It’s Like, They Don’t Know . . .

As most viewers do, I take my cues about Los Angeles from “It’s like, you know . . .”

Whether the topic is nose jobs, gridlock, new-age mindbenders or quirky trends, here, at last on ABC, is a sitcom whose rhythms are meant to coincide with the sprawling metropolis it satirizes. Created by Peter Mehlman, it has sought, since arriving last spring, to epitomize the heart, the soul, the very pulse of the city. No other series has been as transfixed by how we think, talk and go about our daily business.

So naturally I was especially interested when Wednesday’s episode had Arthur (Chris Eigeman), the transplanted New York writer who despises Los Angeles, getting a job at this newspaper as a columnist.

“Local boy makes mediocre,” he cracked to Robbie (Steven Eckholdt). All right, I could live with that.

Credit “It’s like, you know . . . “ also with having the Los Angeles Times editor who hired Arthur be dour and humorless. That certainly rang true.

What intrigued me most, though, was cynical Arthur being hired by The Times with the promise of getting a leggy blond assistant. “Chances are your assistant will be a UCLA coed,” said the editor, stonily. “Blond hair, pleated skirt, the entire package.”

I was going to ask my own leggy blond assistant about her package, but then I remembered that I don’t have one.

You know how it is working at home instead of at the office, though. Out of view, out of mind. It wasn’t likely that “It’s like, you know . . . “ would distort or err so egregiously. The slip-up must have been elsewhere. I wondered if not being granted a leggy blond assistant by The Times was an oversight. Perhaps one that I could rectify.

“You’ll get a leggy blond assistant when I get The Times to chauffeur me to work every day in a limo,” Calendar’s TV editor said.

Undeterred, I checked nine other Times columnists to see if they had leggy blond assistants. None did, and some were plenty sore about it.

“Hell, no, I don’t have an assistant,” complained Patt Morrison. “I’m not even allowed to buzz for a copy messenger without advanced OK from a higher-up.”

It got worse, with poor Bill Plaschke especially distraught when I mentioned the perk granted Arthur in the series. “I only wish I had my own desk,” he said. Then he added: “I’d settle for my own terminal.” Sportswriters are such an underprivileged lot.

As are TV writers. “I have a blond wife with relatively short legs,” pouted Brian Lowry. “But I’m her assistant.”

And grumbled Steve Harvey about a leggy blond assistant: “The closest I have to that is a black-haired, short-legged assistant--my cat.”

Behind the jokes from Lowry and Harvey, I could sense pain and bitterness.

“If I had a leggy blond assistant, life would be so sweet,” said Al Martinez. “Actually, I have one, and my life has been sweet. I married her.”

Sadly, Martinez appeared to be cracking under the strain of The Times not giving him a leggy blond assistant.

Meanwhile, Sandy Banks said she’d settle “for an assistant of any size, shape and hair color at this point.”

Shawn Hubler said she had one. Sort of. “The closest thing I have to a leggy blond is my teenager, who is very helpful and will even occasionally pick up a wet towel from the bathroom floor, if I pay her. Otherwise,” Hubler added, “it’s just me and my energetically un-leggy white-haired husband.”

A leggy blond assistant? Mike Downey carefully weighed the question. “Yes,” he replied, “but it’s a blond man.” Downey added that he was kidding. More humor to hide anguish.

Speaking of male assistants, though . . .

As it turned out, getting turned on by a busty insurance woman (Mimi Rogers) who interviewed him for sexual harassment coverage cost Arthur the chance to get a great-looking female assistant. Instead, he was given a homely man. That, too, fell through when the male assistant accused Arthur of sexual harassment after they inadvertently brushed hips.

“What I’m wondering,” said Hubler, who had watched the episode, “is if the people on that show have ever been to L.A. And if so, did they once set foot outside the Santa Monica city limits?”

Actually, there were moments in last week’s “It’s like, you know . . . “ that were pretty funny, including Arthur being sexually aroused by the sexy insurance woman and later “harassing” his male assistant, plus other scenes with a back specialist who insisted his patients’ pain was in their minds.

Then this Wednesday, Jennifer Grey (who plays herself) gets an obscene phone call from a foreign dictator. Additionally, taking the same birth control pills causes the male Shrug (Evan Handler) and female Lauren (A.J. Langer) to have a fleeting romance between “two consenting premenstrual adults.” And another New York emigre thrives in Los Angeles by stealing Arthur’s stories. “This is L.A.,” he explains after Arthur protests. “This is why you come out. To reinvent yourself.”

This week’s “It’s like, you know . . . “ has nothing more about Arthur reinventing himself as a Times writer, or luscious assistants being assigned to male columnists. Apparently one episode was all the reality it could handle.

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be contacted by e-mail at calendar.letters@latimes.com.

* “It’s like, you know . . . “ airs at 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays on ABC. The network has rated it TV-PG--DL (may be unsuitable for young children with special advisories for suggestive dialogue, coarse language).