I Like to Watch

June 22, 2008 | There's a cafe in my neighborhood where I go to write where everything is all wrong. The tables are the wrong height for the chairs, the chairs are uncomfortable, the walls are covered in bad art, the bad stereo system blares the worst of Journey and Lionel Richie, the breakfast sandwich features over-buttered bread and that fake-smoke-flavor ham, the room is too hot or freezing cold, the teenage cashiers are friendly but inattentive, and a herd of middle-of-the-room flies circles endlessly in the sparsely populated dining area.

Now normally, I might not notice the fake-smoke-flavored ham or the chirpily distracted cashiers, except that the stubborn mediocrity of the place makes me hypersensitive to the countless managerial mistakes unfolding before my eyes. Soon I start to wonder if I'm the only one who's bothered by the ants crawling across the floors or the strong smell of ammonia in the air or the walls the color of baby poo or the murals depicting local sights, murals that look half-finished and that include an illustration of the front of the restaurant itself.

But there's another, more corporate place nearby where everything is right. The tables and chairs are made of smooth wood and are perfectly placed, the menu is tastefully designed, the lighting makes everyone look like models at a photo shoot, classical music soothes patrons from a safe distance, cool breezes blow in the open French doors, and the small cup of gazpacho they serve has little slices of melon and a dab of pesto in it. Delightful! But it's always crowded with people who have expensive haircuts and alarmingly nice shoes, so you end up waiting a long time for a table, and then sit in a corner alone, savoring an $8 cup of gazpacho while wondering, "What does she do to afford those shoes?"

As repellent and deeply wrong as the local cafe is, the overpriced, meticulously designed corporate eatery seems certain to transform you, slowly but surely, into the kind of person who pays too much for haircuts and shoes, the kind of person who experiences gazpacho that doesn't have a little dab of pesto in it the way the rest of us experience a herd of middle-of-the-room flies. And therein lies the paradox of American upward mobility: The higher you climb, the thinner the air gets, until you can barely breathe. You become like Julianne Moore in "Safe," suffering from a nervous breakdown when the delivery guys bring a black couch instead of the white one she ordered. You become the kind of hothouse flower who only feels comfortable in perfectly calibrated, beautiful spaces, the kind of person who's never satisfied and can't play nicely with others.

Keepin' it real estate
Which brings us to the best comedy on television right now: "Flipping Out" (10 p.m. EDT Tuesdays on Bravo), in which "real estate investor" (aka flipper) Jeff Lewis parades his apparent personality disorders in front of the camera for all to see.

"Flipping Out" bestrides the professional-entrepreneur reality show genre like a colossus. This isn’t just another "Blow Out" or "Work Out," nor is it merely one of those shows aimed at allowing catty viewers to feel superior to the sad sacks depicted therein. No. "Flipping Out" is a work of pure comic genius. "Flipping Out" is the new "Curb Your Enthusiasm" -- only better.

Like Larry David, Jeff Lewis is always trying to get the upper hand on his apparent sociopathic or narcissistic or obsessive-compulsive urges. He calmly explains, in the show's second season premiere, that he's really trying to take things more lightly and not sweat the small stuff these days. Then he has this exchange with his assistant Jenni regarding the precise temperature of the latte she just fetched him.

Jeff: Is this 140 [degrees]? Really?

Jenni: Yeah.

Jeff: Honestly, I think it's like 150 or 155. It's not 140.

Jenni: She said out loud 140.

Jeff: It's not 140.

Jenni: Is it too hot?

Jeff: It's 150.

Jenni: It's 140! Come on!

Jeff: It's not 140! Trust me, I know what 140 is. I drink these every day! (Pause.) But it's OK. It's fine. It'll cool off. You know what? I'm not going to worry about it. I'm not going to worry about it.

Jenni: Good.

Long pause.

Jeff: But what's interesting is, it doesn't say 140 on here.

Jeff Lewis has impeccable comic timing. He knows when to pause. He knows when to lower his voice. He's perfected the art of the tag line. He's exactly the sort of tortured tragicomic character who belongs in a Jonathan Franzen novel. He tries so hard to overcome his flaws and compulsions, but he never quite succeeds.

Next page: "I'm being punished. God's punishing me"