The First Echo

Sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a love affair.

I'd say it started somewhere in the mid-90s. In no way was this love at first sight. My interest was simply piqued. A glance here, a laugh there. As the years flew by, the more I gave myself to the relationship the harder I fell, the deeper I fell, in love.

Entertainment Weekly and I have been going on strong for a healthy ten years now. Those who label it as another "mass-market mag" should be pitied for their lack of open-mindedness. They don't know anything about the pleasure EW brings me. Every week I revel in the joy of ravaging its pages from cover to cover and absorbing new pop wonders previously unfathomable to me.

EW satiates my hunger for pop culture news like nothing else can. It has changed me, especially my writing, prompting my own readers to urge me to land a job at the publication. Oh, how I long to be an official member of the EW family!

So, why not a love letter to EW (or to those edito…

"This city's killing me. I want, I want, I want everything."
- "Los Angeles" by Sugarcult

Hardly in the four-year history of these chapters have I received such passionate responses like the ones I received from "The Cooke Book." The issue of New York versus Los Angeles is a topic of debate I find fascinating: Who has it better, Manhattanites or Angelenos?

But now, I'm over it. I don't care anymore. There is no clear answer. That debate has ended. Chapter 67 wasn't even written to argue which Coast is better. The intentions behind it were not to bash NYC. My words were a letter to those who stubbornly believe New York is the only place in the world to live a real life, a reaction to the attitude I still get from those (mostly NYers), who talk shit about where I currently reside and appear to leave no room for compromise. I was talking to the natives who have unfortunately never stepped foot outside …

My first trip to the wonderful world of Disney was in the summer of 1986. I have vague recollections of a rented pale blue Chevrolet hatchback, giving my mother the silent treatment for not buying me a chocolate sundae, and an extravagant dinner in Cinderella's Castle where I got to meet the princess herself.

My second experience was in 1993. My great aunt Anna treated me and my mother to a vacation during which we pushed her around the theme parks in a rented wheelchair. She later accused us of trying to kill her by breathlessly running her around in the Florida heat and humidity. She drove us crazy to the point where we fantasized about the untimely collision of her runaway wheelchair with an oncoming Snow White tram.

1998 saw me, fresh from high school graduation, flying down to see Mickey and friends once again, this time with the parents, my aunt and uncle, and my cousins. Torrential rain in Epcot. My father falling asleep during a 3-D Muppet attraction. My mother playing a g…

A self-proclaimed New York Snob, Elizabeth Cooke doesn't believe in living anywhere else.

A youth of the 60s, she is a follower of Kerouac, a hater of Bush, and would marry her packs of Parliament Lights if it were legal. With a mop of red hair and a penchant for black sweaters, Liz is one of those liberal kool kats you'd spot in old photos from the original Woodstock in which she could be testing out every drug known to man. It wouldn't be hard to imagine her knocking back shots of whiskey at an underground jazz club somewhere in the West Village, swaying to the tunes of a saxophonist named Johnny K and bopping to the bass in a haze of smoke (of course, back when you could puff on cancer sticks in New York establishments).

Her signature rasp of a voice stands out among the faculty of Iona Preparatory. Liz, or Ms. Cooke to her students, teaches English and acts as a moderator of the drama club at the all-boys high school located in the northern heights of New Rochelle. She…