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Lying Liar #3-The Producers of Entourage: I am NOT Queens Boulevard
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 email Michael Z.
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The producers of the HBO original program, Entourage, aren’t from Queens. Mark Wahlberg is from Boston. Doug Ellin is from Merrick—that’s in Long Island. Close, but no cigar. Ari Emanuel, who the character Ari Gold is based on, is from Illinois.
There’s not a drop of outer borough in the Entourage lineage.
But the four main characters that comprise the show are all supposed to be childhood friends from Queens. To play on this fact, they film an independent movie about Queens, called, of all things, Queens Boulevard.
The movie ends when the actor who plays a movie star on TV, Adrien Griener, looks into the camera, and announces, that “I am Queens Boulevard.”
Even if he’s not.
Now I’m from Queens, for real. From Astoria. Been here my whole life when I wasn’t out traveling or going to school.
So, I am Queens Boulevard.
Except that I am NOT Queens Boulevard.
Queens Boulevard is the fake boulevard of Queens. Queens Boulevard is a congested driving nightmare, with confusing parts, and inconsiderate drivers--Queens Blvd is more Manhattan than Queens.
Being Queens is being ethnic, and there’s not a dot of ethnicity on Queens Blvd. It’s a faceless, bleak “highway of death.”
It may pass through ethnic parts of Queens, since it is in Queens, but it doesn’t capture the essence of Queens.
Queens Boulevard is a roadway, not a neighborhood. It's made of gas stations and malls, not bodegas and discount clothing shops.
If you want the essence of Queens in a boulevard, then go to Northern Blvd. Maybe Roosevelt. Certainly Astoria Blvd even has its moments. But to think that people in Queens have some sort of sentimental attachment to their eponymous boulevard, or that there’s some sort of endearing property to it, is a fallacy.
No one from Queens is Queens Boulevard because Queens Boulevard isn’t Queens.
A real movie about Queens would say, “I am a falafel,” or “You can call me captain gyro,” or “My empanadas are heavenly.”
A real movie about Queens takes place in a hookah bar.
It’s about fire escapes in the summer heat.
It’s about friends playing handball at the park.
The real movie about Queens is on the subway in the morning on the way to work. It’s the courthouse in Jamaica.
It’s Shea Stadium.
Soon, it’ll be CitiField.
Queens is Flushing Meadow Park and the Indian jewelry shops in Jackson Heights and the two airports and a row of single-family houses. It’s about the commute to the city and souvlaki stands on every other corner.
It’s about living in a city but having a back yard.
It’s a place to park your car.
But if there is something that Queens is not, then it is not Queens Boulevard.
So sorry Entourage, you got this one wrong. Griener should have turned into the camera and told them what really made him from Queens, “I am Main St in Flushing.”
Now, that would have been some outer borough pride. |
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Reader Comments
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post comment
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Posted May 25, 2008 @ 12:02AM by Perry Oki |
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They should've picked a street in Flushing, maybe Main Street. End it with: "I am Main Street", and then drive away in a modified honda race car. |
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Posted May 25, 2008 @ 12:10AM by Peter Sunwoo |
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I agree Mr. Oki. But I can see why they picked Queens Blvd. over anything else in New York. Why you ask? Well for one thing, the other 4 boroughs are either not cool like Staten Island, gentrified like Manhattan, or badass like Brooklyn and the Bronx. Like really badass with the theme of the "B." Now Queens is a perfect play for a baddass with a "W" to be. There are no "B" hoods in Queens thats worth mentioning, so thats where the "W" man can stake his claim and be the biggest badass in the neighborhood. Get my drift? If not, I'm trying to say that guys like Samuel L Jackson would not be hanging out in Queens to claim his badass territory. But the dude with curly big hair from Entourage might. Lastly, Queens doesn't have any cool sounding streets like Brooklyn or the Bronx does. I mean what are they gonna say , "I am Northern Blvd.?" Astoria Blvd? Long Island Expresspay? |
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