Music Television and Bohemian Rhapsody

So yesterday Gabe and I met with VH1, only to be told that the Street Law Series was perhaps too edgy and/or controversial for VH1's conservative advertisers. This in itself was not a surprise. I backpedaled and promised to dumb it down as much as possible--at one point we were taking about The Fab Life of John Gotti--but sadly, no such luck. We were too street for VH1. So, the search for a home to the Street Law Series continues. Therefore, be warned. If you are a development producer, we have your email and we are on our way. You can run but you cannot hide. We have a proposal, and we are not afraid to use it.

Interestingly, the end of the day was as different as you could get from the start of the day. The evening was spent at a birthday party at my friend Laren's place, and enough cannot be said about the apartment. I know I have a pretty quirky sense of interior decorating--not everyone owns a phrenology head or collects wooden skulls or has a black velvet Elvis in the bathroom. But Laren and Paul's place was like a visual encyclopedia of quirkiness. Candelabras. Stuffed birds. Cut crystals. Little statues of deities. Half-drained jars of rare perfumes. Nothing, nothing was ordinary. There was no token Pottery Barn sofas, no trendy minimalist furniture, no kitschy retro-knockoffs. No television in sight, but there was a enormous Victrola. There was nothing that was purely utilitarian or carelessly placed. In every room I found myself marveling at the innumerable little things that were bought not because they were fashionable or because they'd been featured in some magazine, but because they were either genuinely beautiful, or genuinely appreciated. This tiny, once-ordinary Greenwich village apartment was like some dream antique shop, the kind filled with so many treasures it takes years to go through inventory, the kind where nothing gets sold because everything has sentimental value.

Well, the two main things blocking my path the same lovely retro-brothel environment are 1) Rocco, and 2)Ozzy. In my house, everything from the non-working vintage camera to the potted plants are taped down to the shelves, in a usually vain effort to save them from becoming cat-related casualties. (I do not have one picture frame that isn't made of broken glass and the stuffed peacock I dream of may, alas, never become a reality). The thing about being in such a beautiful place is that the conversation takes on a new tone. People don't talk at you, they ask questions-questions out of real curiosity, other than "what do you do?" And when you do ask, the answer is always hyphenated: actor-documentary filmmaker, painter-musician-writer, journalist-editor-would-be-entrepreuner. Nobody is making any deals, and if emails are exchanged it's probably for a drink that doesn't involve networking. All I did was admire the thrift store-gilt and the Diptyque candles and the mountains of books...and drink champagne and eat grapes and talk to fascinating people--creative people with real ideas who, breaking the stereotype, were resolutely unpretentious.

I guess it sounds very old-fashioned, but that was what I once daydreamed that New York nightlife would be like. Instead, I spend so much time in dim, neon-lined bars shouting over some J.Lo dancetrack about Why, No I Don't Miss Practicing Law, Why Do You Ask. Of course, don't get me wrong--I like me a club and I like me an evening spent in MotorCity doing kamikaze shots, just like any other upstanding young lady. But sometimes a girl needs the nostalgic, Belle Epoque literary-salon vibe too. It inspires creativity.

Now, if I could just figure out my ethical stance on getting that stuffed peacock...