When the going gets tough, the tough do laundry. We have to do something, because it’s not a beach day. Last night, I wanted to watch the Knicks game, but only the part where the orange dumpling got booed. We missed that part and ended up watching another New York story, the Disney movie Miracle. I got my happy ending, cried, and all the red hat baddies went to the gulag. USA! After last night’s NYC basketball extravaganza, I found the following online:
You are only a real New Yorker if you grew up in the city sewers with your Italian-named brothers and were raised by a mutant Japanese rat and martial arts trained.
I messaged this to Dan, our Real New Yorker, who responded, “There’s so much ‘What makes you a Real New Yorker’ discourse because of that J Lo interview.” He followed it up with, my favorite version is still: “You have to find a spot, a bar, a restaurant, a café. Fall in love with that spot. Then it needs to close, you’re heartbroken and sad. A new place opens in the same location. At first, you’re upset about it. It just reminds you of the place you lost. Begrudgingly you decide to try it, eventually find you kinda like it. Finally, you love it. It becomes your new spot. And then it closes. And that is when you’re a real New Yorker.”
I later found the J Lo interview, part of Kareem Rahma’s Subway Takes series, where J Lo contends that you have to be born in NYC to be a Real New Yorker. Rahma even argues that much like Dan has that he was told that if you live in the city for ten years then you can call yourself a Real New Yorker, but J Lo was adamant. What does Native New Yorker Britt think?
