Flaming Pablum

The Big Runaround: Day One

I'm 46 and out of shape.

I'm not fat, per se (nor have I ever really been), but I'm Hell and gone from anything you could credibly describe as fit. While my wife scrupulously feeds our family a robustly healthy mix of stuff, I still find myself eating a ton of crap, and I drink entirely too much beer -- and will pointedly NEVER drink a "lite" beer. These summer days, I'm spending a lot more time with my kids, which means ice cream almost every day -- and I partake as well. This is not a sound plan.

I'm also at something of a crossroads. It's been a bumpy year (to put it very mildly), and I'm under a lot of pressure. I'm looking to focus. I'm looking to streamline. Not to sound too much like Travis Bickle, but I need to get organized.

So, given my penchant for excess, the threat of encroaching girth, the spread of silver across my scalp and various other worrying factors, I started ruminating about the concept of taking up running.

I walk absolutely everywhere, but that's just not high impact enough. If I'm going to fine-tune, I've got to do something more.

Back in the 90's and into the 2000's, both the wife and I had gym memberships, but Charlotte's arrival in 2004 put a stop to all that. A decade later, I simply don't have the time --- to say nothing of the money -- for a gym.

So, last night, after crowd-sourcing some feedback from my friends on Facebook, I set my alarm for 7 a.m., with the intention of going for a run.

When the alarm started chiming this morning, I cannot say that I was exactly rarin' to go. I ended up lollygagging for another fifteen minutes before getting up and slipping on a pair of black Nike running shorts that I probably haven't worn since forsaking my Crunch membership circa 2004. Next came a pair of short white socks and my ancient-but-still-sturdy pair of New Balance running shoes, which I haven't worn since my last championship game pitching for TIME Magazine's softball team in 2005. Slipping on a white Motorhead shirt (`cos ya know..... gotta be me), my ensemble was complete. It was time to do this.

I decided to forego the iPod. As much as my life is basically ruled by music, I thought this return voyage into the long-dormant realm of my physical fitness should come with as little distraction as possible. Still feeling somewhat ridiculous in my running attire, I slipped out the door and off I went.

I stood on the northeast corner of Washington Square Park and looked west. It still being relatively early, the byways were largely clear of pedestrians or lamentable NYU students (is there any other kind? I kid, I kid). The only other people out were seemingly dog-walkers and members of that elite fellowship I was seeking to join: runners.

I figured I should stretch, but -- honestly -- I didn't really know what stretch to do. I did some stupefyingly rudimentary stretch-approximations for about ten seconds each (this will invariably come back to haunt me this afternoon), and off I went....

I started off at a slow trot. I'm not doing this to break any records or enter any half-decathlons. By the time I reached the Washington Square Arch at the mouth of Fifth Avenue, I was surprised how simple it felt. Though they hadn't hit the pavement in some time, my New Balance kicks were still providing me with a sufficient amount of spring with each step. I was literally off and running.

As I rounded the corner onto Washington Square Park West (a.k.a. MacDougal Street), however, I started to feel it. With each step, I felt the impact. I felt it in my knees. I felt it in my sternum. I felt it in my lamentably curvaceous torso. Each pounding foot on the pavement came with an innard-worrying jolt. I felt my ponderous 185 pounds in each stride. My body was starting to wake up and evidently wasn't fully on-board with my plan.

I didn't want to pause, though. If I could just make a single, complete, unbroken lap of running -- even at this comparatively unhurried pace -- I would consider it a good start. Other people can do it without pausing. Why couldn't I?

Rounding the corner onto the south side of the park (Washgington Square Park South, a.k.a. West 4th Street), I suddenly flashed back to the summer of 1980 at Great Oaks, a sleepaway camp I was sent to in Oxford, Maine. Myself and the other campers were huddled on a dock that extended onto a black, ice cold lake. Our task was to dive into the water, swim to the bottom and grasp a bit of sand or dirt. When we swam back up and broke the surface, we were to vault our hand up and display said dirt, demonstrating that we'd successfully made it to the bottom. When my turn came, I jumped into that forbidding black water, but couldn't seem to successfully propel myself downward. I flailed and fought the disorientation, but I couldn't -- or wouldn't -- make it to the floor of that lake. I gave up too soon and broke the surface with a dramatic gasp, my hands uncontaminated by sand or dirt. "That's going to be a problem, Mr. Smith," said our incongruously portly councilor. I felt ashamed. 34 years later, I still do.

Melodramatic? Maybe, but I wasn't going to give up like that ever again. I was going to complete this full loop without stopping.

By this point, my breath had settled into a nice rhythm, punctuated by an emphatic exhale on every fifth step. As I rounded the last corner onto Washington Square East (which turns into University Place), I felt confident. I was going to make it without stopping.

I'm sure there are droves of you reading this (I should be so lucky to get "droves" of readers) who think this is ridiculously laughable. If my statistics are correct, the perimeter of Washington Square Park only equals half of a mile. If I can't run a half-mile without stopping, how can I face myself?

Well, that's just it. That's why I'm starting this.

I made it back to the spot I started from and yanked back the throttle into a wobbly walk. I'd completed my first run around the park, and was now feeling it all over, especially in my legs. While I was hardly in a dewy glow of a victorious marathoner, I felt a slight twinge of accomplishment. Sure, it's not much, but it's a start.

Let's see if I can do it again tomorrow.

Gabba Gabba G'bye: Eulogizing The Ramones

When Joey Ramone succumbed to cancer back in 2001, I was still working at TIME Magazine as a news desk editor. At the story meeting that morning, editors sat around the big conference table bandying ideas around as to who the magazine should reach out to for the purposes of penning a eulogy. A few chimed in suggesting "Johnny Rotten," the erstwhile Sex Pistol's infamously thorny persona still being the go-to name for all things punk rock. Rarely did I speak up in these meetings, being that I was a comparatively lower-ranking member of the team, but here was a subject I warmed to, to say the least. Knowing that John Lydon has never had anything even remotely positive to say about the contributions of the Ramones, I jumped into the conversation. You can read the rest of that saga here.

Thirteen years later, we've just lost the last original member of the Ramones to cancer. In typical fashion, the media are still getting their facts wrong. Reports seem split on whether he was 62 or 65. One network news program prefaced their report of Tommy (Erdelyi) Ramone's death with a snippet from the video for "I Wanna Be Sedated," taken from Road to Ruin ... an album Tommy did not play on. Minor quibbles, maybe, but c'mon ... get it right.

Anyway, one media outlet who did get it right was SPIN online. Instead of roping in Pete Wentz or Pink or, y'know, one of those douchebags from Train, SPIN had the insight to contact one of their former regular contributors, PUNK Magazine scribe and "Please Kill Me" author Legs McNeil. By this stage of the proceedings -- with all four original members dead, to say nothing of the band's visual mastermind Arturo Vega -- you would be hard-pressed to name someone more versed in the Ramones' inner circle.

I actually had the privilege of working with Legs in the summer of 1989 when I interned at SPIN (you can read that sepia-toned epic poem here). He could be alternately rude, hilarious, cantankerous, thoughtful, abusive, somber, inspired and tirelessly inappropriate, but he was never, ever boring. Legs' eulogy to his fallen friend has a sobering finality to it, and might just be the only piece on Tommy Ramone's death you need to read.

The only other piece I've read about Tommy Ramone's death that struck a chord with me was from the Daily Mash (sort of Britain's answer to The Onion). The headline pretty much sums it up: 99 per cent of Ramones t-shirt owners not upset.

You Oughta Know By Now: Redux

As I mentioned with great, rude aplomb on this post from 2012, I've never given the slightest crap about Billy Joel. Yes, I realize he's NYC to the bone and all that (witness local classic rock radio's tireless insistence on wheeling out "It's Still Rock 'n' Roll To Me," "Captain Jack" and -- god help us all -- "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" at every conceivable opportunity), but seriously -- enough already. I mean, I don't wish the man ill or anything (well, not really), but I've just never really enjoyed his music (see also Springsteen, but that's a hellfire-tempting post for another day).

In any case, a comrade of mine on the NYC-blogging front, the disarmingly astute Bob Egan of PopSpots, apparently is quite a fan of Mr. Joel's. Good sport that he is, Egan overlooks my fandom for bands he probably can't stand like SWANS, the Cro-Mags and the Plasmatics, and regularly shares information with me.

Back on that earlier post, I linked back to a typically sprawling post of Bob's which pinpointed several key album cover locations from Billy Joel. Even if you (rightly) don't think much of the Piano Man, it makes for fascinating reading.

Anyway, there is one specific spot I pass by on a semi-regular basis that I did know had a special relevance to hapless Billy Joel fans like dear Bob. When I was out on that afore-cited marathon trek around Lower Manhattan a couple of weeks back with my intrepid little kindernauts, we passed through SoHo and by a specifc stoop on Mercer Street between Houston and Prince. To walk by it now, you'd probably never give it a second thought. But to someone with a head swimming with utterly useless rock-dork trivia, I couldn't resist paying some cheeky homage to the former Mr. Christie Brinkley.

Forgive me, Mr. Egan.

Billy Joel's An Innocent Man circa 1983

 

Charlotte & Oliver on Mercer & Prince, 2014

 

Name Those Punks: Solved?

The other day, you may remember, I posted the vintage photograph above by one Charles Steiner of a gaggle of punks holding court at the bar of former Bowery haunt Great Gildersleeves circa 1983, and asked if anyone could name the players involved.

As I mentioned, the gent in the "I GOT SHIT FOR BRAINS" shirt is inarguably the great Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys, and I postulated that the dude on the far left is tough-guy character actor Clancy Brown (although I could be mistaken). A reader named G, meanwhile, recently wrote in with more. G writes...

I believe red-bandana guy is the late Bobby Snots, singer from the Whorelords.

Blue-bandana guy, I don't know, but the girls look familiar.

I'd head the name Whorelords before, most recently as read about in the exhaustively detailed Misfits biography, "This Music Leaves Stains" (if you're a fan of Messrs. Danzig, Only, Doyle, Steele et al., it's a total must-read), but I'd never heard them before. A quick Google search turned up the video below, seemingly tailored to inducing vertigo and/or nausea (hit "play" to find out what I mean).

The guy at the mic does indeed resemble red-bandana guy. See what you think.

The Last Original Ramone is Gone

As if 2014 didn't already suck tremendously, I woke this morning to learn of the untimely death of Tommy Ramone. I don't think I need to go into great detail about the significance of the Ramones to a music geek such as I. Pour one out and play this VERY GODDAMN LOUD. 

White Light, White Heat, Chocolate Milk

I've been spending a lot of solo dad time with my kids in the past several weeks. A couple of weeks back, I took them out for one of our signature Bataan Death Marches around Manhattan, wherein we circumnavigated the lower portion of the island, with me snapping seemingly incongruous pictures along the way. After a zig-zagging through the Financial District and into Chinatown, we found ourselves walking north up Ludlow Street.

Being a devout fan of the Velvet Underground, I couldn't help but pose my little two on the fabled steps of the band's former L.E.S. headquarters. In my version, the subjects are drinking chocolate milk. Beyond that, it's pretty faithful.

The Velvets on Ludlow circa 1965

Charlotte & Oliver on Ludlow, June 2014.

For a dizzying exhaustive rumination on Velvet Underground visual trivia, check out this entry by PopSpots' Bob Egan.

 

Name Those Punks

You'll have to forgive me, people. As I mentioned in my hiatus-breaking post, I am indeed back, but it might be a little while before I re-find my sea legs, so to speak. There's a lot happening on the home front, and I'm just not myself these days. I'm afraid I've lost a bit of my mojo. So, anyway, bear with me.

I do have a lengthier post in the works, though. In doing research for same, I did a Google image search and came up with the photograph below, which came embedded on this article about Greenwich Village history. The photo in question was evidently snapped by one Charles Steiner circa 1983 inside the late Bowery joint Great Gildersleeves (a since-vanished venue I wrote about back on this post).

At first glance, I was immediately able to identify Dead Boys guitarist and Flaming Pablum favorite Cheetah Chrome (he with the distinctive, bug-eyed stare and "I GOT SHIT FOR BRAINS" t-shirt), but who are the other figures?

I'm speculating, but the guy to Cheetah's right on the far-left hand side of the picture (with the light blue bandana around his head) looks disarmingly like actor Clancy Brown (who played the fearsome Kurgan in "Highlander," Captain Hadley in "The Shawshank Redemption" and bully Viking Lofgren in "Bad Boys."). Kinda looks like him, right? 

But who the guy with the red bandana flippin' the subtle bird is, or the ladies in leather on the right? No clues. Any ideas?

And, should you need reminding, here's Cheetah Chrome just a block or so down from where the above photo was taken. Dead Boys at CBGBG in `77...

There's Always Central Park

Here's a quick one.

I've had a lot of free time with the kids lately. By this point in the proceedings, my little ones are used to being trooped around the city and asked to pose inexplicably in front of seemingly incidental landmarks (usually music-related). They're incredibly good sports about it. In any case, while we were traipsing around Central Park earlier this week (in the sweltering heat), I was struck by another locale. I raised my camera (well, my iPhone) accordingly. Here's the story.

I discussed Tom Verlaine's Dreamtime album in greater depth back on this ancient post from 2006. It became a big favorite of mine after first hearing my friend Warwick play "Always" on our college radio station, Denison University's WDUB 91.1 FM in Granville, Ohio. As I said back on that earlier post, it bore all the signature trappings of Verlaine's work with Television, but had a bit more propulsive kick to it. 

In any case, the back cover of Dreamtime features a striking shot of midtown Manhattan from a vespetine vantage point inside the rambling wilds of Central Park. Being a native New Yorker myself, Verlaine's decision to adorn the record with such a suitably dreamy depiction of my hometown only made me love the record all the more. Here's that back cover....

Cool, right?

Well, on Monday afternoon, after an obligatory visit to Central Park's carousel (itself a storied landmark, cited in touchstones like J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" and David Mamet's "The Spanish Prisoner," to name but two), my kids and I strolled east. Just before the bridge over The Pond (just to the the southwest of the Central Park Zoo), I looked up and there it was (more or less).

33 years after the release of Dreamtime, here are my kids in (more or less) the same spot.

And for the sake of posterity, here's "Always"...

Cruel Summer

For the past several days, I've been trying to figure out a way back into this weblog.

You'll remember that a little over two months ago, I put Flaming Pablum more or less on ice. This wasn't the first time I've ever done this, but it was certainly the longest time I've ever had to step away.

Generally speaking, I'm usually not especially cryptic about things -- quite to the contrary, actually. If anything, I'm a chronically chatty over-sharer. But as I've been alluding since the close of last year, we've had some issues here at home on the personal front. This was suddenly compounded by some equally pressing issues in a professional capacity. As such, I had to batten down the proverbial hatches and focus fully on the matters at hand for a while.

So, that's what I did.

As fate's had it, things have worked themselves out in a way that wasn't quite what I'd anticipated or was endeavoring towards. I believe it was old John Lennon who's said that life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. Great. Look what happened to him.

Anyway, be that as it may, I've decided to come back and start posting again. There's no real reason not to at this stage. I'm in something of a different headspace these days, but I'm trying to move forward and re-align myself.

In the past two months, I had been setting little news items aside for the purposes of addressing here on Flaming Pablum, but after a while it seemed so futile. In the weeks I've been away, my native Manhattan has been further beset by radical and unfortunate changes to locales I've held dear -- from Kid Robot in SoHo to St. Mark's Bookshop on Third Avenue to Kim's in the East Village to Japonica on University Place. Hell, as recently as yesterday, I took my kids for a final couple of frames over at Bowlmor on University Place, as today it closes for good. The space that Bowlmor's occupied has been a bowling alley in one capacity or another since 1938. Now, the building is being razed to accommodate yet another luxury condo.

I've been following the events via my colleagues over at Vanishing New York, EV Grieve, Bowery Boogie and a few others. I'm way behind at this stage, but I hope to bring proceedings up to speed soon. It may take me a while to re-find my voice (and re-build my readership -- is anyone actually still out there?), but I'll get there.

I would also like sincerely thank those of you who wrote in and left such encouraging comments along the way. I've been humbled by your interest and compassion.

Stay tuned for more.