Flaming Pablum

Mohawk Night at Club Berlin: Scorsese’s take on NYC Punk in 'After Hours'

Everyone has their own favorite, arguably quintessential New York movie. For some, maybe it’s “The French Connection,” rife with a violently gritty depiction of the city in the early `70s. For others, maybe it’s the uber-romcom “When Harry Met Sally,” replete with beautifully shot depictions of Central Park throughout the seasons. Some may opt for Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” for its stately, black n’ white portrayal of the borough in its title, while still others might furiously cite the cartoonish, urban dystopia of “The Warriors.”

Those are all fine flicks, but for me, the quintessential New York City movie was, is, and e’er shall be Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” from 1985.

I’ve written at great length about my love for “After Hours” many times here before (see links below). I can’t help it. I’ve yet to see something that even comes close to bettering it in terms of capturing virtually everything I love(d) about New York City. (If you’re unfamiliar with the film, here’s a pretty thorough encapsulation).

Also, being that it’s set on a seemingly endless, sweaty night in the SoHo of the mid-80’s, “After Hours” is a great NYC summer movie as well. This latter factor had me coming back to it just recently.

Perhaps caught up in another bit of nostalgia not only for the way the city used to be, but also for a period wherein my life was significantly simpler (i.e. prior to the frustrations and travails of middle-age), I treated myself to another viewing of Scorsese’s under-praised comedy.


By this stage of the proceedings, I can practically recite the film, but I almost always spot some new, intriguing detail every time I watch it. This last time was no exception.


About two thirds of the way into the film is arguably its most memorable scene, one that borrows heavily from both the paranoid prose of Franz Kafka and the common experience of virtually every New Yorker who has ever grappled with the indignity of trying to gain entrance into an exclusive night club. I’m talking, of course, about protagonist Paul’s fraught foray into Mohawk Night at Club Berlin. Here’s that scene now.





I’m smitten with this scene for a variety of probably very obvious reasons, first and foremost being Martin Scorsese’s typically scrupulous representation of the New York City hardcore punk scene of the era. Regular readers might remember my pointed disdain for Spike Lee’s ham-fisted portrayal of late 70’s NYC punk in “Summer of Sam,” a botched endeavor wherein Spike lazily relied on cartoonish cliché and misappropriated period signifiers to represent the CBGB scene.


Unlike Spike, Martin clearly undertook a deeper dive, taking pains to capture both the proper essence and authenticity of Manhattan’s hardcore community at the time.


First up, hardcore heads will doubtlessly recognize the signature strains of the Bad Brains’ splenetic “Pay to Cum” upon Paul’s entry into Club Berlin. Closer looks will also reveal a vintage A7 shirt (the same design as worn by Kraut guitarist and future Cro-Mag Doug Holland in the video for “All Twisted”). A large-`hawked Bobby Steele of the Undead is spotted against the wall as Paul is roughly led inside, and noted junkie punk scenester and eye-patch-wearer John “Gringo” Spacely (once immortalized on film and on a giant St. Marks Place mural) is sitting by the bar. Scorsese himself makes a cameo as well, aiming the spotlight at melees on the dance floor.


Having watched this movie a bajillion times, none of these details are new to me, but this recent viewing did provide one new revelation. As Paul is roughly led into the club and forced towards the barber chair (prompting burly bouncer Clarence Felder to issue the fateful command “MOHAWK THIS GUY!”), who should I spy already occupying the seat but none other than Fran Powers.


Regular readers might recognize Fran’s name from a post I put up this past May. Fran is something of a local punk veteran, having played in a variety of genre-straddling bands like East of Eden, Whole Wide World and Modern Clix. You might also recognize Fran from Brooke Smith’s photos of NYC hardcore kids as I discussed back on this post.


Anyway, I recently met Fran — ironically at a party in SoHo — not too long back, and we’ve since become friends. Amazed by my spotting of him in “After Hours,” I reached out to him to describe the experience. Gamely, he obliged me….

How did you first get involved with “After Hours”? What else were you up to at the time?

I was working at Trash & Vaudeville and playing in my bands Modern Clix and Ultra Violence. I worked downstairs in the punk level. This girl/woman came in and started talking to me and asked if I would be interested being in a movie, but I had to get my hair cut. I asked ‘Do I get paid?’ and she laughed and said yes so I said why not? She came back a few more times to the store and she started being kind of serious. Then she was asking if i could get people to be extras in a scene. I said ‘easy’ as I knew quite a bit of people in both the punk and hardcore scene as I was in-between those ages. I played Max's and CBGBs a million times and also had a single on the jukebox in Max's (one of my still-all-time things to brag about). So, she got my number and the info started flooding in... it was a Scorsese movie and me and my friends started really getting excited.

What sort of directive did Martin Scorsese give?

Scorsese was really cool. Before the scene was shot, I found out there were SAG actors and maybe altogether 6 guys who had been asked to maybe do the scene. We all went outside with the casting director and Martin and kind of gathered in a circle and he — and I — started sussing the various people out. I knew it was a hardcore scene so even if I had a weird haircut already I went totally skin with white t-shirt, jeans boots and braces. I was so thin at the time the other guys kind of looked like slobs and I knew I was gonna get picked and Martin points to me and says ‘him’! Then we filmed the crowd scene which had a ton of my mates in it. Then everyone kinda was quiet for a bit and Scorsese started filming my scene. There was not much for him to tell me as they just cut my hair and I just bopped to ‘Pay to Cum’ and then after my mohawk, I just spontaneously dove into the crowd and started slamming. He didn't really tell me what to do, but that was the only cut and it was used in the movie

Where was it filmed?

It was filmed in an empty space that they had made into a club in what is now Tribeca. It was a really dead neighborhood at the time …not a real club.   

Wasn't there an actual Club Berlin? 

Yes there was a real Berlin club…a girl from one of my bands worked there but it wasn't where we filmed at.   

Overall, what was the experience like?

It was super fun especially I got $360 for getting that haircut and all my friends including all the people in my bands at least 50 friends got in the scene. We all got fed, most got money and it was definitely worth it. A good time, and it was very typical of the scene back then. I went on to do the same thing in ‘Hannah and Her Sisters,’ the Woody Allen film, where I have a close-up smoking a joint (real one…another good story) right in front of Woody — this time at CBGB — again with all my friends (same casting director) and again getting paid. We all did ‘Ishtar,’ too, which was a total bomb, but ‘After Hours’ and ‘Hannah’ had won Oscars for something or other, so I remain pretty proud of that.   

When was the last time your saw "After Hours"? 

I was in a bar only a month ago and it came on…I told someone I was in it and they didn't believe me, and then I came on and they bought drinks…pretty cool as people even to this day recognize me for both films.

Are you in touch with any of the other cast members today?

Not the principle cast, although I did meet Griffin at the time. My wife Madonna was in the film and a ton of friends — the ones who aren't dead — I am pretty much in touch quite a bit to this day.  

What are you up to these days?

Well, I am a carpenter by trade and still have to work (don't we all?) but i still have my band Box of Crayons, I do an open mic at the Boulevard Tavern on Wednesdays in Green Point, Brooklyn, and I am in the middle of a multi-faceted art project called "Jesus Baseball and Me,” which is a mixed media show including sculpture, painting, street art and carvings. I am looking at land in Okinawa, Japan to try to build a community for autistic and special needs people as well.  

I'd like to thank Fran for sharing his memories of filming "After Hours" with Flaming Pablum. 

And in case you missed it, here's Fran's on the far right with Dianne Weist and Woody Allen...

 More about "After Hours" on Flaming Pablum..

SoHoliloquoy (7/16/2007)

 Kiki Bridges Revisited (1/16/2010)

 The Sounds of After Hours (2/26/2010)

 Long After ‘After Hours’ (7/18/2012)

 ‘This Dark, Funny, Paranoid New York Summer Movie’ (6/13/2013)

 Terminal Times for the Emerald Pub (6/20/2015)

 

Back to Long Island Sound

I’m still effectively sequestered out here on Long Island, essentially squatting at my mom’s place in Quogue for the summer while wrangling the kids. We’re actually taking a break and going to Canada later in the week, but apart from that, I’m pretty much rooted in Suffolk County until it’s time for the kids to head back to school.


There are assuredly worse fates. While there’s a bit of disconnect out here — time moves at a very different speed than it does back in the city — I’m still managing to conduct my job search. I’ve had three interviews (all phoners) in as many days, encouragingly dispelling the notion that the job market drys up during this time of year. That said, I’m still a ways off from any firm offers.

In the interim, I’ve been reading voraciously. As previously mentioned, I tore through Billy Idol’s memoir and Patti Smith’s “Just Kids,” then proceeded onto “Mad World,” an oral history of 80’s New Wave (s’alright, but certainly no “Please Kill Me”) and am currently finishing up Sean Egan’s “Bowie on Bowie.”


There is only one (1) book store in the immediate vicinity, and I should probably be thankful to have even that (that being Books & Books in Westhampton). Time was when there were actually two warring book shops in that town, but Books & Books ended up being the last man standing. By this point, I have pretty much exhausted their selection of the type of crap I like to read (music books, rock bios, etc.) As such, I decided that I should go check out Southampton's Bookhampton, the seemingly only other book shop in goddamn Suffolk County (actually, I think there’s one in East Hampton, too, but that’s a long goddamn drive).


I was let off my leash for a bit yesterday, so I popped into the car (my mom’s crappy Ford Taurus … it has no air conditioner, but it does have a disc player!) and sped down Montauk Highway to Southampton.


To my initial horror, I discovered Bookhampton’s long-held spot in insufferably posh Southampton to be newly occupied by a juice place. Turns out, however, that they simply moved, albeit to a much smaller location. I’m guessing their probably less-than-robust sales were no match for their spiraling rent. 



In light of this, I genuinely wanted to purchase something from them, but …. unfortunately … they just didn’t have anything I was looking for (although I came narrowly close to picking up Patton Oswalt’s new one).

I left empty-handed and ended up strolling around Southampton, a town without much to distract one such as I these days. This, however, was not always the case. At the end of Jobs Lane (kind of their main drag), I spied a store front that made my heart ache a little. These days, it’s a clothier's place of little distinction, but once upon a time, it was a Long Island Sound.


In case you’re unfamiliar, Long Island Sound was a chain of record/disc shops out here on Long Island (geddit? Long Island Sound!! Bahaha). During the 80’s, when I was similarly sequestered out here during my petulant teenage summers (wherein I’d make money by mowing lawns and washing dishes at Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa), I’d frequently blow my earnings on albums at either Westhampton’s branch or Southampton’s.


The shops in question weren’t anything special. Unlike my favorite record shops in the city, they weren’t staffed by bug-eyed rock geeks (like, er, myself), but they both managed to get a ripe crop of new releases in those days. It was in the Westhampton shop (just a burnt banana nut muffin’s throw from my dishwashing cell at the Barefoot Contessa) that I first spied a makeup-less KISS on the cover of Lick It Up (which I neglected to buy, having long since moved on by that point). A few summers later, it was at that Long Island Sound that I bought The Queen is Dead by the Smiths. It wasn’t exactly a hive of esoterica like SoHo’s Rocks in Your Head or Bleecker Bob’s, but it served my needs.

Back in Southampton in 2015, I stared at Long Island Sound’s former storefront at the bottom of Jobs Lane and the song below immediately came flooding into my head.


I still vividly remember a hot summer day in 1986, when my friend Rob D. (who had a car) and I drove to Southampton for no good reason. We stopped into Long Island Sound, and I was pleased to see that they’d gotten a new shipment of cassettes in, among them the most recent Samhain album, November Coming Fire. I bought in on the spot.


We ended up driving around Southampton and then back down Montauk Highway to Quogue to the incongruously malevolent strains of Samhain. To this day, I still associate the songs on that album with that hot summer day.


But, those places are all gone now.

Trash & Splitsville

As with so many other since-vanished institutions, I can’t really remember the last time I spent any money in Trash & Vaudeville on St. Mark’s Place (above circa 1997), but I was still happy it was there.


Word came down from EV Grieve this morning that Trash & Vaudeville is leaving its long-held perch on St. Marks (since 1975) and fleeing to East 7th. So, no, it’s not totally going away, but I’m always wary of these moves. I can’t imagine the rent is much cheaper or kinder on East 7th. Will they be able to make it in a new spot?


I believe what makes me sad about it is that it's indicative of the further erosion of St. Marks Place’s former character. Losing Trash will only further the de-punkification, if you will, of this storied strip. Sorry, but that does kinda bum me out.

More about Trash & Vaudeville on Flaming Pablum

Who Took Out the Trash?
The Clash City Shopper
East Village to be Embalmed?

One More for Brian Damage

Two summers ago, whilst I was sequestered in the unrelentingly arid environs of Houston, TX for the month of August, I penned a windy little post about my reminisces of growing up as a nascent punk rock fan on the stuffy Upper East Side of Manhattan. Therein, I waxed rhapsodic about an individual I had befriended at a Third Avenue Crazy Eddie’s. That individual was Brian “Damage” Keats. Read that full saga here.


Brian was one of the first proper punk rockers I’d ever met, although I had already met Wendell Blow — then of fledgling D.C. hardcore band S.O.A. — incongruously at a dude ranch in Montana where our families were both vacationing about a summer or two earlier, but that’s a story for another day.


Back on that earlier post you may remember this passage:

If memory serves, Brian was also immortalized on a postcard. Some photographer had shot a series of portraits of NYC punks (and not cartoonish models pretending to be cliché-ridden punks, but actual, bona fide punks), and Brian was one of them. I recall his leather jacket sporting a KISS belt-buckle, which was a rather bold move at the time and a small bit of punk heresy (although being an unrepentant KISS fan myself, I saluted it).

When I originally posted that entry, a reader named Andrew Wendler — hardcore heads might recognize his name as the original guitarist for the Necros — reached out to me, saying he, too, knew Brian, and actually had a copy of that postcard. Today — two years later — he posted the image on Instagram.


Here’s to Brian Damage, 1963-2010

And while not his finest hour, here's Brian's (and Glenn Danzig's) final performance with the Misfits...

Walkin' on the Beaches, Lookin' at the ....

Hey all.

Sorry for yet another pause in the action. I have some good stuff in the works, but I'm busy chasing after my kids out here on Long Island and continuing to apply to job opportunities and such. The struggle continues. I'll be back with some meatier fare shortly.

In the interim, here's an anthemic bit of vintage Summertime Punk Rock from ye olde Stranglers.

Enjoy

I'm Sorry, Patti, ... I Was Wrong

Apart from probably randomly and unconsciously hearing “Because the Night” on the radio, I think my first genuine encounter with the music of Patti Smith in the late 70’s came via my grade school classmate I’ll refer to here as Butch.

Prior to this arguably ignominious event, we’d been united by a mutual allegiance to KISS, but for one reason or another, Butch ended up renouncing those much-maligned grease-painted heroes and started getting into insipid bullshit like the Eagles. How someone could have gone from “Detroit Rock City” to “Peaceful Easy Feeling” made absolutely zero sense to me, but I overlooked it — hoping his senseless detour was just a dalliance.

Turns out it was. Evidently not as loyal to his favorite acts as I (by a considerably long shot), Butch quickly dropped his fleeting, inexplicable Eagles fixation in favor of a newfound appreciation for this woman named Patti Smith. Around the same time, I was gradually being hipped to newer bands — ensembles like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Blondie and Devo — by some other friends, friends’ older brothers and classmates, but Butch’s way into all things Punk Rock came via someone hipping him to Patti Smith.

I have to say, I didn’t get it.

Those other bands — as bracingly different from what we’d all been weaned on as they were — more or less made sense to me. As frankly alien and intimidating as the Ramones seemed, I totally understood why people latched onto them. Devo circa `79 (still in their yellow suits) were disarmingly freaky, but their music was completely new and infectious. It certainly wasn’t for everybody, but that only made it cooler.

Patti Smith, however, just didn’t have that effect on me.

I found her voice sort of cloying, and the delivery of her — to my mind — overwrought poetry felt so labored. Here she was being associated with this crop of new music, but to my ears, she just sounded like kind of a messier version of Meat Loaf. The Clash’s songs were taut, fiery and urgent. Patti’s songs seemed ponderous, melodramatic and overproduced.

Butch tried his best, jumping around his bedroom to the strains of Easter (its cover featuring Patti cocking a hairy armpit at the viewer), but I just wasn’t buying it.

About a month later, Butch cooled on Patti Smith and started getting excited about The Knack and The Cars, but by that point, I’d kinda stopped listening to him anyway.

But that was really the foundation of my disdain for Patti Smith. What little I’d heard failed to impress me, and I pretty much closed the case.

Over the years, I’d express my lack of affinity for Patti’s music, and fellow music geeks would gasp as if I’d stubbed out a cigarette on the Shroud of Turin. That didn’t endear me to her either. I struggled with the seemingly ubiquitous perception that the appreciation of Horses by Patti Smith was both an unspoken universal understanding and entirely mandatory.

And I tried to appreciate it. I really did. I dutifully picked up a used copy of the LP sometime during my college years and tried to glean why so many of my peers and heroes alike placed it on such a high pedestal. By this point, I knew (or imagined I knew) the fundamentals of her back story, and totally respected her deserved place in the history of NYC punk, but I still just didn’t hear the same brand of intoxicating otherness that I’d found in records by peers like the Dead Boys or Talking Heads.

In the summer of 1988, I remember checking out her comeback album, Dream of Life, but it, too, failed to bridge the gap for me. I mean, “People Have the Power” was well-intentioned and perfectly fine, but in no way was it especially exciting. Or not to me, anyway.

I actually went to see her perform a reading at the Central Park Summerstage sometime after that. Suffice to say, it did precious little to change my opinion.

So that was that. I was not a Patti Smith fan. There’s no shame in that.

The problem, however, is that I lazily became a sort of cartoonish Patti Smith detractor.

As detailed on this ancient post, in the fall of 2002, I was in Munich, Germany and introduced to this rock writer named Sky Nonhoff. His wife and mine were publishing colleagues and the couple very nicely had us over one evening shortly after the Frankfurt Book Fair.

We walked into Sky’s apartment and upon seeing the countless shelves of meticulously alphabetized compact discs and LPs, I recognized him as a kindred soul. We became fast friends, spending the rest of the evening pouring over his enviable collection of obscure vinyl.

At the time, Sky was putting together a book, and asked if I’d like to contribute to it. The thrust of the project — called “Don’t Believe the Hype” — was essentially the toppling of sacred cows, with each chapter dedicated to giving canonical albums a skeptical — if not flat-out barbed — second opinion.

Never one to pass up the chance to opine on such things, I ended up writing two chapters to Sky’s book — one based on cutting Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction down to size (a redressing I feel absolutely zero regrets about) and the other a withering dissection of Horses by Patti Smith, rife with lots of nasty adjectives and not just a little needless character assassination.

As any rock hack can tell you, it’s way easier (and, frankly, more fun) to compose a negative review of something than a positive one. And, given the nature of this collection of essays Sky was compiling, I dutifully amplified the dismissive vitriol for (arguably) comedic effect.

The book eventually came out — albeit only in Germany. I have a copy, but being that I don’t speak a lick of German, I haven’t the foggiest clue if the translated text mirrors my original words. That said, you can read my merciless account of Horses in needlessly overwritten English on this link.

As time has gone on, certain folks have read that review of mine — out of context from the rest of Sky’s book — and gotten upset. It’s not like I was taking a potshot at some hair metal drivel like Poison — Patti Smith means a great deal to a lot of people. I don’t know if it’s burned any bridges, but in some instances, it hasn’t done me any favors.

Years later, Patti Smith published “Just Kids,” an award-winning memoir of her days as a nascent New York resident and aspiring artist alongside her muse Robert Mapplethorpe. Given my by-then established feelings about Patti Smith, I didn’t exactly sprint off to the Strand for my copy.

By this point, candidly speaking, I was growing embarrassed by the stuff I’d written about her. It’s not that the greater outside world gave the slightest goddamn about what I had to say about Patti Smith, but I managed to genuinely irritate and/or alienate a few new friends and colleagues with my opinionated bluster. No, I didn’t really dig her records, but it’s not like I had any genuine ill will for the woman.

Given my preoccupation with New York City and music, countless friends and associates of mine were incredulous that I hadn’t read “Just Kids.” How could I not? It seemed tailored specifically to my sensibilities. In such instances, I’d have to sheepishly confess to not being a fan, and that would sometimes lead to that chapter in Sky’s book and blah blah blah. I’d come off looking like a vindictive, opinionated dick.

Cut to Summer 2015. Bereft of fresh reading material while sequestered out at my mom’s place in Long Island, I repaired to the seemingly lone book shop in the Quogue/Westhampton area (that being Books & Books on Main Street). Having just sped through a selection of great rock reads (see that list here), I settled on Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” (entertaining, but not exactly a heavy lift) and somewhat hesitantly sprang for the paperback edition of “Just Kids.”

I was basically done with Billy’s book in two days. Again, amusing, but not exactly “Catcher in the Rye.”

Sheepishly, I cracked the binding on “Just Kids,” fully expecting a failure to engage.

Here’s the thing, though. It was excellent.

Quite unlike my presumptuous characterization of Patti as some sort of self-absorbed opportunist, she comes across as a strikingly thoughtful, eloquent, and deeply humble soul. She writes beautifully, unspooling intimate details of her life, insights and surroundings in a candid, conversational manner that belies her cultivated, tough exterior.

The story of her relationship with Mapplethorpe is richly detailed and brimming with warmth, humanity and emotional conflict. In regards to her gradual metamorphosis from bedraggled poet to nascent rock star, she is often her own harshest critic. No ego trips here.

While I doubt I’ll be able to listen to Horses again with an entirely fresh pair of ears, I believe it’s totally fair to say that “Just Kids” completely decimated my earlier sentiments about Patti Smith. Her book confirmed what I’d secretly been suspecting (i.e. that I was being a completely misinformed jerk), and fostered a new level of respect for the great lady.

To all of those folks pissed off at me for shitty things I’ve said about Patti Smith, I respectfully apologize. I spoke out of turn and without having done enough of my homework.

For the most part, I was wrong about Patti Smith

… although “Redondo Beach” remains pretty goddamn unlistenable.

Ten Years of Flaming Pablum

Time flies, eh?

I started this blog as a complete lark in 2005. At the time, I was married with an infant daughter and a long-held job at TIME Magazine.

Since then, I’ve had a second child. At times, given its demands, Flaming Pablum has felt like my third child.

I've since changed jobs no less than three times (and am still currently on the hunt for the next opportunity). And while I started this blog partly as a means to help occupy the long, quiet hours of downtime during weekly overnight shifts at the TIME Magazine news desk, it’s turned into something that’s frequently garnered more attention than my professional résumé.

When I first launched Flaming Pablum, the following concerns were all still operational: CBGB, The Cedar Tavern, Rocks in Your Head, Shakespeare & Co., Bleecker Bob’s, the Roseland Ballroom, Milady’s, Gotham Book Mart, Tower Records, Mondo Kim’s, Chumley’s, the original Max Fish, The Hat, Motor City, the Hog Pit, NYCD, Rockit Scientist, Subterranean Records, the Knitting Factory, Footlight Records, the Virgin Megastore, the Lit Lounge, Etherea Records, the All-State Cafe, Pizza Box, Future Legend Records ... and those are just the ones off the top of my head. The disappearance of most of what I’ve held dear about New York City has accelerated to such a point that I find it almost too dispiriting to try to keep up.

In the ten years that I’ve been writing about this stuff, I’ve been remarkably fortunate enough to meet a disarming amount of similarly inclined individuals. I’ve made friends and have become part of a veritable community. I’ve had people from all corners of the globe reach out to me to share their thoughts on stuff I’ve hastily typed here.

As time has gone on, it seems the novelty of blogging has rather sharply dissipated (witness the amount of links to broken or dormant blogs at left), but I’ve somehow managed to keep mine going. Barring a couple of self-imposed hiatuses and the pervading fear that each and every post may be my final gasp, I’ve endeavored to find something to say here on a more or less regular schedule for a full decade.

I’d sincerely like to thank everyone who’s managed to find the blog (especially with my cryptic and not-at-all intuitive URL), read it and — good lord — come back for more. I hope it’s been as informative and engaging for you as it’s been therapeutic for me.

I can’t promise you ten more years, but as long as you keep coming back, I’ll keep trying to serve it up.

And, apologies for the stupid name.

Canal Street Memories

Relics from a misspent youth: throwing stars procured from a dubious purveyor of dangerous items on Canal Street circa 1983. They now live in my desk, in case I'm set upon by ninjas whilst Facebooking.

These date back to an era when Canal Street still seemed like an endearingly roiling hotbed of scum and villainy (with apologies to Moss Eisley spaceport). 

My favorite stops invariably included Canal Street Jean Co. (naturally), The Trader (just west of West Broadway), Industrial Plastics (where I was regularly dispatched on errands by a graphic designer I was gophering for), the original Pearl River, SoHoZat and Bomb the System on West Broadway. I also miss the odd flea markets.

Canal will never be "just another street," but one can't help but feel -- like so much of the rest of Manhattan -- it's just not the same anymore.

Summer in the City

The amazing image above was shot by noted photographer Fred Conrad in the summer of 1977 on the silky sands of what is now Battery Park. Today, Battery Park is, obviously, no longer the tantalizing strip of sun-bleached beachfront pictured above, nor are a couple of those building in the background still there anymore, but we all know that.

Despite the fact that the pertinent elements of this photo are now forever gone, it still wonderfully captures the notion of “Summer in the City” to me, finding two resourceful urbanites making the most of their surroundings. The resulting incongruity seems like a hybrid of “Beach Blanket Bingo” and “Planet of the Apes.”

I’m actually back in the city again with my family for the next few days. As cryptically alluded to in the last post, we’ve been somewhat beset by a string of unfortunate events, ranging from the very serious through to the frankly ridiculous. But the confluence of said events made us feel like it was time to close ranks and get off Long Island for a breather. So, that’s what we’re doing.

I hope to have some more interesting stuff up here in the next few days, so please stay tuned.

In the interim, please continue to enjoy your summer, and be good to each other.

Something's Gone Wrong Again

Apologies for yet another slowdown, but Summer 2015 is proving to be a formidable wave of comeuppances. I can't go into much detail now, but suffice to say, we are doing our best to meet and combat each and every problem. 

Something good will happen at some point .... one hopes.

Never mind Rihanna and her vile ilk, this summer's theme song is this...