Cause You Are Entitled To Tap That Ass

The CW network’s new Gossip Girl series finds Central Park rather busy this time of year:

Unlike Gossip Girl’s great-aunt Beverly Hills, 90210, there’s no morality play at work (in other words, no Brandon Walsh drinking and crashing!): They do drugs, have sex, plot how to get into the Ivy League and seem tiredly resigned to, well, life.

“Do you ever feel like our whole lives are planned out for us?” one boy asks another, as they stroll through Central Park sharing a joint. “Aren’t we entitled to be happy?”

“What we’re entitled to is a trust fund,” his friend replies. “Maybe a house in the Hamptons and a prescription drug problem. . . . But happiness? Does not seem to be on the menu. . . . So smoke up, and seal the deal with Blair, ’cause you are entitled to tap that ass.”

. . .

[Penn] Badgley’s character, Dan Humphrey, is the requisite outsider trying to break in — the one who’s standing in for us. Dan’s father is a former 90’s rock star, and his family lives in (gasp) Brooklyn (judging from the confusing exterior shots, a loft that is in both Carroll Gardens and Dumbo at the same time!).

“In the book Dan lived on the Upper West Side, which I felt was a little subtle for the rest of the world,” said [series co-creator Josh] Schwartz. “We moved him to Brooklyn, which is apparently our new Chino.”

. . .

“We were going to walk away from the show if they didn’t let us shoot in New York,” said Mr. Schwartz. “For us, to do another teen drama and to get excited about it was that this is the most exciting time in these kids’ lives in the most exciting city in the world. To try to fake that in Burbank or Canada just felt like it would be lacking that thing you get from shooting in New York. It’s a character in the show.”

Back in Central Park, that character was not cooperating. The rain arrived in force, and the next scene, a dramatic and emotional moment between the best friends-turned-enemies, was supposed to happen while the girls fed ducks in the Bethesda Fountain. The crew quickly packed up and switched locations to the Bethesda Terrace Arcade with its pretty Minton tile ceiling and arched entrance.

It turned out also to be a favorite spot for Thoth, a street performer famous in his own right (and the subject of an Academy Award–winning short documentary), decked out in a gold loincloth, red feather headdress and not much else, who plays violin, sings falsetto soprano and shakes the bells around his ankles. An assistant director quietly spoke into his ear while Thoth sat on his knees, unyielding. In the darker corners of the underpass various homeless people slept on the concrete benches, untroubled.