Flaming Pablum

No Way Back to The Bowery

To this day, toss the word “Bowery” into a conversation with your fellow New Yorkers, and certain indelible associations will invariably spring right up. Some folks will immediately cite “bums” and derelict flophouses. Others might take a higher road and mention myriad retail light-fixture and kitchenware outlets. For myself and several like me, the first and foremost touchstone is, of course, Punk Rock, what with the Bowery formerly playing host to late, lamented CBGB, the veritable epicenter of everything that genre/subculture/movement exemplified (sorry, England). When I hear “Bowery,” that remains the first thing that comes to mind, and probably always will.

There are entirely too many seminal images to pair with this particular association, from early snaps by Roberta Bayley and David Godlis of characters like Richard Hell and the Ramones to iconic photographs of the legions of kids from the hardcore matinee days, many of those taken by photogs like Brooke Smith and Drew Carolan. For me, one of my favorites has always been the shot above by Godlis from 1978. Captured one atmospheric night long after hours, this “No Wave” all-stars team photo features iconoclastic scene-makers and band members like James Chance, Jim Sclavunos, Anya Philips, filmmaker Diego Cortez and others leaning louchely against a car outside of CBGB, whilst the incomparable enfant terrible of that scene, one Miss Lydia Lunch, is perched on the vehicle’s roof. Behind them, the forbidding expanses of Bleecker Street, Bond Street and The Bowery play host to roaming cars with impossibly bright headlights that split the night. The whole photograph just exudes such an aura of impossibly sneery cool -– insouciant punks laying claim to a desolate backwater to make their own brand of noise.

Well, that fanciful depiction was further decimated for me today upon reading, via my comrade EV Grieve, that a brand-spankin’ new J.Crew is opening up a 316 Bowery.

Back to 113 Jane

I’ve written about 113 Jane Street in the West Village here a few times, usually in relation to its former incarnation as the site of so-called Rock Hotel, which hosted a series of notable hardcore punk shows in the early-to-mid `80s, featuring bands like Samhain, Bad Brains, Kraut, the Cro-Mags, Murphy’s Law, Discharge, The Exploited and many more. But while that might be incredibly significant for rockheads like myself, it should be noted that the building has a far richer history beyond once playing host to a bunch of unruly cretins with mohawks.

Originally built in the early 1900’s, 113 Jane Street was initially designed as a residence for sailors, which makes sense, given its placement on the Hudson River. It gained greater notoriety, however, as the hotel that hosted the survivors of the Titanic who soggily arrived at the pier just across what is now the West Side Highway.

By the 1940’s, the hotel basically became a string of hospitality ventures, gradually devolving into essentially a flophouse for drunks, drug addicts and drifters. At some point in the 70’s, the downstairs ballroom was turned into a theatre space. Some years after that, a promoter named Chris Williamson started putting on punk rock shows there, morphing the space into the Rock Hotel, although by 1985, Williamson moved the Rock Hotel series over to the roomier Ritz.

Around the time the Rock Hotel was vacating the premises, a certain aspiring drag superstar was moving in, that being RuPaul. A friend and kindred spirit of maverick videographer Nelson Sullivan (whom I’ve also mentioned several times here), RuPaul gave the budding proto-vlogger a tour of his space in the top tower of the still fairly rough-&-tumble Jane Hotel. See that below…

Circa 1992, the downstairs space turned into a venue called Sweet Jane, a rather lamely obvious nod to the Velvet Underground tune of the same name. Under this guise, it hosted at least a handful of live shows, notably the New York City debut of once-promising Atlanta hip-hop collective, Arrested Development and a typically cacophonous and volatile show by the notorious Missing Foundation. Here’s a noisy little taste of the latter.

This might be purely conjecture, but given Missing Foundation’s formerly pronounced penchant for riot-incitement and wanton property damage, they very well might have been the reason Sweet Jane stopped operating. By 1998, six years later, the downstairs theatre space became the off-Broadway home of “Hedwig & the Angry Inch.”

By the dawn of the 2000’s, however, things took another turn. The hotel was refurbished in 2008 with an eye towards luxurious douchebaggery. The downstairs space was re-imagined once again and turned into “The Jane,” a club that swiftly attracted a new variant of high-volume revelers who eschewed combat boots and drag finery for Manolo Blahnicks and monogrammed billfolds. As The Jane, the venue invited a lot of scorn from affluent, post-gentrification residents who now occupied the newly-tony neighborhood. The club was later taken to task for allegedly allowing in under-age drinkers (gosh, where have I heard that before?) and not having an “assembly permit.”

To be honest, here in 2022, I wasn’t quite sure what was transpiring in that space today, but when I fielded an invite from my sister, this weekend, to come attend a celebratory get-together in honor of my nephew’s engagement to his girlfriend of three or four years, I leapt at the offer. To be clear, I would have happily gone regardless to help ring-in this very happy development, but the fact this it was transpiring in a space that sparked my curiosity made it a no-brainer. 

Imagining that the event was going to be held in the downstairs space that once played host to afore-cited names like The Exploited, Missing Foundation, Arrested Development and “Hedwig,” imagine my bemusement when were informed upon arrival that the soiree was happening “upstairs.” The wife and I boarded the elevator and ended up walking into the very same sixth-floor space that had been RuPaul’s pad as detailed in that video above.

Oh how times have changed. See pics below.

Apologies to Yorkville: A Quick Correction

As mentioned within the body of the text, my recent entry about Robert Chambers, Jennifer Levin and Dorrian's Red Hand caused me a little bit of concern that I might get a bit of pushback. To this day, 36 years after the fact, the "Preppy Murder" story is one many people would quite prefer not be invoked, discussed or even alluded to in passing. This is not to suggest that Robert Chambers still has his, for lack of a better term, "supporters" (I sincerely hope he doesn't), but that the whole chapter saddled Dorrian's and its literal generations of loyal patrons with a bit of a tenaciously damning reputation. In much the same way the former concierge and staff of the Chelsea Hotel wished people would stop bringing up Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in tandem with their business, I'm quite sure the familial proprietors of Dorrian's Red Hand quickly soured on the notoriety that came with the bar's seemingly inexorable association with Robert Chambers. 

I'm not here to mine that story any further (although you should definitely check out the impending second episode of Desperately Seeking the `80's exhumation of the whole saga). That said, I realized, this morning, that I made a shameful geographical error that needs to be promptly cleared up.

I suggested in the --- good lord -- eleventh, needlessly windy paragraph that Ryan's Daughter, a bar I greatly preferred over Dorrian's, was down the street on East 84th between 1st and 2nd Avenues. This is not at all the case. Dorrian's remains on East 84th Street, while Ryan's Daughter is on East 85th Street, goddammit. Given the amount of time I spent there, back in the day, I should really have remembered that accurately. I realize this is a minor point, but wrong is wrong, and I strive for better. 

Being that I haven't lived in the neighborhood in question in 26 years, I cannot say I've stopped in recently, but I am happy to report that Ryan's Daughter is still in business. Their old, vinyl-45 jukebox (which was regularly maintained and updated by a fabulous lady behind the bar with great, punky taste whose name now escapes me) was long-replaced by a more modern machine, but the interior and overall vibe is otherwise unchanged.

Those with a keen eye for detail might still find there a framed cutting from an age-old and long-vanished freebie newspaper called New York Perspectives wherein the bar is rightly praised for being a hidden Yorkville gem and not to bring a "carload of idiots" with you when you come by for a drink. I wrote that one.

A Hot, August Night at Dorrian's Red Hand

It feels strange to discern that despite my blog being topically preoccupied with my youth in New York City, in the 16 plus years I’ve been writing Flaming Pablum, I have only mentioned the fabled Dorrian’s Red Hand in a single instance, and then only in passing.

What makes that strange is that for someone growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the neighborhood I called home from my birth in 1967 to my departure for the greener pastures downtown in 1996, Dorrian’s was this hugely significant locale, for a lot of folks.

By way of quick explanation, for those who may not be familiar with the establishment in question, Dorrian’s Red Hand (I’ve never been quite sure what the full name was about, but something from hoary Celtic lore, I’m assuming) has been a neighborhood Irish bar perched on the southeast corner of East 84th Street and Second Avenue (directly across the street from former comic-book stronghold, Supersnipe, for all my fellow nerds out there) since 1960. During the height of the `80s, of course, Dorrian’s developed a pronounced reputation for its permissive door policy, making it an absolutely crucial destination for, shall we say, aspiring drinkers of smaller-than-necessarily-legal years. For whatever reason, Dorrian’s rather brazenly got away with serving under-age patrons on the regular, and made a presumably lucrative business doing so.

The odd thing about that, though, was that it was largely perceived as being basically “perfectly okay” by both a nation of (probably equally drinky) UES parents and, evidently, the local constabulary. I don’t ever remember the bar getting busted for what was basically their bread-&-butter business (that being the hawking of booze to minors), but I guess the pervading sentiment was “better at Dorrian’s than somewhere else” (as if Dorrian’s was, like, your kindly grandmother’s basement rec room or something).

That, of course, would all change in the wake of one humid August night in 1986.

I’m referring, obviously, to the notorious “Preppy Murder” case wherein one Robert Chambers left Dorrian’s with one Jennifer Levin. From Dorrian’s, the pair adjourned into the sepulchral darkness of Central Park. At 6:15 the following morning, Levin’s half-naked corpse was found by a tree near the back of the Metropolitan Museum. Chambers was arrested and shortly charged with strangling her during what he continues to allege was a bout of “rough sex.” In pursuit of a bargain, Chambers pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter, for which he was sentenced a five-to-15 year term.

Following the media frenzy that was that strenuously salacious trial, the Levin family understandably went after Dorrian’s, alleging that the bar overserved Chambers that evening, a claim which Dorrian’s later settled out of court. In due course, Chambers went to prison, Levin went to the cemetery and Dorrian’s, more or less, went back to business as usual … well, following a brief loss of their liquor license and some dodgy tax trouble.

The ramifications of the “Preppy Murder” rippled out across the city’s nightlife, and certain businesses all around town that once turned blind eyes were suddenly cracking down and asking for IDs. Many ventures actually closed. I’m thinking specifically about Danceteria on West 21st Street, a club that was known for its similarly permissive stance, although I’ve heard rumors that … there was another reason, but that’s a post for another day.

In the ensuing three decades since that fateful night, Chambers served out his full, 15-year term -– albeit with numerous disciplinary infractions -– and was released in 2003, only to hopscotch in and out of prison for myriad drug offenses over the next several years. As of today, he’s currently incarcerated at the Shawangunk Correctional Facility upstate. He could get out as soon as 2024, but I wouldn’t bet any large sums that he’d be out for long.

Meanwhile, I’ve never really been able to reconcile how Dorrian’s managed to soldier on, following the toxic PR fallout from the “Preppy Murder” case, but somehow, it bounced back. It’s still open and considered a venerable neighborhood institution to this day. I cannot attest to the current scene being in any way comparable to the way it was back in the `80s, but I’ve heard tell that, at the very least, the surface-level trappings are more or less all still there. The awning’s still red. The tablecloths are still the same red-checkered pattern. The jukebox is also evidently still filled with `80s favorites, which is odd, considering that one might have assumed the bar would like to move on from the associations of that era. In the `90s, I actually interviewed their door-minder Kerry for an article I was penning for New York Perspectives about great Upper East Side jukeboxes, although can't remember what I said about it. 

For the longest time, I avoided talking about Dorrian’s Red Hand because, well, it was just never my scene. I mean, I certainly did darken its doors on several occasions, as did countless people from both my grammar and high schools, but never felt particularly comfortable doing so (especially when I was still officially underage). More to the point, though, while I grew up on the Upper East Side and attended the same schools as the regulars at Dorrian’s, I didn’t really share an affinity for that crowd and its accompanying trappings and priorities. I harbored no desire to be perceived as a prep in any capacity. My former brother-in-law once memorably described my sartorial aesthetic as having one foot in Brooks Brothers and the other in CBGB, an uncomfortably incongruous amalgam of styles that found no safe haven in ventures like Dorrian’s Red Hand. The fact that I was also an awkward, pointedly self-conscious geek certainly didn’t help matters.

In the latter half of my high school years, I lived only a couple of blocks away from Dorrian’s, but, of an evening, was usually more likely to be found skulking about on the edifice of the Metropolitan Museum (as detailed here) or tucked discreetly just inside the entry way to Central Park on the southwest corner of 79th & Fifth Avenue, furtively sipping contraband beers in the company of certain comrades next to a boombox playing favorites by Rush, AC/DC and Iron Maiden (we referred to this spot as “Klub 79”). By the time I was actively and legally going to bars, my UES/Yorkville watering holes of choice were either The Gaf on East 85th (long gone) and Ryan’s Daughter on East 84th, just steps off First Avenue. Ryan’s Daughter had a vastly superior jukebox and the diminished likelihood of abject douchebaggery you were likely guaranteed to encounter up the block at Dorrian’s. Also, by this point, I was way more than likely to be headed to points downtown than spending time in the (to my mind, at the time) cripplingly staid environs of the Upper East Side.

But, there’s another reason I’ve been disinclined to delve too deeply into the story of Dorrian’s, Robert Chambers and Jennifer Levin, and that’s because I used to know Robert Chambers.

As fleetingly alluded in a few posts, over the years, “Robert C.” and I both attended St. David’s on East 89th street. Whenever this is invoked “in real life,” I am usually very quick to point out that “when I knew him,” we were both children, presumably prior to his gradual transformation into a thieving, drug-fueled and murderous sociopath. Robert was in the grade ahead of me, but unlike most of the other boys in his class, never lorded that over we underclassmen or treated us like a dick. As an irretrievably hapless nerd, I certainly knew more than my fair share of bullies, but Robert was never one of them. I don’t mean to sugarcoat anything or condone his actions later in life, but when we were schoolmates, Robert was a perfectly good kid. He even saved my friend Spike and I from being robbed and beaten up (as recounted on this ancient post). Sorry if that doesn’t jibe with the popular narrative, but there it is.

But my reasons for never really discussing it here before have less to do with being concerned about besmirching Robert Chambers’ name (I’d suggest he’s already done a fine job of that himself), and more about how the community from which all these figures sprang still seems to feel about it. Perhaps I’ve been entirely projecting, all these years, but I get the sense that a whole lot of folks would rather this story just not be discussed any further. Granted, it’s a dark, ugly chapter that has been irretrievably sensationalized, but one gets the pervasive vibe that that’s not the reason. It still hits home very deeply for a lot of people on a level I’m not entirely sure I can empathize with, and I don’t know that I’ll ever reconcile that.

In any case, the only reason I’m bringing this all up now is that my lovely new comrades over at Desperately Seeking the `80s are devoting two whole episodes of their podcast to the myths, intricacies and fallout of the “Preppy Murder” story, and their deep dives are well worthy of your attention. You can hear part one by clicking right here. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.

Incidentally, while the case predictably inspired a host of horrible made-for-tv movies, the “Preppy Murder” case also went onto inspire several musicians. Along with prompting songs by Hole and The Killers (two bands I have zero fascination for), it also manifested as the topic of the song “Eliminator Jr.” on Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation. Here’s them playing that now, not that you’d necessarily be able to tell it’s about that…

The End of Summer Survey 2022

Cripes, how is it Labor Day Weekend, already? Alright, then, well I guess it’s high time to dust off this meaningless exercise. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Defining Moment of Summer 2022:
This was actually a pretty busy, goddamn summer for us. After two comparatively quiet summers wherein we largely sequestered ourselves at the Lamb Cottage out in Quogue to wait for the vengeful wraith of COVID-19 to pass over us, 2022 promised to be different. With my wife positively gagging to travel, we made plans to break the summer up with our first big, fuckoff vacation since 2019, albeit one that would have to wait until our son Oliver finished his stint as a counselor’s aide up at his camp in Vermont. We decided to go to Greece. Compounding all that, halfway through the summer, my daughter Charlotte made her decision to attend the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, so suddenly we had multiple trips on the books. As a result of that, we decided to forego the Lamb Cottage (we simply couldn’t afford it, with everything else going on) and squatted at my mother’s place in Quogue, in between working and our trips. We were never in one spot for very long, which was actually kind of liberating.

With all this in mind, it’s exceptionally difficult to pinpoint a solitary moment, but I’ll have a stab at it.

I might suggest that my defining moment of Summer 2022 was realizing that the tomatoes on offer from the breakfast bar at our hotel on the island of Paros in the azure splendor of the Aegean Sea were quite possibly the most amazing things I’ve ever put in my mouth. Never mind what you think you know about tomatoes. These were these brilliantly lush, astonishingly flavorful and perfectly formed orbs of fresh deliciousness that pretty much knocked me right off my goddamn chair, every morning. Augmented with some sliced cucumber, a dusting of oregano and lashings of olive oil (I prefer “Sparta,” if you’re doing the grocery shopping, …. and you have to pronounce it like Gerard Butler in a foul mood), and you’ve got yourself a bowl of food that is photogenic, healthy and satisfyingly tasty in a manner that rivals even the most ribald of unmentionable pleasures. Like the sublimest of heroin hits (or so I’ve read), I will invariably spend the rest of my life trying to replicate the experience, always fail and die heartbroken.

Best Purchase of Summer 2022:
I tell ya what WOULD have been the best purchase! That would have been if I’d had the friggin’ foresight to buy myself a huge, fuckoff bottle of the afore-cited Sparta Olive Oil, … but I didn’t. I believe I can find some if I go to Queens, though.

With most of our money fueling our multiple trips to Vermont, Greece and Scotland, this year, I can’t say I did a lot of libidinous spending, although I’ll cop to splurging on some deluxe, surround-sound re-releases of albums by XTC, Dukes of Stratosphear, KISS and Yes, all remixed by studio wizard Steven Wilson. Several years back (2014, maybe?), I’d picked up Wilson’s re-mixing of XTC’s crucial Drums & Wires but, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this, never really got around to giving said re-release a proper, attentive listen until a long bus trip this summer. Unlike a standard-issue remastering — wherein the end result simply sounds like a louder version of the album as you remember it, Wilson’s lushly detailed remixes genuinely offer whole new, multi-dimensional listening experiences. Hearing Wilson’s re-rending of Drums & Wires was like that moment in “The Wizard of Oz” wherein the film shifts from black and white into maddening technicolor. There was space and depth and expanse like I’d never gotten from the record before, revealing all sorts of sonic filigree that had previously been buried in the comparatively claustrophobic original. Drums came rumbling from overhead, guitars chopped, clanged and careened off walls, Andy Partidge’s hiccupy yelp darted around, dueling with Colin Moulding’s sinuous bass lines, all kinetically flowing around like slippery fish in an aquarium. Put simply, I was entirely blown away. When I was back in the WiFi, I immediately sought out more, discovering Steven Wilson’s Instagram page, and immediately ordering similar remixed editions of XTC’s Black Sea and Skylarking, the collected discography of the Dukes of The Stratosphear (XTC’s psychedelic alter egos), Fragile by Yes and the super-mega-whatever anniversary edition box set of Destroyer by KISS. This last one was, somewhat typically, a bit of a let-down, as Wilson’s version is contained only on a BluRay disc, and I lack the hardware to play that particular format. Leave it to KISS to rip you off, am I right?

Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2022:
The only movie we went to was Baz Lurman’s Elvis movie, … which felt like one, long trailer. I mean, it was enjoyable, I suppose, but not really a massive cinematic achievement or anything.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2022:
I’m not complaining, but I can’t say anyone gave me any gifts over the course of the summer.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2022:
My organization underwent a surprise “course correction,” and 10% or our workforce was laid off. I was away when it went down, and thus didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye to some of my now newly former colleagues.

Song That Best Sums Up Summer 2022:
Well, in terms of new stuff, I really liked “Cracker Island” by Gorillaz, “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg and, yet another great song by a stupidly-named band, “Scratchcard Lanyard” by Dry Cleaning, but if there was one song that summed up the summer for me, it might be “Rip It Up” by Orange Juice, which I listened to a lot in advance of our trip to Scotland. Julian Cope finally released a studio version of “Cunts Can Fuck Off,” but it doesn’t measure up, to me, to his widely circulated live renditions of the track.

Happiest Memory of Summer 2022:
Y’know, they’re still both teenagers, which means that whatever it was that we were up to, at the time, there was still the requisite amount of eye-rolling, pushback and petulance, but having both of our kids with us on the trip to Greece was genuinely blissful, for the wife and I.

Saddest Memory of Summer 2022:
I’ll say most bittersweet, rather than sad, but having to say goodbye to our daughter Charlotte in Scotland for her international student induction was exceptionally hard, not least in that the temporary housing we left her at (albeit only for two weeks before she moved into her official dorm) wasn’t quite as picturesque as the rest of the campus (more brutalist internment camp than old world gothic masonry). My wife had been a rock for the whole time we were there, but fell apart at the final moment, which meant I had to be the composed one. I fell apart, meanwhile, on the plane ride home.

Scariest Memory of Summer 2022:
I’d been advised to bring my work phone and laptop on both of my trips. I grumbled about it, but ultimately complied. A day after landing in Edinburgh, I dutifully checked my email, in the morning, to see what had been transpiring in my short absence from the office. In my inbox was a letter from the president and CEO of the organization, informing us that they were laying off 10% of the staff (as mentioned above). For several minutes, I genuinely feared that I wouldn’t have a job to come home to (and this while delivering my daughter to a university and all that that entails). I was shortly reassured by my manager that I was still employed and started breathing normally, again, but …. yeah, that was a shock to the system.

That said, I did have another moment that's worth adding here. On our third day on the island of Paros, my wife had booked us a boat-tour on a catamaran around the island and surrounding waters. It was an incomparably lovely day, and we dropped anchor three or four times to swim off the boat. Now, both of my children are lithe, fit, robustly healthy teenagers. They wasted no time in diving right into the disarmingly cerulean waters of the Aegean, followed in immediate course by my wife.

Then it came my turn. 

Not wanting to be a party pooper (and this is tragically on video, I hate to say), I followed suit and plunged into the water. Instantly submerged in the cool water, I felt an immediate sense of impossible insignificance. We were anchored in a beautiful lagoon, but the winds had picked up during the morning, and the water was summarily a little choppy. I surfaced and found myself about a yard from the boat. After orienting myself, I was suddenly another couple of yards from the boat. While my children happily swam about, I started privately wondering if, as a 54-year-old in frankly not as great shape as I could be in, I might have a problem sustaining the stamina to make my way back to the boat. I was having flashbacks to "Open Water 2," a genuinely disquieting 2006 thriller wherein a group of pleasure boaters find themselves unable to make it back onto their yacht after jumping in for a swim without putting a ladder down. I also didn't want to be the guy that had to be helped back up. I paddled about a bit and discreetly re-boarded the boat with my heart pounding. 

When we dropped anchor a second time in a more open channel, I couldn't do it. I sat on the edge of the boat and watched my wife and children frolic in the waves, but could not bring myself to jump back into those crystal waters. It wasn't a fear of any sea life or anything (you could see clearly to the bottom -- there was none). It was that paralyzing fear of my own smallness in the vastness of the sea and my insecurity that I'd have the strength to save myself. It was a strangely chilling experience. When we dropped anchor a third time in a placid little cove (see below), I knew I had to overcome this problem before it consumed me. With the waters calmer than before, I again jumped in. My kids immediately swam off to explore some nearby caves (that was never on the menu for me), but I stayed near the boat, doing a few laps around the vessel and trying to regain my composure. 

Word That Best Describes Summer 2022:
Transitional

Bauhaus Bum Out

I was very sorry to hear that Bauhaus have cancelled yet another New York date (this on the back of nixing a Radio City Music Hall show in in 2020 over COVID, and then another in November of 2021, which I believe was over visa issues). This time, it seems storied lead vocalist Peter Murphy has checked himself into rehab, thus scuttling all of the remaining North American dates -- including Thursday, September 8th's in Brooklyn. Needs must, of course, and I wish the great man the best, but having procured tickets to all three of these shows, I am understandably a bit bummed out.

Ironically, I wasn’t even planning on going to this now-cancelled show at the magisterial King’s Theater (where I saw Spoon, a million years ago). Over the past year or so, my son Oliver has developed a voracious interest in music (much to my pronounced delight) and latched onto goth’s hoary godfathers in the process as one of his new favorites.

I’d originally planned on taking him, but in the wake of him asking, back in April, if he could “lend” a vintage Bauhaus shirt of mine to a young lady he’s been ….well, we think he’s dating her, but we’re not entirely sure …. I figured, "Hell, I saw Bauhaus when it mattered," and decided to let him take her instead and make a proper date of it.

That had been the plan … until this morning.

Oh well.

“What’s Your Favorite Album?

I don’t know why I let this stuff bother me, but hey … c’est la guerre.

Just a little under a year ago, I posted an entry examining a then-pervasive brand of YouTube clip wherein some dude walks around the streets asking people with ear pods in or headphones on what they are listening to. I prefaced that with one example of a guy walking around in my own neighborhood of Washington Square Park. My (probably predictable) takeaways were that – holy crap, what a monotonous endeavor (he’d ask passers-by what they were listening to, but there was no meaningful follow-through) and holy crap, kids in my neighborhood have the worst taste in the world.

So, ten months later, I happened upon a slight variation today, that being the moderately more in-depth question, “What’s Your Favorite Album?”

As you’d rightly imagine, this video finds our young bro-dude accosting folks and quizzing them about their favorite albums, once again in and around my little patch of Greenwich Village. Honestly, I only thought to make a post of this clip as the very first lady he accosts at 00:04 is my next-door neighbor, Ellen –- as unlikely an individual you’d encounter on YouTube as can be imagined. True to form, Ellen cites an album of her favorite showtunes and extrapolates accordingly. The rest of the answers are still a long way from deep and engaging, but this is at least a step in a better direction. The kid still needs to work on his follow-through, as you’ll witness….

The one part that really burns my fuckin’ toast, though, is people getting their titles wrong. I mean, granted, I’m a slavishly pedantic and needlessly argumentative knowitall, but if someone is asking you the title of your favorite album of all time, at least demonstrate the courtesy and insight to get the fuckin’ title right. It’s not The 36 Chambers of Death by the Wu-Tang Clan, it’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and it’s not Animal Sounds by the Beach Boys, IT’S FUCKING PET SOUNDS! I don’t even remotely like the Beach Boys, and that pisses me off. Idiots.

Incidentally, were I ever pressed on the issue, while there are many contenders for the title, I’d have to say that my favorite album of all time is Funhouse by The Stooges. Why is that? Because it’s the quintessential example of rock n’ roll played fucking properly, goddammit. If you can’t appreciate the feral rock majesty of Funhouse, you should probably start listening to Perry Como records and collecting ornamental doilies, because you clearly don’t enjoy or understand real rock n’ roll, full fucking stop.

In the Lair of the Lizard: The Jesus Lizard at CBGB, August 1992

There’s been a lot of chitter-chatter, of late, about certain characters in Jordan Peele’s new horror film, “Nope,” wearing period-specific band t-shirts by less-householdy names like the Wipers, Mr. Bungle and the Jesus Lizard. Now, if you’ve spent any significant amount of time reading my silly blog, you probably know I have more than a little to say about the sporting of band t-shirts and the protocols and etiquette thereof. This all said, I haven’t seen “Nope,” nor do I have any immediate plans to, so I cannot credibly weigh in much further. Suffice to say, however, that I am strenuously skeptical that I would approve of the usage.

Never a band for the fair-weather fan or the faint of heart, here’s the mighty Jesus Lizard doing their thing on the fabled stage of CBGB during the dying embers of August 1992. At the time (and, honestly, still) I was more enamored of their pals and frequent touring companions in Cop Shoot Cop, local boys I’ve devoted far too much bandwidth to here. My friend Joanne and I would regularly debate the merits of each ensemble with a degree of fervor which suggested that fisticuffs were an entirely viable recourse to resolve the conflict. In retrospect, I’m not sure why we needed to establish which outfit was dominant — they were both equally fucking brilliant.

Regrettably, at the time this performance was captured on video, I was not in attendance (although I’m reasonably certain Cop Shoot Cop were also on the bill). In late August of 1992, I was very busily nursing a wounded, histrionic heart from being on the losing end of an office-romance breakup and invariably waging a doomed campaign, that evening, to restore what was never going to be meaningful repaired. Ah, … youth.

Flaming Pablum favorite RB Korbet exhumed this footage and put it up on Facebook this morning, and I felt compelled to share it here. With all due respect to my beloved Cop Shoot Cop, there were truly precious few bands as visceral and unpredictable as the Jesus Lizard at full throttle, and this is ample proof of that.

Maybe you were right, Joanne.

Desperate Are The Seekers

I gave them a fleeting little mention a few posts ago, but they’ve been so kind in routinely shouting-out this blog and evangelizing my silly content, that I feel duty-bound to show them some equal love.

I think they started back in March of this year, but these two ladies –- actress Meg MacCary and writer Jessica Jones -– started a podcast called “Desperately Seeking the `80s,” and they devote their programming -- essentially lively discussions between two lifelong friends -- to endearingly grisly true crime sagas and rapturous rumination on pop-cultural ephemera from the era in question, all couched in personal experience and recollection, not at all unlike most of the stuff on this here blog.

They somehow came across Flaming Pablum, as previously discussed, when researching the 84th Street Bombers, exhuming some old posts of mine about getting mugged in the process. After saying some very nice things about my tireless penchant for florid overwriting, they started tagging me on social media. Ever since then, we’ve been exchanging missives. I find myself lobbing fistfulls of antiquated links of mine at them after hearing each new episode of theirs (they’re very prolific), hoping to augment the greater discussion. We keep talking about getting together for drinks and breaking through the fourth wall, so to speak.

It’s obviously focussed on fairly niche concerns (if you didn’t grow up in the `80s on the Upper East Side, let alone New York City, a lot of the references might be lost on you), but it’s done with such infectious zeal that I believe the word is getting out. If you enjoy reminiscing about scandalous tabloid-fodder of murder, mayhem and malfeasance and/or invocations about various bars, clubs, teenage hang-outs and the notorious, complementary caraffes of cheap-ass wine at Chinese restaurants, DO wrap your ears around “Desperately Seeking the `80s” with the quickness.

Tell them Flaming Pablum sent ya. Find them here.

Back to The Blue Willow

I’ve been very lucky, over the years, to have found people for whom my weird little posts resonate. I’m always skeptical that some trivial factoid that I’m all hot and bothered about will actually connect with a reader that shares that particular enthusiasm, but every now and then, it happens. I’m also continually amazed that some items that I just blithely mention in passing get latched onto and widely circulated. Which stories find their audience and why are not an exact sciences, by any stretch.

In any case, this entry is something of a minuscule follow-up to one of those stories I was somewhat inexplicably all fired up about upon first posting it. Technically, all it’s really about is a room in a long-vanished restaurant where a photograph was taken, but something about the story has always continued to haunt me. Let’s see if I can capably encapsulate it.

Back in 2013, I put up a post titled “Searching for the Blue Willow.” The Blue Willow, by way of explanation was an eatery on the northeast corner of Broadway and Bleecker Street that was allegedly open between October of 1983 and some point in 1990. I never dined in that establishment, I’m sad to say, but it was notable to me in that I’d gleaned that one of its rear chambers had served as the location for the photograph that graced the cover of one of my favorite albums of all time, that being Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves by Gavin Friday and The Man Seezer. Here’s that cover now.

Cool, right?

Exuding a beguiling air of what I called “elegant decrepitude” in that first post, the sleeve of Each Man Kills… features Gavin Friday, former singer in Dublin’s macabre post-punk combo, the Virgin Prunes, leaning with louche aplomb against the piano of musical co-conspirator Maurice Seezer, depicted with his back to the viewer as he presumably plays. Beneath a stylishly distressed wall of stripped wallpaper, a nude couple embraces next to a glowing jukebox. Snapped by renowned Dutch rock photographer Anton Corbijn, the image says absolutely nothing about the era in which it was captured. It’s a mysterious picture that perfectly matches the sound, sentiment and sensibility of the album it sheathes. You’d never know that, at the time this photo was taken, the pop charts were caked with idiotic offal like “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred and “Gonna Make You Sweat” by C+C Music Factory, but I digress.

I have no idea whose idea it was to shoot the cover and accompanying promo images and single sleeves in the Blue Willow, but I can only imagine Gavin had happened upon it and been enchanted by its noirish, old-world atmosphere. Or maybe it was just a lucky fluke. Regardless, when I learned the name and the location of the restaurant (regrettably over a decade and a half after it closed its doors), I was immediately compelled, as detailed in that first post, to check out what was in that space in 2013.

At the time, of course, it was a douchey menswear emporium called Atrium who leant out its rear space — the very chamber where the the sleeve of Each Man Kills… was taken — to a pricey sneaker concern called, inexplicably, KITH. As you’ll see back on that first post, only traces of the original details of Corbijn’s cover could still be seen, notably the flooring and some of the marble trim that was depicted in some of the other photos from the shoot.

A couple of years after that, I posted a quick follow up to report that even those remaining elements were, by that point, covered up.

That was pretty much that. I remember posting the original piece on a discussion board about Gavin Friday and the Virgin Prunes. Already converted to the cause, so to speak, that community was duly intrigued and appreciative, but the layperson probably doesn’t care too much. But I remained so intrigued by the Blue Willow and always wanted to see more.

The only problem was…. there wasn’t much out there about it. I forget where I’d found it, but I did have an image of a matchbook from the place, as well as a fleeting mention of the eatery taken from a 1984 article in the Times about its then-slow-gentrifying neighborhood. Here’s the crucial mention from that piece.

'Back then, Lower Broadway was a bankrupt neighborhood with bums lying around in doorways,'' said Martin Fine. Mr Fine, a lawyer, owns the four-month-old Blue Willow restaurant at 644 Broadway at the corner of Bleecker Street. All the food in his restaurant is cooked without salt. Mr. Fine also owns the building it occupies, a former bank with handsome moldings and chandeliers. ''A few of us bought buildings here because we knew that someday the area would be hot,'' Mr. Fine said.

Where is Martin Fine today, one wonders.

In any case, beyond the images on and associated with Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves and that matchbook, I had no other visual ephemera to pair with the place.

Until today.

For no readily apparent reason, I was doing some random Googling, as I’m wont to do, and thoughtlessly entered the words “Blue Willow” and “Bleecker.” While the same images I’d posted on my blog about the Gavin Friday album came right up, a link to the Poster Museum also came up with a “vintage poster” of the place that practically blew a new part in my hair. Here’s the prefacing text.

"644 Broadway Corner Bleecker Street. New York, New York. Open Late."

Original vintage poster for a Chinese restaurant, the Blue Willow. The poster illustration features a bustling dining room, a waitress incoming with a majestic peacock on a platter—not to be eaten, I hope!

Artist: Kristen Johnson

Year: c. 1975

Condition: Fair, please note some small tears along the poster's perimeter. The appearance of tears can be significantly improved by having the poster linen-backed.

Here’s the image now….

Anyone notice the discrepancy?

Clearly, this is the very same Blue Willow, given the correlating address, but the Poster Museum believes this artifact dates back “circa 1975,” when, by the fleeting accounts I’ve tracked down, including the afore-cited New York Times piece, the restaurant didn’t open until 1983.

Like I said, this probably means so much less to most folks than it means to me, but the fact that since 2013, I’ve been able to discern that the Blue Willow boasted a kind of Belle Epoque vibe, served Chinese food and prepared its fare without any salt helps complete the picture.

Here in 2022, I can report that Atrium has since closed and vacated the premises at 644 Broadway. Noxious footwear concern KITH, meanwhile, decamped and moved a block to the east, taking over the old “Peace Pentagon” building that used to house Paper Tiger TV and Marty’s Cool Stuff.

Gavin Friday went onto release on a few more truly excellent albums before focussing predominantly on soundtrack work. His last proper solo album was 2011’s Catholic.

That ground-floor space at 644 has now been vacant, dormant and covered up since well prior to the pandemic. I am unrealistically hoping that whatever venture next occupies that space sees fit to restore some of the hidden trappings first captured on the sleeve of Each Man Kills…, but with my luck, its next iteration will be a AT&T cell phone outlet.

Some sonic context...