Flaming Pablum

What's On Third?

...with apologies to Abbot & Costello.

Yesterday, our good friend and longtime fellow anachronistic bloggity-blogger EV Grieve posted an update on the status of the northeast corner of St. Marks Place at Third Avenue. Many might remember the news from about a year back that a large segment of that block -– including spaces fomerly or currently occupied by concerns like McDonald’s, the Continental, Korilla (formerly about nine other things since its storied iteration as St. Marks Pizza, above, as caught by Matt Weber in 1985), that corner news-agents/smoke shop, the since-shuttered Papaya King, among others -– would be razed to accommodate a new, seven-story tower of office space, because -- yeah, wait for it -– we needed that.

Well, plans for same, at the moment, seem squishy (see Grieve’s post for details), although most of the businesses on that plot have already closed up shop. The McDonald’s has been gone for a while, pushed out not just by this plan, but also the advent of the ever-aromatic/pungent (depending on your opinion) Shake Shack across the avenue. The Continental seems to have received a stay of execution, for the moment, although, if I’m being honest, I haven’t set foot in that particular joint since they dismantled the rear stage and stopped hosting live music.

As laboriously lamented in this old post, I was lucky enough to regularly witness a slew of suitably slovenly bands grace the stage at The Continental back throughout the 90’s, some notable high-decibel culprits being the legitimately incendiary Nashville Pussy (above), The Unband (below), The Upper Crust, The Lee Harvey Keitel Band, The Bullys, The Pleasure Fuckers, Furious George and the Candy Snatchers.

The loss of St. Marks Pizza was also worthy of its own post, which I thought I’d done, but evidently not. Or, if I did, I can’t find it anymore. In any case, it closed in 2003, and the neighborhood was pointedly the lesser for it. I also remember their slices being way better than those prized at more rhapsodized pizzerias like Stromboli's two blocks to the east.

I also strangley spent a week living in that eyesore of a dormintory right next to the old McDonald’s back in 1993, which I spoke about in this ancient post. The building hasn’t aged well, but it’s still standing … despite what many of the architecture students who lived inside it, at the time, were predicting.

In any event, regardless of what’s to transpire for ths busy plot of the East Village, it already seems somewhat undead. That said, I’m sure I’ll pine for this decrepit iteration of it once the new buildings start going up.

When I think of that particular strip, I invariably think of going to those live shows at the Continental. Herewith a smattering of that era, replete with live footage captured in that venue.

Blogger vs. Vlogger

Over the weekend, I turned 51. I wasn’t going to mention that otherwise, as it’s a fairly incidental number. Turning 50 was arguably worth talking about. 51? Not so much. But in relation to this post, it’s entirely pertinent.

Along with being old, in the way and out of touch with the youth, I’m also evidently a hypocrite. I say this as many of the criticisms that I’m about to lob at the unwitting subject of this post could just as well be lobbed at me. That makes me a stinky hypocrite. Guilty as charged, your honor.

I’ve been blogging here for a little over thirteen years. Even that very word … blogging… feels irretrievably anachronistic. It’s a dated term steeped in since-antiquated technology and waning, increasingly sepia-toned cultural significance. I might as well be a ham-radio enthusiast.

But primitive tools notwithstanding, I blog about my interests, my insights and my individual circumstances. I document my proclivities, pet peeves and predilections, and not always alliterartively. That I do so is based on the rather strenuous presumption that absolutely anybody should fucking care about what I have to say about these topics or any other. The guy I’m writing about here basically does the same thing, only via YouTube. He’s a vlogger.

Enter Bretti Conti, Millennial YouTuber and self-styled entrepreneur, “creator” and “influencer.”

Conti, I suppose, uses YouTube in a comparable manner to the way I use my particular blogging service, documenting his doings via regular entries. From a strictly technical perspective, his videos are slick, resourcefully making full use of a variety of cameras, mics, lenses and even a drone. The end results, from what I’ve observed, are well-edited, sharp, and replete with signature branding. In regards to this aspect of his presentation, I applaud Conti’s proficiency. Had I access to the same tools, I have grave doubts that I’d be able to produce something of comparable quality.

So, yeah, while he does a great job in that respect, it’s the content of his entries that make me wince. But then again, …. I’m old. What the Hell do I know?

Through absolutely no fault of his own, Mr. Conti is young and, thus, largely bereft of the type of inherently world-weary cynicism that fuels my own daily existence. He’s a plucky Long Island ex-pat who moved to New York City under five years ago to pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur. Informed and inspired by well … things I fucking hate like “Friends,” “Sex and The City” and Jay-Z & Alicia Keys’ still-cloyingly-ubiquitous “Empire State of Mind,” Conti has made over 400 (!?!?) individual videos documenting his travails, multiple aspirations, opinions and a whole lot of skateboarding. To be fair, he also aspires to be a travel blogger, and hops around the globe quite a bit. Most of his videos, however, revolve around his life here in New York City.

If it seems like I’m bending over backwards to give him a fair shake, that’s because I’m trying to. While I find his penchant for tireless self-promotion, “personal branding” and product placement (he started up a skate & streetwear line, of a sort, called Fortune) to be nothing short of insufferable, I cannot fault him for his dedication and enthusiasm. And while I personally find his taste in music to be abysmally abhorrent, it’s his “channel,” not mine. That he’s driven to verbose giddiness by transient food fads and uses “fire” as an adjective are other unfortunate matters entirely.

At the end of the day, I cannot honestly say why I bristle at so much of what Brett Conti presents here, although -– if I had to guess -– I’d imagine it’s the signifier that my New York City and the associations I assign to it are fading further and further into the background as new generations -– like Conti’s -- rise to take their place. As he skates around sipping bubble tea and raving about fraternizing with other social-media “influencers,” I find myself barking at the screen, doling out idiotic factoids about the streets he’s scooting down and the trivial minutia thereof.

One can almost imagine Brett Conti decades from now, similarly furrowing his brow at some new upstart’s three-dimensional hologram-blog, pounding his fist. “IN MY DAY, BUBBLE TEA REALLY WAS FIRE, YOU HATERS!”

Whatever. Good luck to you, Brett.

Check out the full spectrum of Brett's video channel by clicking here. 

'The Boho's Lament'

Going Up

Prior to the Punks, Years Before the Yuppies: East Village 1967

Next month, I am to cross the perilous Rubicon of my 51st year. I’m not especially enthused about that number, but what is to be done? Arriving, as I did, if my mother is to believed, at “cocktail hour” during the early evening of October 13, 1967, following a harrowing ride in a yellow cab across congested West 14th Street en route to St. Vincent’s Hospital, I was officially born in downtown Manhattan. My family did not live downtown, at the time, which might explain why that cab ride was so fraught, but they made it to St. Vincent’s all the same. My grandfather, a doctor, has practiced at St. Vincent’s, which might be why the decision was made to have me delivered there. Decades later, both of my own children were born at St. Vincent’s. Today, despite my multiple personal connections to the place, St. Vincent’s Hospital is sadly gone, razed to accommodate a new and prohibitively expensive cluster of condominiums. `Cos ya know … those are more important to a community than having a proper hospital in the vicinity. But, I digress…

In any case, in my regular perusals around the internet, I stumbled upon the clip below and let out an audible gasp or two. From the AP Archives, the video below captures scenes from the East Village – including footage of East 9th Street, First Avenue, Tompkins Square Park, St. Marks Place, The Dom and the Electric Circus, among other locales --- circa 1967. In fact, the story accompanying the footage was evidently posted on the very day of my birth. While these hirsute hippies right out of central casting were depicted strolling -– in some instances barefoot -– around the largely-still-recognizable East Village, I was busy preparing my early entry into the world about five avenues to the west.

Anyway, enjoy the trip back in time… and please note that while some footage repeats itself, it’s worth sticking around for the whole 8:26 of it.

25 Words

I cannot say I’ve ever knowingly watched NYCTV, let alone been aware of its existence. But I’ve been spotting this new ad campaign of theirs in the subways, of late, and am both compelled and repulsed by it. On the surface, I think the concept -– “Why I Love New York In 25 Words” -– is kind of a fun, novel little exercise. It’s their execution that has depressed me.

Polling a variety of celebrities and public figures -– like, say, one Bridget Moynahan below -– the answers they’ve fielded to their little challenge have been, to my mind at least, somewhat dispiriting. I mean the notion of citing “Sex and The City” as a fundamental reason why you love New York City upsets me more than I can put into words. But, to be fair, if I’m not mistaken, Miss Moynahan was in fucking “Sex and The City,” so that contextual qualifier makes it slightly more forgivable, I suppose. Still, … hurrumph. Also, who would honestly still cite the High Line? I wonder when the last time was that she tried to walk down it.

Anyway, judgmental vitriol aside, I thought it might be fun to take a crack at this little challenge myself, given my deep well of adoration for my home town. Whilst strolling to work one morning this week, I started tallying up suitable citations to include. In typical fashion, however, I started over-thinking it, wondering if I should cut my unwieldy list in half, given the fact that so many of the words I’d chosen represent aspects of New York City that no longer exist. Then, I thought, should I make two lists, one for stuff I love and one for stuff I miss?

No. I decided to jettison the words that represent things that have vanished -– The Ritz, Rocks In Your Head, Danceteria, CBGB, SoHoZat, NoHo Star and the Cedar Tavern, to name but a small few –- and stick with what’s still current. I’m keeping the names of bands, as even if those bands no longer exist, the music lives on.

Here is why I happen to love New York in 25 words. What are yours?

Ear Inn
Beastie Boys
Central Park
Lower East Side
Yorkville
Kraut
Courtlandt Alley
Knickerbocker’s
Cop Shoot Cop
NYHC
The Strand
“After Hours”
Bowery Ballroom
Veselka

Downtown Beirut Calling

Hey there, all….. I am indeed back from Downtown Beirut.

No, sillies, I don’t mean the long dormant Downtown Beirut pictured above circa 1990 (replete with tattered Cop Shoot Cop flyer affixed to its front door), I mean the formerly decimated area of the capital city of Lebanon, which I was coyly alluding to in a couple of the previous posts.

We only just got back late last night, so I’m a little bleary, but look for a full report soonest.

Back on the NYC tip, though, some of you will remember the old Downtown Beirut bar on First Avenue just north of East 9th Street (although, I want to say it had a brief incarnation somewhere else after it closed up in the mid-90’s). In any case, it was a loud, sludgy dive of a variety that basically just does not exist in New Yok City anymore, so-named after the hardest-hit neighborhoods of the former Paris of the Middle East during Lebanon’s civil war. Sure, it sounded menacing and suitably combative for the East Village's punky patrons of the late 80’s and early 90’s, but having now traveled to the definite article and heard first-hand stories of the bombing and the snipers and the rubble (elements thereof still visible in certain parts of the city), it was assuredly no joke.

Somewhat ironically, the actual downtown of Beirut today is a teeming mass of immaculate, modern development, although reminders of the city’s fractious history are never far from the surface.

Last I looked, the former site of New York City's Downtown Beirut was an Asian foot-rub joint called .... I shit  ye not ..... Yu's On First.

More to come shortly.

Hiraeth House

This will probably only matter to folks who are fascinated by the visual effects of aging, but whatever.

Back in the late `60s and into the early `70s, my grandparents owned a house out on the East End of Long Island on a leafy byway called Bayfield Lane. From the years of my infancy through to about age 4, or so, my mother, my sister and I spent our summers in the house. Most of my memories of the place are faint and fleeting, largely informed by old photographs, but I do still have some fairly vivid impressions of the place. Its front was ringed with a stately porch, it had what seemed like an endless, green lawn out in front, a small studio behind wherein my grandmother used to paint, and then a big, wooden barn in the very back. That’s myself with my mother and my sister standing in front of the studio. I’m the little twerp in the black sweater.

By the time I was about 4, I suppose, my grandparents ended up selling the place and relocating to a smaller home two towns over. For years and years, the big house at Bayfield Lane lived only in my memory and in the few photos we had of it. At some point during my teens in the early 80s — and I only remember this as it involved my purchase of Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind album, which came out in May of 1983 — I pedaled my bike from Sam’s Record Shack on Main Street to where I thought the old Bayfield Lane house was. By this point, now obscured by a big hedge, I couldn’t really get a proper visual on the place, but I could see the top of the old barn in the back. That’s as close as I thought I’d ever come to seeing it again.

Thirty-five (!!!) years later, my mother befriended a British author in Florida, and invited her to do a reading at the local library, also out on the East End. I’m not quite sure how it came up, but during the course of that discussion, it was gleaned that this author now lives in the big Bayfield Lane house that we’d “summered” in with my grandparents all those decades ago. Mom asked if we could possibly come by and have a look at the place, and she very gamely said yes. So that’s what we did.

As someone who spends a great amount of time here ruminating on the elusive “sense of place” and/or the intangible pangs of hiraeth, the opportunity to re-enter this particular space to re-experience it was a true gift. While there’d been a few cosmetic changes made to the surrounding environs (that’s what happens in the course of four decades), it largely looked more or less how I remembered it. While the author’s family had certainly spruced up various elements of the home, they didn’t radically alter the overall appearance (which sort of defies the current trend, out there). Apart from the tantalizing addition of a beautiful pool in the back (transforming the painting studio into a pool house), it was otherwise like stepping back in time.

My sister and I even tried to replicate an old photo. The wrought iron railings have since been replaced with wood beams.

Here’s me in front of the barn from that top photo.

Every now and then, maybe you can actually go home again.

Three Things That Seem Somehow Connected

As I've mentioned several times here before, while I was too young to ever visit the place during its heyday, I've always been romanced by the story of The Mudd Club at 77 White Street. I've posted about it multiple times of course, everything from spotting James Chance sitting on its fabled stoop last year to tracing back the strange performance by Judas Priest on its comparatively intimate stage to finding out a former neighbor was now living in the iconic building's fourth floor. I routinely walk down Cortlandt Alley on my treks to work (often documenting same), and I'm always searching for that vanishing "sense of place" about the location.

Today, I noticed three arguably alarming developments.

1. While it's always been in a shifting state of repair, the stretch of Cortlandt Alley between Canal Street and White Street is covered with the lattice-work of scaffolding, suggesting a rigorous makeover is underway, and probably one that will further erase the byway's signature mystique
   
   
2. Evidently, there is a fuckin' musical about the halcyon days of the Mudd Club in production. Stop me if I'm wrong, but commemorating the Mudd Club in the form of musical theatre seems like the swiftest possible means of sucking any semblance of remaining coolness out of it. 
   
   
3. It seems that Seymour Stein, the music industry pioneer behind Sire Records and the forward-thinking individual who singularly fostered the careers of Mudd Club-regulars like Talking Heads, Madonna and the B-52s (among many, many others) is out of a job at Warner Bros. after 51 years.
   
   

Greene Street Gallantry

Once upon a time, it seemed like you couldn’t walk through Washington Square Park without unwittingly stepping into the frame of some hapless NYU film student’s cinematic opus. I always used to imagine some weary film professor viewing the results. “Oh, great…..another one done in Washington Square Park!" In a city rich with visually dynamic locations, their dependable tendency to shoot in Washington Square always struck me as myopic and lazy. But just as the swallows used to return to Capistrano, you’d continue to see them flock to that iconic park to grapple with the rudimentary tools of cinema.

Nowadays, it seems I don’t see them there as much. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough, or maybe the leaps and bounds of digital technology have rendered some of that process obsolete? Who knows?

In any case, I recently stumbled upon the student film below — notably not shot in Washington Square, but in its neighboring vicinity. Filmed in 1972 on Greene Street between Waverly Place and 8th Street, the mechanics of the short film are explained by its student director, one Craig Highberger ...

Made when I was 19 in "Sight & Sound" class at NYU Film School, we were issued a World War II vintage Bell & Howell Filmo which was a wind-up 16mm film silent camera with a three lens turret and a 100 foot (about 3 minute) roll of Kodak Plus-X B&W reversal film - the assignment was to tell a story in two minutes! My professors were Charles T. Milne and Haig Manoogian.

Now, I'm personally intrigued by this, as this particular strip is practically my backyard, and really doesn't look all that different today. There's no longer an easily accessible door at 255 Greene wherein to make a hasty getaway into that dorm -- the same dorm, incidentally, that Rick Rubin was to launch Def Jam records out of some years later. 

Take a look.