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BY REB STEVENSON
Yes, I faked it.
What else is a proud girl to do when she can’t have the real thing?The other half wasn’t the issue – my lover had a notorious reputation for going all night. He knew how to work it both uptown and downtown, and let’s not overlook his own topography: a colossal erection you might just call “The Empire State Building.”
No, really. It was the Empire State Building.
The lover in question was none other than New York City itself. And I, a Canadian girl with a bank balance so deep in the sub zeros as to make a January day in Iqualuit seem tropical, was out of my league.
But like most females, I often have a compulsive urge to watch Sex and the City. Especially when there is an absence of both sex and city in my life.
So when I fantasize about Manhattan, I have been conditioned to envision Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte flitting about in frou frou frocks, sipping $20 cosmos and mounting men like it’s some kind of naked urban rodeo. And despite my cold, hard reality, I think: Yes! Yes! Yes! I want some.
The May 30 release of the Sex and the City movie will likely rekindle two debates:
A) Can the word “attractive” be used to describe Sarah Jessica Parker? (women: “what are you talking about? She’s stunning!” men: “I’ll tell
you what’s stunning: the fact that I’m getting more turned on by Mr. Big.”
B) Is that chic life for real? And if so, can I fake it on my anorexic budget?
I decided to put part B) to the test.
First things first: getting to the Big Apple. Schlepping myself to Pearson Airport only to fly Air Canada beside a commoner in a tatty Molson ball cap was out. Sex and the Suburbs – that just doesn’t sound right.
And every nuisance I’d come to expect at an airport – soul-destroying lineups, fidgety flyers, body cavity searches – was negated at the convenient Toronto Island hub. From check in to departure, the process was as smooth as Kim Cattrall’s bikini wax.
The piece de resistance was the lounge. Instead of gum encrusted utilitarian seating there were leather club chairs. In place of vending machines: free lattes, soft drinks and snacks. And we’re talking tamari almonds here (yes, I took the liberty of catering my future with a few extra packets). No-strings attached WiFi? Dah-ling, of course.
My Gucci-clad fellow passengers were earnestly chatting away on their BlackBerrys. Feeling exposed for the fraud that I was, I considered calling my own voicemail and audibly referring to “Donatella” but in the blink of an eye, it was boarding time.
Even the flight attendants were a cut above. In their retro dresses and pill box hats, the Porter crew was truly runway-ready.
Soon we were airborne, whisking past Toronto’s impressive skyline.
The only downside is that Porter doesn’t fly directly into New York. But you’ll forget all about the 40 minute shuttle bus from New Jersey into Manhattan once you’re deposited in Times Square, a.k.a. “the centre of the earth.”
Now, brush that trademark North of 49 humility aside: this is the perfect moment to have a little gloat - a snicker, even - as you drink in the swelling crowds, the pretzel vendors, the electrifying montage of screens. Welcome to the global headquarters of commercialism – hey, is that a Snickers ad? Told you so.
But to really embrace the city, Carrie-style, you can’t just stand and gawk. You need to be gawked AT. And share some air with the rich and famous.
Rumours that it takes months on a wait list to score Letterman tickets notwithstanding, I spontaneously ducked inside The Ed Sullivan Theatre (1697 Broadway), where a handful of tourists were signing up in the hopes of attending a same-day taping.
After jotting down a few details on a clipboard, I was ushered to a one-on-one interview with a twentysomething chap in a private room.
We exchanged friendly, elevator-style banter for approximately two minutes.
“Right, well it’s a lottery, so we’ll give you a call within the next two hours if you’re selected,” he said.
Speaking of luck, you are definitely out of it if you expect to walk in to a swanky snooze for peanuts. For a city that never sleeps, hotels are awfully expensive.
Online, I found a brilliant prospect: the Broadway Hotel and Hostel (230 W. 101 Street), which claimed to be New York’s first and only boutique hostel. Lumping together “boutique” and “hostel” seemed like the epitome of all oxymorons (from the makers of the five-star slaughterhouse!) but I was keen to give it a try. In addition to nice-looking private hotel rooms, which range from $80 to $229/ night, dorm rooms go for as little as $18/night.
The presence of a doorman got things off to a promising start.
Ditto for the lobby, which had zero trace of your typical hostel environment (posters for pub crawls, aroma of rotting shoes, token lecherous middle aged man loitering about).
The common area featured a brand new stainless steel kitchen, plasma TVs showing a continuous loop of movies and a generous bank of computers.
My expectations thus elevated, I ventured up to my room. Could it really be that hostels were maturing and acquiring some taste?
The scene that greeted me certainly did seem grown up - if you were a five year old at a sleep over. In which case: yay, bunk beds with plastic mattresses!
Just then, my phone rang. The Letterman ticket was mine - and free to boot.
Though it was a Monday, the show would air on Friday. Back at the theatre, we were given several pep talks. Apparently, being a living laugh track is a tremendous responsibility.
We were instructed to smile like the joker, never holler “whoo!” and abstain from screeching anything like “play me like you play the keyboard Paul!”
Also, we had to fake it.
“Even if what Dave says is only worth a minor chuckle…it’s the BEST JOKE YOU’VE EVER HEARD, got it?” asserted the warm-up dude, who was like the head counselor at Camp Letterman.
Inside, a crew of Ritalin-deprived employees made us clap along to music for a good 10 minutes before “Dave” finally emerged. From my third row aisle seat, I had a great view of the action. The guests were minor-leaguers Craig Ferguson and Ira Glass, but I daresay it felt elite to be part of a modern legend – if only for a fleeting moment.
High on the brush with fame, I floated back to the hostel.
“Oh. Hello.”
Just one other person had been assigned to my room. And it was an older man that looked like Benicio del Toro after a weeklong bender at Lindsay Lohan’s pad. Profound awkwardness was apparently also spending the night.
Sleepless, I stared into the dark from the top bunk. I could hear some kind of frantic clicking noise coming from his bed. It sounded like he might be playing a game on a cell phone, but my imagination ran wild.
“That’s it. No more hostels!” I thought to myself.
The next day, I hunted down some trendy threads. As Bloomingdales and Tiffany’s were pie-in-the-sky, I set my sights on digestive cookie-in-the-sky, namely: thrift.
The thing is: while thrift in our neck of the woods constitutes pleated jeans and Florida t-shirts with yellowed armpits, in Manhattan thrift might just be a pair of Manolo Blahniks in a Goodwill window on 2nd Ave. Seriously.
“Saw-ry ma’am, our manager accidentally took the window key home last night. Can’t get at them.”
Drat.
I fared better at Housing Works Thrift Shops, a network of seven stores across New York, where it’s not unusual to stumble upon real designer labels (none of this faux nonsense like Versachy or Vera Wang Chung), such as Stella McCartney shoes for $35 and Dolce and Gabbana heels for $50.
Another solid bet for fake fashionistas: the cluster of secondhand shops along Madison Ave, namely Michael’s (1041 Madison Ave) and La Boutique Resale (1045 Madison Ave), where abandoned Jimmy Choos and Manolos await adoption ($150-$200).
Also, I popped my head into designer consignment shop Ina (four locations, including one at 208 E. 73rd Street), which sold off the actual Sex and the City wardrobe. But one look at the prices on a Chloe Dress ($200) and what looked like a flak jacket from Prada ($200) made my bank account want to don armour.
If you’re of the mindset that athlete’s foot is athlete’s foot, no matter how regal the tootsies that formerly occupied those stilettos, try Loehmann’s (101 Seventh Ave). Occupying the former Barney’s building, this department store has excellent prices on new shoes and clothing.
Savvy sirens also flock to Century 21 (22 Cortlandt Street), which carries everything from Givenchy to Juicy at reduced rates. When I was there, bony models aplenty (one in a shredded t-shirt; no bra) preyed upon the racks. And with absolutely no reverence for the rest of us, they snatched up all the size zeros. Bitches!
It was time to walk the walk of Carrie and Co. Though the sun was still shining, I slipped into a Sapphire-blue dress ($50 from Loehmann’s) that was so low cut it exposed my diaphragm. Not that diaphragm, silly. I mean the contraceptive device.
And since the Sex girls are always well-heeled, I stepped into some scarlet shoes. Sadly, they bore a slightly trashier name than Blahnik: Jessica Simpson ($15 from the Goodwill in Gramercy).
Not accustomed to wearing mammogram-ready clothing, I felt self conscious as I did my test strut down Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village. At once I was underdressed and overdressed - and nobody else was sporting anything even remotely close to that ridiculous tutu Carrie wears in the opening credits.
But, as transvestites instinctively know, there is something transformative about slipping into a saucy number. As I walked along, I decided to purge my emotional wardrobe and wear some confidence, dammit.
Within a New York minute, the compliments started rolling in.
“Omigod, I love your dress!” piped up a girl from an outdoor patio.
Through a chain link fence, a basketball player asked: “can I have your autograph?”
(I told him I’d marry him if he could sink a basket from all the way across the court. He lobbed the ball – and nearly decapitated a teammate. It was so over.).
In Times Square, a gentleman offered to carry my bag. Another said: “a thousand people are going to tell you how sexy you look in that dress.”
All this without a shred of that pervert’s row creepiness you’d expect.
I found the bona fide fashionistas – including a seven foot tall model and a woman taking fashion cues from The Man in the Yellow Hat (Curious George) - in the Meat Packing district, the site of Samantha’s digs. But I still felt comparably magnificent in my $50 dress.
If this were a Carrie Bradshaw column, at this point she’d curl up on her bed in panties and type something profound like:
When it comes to owning our femininity, are we wearing the pants, or are too many pants wearing us down?
As for the answer, well, HBO can start paying me if they want me to wrap up this episode with a cute little metaphor and fade-out. But I must confess: the dress and the city did have chemistry.
The subway ride home and the dress: now that was a bad date.
As for activities, there are plenty of options for the budget-conscious babe. Many of the bars in and around Greenwich Village, for instance, advertise happy hour between 3 and 8pm, during which you can sip a cosmo for around $5.
And “faking it” took on a whole new meaning in the eating department. New York figures stay willowy with the aid of fast food joints like Better Burger (antibiotic and hormone free burgers on organic buns with oven-baked fries) and Tasti D-Lite (frozen desserts that weigh in at 80 calories a pop).
To top it off, I rocked a ratty, unflattering Carrie-inspired hairdo.
Fearing I was projecting more hooker than looker, I hobbled over to Magnolia Bakery (401 Bleeker Street), where Carrie and Miranda once noshed on cupcakes ($2.75 each, 401 Bleeker Street).
A young male stopped and gave me a double-take.
“You look like somebody famous,” he said, wracking his brains for the name.
“Elizabeth Berkeley!”
Now what was she in? Saved by the Bell. Oh yes, and Showgirls, a movie about…strippers.
Heck, it was good enough. If I’d convinced just one guy that I legitimately belonged amongst the ranks of the rich and famous then I’d won the game.
Sure, I faked it. But you know what, New York? It was good for me too, baby.
IF YOU GO
Porter Air: www.flyporter.com 38 flights per week between Toronto and Newark. Porter also flies between Ottawa and Toronto.
Broadway Hotel and Hostel: www.broadwayhotelnyc.com
Housing Works Thrift Shops: housingworksauctions.com - Seven locations around New York: Chelsea, Gramercy, Upper West Side, Upper East Side, West Village, Yorkville and Brooklyn.
Ina: www.inanyc.com - Four locations around New York: Noho, Soho, Nolita, Uptown. There is also a men’s store on Mott St.
The Late Show with David Letterman: Apply in advance online at: http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/show_info/tickets/
Recommended reading: a great book loaded with cheap shopping tips is Frommer’s Free & Dirt Cheap NYC ($13.67 at www.chapters.indigo.ca)
THIS STORY WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN
READ IT AT CANADA.COM HERE