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Sketch Comedy Video Mocks Neighborhood Nicknames Where 'Cool Moms' Live

By Gwynne Hogan | February 24, 2016 11:27am

From FoMo, to Curling Iron, to RiKi (short for Rikers Island), a new sketch comedy video captures New York's penchant for mashing and mixing up place names with two breast-feeding mothers talking about neighborhoods where they've considered moving.

The scene unfurls in a cafe, decorated with graffiti. The two women chat about how hard it is to find a "good" neighborhood to live in. 

"Mexican Harlem?" “Not gentrified enough,” the other replies.

"Canadian Harlem?" “Too gentrified.”

"What about Olive Garden?" “Horrible restaurants.”

"North Korea Town? "No restaurants."

Hand then spouts off a list of all the places they'd been apartment hunting: BimBo, Blue Hook ... Upper South Side, Fort Sofa, Putting Green ... Plunging, Broad City, Close Rockaway, Closer Rockaway ... Further Rockaway, Even Further Rockaway ... FoMo, Curling Iron."

"Where the Cool Moms Live," uploaded to YouTube on Monday, is one several videos published by Cruel Children Comedy, a comic duo comprised of Illinois-transplant Jeff Rabinak (who writes, produces, edits and acts) and Hand (who stars in many of the skits. She's the main "cool mom.") 

The two met at Upright Citizens Brigade last year, Rabinak said.

The idea for "Where the Cool Moms Live" came from his own move to New York from Los Angeles five years ago, he said.

"When I first moved to New York I couch surfed in Ridgewood, then I lived in a sublet in Jersey City until the apartment I was trying to move into in Harlem was available," he said.

He quickly found the humor in nicknames people had dubbed specific neighborhoods and was struck by the fact that they weren't linked to any specific municipal map or boundary, a fact that DNAinfo experimented with last summer when we asked our readers to draw where they thought their neighborhood boundaries were.

In L.A., he said, "Echo Park is Echo Park," whereas here, "public consensus seems to lead to new neighborhood names."

"It seemed right for comedy."

And while he mocks "cool moms" who are the central characters in his skit, "the jokes come from a place of love."

"I do think cool moms live in New York," he said.