[Breakfast: 'the favorite' scramblette from Toast]

In Sunday’s L.A. Times Calendar section, another writer, Shawn Hubler, tried to do a L.A./ N.Y. compare and contrast using Judith Regan’s bicoastal move as a guise. I thought the piece might be an interesting, breezy read. It started out with promise:

She’s not dull. She’s not shy. She sees the potential in porn stars and sluggers on steroids and murderers’ mistresses.

Then the story kills itself over and over again. There’s one more paragraph on the infamous book publisher and later on a quote from a friend (another New York transplant) stating that she thinks that Regan will like L.A. The rest of the piece is L.A. cliché fluff like the following quote:

The lame ‘LA-LA Land’ jokes, the smoking where it just isn’t OK, the needing to know where we all went to college, the being seduced by personal trainers. It’s an epidemic, and, people it doesn’t need to happen. Not with so many New Yorkers having gotten here first.

Blah, blah and more blah. Let’s get specific.

1.People throw around New York vs. L.A. when what they really mean is West L.A/Hollywood vs. Manhattan. And yes, there really is a big difference.

2. What does the writer mean by honing in on L.A. as the one place where everyone cares about where you went to college? If the writer is referring to it in a pretentious or judgmental manner, snobs are everywhere. The only people I have encountered in the past here who asked this question are Hollywood assistants. Note to said Hollywood assistants: No, I don’t care that you went to Harvard. Shouldn’t you be using your contacts and education to bypass that assistant job?

3. I never knew that L.A. cornered the market on rich and bored women having affairs with their personal trainers. (That’s tres passe’. Desperate L.A. women cheat with their hot Mexican gardeners, duh!)

The writer then goes on to quote Air America morning radio personality Marc Maron:

As a New Yorker, you’ll want to walk, but you’ll find after a few weeks of walking in Los Angeles that it works against you.

Maron’s wife, also a comedy writer and actress adds:

If you do get that car, read the owner’s manual.

No, really? How do you people work in this town with the stalest L.A. insights e-v-e-r? I’m sure there is at least one original comic out here that the writer could’ve quoted.

I’ll skip the boring how-to-get-around-L. A. quotes and ditto for the living-in-the-next-hip-area section. How do these relate to Judith Regan again?

However, Maron does make one somewhat accurate statement about pizza:

There’s no difference between the pizza in New York and Los Angeles.

The first time I went to New York City I promptly bought pizza because everyone knows the pizza is the best there. The pizza was gross. Yeah, NYC isn’t some magical place where the pizza is great everywhere. Like L.A., there are a handful of places that have amazing pizza. And… if L.A. pizza sucks so badly then why is there a California Pizza Kitchen in Manhattan?

Then, maybe trying to seem controversial by offending L.A. Jews, Maron goes on to state that it’s impossible to find a good deli in L.A. WTF? There is Brent’s in Northridge, Nate ‘n Al’s in Beverly Hills and Langer’s Deli downtown among others. Maron should get out more often.

The last part that really annoyed me was a section of quotes by a whiny 50-year-old lawyer, Rikki Klieman. Klieman can’t stand the fact that the entertainment industry folks dominate L.A’s Manhattanish restaurants, which means young, hot chicks flock there. Did I mention that Klieman is married to LAPD Chief Bill Bratton? Maybe she should have him arrest them or use his clout to get a private dining area.

Instead of a "Welcome to L.A." goodie basket for Judith Regan, this article mostly provided her with the names of some whiny New York transplants. I doubt that Regan will be calling any of them soon.