Flaming Pablum

Goodbye to Manitoba's

While rumors of its impending demise have been circulating since as far back as 2007, I’m sad to relay, in case you hadn’t heard, that Manitoba’s at 99 Avenue B has closed for good. That's me, above, in the rear of same circa 2011. 

I’ve written about both the celebrated bar and the man behind it -– erstwhile Dictators frontman and NYC Punk Rock luminary Richard Blum, more commonly known as Handsome Dick Manitoba -– several times here. Having established himself as a polarizing figure, of sorts, since his early days with the nascent Dictators, it was sort of expected that Richard could be a gruff and/or argumentative presence not unlike, say, the late Bleecker Bob. In my very limited personal experience with the man, however, I have to say that Richard was always an approachable and affable guy -– so long as you didn’t veer too deeply into any political discussions.

In terms of the bar, while it’s always courted a bit of conflict (first from upstairs neighbors who’d moved in unaware that they’d be residing over a boisterous local hang-out), it has more recently had a much harder time of it in the wake of some of Richard’s legal troubles stemming from truly unfortunate allegations of spousal assault, a crime he was arrested for in 2018. From that point on, things became difficult for both the man and the establishment that bore his moniker.

Over the years, bars like Manitoba’s have become scarcer in the East Village. As the neighborhood’s overall sensibility has been somewhat forcibly shifted from a historic bohemian enclave to, well, a comparatively soulless hotbed of avaricious real estate opportunity and exclusive nightlife destination, the particular aesthetic bars like Manitoba’s catered to isn’t quite enough to compete in the 2019 iteration of the environs (despite the best, heroic efforts of Jesse Malin). Put simply, the punkers are being largely displaced by the brunchers.

I’d been hearing the recent rumors of Manitoba’s troubles for a few days, but my comrade EV Grieve finally confirmed it yesterday. Read the official details here.

While my nights out in the East Village took a fairly sharp downturn once I started having kids, I was always thankful that places like Manitoba’s were still going, especially as similarly inclined establishments had been vanishing left, right and center (personally, I think I miss the Lakeside Lounge the most). Now, hot on the heels of the recently shuttered Sidewalk Café, Manitoba’s joins the ranks of former places with history, identity and inimitable character to have a beer, hang out, meet with friends, hear great music and share stories.

I will miss it greatly.

Pour one out. This, meanwhile, was the Dictators...

The Revenge of the Flaming Pablum Grub Guide

About four years ago, I posted an audacious little entry here rather grandiosely called The Flaming Pablum Grub Guide. Despite that promising title, all it really amounted to was a tidy list of six restaurants I happened, at the time, to like. Hardly a “guide” of any credible semblance.

At the tail end of that post, I appended the line “more to come,” as if to suggest that my culinary recommendations were swiftly to become a regular fixture on this blog, rubbing shoulders with lamentations about closed record shops, meaningless asides about old post-punk singles, slavishly overwritten eulogies to recently deceased musicians of a certain stripe and/or complaints about our current president. Had I any idea, in 2015, who the latter was going to turn out to be, I may have been too nauseous to conceive of writing anything about food. But, I digress.

Indeed, despite the “more to come” warning, apart from a couple of fleeting mentions of the closings of various eateries, I didn’t post many entries that were strictly meal-related. By and large, writing about food just isn’t my métier, so to speak.

This all said, in the last couple of months, some specifically favorite restaurants of mine have simply just up and ceased to exist. The first to go, of these, was my family’s preferred Chinese restaurant (also mentioned in my previous Grub Guide), that being the excellent Lychee House on East 55th between Lexington and Third Avenues. I have absolutely zero idea why it shut its doors, but it’s evidently gone for good. For this cruel affront, I question the existence of a benevolent deity.

More recently, after yet another frankly mediocre order from Jin on Third Avenue between 10th and 11th, the teenaged Pablumites and I decided to revert to our old trusty standby, Irving Place’s Hunan Cottage (or, as my kids used to call it, Hunan College). While never the stuff of greatness, the Cottage/College (or Huniversity, as I would sometimes call it) got several key dishes right, notably their fried pork dumplings. Imagine our collective potty-mouthed incredulousness, then, upon learning that -– like Lychee House way uptown -– Hunan Cottage had mysteriously closed up shop. And now, for that matter, shitty Jin has a "For Rent" sign in its window.  

What was this? The work of fucking Thanos? Why are all our favorite spots vanishing?

Way back in 2007, I prefaced my first lengthy post about since-closed record shops with a rumination about the shuttering of restaurants. Steeped in melancholy, it read as follows:

For some reason, I always find the closing of a restaurant to be particularly heartbreaking (more so than, say, the closing of a shoe store or cell phone emporium). Restaurants require -- to misappropriate a line from Winston Churchill -- blood, sweat and tears. They demand someone with heart, vision and a desire to not only meet a need but excel beyond that need (nobody strives to open a merely adequate restaurant). And there's something about the offering of food that makes it extra personal. Someone carefully planned the menu and imagined the fare and took pains to present it in a palatable way. When those endeavors collapse, I just find it kinda tragic. There's a restaurant down West 10th street, for example, that just closed. I walked by it earlier this week with my wife. Only a couple of short months ago, we'd dined there with friends, celebrating the christening of my son. The food wasn't exceptionally bad, but it wasn't much to sing about either. Still, we ate and laughed and had many drinks and had a splendid time within its walls. It's now just an empty room that someone's dream once briefly occupied.

As histrionic as that sounds, I continue to feel that way when a beloved eatery goes out of business.

With that all in mind, I decided to update my flimsily executed Grub Guide and imbue it with more specifics. Those with an only passively keen eye for detail might notice I’ve qualified these with the descriptor “Favorite” as opposed to “Best.” No votes were tallied. I am not claiming this to be in any way authoritative. These are only my personal preferences. Just because I’m partial to the way one restaurant prepares a certain dish doesn’t mean I think that particular iteration of said dish is its supreme realization. As the saying goes, results may vary. You may not agree with my choices. You’re free to make your own Grub Guide.

In the interest of being comprehensive, I’ve broken this up into categories. Invariably, I will leave something out. This is not meant as a slight to whichever cuisine I’ve omitted. It only means I’ve forgotten to include a selection representing that particular culinary discipline. I am human.

So, let’s get to it, shall we?

Favorite Mexican 

Mariachi’s
156 Chambers Street.

The original Mariachi’s was a block or so to the east on West Broadway (replete with a touching outdoor mural of its former neighbors, the Twin Towers). When its block was slated to be razed to accommodate a new condo, Mariachi’s moved to its more recent perch on Chambers Street between West B’way and Greenwich. It’s not that its fare is the best of its kind (I’m sure friends from the Southwest would balk at even the mere suggestion), but it’s consistently solid, hearty food. I frequently go for the quesadillas and am never not happy and/or sated by the results. Unfussy, quick, cheap and satisfying.

Honorable Mention: The fish tacos at Dorado on 28 East 12th Street are mighty fine, although not as outstanding as the fish tacos at El Vez (259 Vesey), which are fucking muy bien. My other local Mexican, El Cantinero (86 University Place), is also always respectable. They also have a nice outdoor deck in the warmer months, and a somewhat hilarious Mexican disco on the second floor, if you’re ever in that particular mood.

Favorite Chinese 

Mission Chinese Food
171 East Broadway

As weepily explained in the preamble to this post, both my very favorite Chinese restaurant and my local standby Chinese restaurant have all just shuttered, which pisses me right off. There are, of course, hundreds -- if not thousands -- of great Chinese eateries scattered across Manhattan alone, but I’ve now lost my go-to’s. As such, I’m citing the somewhat insufferably trendy Mission Chinese Restaurant on way-the-Hell-near-nothing East Broadway. If you can tolerate the hipster aesthetic/cache, the food is indeed damn good. Even comparatively unadventurous dishes like Beef with Broccoli blew a new part in my hair. That said, it’s way remote, and I don’t believe they deliver.

Favorite Sushi 

Japonica
90 University Place

This is actually the same place I cited last time around, but hey ... it's a fave. In all honesty, my sushi palette isn't so adventurous or sophisticated enough to know exceptional sushi from simply good sushi, but I'm also prone to sticking fairly close to familiar fare (no blowfish sashimi for me, thanks). Japonica's been our neighborhood go-to for eons. I'd love it if they were a little bit cheaper, but I'm happy to support the place. Moreover, sushi that is too cheap is best avoided. 

Honorable mention: I do like the bento box lunch specials at Tokyo Bay (183 Duane Street --  below) in TriBeCa. 

Favorite Korean 

Dons Bogam
17 East 32nd St

What I credibly know about Korean cuisine couldn't cover one side of a piece of loose leaf. That said, I know good Korean BBQ when I have it, and this is the place to get it. It's crowded (like everything on East 32nd Street), but when you do manage to sit down, they do all the work for you. I've been to too many Korean BBQ joints that let you -- the idiotic patron -- cook the meat yourself, and while that's fun and all, it can frequently come with digestive ramifications. That's not the case at Dons Bogam. It's all good stuff, but I wish the portion sizes were bigger. 

Honorable mention: Nam Pang on East 12th off University is not bad at all for Korean sandwiches/finger food. 

Favorite Cuban 

Sophie's Cuban Cuisine
76 Fulton Street

Much like Korean food, what I know about Cuban cuisine isn't much. I was brought to Sophie's by two colleagues, and while it assuredly doesn't look like much, the food is delicious. I've only had the sandwiches, but if they're anything to go by, the rest of their fare is well worth checking out. 

Favorite Indian 

Haveli Banjara
100 Second Avenue

This is a tenuous one. Time was when I had several favorite Indian restaurants. This was back when East 6th Street was frequently rumored to house one huge, block-long Indian kitchen that fed the numerous eateries that lined its sidewalks. Back then, my criteria for patronizing an Indian establishment were iffy. If they boasted an uproariously garish amount of fire-code-thwarting Christmas lights? That was a plus. If they'd pinned a photograph of Iron Maiden to their front window (as if to suggest that the lads in question had dined there)? I was in. If a sitar player sat in their window with a Casio keyboard with a rubber band wrapped around a single key (y'know...to provide the right drone)? That meant it was good enough for me. 

Later on, the wife and I became besotted with a Nouvelle Indian restaurant on University Place called Cafe Spice. We were regulars there to the extent that we tried to set up their manager, the dashing and slightly mysterious Sandeep, with a friend of ours. Sadly, that endeavor never got off the ground, although we did get a lot of free naan and tallboys of Taj Mahal for our efforts. 

Sadly, Cafe Spice closed, but was replaced with Jackson Diner, a Manhattan offshoot of the revered Indian restaurant of the same name over in Jackson Heights, Queens. While not quite as stylish as Cafe Spice, Jackson Diner's food was unimpeachable. Regrettably, they, too, closed up shop a few years back, and the space they once occupied is now a Vegan venture called Nix.

As such, we started patronizing Haveli, which has a long history on Second Avenue, just south of East 6th. More recently, though, we believe Haveli has fallen on some hard times. At one point, it gave notice that it was going to close, only to merge operations with another restaurant. In the wake of that, however, they've had some trouble, I gather. On two recent occasions, orders we placed with them via Seamless went astray. This all said, I ordered from them in the last few weeks (by phone, this time) and their Kati rolls and Butter Chicken remain excellent. 

We were enthused by the newish Babu Ji on East 13th between University Place and Fifth, for a while. The food was good, and the atmosphere was colorful. I especially enjoyed their "help yourself" beer chiller (and verily helped myself). That said, the maitre'd was uproariously rude to my wife one evening not too long back that I simply couldn't believe it. Suffice to say, we took our business elsewhere and have no plans to return. 

We recently spotted a new place on East 18th Street that looks promising, called Gupshup. It looks like it should be pretty good, but Eater gave it sort of a black eye. 

Favorite Brunch

Elephant & Castle 
68 Greenwich Street

For the past several years, "brunch" has become a dirty word in New York City. No longer a simple culinary descriptor involving Eggs Benedict and maybe a festive Bloody Mary, the term is now synonymous with hordes of monied drunks seeking to extend their Saturday-night imbibing into a next-day Wake & Bake. Across town, various restaurants accommodate this weekly variant of beardless Santa-Connery by offering "bottomless brunches" (meaning, I imagine, that the booze keeps flowing, not that anyone's going sans pants, although that does seem to happen, too). The once-revered tranquility of Sunday morning, in certain neighborhoods, has been replaced by rampant, broad-daylight douchebaggery. It's a plague. 

So, yeah, when I say brunch, I'm referring to its more conventional definition. For my money, my best brunches have all been had at Elephant & Castle, an age-old Greenwich Village mainstay that's about the size of a storage shed. Despite their spacial limitations -- charitably described as "cozy" -- Elephant & Castle make a helluva brunch. My personal favorite dish, like you care, is their purée spinach with poached eggs, melted English cheddar and potato pancakes. Simply put, it's fucking exquisite. I could eat that dish every goddamn day and never tire of it.

Their other fare is also fantastic, so seek it out, do.

Honorable Mention: Veselka on the East 9th Street and Second Avenue has long been a beloved East Village institution. Where once I'd repair to its comfy confines in the dead of night after an evening of copious beering -- it being a 24-hour establishment -- to wolf down pierogis. These days, I'm usually there with my kids ... and the pierogis are still the big attraction, for us, although their many brunch variations are all totally delicious. It does get crowded and touristy, these days. Still, it fucking rocks.

Favorite Ramen

Ramen Takumi
1 University Place

Time was when the only ramen I knew were those cheap-o bags of Nissan top ramen you'd buy in lieu of spending huge amounts of money you didn't have on food. Somewhat ironically, the ramen dishes on offer at lovely Ramen Takumi right in our neighborhood are damn tasty, but one might be hard pressed to characterize the eatery as particularly cheap. That said, their big bowls of noodle-based concoctions are always delightful, as are their gyoza appetizers. You have to rub shoulders with a lot of cloyingly youthful NYU types, but hey ... it IS University Place. 

--

Okay, that ought to be enough for now. I know what you're thinking, though: "Wait! What about favorite burger? What's your favorite steakhouse? What about Italian food? What's your preferred Middle Eastern place?"

Rest assured, these and other variations will be addressed in the next installment of the Flaming Pablum Grub Guide. 

Until then, tip your waiters and bon appetit! 

Chronicling The Core Redux: 10 Questions

For a few years now, filmmaker Drew Stone has been continually adding to his excellent video series regarding all things NYHC, The New York Hardcore Chronicles. In between shooting amazing projects like the full-length film of the same name and 2017’s epic “Who The Fuck IS That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago,” Stone has sought out alumni of the NYHC scene and the surrounding punk rock community to paricipate in his great, ongoing 10 Questions series.

You might remember me highlighting the one he did with Flaming Pablum favorite RB Korbet of Even Worse back in 2016, but he’s also put luminaries like Davey Gunner of Kraut, Jessie Malin of Heart Attack/DGeneration, John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, Jimmy G of Murphy’s Law, Bobby Hambel of Biohazard, Vinnie Stigma and Roger Miret from Agnostic Front, Yana Chupenko of P.M.S./Wench, the late Todd Youth of Warzone/Murphy’s Law/Agnostic Front/etc., Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags and literally SO MANY OTHERS from practically every conceivable era of the genre (however one cares to personally define it) in front of the mic to weigh in. If you’re a fan/student/acolyte of this scene, this music and its accompanying culture, this series is absolultely required viewing. Find them all here. 

More often than not, despite the gruff exteriors and burly reputations of some of these characters, most of the ensuing anecdotes and reminicences are nothing but warm, good natured and practically familial. I was really happy to see Drew run his 10 Questions by none other than beloved NY1 reporter and longtime Punk rocker Roger Clark this week. I’m sure he’s already trying to rope in a bunch more participants, but I’d love Drew to corner Jack Natz (Cop Shoot Cop/Undead/Virus), Bobby Steele (Misfits/Undead), Doug Holland (Kraut/Cro-Mags), Stephan Ielpi (False Prophets), Tim Chunks (Token Entry), George Tabb (Letch Patrol/Iron Prostate/Furious George), Fran Power (Ultra Violence/Clix) and more, but I realize some of these are more likely than others.

As someone who skirted the periphery of NYHC (I went to several shows and was a devout fan of certain bands, but I would feel deeply remiss calling myself a bona fide member of the scence), I cannot claim to be as versed or as deeply ensconced as any of the participants of the 10 Questions series, but because I simply cannot resist a good survey, I decided to answer Drew Stone’s usual 10 Questions (and cheat by adding an eleventh).

First Hardcore Show You Ever Saw
The first hardcore show I was lucky enough to witness would have been in either `84 or `85 at the Ritz on East 11th Street, and it was an amazing line-up of my then-favorites, The Circle Jerks sharing a bill with the incomparable D.O.A., Redd Kross and Toxic Reasons. It was absolute fucking mayhem, and I loved every nanosecond of it.

Club You Miss Most From Back in The Day
There’s a lot to choose from, here, obviously. Most of the series participants cite A7, but that was slightly before my time. CBGB was, of course, the epicenter of so much (and not just hardcore), and its loss continues to sting, but if I’m being entirely honest, I have to say the run of shows I caught at the old Ritz on East 11th Street (i.e. before it moved to 54th Street, before Webster Hall) fires my imagination the most. This all said, I also dearly miss The Marquee on West 21st, Wetlands Preserve in TriBeca, and Tramps in Chelsea, just to name three more.

Funniest Guy in the Hardcore Scene
The usual response here is Vinnie Stigma or Jimmy G. And, yes, while both of those guys are indeed hilarious, I cannot say I actually know either of them. With that in mind, I’m going to say Dean Rispler (Murphy’s Law/Dictators/Brought-Low/Hot Corn Girls/Swilson). I didn’t meet Dean until about 1990 or so (he was dating a friend of mine), but he’s a tirelessly big-hearted, inclusive, knowledgable gent who is always hilarious.

Favorite Slamdancer in the Pit (Past or Present)
Again, the usual responses here are characters like Minus, Rat Bones and various other almost mythilogical luminaries from NYHC’s storied past. While I cannot claim to have any meaningful encounters with those cats, I would cite two separate friends of mine to single out for this category – namely my former classmate Matt Harrington, who managed to start up a cheekily emphatic circle pit at an Urban Blight show, of all things, via the sheer force of his enthusiasm. My second choice would be my longtime comrade Rob D., who’d perfected a sort of gangly, loose-limbed skank with flailing limbs akimbo that was so distincive, he was once written-up for it in a review of a Claw Hammer/Laughing Hyenas double-bill at Los Angeles’ Troubadour. The piece spent more time talking about Rob’s moves than the actual bands’ performances.

Show You Wish You Saw Back in The Day
There are too many to cite, here, but off the top of my head, there was an amazing line-up at the club that was usually referred to as The Roxy on way West 18th Street that featured a lethal line-up of the Cirlce Jerks, Bad Brains, Leeway and an early iteration of Vernon Reid’s Living Colour that would have been amazing. I also quite wish I’d caught the original line-up of Kraut back in their heyday. I saw them reunite and open for GBH in the early 90’s, but never caught them at their prime.

Greatest Show You Saw in Your “Golden Age” of Hardcore
This is also a toughie. Beyond that first Circle Jerks/D.O.A. gig, a few chaotic Butthole Surfers shows – if they count as hardcore --- and a high-octane double-bill of FEAR and The Dwarves, I’d have to say the greatest was seeing the Bad Brains on the Quickness tour at the New Ritz on 54th Street. It’s a cliché, but I’d just never seen anything like it. H.R. hadn’t lost his mind, yet, so was still firing on all cylinders. Also, and this seems to get overlooked a lot, despite the hysteria their music inspired (literally the whole entire floor of the venue was one giant pit), the look of sheer, unfettered joy on Dr. Know’s face while he played was remarkable. I’ve never seen anyone come close to that.

Brooklyn or Queens
I’m a born’n’bred, dyed-in-the-wool Manhattan snob, but more of my favorite bands of that era came from Queens, if I’m being honest.

Best Pizza in New York
Funny, I’m actually working on another sprawling food-related post at the moment. Look for that soon, but, in the interim, while most of my old favorite pizzarias are long gone (much like my favorite record stores), I’m still a big fan of Lombardi’s on Spring Street, although it’s gotten way too touristy for my taste. John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street is also very nice. In terms of just grabbing a quick slice, though, my favorite spots for that are all gone. Also, friends don’t let friends buy $1 pizza. It’s an unforgivable affront to New York’s culinary heritage.

Top 3 Hardcore Drummers
I’m going to upset convention and say Johnny Feedback from Kraut, Lucky Lehrer of the Circle Jerks and John Wright of NoMeansNo.

Message to the Youth
Stop listening to bullshit, mush-mouthed pop/R&B/ersatz hip-hop and invest in the real deal.

Is Hardcore Dead?
In terms of “my” era, hardcore isn’t dead, hardcore is dad, now that we’ve all grown up, gotten married and procreated. In all honesty, I once wrote a profile of Redd Kross for CREEM magazine back in 1992, citing that first show I’d seen wherein they opened for D.O.A. and the Circle Jerks in `84/`85. At the time, I described how they’d renounced their punkier origins in favor of a more pseudo-metallic power-pop style that confused and upset most of the hardcore kids in attendance, concluding the passage by suggesting Redd Kross had the last laugh when “hardcore died” soon afterwards.

That was just myopic on my part, of course. While many of the bands I’d cared about had either flamed out or changed direction (I remember CH3, as one example, turning into a sort of “cowpunk” band in 1984 with the Airborne ep), there were entire generations of bands inspired by those original bands who sprang up in their wake, many of which I wouldn’t discover until years after the fact.

So, no ... Hardcore is nowhere near dead. 

Sleepaway Camp

I am simply not ready for it.

In about three weeks, we’re going to drop off our youngest, Oliver, at a sleepaway camp in Vermont. Our son will spend the following four weeks at said camp, presumably engaging in predictable summer camp activities. While he’s spent a few overnights away from home at friends’ places, this will be Oliver’s first time truly away from home for a relatively extended period of time. Once again, … I am not ready for it.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, none of this was my idea. My wife envisioned this summer as a broadening experience for our little boy. I’m all for that, of course, and do genuinely believe it will be a positive experience for him, but I remain trepidatious about the whole thing. Beyond the fact that he’s never been away from home for that long, at the risk of sounding coy, Oliver is on a strict regimen of meds for a specific condition. Now, the camp in question is a well-established and revered institution, and it’s in their own best interest to make sure that our son stays on that regimen while in their care, but – in my case – having to relinquish that particular level of parental oversight is not going to be easy. Oliver himself is very responsible about his meds, as well, but I’m just going to have to take a leap of faith and let go. I’m not so good at that, generally.

Beyond that concern, though, Oliver should and will, for all intents and purpose, be perfectly fine. Unlike his father, he’s a resilient and open-minded kid, usually very happy to muck in and gamely try his hand at new things. When my wife signed him up for an after-school rugby program, earlier this year, I was – again – incredulous and reluctant. “Have you seen rugby?,” I gasped upon learning that news. “It’s like fuckin’ ‘Braveheart’!” Much to my relief and astonishment, not only did he willingly participate, he actually enjoyed it – and without any incident or injury.

Moreover, I should probably stop referring to him as a “little boy,” here, as Oliver is now 13 years old, which is coincidentally the very same age I was when my parents first sent me away to sleepaway camp at the dawn of the 1980’s. While I was only at that camp – Great Oaks in the wilds of Maine – for a little under a month, my myriad memories of the place are mostly all positive. Mostly.

Beyond taking part in traditional camp activities like swimming, canoeing, hiking, archery and friggin’ riflery (something few camps offer as blithely today, I’d imagine), I made a clutch of new friends, learned a pile of new swear words in different languages (thanks to the camp’s pointedly international flavor) and developed an appreciation for so much great new music. It was at Great Oaks that I first heard It’s Alive by The Ramones, Q: Are We Not Men? by Devo, Give’Em Enough Rope by The Clash and Joe’s Garage by Frank Zappa. That aspect alone was a complete life-changer, for me.

I say “mostly all positive,” however, as there is one memory of my experience there that still bugs me. I invoked it here not too long back, but it involved a water safety/swimming exercise, of a sort. Myself and the other campers were huddled on a dock that extended onto the black, ice cold waters of the otherwise invitingly named Saturday Pond. Our task was to dive into the water, swim to the bottom and grasp a bit of sand or dirt. When we swam back up and broke the surface, we were to extend our hand up and display said dirt, demonstrating that we'd successfully made it to the bottom. When my turn came, I jumped into that dark, forbidding water, but couldn't seem to successfully propel myself downward. I flailed and fought the disorientation, but I couldn't -- or wouldn't -- make it to the floor of that pond. I gave up too soon and broke the surface with a dramatic gasp, my hands uncontaminated by sand or dirt. "That's going to be a problem, Mr. Smith," said our incongruously portly counselor. A perfect cinematic ending to that summer would have found me triumphantly grabbing double-fistfuls of muck from the bottom of Saturday Pond and vaulting them skyward on the last day, but that never happened. I felt ashamed by that failure. 39 years later, I still feel that way.

That all notwithstanding, though, if I’m being honest, while I was invariably not down with the plan to send me to Great Oaks in the first place, I don’t remember really being homesick when I was there. I just kinda got on with it. Being that Oliver has a remarkably better outlook on life than his old man did at that age, I’m imagining that he’ll be just fine.

The real, unavoidable truth of matter, though, is that even though it’s for a comparatively short span of weeks, I’m invariably going to miss him more than I can express with words.

I remain completely unprepared for that.

Teeth Versus Tongue: The Series

Stress can manifest itself in numerous ways. Some people lose their ability to sleep, or concentrate. Some develop a nervous tick. Some break out in hives. Some overeat. Some overdrink. Maybe some people get uncontrollably flatulent or incontinent. Me? Evidently, when under stress, I bite myself.

Over the course of my entire almost-fifty-two-goddamn years, I have routinely subjected the tender interiors of my mouth to the merciless wrath of my own anxious choppers. If I had a dollar for every speech-inhibiting mouth wound I’ve inflicted upon myself over the decades, I’d probably have enough to buy myself a brand new, impervious, artificial tongue. That would come in damn handy, considering the mess I’ve made of my current tongue.

As documented in comparatively ancient posts like this one and this one, this painful habit of mine has stretched well into my adult years. It’s been a fairly frenetic season at work, of late, and we’re still juggling multiple house and child-rearing challenges on the home front, so I am fairly stressed out, at the moment. I guess it was just a matter of time before I did it again.

While I have absolutely zero recollection of doing it, I evidently saw fit to sink my teeth into my tongue this past Monday (in my sleep, maybe?), prompting me to start this week with a gruesome, swollen gash on the tip of my tongue that curbed my ability to clearly speak, among myriad other activities. I’d post a picture, but it’s fairly repulsive. You're welcome. 

In any case, ever since then, my life has been taken over by it. Beyond not being able to speak with any semblance of coherence and/or dignity, the searing sting conjured by this comparatively tiny gash has severely curtailed my ability to eat anything without palpably shuddering with pain. I’ve tried topical treatments like Orajel and Kanka, but given the location of the laceration and the activity it routinely sees, nothing seems to work. I am in fucking Hell.

I’m regularly immersing it in Listerine and …. well … beer, in the evenings, but all else seems to cause it irritation. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I treated myself to a Mango Lassi at an Indian joint near my office, yesterday, and the creamy, cooling South Asian confection actually did provide a bit of respite, however brief. 

All other advice, tips, warnings or recommendations are welcome.  Otherwise, please come kill me. 

From Trash to Posh: The Metamorphosis of Hamilton-Holly House at 4 St. Marks Place

Originally the stately home of Eliza Hamilton, the widow of — wait for it — Alexander Hamilton, the townhouse of 4 St. Marks Place, otherwise known as the Hamilton-Holly House, is rightly considered a historic, designated landmark in the heart of what is now referred to as Manhattan’s East Village, a neighborhood descriptor Mrs. Hamilton’s tenure well predates.

As far back as I’ve ever been able to recall, however, 4 St. Marks Place was the home of Trash & Vaudeville, an enterprise I’ve discussed many times here.

Along with housing Jimmy Webb’s fabled punk clothing shop, the building also boasted an iconic stoop, one that frequently played host to the the local color of the neighborhood, so to speak.

I probably first called it out in the post that led to my interview with RB Korbet of Even Worse. I’d posted the photo below, and she’d gotten in touch to let me know the photographer’s name (Dave “Daze” Parsons). RB is the lady in black looking at the camera.

Over the years, the building has seen a lot of wear & tear, much like the surrounding neighborhood, but in the last fifteen-to-twenty years, or so, gentrification in the East Village (as well as its surrounding neighborhoods) has seen a sharp uptick.

In due course, while that stoop had long played host to any number of denizens of St. Marks Place, it was eventually gated off.

In 2016, meanwhile, Trash & Vaudeville was jettisoned from Hamilton-Holly House. Don’t fret. They relocated over on East 7th and, by all accounts, are still doing well. Webb even opened up an adjunct show further down in the Lower East Side.

Back at 4 St. Marks Place, however, a sidewalk shed was erected and plans were enacted to whip the former Hamilton-Holly House back into shape, so to speak.

Following the closings of St. Marks Sounds and the Grassroots Tavern just down the block for similar purposes, this development didn’t bode well for those who — like myself — who still cling to the idea of St. Marks Place remaining the endearingly chaotic and arguably grubby gateway to the East Village.

Recently, the shed was removed to reveal a newly refurbished facade. A quick Google search reveals that the townhouse is back up for sale (no price listed), and described thusly:

The space was previously occupied by Trash and Vaudeville's since 1975, and has historically been an epicenter of counter culture, bohemia and rock-and-roll. This landmark building is now being gut renovated, modernized and fully restored.

For those used to looking at 4 St. Marks Place during its Trash & Vaudeville days, it’s a slightly jarring transformation. My son and I walked by it yesterday, and I couldn’t stop from taking a picture (that’s Oliver below).

Technically, it’s the same stoop.

But you’d never know it.

What Was on West Eighth

Over the course of this silly blog’s almost …. Jesus … 14-year existence, I’ve posted multiple entries about doings over on West 8th Street, specifically the strip between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Time was when this little patch of Greenwich Village covered a vast array of my needs and interests. From amazing record stores like It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll and the original Venus Records to mediocre ones like Revolution Records and Record Factory, there was no shortage of places to procure music. You also had Butterfly’s, should you ever be in search of just-the-right Iron Maiden or Black Flag t-shirt. Across the way was Postermat, which featured a dizzying array of crap --- poster, buttons, badges, décor – aimed squarely at teenage music jerks. There was also the suitably surreal art gallery, Psychedelic Solution and Flip, for all of your New Wavey fashion needs, the 8th Street Playhouse – which was the first place I ever saw “Repo Man” -- and the seemingly ageless Gray’s Papaya, once touted as Lou Reed’s favorite restaurant in New York City, at the end of the block. You also had the amazing video store TLA, and a massive B. Dalton Books (later Barnes & Noble) on the corner, across from Gray’s Papaya. There were also numerous places to buy shoes of every possible description.

In later years, when fortunes started to change for this once-busy byway, there were still places like Disc-O-Rama and Sleep of Reason Comics, but somewhat gradually, West 8th Street had less and less to offer me.

All of the concerns listed above, of course, are long, long gone here in 2019.

More recently, my kids became very fond of The Burger Joint (which left us about two years back), while I enjoy both the odd visit to endeavors like the 8th Street Wine Cellar, Arts & Crafts Beer Parlor and nouvelle-Italian eatery, Aunt Jake’s. My wife quite enjoys cocktails at the Marlton Hotel, every now and then, but I wouldn’t call that a particular favorite of mine.

In any case, blah blah blah… Who cares what I like, right? Fine. Regardless, as happened on University Place, and as is happening on the other side of town at St. Marks Place, West Eight Street is about to be blighted with its own enormous new luxury tower, slated to be plonked right down on the southeast corner of Eighth & MacDougal, finally putting to rest speculation of why that particular row of storefronts has been vacant for so long.

Whatever your memories of West Eighth Street are, get ready for this formerly signature byway of olde Greenwich Village to (further) decimated. Incidentally, the lovingly rendered painting of the intersection of MacDougal and West Eighth above comes courtesy of the great Ephemeral New York blog, and was painted by Alfred S. Mira in 1942. Below, meanwhile, as covered here a few times before, is Lowell Bodger's walk down West Eighth Street from the early 1970s.

No Idling

At periodic points throughout the year, work at my place of employment ramps up to a hectic degree. I’m reasonably sure it’s the same where you work. There are some seasons that just don’t seem to let up. We are in the throes of one of those seasons right now.

As laboriously bemoaned in some earlier posts, I’ve got multiple projects on the burner that should come to fruition within the next couple of weeks. But, until they do, it’s a delicate dance of beat-the-clock and keep-everybody-happy, the latter being an exceptionally difficult task.

On the home front, things are busy as well. The Blowout is coming along well (new update soon … like anyone cares), and we’re hoping to sink our fangs into other long neglected projects, leftover funds permitting.

In the midst of all this, however, both my favorite-ever band and my new favorite band -- Killing Joke and IDLES -– are both slated to perform shows here in NYC in the next couple weeks (IDLES play this FRIDAY!), and I have tickets for each. I’m hoping I’ll be in the right headspace to enjoy these gigs, as I seem to be worried all the time, of late.

In any case, while it’s up, enjoy this blistering new track by IDLES. They rock.

Too Fast To Live, Too Young to Die, Too Old to Let Go

“Daddy, everybody there looked just like you. It was just old guys in blazers for miles.” So sayeth my 15-year-old daughter, yesterday, upon sending me the picture at right of Flea’s bass guitar, as housed in the Metropolitan Museum’s latest rock’n’roll-themed exhibit, “Play It Loud.” While I was pointedly underwhelmed by the Met’s last venture toward anything rock-related -– as you might remember from this ancient post -– I am indeed curious to go check out “Play It Loud,” as it’s more about actual instrumentation than fashion.

But of the myriad rock/punk-related exhibits going on right now -– you might remember my recent, pedantic takedown of the Museum of Sex’s somewhat one-dimensional “Punk Provocation” show -– I was quite enthralled by the Museum of Art & Design’s “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” retrospective of so-called “punk graphics” (as first mentioned here yesterday). I qualify that with “so-called” as many bits of the ephemera on display had precious little do to with bona fide punk by any definition. I mean, I’m sorry, but while lead singer Holly Johnson may have been a veteran of fabled Liverpool punk club, Eric’s, Frankie Goes to Hollywood were not a punk band, nor were trailblazing all-female British band Girlschool, who were heavy metal to the bone. That said, I get it --- had punk not happened, neither of those two outfits would have existed, or certainly not as we would come to know them.

Insufferably arrogant, music-knowitall quibbles like that aside, the two-floored exhibit checked way more of the right boxes than wrong ones, showcasing a host of period-specific artwork from across the pertinent spectrum of bands/scenes/labels, etc. I audibly gasped several times at some of the posters displayed -– both out of genuine awe and affinity, but also out of recognition.

To be sure, it’s a very strange sensation to see things that formerly hung on your own walls now displayed in an official museum as rarified artifacts to be studied with reverence. Now sequestered at my friend Rob D’s place out in New London, for many years I had a lovingly framed poster from Road to Ruin by the Ramones on my wall, also framed at the M.A.D. show in a display case sturdy enough to hold The Shroud of Turin.

During the course of my prolonged meandering around the galleries, I was strenuously tempted to fact-check a curator who was leading a gaggle of patrons, but thought better of it. As much as she was getting some of the minutia wrong, no one likes that guy.

Anyway, if you’re as enamored of this stuff as I am, you’d do well to check it out. Below are some more of my favorite pieces from it.

Of Punk, Product & Pricelessness

Hey again, all. It’s been a crazy April -- what with multiple projects percolating at work and the home renovation all happening, and life is poised to stay well and truly frantic until mid-May, it seems. We’ve finished the kids’ room, by and large, but the renovation has had ramifications on the rest of the apartment, so we’re re-imagining our living room in a somewhat painfully piecemeal way. On the office front, I’m preparing for two massive annual events and orchestrating a complicated tribute video to a prominent music executive, so that all has me all fucking stressed out. But, I have faith we’ll get through it all.

In any case, while I’m planning a larger piece on the Museum of Art & Design’s exhibit about Punk Graphics, I thought I’d quickly post this silly update to an older post involving one tiny bit of same.

Back in 2014, some regular readers might remember an entry I posted about Product, arguably one of the first CD boxsets put out by a punk band, that being the almighty Buzzcocks. In that post, I recounted how, as recently sprung post-collegiates , my friend Rob and I desperately coveted Product, but neither of could afford it, at the time, which leant the artifact a rarefied air of incalculable value. It also became a standard of measurement for us. We’d regularly tally the cost of debilitating financial demands and/or comparably unattainable items in terms of how many copies of Product they would equal. It was a genuinely silly idea, but a tenacious one.

This past Saturday, I was briefly let off my leash to go check out the afore-cited “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die,” the retrospective of graphics from the Punk era, and, upon entering, what should I behold but --- WAIT FOR IT – you guessed it, a pristine and lovingly preserved copy of Product (the cassette version), presented under thick museum glass as if prized from an Egyptian tomb, lending complete and utter credence to Rob & I’s long-held reverence for the collection.

Sadly, in keeping with the Museum of Sex’s ham-fisted mishandling of key facts about the Plasmatics and Cherry Vanilla, the Museum of Art & Design somewhat unbelievably mislabeled this item as the Buzzcocks’ debut LP, Another Music in a Different Kitchen, despite the collection’s actual name spelled out in big, block capital letters.

That unfortunate quibble notwithstanding, it’s indeed a great exhibit. More to come about that.

Pour one out for Pete.