Flaming Pablum

Desktop Dump: Back to The Office Edition

Popped back into my office, today, for the first time in six months. My desktop was chockablock with extraneous crap. Here are some visual items I'd obviously set to one side for a later use that never materialized. 

Downtown Music Gallery when it was on the Bowery...

An old interior shot of Rocks in Your Head in SoHo. This shop closed, after many years, and became a real estate agency. I walked by over the weekend, and that concern has since closed up shop. The space is now vacant. 

The iconic old rooftop of El Teddy's on West Broadway. This building was razed and a condo was built in its footprint. The space that had been El Teddy's is now a hardware store. No idea where the crown ended up. 

An old shot of the exterior of The Pyramid on Avenue A. Still there, last I checked. 

The brothers Ramone. 

The west side of Broadway around 8th Street. Taken from a film. 

The show I didn't go to. 

Nixed sticker concept. 

No idea. 

Lafayette Street a long, long time ago (1975) as captured by Rich Allen (not to be confused with one-armed Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen).

Lou Reed with vacuum cleaners. 

 

 

If You Mess With The Bull, ... You Get The Horns

Listen, I know I’m super guilty of being a too literal about deeply silly shit, but this meme keeps popping back into my Facebook feed, and it’s making me apoplectic.

The implication, I’m assuming, is that John Hughes’ iconic characters of suburban Chicago high school students can each be summed up by the rosters of bands they’ve each been assigned. Speaking as both a stupefyingly pedantic music geek and a former bona fide high school student from the very same era depicted in “The Breakfast Club,” …. I HAVE SOME ISSUES. They are as follows…

1. There is NO WAY ON EARTH John Bender, The Criminal — played by Judd Nelson — would have been a fan of Joy Division, much less Tubeway Army. Did the individual who created this meme ever see the movie? In one pivotal scene, the kids repair to Bender’s locker to fetch his “doobage” and the interior of same is decked out with invocations of The Doors and The Scorpions, suggesting Bender was a fairly devout adherent to classic rock and metal. Joy Division’s tortured ruminations of existential dread would just not have been on his menu. Moreover, Gary Numan disbanded Tubeway Army circa 1979, and really only made a solitary dent in the mass American consciousness with “Cars” that same year — which would have come out when Bender’s character was in eighth grade. I doubt he’d have cared about Numan’s chilly synthesizers, to say nothing of the likelihood of even being aware of his former band.

2. Assigning Alison the Basket Case — played by Ally Sheedy — a list of ersatz goth & indie bands is truly lazy. For a start, the Pixies didn’t even EXIST in 1985, so it’s impossible she’d have been a fan. It’s a herculean assumption that she’d dig The Cure, The Smiths and The Banshees simply because she wears black. Not sure WHERE the assertion that she’d have liked the fun-loving B-52s comes from, but DID ANYONE ACTUALLY SEE THE FILM? Alison, during their lunch hour, actually whips out a copy of the cover of Prince’s 1999 and stares longingly at it, meanwhile, Prince is nowhere on this list. Do details no longer matter?

3. There is precious little indication throughout the film of what music Brian The Brain — played by Anthony Michael Hall — might have listened to, apart from the pot-smoking dance sequence. To blithely assume he’d have been into conventional mainstream pop like Hall & Oates strikes me as a dismissive move. Conversely, to assume a suburban Chicago high schooler would have even been aware of seminal-albeit-comparatively-obscsure New York punk stalwarts Television seems like something of a heroic leap.

DON’T BUY THIS REVISIONISM!!!!

They Missed A Beat

So, I finally saw the Go-Go’s documentary on Showtime, and while I did indeed enjoy it and think you all should see it, three things jumped out at me that hamper my full espousal of this particular cinematic endeavor.

They are as follows:

1. As much as I adore and respect Jane Wiedlin and have done since first hearing “Our Lips Are Sealed,” her twice-repeated claim that “Punk Rock started in England” is depressingly misinformed.
   
   
2. During one of a couple of discussions about the British Punk scene circa 1977, the filmmakers showed a montage of what they considered period-specific still photographs of same. One of those photos was of Tony James and Martin Degville of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. While, yes, Tony James was indeed in Generation X, Sigue Sigue Sputnik were (a) not part of the British Punk scene circa 1977 and (b) didn’t actually form until 1982.
   
   
3. During another discussion about the British Punk scene, the filmmakers use a still from Alex Cox’s “Sid & Nancy,” one that actually featured Gary Oldman. Whatever your stance on Cox’s film — botched or brilliant — this is unforgivably lazy.
   
   Do better.

An Other View

Despite my comrade Phil’s succinctly stated misgivings on the notion of yet another documentary about another fallen record store (see here), I finally got to see the much ballyhooed documentary about Other Music last night.

While the film is practically everything you’d expect it to be — the tale of a scrappy, idealistic team of knowledgable nerds endeavoring to evangelize their favorite esoteric music, only to fall prey to perilous financial demands in the wake of the general populace’s lazy acceptance of streaming technology — it did really make me miss the place all over again. At the risk of belaboring the point and bludgeoning a very dead horse, I never visited Other Music -- which closed in 2016 -- without learning about or hearing something genuinely exciting to me. It was just that kinda place.

After it closed, the space was dormant for a long period until it was replaced by some dumb eatery with a neon sign imploring diners to “eat pretty.” The COVID-19 pandemic, however, put that place to rest, as well.

You can find the Other Music documentary on Amazon Prime.

The Pointless End of Summer 2020 Survey

I know I recently suggested I wasn't going to do one of these, as I didn't really feel it warranted discussion. But, at the moment, it's raining like mad out here in Quogue, and I am, in a word, bored. We're here for three more days before it's back again to the city for good and the kids start their hybridized in-person/virtual learning school year. 

If we collectively consider Labor Day to be the very end of the season, technically, we have about another 9 days before Summer 2020 is officially over. That said, as I mentioned not too long back, Summer 2020 felt like it was over — for me, anyway — upon the arrival of Isaias, which seemed to prematurely snuff out the verdant warmth brought on by June and July. Sure, the calendar still says August, but everything currently feels like it’s in a declining slope towards Autumn. Summer seems pretty much over.

Then again, Summer 2020 hasn’t been like any other summer. It almost seemed like an afterthought while we collectively grappled with the pandemic ... and everything it brought with it. With normal summer activities either sharply compromised or just flat-out cancelled, the usual associations of summertime seemed incidental and ultimately non-applicable. We went though the motions, but we kept reminding ourselves that this wasn’t your average summer. Next year — God friggin’ willing — will be different.

But, y’know, as bizarre and unsettled and muted as it may have been, … it was still summer, so I figured why not dust off the End of Summer Survey, last taken in 2019. I've also augmented it with a host of other stupid questions: 

Defining Moment of Summer 2020:
As mentioned way back in March, when the pandemic turned New York City upside down, my wife, kids and I took my mother up on her offer to let us use her house out on the Eastern End of Long Island, which made for a comparatively more expansive place to remote work and remote school, as opposed to our intimate Manhattan apartment. We stayed there through the end of May, until my mom came back from Florida. When she did, we had to clear out, and ended up basically subletting a cottage in normally rented by some friends of ours from North Carolina. While it was about as roomy as the abandoned bus in which they found the body of Christopher McCandless in Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild,” The Lamb Cottage, as it is called, more than met our needs for the summer in between periodic returns to the city.

A lot has happened in the three months we’ve been here, but if I had to slap a “defining moment” on any of it, I would say our initial mastering of a particular dish called Beer Can Chicken, wherein you coat a whole chicken with the rub of your choice, shove a half-consumed can of beer (we used Stella Artois) up its slimy posterior and then precariously perch it standing upright under a closed grill. This is not as simple as it sounds, but the end results were spectacular each time.

Best Purchase of Summer 2020:
I can’t say I did a lot of purchasing this summer, not least because for the most part, most shops were closed. Inspired by a then-impending interview with funk legend Bootsy Collins, I went on a big Parliament kick, which inspired me to buy a t-shirt with the cover art of Mothership Connection on it, which I probably wore more than any other garment, this summer. That’s about it.

Best Book You Read of Summer 2020:
I would say it’s a toss up between Trevor Ristow’s “Waiting For Another War,” which I wrote about here and here, and the memoir of Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz, “Remain in Love.” It's largely a fun, illuminating read, but like so many other rock memoirs, it has a way of poisoning preconceptions about favorite music. While he's obviously a tirelessly nice guy, the sour grapes Frantz feels about David Byrne (and, for that matter, Brian Eno) is unfortunate. I'm not suggesting he's not entitled to feel that way or that any of it is untrue, but there's a dirty laundry aspect to it that's a disservice to the band. I don't think I ever thought of Talking Heads as a perpetually harmonious family, but learning about how frequently weird, callous and inconsiderate Byrne was and how petty and petulant Eno was maybe wasn't something I needed to know. Still, it was an enjoyable read.

Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2020:
Well, obviously, no movie theaters were open this summer, but beyond that — I cannot say I watched too many whole films. I did recently watch “Gimme Danger,” Jim Jarmusch’s documentary about The Stooges, and thought that was pretty amazing.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2020:
For Father’s Day, my wife gave me some lovely new underwear. That sounds pretty tame, I realize, but they’re genuinely pretty nice.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2020:
Don’t really know where to start with this one. Very mercifully, no one in our family has contracted COVID-19, as yet, although we do know a few folks who had it. There are several local businesses in Manhattan that were forced to close their doors because of the pandemic, and those are all very sad. There’s so much loss going on in the world, at the moment, that it seems petty trying to quantify it all.

Song That Best Sums up Summer 2020:
I can’t say I’ve really latched onto any new music, in the past several months. Sure, I did get the new eponymous long player by Human Impact, which is the supergroup I mentioned (and didn’t go see live) back here that features former members of favorite bands of mine like SWANS, the Unsane and Cop Shoot Cop. As much as I dig that album — its ponderous bleakness fit the world’s circumstances just a little too well. My favorite track from the album is probably “Consequences."

Happiest Memory of Summer 2020:
This will invariably sound like a hokey cliché, but in as much as the pandemic has turned everyone's life upside down, it has afforded us the opportunity -- nay, mandated the requirement -- of spending an inordinate amount of time with our kids. Being that they're both teenagers now, under normal circumstances, they might have both been otherwise loath to spent so much time in our company. That has been our silver lining, during all of this. 

Saddest Memory of Summer 2020:
The state of the world, at the moment, has provided more than enough material for this. Where does one begin?

Scariest Memory of Summer 2020:
Watching some of the video of initial unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd was pretty jarring. 

Word That Best Describes Summer 2020:
Transformative.

BONUS QUESTIONS: 

Single greatest album of all time is …..
Funhouse by The Stooges

3 Books You Read This Year
- "Remain in Love" by Chris Frantz
- "Waiting For Another War" by Trevor Ristow
- "Girl to City" by Amy Rigby

What’s Your Favorite Rolling Stones album?
Today, I'm saying Emotional Rescue, and you can bite me.

3 Last Albums You Purchased:
- Human Impact by Human Impact
- Gymnopedies & Gnosseinnes by Erik Satie
- Live at Goose Lake by The Stooges (which has not arrived, as yet). 

Your favorite James Bond film was
Toughie, but I have a very stubborn affinity for "The Man with The Golden Gun."

3 songs you never want to hear again:
- "Santeria" by Sublime
- "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi
- "American Pie" by Don McLean.

3 albums you own that you wouldn’t want to leave on your coffee table when your in-laws were coming over:
- Scatology by Coil
- Dial 'M' For Motherfucker by Pussy Galore
- Freaks, F_____s, Drunks & Junkies by GG Allin

The most physical pain you have ever experienced:
Kidney stone in 2008.

First Record You Ever Bought With Your Own Money:
Dressed to Kill by Kiss

Notable Moment From This Summer:
I had to bury a dead bird that showed up in the back yard of the Lamb Cottage. It was missing its head.

Recommend three books:
- "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain
- "Downtown" by the recently late Pete Hammil
- "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris.

Beers on me. What’ll it be?
Almaza (great, albeit hard to find Lebanese beer)

First Concert You Went To:
Devo at Radio City Music Hall, Halloween 1981

Last Concert You Went To:
End of Hope at Niagara's on Avenue A, February 2020

Recline your seat-back on airplanes: Yes or No?
HELL, NO.

3 Favorite words
- Sepulchral
- Vespertine
- Defenestrate

Song That Will Remind You of Summer 2020:
"Bitch" by the Rolling Stones

David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar or Gary Cherone?
DLR without a moment's hesitation.

Recommend 3 TV shows:
- "Ozark"
- "Endeavor"
- "Mad Men" (we're currently re-watching ... it's as good as you remember it).

Last Movie You Saw in a Theatre & Where:
Michael Apted's "63 Up" at the Quad Cinema on West 13th.

My preferred way to listen to music is via:
Vinyl, Cassette, Compact Disc or iPod, but never streaming.

Worst date movie ever:
Toss-up between "Dead Ringers" (about twin psychotic, coke-crazed gynecologists) and/or "Last Tango in Paris" -- Fun fact: I saw both of these on dates. Neither ended well.

Your favorite member of Monty Python?
Michael Palin

3 quintessential summer songs:
- "Shout To the Top" by Style Council
- "Summer's Cauldron/Grass" by XTC
- "Listen" by Tears for Fears

3 Biggest Pet Peeves
- People who order a "cheese pizza."
- People who recline their seat-backs into my lap on public transport.
- The tenacious vernacular of "hate on." One does not require a surface on which to put that verb into action. One does not hate on, hate over, hate alongside or hate under. One just hates.

Fried or Scrambled:
- Fried. Sunny side up.

3 Things You Wish You Could Do:
- Cook with stylish proficiency
- Play guitar
- Credibly speak another language.

3 Things You Miss Right Now:
- Live music
- My friends
- The illusion of certainty.

Back ... Fleetingly ... to A7

Back at a media outlet I used to work for about a million years ago, a colleague of mine had unearthed a trove of footage from the early 80’s of scenes from outside the old A7 space on Avenue A (which, today, is the rear chamber of Jesse Malin’s Niagara bar). There was loads of it, and he and I watched it all, spotting various luminaries along the way. Why the media outlet in question had amassed it in the first place was sort of lost in the mists of time. For the layperson, it probably didn’t mean too much, but for those slightly more invested, it was a tantalizingly rarefied glimpse back in time.

At the time, my colleague was investigating the option of doing something more with the footage, or working with certain other individuals that were interested in doing something more with the footage. Years later, I have no idea whatever became of those plans, and being that I no longer work at the media outlet in question, I figured nothing would ever come of it, and I’d never see that footage again.

… until today.

It’s yet another work-from-home day wherein the onus of staying focussed and productive is proving elusive. In one of several needless breaks, I found myself trawling YouTube for interesting fodder. As I've mentioned recently, with all the time-at-home people have been grappling with during the pandemic, lots of new stuff has been popping up on YouTube, so I’ve been regularly plugging in certain key words and seeing what surfaces.

As it happens, the footage below was uploaded quite some time ago — 2018 — by a source called Global Image Works, but this is just a portion of that original trove of A7 footage I’d viewed all those years back with my colleague at my former media outlet. How Global Image Works came to acquire this sliver of it — let alone where the rest of it is — remains a mystery.

In any case, dubbed “Slam Dancing and punks on the Streets of New York,” here is a frenetic and maddeningly brief montage of images from outside the former A7 space on East 7th Street and Avenue B. If I had to put a date on it, I'd suggest 1981/1982, but I'll defer to the more informed.

Enjoy…

Shirt Happens

Given my silly predilections, I have owned and proudly sported more than a few arguably objectionable t-shirts in my day.

Some choice designs that spring immediately to mind include a pink Circle Jerks shirt that got me politely asked off a Florida golf course in the mid-80’s, a limited-edition tee from L.E.S. watering hole Maxx Fish that read “SERVE SATAN,” the infamous “pope" shirt by Killing Joke, which featured an archival photo of a priest blessing Nazi troops, the “Live from the Hate Fuck Capital City of The World” t-shirt from Pussy Galore (which I ended up giving to my nextdoor neighbor), and several pointedly nihilistic Cop Shoot Cop t-shirts. I remember getting wearily reprimanded by my friend Rob D’s mom for wearing a Slash Records t-shirt to her house on a day when she had impressionable company over. The offending garment inexplicably had the Slash Records logo upside-down on the front, and the legend “STAND ON YOUR HEAD, MOTHERFUCKER” on the back. Oops.

By and large, though, t-shirts — no matter how relatively offensive — don’t usually invite that much scrutiny. Most people can’t be bothered.

This morning, however, while I was waiting for a bacon, egg & cheese on a roll at a deli out here on Long Island, an elderly gentleman stepped up to me, his blue eyes flaring angrily above his courteous face mask. “What the Hell is THAT supposed to mean?” I blanked for a moment. What is what supposed to mean? I looked down at the t-shirt I’d thoughtlessly grabbed from the drawer and put on this morning at 6:00 am, prior to dropping my son off on a group fishing expedition — a white t-shirt with the old logo of I.R.S. records, the storied indie label responsible for several crucial records by bands like Wall of Voodoo,The Cramps, The Lords of the New Church, The Police, The Go-Go’s and R.E.M., to name a small few. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s just the block capital letters -- I.R.S. (which stood for International Records Syndicate) — underneath a frowny, no-nonsene federal bureaucrat in black shades.

“Oh,” I laughed, "it’s just a record label, sir,” glancing back down at my phone.

“What? Is that supposed to be funny or something? Because it’s JUST NOT!” he exclaimed, standing stock-still for another few moments to underscore his displeasure before shuffling off to the register.

These are testy times.

Incidentally, if you are similarly a fan of I.R.S. Records, you should know there's a documentary in the works called "We Were Once Rebels." Learn more here. 

Also, if you're similarly besotted with stupid band t-shirts, you might enjoy Loud Laundry.

Happily Ever After Hours

In the wake of my last couple of posts on “After Hours" — let alone the many posts I’ve devoted to the film over the last fifteen years — a regular reader who posts under a wide array of names posed the following questions…

What was the coffee shop where Paul and Marcy met? Who was the punk girl who gave Paul the flyer to Mohawk Night? I mean backstory (casting, what she went on to do etc.) Any real deal NYHC people in the Mohawk This Guy! scene? I bet Davey Gunner from Kraut and/or Doug Holland from Kraut and Cro-Mags were extras.

Okay, let’s dive in and see what we can answer…

What was the coffee shop where Paul and Marcy met?

Okay, I have two theories about this, actually. In terms of the storyline, Paul resides on the Upper East Side, although I don’t believe his exact address is ever revealed. The interior of the coffee shop looks somewhat similar to a former restaurant on Lexington Avenue between 77th and 76th street, although I don’t believe it is still there.

This all said, it also resembles another spot on Park Avenue South (just a few blocks to the north of the building wherein Paul’s character works), but — 35 years after the facts — these locations no longer look as they did in 1985. There’s a shot when Marcy is speaking that you can see a large-paned window behind her that reveals some detail of the street running perpendicular to the avenue the coffee shop is on. I’m projecting, but it looks a bit like East 25th street. Again, though, I do not have the concrete answer to this question.

Who was the punk girl who gave Paul the flyer to Mohawk Night?

That being this fetching young lady …

I cannot honestly say I recognize her, although several bona fide punk folks from the NYHC scene do appear in the film, so she might be more than simply an actress.

Any real deal NYHC people in the Mohawk This Guy! scene?

Funny you should ask, as YES, which I went into great detail about on this old post.

I bet Davey Gunner from Kraut and/or Doug Holland from Kraut and Cro-Mags were extras.

I don’t believe either of those gents were, ALTHOUGH the classic A7 t-shirt Doug Holland sports in the video for Kraut’s “All Twisted” does indeed make a quick cameo.

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)
Mohawk Night at Club Berlin (6/29/2015)

Somewhere "After" the Rainbow (6/16/2017)

After Hours AOC (4/15/2019)

"Ric Handed Me Back the Cheese" (1/08/2020)

Paul is Dead: Who is the Man in Black at the End of "After Hours"? (7/10/2020)

"After Hours" in Avalon: A Tale of Two T-Shirts (7/11/2020)

"After Hours" in Avalon: A Tale of Two T-Shirts

I’m not sure I know a credibly viable way into this post, so I’m just going to write it and worry about that later. But, suffice to say, it’s probably the least consequential/most trivial thing I’ve ever posted here … which is saying something.

I’ve long been obsessed with Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” a film he released in September of 1985 in the immediate wake of Paramount scrapping his longtime dream project, “The Last Temptation of Christ” (an ambitious undertaking he’d later go on to release in 1988). “After Hours” was the furthest thing imaginable from a sweeping Biblical epic — a black comedy documenting the tragicomic travails of a mild-mannered yuppie (played by Griffin Dunne) lured into the bohemian wilderness of the downtown Manhattan of the mid-80’s. Comparatively speaking, it’s a small movie with a relatively niche audience.

If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you know what I mean when I say I’ve obsessed over this film. I’d devoted posts to its locations, its score and even minor members of its cast. As a result, I used to think I knew everything there is to know about the film, but as yesterday’s post demonstrated, this is clearly not the case.

I originally started this post back in mid-May. I started writing it with the working title, “Unanswerable Questions About a Certain Scene.” Well, I regret to say that in the ensuing weeks, I’ve all but forgotten what most of those allegedly “unanswerable” questions were, but I do remember one major observation, and it concerns the scene below. Bear in mind that this has more to do with my original perceptions and preconceptions.

In this scene, we see the beleaguered Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne’s protagonist) entering the Terminal Bar on the far western end of Spring Street in SoHo during a midsummer downpour. In actuality, the Terminal Bar did not exist. At the time — and for several years after “After Hours” was filmed -- this location was a bar called The Emerald Pub, although don’t go looking to have a pint there these days. The Emerald Pub closed in 2015 and the space has been dormant ever since. In any event, Paul repairs to the Terminal Bar to get out of the rain and to try to make sense of the chaos of the evening. Upon entering, he encounters cocktail waitress Julie (one of four pivotal blonde sirens through the film) and bartender Tom. While the scene plays out, a young, hip couple dances in the background to “You’re Mine,” a classic number by doo-wop duo Robert & Johnny.

Again, the rest of this is just about my silly projections, and has precious little to do with the film’s actual content.

In any case, for the longest time, I was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the male half of that young, hip dancing couple was wearing a black, sleeveless t-shirt emblazoned with the back-cover design of Avalon by Roxy Music. Being that Avalon came out in 1982, three years before “After Hours” was released, it fit the chronology. Moreover, a cool, black sleeveless Roxy Music t-shirt seemed like just the thing a hip SoHo scenester might’ve worn while dancing in a downtown bar in the small hours of a summer night. In the event that you’re unfamiliar, the back cover of Avalon — designed by Peter Saville, who also did the iconic sleeves for both Unknown Pleasures and Closer by Joy Division— features some sort of crimson stone embedded in a gold, medieval amulet. Here it is now…

Cool, right? It’s also worth mentioning that Avalon is an amazing record. While not as adventurous as Roxy Music’s first few albums, it marked the high point of the band’s more sophisticated pop era and sadly served as their swan song. During my college years, it was an album that could be found in virtually every dorm room on campus and, like Diamond Life by Sade, its airing within same was sonic shorthand for “don’t come knocking.” Chances are, if you came home to hear your roommate playing Avalon, there was a good chance he or she was doing some very intimate entertaining sans pants.

Anyway, ever since spotting it in “After Hours,” I’d started keeping my eyes out for it, as it seemed like it would be a cool artifact to own, given both its association with my favorite film and my affinity for the album in question.

But I was never able to find it, which always frustrated me.

Fast forward to stumbling on the scene above in YouTube, I was suddenly able to get a much closer look at the garment in question, equipped with the pause button. In doing so, I managed to capture the screen grab below.

Suffice to say, that is very much not the back cover of Avalon. I’d been mistaken all these years. Under closer scrutiny, I figured it out and  Googled on a hunch what the actual t-shirt was and immediately struck oil. The dancing hipster in the Terminal Bar is wearing this….

In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s a Sha Na Na shirt. Sha Na Na was (and still is?) a doo-wop revival group who had their own television show back in the late `70s. They even played at friggin' Woodstock.

While not nearly as cool as a Roxy Music shirt, it actually makes way more sense as something a guy voluntarily dancing to a door-wop tune by Robert & Johnny would wear.

So, yeah, end of story. I was wrong about that.

This, incidentally, is Roxy Music...

 

 

Paul is Dead: Who is The Man in Black at the End of "After Hours"

I actually had yet another “After Hours” post already in the works a few weeks back, but lost the urge to finish it, at the time, as it was strenuously beyond trivial. While I may soon revisit that, a friend of mine on Facebook recently called my attention to clip below, which dives into the mysterious minutia of the film’s very final scene in great detail, begging the question …. who is the mystery man in black?

Check it out here.