Flaming Pablum

Thursday

Since about October or so, the company I work for has been letting those of us who’ve wanted to come back to voluntarily work two days a week in our offices, if we’d like. Given the diminutive size of my apartment and the fact that I frequently have two testy teenagers therein vying for WiFi and elbow room, I’ve taken full advantage of this offer. Surprisingly, however, not many other of my colleagues have, and I’ve frequently spent those two days alone in my office, often going entire eight-hour shifts without seeing another human being.

While at first it felt like a step towards normalcy, the prolonged failure to bring the pandemic under manageable control quickly put a stop to any hopes of a return to the pre-COVID routines. The novelty of going into the office swiftly wore off, but I’ve kept going in, regardless.

But, I’ve not been totally alone. There has been a skeleton crew of regulars from various departments that have also been periodically coming in. As such, we’ve been frequently stopping by each other’s offices to say hi and get at least brief, reassuring moments of human interaction. It’s a small enough organization to really know most of the people on staff.

I have one colleague, whom I’ll call Koby for the sake of this post (not his actual name), who has been doing the same as I have. While he’s not a member of my department, I have worked with Koby on a number of different projects. Since I first got here, he has always been the coolest, most inclusive team-member to work with, and we’ve always gotten on like a house on fire. It’s a nice organization to begin with, but I was always stuck by how nice Koby was to everyone. He seemed genuinely invested.

Yesterday morning, it was looking like another day of solitary confinement until Koby popped his head in my office to say hi. He pulled up a chair, and I happily turned away from the frankly yawnsome project I’ve been working on to chat with him. We had the most banal of catch-ups, discussing the usual COVID-related topics and when we expected the office to officially open back up. These were not pressing issues by any stretch of the imagination, but, again, it was nice to talk and remind ourselves of the regular practices we’ve left behind and look forward to brighter days ahead. After a bit, Koby got up to continue his rounds of saying hi to the paltry few other folks in the office. I thanked him for stopping by, and off he went.

Today, I heard that, overnight, Koby passed away. I don’t know very many particulars, but he was evidently home with his wife, suffered a heart attack and died. By all appearances, Koby was young, healthy and spry, with no readily detectable, health-impairing vices to speak of.

I have been in something of a fog all day since learning this horrible news. Mere hours after blithely shooting the shit in my office, Koby crossed to the other side.

Take care or yourselves and be good to each other.

Rest in peace, Koby. 

SOLVED: The Whereabouts of Wendy's Wall

By its very design, street art is ephemeral. Not necessarily made to last and furtively executed either in haste, overnight or under the radar, it is a guerrilla-style form of expression the very clandestine nature of which is to surprise its viewers and then, in most instances, vanish forever. I’d suggest that huge parts of its appeal are in its fleeting existences and outlaw status. You may not have expected it. You did not ask for it. You cannot control it. You cannot own it. The most you can do is paint over it.

Graffiti is loved and loathed in equal measures by the city’s residents. But despite New York’s own robust history of trailblazing street art, there isn’t really one, formal public record of it. Sure, names like Zephyr, Lee Quinones, Futura 2000 and Dondi are frequently cited by denizens — to say nothing of artists whose work went “legit” like Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Richard Hambleton and Jean-Michel Basquiat — but, as far as I know, there is no single tome or collection that authoritatively documents the work of the most celebrated street artists and graffiti-writers. But, I suppose that’s the point. It’s a wild, organic art form. You’re not supposed to be able to institutionalize it.

It’s for this very reason that I’ve been so preoccupied with a certain quest — to find the Plasmatics wall.

I originally invoked it in this comparatively ancient post from a decade ago, but my actual search for the image dates back to 1982 or 1983, after first spotting the art on a wall in Spanish Harlem from within a southbound school bus on the northern reaches of Park Avenue.

It seemed sort of wildly out of place to spot an invocation of The Plasmatics — very much a downtown concern — on a wall up in Spanish Harlem, much less an invocation composed in the signature bright colors and stylized renderings of graffiti, which, in those days, was more steeped in the burgeoning culture of hip-hop than in punk rock. But, again, it’s easy to assign such meaningless parameters for the sake of neatly encapsulating an era. There, for whatever reason, was a colorful depiction of Wendy O Williams and the Plasmatics' logo on a facade north of East 96th Street. Why was it there? Who knows? Maybe whomever spray-painted it was simply a fan.

But, as mentioned in that post, when I sheepishly went back to find it after that school trip, pedaling nervously on my shitty BMX past the “the border” between the Upper East Side and Spanish Harlem at East 96th Street, I couldn’t seem to find it again or, more likely, I wimped out and did an about-face before getting too far uptown.

And that was basically that.

I cannot recall what prompted my penning of the post in 2010 about it other than that it’s always been something I was struck by and remembered. After a while, though, given that I never found any further evidence of its existence, much like that certain “punk” issue of New York Magazine (which I, of course, later found), I started wondering if maybe I’d imagined it, and started giving up the notion of trying to find any evidence of it.

But in already in a few instances this year, for whatever illogical reason, I have stumbled across beguiling bits of Plasmatics trivia that resulted in a series of in-depth posts (all collected here, for your convenience, if you care). in the spirit of same, I figured I’d revive my quest for Wendy’s wall.

For a start, I posted the entry on the Plasmatics fan page on Facebook, asking aloud if anyone else had remembered seeing it. Suddenly the thread came alive with remarks from commenters saying they’d recalled seeing it from the windows of a Metro-North train and speculating as to its possible whereabouts. The problem, however, is that like me, no one had snapped a pic of it. At the very least, I had corroboration of its existence.

Then I went back to the well and started getting creative with Google, entering in any number of combinations like “Plasmatics,” “Wendy,” “mural,” “Manhattan,” “80s,” “graffiti,” “Park Avenue” etc., but continually came up empty. I actually reached out over Instagram to fabled graffiti tagger Lee Quinones and photographer/graffiti-champion Henry Chalfant to see if either of those guys remembered it. No one got back to me. 

I started feeling that old sensation of futility once again until I happened upon one article or another that made mention of an over-promisingly named strip of concrete called — wait for it — the Graffiti Hall of Fame. While not an actual “hall” of any tangible quality, this area was a designated street-art destination established in 1980 on — WAIT FOR IT, ONCE AGAIN — the northernly reaches of Park Avenue. Things were starting to add up. I started Googling “Graffiti Hall of Fame” and “Park Avenue” and scrolling through the ensuing images.

It was almost too easy.

Evidently painted by an artist named Dez, the whole wall came up via another promisingly named entity called Graffiti Database. I was genuinely astonished to have found it. Here’s a closer look at it…

Regrettably, I have no idea who took this photograph or when, but it’s definitely the mural I first saw, although the passage of time rendered the images in my head with way more nuance and detail. I’m still mystified as to the specifics of its backstory, but I can at least now rest, knowing I didn’t imagine it and that I’ve closed the circle on another inane quest.

Here in 2021, the Graffiti Hall of Fame is still a going concern, but the Plasmatics mural was painted over decades ago.

And, once again, for the uninitiated, these were the Plasmatics...

Sad But True

2019:

2020:



2021:

 

Just Give It To DEVO

Back in February, when the nominations for induction into the so-called Rock & Roll Hall of Fame were announced and my beloved DEVO were among the cited contenders, I had this to say from my bully pulpit on social media...

For all of my pointed and needlessly heated grievances about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I do enjoy the razor-sharp irony of my beloved DEVO being nominated for induction, given that one of the band’s primary objectives was to essentially destroy the flaccid corpulence of traditional rock that had become the order of their day.

At this stage of their career, they deserve absolutely every goddamn accolade you can throw at them and I’m sure they appreciate the acknowledgement , but I’m sure this particular “honor” is making them chuckle.

Well, there may be degree of truth to that, but regardless, DEVO have since mounted a campaign to support their nomination. Personally, I wish they’d take a page from John Lydon’s book and renounce the whole institution, but as mentioned above, DEVO never saw a lot of kudos … let alone profit …. for their considerable efforts, over the years, so they’re taking the long overdue credit where they can find it, I guess. While I still think induction into the Hall is ultimately meaningless, DEVO deserve recognition and respect, goddammit!

But don’t take my word for it, check out what Fred Armisen has to say about it.

Where Smoked Yeh Jong Son?

I suppose I should stop repeatedly mining the Facebook group Manhattan Before 1990, but some great stuff pops up there, periodically, and it’s worth evangelizing. In any case, that’s the initial source of this entry.

In any case, a member of said group named Kathy B. posted the photograph below, and I found it quite striking. Taken in 1986 by one Susan Aimee Weinik, this is a shot of former Palladium doorkeeper Yeh Jong Son.

I mean, it’s a great photograph by any stretch of the imagination, capturing both the stylish insouciance of the enigmatic Ms. Son and some great nocturnal atmosphere of a since-vanished New York City. As if on cue, however, the chatter started, speculating as to the location of the photograph. Many, if not most, seemed to assume that, given Ms. Son’s vocation, it must’ve been snapped within the environs of her stomping ground at the Palladium, that being East 14th Street between Union Square and Third Avenue. Sure, that might’ve made sense in a rigidly linear sort of way, but I couldn’t reconcile that featured architecture, specifically the hulking building in the background.

Acting on a hunch, I took a circuitous route home from my office down by the World Trade Center (notice I didn’t call it “the Freedom Tower”? Nor should you!), and sure enough, I was correct. As just discussed in a relatively recent post about the former site of the Plasmatics World Headquarters on Thomas Street, that large building behind Ms. Son is the western-facing façade of the massive Western Union building on Hudson Street. That puts her having a ciggie just steps to the south of Puffy’s Tavern, where she very well might have been having a post-Palladium-shift drink. To make good on my sleuthing, I captured the exact spot where Ms. Son was snapped smoking.

While I certainly made it to the Palladium a few times, I cannot say I was ever hip enough to be able to recognize Yeh Jong Son at first glance, although I was never stopped from entering the place, so I guess that counts for something. If you want to get a feel for what the interior of the Palladium was like click right here.

Here in 2021, the Palladium is, once again, long gone – razed to accommodate a massive NYU dormitory that churlishly bears the old club’s name. Puffy’s Tavern on Hudson Street is indeed still there, as it has been since about 1945, and it has refreshingly not changed very much.

As to the whereabouts and doings of the sleekly svelte Yeh Jong Son these days, who can say?

Peels Be With You

Quite by accident, I stumbled upon the clip below and was instantly taken back a decade.

The “Peeler Man” was this compelling little character that used to hold court on the northwesterly area of Union Square. This distinguished salesman from the mother country (actual name: Joe Ades) used to sit and regale passers-by with myriad benefits of his revolutionary culinary tool, demonstrating its capabilties on any number of carrots and potatoes. My wife and I used to worry about him. An elderly gentleman like himself should surely not be out on the pavement (literally) plying his wares this way. To the contrary, though, he clearly got a great deal of joy out of it, and probably made a few bucks along the way. I seem to remember my then-future (and now ex) job, The TODAY Show doing a profile about him before he passed, and he was an unrepentantaly happy soul.

As far as his peelers go, we bought one – and we still use it this many years later.

Sadly, Mr. Ades passed away in 2009. But here he was in action…

Going “Home” Again: Re-Re-Re-Exhuming Chantal Akerman’s “News From Home”

It was probably about 2012 when I first learned about Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman’s “News From Home,” a strangely somnambulistic rumination on distance, family and solitude, centered around footage of a particularly lonely New York City captured in 1976. The film periodically appears on YouTube, sometimes in bits and pieces, only to be yanked down at one point or another, probably at the behest of Janus Films.

It’s an odd bit of cinema by any standard, and strangely haunting and hypnotic. Of course, the extra attraction for me is the depiction of a downtown New York City that simply does not exist anymore. Sure, I’ve said that before about films like Glenn O’Brien’s “Downtown `81” and Amos Poe’s “The Foreigner” (just to name two), but where those films have narrative structures — however tenuous — “News From Home” tells less of a definable story. And while I thrill to the shots of, say, pre-gentrification TriBeCa, I sincerely doubt Ms. Akerman chose to include said footage with any intention of preserving the neighborhood as it was for future generations to marvel at. I project that she chose the locations she did to convey an overall sense of desolation and disconnection. In that respect, she completely succeeded.

In previous posts on the film, I’ve mentioned that I’d love for someone to do a shot-by-shot homage to “News From Home," capturing the modern-day iterations of the locations Akerman captured back during the Bicentennial. I sincerely doubt it would have the same lulling effect, although there certainly were moments, in the past year of COVID, when Manhattan seemed to return to the directionless drift of Akerman’s film. By and large, though, the Manhattan of 2021 is an entirely different place. Finding the degree of tranquil isolation that is so overwhelmingly rife throughout “News From Home” would be a genuine challenge.

While it’s still up, travel back to the endless half-light and mournful limbo of “News From Home.”

What Remains So Funny `Bout Peace, Love & Understanding?

I can’t remember if I got it at the Woolworths on the corner of East 86th Street and Third Avenue or the King Karol just a block to its south, but I bought Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces when I was in high school, strictly on the strength of its inclusion of “(What’s So Funny `Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding,” which — to my ears, at the time — packed all the energy and wallop of Punk Rock without subscribing to its nihilism and negativity (not that I really had a problem with either of those sentiments). I interpreted it as Elvis breaking away from the pack, carving out his own niche and making an earnest plea for sanity in an otherwise insane era.

Some elements of that might be accurate, but the truth of the matter is that Elvis didn’t actually write the song, his producer singer/songwriter Nick Lowe did, and did so several years prior to advent of the British Punk scene. Somewhat ironically, it was a different track on Armed Forces that found Elvis venomously lambasting British Punk, that being “Goon Squad.”

But regardless of its origin, “(What’s So Funny…)” remains arguably the quintessential Elvis Costello track (although my personal favorite of his will always be “Beyond Belief”), so much so that, considering how much music the prolific artist has written and released since Armed Forces, one almost takes it for granted. That said, the song exploded into my headphones, earlier today while I was running an errand, and the sheer, sprawling impact of the recording — a wall of guitars and keyboards, punctuated by Elvis’s earthy lower-register — hit me like a hammer. Pete Thomas’ stiff-backed drumming alone, bursting with machine-gun fills, is still so astonishingly great.

And, of course, without belaboring the obvious, 42 years (!!!) after the release of Armed Forces, the sentiments assertively expressed in “(What’s So Funny `Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?” have never been more relevant.

The video is kind of hilarious, as well. Pump it up, indeed.

Back To Fiorucci

This video segment below has been on and off of YouTube for a while and a friend of mine just put it back into circulation, so I thought I’d address it here.

I think the strangest aspect of Fiorucci’s, for me, was its address. Basically right at the southern border of the posh-but-staid Upper East Side (my home turf, at the time), this weird Italian fashion emporium was essentially a dollop of Downtown atop a bland soup of midtown blahs. It was invariably my older sister who came home, one day, with a garish bag full of inane duds she procured at Fiorucci’s. It was around this same era when I was starting to swear off former faves like Pink Floyd and getting into stuff like Devo, The Ramones and the Sex Pistols, while my sister was bringing home records by The Buggles, The Vapors and Blondie. “It’s all punky stuff!,” Victoria said. I felt compelled to investigate.

Once again, incongruously perched on East 59th between Lexington Avenue and the magisterial sprawl of Park Avenue, Fiorucci’s (or, technically, Fiorucci … non-possessive) was an impossible-to-miss source of brave-new-world spectacle, diametrically across the street from the haven of stodgy-old-world knowledge that was the Argosy Book Store. Ironically, here in 2021, Argosy is still there, but that iteration of Fiorucci’s closed around 1987. The space it occupied became several other ventures, notably a William Sonoma. These days, I believe it’s now a Muji.

But at the dawn of the 80’s, it was in full swing. I remember regularly going down to that neighborhood not to shop at Fiorucci’s, but to hit the drearily seedy Comic Art Gallery one block to its south, along the with Disc-O-Mat on Lex and 58th (lionized most recently here). Intrigued by my sister’s claims, I dutifully went down to check out Fiorucci, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Suffice to say, it was way more glitzy n' kitschy than sneery and iconoclastic, but who knows what I’d been projecting on the place. Victoria made good several years later when she steered me toward Commander Salamander in Georgetown.

In watching this quaint clip now, though, one can’t help miss the era when New York was indeed a significantly wilder place, and folks could be so easily stopped in their tracks by the sight of downtown freaks dancing in a shop window. Yes, that’s Klaus Nomi, but that’s also Joey Arias, who appeared with Klaus and Bowie on that fabled episode of Saturday Night Live. Joey lives in my neighborhood, these days. I spoke to him once when our local liquor shop was broken into several years ago. He was a very cool gent.

Enjoy the trip back in time.

For The Love of The Dictators

Though usually namechecked for their involvement in the CBGB scene alongside The Ramones, The Dead Boys, Television and other pioneering New York City punk bands, I believe the first time I’d ever heard of The Dictators was because they’d toured with my childhood heroes in KISS, leading me to assume, having not yet heard their music, at the time, that they were a hard-rock/metal band. To be fair, the Dictators didn’t really look like what people came to associate with “punk rock,” either. But it was really their irreverent approach to proceedings and their idiosyncratic lyrics that set them apart from of the more po-faced “rawk” of the time, earning them a seat at the table with other punk forebears, ... even if they didn’t always get along with those folks either.

As a result, the Dictators’ status as perpetually square pegs in a sea of round holes always captured my imagination, and I wanted to learn more about them. But, back in the early 80’s, when I started seeking them out based almost exclusively on their legend, their first three albums were long out of print and seemingly impossible to find. As luck would have it, though, the ROIR Cassette label – the same indie that had released the seismic hardcore compilation New York Thrash and the barnstorming debut by Bad Brains – had issued a live reunion album of theirs in 1981. I found that cassette, entitled Fuck’Em If They Can’t Take A Joke, in the downstairs tape area of Disc-O-Mat on 58th and Lexington at some point in about 1982 and bought it on the spot, having never heard a single note off of it.

I don’t know if I’d known what to expect, by this point, but Fuck’Em… immediately went into heavy rotation on my Walkman, fighting for incongruous dominance with the Circle Jerks, Venom, Gang of Four, Rush, Devo, Motorhead and the Dead Kennedys. They weren’t hardcore. They weren’t really metal. They didn’t really sound like anyone else, but I grew to love several songs on that tape, notably their cover of the Stooges’ “Search & Destroy” and a song called “Loyola,” which I especially dug, as it was the name of my high school.

Indoctrinated into the faith by Fuck’Em If They Can’t Take a Joke, I serendipitously happened upon a pristine vinyl copy of the band’s second album, Manifest Destiny a few years later in a box of “records for a dollar” outside of the Ronald McDonald House for Pediatric Cancer Patients on East 86th Street (from that same box I also prized a copy of the oft-maligned With Sympathy by Ministry). A more polished affair than Fuck’em…, this album contained studio versions of by-then-favorites like “Science Gone Too Far” and “Young, Fast & Scientific,” as well as a studio cover of “Search & Destroy.”

By this point, however, the band was long over. Lead singer Handsome Dick Manitoba had started a new band called Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom, lead guitarist Ross The Boss had started the very metal Manowar (who I also kinda got into, however ridiculous) and guitarist Scott “Top Ten” Kempner formed the Del Lords, who were perfectly fine, but a bit more rootsier than my usual fare. While I still dug their music, for all intents and purposes, the Dictators were done.

Years went by. I found myself a couple of years out of college and hanging out in a bar on Avenue A and 2nd Street called … wait for it … 2A. It was the latter part of a divisive evening wherein two friends of mine were quarreling. All I wanted to do was have a beer. We head in and who should be holding court behind the bar, but Handsome Dick Manitoba, prompting me to geek out ala Wayne Campbell (“We’re not worthy!”) much to the pronounced embarrassment of Handsome Dick (real name: Richard Blum). He listened to me gush like a fanboy for a while then went on to other patrons. About forty minutes later, Handsome Dick gets into an altercation with a customer further down the bar, marches back over to where I’m sitting, grabs me by the lapels and drags me over to extrapolate about how cool the Dictators were, and I happily -- and laboriously -- obliged.

A couple of years after that -- and here’s where my chronology starts to getting muddled – Handsome Dick opened his own bar on Avenue B called Manitoba’s. Around this time, the Dictators reformed in various capacities with some members coming and going. My good friend Dean Rispler even joined for a long while on bass. I even got to see them perform again a few times at places like Coney Island High and The Bowery Ballroom. 

After that, things got complicated. Handsome Dick unwittingly became something of a divisive figure, sometimes alienating people all over the map with some pointed political opinions. Then his bar got some noise complaints. Then some ugly allegations were leveled at him. The band stopped speaking to each other. The bar closed. It was all very unfortunate.

Very recently, members of the Dictators reformed, albeit without Handsome Dick, and started recording music again together. Then something else happened.

I’d heard rumors about it from some similarly inclined friends of mine, but those rumors were confirmed for me by a sad Instagram post from Handsome Dick. Evidently Scott “Top Ten” Kempner has been sadly diagnosed with early-stage dementia. Though estranged from his friend since childhood, Handsome Dick wrote a heartfelt tribute to Top Ten on his Instagram page. Read that here, if you’re interested.

Whether they’ll ever patch it all up remains a mystery, but the reports of Kempner’s tragic affliction and Richard Blum’s anguish for his estranged friend frankly break my heart.

Play it loud…