Don’t Hate Me For Living in Brooklyn

From: Ben Karlin To: Elizabeth Wurtzel

I’m not sure you are going to get your handbag this way. Go for it! Just put it out there that you want one. Why beat around the bush?

Everything I want is vague and ill-defined. That goes for life goals too. I have no ability whatsoever to look into the future and conjure a picture of what my life will be – or even what I want it to be. Please read this in as un-angsty voice as possible. It does not make me nervous. Just a bitch to shop for.

I am working on a bunch of crap for HBO. Though that is not how I pitched it to them. I presented it in a manner that would make them think it is going to be quite good. I am writing a pilot about the world’s 237th richest man. We have another show, written by someone else, about a UFO alien death cult set in northern Wisconsin, and a third, loosely based on my book, which is a comedy-variety show built around the theme of failed relationships. As much as I loved working on a daily show, there is something about the promise and possibility of developing multiple ideas that thrills me more. Like, even though I ground myself down to a nub running multiple shows, the idea of having multiple shows is still thrilling. This inability to learn from past experience could be labeled either “boundless enthusiasm” or “fatal flaw.”

I really don’t want to get into a New York neighborhood apologia. In the 9 years I have been here I have lived in the West Village, Hell’s Kitchen, Greenpoint, Greenwich Village proper, off the Bowery in Noho, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. What does that say about me other than settle the fuck down? There were things I loved about each place, though I loved Hell’s Kitchen least. Right now, I do live in Brooklyn, ambivalently. Don’t hate me for it. Hate me for a number of other reasons, which I would be more than happy to elucidate herein.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a birkenstock wearer. Here, however, for the purposes of partial disclosure, are some things I have worn or done that embarrass me in retrospect, though I stop short of regret:

1. Wore an earring briefly in high school, and again in college
2. Goatee for about a week, also in college
3. Wore a bandana in that hippee-helmet kind of way, though at a summer camp, which makes it slightly less obnoxious.
4. Frequently wore white tube socks with sneakers and shorts while not engaging in athletic activity
5. Killed a man just to watch him die

One of those things actually does not embarrass me.

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