Half of New York has seen one of Dan Smith's fliers. For almost 20 years, Smith and his homemade marketing campaign have adorned the walls of delis, laundromats, and just about every other small business in NYC. His message is simple; he will teach you guitar, and his grass-roots effort is earnest yet effective.

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So many fliers, you guys.

Granted, I don't think I've ever met a single person that has taken a guitar lesson with Smith, but obviously it's working since Dan the Guitar Man has upgraded to a website and a YouTube page. Also it's highly unlikely that a person would continue to persistently flier the city for 20 years if the fliers weren't working, unless he was crazy. This being NYC, of course, means insanity is a very distinct possibility.

But Smith isn't crazy. He's just a dude with a guitar who wants to teach you how to play. And that's a pretty welcoming kind of thing, you know? He's trying to make the city a better place through the magic of music, instead of trying to get on some reality competition show to become the next big star. Besides, once you get parodied on The Daily Show ...

Foreshadowing alert!

... you are a star, buddy.

The city's most famous dermatologist has been wallpapering the subways with ads since 1991, promising millions easy-financing options for Botox, chemical peels, or any other damn thing you can think to do to fix your broken face. Zizmor's message is one of hope that the poor commuting masses can afford the luxury of perfect skin, a dream that was once obtainable only by the type of people who lived in a Classic Six overlooking Central Park. You know, rich people who've probably never taken the subway and therefore have no idea who the hell Zizmor is.

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Or how much money they could be saving!

I always imagined Zizmor's office to be a bit like the DMV: desperate and lonely, only decorated with art that looks like a Lisa Frank folder, and with a cougarish receptionist dressed in the kind of nurse's outfit you see people wearing on Halloween. In other words, it would be the most glamorous place in the whole city and should be turned into the official welcome center immediately.

Jimmy is a living artifact of what New York's East Village, and St. Marks, used to be. He came to NYC when he was 14 and had the kind of fucked-up, fast-living lifestyle that one expects from a member of Motley Crue, but he managed to survive it and move into a life as a fashion icon. Sure, he seems like a crazy, aging punk-rocker (because he is), but the dude gets this city. In a 2011 interview with the Village Voice, Jimmy eloquently called NYC, "an Iggy city," because "it is the kind of city where you fall to your knees, you scrape them up, you stand up, and you keep walking." That's exactly the kind of honest information people should be getting when they visit New York City for the first time.