April 15, 1999

It’s Like…Not ‘Seinfeld’

Writer Peter Mehlman's new television series takes a poke at L.A.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/ old_stories/article/its_likenot_seinfeld_19990416/

Peter Mehlman, the former writer and co-executive producer of "Seinfeld," is sitting at a corner table at Shutters on the Beach, wearing mismatched sweats and a day's worth of stubble.

He's sipping Pellegrino and gazing out the picture window at the palm trees and gray sea under a glowering sky.

"Sometimes, if it rains for a few days, I'm ready to get a refund on moving out here," quips Mehlman, 42, the transplanted New Yorker. "Rain was not in the brochure."

Don't get Mehlman wrong. He likes L.A. But, says the man who's given us such Seinfeldisms as "spongeworthy" and "yada yada," this city's comic quirks are ripe for the picking.