Flaming Pablum

Disrespecting Debbie

It should go without saying, at this point, that we're living in some genuinely difficult times on a variety of fronts. As such, comparatively trivial bullshit should really not be the priority while bigger fish are being fried.  But being that this stupid blog largely concerns itself almost exclusively with comparatively trivial bullshit, I thought I might as well address it.

The bloom is evidently off the rose in regards to Shepard Fairey's portrait of Deborah Harry on the southwest corner of Bleecker & Bowery. Back in February -- when life deceptively seemed significantly simpler -- you might remember I noted that someone had tagged up lovely Debbie's neck. Well, someone else took that baton and ran with it, as the mural has pretty much been wholly defaced, at this stage. 

Once again, people are grappling with real problems, these days, so the sullying of some fetching street art doesn't really rank that highly on the unspeakable crime ladder.

But it's still a damn shame. 

 

Beirut

Back in 2018, My wife and I took the trip of a lifetime to Beirut.

Beyond its rich history and beauty, we were continually struck by the warmth of the Lebanese people. When I'd stop and ask for directions (which happened a lot) and they found out that I was there not on business but as a tourist, they would light up with pride and regale me with sights I needed to see and foods I needed to try. It was truly an incomparable experience, which is why news of the port explosion is so abjectly horrifying.

Mercifully, my wife's wonderful cousins are all okay, but the footage of the blast and the pictures of the resulting devastation are absolutely heartbreaking.

Hasn't this city suffered enough?

 

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.

Fifteen Years of Flaming Pablum

Under normal circumstances, I would probably make a much bigger deal about this, but in the grand scheme of things, who really cares?

In any case, today marks the 15th anniversary of this blog — which I originally started as a complete lark after a colleague started his own. His lasted a few years. A decade and a half later, I’m still doing mine. Seems like only months ago I noted the ten-year anniversary. Time is truly flying.

Anyway, I’m very grateful to all of you who read it. I don’t know where it’s headed, but why stop now?

Cheers.

The Road Ahead

A friend of mine shot a note to me yesterday asking if I was okay. I wasn’t sure of the context of his question, but I “sure, why?” He responded by saying that so many of the photos I’d been posting on Instagram were of open roads, paths, and ways forward, jumping to something of a psychobabble diagnosis that I must therefore be tremendously unhappy or feeling stuck in my current situation.

I laughed and assured him that while I’m indeed feeling frustrated like everyone else about the current state of the world, that I’m okay.

I went back to look at the pictures in question. His point hadn’t occurred to me, nor was telegraphing same in any way part of my intention, but I guess I can forgive him for jumping to that conclusion ...

The Street Light

Pretentious Preamble:

There’s a unique sort of trope director David Lynch regularly employs throughout his work that’s become one of his signature moves, if you will. With his inimitable blend of intangible nuance, Lynch manages to imbue certain, otherwise banal, inanimate objects with a heightened degree of sinister significance. Through Lynch’s lens, innocuous items like electrical sockets, radiators and blinking traffic lights take on an inexplicable aura of enigmatic menace. While there’s nothing inherently scary about the images in questions, Lynch -- through the power of his elliptical narratives and his particular use of light, sound and music -- is brilliantly able to assign each with powerful implications of something deeper, something unseen and, usually, something unspeakably terrifying. It’d probably be a tired cliche if he didn’t pull it off so well.

Perhaps I’ve just watched too many David Lynch films.

-----------

It’s the beginning of our sixth week out here at my mother’s house in Quogue. Time has moved strangely, during this unprecedented period. The days can be very long, but the weeks fly by. The family has already gone through several phases — stir-craziness, boredom, agitation, fatigue, etc. While we’re settled into a routine, it still feels far from normal, which is apt, because nothing about this is situation is normal.

My mother moved into this house in 1996, I believe, after she sold both her previous cottage and her Manhattan apartment, bought this bigger place and made Quogue her permanent residence. I met my wife only a couple of years after mom got this house, and we’ve been coming out here in the summers and on holidays ever since. Our children have grown up running up and down these stairs and playing in the backyard.

That’s one of the reasons this period feels so alien. We normally just associate this house with vacation time and with my mom. Mom’s not here — she’s hunkered down in Florida — and this is no vacation. There’s a cognitive dissonance in trying to go about the remote workday while in a place normally designated as a space to get away from all that.

But there’s another thing about this stay that feels different, an element I’d either never noticed before, or that possibly wasn’t there.

The street light on the telephone pole across the street.

I’m pretty sure the pole has been there forever, but I’ve only recently noticed the street light. It’s practically invisible by day … something you’d never look twice at. But, at night, when the darkness falls on Quogue like a heavy, impenetrably black quilt, it take on a wholly different form.

Maybe the light was only recently installed or repaired, but it now cuts through the dark in an assertive manner. When you pass by it, in the late evenings, from the many windows that face the street, it seems strangely magnified — a bright beacon in the gloom. When we turn off all the lights at the end of the night, the aura of the street light floods into the living room, and all eyes are drawn to it like insects to a flame.

On the one hand, we should appreciate the street light. My mom lives on an otherwise very dark, quiet strip, and it certainly provides enough illumination to allow for better vision in the dark. But, by the same token, there’s just something …. odd about it.

Like some sort of unblinking sentinel, it seems to be waiting for something. It’s like some persistent reminder of an unshared secret. Why is it …. there? Did someone ask for it? Did something happen here that warrants such a light? What has it seen?

What does it know?

When I open the front door at look at it in the dark, the shine it emits seems to jump back across the lawn again, not quite as brilliant as when viewed from inside our house. But it keeps its fixed gaze. What does it want?

Quogue isn’t a loud town. Sure, on certain summer nights, you’ll hear people having the odd backyard barbecue, or you’ll hear cars gunning their engines on nearby Montauk Highway, but it’s mostly quite tranquil. In the dead of night, you can hear the trains weave through the pine barrens north of the highway, blowing their ghostly whistles in the dark. But, most of the time, it’s whisper quiet.

As such, the slightest creak, snap or settling of the house can stir me from sleep. My daughter sleeps downstairs in her own room here, a luxury compared to the tiny room she shares with her little brother back in the city. Now a 16 year old, she’s less inclined to go to bed early, so I’ll frequently hear her puttering around in the kitchen or giggling as she texts with friends back home. I thought I’d heard her knock something over, the other night, which had me out of bed like a shot, and creeping down the stairs to discover her fast asleep and nothing out of place. That said, she’d left the kitchen light on. I flicked that off and went back towards the stairs in the living room.

I tried not to look at it, as I knew it would fire the usual synapses and get me thinking about it all over again, but the cold glow of the street light outside was visually inescapable. I could not look away.

It looked like a spotlight shining on a stage awaiting someone. I turned and adjourned upstairs again, unable to shake the feeling that one night, I’ll see someone standing, …. and waiting … under that light.

Goodbye, Lucky Strike

I was very sad to learn of the permanent closing of SoHo drinking establishment Lucky Strike, this morning. A Grand Street fixture for 31 years, this lovely, unpretentious bar could not survive the financial hardships imposed by the Trump pandemic.

I first started going to Lucky Strike in the early ‘90s when I was working as a gallery-sitter on nearby Mercer Street. It was Lucky Strike wherein I first repaired with the lovely lady who’d become my wife, after she suggested we leave the Wooster Street party we were at to “get more beer” (I naively thought she meant going to a deli). And it was within Lucky Strike — fittingly named — that we first kissed.

I gravely fear this place will not be the last favorite haunt to meet this cruel fate.

Big City Survey: Part II

As I mentioned in the first part, I started answering the individual questions of this survey well over a month ago — back before life as we all knew it came to a grinding halt. As such, the tone of the answers below may be a bit different from the first batch.

Once again, I am not in the city in question, at the moment. About three weeks back, the wife, kids and I took up my family’s kind offer to decamp to my mother’s empty house out on Long Island. Given the limited space of our Manhattan apartment — which was already feeling tiny well before this crisis hit, even after some “creative" renovations — the spiraling uncertainties and the growing predictions of a looming, unstoppable uptick in COVID-19 cases — I felt it was prudent to get my family out of what has since become, by all reports, an unspeakable tragedy — one that we could have collectively been better prepared for had Trump and the rest of his clown car of an administration not dismantled the Nation Security Council’s pandemic response team in May of 2018. But, what’s done is done. There are now coronavirus-treatment tents on Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park and makeshift morgues in the streets. There is continued talk of temporarily burying COVID-19 victims in trenches in city parks.

Out here in Quogue, I would take solace in the notion that we’ve now been out of the city long enough for the incubation period — had we been infected before we left and unwittingly brought the virus with us — to have flowered into sickness by now, and that hasn’t happened. We are all still, to our knowledge, fully healthy. But, that, too, is speculative. We could very well have been infected and continue to be asymptomatic. As such, we are staying inside, washing our hands frequently and furiously after supply missions and, now, covering our noses and mouths when we have to do those runs. Most of all, we’re staying indoors and maintaining physical distance with others in accordance with that elusive goal of flattening the curve. But I cannot — and will not — complain.

I am profoundly privileged to have gotten out, but I miss my city, and I sorely fear for my friends, family and countless independent local concerns still there. I worry constantly about what happens next. As do we all.

As such, here’s the second half of the survey that celebrates my home town.

Favorite Book Shop:
Much as with my favorite record & CD shops, New York’s once great network of small, independent bookstores has also been largely vanquished by the advent of technological convenience. Time was when I would have answered this question with Shakespeare & Company at 716 Broadway, but that closed a few years back and is now a Foot Locker (`cos, y’know … we needed another place to buy expensive sneakers). That was an amazing bookshop, as I discussed here, but it’s gone now. As such, my fallback position is the mighty Strand on Broadway at East 12th Street. A huge, cavernous, multi-tiered hive of all sorts of literature, it is absolutely essential and unfuckwithable.

Favorite Music Shop:
I have already devoted entirely too many posts to lost record & CD shops. It’s a subject that largely defines this stupid weblog. As such, I’ll devote this answer solely to what remans … which regrettably isn’t very much. If I’m hard-pressed to find a specific disc, my first inclination, these days, is to head to Rough Trade in Williamsburg, which has a sprawling and enviable supply of great music of all stripes and is staffed by knowledgable folks (like my good friend Miles). Failing that, in Manhattan, there is always Generation Records on Thompson Street, but their selection is growing somewhat thin, of late. I’m also still quite fond of Downtown Music Gallery down on Monroe Street, in a sleepy patch of Chinatown, but that’s exclusively for deeply esoteric stuff. With regards to all three of these businesses, I have grave concerns about their well-being in the wake of this pandemic.

Favorite Dive Bar:
There remains a great deal of debate about what genuinely constitutes a proper “dive bar,” but I’ll say this — if the bar you’re in has a flatscreen television, it’s not a dive bar. Dive bars are generally dark, decrepit, a little scary and filled with drinkers for whom the clock has little or no importance. And make no mistake — dive bars aren't “punk bars.” Sure, there are plenty of so-called punk bars, but they’re usually fairly stylized, arty and endeavor to create a specific atmosphere (and many try way too hard, in this capacity). Proper dive bars don’t cater to that. There are loads of seedy, neighborhood bars, but that doesn’t make them dives. Proper dive bars don’t cater to being neighborhoody or kitschy or themey. They’re there to profit from despair, not cultivate character. Proper dive bars may indeed serve food, but chances are you don’t want to eat it. Dive bars are purely function over form — places wherein to get blotto drunk on the cheap to help you forget the shittiest of life’s circumstances. There are no proper dive bars in my neighborhood, anymore. None. Being that less and less is genuinely cheap in Manhattan, there are fewer and fewer of these joints. Dive bars don’t exist in nice neighborhoods. They perch on the fringes of civilization. I used to know a couple of bona fide dives on 8th and 9th avenues, where desperately depressed mailmen would drink themselves blind, but I don’t know if they’re still there. The Savoy, tucked behind Port Authority, was certainly one of them, but that’s changed hands a few times since I was last there in the mid-90s. Billymark’s West on West 28th & 9th Avenue was similarly grim, but the last time I looked, it was a good deal more inviting.

Favorite Irish Bar:
My favorite is probably The Scratcher on East 5th Street. Genuinely Irish, but without any cartoonishly cloying blarney aesthetic. Being half-Irish, I’m allowed to say shit like that.

Favorite Date Bar:
Well, I’ve been married for about twenty years, now, so haven’t really been on any dates, recently. When we were dating, the wife and I were quite fond of Johnny’s Bar on Greenwich Avenue, especially if we could sit in the front window. If you’re feeling flush, I might also suggest taking your date to the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis, which has astounding atmosphere (but very pricey drinks). Angel’s Share on Stuyvesant Street (amazingly still there) was also a great spot for dates, especially in that it was hard to find, which made it that much cooler.

Favorite Sports Bar:
Being that I generally don’t give one single crap about sports, I really don’t have one. If I’m at a sports bar, you’re bound to find me at the jukebox, about to piss off several patrons who are otherwise trying to pay attention to their precious ball games.

Favorite Park:
As much as I love Washington Square Park and Tompkins Square Park and Riverside Park, there is only one — 1 — answer for this. Any answer other than Central Park is moot.

Favorite Street:
I have a few, but they’re favorites for different reasons. I love Courtlandt Alley for its atmosphere, vibe and history. I love 13th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues for its overall look and feel. I love my own street, because I live on it.

Favorite Live Music Venue:
I feel like I’m repeating myself, but most of my favorite live music venues are gone. If you’re curious what they might have been, just peruse back under the “Vanished Venues” category. In terms of live music venues that — as of, say, February — that were still in operation, I’d say I’m still quite fond of the Bowery Ballroom. Irving Plaza is reportedly coming back, or at least was before all this bullshit went down. I have not been the re-opened Webster Hall, as yet, so jury’s still out on that, but the building certainly still carries a ton of resonance.

Favorite Movie Theatre:
I love the Quad Cinemas on West 13th Street. Kind of the very last of its kind.

Favorite New York Movie:
Without a moment’s hesitation, “After Hours.” Second place would be “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” the original version from 1974.

Favorite Song About New York:
I could make whole playlists of favorite songs about New York, so picking one is not easy feat. Today, I’m going to say “Manhattan” by Cat Power, but that could change in a half an hour.

Favorite Quiet Place in New York:
Maybe the Conservatory Gardens on Upper Fifth Avenue.

Favorite New York Secret:
If I disclosed that here, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.

 

In Search of West 5th

I fielded a delightful note today -- which was a nice change of pace -- from a reader named Kara who is a freelancer writer who contributes to a Greenwich Village-centric news letter called There's No West 5th Street ... which, while it hadn't ever occurred to me before, is accurate.

In said news letter, Kara helps aggregate news items and other ephemera she feels the readers might find engaging, and she was lovely enough to include my recent Big City Survey: Part One.  Check out the whole news letter here.

Cheers, Kara -- thanks for including me, and look for Part Two of the survey soonest. 

 

Big City Survey: Part One

I started composing this several weeks ago, gradually adding to it as time and inspiration allowed. This was all, of course, well before everything turned upside down.

As has been established, I am now outside of the city, isolating with my wife and kids out on Long Island, trying to stay sane and looking forward to better times and healthier circumstances. What things will be like when we all return to “normal” in the wake of this remains to be seen.

In the interim, this is part one of a list of about thirty questions. I only got through half of it. Look for the other half soon, and cite your own choices.

Favorite Building:
There are obviously loads to choose from, but I’m going to go with 644 Broadway at the northeast corner of Bleecker Street, known by some as Bleecker Tower. Completed in 1891, this former bank building is notable for its eye-catching red sandstone exterior, its Romanesque architectural flourishes and its metal tower, now greened with age like Lady Liberty herself. I’ve only ever set foot in it when its ground floor played host to a noxious clothiers whose name escapes me, but I was there in homage to a former incarnation of that space, the Blue Willow, and only then as said restaurant served as the location of the photo shoot the produced the cover shot of one of my favorite albums of all time, that being Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves by Gavin Friday & The Man Seezer.

Least Favorite Building:
There’s now several of them, sprouting up like fucking weeds, but the first so-called “supertall” I really latched my hatred onto was 432 Park Avenue, which thrusts out of midtown like a giant glass’n-steel penis, lording over its surroundings verily like Barad-dûr (look it up). I hate it. It’s an artless rod that plays host to impossibly wealthy oligarchs. It decimates the symmetry of the cityscape. Awful, repugnant shit. Knock it down.

Favorite Landmark:
There are several places that I believe ought to be “official” landmarks (i.e. legally protected) that aren’t. CBGB was one of them, but it’s way too late in the day to be boo-hooing that one. In terms of things that are still operational, visible and/or still standing, I’m quite partial to “the Alamo,” otherwise known “the Cube” at Astor Place, although I feel that’s kind of an obvious one. Glad it’s still there, though. Back uptown, I’ve always been fond of Louise Nevelson’s “Night Presence IV” sculpture on the island at East 92nd Street and Park Avenue. As a child, during snowstorms --- back when it still snowed in New York City – my friends and I would throw snowballs at it. The correct hit would make an endearing bonnnnnnnnnggggg sound.

Least Favorite Landmark:
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for that stupid bull downtown to fuck right off.

Favorite Local Sports Team:
I don’t have one, because I don’t give a crap about sports.

Favorite Museum:
As much as I grew up wandering the halls of the Metropolitan Museum and the Natural History Museum, I’m going to go with the dark horse and vote for the Museum of the City of New York over on upper Fifth Avenue. It’s amazing. 

Favorite Coffee:
For a start, I hate Starbucks for a number of reasons, but first and foremost, their coffee tastes burnt to me. Stop spending your money there. I’m also not what you’d call a coffee connoisseur. I’m not impressed by artisanal blends or bespoke roasts. Give me a generic, large cup of shitty coffee with milk and sugar, and I’m good to go. I get mine at either the Corner Gourmet on West Broadway & Murray Street or from an endearingly irritable Egyptian gentleman who operates a food cart at the bottom of Greenwich Avenue at Barclays Street.

Favorite Pizza:
Okay, now we’re getting into it. This is an incredibly divisive question, depending on who you ask. Personally speaking, I regret to say that most of the beloved pizzerias of my youth are now all gone. Time was when there were decent options for pizza on practically every other block, regardless of what part of town you were in. They weren’t necessarily top of the line, but joints like St. Marks Pizza on Third Avenue, The Pizza Box on Bleecker, Mimi’s on East 84th and Lexington, or Stromboli’s on University Place were all entirely respectable options for a good slice. And we’re talking slices, here, not sit-down joints – there IS a difference. We’re talking about quick food on the go, not full-on dining experiences. That should be a separate question. In any case, all those spots have vanished. In terms of a slice here in 2020, I’m likely to shoot for Joe’s Pizza just north of Carmine Street off Sixth Avenue, but they’ve been discovered and the lines are crazy now. I’m also fine with Champion Pizza in SoHo at Cleveland Place just north of Kenmare Street. In a pinch, I’ll settle with my local, that being Pizza Mercato on Waverly Place, but it’s very decidedly not my favorite. I could list loads of shitty pizzerias, but who’s well served by that? Also, if you spend your money in any of those 99 cents pizza holes or --- may God forgive you – procure your “pizza” from Domino’s, you should by gored by a disconsolate bull.

Favorite Diner:
Much like the pizzerias (and the record stores, and the book shops), the diners are swiftly vanishing. My local standbys like The University Restaurant on University Place and the Silver Spurs on Broadway are both long gone. My old favorite, The Mansion, on the corner of East 86th and York Avenue, is still there, I believe, but they had a re-modelling some time back that robbed some of its charm for me. The Three Guys Restaurant on the northeast corner of East 96th and Madison Avenue is exceptional. For aesthetics, the Square Diner inTriBeca (65 West Broadway) has all the old school charm you need, but if I’m being candid, my favorite is the Gee Whiz Diner on Greenwich Street at Warren Street. The burgers are what you’re after.

Favorite Italian Restaurant:
My family’s old favorite, Col Legno on East 9th Street, vanished eleven years ago, when owner Chris pulled up stakes and went to go work at a bar in the West Village. Since then, our favorite is really Da Andrea on West 13th between Fifth and Sixth Avenues (just across from the Quad Theater). It might not look like much from the outside, but it’s always hopping when we go, and the food is always amazing. Also don’t mind the oddly named Aunt Jake’s on West 8th Street.

Favorite Chinese Restaurant:
Well, since posting the last installment of the perpetually delayed Flaming Pablum Grub Guide, I did expand my horizons further when the wife and I took a shamlessly touristy culinary walking tour of Chinatown (which I cannot recommend enough). From that, we did glean some choice spots for Chinese cuisine of very specific types (i.e. a good place for dim sum, a great place for Peking Duck, a fab spot for dumplings, etc.), but in terms of an overarching eatery that covered all the bases, a visit this past January to Shun Lee West on the Upper West Side really checked all the boxes, …including my tireless demand for “big fuckoff dragons!”

Favorite Sushi Restaurant:
As cited here, my heart still belongs to Japonica.

Favorite Steakhouse:
I love all steak houses, from the charmingly grotty Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse on the Lower East Side through to the higher tiered places like Smith & Wollensky’s. Peter Luger’s out in Brooklyn used to be a big fave. I haven’t been in eons, but I’ve heard reports of diminishing returns in the quality department. Similarly, the last time I went to the Old Homestead over in the Meat Packing District, I was somewhat underwhelmed by the fare. While not solely a steakhouse, the longbone and the t-bone at our local, Knickerbocker’s on East 9th and University Place are both outstanding and highly recommended. If we’re talking super-dupe high-end, Father’s Day-type shit, I’m always down for a trip to Keen’s Chophouse on West 36th off Sixth Avenue. Tons of history and atmosphere, and the food is nothing short of fucking sensational.

Favorite Subway Line:
Hmm. Can’t say I have one. They all let me down, in the end. I suppose the N/R is the best for my purposes. I was born and raised – like Jennifer Lopez – on the 6, but cannot say I’m especially fond of it.

Okay, that's as far as I got. The next batch of questions concentrate on bookstores, bars, live music venues, parks and more, so stay tuned for that, although they'll all be answered through the prism of current experience, so will probably have a more melancholy, world-weary tone. Naturally.

Hope you're all hanging in there. Be safe & healthy.