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By Posted Friday, May 1, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET

Despite the glorious weather--and it is glorious, if not two degrees too hot--truly New York at its most authentically On the Town photogenic (one can, for but a moment, almost forget the oppressive presence of the NBA Store, Coca-Cola store, Warner Bros. store, Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe, mega Gap, Armani Exchange, Banana Republic, etc., all within a four block area), no one is happy!
Chris, Deb, Kristen ... no one is having any fun. There are busloads of green kids getting off at the Port Authority terminal every day, desperate for the kinds of jobs these folks have: magazine editor, book editor, in film development. Kristen was wondering about career counseling, but I've always thought it was a crock. Questions set up around the dialectic "I adore foreclosing on, or failing that, setting fire to, orphanages" vs. "Nothing pleases me more than pressing flowers gathered in my provender basket."
Lately, New York resembles nothing so much as the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. This morning, the New York Times' "House & Home" section had an item about a new wallpaper from Scalamandré called the "Rogarshevsky Scroll," named after the family that occupied the building that now houses New York's Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The design is a faithful copy of the 14th layer of paper found on the walls. I'm sure the Rogarshevskys would be thrilled. It must have been a great solace to them all, when returning from their 14-hour workdays in some sweatshop, to think, "Piecework's a bitch, but this wallpaper ... timeless!" The paper is available for $84.75 per roll, to the trade. L'élégance Pogromoise est arrivée!
I also heard through the grapevine this morning that the editor of a major youth glossy, a man who packages precisely that kind of nouveau swinger, martinis and cigars, major schmuck Weltanschauung that we all hoped had disappeared a decade ago, has proposed teaming up his editorial staff, giving them all new VW bugs, and having them race across the country, like some Terry Thomas movie on testosterone. I could vomit.

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Met up with my friends Jeff and Nathaniel, the most beautiful couple in North America, to go to Fez on Lafayette Street, to an event called "Loser's Lounge." My friends Andy Richter and Sarah Thyre sang a duet (brilliantly), the Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra number "Some Velvet Morning." The entire evening seemed to be some sort of Nancy Sinatra Festschrift, as a matter of fact. Sarah was a psychedelic vision, resplendent in platinum fall, Pucci top, and paisley skirt. Much fun, laughs a-go-go.
Two girls came out of a croissant shop on Third Avenue as I was walking home. "My pimples were sooo big!" Loud and almost proud, certainly unabashed. I lost my heart to both of them, pustules and all.

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By Posted Friday, May 1, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET
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David Rakoff is a writer and actor living in New York. He works in the publishing industry.
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