Flaming Pablum

Back to Wollman Rink

My friend Mark posted a link on Facebook, yesterday, that there are plans afoot to turn Wollman Rink — a large ice-skating rink on the southern side of Central Park that was uncomfortably saddled with associations to bag-of-human-garbage Donald Trump — into something like the world’s biggest Pickleball Court. I don’t know if you’ve been following the great Pickleball Struggle, but evidently zealous Pickleballers are at war with a nation of Manhattan parents over coveted and rarefied playground space. The Picklejocks want it for Pickleball, the parents want it for their kids. Several public spaces have actively banned Pickleball, as a result, and the Picklejocks are up in arms. Personally speaking, my kids are out of the playground stage, so I don’t really have a horse in this race, but I’m siding with the parents on this one. The people I’ve met who are into Pickleball seem a bit too precious and, well, douchey about it, and it’s called fucking “Pickleball,” which is stupid and embarrassing, as far as I’m concerned, so they can fuck right off.

In any case, this development triggered a bunch of recollections.

For a start, when I was growing up, when it came to ice-skating, we didn’t really go to Wollman Rink, but rather Lasker Rink on the upper end of the Park. I’m not sure why, though. Maybe it was cheaper? In any case, it was demolished in 2021, so don’t go looking for it.

That all said, one of my very earliest memories of being out and about with my family (quite possibly with my father, although it’s all very fuzzy, this many years later) is of being in Central Park as a very small child and going to Wollman Rink where, from the upper deck, we watched what appeared to be the filming of a television commercial — one that involved several anthropomorphic, cone-shaped chocolates frolicking around haphazardly on the ice. I have no idea why we were there — were we just passing through? — but we stopped and watched this bizarre display. The image of those poor people dressed up like giant chocolates and bumping into each other remains vivid in my memory. It sounds very silly, yes, but remember this for later in the post.

Beyond its facility as an ice-skating rink, right in the magisterial shadow of what it now referred to as Billionaire’s Row, Wollman Rink also played host to the Schaefer Music Festival from 1967 to about 1976. This series had a dizzying array of acts over the course of its run, not least by big time rock luminaries like The Who, Jethro Tull, The Kinks, The Doors, Traffic, Blue Oyster Cult, Led Zeppelin and, as I wrote about way back here, King Crimson (to name a very small few). For whatever reason, Schaefer Beer pulled out in 1976, and the cause was taken up by Dr. Pepper, who, after a year or two of hosting middle-of-the-road stuff, started staging a more forward-thinking roster of bands including some of my favorites like Blondie, Joe Jackson, The Tubes, The Ramones, Talking Heads, The B-52s, The Cars, The Pretenders and DEVO.

I’m not sure why that all stopped, but it did. The concert series decamped Central Park for Pier 84. I caught a few shows there, but I’m sad to say I never saw any of the Wollman Rink shows.

The reasons for its closure, however, probably had something to do with — according to Wikipedia — the concrete beneath Wollman Rink buckling in 1980. This prompted an expensive and protracted period of renovation that found Trump stepping in with various promises, but evidently not before most of the actual work was already done, as I understand it, but — naturally — taking all the credit for it. Regardless of his contributions to the restoration of Wollman Rink, Trump’s ties to both Wollman and Lasker Rink were severed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2021. So fuck you, Donald.

So, now….after all that, it’s gong to be a big Pickleball court. Again, I don’t really care, but hey …. if you’re a Pickleballer, get excited.

In any case, it writing all of this, I started searching for any verification of my distant memory of that commercial…..

…and found this….

Now, I have no way of actually knowing if this was from the same shoot my very young eyes witnessed, nor is there a wider shot of what could (or could not) be Wollman Rink, but sure enough…. here are those dancing, anthropomorphic chocolates or, more specifically, Rolos, as it turns out.

The one thing that makes me think this is the same one is at 00:18, when they suddenly cut to a beaming child brandishing a roll of Rolos … otherwise inexplicably depicted wearing a wool hat and scarf for winter weather … precisely the garb you’d wear to Wollman Rink.

Obviously, the dancing Rolos footage could very well have been captured on a soundstage, but … why would I remember it, then?

Pic of the Day

My son made this on Photoshop. A dad could not be prouder. 

And Zoso It Goes

Yesterday, a young colleague of mine came to the office wearing a Led Zeppellin t-shirt, despite the fact that he’s – by his own admission – never voluntarily listened to Led Zeppelin in his (comparatively very brief) life. His listening habits are generally more inclined towards contemporary pop ala Taylor Swift, Doja Cat, Ariana Grande, Maren Morris and their vile ilk. His reasons for wearing the garment in question had more to do with (a) it allegedly being the “most comfortable” t-shirt he owns and (b) he knew it would piss me off. I can’t speak to (a), but (b) was certainly true.

In response, I literally wrote a ten-paragraph (before I stopped) screed about it, invoking an episode from 18 years prior wherein a former (and also significantly younger) colleague of mine at MTV News Online failed to recognize the name “John Bonham,” despite being -– and I’m not making this up -– our allegedly hyper-informed, go-to specialist for all things heavy metal.

An urgent bundle of assets I’d been waiting for all day arrived before I could finish my epic poem, and in re-reading it this morning, I felt like the moment had passed, so I shan’t be posting it here.

In its place, though, here are my top ten favorite Zep songs. Hurrumph! 

1. “When the Levee Breaks”
2. “In the Light”
3. “Kashmir”
4. “In the Evening”
5. “The Battle of Evermore”
6. “Communication Breakdown”
7. “The Song Remains the Same”
8. “Over the Hills & Far Away”
9. “How Many More Times”
10. “The Ocean”

Soon.....

Rendered by AI, evidently.... suitable for framing.

Status Report

I’m just starting the busiest part of the year, at work, so please bear with me if there’s a bit of a slowdown in posting here. I just have to bear down and get through it. I’ll resume normal activity as soon as I am able. I’m sure you understand.

Meanwhile, there’s lots of speculation about the possibility of Trump being indicted tomorrow. My office is in great proximity to the Civic Center, down in lower Manhattan, where all the court houses are, and there’s lots of preparation for the threat of violent protest ala January 6. As such, Tuesday could be very interesting.

Meanwhile, just to clear up any lingering misconceptions, here’s how I’m feeling about it.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A Sound of Thunder

I thought this was pretty cool.

As I understand it, "Thunder" is an experimental film from 1982 made by a Japanese director named Takashi Ito. I shan't do it any semblance of justice, so here's Wikipedia's description.

Thunder features a series of photographic slides of a woman repeatedly covering and uncovering her face with her hands, projected onto the interiors of an empty office building. The images bend and distort against the interior surfaces. Additionally, a long ribbon of light is seen curling and oscillating. The effect of the ribbon of light was produced using long-exposure photography, created frame-by-frame by a person with a flashlight moving throughout the building's rooms during long single-frame exposures.

Well, an intrepid YouTuber named Artomo Sardanapale got a little experimental on his own, and decided to score those cryptic visuals with one of my favorite b-sides by my beloved Cop Shoot Cop, that being "Transmission," which appeared on the 1995 CD single for "Any Day Now." A slow-burning, dystopian narrative of paranoia with a suitably encroaching sense of dread imbued deep within its buzzing, dissonant core, "Transmission" builds to a head when drummer Phil Puleo punctuates the refrain ..."WHAT IS YOUR POSITION? REPEAT TRANSMISSION!"... with jarring strikes of a snare drum, as the ominous intonation fades into the noise. It's not exactly a peppy dance number.

Anyway, here is the spot-welding of those two disparate elements. The title of this post, meanwhile, comes poached from a great Ray Bradbury short story from 1953 about a man who travels back in time to shoot a Tyrannosaurus Rex, only to unwittingly alter the trajectory of time in the process. 

Punk Not Punk: Robyn Get Raw

Frequent Flaming Pablum favorite Robyn Hitchcock (mentioned several times in the last few weeks, notably here, here, here and here) is the most recent guest on an episode of Damian Abraham’s Turned Out a Punk podcast, and while I agree with Damian that Robyn is a sorely underpraised songwriter of the highest caliber, I’m not entirely sure he belongs on this podcast … and, clearly, neither was the great man himself.

While certainly born of Punk Rock, Robyn’s first proper band, The Soft Boys – by his own, oft-repeated admission – were not really Punk Rock by any tangible standard. Their influences were comparatively arcane and unfashionable, their hair was too long, they messed about with harmonies and melodies, and, by and large, they weren’t very aggressive (or at least not compared to, say, Sham 69 or the Stiff Little Fingers). In any case, it’s still a great episode, as Robyn’s knack for effortlessly surreal wordplay and whimsically sardonic observations (one favorite being that his native England is simply a nation of “thugs and grannies”) keep proceedings lively.

This all said, I think some of my very favorite bands of the era, and of the era just afterwards, were those that didn’t completely adhere to the rigid doctrine of Punk Rock – bands such as the Stranglers, XTC, Killing Joke … Hell, even The Police. The bands that dared the disregard the dogma.

With regards to Turned Out a Punk, though, I would say this, though: Damian’s intros to each episode need to be significantly shorter. There’s really no need to repeat the same, lengthy schpiel every time. Still, it’s a pretty consistently entertaining podcast.

Robyn’s actually playing here in New York City in a few weeks. I may or may not go, although I’m disappointed that I cannot find a way to smuggle my 17-year-old son Oliver into the gig. I’m sure he’d quite dig it. Below is the Soft Boys at the arguable height of their punkiest hour. You be the judge.

Seventeen Years Old

As clichéd as it may sound, It verily seems like only yesterday that I posted this, but here we are, now, at 17.

Happy Birthday, Oliver.

A Fighting Chance

Spotted some sad news, today, regarding the welfare of a member of New York City’s own punk royalty and one of the preeminent figure of the “No Wave” scene. Not that he’s every seemed especially well, but the legendary James Chance is having a pretty tough time of it, these days. Beyond the death of his longtime girlfriend Judy Taylor back in October of 2020, Chance’s health and circumstances seem to be in perilous decline.

Back in January, one David Siegfriend, the organizer of this GoFundMe page designed to help Chance out, gave this update…

Dear Friends and Fans of James Chance, I need to update everyone on James's current status. His health issues of severe abdominal pain and spinal stenosis have not improved. But thanks to you, the GoFundMe donors, we have been able to keep James at his apartment at The Dorothy Ross Friedman Residence for the past three years. But now I have been informed by building management that they have decided to take legal action because they want to force James to move out of there and into an assisted living facility. A Medicaid assisted living facility would be a real downgrade in living conditions and he is vehemently against having to move, but we will have to see what happens and will have to abide by whatever the court decides. I hope everyone is doing well in the new year, and if you can find it in your heart to donate again, even a small amount, it will help a lot as the funds are running quite low and we're still hoping to reach our goal. Thanks, David S

Please checkout Siegfried’s GoFundMe page and donate if you can.

My friend Miles and I actually went to see James Chance perform, a few years back, when he was promoting his 2016 album, The Flesh is Weak at Bowery Electric, but I seem to remember having to leave early, inexplicably (Too crowed? Too hot? Too late to the stage? School night? Who remembers?), so I regrettably can never say I saw the great man play.

That said, I did once spot him being interviewed, circa 2017, on the stoop of 77 White Street, the former site of the Mudd Club. See that here. 

The picture up top of James Chance in his prime, meanwhile, was taken by none other than the great Julia Gorton, a truly remarkable and prescient photographer who captured an amazing swathe of images from New York City’s thriving underground scene in the late `70s and early `80s. Her striking, black-&-white photographs of folks like Chance, Lydia Lunch, Richard Hell, Debbie Harry, Tom Verlaine, Anya Phillips and a host of other notable downtowners have recently been collected into a stately coffee-table book called “Nowhere New York: Dark, Insulting + Unmelodic Photos by Julia Gorton.” Appended with essays, quotes and testimonials from period-specific luminaries, participants and spectators, “Nowhere New York” is a truly rare glimpse into the whole “No Wave” scene that – unlike some of its comparatively esoteric and textbooky predecessors – provides an illuminating and genuinely warm angle to proceedings. Portrayed by Gorton’s lens and embellished by personal anecdotes, fabled figures once locked in starkly grainy punk rock mythology became relatable, human individuals. Gordon’s book is a captivating vista into that whole era.

Find out more about it here.

Meanwhile, here’s a taste of James Chance in his prime….