Flaming Pablum

Odd Shopping

When I was finally sprung from cable duty today, I decided to head to the ol' East Village late this afternoon to check out this new Good Beer place on East 9th that ol' Grievey had posted about fairly recently. Being somewhat unduly enamored of the golden beverage, the notion of a new shop dedicated solely to "good beer" was one that intrigued me significantly. I had visions of freezerfuls of exotic lagers and far-flung selections. Sadly, I found the place filled to the rafters with lamentable yupsters, standing around like it was a cocktail party, kibbutzing in the aisles and blocking access to the freezers. The beers that I happened to spy weren't anything too special anyway. I didn't stay long, in any event.

I looped around on Avenue A and started heading back west on 10th street. I popped my head into my friend Mike Z's place, Obscura. Mike and I were fellow interns back at SPIN Magazine in -- good gravy -- 1989. We've kept in touch ever since. In any case, for the past several years, Mike's run this amazing little shop filled with bizarre antiques of every shape and description. Looking for a stately pair of candlesticks for your dining room table? Mike probably cannot help you. Looking for a jar containing a spotted piglet in formaldehyde, some genuine Third Reich poker chips or an ornate collection of Shriner fezzes? Mike's your man.

What I didn't know, meanwhile, is that Mike is now kinda famous. He's not just "internet" famous like some other bozos I know, either -- the shop now has it's own show on the Discovery Channel! Who knew, right? In any case, before I could shake his hand, Mike started rummaging around in a dusty cabinet and pulled out a present he'd been saving for me. Prized at some junk fair in Pennsylvania, I believe, Mike's gift to me was an old canister of --- wait for it -- PABLUM. I thought that was most cool.

Anyway, you should go check out Obscura. You can find its official website here, its Facebook page here and the show's website here. Below is a clip starring Mike himself!!!

Clash City Robbers

It's Saturday afternoon and somehow I've been tasked with the mission of waiting for the Time Warner Cable guy to come and install (for free, I'm continually reminded) our new digital home phone package. They were supposed to come on Thursday, but there was a scheduling fuck-up. They came when there was no one here and turned off our existing landline (yeah, great!). In any case, I'm here now waiting for them while Peg and the kids are out enjoying the beautiful fall weather.

There are a pile of practical things I could be doing right now, like paying some bills and/or composing some content for DadWagon (for whom I'll be guest-blogging this week ... eeek!) Instead, I'm wasting time watching antiquated videos on YouTube (of course). After a spree of vintage Clash clips, I started ruminating on bands who've had the audacity to sample the band's work. Some of pulled it off with tasteful and innovative aplomb. Others not so much. For no other reason that it's a great excuse to post the above photo by Bob Gruen, herewith the top five Clash-sampling songs that sprang to mind. Some are awesome. Some are awful. I'll let you decide which is which. Also, can you cite any others?

1. "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. (samples "Straight to Hell")

2. "Dub Be Good To Me" by Beats International (samples "Guns of Brixton")

3. "Rhymin' & Stealin'" by the Beastie Boys (samples "I Fought the Law"... fleetingly)

4. "The Globe" by Big Audio Dynamite (samples "Should I Stay or Should I Go?".... yes, I know it's Mick Jones' band)

5. "Will2K" by Will Smith (samples "Rock the Casbah")

Then & Now: Fashionista Edition

I spotted the first image below whilst completely wasting my time  Tumbling this morning and followed it back to its source, wherein I found the second image. Leave it to me, of course, to find two pictures of fabulous babes and be more intrigued with the minutia (for the record, I could not possibly care less about the fashion world). The first shot is, I gather, a photograph by one Peter Lindbergh of the top models of the day (that day being 1991), assuming a not entirely threatening pose as an ersatz motorcycle gang. Linda Evangelista looks especially unconvincing as a leather-clad hellion, but whatever. In any case, given the placement of the bridge (or elevated track?) in the background, I'm guessing the location as somewhere in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood. I could be dead wrong, of course.

 

This second shot, courtesy of Michael Ammerman of Blue Vertical Studio, jettisons the biker gang motif, but retains both the location and the leggy models (albeit younger ones). Again, I'm relatively convinced we're talking Brooklyn here, but I suppose it could be somewhere on the Lower East Side. Is anyone up to naming the exact street? Go for it.

Happy Friday!

Spotted this on This Isn't Happiness who -- in turn -- spotted it on New York Shitty. Strikes me that the yuppies and the hipsters are two different demographics, though, no? Let's discuss.

He Gets Very Loud Indeed

A friend of mine put this up on Facebook earlier this week, and it makes me practically cry every time I watch it. As such, I feel it's necessary to share it with you.

When You Need It Bad...

Spotted the below clip on The Awl today (which is a great, hilarious website you should all be reading) and while the commercial didn’t immediately ring a bell with me, when it launched into that rousing chorus (When You Need It Bad/We’ve Got It Good), my head was suddenly swimming with memories of visiting my grandparents in West Palm Beach and sunburn, chlorine and going to many malls

Also, isn’t there a vaguely apocalyptic feel to this commercial? Something about the sun “toasting” your bones and the menacing look of that blinding orb as it peeks between … are those clouds or the smoke from some demonic funeral pyre? When did Florida become “Gamma World” (a bone thrown to the RPG geeks out there).

In any case, a nice glimpse of vintage, snow-caked NYC awaits therein.

Like I Needed the Encouragement

A few weeks back, my friend Jeff asked if I'd be interested in being interviewed by local daily paper, AM New York for an article they were putting together about the arguably obsolete practice of maintaining a compact disc collection in New York. I said sure, and Jeff gave my contact info to his reporter friend. After a brief exchange over e-mail and a visit from a photographer (Tiffany L. Clark, who took the lovely shot of my very silly self at the top of this post), and it was all done. The interview went up on the web yesterday, and it's in the physical copies of AMNY this morning.

Then & Now: Another Walk Down West 8th Street

It was an inspired idea, I think, but my execution was a little iffy.

A few weeks back, I posted a video hosted originally by the Anthology Film Archives of a walk down West 8th Street filmed sometime in the early 1970s by a noted typographer, academic and avid filmmaker named Lowell Bodger (you can read more about him here). Bodger's 16mm clip captured a tantalizing glimpse of that particular stretch of real estate during a completely different era, and I found it fascinating to watch. I only wished he'd panned about on occasion, but I suppose that can't be helped. It's still a remarkably compelling little film.

In any case, ever since I first watched it, I thought it might be interesting to film an updated version. This morning, I attempted to do just that. Flanked by my two rambunctious little children and armed with a Flip video camera, we stopped on the northwest corner of West 8th Street and Fifth Avenue -- just as Bodger had done some forty-someodd years ago -- and I started rolling.

The original Bodger film is silent -- lending it a further elegant mystique, in my perception. My clip, on the other hand, is cursed with sound. As you'll hear me mention in the clip, what starts out as an homage to Bodger's film swiftly devolves into a demonstration of neurotic, high-volume parenting, as I bark increasingly-harried directives at my children who -- in turn -- blithely ignore them.

Another unfortunate aspect of my video is that three-quarters of the way through it, the viewer may get a little nauseous. Where Bodger's film is buoyed by a seamlessly steady hand, my Flip camera bobs and jostles with every step I take. It almost looks as if I'm bouncing down West 8th Street on a pogo stick. Apologies for that.

In any event, here are both clips for your viewing pleasure. Bodger's is first, and mine is second. If possible, enjoy them both.

 

Kitchen Kommando

Pardon me a moment whilst I shamelessly plug.

For the past handful of months, I've been editing TODAYshow.com's parenting blog, Today Moms (`cos, really.... who better?), and have been composing volumes upon volumes of mom-related content (everything from the travails of breast-feeding through whether it's safe to jog while pregnant and beyond). In any case, this week, I finally penned a post that I could stamp my name on, which is fitting as I'm gradually handing off TODAY Moms to another colleague (an actual mom!... go figure). This past Thursday, in case you hadn't heard, was 'National Men Make Dinner Day.' That may not seem like a big deal to some of you guys out there, but for culinarily befuddled males like myself, it was a daunting challenge. Those of you with a keen eye for detail will doubtlessly remember that this week, my wife is away in England, so I was in charge of making dinner anyway, but I used a bit of creative license and composed the post in question accordingly. To read it in its otherwise candid entirety, click here.

Cosmic Slop hits Midtown Manhattan

The clip below is entirely awesome for a number of reasons, but given its locations in the Manhattan of 1973, I figured it'd be a nice fit here on Flaming Pablum. While I didn't lay my ears on any Funkadelic albums until well into my college years, I vividly remember my older sister bringing home copies of both Mothership Connection and The Clones of Doctor Funkenstein by the mighty Parliament (the yin to Funkadelic's yang, I suppose) in the late 1970s and having my mind entirely blown. Put simply, if you don't own a copy of Mothership Connection, you're leading a life cursed by a crippling deficiency of funk.

In any case, I spotted this on my friend Glen's blog and completely flipped out. Even if you're not into the strenuously trippy grooves of George Clinton's mob, the fleeting scenes of the Central Park and bizarrely airy Times Square of the era are worth a viewing. Crank it way up.