I spend an insufferable amount of time here on Flaming Pablum laboriously bellyaching about this changing city and the glory days of its bygone era. The era in question (basically the late `70's through to the early 90's), however, has really only been "gone" for a fleeting nanosecond when you look at the rich tapestry of this city's history. In terms of examining New York City's constantly shifting culture, one of my dearest friends, Rob Dowling, has taken this baton, ran with it and -- I'm very proud to say -- is publishing his first book on the subject a little later this year.
"Slumming In New York" probably isn't ideal for a lazy beach-read, though, unless you happen to frequent beaches populated by scholars, university professors, historians, intellectual aesthetes and other think-tank dwellers. It's academia with a capital "A," but from within that illustrious realm, the book is already receiving rave reviews. Rob knows his stuff.
At the risk of doing his stately tome a misinformed disservice, I'll let this description right here fill you in with regards to specifics. As an added bonus, you can also pre-order yourselves a copy via the very same link, if that sounds like your cup o' concrete. And as an added incentive and an undeserving boost to my malnourished vanity, I purportedly get a mention in the first sentence of the forward. RECOGNITION AT LAST!!! Take that, haterz!
I'd normally take this opportunity to regail readers with swashbuckling tales of my urban misadventures with Rob in the 80's and 90's, exploring the squalid underbelly of Manhattan, fueled by irresponsible amounts of alcohol and scored by the malevolently melifluous strains of the Dead Boys, Cop Shoot Cop and the Misfits, but I'm haunted by a hopeful academic's recent tail of woe, so I shall summarily demure.
M'self and the Author....in decidedly less respectable days circa 1997 
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