Chris Noth by Ron Galotti

Sooo. Interview magazine is my latest obsession. Well, not obsession...preoccupation? I just read, finally, the June/July one celebrating Andy Warhol's 80th birthday (aside from, ya know, the fact that he's dead) and it was great. It had a lot I want to jot down notes about so I'm going to break it up. There was this short interview of Chris Noth (Mr. Big on Sex and the City) by the guy who inspired his SatC character, Ron Galotti. He's a former magazine publisher that once had a relationship with Candace Bushnell, the creator of SatC and the real-life Carrie Bradshaw. They had a lot to say on New York City, and I liked it.

RG: I miss on occasion, being smart, which New York provides--you know, that sensibility. But with the exclusion of that, I would say nothing else.
CN: Well, yeah. New York is pretty much commercialized to the point of no return...I came here as an actor in '78. It's a city for me to work in. But the excitement of New York was the varied and diverse eccentrics who were able to live there, and the different neighborhoods and the different kinds of places that they created. That's all been washed out...It's very suburban. The art scene really left, except in patches. It's all about a sort of a corporate sensibility, and it's squeezed out room for any other kind of sensibility--money talks, bullshit walks, I guess...I mean, I think we all have those stories of struggling in New York. But the fact of the matter is, we were able to do that. The city provided a cushion, so to speak, where we could struggle.
RG: Oh, no. None of us can do that anymore. Too expensive.
CN: What does that mean when you say that, though? That means that only certain kinds of people can be in the city. People pooh-pooh the idea that everything changes. But if you get so rarefied that you can't live in the city unless you're making a quarter-million dollars a year, then what does that mean?
RG: I don't think a quarter of a million is going to cut it!
CN: Hell. Shit.
...
RG: When I was a kid, we hitchhiked all over.
CN: Oh, Jesus Christ. I'd hitchhike to the Berkshires, across the country. It was a way of life... So when you say, "Well, you can't hitchhike anymore," what does that mean? It means it's a fearful environment where no one can trust to pick up a stranger, or a stranger can't trust to get in a car. I remember girls used to hitchhike. There's a great chapter [in On the Road] of Kerouac hitching south and west, and hopping trains, and experiencing life in America, and opening himself up to finding answers. That search I find lacking. That openness. Right now, we've got ourselves stuck in one thing, which is to make money as fast as we can--because it's hard to live in this world without it. Let's face it.

It's funny, because I was reading an article in Newsweek the other day by a recent college grad who lives with three or four other girls in the city, and she says it's completely feasible - you just have to realize that 1) you can't have that glamorous, high lifestyle that people kind of associate with living in New York, and 2) 80% of your paycheck is going to go to your rent. But, it's not impossible. I like that these guys, though, point out that it's not as easy as it once was, and even though it's possible, it's not the same. They make it seem like there's no room for that exploration, for residing in the city while searching and creating and experiencing. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to think they're right.

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