TV New York vs. My New York

I moved to New York in 2002, at the height of the Carrie Bradshaw era. Sex and the City was in its fifth season, and everyone and their mothers—including me and mine—had been following Carrie and Co. all over Manhattan for the better part of four years, spellbound as much by her wild outfits as by her romantic trials and triumphs. I watched Carrie's exploits that year on a little TV in my dorm room, mere blocks from where she and her friends (Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, for the uninitiated few of you who've been in comas for the last 10 years) lived out every budding fashionista's fiercest fantasies, complete with cosmos, Manolos, and a seemingly endless parade of eligible bachelors. Geographically, Carrie and I were practically neighbors. But in every other respect, we occupied different worlds entirely. Still, the show gave New York an even higher profile than it had before, and anytime I went back to California for a visit, I'd invariably run into someone from my high school who'd excitedly inquire about my new life in the Big Apple, no doubt expecting cable-worthy stories of late nights at velvet-roped clubs and electric encounters with handsome strangers. I hated to shatter their illusions (of both the city and my social life), but my New York was—is—nothing like that.

My New York is whiskey, straight-up, not something pink and fruity in a martini glass. It's a flowershop/bar in Brooklyn where you can buy a beer and a bouquet for 10 bucks, then head downstairs to the basement for a little jazz played to bearded hipster types on wooden benches. It's the view from the Q train on the Manhattan Bridge. A pale-blue Victorian house on a tree-lined street in a quiet neighborhood. An all-night diner where the waitress calls you "honey" and the TV is always set to Seinfeld reruns or TBS's movie and a makeover. The New York Philharmonic in Central Park. A superhero supply store that sells capes and cans of immortality. Rush hour on the 4/5 to Grand Central.  A table for eight at Dinosaur BBQ. Kayaking on the Hudson. Sunbathing on the Great Lawn.

I'm not generally a stickler for realism—as evidenced both by my affection for shows like Lost and Chuck and by, well, everything I've written thus far on my blog—but I feel the need to set the record straight regarding a few things about this much-fabled city I call home. Sit back, readers: I'm about to lay some truth on you.

TV NY: Anyone can afford a really awesome apartment in a nice Manhattan neighborhood—even people who spend all their time in coffeehouses and regularly throw down hundreds of dollars for shoes. (See: Friends, Sex and the City)
MY NY: Remember Monica and Rachel's (and, later, Monica and Chandler's) super-huge Greenwich Village two-bedroom flat on Friends? It's the Sasquatch of Manhattan real estate. As in: It doesn't exist. And even if it does, no one on that show—except maybe Joey during that month he was rolling in Days of Our Lives dollars—could have paid the rent on it. I mean, did any of them acually work? I know they had "jobs," but I swear they spent, like, 12 hours a day at Central Perk. In my New York, people have to at least pretend to earn their paychecks. And don't even get me started on Carrie Bradshaw's pretty little Upper East Side abode—no once-a-week newspaper columnist could afford that place (even it is rent-controlled) while also trotting around town in a new pair of $500 stilettos every week, dressing head-to-toe in labels, and frequenting all the hottest clubs and restaurants night after night. This city is expensive. It's worth it, but it's expensive. And if you want to live in something bigger than a bathroom and still have a swanky Manhattan address, it's going to cost you a lot of money, a couple of limbs, and, depending on the neighborhood, maybe your first-born son, too. Trust me—I've looked.

TV NY: Brooklyn is where dreams go to die. And Queens is where they're buried. (See: Sex and the City, Ugly Betty, Gossip Girl)
MY NY: Contrary to popular belief, "New York City" does not refer just to Manhattan. There are five—as in, the number of fingers on your hand or the number of people who read my blog (hi, guys!)—boroughs under the NYC umbrella, and they're all unique and great and important in different ways. Brooklyn, my home for the last three years, is not Dante's Seventh Circle of Hell, as SATC's Miranda or GG's Blair might have you believe. It's actually quite lovely. We have houses. And yards. And Target. And though I haven't spent much time in Queens, I have enjoyed the little I've seen of it (meaning the two blocks between the subway and the Astoria beer garden). I love the steady buzz of life in Manhattan, but I also love being able to walk away from it every once in a while. The outer boroughs are great for that. And there are far fewer tourists blocking the sidewalks.

TV NY: All women are either high-powered man-eaters who care only about getting ahead (see: Sex and the City, Cashmere Mafia, Ugly Betty) or Park Avenue princesses who care only about getting a husband (see: Sex and the City, Gossip Girl).
MY NY: Um, some of us are entry-level man-eaters, thank you very much.

TV NY: Magazine editors are prime targets for scandal-hungry gossip columnists and rabid paparazzi. (See: Ugly Betty, Cashmere Mafia, Lipstick Jungle)
MY NY: The sad truth is that the only people who care about print journalism are the people (like me) who have or want a job in print journalism. Vogue EIC Anna Wintour is moderately intriguing to some of the general public, thanks mostly to The Devil Wears Prada and The September Issue, but not even she generates the kind of feverish buzz that surrounds Betty's Wilhelmina or Jungle's Nico. When editors and the like do pop up on TV or in print, it's usually because they're promoting something, not because they've been spotted canoodling with a younger man (Nico) or because they were shot by the illegitimate son of their dead lover's ex-wife (Willi). And there's certainly no juicy TMZ-like cable show devoted to exposing industry goings-on (à la Fashion Buzz with Suzuki St. Pierre)—if there were, I doubt it would be must-see TV for even die-hard tabloid junkies. Oh, and on a related note, no one cares who or what the rich private-school kids on the Upper East Side are doing on a day-to-day basis. I'm looking at you, Gossip Girl. You know you love me. XOXO

Spotted: Betty Suarez

My dad loves celebrity sightings. He's constantly on the lookout for familiar faces: actors, musicians, athletes, politicians, random rich people, etc. When we're out together in a city that has a high star-to-civilian ratio—like New York, where I live, or Malibu, where my not-so-little little brother lives—he inevitably spots someone he thinks he recognizes. And three out of five times I get off the plane in Los Angeles, he'll greet me with a hug, a hello, and a "Did you know *insert less-than-moderately well-known celebrity name here* was on your flight?" Usually it's an anchor from a local news show. Once, it was Charo. (Cuchi, cuchi!)

I've inherited a lot of my dad's quirks and habits—our shared stubbornness, in particular, drives the rest of my family crazy—but I've yet to develop his uncanny radar for famous people. One would think, based on my affinity for Us Weekly and my excessive TV viewing, that I'd be able to sense a star and his entourage from miles away. For the most part, though, I'm totally oblivious. I once walked alongside Freddie Prinze Jr. for 18 blocks before registering who he was. And that was back in the day when he was still a semi-regular fixture in all the cheesy rom-coms I hated to love or loved to hate or maybe just kind of hated, period. When I do recognize someone, I tend to think I know them from school or work or through mutual friends. I was convinced, for example, that I went to school with this guy I saw hanging out in Cobble Hill—to the point where I almost went up and asked him if he had taken metaphysics at Columbia with Professor Collins. It was only a week later, during an episode of 30 Rock, that I realized the guy in question was Jonathan, Jack Donaghy's hilariously overenthusiastic assistant.

My dad must be rubbing off on me slowly though, because a couple of weeks ago, I had a breakthrough. America Ferrera, a.k.a. Ugly Betty's Betty, was on my flight from New York to L.A.—and I knew who she was almost immediately. It probably helped that I had seen her on TV less than 24 hours earlier, but considering she looks nothing like her character in real life, I'm going to file this confidently under progress.

Every journalist who has ever profiled Ferrera has invariably remarked on her stunning, very un-Betty-like beauty. And she is, in fact, totally gorgeous. I wasn't surprised by that. I was surprised, however, by how genuinely excited I was to see her. I even texted my dad and brother (my dad for obvious reasons, my brother because he always alerts me of his frequent celebrity run-ins) to tell them we were sharing a plane.

Ugly Betty isn't officially one of My Top 10 Favorite (Scripted) Shows Still in Production, but it probably deserves to be. I enjoy it as much as I enjoy any of the other series on that list, and I actively look forward to each new episode. Plus, I see a little of myself in Betty. It feels like we've kind of led parallel lives these last few years, so I think of her as something of a kindred spirit. When I started my job—as an assistant at a national magazine, just like her—I was naïve, idealistic, inexperienced but eager to please, slightly awkward, and disproportionately excited about everything. I was basically Betty circa Season 1, minus the hideous poncho and braces (though I did wear a lovely metal grill for six years in high school and college). Now, after some time (and more than a few near missteps), we've both grown up and into new positions. Of course, my journey hasn't been quite as...colorful as hers—nobody at my office is a Wilhelmina-type, for one, and (spoiler alert) I've never helped a colleague kidnap the baby she bore as part of the editor-in-chief's evil plan to take over the company—but I'd like to think Betty and I would be allies at Mode. If, you know, she were real and not just a figment of someone else's imagination.

Yeah, I need to get out more.

My Top 10 Favorite (Scripted) Shows Still in Production

It's ridiculous, but picking 10 shows to feature in this list was actually really difficult. Turns out I watch a lot of TV. And though I obviously like everything I watch to some degree, a few shows are dearer to my heart than others. (You may notice that my Guilty Pleasure of the Week, Cougar Town, is not mentioned here. I still stand by what I said about the show before; I just wouldn't necessarily put it on my Must List.) So, here they are—my official Top 10 Favorite (Scripted) Shows Still in Production.

1) Dexter. I never thought I could love a killer, but Dex proved me wrong. He's now among my favorite television characters of all time. And this past season had one of the most compelling story arcs I've seen from any series ever. The writers on this show continually raise the stakes beyond anything I can even imagine.

2-3) Mad Men/Friday Night Lights. Both are so brilliantly acted and superbly written that I can't pick one over the other. I cherish Don Draper and Coach Taylor equally (but for very different reasons).

4) Lost. Lost used to be my No. 1 with a bullet, but somewhere in the middle of Season 3, I started to feel as if I was just always going to be, well, lost. Thankfully, the show found its footing once Lindelof and Cuse negotiated an end date with ABC.

5) 30 Rock. I love Tina Fey. I want to be Tina Fey. And 30 Rock is one of the smartest, funniest half hours on network TV today.

6) Chuck. If you have to ask why, you haven't been reading my blog.

7) Glee. Fun fact of the day: I'm a former show-choir nerd. Back in high school, I was the proud, sequin-wearing, jazz-hands-waving president of the Temple City Brighter Side Singers. Ergo, Glee appeals to my sense of nostalgia. But it's also just kind of awesome. And Jane Lynch is seriously excellent as Sue Sylvester. She deserves a post all her own.

8) How I Met Your Mother. The show seems to have veered from its original premise a bit, but it's still one of the most consistently entertaining comedies on television. Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel are pitch-perfect as Barney and Marshall, respectively.

9) The Office. I laugh out loud approximately once every two minutes while watching this show. It's amazing to me that the writers keep finding new ways for Steve Carell's Michael to act hilariously awkward and inappropriate.

10) Bones. I've loved David Boreanaz ever since his Buffy days, when he lived around the corner from my then-pregnant aunt and occasionally made small talk with her about the baby and the weather. But if I hadn't been a fan before, I definitely would have become one after watching Bones. Boreanaz is great as Booth, and the chemistry between him and Emily Deschanel is, for lack of a better word, explosive. The murder cases are generally interesting, too, but they're not why I watch the show.


Five Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
Greek
Ugly Betty
Gossip Girl
Californication
Modern Family