Flaming Pablum

In The City: Urban Navigation in "The Warriors"

With both my wife and daughter out of the apartment, last evening, my 15-year-old son Oliver and I were left to our own devices, so to speak, so we ordered in some Chinese food and decided to watch a movie. Usually, this has meant umpteenth viewings of any number of Marvel Universe films or installments in the “Star Wars” series. While I am entirely cool with both of those options, when opportunities have arisen, I’ve tried to broaden my son’s cinematic horizons with further-flung fare. Last year, I introduced him to both the subterranean thrills of 1974’s “The Taking of Pelham 123” (the original, not the Travolta ripoff) and the Kafka-esque, comedic nightmare of Scorsese’s “After Hours” (my favorite film of all time), both of which he was engaged by and warmed to. Seeking to further expand his viewing, last night I dangled the prospects of three crucial films before him, namely “Blade Runner,” “Apocalypse Now” and Walter Hill’s 1979 classic, “The Warriors.” Oliver opted for the latter, so we dug into our beef with broccoli and settled in.

Now. I’ve written about my love of “The Warriors” here numerous times (see links below), so it’s almost impossible for me to be objective about the film at this very late stage in the proceedings, but it was interesting to watch Oliver soak it in. In all fairness, even to die-hard fanboys like myself, what seemed like a palpably edgy and unvarnished portrayal of a violent and lawless urban dystopia in 1979 has not really retained its aura of nervy realism. As I mentioned before, there is inarguably an unwittingly campy element to the film, as well as a relative wholesomeness (despite the odd homophobic rejoinder and crude sexual innuendo, there is not even the slightest whiff of drug use or racial tension, even on the allegedly big bad streets of late-`70s New York City). Admittedly, there is that uncomfortable scene in Riverside Park wherein foul-mouthed Ajax basically attempts to roughly have his way with undercover cop Mercedes Reuhl, but he gets a nightstick in the groin for that, so there are at least consequences for his indefensible actions.

But for all the film's tension, imminently quotable dialogue and stylized depictions of nocturnal combat, Oliver’s observations were cuttingly insightful, calling into question several plot points that, in my practically life-long avowal of the movie, even I had managed to overlook.

Oliver was primarily incredulous that the tough-guy protagonists in Coney Island’s Warriors were all presumably native New Yorkers, yet all seemed largely incapable of navigating the intricacies of their own city’s mass transit system. Now, it could be indeed argued that, at the time, New York was so atomized and localized to the point wherein residents of certain boroughs simply never left their own turf, but the hapless Warriors are completely flummoxed even in locating the Dyre Avenue subway station they only recently disembarked from. Never mind running the gauntlet home from the Bronx, how did these guys manage to find their way around on normal days?

Personally speaking, I don’t believe I started riding the subways until I was a freshman in high school, but in relatively short order, I was perfectly able to distinguish uptown from downtown and fully capable of getting myself from East 96th Street to Union Square — continually misrepresented by certain Warriors in the film as “Union Station” — without being confused or hassled. Now, granted, I wasn’t being pursued by baseball-bat-wielding brigands, but the stress of being hunted by roaming gangs doesn’t preclude one from remembering topographical basics.

This nagging complaint with the narrative almost derailed Oliver’s enjoyment of the film, prompting him to suggest other subway lines and/or alternative routes they might have taken to the relative safety of their Brooklyn destination. Beyond that, he was also curious as two why director Walter Hill chose to film the Warriors' first encounter with the Baseball Furies at the intersection of West 72nd and Broadway, when the shot prior found them getting off the subway at 96th street.

While these were absolutely valid points, I basically told Oliver to relax and enjoy the movie, which he eventually did. But, privately, I felt a sense of accomplishment. When my kids were relatively little, I frequently made it a point to take them to as many remote corners of the city as was feasible. My intention was not only to showcase all the great things the city has on offer to them, but to instill within them an inherent understanding of where things are, how to get to (and away) from them, and always how best to find their ways home, ideally without having to “bop” anybody or “waste any heads” along the way.

More About "The Warriors” on Flaming Pablum.

Farewell to The Fury

"The Warriors" at 40

Leave "The Warriors" Alone

Let's Get Down To It, Boppers: Exhuming "The Warriors" 

Can U Dig It?

 

Goodbye to Brooks Brothers

The first time I ever set foot in the Brooks Brothers flagship store on Madison Avenue and 44th Street, I was invariably with my mother. As an Upper East Side brat attending a private elementary school of the sort that required the wearing of blue blazers, I was invariably there being fitted for same. Just a stone’s throw from Grand Central Station, Brooks Brothers was this hallowed Manhattan institution, frequented by monied captains of industry, and practically the Kaaba of all things “Preppy.” The store, just like the clothes it sold, exuded an unmistakable air of exclusivity, prestige and privilege. Seemingly erected on that corner not long after the settlement of the New World, Brooks Brothers was an iconic brand that became synonymous with old New York, almost as hallowed a place of worship as St. Patrick’s Cathedral just a few blocks away. As such, when I was a child, whenever I was taken there, I felt self-conscious, awed, undeserving and underdressed.

By the time I made it into my teens, I’d become not so enamored of the place, its pricey duds and the associations that were inexorably entwined with them. While Brooks Brothers clothes were impeccably well made, I largely wanted no part of that image or the mindset that espoused it. As both a cathedral of aspirational wealth and the uniform of the avaricious, Brooks Brothers started to represent everything I wanted to renounce. Somewhat ironically, there was a Madison Avenue record shop I’ve invoked here a few times that I regularly patronized in the early 80’s that was only a couple of doors up from Brooks Brothers. I was a thousand times more likely to be found blowing my dubiously earned allowance on LPs by The Clash and The Plasmatics there than ridiculously expensive neckties at Brooks Brothers just down the block.

But once an Upper East Side kid, always an Upper East Side kid, I guess. While my sartorial inclinations skewed largely towards all things black, augmented by band t-shirts and Chuck Taylors, there has always been a stubborn streak of inherent prepdom to my wardrobe. A former brother-in-law once described my style as one foot in CBGB and the other in Brooks Brothers. I think I resented him for it, at the time, but he pretty much summed it up.

In time, I gradually had a come-to-Jesus moment and reconciled my issues with Brooks Brothers, disregarding any remaining feelings of guilt or disdain upon treating myself to a snazzy jacket there in later life (it helped that, over the years, Brooks Brothers had branched out from its stodgier origins). My mindset, by this point, was that the clothes don’t make the man, they just help him look a little more presentable. Never was this more confirmed for me, however, than in July 2005.

It was a brutally hot day, and I was walking through midtown with my wife Peggy and then-baby-daughter Charlotte. Everyone was getting a little cranky from the heat until Peggy remembered she was carrying a Brooks Brother gift card and rightly assumed the nearby flagship store would be sumptuously air-conditioned. As such, we repaired to the palatial interiors of same to cool off and browse.

While pushing Charlotte’s umbrella stroller around tables draped with immaculate mandalas of pricey neckties, I heard Peggy remark behind me. “Check out that guy in the cowboy hat.” I glanced over and saw a tall gentleman with arms outstretched, presumably being fitted for what looked like a three-piece suit, and — indeed — sporting a jarringly incongruous, ten-gallon cowboy hat. I smirked, but then did a complete double-take.

The cowboy in question was Michael Gira, lead singer/primary mastermind behind SWANS.

So struck by the sight, I actually exclaimed, “Michael?” Through my friend Tod from Cop Shoot Cop, I’d actually met Michael Gira some years earlier, not that I was expecting him to remember me. He looked up and I just told him I was a big fan of his music. He smiled and told me I had a lovely family and got back to being fitted for his suit.

Peggy looked confused. I explained who the nattily-dressed and convivial cowboy was, taking pains to point out that he was the same man who wrote and recorded such zingy chestnuts as “Mother, My Body Disgusts Me” and “Raping a Slave,” which made Peggy look even more confused.

For me, though, the striking thing was that for Michael Gira, there is truly no more abjectly derisive and palpably base word than “consumer,” and yet here he was in the very plush, velvety lap of consumer culture. Now, maybe this was all a middle-finger to the face of that which he so abhors, but it certainly looked to me like he was enjoying himself and indulging. I don’t assume I’ll ever know the whole picture, there.

In any case, that episode totally absolved Brooks Brothers of much of its haughty intimidation for me. At the very least, it decimated any fleeting concerns about Brooks Brothers not being “punk” enough, or whatever.

The last time I went to Brooks Brothers, I went in looking for a Navy Pea Coat for my son. True to form, I found a nice one for Oliver that was a significant step up from the clunky one we’d gotten him at the Gap a year or two earlier and he went on to cherish it.

Today, the wife and I were back in midtown running an errand and found ourselves walking down Madison Avenue. We’d heard that Brooks Brothers was in trouble, but were still taken aback when, upon reaching that iconic corner of East 44th Street, we looked in and saw the flagship store closed, empty and gutted.

Where Is The Chamber of Mirrors?

Preoccupied with geographical trivia, my 15-year-old son recently hit me with a “did you know?” that prompted a longer debate, that being that there is allegedly a shipwreck dating back to the 1600s embedded in the earth below Manhattan. I scoffed and asked where he heard that, and he dutifully texted me the video below. Now, I have zero idea who “Cheddar" are, but I’m usually a little skeptical about these sorts of endeavors. But, I sat down and watched and it seems genuinely pretty well researched, for whatever that’s worth. Sure, the shipwreck thing is pretty goddamn novel, but there was another fleeting allusion buried (sorry) here that really caught my interest.

As you’ll hear around the 2:42 mark, the young Cheddarette says that there was a “small, boarded up room” with its walls and ceiling “covered in mirrors” discovered about six feet below the intersection of The Bowery and Canal Street. She doesn’t say when this mysterious chamber was discovered — or any other details, for that matter — only that “no explanation has ever been found.”

I immediately hit Google and started searching for more info, but only came up with a Reddit board discussing the very same video. No one else, that I could uncover, ever mentions the strange discovery. 

Incidentally, that’s not me in the mysterious room of mirrors. That’s me in the elevator of my dentist’s office in midtown, but I though it fit the bill.

But WHY would there a roomful of mirrors below Bowery & Canal? Who built it? For what purpose? Is it still there? Was it re-sealed up? 

Have YOU ever heard of this? Weigh in....

Teenagers

This month, my kids Charlotte and Oliver turn 17 and 15, respectively.

Even typing that sentence feels entirely unreal. To me, it was like yesterday that I could pick them both up at once with only a modicum of effort. Were I to attempt that now, it would mean a swift trip to the chiropractor.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed a decrease in their invocations. Time was when they made for regular fodder here, whether I was ruminating on their strange little witticisms, recounting my own shoddy attempts at parenting, documenting their travels around the city, making them review canonical post-punk albums or having them replicate the poses of various bands from iconic photos and album covers. For a long while, they were my willing little participants and always game for some new form of silliness. All these instances feel like mere days ago, to me.

But, y’know, as I mentioned way back in 2013, as time went on, I felt less comfortable subjecting them to my weird little whims. They were no longer my models. Now, I can pretty much forget about asking them to strike a pose in front of some arguably significant address that Joey Ramone once slouched in front of, lest I get a lot of eye-rolling and pushback. Charlotte absolutely demands the right to vet any photo I take of her, let alone post. Oliver isn’t quite as bothered, but he still wants to see pictures before they go live, so to speak. Fair enough, but the spontaneity and, sadly, the fun has been largely syhphoned out of it.

My kids have their own lives and their own identities, and while I remain their father, they’re certainly entitled to their privacy. As such, don’t expect another “stop shot” from them any time soon.

It’s been a very tough year for the younger generation, when ya think about it. Both kids have been pretty stoic through it all and have just gotten on with it, but my wife and I feel like apologizing to them every day for missing out on what would otherwise have been pivotal eras for them. They’re both doing exceptionally well in school, and we could not be prouder of them, but these were not the high school experiences they were promised.

Very soon, we start looking at colleges for Charlotte, the prospect of which is too emotionally engulfing for me to even begin to process. And no-longer-little Oliver will follow close behind her in that trajectory.

At that point, I lost the ability to fathom how life will be.

Sticktoitiveness

Here’s an update about a very silly, ancillary campaign to this blog.

Despite, as mentioned in my last update, finding a large swathe of my first run of stickers missing, pulled down, scratched off and/or, in a couple of amusing instances, profanely defaced, I decided to keep at it. I decided to switch up the design a little — inconsequentially — and continued to furtively smack them up around town. I should re-assert, as this stage, that this is a completely silly waste of time, but I’ve cultivated a taste for it, and fun is in short supply these days, so indulge me.

As before, some managed to stick around (pardon the pun) longer, this time, based on some further best practices gleaned from previous trial and error. Others, meanwhile, continued to vanish from specific spots only a day or so after first being affixed. Why certain points on the map of Manhattan are more diligently preferred (and summarily policed) by the sticker community remains something of a mystery, but that only enhances the challenge. If I could manage to keep my stickers up on certain key streets, …. it was like I won.

This all said, as Blood, Sweat & Tears once so sagely sang, “what goes up, must come down.” It is simply sheer luck — if that’s even the right word — if any of my stupid stickers will stay put for the conceivable future. It’s ultimately a pointless endeavor.

Then the election happened, swiftly followed by all the political drama drummed up by the losing side, culminating with the shameful events of January 6. I probably don’t need to re-hash any of that.

But back on the mean streets of Manhattan, there was suddenly an uptick .. even here in the allegedly liberal bubble of New York City … of propaganda for “The Big Lie.” All around Greenwich Village, I started spying little yellow stickers emblazoned with the laughably farcical legend, “TRUMP WON.” Suddenly, my stickers took on a new purpose, as I demonstrated here.

As such, more recently, if you spot one of my dumb stickers out there, there’s a greater than likely chance that underneath it, there’s a “TRUMP WON” sticker being denied its mission of misinformation. I also started covering up the unspeakable one’s face whenever I encountered it.

In any case, the only reason I’m bringing any of this otherwise juvenile, ill-considered and embarrassing bullshit up now is because I’m now somewhat conditioned to studying the topography of NYC streets as I walk them. I mean, I already was, but my eyes are now trained to seek out stickers — both my own and the work of others — when traversing pavement. I can spy a sticker of mine from practically a block away, at this point. I’m also looking and learning how my peers and competitors are fairing at the same game, constantly trying to unspool the riddle of why some stickers stay put and some vanish instantly.

On Friday, meanwhile, I was returning home from a quick visit to my office down at the bottom of TriBeCa, and was strolling north of Crosby Street (this was the same trek that prompted this post). About a block after I paused at 40 Crosby, I was struck by another sticker that I almost completely missed.

Stuck to a yellow no-parking pylon of some kind was a sticker that, at first glance, looked like the old Canal Jeans Co. logo against a checkerboard field. Canal Jeans used to give away basketfuls of pins with that same design that were invariably later sported on the lapels of every hip kid worth their salt. I still have mine in a mason jar in my closet.

Closer scrutiny, however, revealed different words...

I immediately assumed that this was the handiwork of my fellow NYC blogger, Yukie Ohta of the SoHo Memory Project, who I’ve mentioned many times here (notably here, here and here). I loved the idea of Yukie similarly branching out on the sticker front, especially with a design that spoke so directly to the heart of her whole concept (Canal Jeans was verily a SoHo institution, which you can learn more about here). I also dug the notion of Yukie doing it as, much like myself, she’s otherwise a respectable parent.

I shot Yukie a note, but — it turns out — this was not her doing, which begs further questions which will doubtlessly continue to distract me as I continue to wander these city streets, sticking things on the sides of other things. 

My Mosaic Valentine

Oddly fitting, so close to Valentine’s Day.

A few years back, I happened on some photographs of stalwart proto-shoegazer band My Bloody Valentine taken in New York City around the time of their watershed 1991 album, Loveless. I was quasi-lucky enough to see them on that tour at the Ritz, on a high-decibel triple bill with Dinosaur Jr. and Superchunk that I am convinced took a palpable toll on my hearing. In any case, in one or two of the photos, the band were depicted standing with their backs against a mosaic pattern that was inarguably the work of Jim Power, an East Village fixture whose signature art adorns many corners of the neighborhood to this day. The thing that was so perplexing, however, was that the picture of MBV also featured these strange, mask-like faces that looked so incredibly familiar to me, but I could not place where they might be. In my downtime, I searched far and wide or a wall with those faces on it, but always came up empty.

Eventually, I gave up and lost the pics in question. Life went on.

Last week, someone invoked My Bloody Valentine in one online forum or another, and up popped that very picture again. Here it is now.

Again, those strange background faces jumped out at me. I knew I’d seen them before, but certainly not recently.

Eventually, I figured it out.

The mask-like faces are no longer on that façade, that being on the southern side of the street on St. Marks Place just steps to the west of Avenue A. At the time, that would have been the side of rock’n’roll bar Alcatraz. It would later turn into a sushi bar and is more recently a taco place called Empello al Pastor.

Like I said, the faces are gone (knocked off by a vandal or Jim Power collector fanboy?), but the rest of the mosaic is still intact. You can see the same side of the patterned dish to the left of guitarist Kevin Shield’s head right above my son Oliver’s head below.

Mystery solved.

For the uninitiated, this is My Bloody Valentine....

More about My Bloody Valentine on Flaming Pablum here….

Jobless, Marooned & Loveless

Valentinnitus

All You Need is Loveless

Central Park ... After Dark

Back in August of 2019, I started composing another long, detailed post about my years growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was ostensibly meant as kind of a companion piece to a long post I’d penned about my encounters with some (very) small-time crime in that era. This post was going to concentrate on the significance of visiting Central Park during the less advisable hours of the evening, something myself and certain friends of mine used do with blithely idiotic frequency. I’m not sure why, but I believe I abandoned the post because so much of it was wrapped up with my memories of my friend Danny, who passed away in 2018, and reconciling certain stuff was just all a bit too much.

In a nutshell, though, in the process of unspooling those anecdotes about favorite, clandestine spots we used to frequent in the Park during off hours, I was going to underscore the obvious underlying message, that being that Central Park at night — then as now — is nothing to fuck with. The stories of my teenaged exploits in that capacity were not meant as nostalgic boasts so much as evidence of youthful ignorance. While it might sound cliched and/or even quaint, now, the nocturnal iteration of Central Park accrued a certain fearful reputation for damn good reason.

That said, most of my own indiscretions in this capacity usually occurred in strategic locations that were barely a few steps from the street. Apart from the few instances when my late friend Danny and I foolhardily opted to bike through Central Park in the pitch black of night, we were usually to be found in frantic sprinting distance from the relative safety of Fifth Avenue and points east. The deeper you walked into the Park at night, the greater your chances of finding trouble were.

In the ensuing decades since my high school days, there have been myriad instances of crime — from the banal to the unspeakable — that have gone down after dark in the Park. From the The Preppy Murder case in 1986 to the Central Park Jogger case in 1989 to the teenage stabbing case at the Lake in 1997 and countless other less notorious incidents, it has been a haven for foul play. Only a year ago was a man found hanging from a tree near the 74th Street entrance, and only this past September were bodies pulled out of both the Reservoir uptown and Swan Lake down at the southeastern end of the Park.

While inarguably one of the most tranquil and beautiful locations in all of Manhattan, the verdant splendor of Central Park should not lull you into thinking that horribly bad shit can’t happen to you there.

Earlier today, while brazenly wasting time on YouTube instead of working, I came across the video below, presented by a bright-eyed, freshly scrubbed gent named Brian from a channel called Perfect Little Planet. Shot in 2016, this video posits the question: “Is Central Park Safe at Night?”

Let’s watch, shall we?

Before we dive into the meat of this video, how astonishingly annoying is that bit featuring all the "Pokemon Go!” zombies? Jesus Christ!!!

Taking the perspective of the tireless running enthusiast, the video seeks to reassure late-night joggers that Central Park is indeed safe, if you use your head and stick to “well lit” and more populated areas, although one might think that would all go without saying. To be fair, though, just being “well lit” isn’t necessarily enough. There are certain portions of the Park he cites as well lit that are still comparatively remote and Hell and gone from an easily accessible exit back to the streets. And don’t forget — when you’re somewhere “well lit,” not only can you see things, … but you, too, can be seen. That isn’t always an advantage.

When Brian gets to the infamous 102nd Street Crossing — where the Central Park Jogger was attacked and dragged into a ravine in the nearby North Woods — he tidily glosses over the incident by merely alluding to it as “bad stuff.” This feels a bit disingenuous.

Personally speaking, I didn’t embark on a star-crossed running regimen until it was basically far too late, and my middle-aged knees quickly put a stop to all that. As such, I cannot fully empathize with Brian’s zest for running. More to the point, I have nothing against people running in the Park (better that than on the street), but were I asked to opine as to the best times to attempt it, I still wouldn’t recommend after dark. I can also fully appreciate marveling at stirring, vespertine views and empty straightaways as much as the next guy, but they might just come with a terrible price that you could otherwise wisely avoid.

But, Hell, I'm still no expert. I'm sure Brian's intentions are in the right place. But what about you? Do YOU think Central Park is safe at night?

Weigh in....

Desk Before Dishonor

As alluded here elsewhere, after two and a half decades in the trenches of professional journalism, I am currently a director of content and editorial services for a prominent performing rights organization. One of my myriad duties involves putting together a weekly newsletter for our thousands of affiliates. Said newsletter generally contains some original content, but we frequently fill it out with bits of pertinent content from around the web. On Mondays and Tuesdays, I am regularly searching for news items, interviews, articles, podcasts, listicles and profiles that might provide insight, advice and/or solutions for burgeoning songwriters looking to catch a break, learn some best practices, hone their craft, sharper their networking skills and basically advance their careers in one capacity or another. Ultimately, our aim is to provide our affiliates an encouraging leg up, and furnish them whenever we can with tools, tips and tricks of the trade for navigating the wilderness of the music industry writ large. We want to help them succeed, basically.

In the last couple of weeks, I stumbled on a podcast that — while technically also tailored to unspooling the intricacies of career advancement for the otherwise creatively inclined — is really meant for those less doe-eyed about the endeavor. In a nutshell, this podcast shines a light on those who have essentially had to forsake their more creatively fulfilling trajectories in order to pursue vocations that stand greater chances of keeping them financially solvent and gainfully employed. Fittingly, the podcast is called Killed by Desk, a sly nod, for those of you not saddled by worthless rock trivia, to a comparably titled Motörhead ditty from the mid-80s.

I first heard about it, recently, when my friend Jon Fine assumed the hot seat (as detailed here), but KBD has also featured other Flaming Pablum favorites like former Antidote vocalist-turned-filmmaker/author/archivist Drew Stone of The New York Hardcore Chronicles, Penelope Houston of The Avengers, Brooks Headly of Born Against and Chicken John Rinaldi, formerly of Letch Patrol, Sissy and GG Allin & The Murder Junkies.

Like the episode with Jon, the conversations are enlightening and hilarious and really worth your time. Check it all out by clicking right here.

"The Greenwich Village Story"

As recounted in this ancient post, I believe the first time I ever visited Greenwich Village as a snot-nosed Upper East Side kid was at some point in the mid-to-late `70s, when I was taken on an antique-scouting trip with my mother and step-father. Sometime after that, my father (divorced from my mother since my birth) rented a one-bedroom apartment on West 10th Street, opposite a firehouse with a garishly painted (for the era) garage door (more about that here), so we periodically went down to visit him. It seemed like an entirely different city from the one we lived in uptown.

Years after that, my mom befriended an artist character named Irwin who lived on Mott Street, just across from Old St. Patrick’s Basilica. I remember going down there with her to visit, a few times and walking around the Village and SoHo and being completely captivated.

By the early `80s, I was finally let off my leash and started exploring downtown on my own, my principle destination being the original Forbidden Planet on the west side of Broadway at 12th Street (more about that here). My father, by this point, had split from East 10th street, logged a few years in England and repaired back to New York to another one-bedroom apartment on East 74th. But he was working, at the time, at Forbes, which was then located over on Fifth Avenue and 12th Street. I’d go down ostensibly to “visit” him and then run around the Village, hitting Forbidden Planet and a few other likely spots. It was around this same time that a classmate of mine, Walt, moved to Cornelia Street with his dad and discovered Bleecker Bob’s. From there, there was no going back. Greenwich Village and its surrounding environs had all the cool stuff. The shops were cooler. The vibe was more relaxed. The people were freakier. There was more history. There was more to do and see than the neighborhoods I’d already wrung dry uptown. This was the place for me.

That was then.

Today, I’ve lived in Greenwich Village for over 25 years… practically half my life. But the Greenwich Village of today only dimly looks like the neighborhood I was first taken to as a small boy, much less the storied bohemian enclave it was in decades prior to that. Most of the stuff that first captured my imagination is gone. The cool shops are mostly vanished. The vibe isn’t relaxed at all. The freaky people are largely gone. There’s still a lot of history, although many don’t seem to care about it, and the sights and topography keep getting remade and remodeled. For all intents and purposes, it’s not all that different from points uptown — only more expensive.

But despite all the neighborhood's changes and diminishment (and let’s not even get into what the pandemic has done to it), I have no plans to go anywhere else. My kids grew up on these streets. Greenwich Village is our home.

In any case, while this was initially just supposed to be a quick preamble, it’s turned into a dangerously sepia-toned paean to the lost Greenwich Village, weepily composed to tee up the curious film below, “Greenwich Village Story.” Here’s the backstory….

Greenwich Village Story by Jack O'Connell shows the Village in the early sixties, teeming crowds in Washington Square Park, impromptu hootenany sessions, beatnik poets reciting by candlelight in coffee houses. Scenes are picturesque and germane to Jack O'Connell's tale of young love and desire for a place in the arts in Gotham. The film was invited to the Berlin, Venice and Locarno Film Festivals.

Sit back and enjoy a slice of Greenwich Village of yesteryear….

Goodbye, Mr. Puspurica

As should come as no surprise to anyone who regularly reads this stupid blog, I was something of a weird kid.

I was strenuously shy, socially awkward and regularly hindered by bouts of self-doubt. I was endlessly self-conscious about a physiognomical anomaly (I was born with only a partial eyelid on my left eye, which — along with making me look slightly different — came with an early, pediatrician-mandated requirement for me to periodically wear an eyepatch over my “good” eye to help buffer the vision in the afflicted one — I do not recommend this for your children). Matters were not helped in this capacity by my parents’ acrimonious divorce, which had transpired around the same time as the happy occasion of my birth. While something of a common problem, at the time (divorce was all the rage back then, as I understand it), it did indeed come with accompanying fallout that took a complex toll on myself and my sister that, even now, we are both still coming to terms with. Beyond all that stuff, I had no interest in sports, was essentially a slight kid with narrow shoulders and I had something of a pointedly macabre sensibility.

But there was one thing that saved me. I could draw.

Prone to spending hours in my room filling up pads with ornate drawings of fanged horrors ripe for an H.P. Lovecraft novel, I reveled in my rudimentary gift for turning a blank piece of paper into a portal into another world. When I was in third grade at St. David’s, the private grammar school on the Upper East Side I was ridiculously fortunate to be able to attend, my mother went in for a conference with my homeroom teacher. As I’ve heard it recounted, she took my mom aside and expressed an emphatic concern for my well being. “Every time I ask him to draw something,” she said, “it comes with horns, bat wings, tentacles and bloody fangs.” Mercifully, my mom laughed it off. “Oh, that’s just his little way of looking at the world.”

Despite being this little oddball, my nascent talent for illustration earned me a tiny modicum of respect from my otherwise suspicious classmates. I couldn’t kick a soccer ball without giving myself a concussion, but I could draw the shit out of anything you asked of me. This particular ability was recognized, encouraged and nurtured by one, specific teacher at my grade school — a Mr. Nik Puspurica.

Mr. Purpurica was a tall, big-hearted, pipe-smoking Texan with an exotic Greek (I think) last name. He spoke with a warm, Southwestern drawl and very rarely parted with his cool. Whether you were artistically inclined or not, everyone looked forward to Mr. Puspurica’s art class. You’d get assignments and grades just as with every other subject, but the accent was always on creative expression and exploration. He’d give us introductory walk-throughs about using different media, but would then let us rip — encouraging us to let our imaginations commandeer our grasps of the tools at our disposal. While I may have struggled with speaking up in other classes or wrestled with understanding certain other fields of study (I barely made it out of math class alive), I felt entirely at ease in art class — something Mr. Purpurica noticed from the get-go.

While he gave everyone his full attention, Mr. P took my investment in art very seriously, regularly encouraging me to try new disciplines and broaden my scope. He’d never let me abandon a project when I’d gotten discouraged by my failure to master it immediately. He taught me to be patient and to follow through. I remember privately beaming with a pride that almost overwhelmed me when, upon the completion of one drawing I’d done, he immediately tacked it up on the board behind his desk and left it there for all the other classes to see. It was a validation I’d never encountered before. In my ten years at St. David’s, Mr. P’s classroom was my sanctuary for learning new things and a confidence-building safe haven that prepared me to better deal with the rest of the world.

I owe that all to Mr. Puspurica.

I only saw him fleetingly after I graduated from St. David’s in 1981. I gather he stayed on at the school for another seven years. I remember spying his name and reaching out on one social media platform or another several years back, but never heard back from him. I always wanted to get back in touch and let him know what a profound effect he’d had on me as a strange, shy little kid.

Yesterday, I was very sad to field a note from my school that Mr. Puspurica evidently passed away back in May of this year.

Thank you, Mr. P, wherever you are. I hope you know you made a huge difference.