Flaming Pablum

Back to the 'Countryfied Cosmopolis'

As far as I can tell, the Greenwich Village depicted in this fancifully ridiculous, late 60’s informercial is long dead, but it still makes for interesting-if-surreal viewing.

Loathing on Lafayette Street

Between the lines of slackjaws waiting to get into dubious establishments like KITH, Supreme and Glossier on Lafayette Street, there is plenty to be disdainful of on that particular byway, these days. But just for laughs, here’s another.

I don’t know if it’s supposed to be funny and I’m just not getting the joke, or if it’s merely trying to validate certain loathsome traits typified by a certain stripe of millennial New Yorker, but there’s an ad that I’ve been passing on Lafayette on my way to work, each morning, that never fails to irritate and depress me.

Affixed to a wall adjacent to yet another deluxe hotel, the NOMO SOHO, is this giant banner depicting a leggy young lady being beckoned out of a town car while still attending to her nails. That’s fine, but it’s the legend beneath that puts me off….

“MY RESERVATION IS FOR WHENEVER THE F*** I GET THERE”

As I’ve come to understand it, the ad is for a “high-quality” cosmetic line meant to exude the “same swagger as the bold, unapologetic women” its makers define as their demographic.

If that’s meant to be empowering, then great, but it doesn’t strike me so much as progressively egalitarian as, well, just uproariously entitled. Get over yourself.

I don’t care about your social station, your bank account, your profession or what gender you happen to identify with, --- the world assuredly does not revolve around you. Show up late for a reservation and you’re depriving that business of revenue it could otherwise be generating in your absence. Showcase all the “swagger” you want, but being self-obsessed and inconsiderate only makes you a bad person, regardless of how your nails look.

Also, and this is really not going to do me any favors – although I’ve mentioned as much before –- but what’s with this younger generation’s blithe penchant for indiscriminate F-bombs? Don’t get me wrong – I’m not being a prude, but if you pepper “fuckin’” into every other utterance, you’re only robbing the term of its already hackneyed power to shock. That seems to be what’s happened. It’s no longer potty-mouthed invective so much as banal, workaday common parlance. Witness the recent single, “Mine,” by mush-mouthed millennial R&B crooner Bazzi, who leads off his witless ode with “You so fuckin’ precious when you smile…” I mean, honestly, is the “fuckin’” really necessary there? My point is this -- IT MAKES YOU SOUND STUPID!

You, of course, may beg to differ.

Anyway, this old man is going to yell at some more clouds. Get off my lawn, etc.

Iggy Takes Union Square

My friend Yana (immortalized here) first spotted this on Dangerous Minds and shared it on Facebook, where I saw it, prompting me to want to share it here. Then EV Grieve spotted it and shared it on his Facebook page. By this point, then, it might be fair to surmise that anyone that might be interested has seen it, but whatever …. I’m putting it here, too.

Check out the Dangerous Minds original post for more, but here is the inimitable Iggy Pop in 1988 being interviewed for French television in New York City. Any Iggy interview footage is always going to be entertaining, but what made this eligible for placement here is the footage of the great man galavanting around Union Square. I can’t say I can name the bar/restaurant he’s depicted being interviewed in. Can you?

A little while after this, Ig would largely abandon this comparatively “clean-cut” look, and go back to a more conventional RAWK aesthetic for the Instinct album, albeit to no great effect.

Anyway, enjoy!