New York’s The Greatest! (If You Get Someone To Pay The Rent)

The title of this post is taken from LCD Soundsystem’s song “North Amer­i­can Scum”. You should click below to lis­ten while you con­tinue reading…

I’m for­tu­nate to have my job with The Art of Charm for many rea­sons, but one of my favorite is that it allows me to travel some­times. Like now, for instance. We are back in NYC for the month of June, tear­ing it up, and won­der­ing, “Why did we ever leave?”

And then, we remembered–after hav­ing spent our whole month’s bud­get in the first week of liv­ing here. “Oh yeah, it’s really expen­sive!” This isn’t all bad, though, because it will allow us to par­take in some­thing we’ve clearly been lack­ing since eat­ing health­ily in Los Ange­les: Sub­way Five Dol­lar Footlongs!

When I tell peo­ple that I live in Hol­ly­wood now, many of them are very inter­ested to hear about it. After they fin­ish rolling their eyes and pre­tend­ing to gag, they often ask “What’s dif­fer­ent between Los Ange­les and New York?”

Since I’ve fielded this ques­tion approx­i­mately twelve thou­sand times upon return­ing to NY, I’ve pre­pared a very suc­cinct answer: “Cars and sun­shine.” After I answer this ques­tion, I gen­er­ally like to take a long pause (long enough to make my con­ver­sa­tional part­ner ner­vously con­sider if they really want to con­tinue dis­cussing this sub­ject) and then I elaborate:

“In LA, every­one dri­ves every­where. Peo­ple think we’re crazy because we don’t have a car.” When I tell peo­ple that I walk places, they look at my feet with a stunned stare as if they’ve just been told that, “Yes, they can be used for walk­ing!”

Also, New York City (specif­i­cally Man­hat­tan) has almost zero sun­shine… unless you live in a high-rise build­ing, and very high up in it. This is prob­a­bly my least favorite part of NYC, and also why I was begin­ning to love Brook­lyn before I left. Really, what doesn’t Brook­lyn have going for it? Noto­ri­ous B.I.G., the Brook­lyn Brew­ery, awe­some late-night tacos, and sun­shine?!

So if you’re still won­der­ing what city is right for you, I’ll sum it up here: If you have or can afford a car, Los Ange­les might be right for you (unless you are super-pasty-white and have no desire to become a nice golden tan). If you like hav­ing dif­fer­ent sea­sons (that means rain and snow and legit­i­mately “holy-sh**-cold” weather) then you are insane. I mean, then you should live in New York.

Ulti­mately, I <3 NY. I’ll always see this as my home, and I could see myself liv­ing here in the future… but I’m also keep­ing Los Ange­les as my mis­tress. Sorry, NYC, it’s not you, it’s me. No, don’t cry! We can still be friends. And we’ll always have the sum­mer of 2010 to look back on.

Did I men­tion that I want to visit Buenos Aires, too?

(Dis­claimer: The Art of Charm will be back in NYC often, so say­ing we “left” isn’t com­pletely accu­rate, but it sounds bet­ter, so deal with it.)

Tagged as: nyc