I'm am Queens Boulevard (With bonus Theory of Life!)

I’ve just passed the two-year mark in New York, and every time I think I’ve gotten immune to being surprised, I’ll suddenly realize I just paid $9 for movie snacks or that I can say I walked past a giraffe on my way to work (thanks Today show producers!) and I feel like New York and I are back to square one.

And then there are the inexplicable nights you find yourself in Queens at 2 a.m. helping actors run lines for an indie short film. Yeah.

Queens and I have a relationship second only to Staten Island in “boroughs I keep my distance from.” Still though, congrats Queens for coming in fourth! (For the record: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island. In case you need to prioritize where to search when I inevitably go missing.)

Some guys in my screenwriting group were shooting their 30-page script in the back room of a diner under some heavily graffitied train tracks. Oh the glamour. I’m so there.

When instructed I moved props from one table to another, only to be told they should go to a third, then a fourth table. I bought a fish at a 99-cent store. I spelled things with clay. I was an extra reading Variety. (Bonus: Did you know the guy who did “Teeny Little Super Guy” from Sesame Street died? I’m sad, and working through my grief by singing the theme song. Everybody! “Teeny little super guy pops right up before your eyes. He’s no bigger than your thumb. “Watch out (something I can’t remember because I last heard the song in 1987). Here I come!”)

Yes, in short I was vital.

I also spent a fair bit o’ time helping run lines with two actors who were doing a hilarious scene about, uh…racial relations? Let’s just say that renting black people out sounds completely different coming from the mouth of a black guy v. a white girl. Happily I was not shot and didn’t even lose my edgy morning radio show with Wally & Slim Jim (plus Kip Springer with weather and traffic updates on the half hour!) (When did this blog turn into Family Guy?)

Where was I? Oh yeah, me not getting shot. Success all around. Plus, the two authors of the script are English, which makes them sound like they know what they’re doing. Even if one of them was leaving to go back to London about five hours after shooting wrapped and hadn’t finished packing.

Also, consider this my second installment of Theories on Life: I’m not going to like you if you're an American who says “cheers” when it’s not followed by clinking glasses and chugging. I’ve seen this in action enough times to know when an American uses cheers for “Thanks” or “Take care” nine times out of ten they are self-loathing posers who are unpleasant to be around.

Sure, we’d all like to run around saying chuff and snog and spelling realize all crazy-like with an “s”, but we shouldn’t.

I spent a whopping three months in London about five years ago, and while I was charmed by saying “gormless” for a stupid person, etc., I left it at the duty-free shop.

“Cheers” doesn’t make you sound charmingly, exotically jet-setting, it makes you sound like you’re imagining yourself as a mysterious guy with a black turtleneck and B.O. or you’ve read one too many Harry Potters.