I remember being informed by someone, eons ago, that when it comes to blogging, one should never qualify one’s posts with an apology. No one cares if there’s been a delay in posting, let alone have probably noticed a delay to begin with. The blog will progress when it progresses. To laboriously apologize for prolonged silences between posts is a ridiculous display of narcicistic presumptuousness.
Evidently, this was advice I didn’t really take to heart, as I seem to routinely stammer out apologies for perceived tardiness in regular activity here.
The bottom line, I guess, is that I feel I’m being remiss in my purely fictioinal obligation to continue composing Flaming Pablum.
I’ve indeed started a few longer pieces in the past couple of weeks, but have either been forced to abaondon them prior to fruition or lost the momentum. The truth is that work is busier than usual, of late, with several demanding projects on the burner. Secondly, my son is currently unspooling the sticky skein of red tape that is the high school application-&-entrance-exam process. As such, stress levels are in the red.
When life calms down, I’ll have more stuff up here. Until then,.... go enjoy your Autumn.
Down here in Greenwich Village or – as I’m frequently heard to describe it – the veritable crotch of NYU, there’s a certain ground-floor apartment in the much, much nicer building across the street from mine that has always sparked a bit of speculation. Easily spotted from the sidewalk outisde, one can see a robust selection of handsome electric guitars hung around the high-ceilinged peremeter of a stately sitting/media room. I remember spying it sometime shortly after moving onto the street circa 2002 and becoming immediately curious as to the resident. At the time, I knew of certain celebrities like Julian Casablancas from The Strokes and Chris Noth from “Sex & The City” (and other roles, of course) living in the neighboring environs, but this room looked to be owned by someone at a more elevated level of affluence. The doorman of the building in question has, unsurprisingly, never been forthcoming about it (and, yes, I did ask). Lots of people in the `hood have theories.
“Keith Richards lives there,” is the one I’ve heard the most, although I furrow my brow every time it’s suggested.
For a start, while it had long been said that the storied Rolling Stone guitarist -- captured above by Timothy White -- “kept” a home somewhere in downtown Manhattan, it never struck me that the street-fighting man would have taken an apartment with a street-facing window. That just didn’t add up. He’s a Rolling Stone, for cryin’ out loud. Surely, die-hard Stones-heads would’ve figured it out and set up shop outside his window. But somehow, that theory persisted.
I also pooh-poohed the notion as -- however fun it would be to have Keef as a neighbor -- in the roughly seventeen years I’ve lived on this street, I have never once spotted the Midnight Rambler arriving or departing from the address in question. I’ve never even spotted a vehicle worthy of transporting same parked nearby. The whiff of Richards’ singular brand of louche badassery is nowhere to be smelt on my strip between University Place and Broadway. Given my own preoccupations, I assure you – if Keith Richards was living that close by, I’d damn well know about it.
Now, this not to say Keith hasn’t been spotted around, even if the spotting hasn’t been done by yours truly. As lovingly documented in Christopher McKittrick’s new book “Can’t Give It Away on Seventh Avenue” – which I’m currently reading – the Rolling Stones have an inexorable relationship with New York City, with all the band members having lived here at one point or another. Keith was said to have had a an apartment in the East Village until about 1983, although I’m uncertain as to where. And beyond periodically appearing on small stages across town to jam with certain notables, Keith was said to be a regular customer at Myers of Keswick, the traditional British grocery store over on Hudson Street in the West Village.
Recent Comments