(New York resident)

Illustration by Sue Mondt

I have a new boyfriend. He's freezing cold and mean and covered with garbage. He is the city that never sleeps. He is also the city that never bathes, that never apologizes, and never interferes if you're getting beaten by thugs. He's a big evil-smelling bastard with countless incurable problems, but he's so intelligent and culturally with-it ya gotta love the brute.

I have forsaken my Shellacked Lady, L.A., for this monster. I shall never look back.

My fab New York Agent dragged me to an HBO screening. An HBO screening in New York is no light item. It's at least as huge and obscenely expensive as anything any Hollywood film studio puts on to toot their completed-movie horn. We're talking thousands of shiny tuxedos and little black frocks teeming in the famous Rainbow Room penthouse in the clouds, with champagne boys every four feet and a huge table against the left wall covered with meat and tiny forks.

In attendance was a star of the movie, who was mysteriously devoid of fame remoras sucking the hem of his garment like they do in L.A. In L.A., the parties are all full of Ambition Junkies feverishly ass-kissing up to the Actor Star of the second, lavishing praises like margarine all over Its famous lapels. New York parties are full of people ignoring the big Face (who's only an actor) and getting on with the REAL story which is: How in the fuck did you do that better than I did? Who do you know that I don't know? And what the hell's your secret anyway? Give it to me give it to me. Straight for the hidden power jugular.

*(Actual NYC ad campaign slogan -- on T-shirts, bumperstickers, etc.)

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