Flaming Pablum

Sounds In The Summertime

For the last month — and for the conceivable next month -- myself and my little family are sequestered back out at the so-called Lamb Cottage out here on Long Island, the same little house we sub-letted last summer, when the pandemic convinced our friends who normally rent it to stay put in their North Carolina home. As fate would have it, that same family demurred from coming up north this summer, too, so they graciously let us sublet it again for July and August, and it’s a true gift for us to be able to do it.

This all said, while this little cottage was a literal safe haven for us last year and an idyllic place for us to undeservedly sojourn this year, it does have its minor drawbacks.

Sandwiched on all sides by other properties, the cottage comes with two specific sets of neighbors — we call them Jersey House and Staten Island House — who each harbor penchants for, shall we say, sharply compromising the idyll.

Closest is Jersey House, a sprawling, fully-air conditioned suburban compound with a lavish backyard pool that is just over a fenced hedge from us. The residents of same are a family of five who keep a strange weekly schedule that flies in the face of the calendar’s conventions. They oddly disappear for days, out of synch with the weekday/weekend continuum. When they are here, however, their kids spend an inordinate amount of time in the pool. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. Had we our own pool, we’d probably do the same.

By the same token, the Jersey House kids conduct themselves in the pool in a manner that is best described as … well … feral. Now, don’t get me wrong — obviously, children frolicking in swimming pools is very literally the sound of summertime. When my own kids were little, they giggled their heads off whilst playing in my mother’s pool. But these kids are just … different. They are MANIC, and sound like they are in dire need of some weapons-grade dosages of Ritalin. They scream, rant, rage, moan and bellow in a manner that gives me concern, and I don’t even like these children. Never mind the fact that they irritate the bejesus out of us, I can’t fathom how their own parents stand it. There is no calm. There is no peace. When they play “Marco Polo,” — and they are ALWAYS PLAYING “MARCO POLO,” a strange, maddening constant, given the mind-numbing idiocy of the game — they scream as if their next meal singularly depends on winning.

Last year, we politely asked, on a few awkward occasions, if they could try to keep all the bug-eyed, vein-popping screaming to a minimum. By the end of that summer, we were brazenly yelling “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CALM THE HELL DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP” out our bedroom window (the one that faces their pool). Nothing ever changed.

Across the narrow driveway on the other side, meanwhile, is Staten Island House. That’s a whole `nother story.

A massive, multi-bedroomed stronghold with multiple cars coming and going and yet another sprawling backyard pool set-up, Staten Island House plays host to a horde of folks from, we assume, Staten Island, who dependably like to regularly juxtapose the otherwise sleepy tranquility of the surrounding environs (Jersey House notwithstanding) with their pronounced affinity for high-decibel partying. Again, situated as they are between a cluster of other houses, to say nothing of the police station just a block away, the residents of Staten Island House suffer from what my wife calls a dearth of “situational awareness.” I find that diagnosis a little charitable, sooner suggesting that they proudly exude a palpable case of “pugnacious situational indifference.” Routinely opting for rafter-shaking airings from the discographies of Billy Squier, Pat Benatar and Rupert Hine (man oh man, do they love “Escape [The Pina Colada Song]”) in a manner suggesting that 1981 never ended, the S.I. House practically dares me to come complain. Thus far, I have demurred from that option.

Last summer, there was a moment when I was working away at my laptop in the living room, when I heard a group of people walking up the cottage’s long, gravel driveway. I looked out the screen door to see a phalanx of angry-looking women in lycra activewear standing outside in a sort of attack formation. “Can I help you?,” I asked. The leader, a tough-talking lady brandishing a metal water bottle somewhat menacingly, spoke up. “Hey there, Paul, why did you call the cops on us last night?” “Well,” I calmly replied, “for a start, my name isn’t Paul, and we didn’t call the cops on anyone last night or ever. We’re not really ‘call-the-cops’ types, here.” She didn’t seem to buy it and went on to assert that they were just blowing off steam and having a party with some of their friends after a long work week (seemingly oblivious to the fact that the party in question happened on a Monday night). I re-iterated that we hadn’t called the police on them, which was true. Being that we’re ultimately only guests of our friends here, we don’t really feel its our place to alert the local constabulary of any noise disturbance (despite the fact that I’m dead sure the police station a block away could easily hear Staten Island House’s stentorian spins of “Love Is A Battlefield” the evening prior). Bear in mind, these ladies didn’t come down our driveway with a conciliatory bottle of wine to offer — just grimaces and lycra. They took off back down our driveway, and that was our last interaction. But the late-night arena-rock blocks have continued unabated.

Once again, we’re inclined to just grin and bear it, as the benefits of spending time here at the cottage vastly outweigh the drawbacks. If that means dealing with the bloodcurdling screams of Jersey House’s pool and the foundation-quaking renditions of “The Stroke” from Staten Island House, so be it.

Earlier this week, however, I had to repair back to the city. After the remains of a botched root canal in the back of my mouth finally saw fit to dislodge themselves from my skull two weeks back, I figured it was high time to go see my dentist again. I made an appointment for early Tuesday morning, and, in short order, I found myself back in our apartment in the city, late Monday night, without my wife and kids and bored.

Left to my own devices, I ended up drinking a tallboy (or two) of Asahi while re-watching “The New York Post-Punk Noise Series Vol. 1” DVD, which features — wait for it — Cop Shoot Cop performing live at Martin Bisi’s studio in 1993. Without my wife there to helpfully remind (read: scold) me about the perils of volume, I ended up particularly reveling in this vintage slice of clangy noise rock. Evidently, I was enjoying it with a little too much abandon, as halfway through a pointedly caustic rendition of “Shine On Elizabeth,” I heard an emphatic pounding on my front door.

Shaken and shocked to my senses, I muted the television and sprang to the door. I was greeted by Ben, my gentle giant of a downstairs neighbor who could easily collapse my pipe-cleaner-like ribcage with a single poke to my sternum. He’d been dispatched with all haste upstairs by his seething wife to ask me to turn it the Hell down, half-expecting to have encountered one of my teenaged kids as the culprit. Essentially, imagine hearing this coming through your ceiling at top volume. I apologized profusely and trotted out some half-assed excuse that held no water and made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Exceptionally good dude that he is, Ben graciously accepted my drivel, thanked me and split to go soothe the nerves of his hysterical spouse. I spent the rest of the evening on my tip-toes feeling like a first-class jackass.

I am a filthy hypocrite.

The takeaway, here, is whether you’re a city mouse or an ersatz country mouse, never lose touch with your situational awareness.

Searching for George

I got a text from my filmmaker friend Drew, earlier today, invoking a name I’d not heard in a long time — Ugly George.

For those who may be unfamiliar with that distinctive name, Ugly George was a somewhat notorious New York City figure from the late 70’s. As mentioned on this ancient post, George was one of an elite, forward-thinking cadre of televisual pioneers who took to the burgeoning frontier of public access television with singularly prurient zeal. Alongside similarly inclined folks like Screw Magazine’s Al Goldstein and erstwhile porn actress Robyn Byrd, Ugly George hosted his own, late-night cable show on public access that pushed any number of envelopes and buttons. But where Al Goldstein basically used his show — “Midnight Blue” — as potty-mouthed bully pulpit for his disgruntled-consumer invective (in between clips of grainy porn and escort-service ads), and Byrd used hers as a somewhat numbingly repetitive vehicle for self-promotion, Ugly George had a gimmick all his own, and despite his inarguable disregard for taste, decorum and decent human conduct, his endeavors did indeed make for genuinely compelling viewing.

George’s particular shtick involved the man roving the streets of the city looking for inexplicably obliging women (he referred to them as “goils”) to “interview.” It should be noted that Ugly George dressed in a frankly ridiculous and disarmingly revealing silver get-up that one would be very hard-pressed to describe as “flattering” (hence the man’s moniker), augmented by weighty video-capturing equipment (that technology still in its toddlerdom) that made him look like a kind of portly, priapic cosmonaut.

Once George lured in a willing subject, he would then invite them to a nearby alley, secluded courtyard or vacant vestibule and somehow convince them to voluntarily strip on camera (among….umm…. other things), all the while luridly narrating for his viewers (whom he referred to as “students”) the progress of his pursuit. I imagine it was designed to be titillating, but even if you were understandably revolted by George’s antics, witnessing his strenuously unlikely powers of persuasion was pretty fascinating.

Astonishingly, Ugly George kept it up for a very long time. As a kid, I do remember seeing him on the streets every now and then (suffice to say, he was hard to miss). Beyond the audacity of his venture, Ugly George was no small-risk taker, loaded down with clunky video equipment strapped to his back, making him something of a vulnerable target when he fell afoul of a vexed boyfriend or self-appointed moral vigilante. I vividly remember local news reports about George getting the crap beaten out of him on a few occasions, which I suppose was an occupational hazard.

After a while, Ugly George seemed to fall off the radar, his name reduced to a sleazy footnote from a bygone era of a less salubrious New York City. I remember Al Goldstein going through a series of financial tribulations before passing away from a kidney disorder in 2013, and I believe Robyn Byrd is still out there somewhere (she once accosted me, circa 1986, at the Tower Records on West 66th Street, brandishing a copy of the Beastie Boys’ License to Ill and asking me if she should buy it, to which I said “yes”), but I never heard what became of Ugly George.

Prompted, presumably, by this same thought, my friend Drew texted me out of the blue this morning to see if I might know how to get in touch with him. Now, why Drew thought I might know how to reach his Ugliness momentarily begged several questions (what sort of company must he think I keep?), until he explained that he thought Ugly George would make for a great documentary. I concurred and said I’d reach out to another contact of mine, erstwhile Screw Magazine illustrator Danny Hellman (who once gamely sold me an original illustration of Cop Shoot Cop and Iggy Pop) to see if he might have any leads.

As it happened, however, while I was waiting to hear back from Danny (who, regrettably, never crossed paths with Ugly George), Drew got back in touch with me to say that someone had done an Ugly George doc. We were both deflated by this discovery. I remember feeling similar when I learned, right before meeting with a literary agent, that someone had beaten me to the punch with a book about idiosyncratic singer/songwriter and former Modern Lovers leader Jonathan Richman only a year earlier. These things happen.

In any case, in the event that the above description has piqued your curiosity or gotten you all hot and bothered, … you can view that documentary (sadly unembeddable) by clicking right here.  

Back to Cielo Drive

I am currently halfway through Tom O’Neill’s illuminating “CHAOS: Charles Manson, The C.I.A. & The Secret History of The Sixties,” which essentially asserts — through O’Neill’s exhaustive reporting — that everything Vince Bugliosi suggested in “Helter Skelter” was a big bowl of hickory-smoked crapola. If you’re a true crime buff, it’s a really great read. I’d slavishly enjoyed “Helter Skelter” when I first read it 15 or 16 years ago, which sent me on something of a Manson kick, for a while. Two more books on the subject later (neither of any great note -- one expounding on Bugliosi’s premise and the other looking at the murders’ tenuous ties to the Beatles’ White Album), I believe my wife was starting to get concerned. I moved onto other stuff after that, but I’ve always been fascinated by the grisly story and its accompanying fallout on the American pscyche, so leapt at this book when I spotted it.

It would have been something of a tremendous leap towards the trivial, given the otherwise scrupulous nature of the book, but I was hoping that O’Neill might have reached out to Trent Reznor, who famously (and, allegedly, unwittingly) rented the star-crossed Cielo Drive address in the early 90’s, but it doesn’t get a mention. Trent might have initially not known about the house’s infamous history, but he certainly capitalized on it when he got wind of it, rechristening his home-studio set-up there as “Le Pig” (a nod to the word painted on the front door in Sharon Tate’s blood). Trent later conceded that the bad karma and iffy appropriation of the Manson mythos was too much for him after Sharon Tate’s sister accused of him exploiting her sibling’s murder, but that didn’t stop him from taking that front door as a souvenir when he left (which later served as the entrance to his Nothing Records studio in New Orleans). Trent may sheepishly downplay the whole chapter, these days, but I dusted off this clip recently, and they’re really not making any secret of it (not least by also featuring a cameo from a pre-notoriety Marilyn Manson … something ELSE Trent sheepishly downplays, these days).

Shortly after Trent moved out (again, with that front door), the Cielo Drive house was razed.

Salt in The Streets

In 16 years of composing this silly blog, when I’ve been searching for evidence of some great, lost aspect of the Manhattan of my youth, I’ve periodically found interesting fodder in the short, experimental films made by NYU Tisch students. For all their arty pretensions and aspirations of insightful cinematic depth, they frequently come steeped in the visual trappings of the era.

I wasn’t really searching for anything when I happened upon this one, but it’s worth a viewing all the same. Filmed in 1987, directed by one Jason Rosette and shot all over Manhattan,“Salt” is an absurdist short about one man’s delusional quest, that starts on Cooper Square, just across from that squat little Cooper Union building that was later replaced by that space station.

Check it out.

"Hurdy Gurdy, Hurdy Gurdy, Hurdy Gurdy," He Sang

I wasn’t originally going to share this here, as I don’t normally post the stuff I do for work here (with a couple of exceptions), but, honestly, putting this package together was just such a bizarre experience, and I’d love to get as many eyes and clicks on it as possible.

There’s a whole backstory as to why this took months to bring to fruition, but suffice to say the iconic singer/songwriter in question was very particular about how things should be, even if his preferences skirted convention. The video below was entirely his idea, but I composed this interview to be paired with it with the idea of providing some context.

Get out your acoustic guitar and play along. Not quite sure what his grievance with barre chords is all about, though.

Please enjoy.

Back ... Reluctantly ... To The Korova Milk Bar

Of all the posts I’ve put up here over the last 16 years, pretty much the last one I’d have ever expected to strike a chord with anyone was one I did in 2015 based on the discovery of a fridge magnet advertising a blink-&-you’d-have-missed-it East Village bar from the 2000’s called the Korova Milk Bar.

A strenuously fatigued concept even before its shoddy execution, Avenue A’s deservedly short-lived Korova Milk Bar, as lamented in that post, was an acutely contrived homage to Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange,” taking depressingly obvious and hackneyed cues from the ultraviolent, dystopian cult classic in a dim attempt to appeal to self-styled punky patrons who may fancied themselves iconoclastic cinephiles. It was a fairly shallow endeavor.

Regardless of my dismissive portrayal of the Korova Milk Bar, an outlet called Mashed just linked to it for a report on — oddly — “Stranger Things” actor David Harbour’s episode, below, of First We Feast’s “Hot Ones” with Sean Evans (a web series I must confess to loving), wherein Harbour inexplicably cites the bar in question as one he misses from his youth. There's no accounting for taste, I guess. 

Should you care, read it here.

Fifteen years after it closed, the space that was the Korova Milk Bar is now an animal hospital. 

Thanks for EV Grieve for calling all to my attention.

Flaming Pablum Turns Sweet 16

At this late stage of the proceedings, I’m at a loss as to what to say about the fact that I’ve now been updating this blog for sixteen years.

I mean, oh sure, I could dust off the old anecdote about how I started this blog just to piss off a friend and former colleague of mine who had just started his own. He abandoned his after a while, whereas I just …. kept going.

Of course, the concept of anybody blogging in 2021 seems arguably pretty ridiculous. I mean, were I the dutiful trend-follower, I’d be, at the very least, a vlogger/"influencer," by this point, with a YouTube channel and branding and merch all that, but that’s just not my scene. If anything, I am a “bad influencer,” and the closest thing to merch I have is a clutch of dumb stickers, and if you want any of those, you’ll have to walk around downtown Manhattan, find one that hasn’t yet been defaced and peel it off something. Have fun with that.

In any case, my continued gratitude to those of you who’ve actually bothered to read the blog and inexplicably keep coming back for more. And another big thank you to those who have gone that perilous extra mile and left a comment.

You keep readin’ and commentin’ and I’ll keep postin’.

Walk, Fat Bastard, Walk: A Playlist for July

In an ultimately futile attempt to be less of a fat bastard, I’m taking approx. three-mile walks around Quogue every morning, and exhuming a lot of music in the process. Based on the whole albums I’ve been listening to thus far, here is a de facto playlist for this month.

Enjoy.

1.“Juanita/Kiteless” by Underworld, from Everything, Everything.
2. “Boot Camp” by Soundgarden, from Down on The Upside
3. “Poor Boy” by Nick Drake, from Way to Blue: An Introduction to Nick Drake
4. “Your Silent Face” by New Order, from Power, Corruption & Lies
5. “The Hammer” by Motorhead, from No Sleep `til Hammersmith
6. “Damaged Goods” by IDLES, from The Problem of Leisure: A Celebration of Andy Gill & Gang of Four
7. “The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness” by The Feelies, from Crazy Rhythms
8. “Summerhead” by Cocteau Twins, from Four-Calendar Cafe
9. “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” by Donovan, from Greatest Hits
10. “Hate Your Friends” by The Lemonheads, from Hate Your Friends

Dog-Day Doldrums

Hey all. My apologies for the relative slowdown here. Here in the proverbial crotch of summer, so to speak, things are busy on the home front. As of July 1, we've been miraculously back out at that same cottage in Quogue we managed to sublet last summer, but also running up and down the eastern seaboard — taking one child on college tours around Massachusetts, Upstate New York, Connecticut, Vermont and Maine, whilst dropping another off at camp in Vermont, only to drive back this coming weekend to go fetch him again — three weeks go by so fast.

Meanwhile, I’m working remotely the entire time. It’s not exactly the hazy, lazy summer anyone might have been anticipating, not that I’m complaining. I’ll also be popping in and out of the city in the weeks to come.

Speaking of summer in the city, here’s Joe Cocker’s estimable bash through same from 1994, filmed in and around SoHo in Manhattan when it was still funky.

Back to "The Wonder City"

Filmed only 20 years prior to my birth.