It’s been said that, should you be of a certain sensibility, a friend that routinely introduces you to new music is one of the best friends you can have. I’ve been very lucky to have a few of those types of friends, over the years. While this post is ostensibly about punk rock records, it’s really more those friends.
As mentioned back on this recent post, my grade-school classmate Brad — who was basically a bigger, (way) more athletic and (way, way) more popular kid than myself — first bonded over our mutual love of music. At first, it was KISS, which was a very common, bonding element in the late `70s. As mentioned in this post, then as now, you either loved KISS or you loathed them vehemently, and Brad and I — despite being polar opposites in practically every other capacity — both entirely loved them. Our respective mothers were great friends, so we would be regularly thrown into social situations, early on -- an awkward pairing of beefy soccer star with scrawny sci-fi nerd. But when our mutual KISS fandom was fully disclosed, that seemed to bridge the major gaps between us.
But Brad was almost always one step ahead.
Here we were some unfathomable years earlier … at some grade-school Christmas pageant (or something). Brad’s sitting in the forefront. I’m the little dweeb in the back. To my right is my great friend Danny, eulogized here (and first immortalized as Rocky here).
Again, recounted on this post, by the summer of 1979, Brad had largely abandoned KISS (who were pushing their widely-maligned Dynasty album, at the time, which I’ll continue to defend) in favor of immersing himself into his preoccupation with the Beatles and, more specifically, the “Paul is Dead” conspiracy theory, and dragging me right along with him. We spent the entirety of that summer and much of the following months playing records backwards and freaking ourselves out. But that horse was only going to run so far, it being the precipice of the 1980s.
By the time Punk Rock had arrived in force, Brad was typically a few miles ahead of me. We’d all heard the Sex Pistols and The Clash, by this point (I’d been gifted the first albums by The Clash and, oddly, The Vibrators, in a cache of promo LP’s my father had shipped to my sister and I from London while on extended assignment for Forbes Magazine). I was into it, and starting to explore other bands like Devo, The Jim Carroll Band, Blondie, The Ramones, The B-52's and Adam & the Ants, all of whom I loved. But Brad had typically done a much deeper dive.
I remember arriving at the house Brad’s mother had rented out in Quogue, in the summer of 1981, and being practically blown right off the porch by the fire-power of the stereo that came with the place, a bit of consumer electronics that Brad was fully availing himself to. Feeling woefully out-of-step in my Pink Floyd The Wall t-shirt, I found Brad in the living room, steadily giving the speakers a worrying workout (and his mother a splitting headache) via weapons-grade airings of Nobody's Heroes by a band called The Stiff Little Fingers, So Alone by an unhealthy looking gent named Johnny Thunders and the double-album of The Great Rock N’ Roll Swindle, which featured a hilariously sloppy cover of “Johnny B. Goode” by the Sex Pistols. I don’t know how he was first hearing this stuff, but Brad was unwittingly showing me up to be a total punk-rock dilettante.
Of all the records we spun, that summer, however, there were two in particular that really sank their hooks into me, and both continue to be all-time favorites today, regardless of era or categorization. Those albums were the eponymous debut LP by Generation X and Concrete by 999.
With the former, all it really took was a solitary play of “Ready Steady Go” to get me onboard. Where their relative forbears in the Pistols and The Clash repeatedly sang about destroying all things “rock n’ roll,” Generation X remained avowed fans, proudly name-checking outfits like the Beatles, the Stones and Bob Dylan in this ode to a mid-to-late `60s pop music television program. But that reverence was brazenly offset by this amazing sound — the sheer tone of Derwood Andrews’ guitar -- a brash, electrified roar that was at once densely melodic and unthinkably distorted, and it was all over this LP. Coupled with suitably yobbish choruses, Tony James’ insistent bass, Mark Laff’s pugnacious drums and the distinctive vocals of a gent who was shortly to take over the world, that being the endearingly sneery Billy goddamn Idol, Generation X was fucking unstoppable. While dismissed by many of the punk orthodoxy for being unapologetically poppy, there was just no arguing with that first album, allegedly recorded in a single week with finished cuts often culled from manic, single takes. To this day, it sounds like precious little else, and Derwood’s guitar still gets my blood rushing (especially the intro clang of "Kleenex").
Here they were lip-psyching to “Ready Steady Go" on “Top of The Pops”…
Even the album cover was awesome — a smeary, over-saturated, sepia-drenched portrait of a bunch of leather-clad nogoodnicks from an explosive future.
The other big record, Concrete by 999, wasn’t quite as overt, but matched Generation X in its insistency and attitude. Kicking off with energetic “So Greedy” (the first song Brad played for me), Concrete boasted a taut, musical finesse you probably weren’t going to find on records by their punky contemporaries. Where Generation X's songs sounded feral and deliberately rudimentary, 999’s playing was tight, urgent and sharp, but with more of an airier sonic dynamic than a lot of their peers. I didn’t know this, at the time, but 999 was formed by a gent named Keith Lucas, who’d honed his chops some years earlier as a guitarist playing in the pub rock band, Kilburn & the The High Roads alongside fellow proto-punk rocker Ian Dury (later of the Blockheads). Swept up in the energy and impact of the era, Lucas quit the High Roads, changed his name to the punkier Nick Cash (as in: to steal), and formed 999 — named after the British emergency telephone number — with his brother Guy on lead guitar.
Somewhat ironically, by the time Concrete was released in 1981, 999 were being perceived, in British Punk circles, to be second-stringers pretty much on their descent, following their more well-received albums like 999 and Separates, featuring incendiary singles like “Emergency” and “Homicide.” But back in Quogue, we didn’t have that context. All I knew was that this 999 record sounded liked an explosion of pure adrenalin that could not be found on most of the rock albums of the day, when the rest of the world was determined to keep listening to Journey, the J. Geils Band and Billy Squier.
Beyond the hiccupy freneticism of “So Greedy,” there were covers of garage nuggets like “Little Red Riding Hood” by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs and “Fortune Teller” by the Rolling Stones, as well as stomping chant-alongs like “Public Enemy No.1,” “Break It Up" and “Don’t You Know I Need You.” Beyond that, alongside some filler like “Silent Anger” and “Mercy Mercy,” the Nines tried their hand at more exotic fare than most of their safety-pinned peers via atmospheric workouts like “Bongos on the Nile” and “Taboo,” but the “big single” was “Obsessed,” a frantic homage to the Spaghetti Western scores of Ennio Morricone, replete with “hoo-hah” chants and suitably twangy guitar hooks, all framing a song about Nick Cash’s fiery libido. Here they are performing it (well, miming along to it) with great, pogo-y enthusiasm, on a children’s show (!!!) called “Cheggers Plays Pop”
At my first opportunity, back in the city, I hungrily sought out both Generation X and Concrete, but they were not entirely simple to track down. This being just prior to my discovery (via my pal Spike) of the myriad joys of record shopping in Greenwich Village, I took Brad’s tip and checked out the Crazy Eddie’s on East 57th Street, just off of Third Avenue, who had a surprisingly enviable selection of imported vinyl. This shortly became a regular stop, for me.
By the following summer, all things Punk had given way to all things Hardcore Punk, and Brad was still ahead of the pack, along with our mutual friend Rich, who’d turned me onto bands like The Mob, Flipper and the fabled New York Thrash cassette. Brad, meanwhile had moved on from late `70’s British Punk to evangelize homegrown hardcore outfits like Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Black Flag, DOA, the Circle Jerks and this amazing compilation called Let Them Eat Jellybeans, which opened up a whole new world of options. Things were happening in real time, now, and life was getting genuinely exciting.
Funnily enough, about a year earlier, I’d been taken to a dude ranch in Wyoming wherein my family befriended a family from Washington D.C. named the Blows. The youngest of the Blow clan (and yes, that was their real name) was this kid named Wendel, who was slightly older than myself. Wendel mopily stomped around with a shaved head and combat boots. As I recall, Wendel also had a habit of spitting at my feet when we crossed paths. In any case, he was allegedly a bass player in a local band called S.O.A. (which stood for State of Alert, although I almost had my lights punched out when I questioned whether it would be more grammatically correct to say Alertness). Unsurprisingly, Wendel and I never became friends, but one of the bands Brad was touting that following summer was none other than S.O.A., whose music on the Flex Your Head compilaton (another sterling Brad recommendation) was truly bracing. As a footnote for the non-record geeks amongst you, S.O.A.’s lead singer was one Henry Garfield, who later changed his name to Rollins, joined Black Flag and the rest is blah blah blah.
As further and further summers went by and we all assumed our respective trajectories of adulthood, our paths and our tastes naturally diverged. I remember running into Brad a few years later, and he’d started listening to bands I’d consider unthinkable, like Lynyrd Skynyrd. Rich, meanwhile, became a full-time Deadhead, for a while, although I can’t say I have any idea what he’s into these days. I pretty much stayed the course, and invariably take my preferred music way more seriously than I arguably should. I still listen to records like Generation X and Concrete to this day (although you won’t find the latter on Spotify, for those of you addicted to lazy convenience).
But I will absolutely never forget how these friends -– and countless others like Zachary T, Billy K, Ralph M, John C, Sean H, Rob B, Rob D, Jay F, Charlie F, Walter W, Tim R, Ben K and several more -– opened those initial doors for me, infusing and enriching my life with those sounds that retain the freshness and intensity of the feelings I experienced when I first heard them.
For that, I will always be grateful.
ADDENDUM:
Brad and I in the summer of 2001, just prior to my wedding...
Some of the original vinyl discussed in the paragraphs above....
It sounds too perfect now, but the very first time I ever heard "How Soon is Now?" was on the dance floor of the 21st Street iteration of the fabled Danceteria in the spring of 1985.
I'd graced the venue a week earlier in the wake of my otherwise abortive senior prom when, at the suggestion of my significantly hipper classmate Liz Robaina, we ditched the increasingly maudlin interiors of Studio 54 (then in its spiraling death throes) for a markedly cooler destination downtown. That first visit (in a dorky rented tux, no less) proved indelible, and I was back a week later. Coaxed onto the dance floor by a mixture of temporary beery confidence and the airing of "Love like Blood" by my beloved Killing Joke, I was suddenly met with guitarist Johnny Marr's sensory-engulfing, reverb-drenched Bo Diddley beat and Andy Rourke's signature bass, veritably submerging the entirety of the club in a strange, slow-mo collectively swoony sway. Of course, Morrissey's lugubrious bleat was part of that mix, too, but the less said about him the better. Regardless, I bought the 12" single the next day, and life was never the same.
Andy Rourke just died from pancreatic cancer. He never seemed to get his proper due as a truly gifted musician (and he was even in the aforementioned Killing Joke for about five minutes). Rest in peace.
The following item comes courtesy of loyal, longtime Flaming Pablum reader Dr. Bop, who regularly sends me curious minutia whether I’m soliciting it or not (let alone responding). Hopefully he’s reading this and knows that I do indeed appreciate it.
Either notorious or beloved, depending on your sensibilities, Alan Ginsberg was one of New York City’s more celebrated beat poets and political activists, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and a figurehead of downtown bohemia (despite actually coming from New Jersey). I remember reading his signature manifesto, “Howl,” in college and being duly captivated. Ginsberg was also renowned for his pronounced appetite for sex, which he explicitly delved into in his writing (specifically pertaining to his own homosexuality), much to the pointed chagrin of the self-appointed guardians of social mores of the time. I seem to remember fellow poet, proto-punk rocker and Flaming Pablum favorite Jim Carroll writing about Ginsberg’s voracious libido, at one point.
In any case, what many might not know (or, at least, I certainly didn’t) was that Alan Ginsberg was also a sort of amateur photographer. Dr Bop forward me a piece published earlier this week in Document Journal that culls together many of Ginsberg’s photos, including portraits of luminaries like Ai Weiwei, Hunter S. Thompson, fellow Beat icon William S. Burroughs, Gus Van Sant and Iggy Goddamn Pop.
Appropos of nothing at all, I remembered an old story that, for the sleeve of what would be their third album, 1982’s largely-ignored Coup D’Etat, the band (or someone…maybe manager and conceptual svengali Rob Swensen) wanted the cover picture taken on a particular New York City street. That street, again, if legend has it, was Charlotte Street in the South Bronx.
The alleged decision to shoot on this particular street stemmed originally from a visit to same five years earlier by then-president Jimmy Carter, which resulted in an infamous photograph of the man standing amidst the proverbial rubble. Three years later, as something of a cheap shot, Carter’s GOP rival Ronald Reagan traveled to the very same spot on Charlotte Street as a means of demonstrating how anemic Carter’s efforts had been, suggesting that only he could make the required difference to turn things around, reducing the plight of the South Bronx to little more than a political football and photo-op.
In response to this, the Plasmatics allegedly showed up on Charlotte Street with a big fuckoff tank, and called their record Coup D’Etat.
Great story, right? Well, here’s the thing -– I could find precious little documentation to back up the original story that the Plasmatics specifically went to Charlotte Street. Sure, study the cover of the album and it certainly looks like it could have been Charlotte Street. I mean, those are burned out buildings appearing behind them, after all, but it’s not like the South Bronx was the only place to find distressed urban decay. Flip the album over….
…and the only tangible information about the photography is that it was handled by a gent named Butch Star. Certain folks have suggested the Butch Star is actually the aforementioned Mr. Swenson, but, y’know, who knows? As a result, the trail to verify the location has gone cold.
Oh, as something of a surreal and depressing coda, the following September after Coup D’Etat was released on a disinterested public, the Plasmatics’ erstwhile touring mates in KISS also traveled to Charlotte Street, selecting it as the location for the laughably ludicrous (naturally) video for “Lick It Up.” One can only imagine the already-beleagured residents of the Charlotte Street neighborhood being somewhat bemused by all this attention.
KISS probably chose Charlotte Street because it looked suitably apocalyptic, not for any political reasons (that was never their scene). The Plasmatics chose Charlotte Street very much on purpose as a vague political statement, but then buried and/or abandoned that statement, inexplicably.
Regardless, while the full story may yet be told in some band biography, I could find zero evidence to verify that Charlotte Street was the location for the cover image Coup D’Etat or the video for “Lick It Up.” Ho hum.
But in my travels around the `net trying to unearth info about the Plasmatics’ shoot, I did come across Robert Christgau’s review of Coup D’Etat for The Village Voice. For those who may not know the name, Robert Christgau is the self-titled “Dean of American Rock Critics.” Some years back, I started reading his book and got suitably turned off by his slavishly masturbatory prose (and this is coming from me). You can read that screed here.
Plasmatics: Coup D'Etat [Capitol, 1982] Now that they've copped to heavy metal tempos, they could last as long as Judas Priest, although since the HM hordes do demand chops, Wendy O. might be well advised to try singing with her nether lips. Not only can't she carry a tune (ha), she can't even yell. Inspirational Thing She Says Backward on Outgroove: "The brainwashed do not know they are brainwashed." Inspirational Message Scratched on Outgroove: "You were not made for this." D-
Did you catch that?
“She might be well advised trying to try singing with her nether lips”
I mean, seriously, Village Voice, I realize this was still 1982 … but what the actual fuck?
Meanwhile, back on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx, if you go looking to recreate the sleeve of Coup D'Etat with your own big fuckoff tank or try re-enact the priapic preening of Paul Stanley in front of a row of crumbling housing projects, the end results are not going to synch up very well. As documented in this first-person account from 2016, Charlotte Street is now a sleepy bedroom community that now plays host to an unrecognizable plot of suburban-style ranch houses.
ADDENDUM:For better or worse, I’ve always been a strident Plasmatics fan and apologist, defending them at their silliest moments, which were myriad. I first snapped up a copy of the “official” Plasmatics book, “Your Heart in Your Mouth” circa 1983 from a posh bookstore on Fifth Avenue. In later years, I bought a second copy of it (why I did so now escapes me) at a WFUV Record Fair in Chelsea about twenty years ago. As such, I now own two copies of this book which, in certain very silly circles, can fetch an admirable sum. I’d wrongly assumed the book was first published prior to the release of Coup D’Etat, but dug out one copy this morning to verify — and lo and behold, I came across this fleeting invocation of the band’s cover shoot for that album, quasi-confirming the notion that it was indeed the same Charlotte Street address, if the book — a band-sanctioned bit of self-mythologizing promotion — is to be believed.
I would love to say I was cool enough to go to Tier 3 was it was a going concern, but I would have 13 years old, at the time. That may not have stopped everyone, but it certainly stopped me.
To walk by 225 West Broadway today, you’d honestly never know anything punky, cool or hip ever occupied the space. Today, it’s a comparatively genteel Italian restaurant named Terra, which used to occupy a space across the avenue. Back back circa 1979-1980, this tiny venue played host to local and/or East Coast bands like Bad Brains, the Beastie Boys, DNA, The Bush Tetras, the Bonogs, Glenn Branca, 8 Eyed Spy, The Lounge Lizards, as well as British bands like The Raincoats, Madness, The Slits, Young Marble Giants, The Pop Group and eve Bauhaus. Today, at 225 West Broadway, you’re more likely to find a persnickety TriBeCan complaining about how their pasta primavera is too tepid. Where once this chunk of TriBeCa was a sort of a bohemian frontier, here in 2023, it’s a fairly monied, well-traveled slice of covetable real estate.
I probably first heard the name “Tier 3” in “After Hours,” when Terri Garr’s character, Julie suggests to bedraggled Griffin Dunne’s Paul Hackett, deep into an evening of Kafka-esque turmoil, that “Tier 3 is still open!” It was already long gone by the time I’d ever heard of it, so for me to wax rhapsodic about its absence is a bit rich. Luckily, however, there is Amy Rigby.
I first invoked Amy Rigby here and then went onto interview her here. A veteran of the original Tier 3 scene, Amy recently put the video below together. Here’s what she had to say about it.
I made this short film as an intro for a panel on Tier 3: The Little Club That Could at the 2023 PopCon academic conference held in April at NYU. Holly George-Warren moderated our discussion of this beloved lower Manhattan nightspot that played a big part in our lives. Hilary Jaeger (who brought us in and booked the bands), Cynthia Sley of Bush Tetras who played there many times, and myself part of the Stinky's dance party crew & club coat check girl - we were also joined by my brother Michael McMahon who made many of the club posters, and Angela Jaeger from Stare Kits (our early band - first to play at the club) and later Pigbag and Instinct. Tier 3 was one of the only women-run punk clubs on the East Coast. And it was much more than that: it was a clubhouse for misfits in the land of misfits. With photo contributions from Julia Gorton, Steve Lombardi, Hilary Jaeger, Lucy Sante, Robert Sietsema, Niles Jaeger, Angela Jaeger, Amy Rigby, Pat Irwin, Beate Nilsen, Charlyn Zlotnik Artwork by Amelia Faulkner, Michael McMahon and some uncredited folks, let me know who you are) and Video by Liza Bear and Michael Mclard Thanks for watching - so many bands and artists played and showed their work at the club, would love to expand this to include more of them.
News came down, this week, that Paramount Media Networks were essentially scrapping what was left of MTV News, an outlet some here might remember that I worked at for a hot minute (well, almost two years) in the mid-2000’s. As I’ve suggested before, while getting laid off from said gig was certainly no goddamn fun, I genuinely learned a lot at that place and met scores of brilliant, funny and inspiring individuals, most of whom I’m proud to still call friends this many years later. While most of the people I’d worked alongside had also left the auspices of the company, by this point, the news still made me sad.
In tribute, like many of my former colleageus, I posted some pictures online, notably a shot of me and Mr. T (above), who strangely dropped by the office one day. This happened quite often, actually. At various points, I had Sacha Baron-Cohen (in “Borat” mode), Busta Rhymes, Bono, Amy Winehouse, Fat Mike from NOFX (never liked them) and Ghostface Killah from the Wu-Tang Clan loitering around my cubicle while I was trying to work. It was just that sort of place. In addition to the portrait of myself and my BFF, Mr. T, I posted a picture of that old desk there (see below), as did many other folks. My former manager chimed in saying that he’d wished he’d taken a picture of his desk, as these images served as a sort of time capsule.
In any case, prompted by same, while waiting for some crucial assets to arrive at my current office, this morning, I put this silly composite together. Enjoy.
My desk at Denison University during my sophomore year (1986-1987). You’ll notice the surface of the desk uncluttered with any semblance of actual work.
My first gig outside of college was as an intern at SPIN Magazine, where – tellingly – I didn’t really have my own desk. Similarly, my first paying gig at LIFE Magazine … as a copy clerk … didn’t come with its own desk either (as, most of the time, I was busy running around the office delivering copy churned out from a printer – this was all prior to the ubiquity of the internet). I did eventually land a desk as an editorial assistant at LIFE, in a cubicle in the hall outside the News Editor’s office, but I don’t believe I ever captured that on film. After getting laid off from LIFE in 1993, I decamped to TIME, where after faffing about in various administrative positions, I landed a job at the TIME Magazine News Desk, which did come, at last, with a desk. I was basically there from 1993 until the end of 2005.
There came a point, for me, at the News Desk wherein I felt I was long overdue for a change. I’d been there, basically, far too long, and was still working two grueling overnight shifts a week. While I’d branched out, by this point, and actually written a few items for the magazine (notably several contributions to a special music issue, some small news items in the front of the book and Bono’s eulogy to Joey Ramone, which I orchestrated), I was really ready to make a break, albeit with a heavy heart. I loved working at TIME, but when an amazing opportunity opened up for me at the online wing of MTV News over in Times Square, I jumped.
Once again, my tenure at MTV News was comparatively brief. The writing was on the wall, really, when the excellent gent who’d hired me was laid off. It was really only a matter of time before they shook the tree further and I lost my own grip. That said, I will continue to believe that a lot of that was my own doing. I had a great opportunity, at that place, to really distinguish myself and assert my own voice, but too often, I failed to do so. I didn’t make myself essential, and thus paid the inevitable price. Once again, while that was no fun, it was still a hugely rewarding experience to work there, and the friends I made I still cherish.
After getting the keys to the street from MTV News at 1515 Broadway, I waffled about until landing a part-time spot as a homepage editor at MSN.com, the Microsoft portal. This found me working in a bullpen in a building directly across Sixth Avenue from my old stomping grounds at the TIME-LIFE Building. This was a fun-but-nervy position in that, being that I wasn’t technically on staff, so I had to take three months off after every six (or something … I honestly don’t remember), and then hope to God they hired me back after those lean three months. But, I did have my own desk….
From MSN, I somehow cajoled one of our lovely content providers from TODAY.com to consider the heroically unlikely prospect of hiring me on at that morning show’s web concern as an editor. I surprisingly managed to land that position with very little fuss, finding me orchestrating content on the site’s homepage, and writing strenuously incongruous copy for its parenting blog (TODAY Moms), its fashion blog (The Look) and its royal-wedding-countdown blog (The Windsor Knot). I started in 2010 and was essentially catapulted out of my chair in 2014. While I was able to do a lot of fun stuff, there, I was not really of the ideal sensibility for that particular position and never really a good fit, despite, once again, meeting hundreds of great people, there. I was also excised from proceedings in a kind of dehumanzing way, but I gather that was the company’s M.O. Leaving TODAY.com was ultimately a good thing, for me, but that chapter was particularly humbling, at the time. But, y’know, I did have a desk. It was like working in windowless, orange submarine.
After landing with a brittle thud on the cold, hard but worryingly familiar tundra of unemployment once again, I busied myself with lots of temp positions and freelance writing (something I’d done throughout), but being without a stable job with benefits when you’ve got a wife and two still small children was no friggin’ picnic. I entertained some unthinkable options. I came very close, at one point, to lobotomizing myself in order to take a job at FOX News, but ultimately (and rightly) demurred. I was engaged in some very lengthy talks with some outlets that didn’t make me want to spit up, but too often, the numbers were not right, so to speak.
Eventually, I got the right offer from the concern that I’ve now been at for about seven years, and am very happy. Not only did I get a desk, but for the first time, I got my own office (as opposed to another bullpen or a shared space). Huzzah!
It’s weird to hear yourself speak, if you’re not prepared for it.
I remember, back in college, I was a disc jockey on our radio station (WDUB, 91.1 FM in Granville, OH – now a digital platform in 2023 and no longer a functioning radio station). There was this kid who lived down the hall from me named Preston, and at the end of the year, he suddenly gave me a handful of cassette tapes that he’d recorded of all my shows. It was kind of an odd gift (why did he record them?), but once I had them, I was really thankful, although listening back was always strange, “Do I really sound like that?” being the recurring reaction.
I had that very same reaction again this morning, as I was listening to Episode #61 of Desperately Seeking the `80s, the podcast that graciously hosted me last week for a (very) rambling discussion about growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City in the – wait for it – 1980’s.
As feared/predicted, while I even admit, at one point during proceedings, that I was concerned about coming across like “a babbling brook of idiocy,” I, of course, did just exactly that, unspooling several tendrils of discussion that frequently eschewed the topic of the questions that prefaced them. I go off on unfinished tangents, blithely raise points that are only tenuously related to the main thrust of the conversation, brazenly offer inane observations that do little further the narrative and continually seem to interrupt my two lovely hosts. But, I guess, such is the nature of an organic conversation, which this very much was. While I’m concerned that we probably had way more fun recording it than you’ll probably have listening to it, it was indeed a great, hugely fun experience, now preserved for posterity.
Just as a wee bit of background, I happened to grow up during the same era and, very oddly, in both the respective neighborhoods of the podcast’s two hosts, Meg and Jessica. Much like Meg, I was entirely privileged to spend my formative, grammar-school years in Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side, and then decamped with my Mom to an apartment in nearby Yorkville – where Jessica lived -- circa 1983 or so, when my parents got divorced. As such, the three of us share a bizarre amount of common experience, which is how/why we first discovered each other (as discussed here).
Anyway, without further ado, if the last few paragraphs haven’t scared you off the notion of actually listening, please avail yourselves to Episode #61 of Desperately Seeking the `80s, wherein I dispense with all semblance of my carefully cultivated mystique and reveal myself to be a haplessly blabby Chatty Cathy. Enjoy!
Okay, I’m invariably overthinking this, but I recently appeared on the aforementioned podcast Desperately Seeking the `80s (that episode will air this coming Tuesday, I believe). I was asked to be a guest on same for the countless entries I’ve posted here on this silly blog about growing up in New York City. That said, as I mention during the interview, this blog was never supposed to specifically be about one single thing. I intentionally kept it topically open-ended so I could feel free to write about anything, which I do, although more often than not, it’s about my preoccupation with music.
My concern is that, on the back of that podcast episode airing next week, that fans of that podcast might come looking here and be confused by all the music stuff that I’ve been posting of late. As such, here’s a round-up of some posts of the very sort that first brought myself and the Desperately Seeking the `80s ladies together.
Also, please note that I’m well aware of the multiple broken images on the site. It’s not my doing, it’s some glitch plaguing Typepad, my blogging service — and it’s driving me slowly insane.
In about 1990, I was writing for a freebie local paper called NY Perspectives (long gone) and was tasked with writing up blurbs for one of their “BEST OF UPTOWN” issues. As such, I typed one up for my favorite local bar, at the time, that being Ryan’s Daughter on East 85th just off First Ave.
Despite it being an overwritten word salad that unwittingly besmirched the street in question, the blurb struck the right chord with Ryan’s Daughter. They were quite pleased and slapped it in a frame that hung in the window for many years. I moved out of Yorkville in about 1996 and probably haven’t set foot in Ryan’s Daughter since then. But, I was there last night with the Desperately Seeking the `80s duo , and spied my ancient blurb now hanging on an interior wall.
The following post is actually an “open letter,” initially composed in response to the latest episode of the Desperately Seeking the `80s podcast, which I’ve discussed here several times before, most notably here. I started writing it and then it got to a length wherein I figured it would make a nice post on its own, so here we are. You’re welcome.
Incidentally, the lovely ladies of the`80s have graciously invited me to actually appear on their podcast. We’re recording that very soon, I believe, so watch this space for that. Hopefully I won’t come off sounding like a rambling, abject idiot, but I promise nothing.
So, without further ado, in response to Jessica’s portion of this latest episode (Episode #60), herewith my response….
M’kay… first of all, I totally recognize the elusive difference Jessica was driving at between the classic coffee shop and the diner, the latter being a sort of less salubrious affair, given its accent on burgers & fries over more delicate fare and the ability to order alcohol, an important distinction, in my latter years of high school and into college.
That discussion immediately conjured up places where I used to be taken as a child. There were at least two or three proper “coffee shops,” as I remember, on Madison Avenue, foremost among them being the one beautifully captured in the photograph above (I have no idea who took it or when, but I'd originally poached it for this old post), which was on the southwest corner of 84th Street, right next to the long-vanished Trans-Lux movie house (the only movie theatre on Madison Avenue, I want to say). For whatever reason, I remember coming to this place with my Dad, who always ordered “cinnamon toast” … which, should that need illustration, was just that: buttered white toast with cinnamon on top. I don’t remember us ever having anything else, but who needed anything else? Inside, it was a lunch place, but it wasn’t tawdry or beaten up, unlike more conventional diners, which were open later. I want to say there was another more haute coffee shop about a block up between 85th and 86th (and this is going way, way back) called The Puffing Billy (named, presumably, after a train), but I can find no evidence of that online.
In terms of all things DINER, meanwhile, beyond what I blathered about in this recent epic-length post, me and my own little gaggle of morons had our specific favorites, those being as follows: The Mansion on East 86th & York Avenue (this was my home corner from about 1984 until 1996), Gracie’s Corner on the – wait for it – corner of East 86th & First Avenue (r.i.p.), The Viand Restaurant on East 86th Street & Second Avenue and then, a little further afield, The New Amity on Madison and east 84th (r.i.p.) and one on Lexington between 77th and 78th that, in more recent years, was called the Lenox Hill Grill, but went by another name back in the 80s. There was also one on Madison Avenue and, like, East 63rd we occasionally went to which was called The New Wave Diner (or Restaurant) – an establishment we appreciated solely for its name.
The Mansion is still there today, but had something of an interior-décor reboot, some years back, that decimated everything I held dear about the place. It used to be comparatively dark inside. You could sit at the counter and enjoy your burger in a sort of atmospheric gloom, as opposed to the gleaming white walls that now frame one’s dining experience. I remember they had stills from “Casablanca” above the counter area, for whatever reason.
When my mother and my step-father split, my sister was already away at college, so Mom and I moved to East 86th Street between York & East End, just up the road a piece from where my grandparents had lived at Henderson House before decamping to Florida. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, so I was already fairly autonomous, and my mom was jump-starting a career as a real estate agent for the Corcoran Group, so I was frequently left to my own devices, which meant lots and lots and lots of visits to the Mansion for any number of meals. It was also a meeting place, a hangout spot and a safe haven, of a sort. For a hot second (and I do mean hot), I actually dated a young lady who worked behind the counter in the early `90s, but it was destined to crash and crumble like a slice of over-toasted cinnamon toast. More about that another time.
One of the cool things about living on East 86th Street, at the time, was the aforementioned abundance of diners and coffee shops. I seem to remember Gracie’s Corner on First Avenue being if not a 24-hr. venture, at least being a very late-night operation, and frequently repairing to its comfy confines for late-night fries with gravy (an homage to “Diner”? Who remembers?) and other inevitably drunken shenanigans (frequently after many an ill-advised hour spent in nearby public houses like Ryan’s Daughter and The (original) Gaf (formerly Pedro’s). I have a somewhat bleary-but-still-cringey memory of my college pal Edgar (not his real name … who, after spending weeks living on my couch, finally rented his own place nearby on East 84th off Second Avenue) basically abandoning a girl he’d been out on a date with (leaving her in my care, so to speak). She wasn’t so much crestfallen as confused. I walked her home, though – something Edgar invariably should have done. But, I digress..
The Viand (and we pronounced it with an inexplicable French accent, ala “vee-OND,” although who knows if this is correct?) was another staple. I remember very many meals at the Viand, either with my college friend Shafe (then-fresh from rural Florida) or my childhood comrade Rob D. Rob was famous for his last-minute veer-offs from convention when ordering, making roundly ill-advised detours into adventurous culinary territory ala “actually….scratch that, I’ll have the Cauliflower Au Gratin!” and other dishes one should ABSOLUTELY NEVER order at a diner.
My late friend Danny (initially immortalized as Rocky, on this post) and I used to frequent that Lenox Hill spot (right next to Lenox Hill hospital, a storied institution Danny was once ensconced in for a broken nose after a fateful run-in with the 84th Street Bombers in front of Mimi’s Pizza on Lexington and 84th). It lacked the homey comfort of the Mansion or the late-night debauchery-friendly vibe of Gracie’s Corner, but it was his local. The New Amity on Madison was a big favorite for some classmates of mine, but trying to have a meal there during the school day was always a nervy affair, as our free periods were only forty minutes long, so you were invariably going to be asking feverishly for a check before you’d finished your burger (or whatever).
Today, once again, the Mansion is still there, and recently made a cameo in “Only Murders in The Building” (although not cited by its actual name). The original Gracie’s Corner is gone, as is most of the block it occupied, but I think its building is still standing. The concern actually moved up the block and what had been The Viand is now called Gracie’s Corner, if I’m not mistaken.
I’m pretty sure the Lenox Hill Grill on Lexington at 77th is gone. The New Amity closed for good last summer. I think what had been the New Wave is still there, but called something else, by this point.
In terms of the cast of characters, my date-abandoning pal Edgar decamped back to his Midwestern hometown in the mid 2000’s. I fell more or less out of touch with Florida Shafe some years back after he got a bit more churchy, so to speak. My great comrade Rob D. got married to my friend J, had a child, moved to City Island, then moved to New London, CT. , got divorced and became an acclaimed writer and an esteemed man of letters, penning the preeminent academic tome on Eugene O’Neil and currently working on another sprawling book about a different celebrated writer. He still orders food ill-advisedly. My cinnamon toast-touting Dad passed away in 2011 and my great friend Danny died in 2018 in his adopted state of Colorado following a few cruel years paralyzed from a tragic bicycle accident.
The girl I fleetingly dated from The Mansion vanished into thin air circa 1993.
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