Flaming Pablum

What An Excellent Day for an Exorcism

Tompkins Square `67

A far cry from today...

Video Over SoHo

As it happens, I walk through SoHo every weekday on my treks to and from my office. During same, I cannot stop myself from taking pictures. Even though the neighborhood and its surrounding environs have dramatically changed over the last few decades, I am still moved by its singular architectural character, its vibe and the sense of history – both personal and civic --- it continues to exude. That above image of Broome Street I shot just this morning.

I haven’t mentioned her excellent blog in a little while (or not since 2017, I guess), but Yuki Ohta revamped her SoHo Memory Project not too long back, and it’s a wonderful trove of pictures and anecdotes for those who pine for the SoHo that was prior to it being a hotbed of prohibitively expensive real estate and luxury retail outlets.

I also noticed she has her own Vimeo account. Click here to check out some of the clips she’s amassed, lovingly capturing glimpses of that bygone SoHo. Enjoy.

After Hours AOC

Despite appearances to the contrary, this post is not really about AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), but — since I just invoked her — I might as well concede that I think she’s pretty great. Sure, she’s young and probably still has a lot to learn about the office she now holds, but anyone who is capable of speaking truth to power with her level of conviction — to say nothing about causing so much angst and indigestion among key figures on the Right — is a-okay with me. You, of course, may beg to differ. That’s all.

In any case, a friend of mine recently posted the above photo on Facebook of AOC, posing with her signature, unblinking intensity on a weathered New York City stoop, her impeccably sharp, green ensemble creating a striking dichotomy with her otherwise rough-hewn surroundings. At first glance, I found it strangely familiar, but then I realized … there are doubtlessly thousands of stoops just like the one she’s depicted sitting on.

Then I thought back to an evening several weeks back. I was going to meet some out-of-towner friends who now live on the other side of the globe. They were briefly back in the city for a wedding, so we decided to meet up an at age-old favorite haunt, the Ear Inn on the westerly edges of Spring Street.

I’ve mentioned the Ear a few times here. It passively vies for the title “Oldest Bar in New York City” in meaningless competition with joints like Pete’s Tavern and McSorley’s, although — to my mind — it’s way better than either of those over-hyped establishments. Whether it’s genuinely the oldest bar in New York means nothing to me. It’s just a great place to meet friends and have a few beers. Long may it stay that way.

In any case, because I’m deeply neurotic and punctual to a fault, I arrived in the neighborhood ahead of schedule, which left me plenty of time to roam around the surrounding environs before assuming my place at the bar.

Time was when part of the Ear’s charm was that it was in such a remote, desolate backwater of a neighborhood. Apart from a deli or two, a couple of fellow bars (notably McGovern’s and the Emerald Inn) and, later, rock club Don Hill’s, there was practically nothing. The streets were empty and quiet. It’s for this reason that Martin Scorsese chose this patch of SoHo for many of the locations in “After Hours,” because it exuded such an eerily quiet, empty ambiance.

Suffice to say, this is no longer the case in 2019. These days, the westerly edges of Spring Street are a densely populated Emerald City of exclusive condos and monied luxury. Somehow, the Ear Inn has managed to hold on, but the days of it being a remote outpost are decidedly over.

This all said, there are still whispery elements of the neighborhood’s old vibe, if you look hard enough for them. As I circumnavigated the area on foot, I snapped a few pictures, trying to capture that rarified essence of place.

Circling the block on Renwick Street, just a street to the east of the Ear Inn, I came upon a certain stoop at the tail end of the building that formerly housed the Emerald Inn, the bar Scorsese re-cast as the Terminal Bar for “After Hours” (which I wrote about back here). I was struck by how grim and forbidding the stoop in question looked, so, I took a picture.

Sure enough, it’s the same stoop AOC was photographed on. Now, what was she doing there?

Hell if I know.

Gettin' 'Fanky' in The Streets

Yesterday afternoon, apropos of nothing in particular, I posted a video on Facebook by this great New Zealand band called The Clean, that being “Dunes” from 1989. Beyond it just being a great tune, I harbor an affinity for this video -– as richly detailed in this post from 2013 -– because it is rife with Super 8 footage of the band exploring the New York City of the summer of 1989, and visiting various favorite locales like the old Knitting Factory on East Houston Street, CBGB on Bowery, Maxwell’s in Hoboken, etc. To my mind, it just captures a time and a place perfectly.

Presumably inspired by same, my friend Frank R. then sent me a curious clip from the very same era by a performer named Charly Garcia. In all honesty, I initially had no concept who this strangely mustachioed Argentine dude was -- although that would change --  but much like the Clean video, this clip for a tune called “Fanky,” --  whatever that means -– finds Mr. Garcia and cohorts hamming it up in the streets of SoHo, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Washington Square Park, East River Park and around the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, all circa that same turn of the decade, when downtown still felt cool, airy and arty -– and not staid, overcrowded and avaricious like it does today.

The music is sort of slickly overproduced, but still legitimately funky. Some of the video effects are distracting, but the clip still mercifully allows for some nostalgic viewing. Check it out here…

In doing a bit of further research, however, it suddenly struck me that I HAD indeed heard of Charly Garcia before. In about 1983, or so, he put out a record called Clics Moderno or…. wait for it … Modern Clix. The sleeve for same found Mr. Garcia posing in front of some very specific street art. See below…

Keen-eyed NYC street-art fans will probably recognize the shadowy figure behind Garcia as the work of Richard Hambleton (who I discussed back here). That part, while certainly cool, wasn’t what caught my eye, though. No, what struck me is that the “Modern Clix” tag refers -– presumably -– to my friend Fran Powers’ old band. As close as I can figure it, evidently Charly Garcia must have been photographed somewhere on the streets of downtown NYC and liked the picture so much, he decided to slap it on his album and name the record after it --- wittingly or unwittingly, I do not know.

As detailed in this old post, Fran Powers’ Modern Clix played an amalgam of ska/punk/funk/reggae that is worth checking out. You also might recognize Fran from his cameos is films like "After Hours" and "Hannah and Her Sisters," which he and I discussed here. 

Is he aware that Charly Garcia appropriated his tag for the title and image of his earlier record?

I will have to ask. 

The Creepy Turntable Movie Mystery Challenge

Once again, it’s odd how certain things stay with you.

I can’t remember where I was, who I was with or how I old I was when I saw it, but I remember watching a film on television -– a black-&-white mystery, possibly “noir” -– involving a protagonist haunted by a recurring nightmare or vision. In that mysterious scenario, he’s in some clandestine chamber that holds some horrible secret –- a murder, perhaps? The thing that makes it distinctive, however, is that there is music playing -– a strange, lulling, creepy dirge. Again, the protagonist is driven to distraction by this eerie vision, but cannot connect the dots as to where it happened or its significance.

Later in the film, he's at some social function, and there is music playing via an old-time record player. At one pivotal point, a woman near that turntable bumps into it with her elbow, inadvertently changing the speed of the turntable to a slower revolution-per-minute, like dropping from 45 to 33 1/3. When she does this, the music playing suddenly replicates the creepy music in the protagonist’s recurring vision, and he becomes convinced that the clandestine chamber with the horrible secret is immediately nearby.

Like I said, I wish I could cite more specifics, but I cannot. For the life of me, I’ve never been able to figure out the film. Much like the tortured protagonist, I cannot figure out the mystery.

Does this film sound familiar to you?

Weigh in. 

Bud Club

So, yeah, I watched the Oscars last night. I have precious little to say about it beyond that I truly appreciate that "Bohemian Rhapsody" did NOT win the Best Picture award. It was like a decent VH1 movie at BEST. I didn't see most of the other stuff.

In any case, during the course of proceedings, they showed this Budweiser ad featuring Charlize Theron demonstrating her billiards prowess in a bar. Yeah, yeah, ho hum, right? Oooh, she's sexy, etc. etc.

The thing that got my attention was during a fleeting glimpse of the jukebox ... the cover of Miami by The Gun Club...

It is probably the highest-profile exposure the band and the late, great Jeffrey Lee Pierce will ever receive, however brief.

Watch the full ad...

This, incidentally, should you not be familiar, was The Gun Club....

"The Warriors" at 40

I’ve talked about Walter Hill’s “The Warriors” a bajillion times here before (notably here, here and here). In any event, the movie is evidently now 40 years old, which is somewhat staggering.

In tribute, here’s the slavishly overwritten review of the abortive “Ultimate Director’s Cut” I wrote back in 2005 for Culture Catch. Let’s get down to it, boppers…

Ask your average American male in his late thirties about Walter Hill's 1979 film “The Warriors” and in all likelihood, he'll reply with either a robustly barked "CAN YOU DIG IT?" or a strenuously whined "WARRIOOOORRSS....COME OUT TO PLAAAA-YAAAAAAYYY!" I was a paltry twelve years old when “The Warriors” hit theatres in 1979, but even being too young to get in, I can vividly remember the sensation it caused. The movie poster alone was enough to capture my rapt, wide-eyed attention. "These are the Armies of the Night," it screamed, "they are 100,000 strong. They outnumber the cops five to one. They could run New York City."

Preying upon the justified phobia of urban upheaval in a bankrupt, crime-ridden metropolis, Hill's highly stylized depiction of New York City as a violent street-gang battleground struck a major chord with audiences not just in New York, but nationwide. Despite the film's inarguably over-the-top cartoonishness, it was still perceived as a potential powder-keg, resulting in cries for its banning reminiscent of the furor over Stanley Kubrick's similarly inclined “A Clockwork Orange” eight years earlier. Twenty-six years later, “The Warriors” portrays a New York City that is barely recognizable in its desolate, graffiti-ridden squalor. That said, Hill's painterly, apocalyptic vision wasn't especially indicative of late `70s NYC either. Rife with dated lingo, elaborate costuming, and an almost utopian innocence (Hill's gangs are harmoniously integrated and there isn't the slightest allusion to racial strife or drug abuse), “The Warriors,” in its original form, now cannot help but look quite campy and almost quaint. Apart from the odd homophobic and/or misogynist epithet blurted out by James Remar's character, Ajax, there is little to be actively offended by. “The Warriors” strove to display a vista of savage lawlessness, but its power to shock has long since dissipated. But to this ardent fan's mind, that's part of its charm. The failure of the film to achieve timelessness isn't a flaw but rather grounds for its inclusion in a pantheon of great films of a bygone age.

The director, however, seems to disagree. In the just released "Ultimate Director's Cut" DVD, Walter Hill takes great pains to re-cast “The Warriors” as a purposely cartoony fable. Perhaps smarting from his studio's refusal to let him cast the gangs as exclusively African-American and Latino and subsequent accusations of the end result's irrefutable campiness, Hill now claims that he purposefully strove for a comic book approach. To this end, Hill has severely re-edited the film to include comic book elements such as paneled segues and even thought balloons. Key scenes are truncated in order to facilitate these effects, diffusing crucial atmosphere and robbing the film of any semblance of dignity.

Prior to this heavy-handed approach, the film's more fanciful aspects were legitimized via passages of genuine tension-building. In the new cut, the film loses cohesion in a spliced-up mess of unintentional self-parody. Yet another unfortunate example of revisionism, "The Ultimate Director’s Cut" of “The Warriors” joins the ranks of the noxious "Greedo-shoots-first" version of “Star Wars.” As DVDs go, this is also a bit of a cheap affair. While the "Special Features" packaging boasts "four featurettes," they essentially comprise one documentary with the same cast of interviewees in four brief chapters. Along with the film's original trailer and a relatively unnecessary new introduction by Walter Hill (laboriously emphasizing the comic book element and force-feeding the viewer, Oliver Stone-style, the narrative's roots in Ancient Greek history), the finished product comes off as strikingly less than "ultimate." To his arguable credit, Hill does offer in his new introduction that he's perfectly fine with some viewers preferring the original version. Since he's given us that option, might I emphatically suggest skipping "The Ultimate Director's Cut" DVD in favor of its original incarnation (released on DVD in 2001) instead. - Alex Smith

Mr. Smith is a native New Yorker who lives in downtown Manhattan with his wife and daughter, works for Time Magazine, and writes for The New Yorker and other periodicals.

One More Chelsea Mourning

I’ve mentioned it before, but I’d love to say I was initially familiar with the signifiance of the Chelsea Hotel because of some of the more celebrated creatives, thesbians and bohemians who periodically resided within its hallowed walls, but much like probabaly most of my generation, I first came to know about the Chelsea because of one individual, and one individual only -- that being Sid Vicious. The now-very-late Mr. V notwithstanding, however, the Chelsea Hotel’s associations run an impressive gamut from literary icons like Arthur C. Clarke, Dylan Thomas, Arthurs Miller and Allen Ginsburg to musical luminaries like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Jim Miorrison, Edith Piaf, Janis Joplin to visual artists like Robert Crumb, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Mapplethorpe and countless others from virtually every artistic discipline. This list of its more celebrated guests is a veritable “who’s who,” full stop.

As detailed in a few older posts, I was fortunate enough to attend a few parties at the Chelsea Hotel back in the `90s, enabling me to travel beyond its lobby to meander through its storied halls. The last time I was able to do so was in 2010, as detailed here. It was on that occasion that I had the fleeting foresight to have my photo captured within. That’s it below, with me posing portentuously on the stairs, trying to look like a sinister, leather-clad punk, but simply looking like an inebriated, portly dad (guilty as charged, your honor).

Only a couple of years prior to that evening, the Chelsea’s beloved manager Stanley Bard had been abruptly deposed and many of its longtime tenants evicted. Turnovers in ownership started to take their toll. A year or two after my final visit, the Chelsea became entirely impenetrable – its fabled lobby closed and its edifice encased in scaffolding. A new management company promised/threatened that the Chelsea was to be re-imagined as a newly luxurious, bespoke hotel. Whatever remained of the hotel’s old interiors were stripped and gutted as it entered a new chrysalis phase. Patti Smith, some might remember, played an invitation-only event, which managed to rub a lot of people the wrong way, somewhat understandaby.

I actually did return to the building in more recent years. In 2014, there was a Blondie exhibition in a space just to the west of the hotel’s entrance, followed by Dee Dee Ramone exhibit (himself another former Chelsea tenant) a year or so later. But the hotel’s new iteration was still a work in progress, at the time.

But fruition never came. Walk by the Chelsea Hotel today in 2019, and it is still cloaked in a seemingly perpetual state of painful transition. This week, Gothamist posted a lengthy update on the hotel’s long saga and current, sorry state, complete with a frankly heartbreaking slideshow. Click here to see that.

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but I’m very glad I got to spend those few evenings there when I did. It’s a damn tragedy that they couldn’t just let it be.

TWENTY Things I Just Do Not Care About

1. "Broad City" ending.
2. "The Sopranos" returning.
3. "Games of Thrones" continuing.
4. R. Kelly's record sales surging in wake of documentary about his predatory sexual exploits.
5. Britney Spears cancelling her Vegas residency.
6. Anything about any Vegas residency.
7. Woodstock's 50th Anniversary
8. Who is going to host the Oscars.
9. Who is performing on "The Masked Singer."
10. Meghan Markle's pregnancy.
11. Jeff Bezos' divorce.
12. Cardi B's parenting tips.
13. What the Fiji Water Girl has to say about her newfound fame.
14. Anything Pete Davidson, Gwyneth Paltrow or Kanye West is saying, doing or thinking.
15. Anything pertaining to professional football in any capacity.
    
    ADDENDUM:
16. Anything to do with Coachella -- who is playing it, who has pulled out of playing it, who is sponsoring it, who is attending, etc. 
17. Chris Pratt's faith-based fitness plan. 
18. ANYTHING faith-based. 
19. Marie Kondo's tips for tidying-up. Fuck off, lady. 
20. The most-liked egg on Instagram.