"This is where comedy works — where people are the most miserable," Doug Stanhope lamented as he walked the streets of New York City at the beginning of his special, No Refunds. Maybe it is the misery, dirt and exhaustion that comes with life in NYC that fosters great comedic voices; an optimist would say its the city's vibrancy, diversity, and bustling energy. Either way, it's impossible to deny that no place does comedy like New York. Though in the past, we've looked at the stellar comedy scenes of both Los Angeles and Austin, I'll faithfully defend New York as the greatest comedy city in the world.
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As a New Yorker, a fun part of watching New York-based shows such as Seinfeld and Friends is to see shots of the actual city in between scenes shot on an L.A. soundstage. With Louie, whose third season debuts on June 28th on FX, being almost entirely shot in New York, we get that experience in almost every scene. Below are some locations around the city that were used in the show’s first two seasons.
Jeez, the Onion's editorial staff is really leaving New York. Well, uh, five out of the sixteen of them are. This story has the details of who's staying (Joe Randazzo, Joe Garden, Baratunde Thurston) and who's going (Seth Riess, Will Tracy), as well as the story of the holdouts' failed efforts to find a buyer for the paper who would let them stay in New York. The move may eventually end up being a return to the paper's Midwestern roots, and a boost for the Chicago comedy scene, but right now tearing this staff apart seems like it's gotta result in a big loss of quality. [...]
This essay by Conan writer Todd Levin about the status obsession in LA is a fun, if slightly depressing, read. Here's what he has to say about parking on a studio lot:
It’s not just people; even the places in Los Angeles are designed with subtle status-checking devices. The studio “drive on” versus “walk on” is a classic example. Those invited to drive directly onto a studio lot are imbued with higher status, while the rest are forced to park across the street in a (filthy! disgusting!) parking structure, then exit said structure, cross the street (for everyone to see!) and walk through the studio to your meeting [...]
There is a lot of beautiful stuff packed into Genevieve Koski's Patton Oswalt interview at the A.V. Club, including Patton's complete and utter disdain for living in New York. "I would open the doors to the hotel in the lobby, and even the two doormen would look back, like, 'All right, dude, here it comes,' and just this wave of garbage air would pummel you," Patton says, describing his current three-month stint in the city. "It was like a shockwave of stink. I was almost excited to do it in the morning to see what new, horrible smell would come down there."
Despite smelling like the hot, wet [...]
