game need news 24/7 on TVs, laptops, iPads, and BlackBerries. WE don’t have time for giggling anchors—we need breaking headlines straight up. If I want to be entertained, I’ll turn on The Housewives just to see how dumb it is.
Note to some female anchors (you know who you are): Drop the chalkboard-screechy voices several octaves and talk like real pros à la Christiane Amanpour or Diane Sawyer. P.S. to Piers Morgan: Kindly stop interrupting guests while they answer your questions—just let them finish a single thought! You seem more interested in plotting your next question rather than listening to the answer to what you just asked. Maybe you’re just a little nervous hitting bigtime American TV?
And guys, you may need a testosterone fix of sports, but I don’t, so please just cram all sports news on ONE channel ONLY!
Aging overload? Enough with the endless TV shows picking on women for growing older naturally! Forget fret lines, hanging boobs, and sagging tummies. Let’s get aging MEN on Oprah and Dr. Phil to talk about their floppy privates and performance anxiety. (Remember the song “You’re So Vain”? Well, HE is!) If men were dissected for aging like women, that might put a stop to our over-the-top obsession with cosmetically reconstructed aging!
Kardashian overkill? Here a Kardashian, there a Kardashian, everywhere a Kardashian! Enough already!
All right, you’ve heard the vents ... now it’s party time!

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Joan Jedell appears on national and local TV.
Her photographs are syndicated worldwide.