Burning Flags Press The website of Glen E. Friedman. Renowned for both his work with musicians like Fugazi, Minor Threat, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, Slayer (and many, many more) as well as his groundbreaking documentation of the burgeoning skateboard phenomenon in the late `70's, Glen has been privvy to (and has summarily captured on film) some of the coolest stuff ever. He's also an incredibly insightful and nice guy to boot.
SoHo Blues - Photography by Allan Tannenbaum Allan Tannenbaum is a local photographer who has been everywhere and shot everything, from members of Blondie hanging out at the Mudd Club through the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center on September 11th. You could spend hours on this site, and I have.
Robert Otter Photographs Amazing vintage photographs of New York City, specifically my own neighborhood, Greenwich Village.
oboylephoto Just some intensely cool photographs of abandoned places.
Rikki Ercoli's Legends of Punk Much like Glen E. Friedman (see above), Rikki Ercoli has managed to catch some amazing bands in their manic element.
Lost & Found Film A fascinating website devoted to undeveloped film found in vintage camers. A curious mixture of interesting and spooky.
Satan's Laundromat My new favorite website, really. In its own words, "a photolog of New York, with an emphasis on urban decay, strange signage and general weirdness." What's not to love?
Eugene Merinov Compelling shots of Punk, Post-Punk and New Wave band performing live in various long-lost venues in a pre-sanitized New York City. Great stuff!
Links to Some of my Favorite Sites
ILXOR.Com Between ILM (I Love Music) and ILE (I Love Everything), there are countless threads wherein to discuss/debate virtually any topic under the unrelenting flames of a dying, angry sun.
Forgotten NY, www.forgotten-ny.com Mind-blowing resource for NYC-related trivia, crucial for those keen on strolling New York's streets, pointing out historical ephemera.
Homestar Runner.Com Hugely entertaining or insufferably dumb, depending on your sensibility.
The Weblog of Spumco's John K. The weblog of cartoonist John Kricfalusi, crazed mind and frantic pencil behind the original "Ren & Stimpy," as well as "The Goddamn George Liquor Show." Surreal, unapologetic, uncompromising genius.
Speaking of inconsiderate, evidently one of those physicists at the CERN lab in Switzerland (y'know, the place where they built that supercollider that's bound to create a black hole and destroy the earth – see picture at top of post) has ties to al-Qaeda. Grrrrreat!
Speaking of Tompkins Square Park, I actually walked by the East Village's own Slum Goddess this week in Union Square (she's pretty hard to miss). I didn't accost her, though.
Just another note to send you back over to The New York Nobody Sings to check out my latest entries on Simon & Garfunkel (pictured at left circa 1968, during a jaunty stroll through Washington Square Park) and the ferociously rockin' and decidedly Manhattan-centric video for "I'm Afraid of Americans" by David Bowie & Trent Reznor. In fact, I like that clip so much, I'm going to put it here too. And as I mentioned on a recent Facebook update, given the reception President Obama's been getting from certain vocal circles in this nation of late, I'm pretty much afraid of Americans too. Crank it.
So, I took the kids out to a playground over on St. Luke's Place in the West Village this afternoon. While Charlotte & Oliver were happily running around, I couldn't help noticing a disconcerting preponderance of police helicopters circling overhead. When it was time to go, the entirety of the Village was flooded with police cars and 6th Avenue was restricted to one thin line of traffic moving at a snail's pace. It was quite a chaotic scene. I asked around. Rumor had it that President Obama was having an early dinner at Blue Hill on Waverly. I've been to Blue Hill once. It's excellent.
News broke yesterday that the New York Post ran a semi-apology for Sean Delonas' latest cartoon that basically compared President Obama to the rampaging chimp from earlier in the week ("They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill"). My question is this: Who is surprised? Sean Delonas is a hateful, intolerant, homophobic, racist, jackbooted conservative who has been penning deliberately inflammatory cartoons for years. Hasn't anyone been paying attention? This is just what he does! Delonas plays upon every hateful stereotype, panders to the slack-jawed lowest common denominator and veils his hatred under the flimsy guise of 'parody.' For example, when Kurt Cobain shot himself, Delonas drew a cartoon that depicted him arriving in Hell. Classy, eh?
Okay, I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the inauguration, but I changed my mind. Deal with it. Herewith a couple of items I wanted to pass on to you.
I know everyone's whipped up into a lather about tomorrow's inauguration, but I won't be doing any posting about that, being that you can get that pretty much everywhere else. I'm all for it, of course, but I'd just wish they'd hurry up and swear the man in already so he can start fixing all the stuff our soon-to-be-former president managed to so severely fuck up. Also, it seems that a lot of folks – including some of my very dear friends -- are really super excited about the Pittsburgh Steelers going to the Super Bowl. I have absolutely zero to say about this because, basically, I simply do not give even the slightest whiff of a rolling rat fuck about football – nay – professional sports in general. Need a big, meat-necked jock's take on this pressing issue? You won't find it here.
So, anyway….
I did not marry my doppelganger. It's true that Peggy and I have similar sensibilities and opinions on things, and our respective tastes occasionally overlap (as I've laboriously pointed out in the past, the mere fact that she owned the 7" single from 1985 of Killing Joke's "Love Like Blood" was a crucial factor in my marriage proposal), we also like very different stuff indeed. While my idea of a quality entertainment usually involves silly voices, needless violence, gratuitous bloodshed and implausibly high-volume rock n' roll carnage, the wife differs rather pronouncedly. Peg's more a fan of the winsome period piece rife with baroque flourish, romantically ethereal poetry recitation and the doomed entanglement of star-crossed lovers. While I'm loathe to make her sit through my bajillionith viewing of "Apocalypse Now" or "The Warriors," when her big brown eyes light up upon hearing the news that "Masterpiece Theatre" is airing a televisual adaptation of one frilly literary classic or another, I usually surrender the remote.
Here's the thing, though: While Peg usually doesn't enjoy the shit I like to watch (although she did surprisingly love "Death Wish," – but who wouldn't?), I do find myself enjoying her shows. I thrilled to "The Forsyte Saga" and sat breathlessly rapt throughout "Bleak House." Sure, I still love proudly juvenile stuff like Motorhead and "The Aqua Teen Hunger Force," but I'm not finding myself shuddering with contempt at the notion of watching, say, a multi-episodic remake of "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." Maybe I've just gone soft. Maybe I was soft all along.
In any case, while seemingly the rest of the world was either foaming at the mouth watching the Pittsburgh Steelers pound the snots out of some team (I honestly can't even begin to tell you who they might have been playing) or listening to Beyonce screech like a car alarm on HBO's coverage of the Obama inauguration concert, Peg and I settled in for part one of "Masterpiece Theatre"'s new take on Emily Bronte's ridiculously romantic meistewerk, "Wuthering Heights." Even though I was only one hour into my umpteenth viewing of "Thunderball," I changed the channel without complaint and started to soak in the shamelessly histrionic antics of Heathcliff, Cathy, Linley, Edgar Linton et al. And lemme tell ya, it was pretty great.
Inspired by all that teary-eyed flouncing about on the moors, I fired up Kate Bush's fabled single of the same title on my iPod this morning during my snow-coated trek to work. It's somewhat remarkable that this was her very first single, being that it's inarguably ludicrous. The video below doesn't do it many favors either. Regardless, despite her chipmunkily melismatic warbling and her frankly bizarre choreography, it's still pretty great. Turn it up and get your Bronte on!
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