It's New York City in the 1970s. You're putting yourself through college by driving a taxi in Manhattan late at night and into the early mornings. The downtown streets are teeming with the cultural essence of the times, and the ascetic is continually evolving. Art, music, youth, and the Downtown urban streetscape combine to establish a totally different scene than it was years before.
You've always loved everything New York City.
You then graduate college and continue your graduate education. But you get the conventional job this educational path has led you to. But, you continue to be beckoned by that downtown world. The world you still are so strongly drawn to. It intrigues you, and you can't ignore it.
You want to dive into it even more. You're determined to treat it as a 24/7/365 performance art experience.
That's when......
You suddenly go from a dull and tenured post in academia to the position of NYPD police officer. You can now experience New York City - the good, the bad, and the ugly, up close and personal.
You now have a front-row seat to the Greatest Show on Earth.
This drastic career move was met with disbelief by those who know you. You blew your friends off: "It's just a midlife crisis." They all said you might have become mentally unbalanced and questioned your judgment. You laughingly tell yourself they might be right.
But:
Your retort is with what some call your typical sarcastic tongue in cheek that this time invoked Oscar Levant, the famous 1940s pianist: "There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."
Then they realize it's you whom they are dealing with and "chill out."
So...
What does one get when an "artsy academic" with a weird sense of humor is also an NYPD cop motivated by a hidden sense of deeply held morals who decides to make the characters and streets of NYC his palette?
Police Officer Frankie Neptune, NYPD
