Flaming Pablum

Manhattan of The Damned

The Damned first played New York City’s CBGB in 1977, the first British Punk band to do so (along with having been the first British Punk band to issue any vinyl). During that maiden voyage, the band were famously captured by erstwhile CBGB door-minder/photographer Roberta Bayley in the photo above, posing with great, snotty aplomb in front of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

The band ended up playing four April nights at CBGB, sharing the bill with their Buckeye counterparts in the Dead Boys. Here’s a shot of them during one of those doubtlessly volatile evenings, this one taken by Ebet Roberts.

Today, meanwhile, in trawling around the `net, looking for nothing in particular, I came across this uncredited photo from the same era. I’m making some assumptions here but based on the line-up (with guitarist Brian James still in the ranks), I’m guessing this was snapped during that same span of April days. I have no idea who took it, but my question is – where in Manhattan was this photograph snapped?

I’d say the awning behind Dave Vanian on the left is a big clue, as are the terraced apartments behind Captain Sensible’s head. I have a hunch which I’m going to investigate, but where do YOU think it was taken?

The Damned are coming back to New York City (with original drummer Rat Scabies with them, this time) this May, but the next day is my son’s graduation, so I don’t think we’ll be going. We did just see them in October, anyway.

Meanwhile, here’s a taste of one of those shows…

Twenty Years of Flaming Pablum

Several weeks back, comedian Marc Maron announced that he was ending his trailblazing podcast, “WTF,” which he’s been doing since the comparatively carefree days of 2009. I’ve been a devout fan of Maron’s for quite some time and a regular listener of his podcast for several years, so I was disappointed to hear it, but I can’t say I was that surprised. Marc’s an intense guy, and takes his work very seriously, so I can totally see how he might be a bit burned out from it all. He’s not done just yet, though. He’ll keep posting episodes into the fall before bowing out with a final show. The podcast’s vast archive of previous episodes will remain online, as I understand it, for fans and newcomers to enjoy, but that’ll be the end of it. I know I, for one, will miss his regular presence and bi-weekly insights.

While it’s not really that comparable in terms of content, production value, quality and audience size, this here blog actually predates Maron’s “WTF” by four years and today marks the goddamn TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY of Flaming Pablum. Believe me, I’m just as astonished as you are. I’ve been digitally scribbling this inane nonsense here for two whole decades.

I’m not going to bother re-hashing the blog’s banal origin story or attempt to re-explain the indefensibly stupid name of the thing (antiquated lingo for trite writing that incites anger). If I could re-christen it, it would probably be something just as preposterously pretentious like Grognard’s Hiraeth or something, but it’s kinda too late, now. The fact that the blog’s URL has zero to do with the blog’s name has never helped clear up any confusion, but what’s done is done.

I wouldn’t say I’m in quite the same headspace that I was in July of 2005. At the time, I was a still relatively freshly married, newly christened father of one, working a vampire shift at the TIME Magazine News Desk. Shortly after launching this blog, I jumped ship from TIME and decamped to MTV News Online, only to get laid off from that concern a year and a half later (but not before having a second child). From there I scrambled onto the good ship MSN for two nervy years as a homepage editor before landing at gig at MSNBC Digital to write, edit and orchestrate content for the website of the TODAY Show. Four twitchy years after that, I was unceremoniously ejected and was “on the street” for many months before mercifully landing the job I now hold and where I’ve now been for almost a decade.

I’m still happily married, and my kids are both young adults. My eldest is a breath away from graduating college. We still live in the same diminutive apartment we did when Flaming Pablum was hatched. On a personal level, I feel like I’m aging more like milk than like wine. Catch me in the right mood, and I’ll quickly recite a litany of medical grievances that all seemed laughably unlikely in 2005. But that’s nothing unique or unusual.

I still warm to pretty much the same subject matter that I always have, which is reflected in the content here. I’d like to think I’m maybe a little more discerning about it, which explains the wider lapses between posts, but maybe I’m just being lazy.

Back to the Maron comparison (and it’s only that – a comparison, not a competition), while I don’t feel quite as burned out as Marc might be feeling and don’t intend to stop any time soon, I cannot imagine that there’d be quite as much fanfare surrounding the demise of Flaming Pablum as there is around the end of “WTF.” I’ll probably just stop one day.

….but not today.

For those who’ve stayed on this train since it first left the station, thanks for sticking with it for the past 20 years.

Poached By Bots? 10 Things You Could Do as a New York City High Schooler in the `80s That You Can't Do Today: REDUX

In early November of 2023, I was inspired by a conversation with a friend about how different the New York City of 2023 was for kids than the city of the early-to-mid 80’s had been for us. I quickly typed up a list of ten activities, places and things that routinely ate up my time as a petulant, acne-speckled teen (see above) that were (and remain) simply unavailable for teenagers today, and titled it – wait for it -- 10 Things You Could Do as a New York City High Schooler in the `80s That You Can't Do Today. You can read that by clicking right here.

This morning, meanwhile, upon firing up ye olde YouTube, I was presented with some content presumably tailored to my habits by the platform in question. On the top of that stack was the video below. Struck by the comparable theme to my aforementioned piece from 2023, I pressed play and was … well, nothing really surprises me anymore, but … suffice to say I was disappointed. Re-cast as if by some clumsy replicant, this video limply mines my original content, albeit thinly re-written by AI and given an incongruous and unconvincing voiceover.

Check it out below, but as the saying goes …. accept no substitutions for the real thing.

“NYC Tonight!”: GG Allin’s Final Gig, 32 Years Later

An inauspicious occasion to be sure, but this week marks the thirty-second anniversary of the death of GG Allin, who overdosed on heroin on June 28, 1993, after a typically tumultuous final performance at the infamous Gas Station -- aka the Space 2B Art Yard -- on East 2nd Street and Avenue B.

I’ve written about this fabled show probably too many times here, despite having not attended it. My friend Aaron went, though, and even appears in the notorious video of same – shot by Lower East Side legend, Clayton Patterson -- which I’ve posted here periodically. Like Chantal Akerman's "News from Home" (albeit in this way only), the GG Allin Gas Station footage frequently pops up on YouTube, only to be brusquely taken down in very short order. If you’re not up to watching it (which is perfectly understandable, if not advisable), it documents the fateful day, starting with an abortive soundcheck, a brief, brutal performance rife with the Geeg’s signature brand of ribaldry, and culminates in an ersatz riot that spills out onto the byways of Avenue B and the surrounding environs. Not exactly “The Last Waltz,” but you get the idea.

As mentioned in several other posts here over the years, while my pals and I were frequently tempted to go see GG Allin & The Murder Junkies play, the very real possibility of being physically assaulted by the star attraction, let alone getting messily pelted with greasy fistfuls of the man’s own freshly produced dung, always kept us away. If you have a hard time picturing that outlandishly unseemly scenario, might I recommend watching Tod Phillips’ grimly hilarious 1993 documentary, “Hated: GG Allin & The Murder Junkies.”

Thirty-two years later, you’d be exceptionally hard-pressed to find any evidence of the messy shenanigans of that day on that particular strip of Avenue B. The Gas Station was razed in 1995 to make way for a brutalist eyesore of a building with a Duane Read in its ground floor. I used to periodically suggest that the troubled ghost of GG Allin probably haunts its back aisles. The building itself, meanwhile, according to my excellent bloggy comrade EV Grieve, changed hands, last year, for the princely sum of $43 million dollars. Street Easy describes the current iteration of the building this way…

194 East 2nd Street is a full-service elevator building with a 24-hour doorman, elegantly re-designed lobby, hallways, and common areas, a new high-end fitness center with an infrared sauna and yoga/pilates room, and a tenant’s lounge with a billiard table.

The rest of that block is now peppered with sports bars and brunch destinations that cater to young, monied aspirationals and cloying, self-styled influencers, who are just as revolting, to my mind, as some might have found GG Allin & the Murder Junkies, but to each their own, I guess.

Once again, if you’re genuinely curious, you should seek out the full Clayton Patterson footage (currently to be found here), but someone synopsized the day’s events in this homemade music video for an early GG Allin track (when he was a bit more genteel behind the mic) called, somewhat presciently, “NYC Tonight.”

Frankie Goes to … The Mill

Here’s an odd one.

As recently as this past April, I posted a little entry about a long-vanished midtown attraction called The Mill at Burlington House, although I originally invoked it on a comparatively ancient post about same from 2015.

Today, meanwhile, I fielded a comment from a reader named Charles, who wrote…

I found film footage of this attraction while watching a Frank Sinatra movie called Contract on Cherry Street in 1977. I was wondering what opening scene about 2:30 in the movie this was shot in and came across your blog.

Sure enough, in one of the opening segments of the film, The Mill at Burlington House is used as a location.

Released in 1977, “Contract on Cherry Street” stars Ol’ Blue Eyes as a hardscrabble detective also named Frank who is trying to take on the Mob after his partner is killed … or something like that. In the scene in question, Frank meets his undercover informant, the ridiculously named Jack Kittens, to get some dirt on an automotive fencing ring. In fittingly clandestine fashion, they meet on the conveyer belt of The Mill.

Watch from about 02:30 onward…..

In all honesty, the movie looks like a bad, half-baked cop show from the `70s, but who knows? It might be great, not least for period-specific NYC locations like this one.

Big thanks to Charles for sharing!

There's The Beef: Back to the Meat Packing District of 1993

It’s a bit of a cliché, here in 2025, to point out how very different various downtown neighborhoods used to be. The East Village used to be squalid, scary, dangerous and a hotbed of punky, bohemian expression. SoHo used to be gritty and filled with artists. TriBeCa used to be desolate and deserted. The so-called West Village used to be quaint, quiet and manageable. Obviously, none of these things are still true today.

Then, of course, there’s the Meat Packing District which, as I said here way back in 2013, underwent a radical facelift that was easily the most severe in of the city’s transformation over the last few decades.

Formerly a grimly picturesque realm of urban desolation when still populated by genuine meat-packing businesses, underground leather clubs and a robust ring of transexual prostitution, the Meat Packing District could seem like a forbidding part of town throughout the `80s and `90s. But the area was also home to a host of beloved-if-eccentric spots like Florent, The Hog Pit, The Cooler, The Village Idiot, The Vault and, well,…er.. The Toilet (as fleetingly recounted by my friend and former Meat-Packing resident Pat Blashill here). It may not have been “something for everybody,” but folks who enjoyed the Meat Packing District enjoyed it for that very same grit, funk and character, of which there was an ample abundance.

I’ve mentioned it before, but as recently as 2000, I remember my songwriter friend Dusty Wright organizing an outdoor music fest for Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation called Beefstock to help raise support to designate the "Gansevoort Market" area (which loosely stretched from just below Gansevoort to just above West 14th) as a historic district, thus protecting its architectural integrity and sense of community. While that event was great fun, the events of September 11th the following year laid waste to any landmark protections for the Meat Packing District. There were bigger fish to be fried.

In any case, suffice to say that the Meat Packing District of today is just yet another dreadful outdoor mall of luxury retail and pricey bistros, completely bereft of the neighborhood’s formerly storied distinction.

It might be hard to picture the Meat Packing District of 2025 as anything other than what it has become. But through the magic of video – in this case, provided by long-time friend of the blog Gregoire Alesandrini of New York City in the `90s fame – you can re-visit the neighborhood in all its gritty desolation, circa 1993. Enjoy.

FEAR Unplug for the New Music Seminar: June 20, 1992

Like many other folks, I think the first time I ever heard of the storied Los Angeles punk band FEAR was via Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization.” Hilariously obnoxious and inappropriate at every turn and actually way more musically accomplished than most of their contemporaries, FEAR became an instant favorite of mine, prompting me to immediately seek out their full-length debut LP, The Record. The band released further music – notably the “Fuck Christmas” single and a great follow-up album, More Beer in 1985, but if I’m being honest, The Record remains their definitive statement.

For whatever dumb reason, however, I didn’t get the opportunity to actually see FEAR properly play live until a decade or so later, when they plowed into New York City to play the New Ritz (the space formerly occupied by Studio 54) in the summer of 1992. I wrote floridly about that show here.

As mentioned in that reminiscence, however, I invoked a strange, pop-up acoustic performance I’d caught by them around the same time whilst mixing and mingling at the New Music Seminar at the Mariott Marquis hotel in Times Square. Here’s what I wrote…

Memories are slightly hazy, on this point, but I believe it was during this same visit in 1992 that I also saw FEAR deliver an incongruously acoustic -- but still endearingly objectionable -- performance as an impromptu event at the New Music Seminar in Times Square's Mariott Marquis hotel. Sadly, I've found no documentation of that performance, but a current co-worker remembers it well.

As I remember it, FEAR kind of appeared out of nowhere (they were pretty hard to miss) and set up shop on a random level of the hotel where badge-wearing attendees, at the time, were milling around schmoozing. Drummer Spit Stix (yep, that’s his name) merely whacked away on a cardboard box while lead singer/icon Lee Ving exhorted away. I can’t remember if Derf Scratch was still on bass, at that stage, but the band played a short, typically hilarious acoustic set to a gathering crowd of both the converted (geeked-out rock scribes like me) and otherwise bewildered industry types. I seem to remember standing next to singer/songwriter Vic Chestnutt and both of us enjoying it immensely.

In any case, while I’d gone on to recount the tale of this weird acoustic show many times, I could never find any evidence to corroborate its actual happening, although a former co-worker later verified that she’d been there to witness it, too.

Well, 33 years (to the day) later, my writer friend Jason Pettigrew – who was also at the gig in question – just posted the flyer…

For the uninitiated, this is FEAR…

Scrapped

I was shocked and saddened, over the weekend, to note the sudden departure of longtime graffiti stronghold Scrapyard on West Broadway.

Originally called Bomb The System (they changed names in the wake of 9/11), Scrapyard was a resolute chapel of the street art subculture (I've written about it here). It stood across the street from its sibling venture, SoHoZat ... a sort of underground comic/zine emporium. Around the corner on Canal Street, meanwhile, was The Trader, a grim Army/Navy store where you could also procure ridiculous items like throwing stars and nunchucks. Now, all three of these spots from my teenage years are gone.

Evidently, the space Scrapyard occupied for so many years is stated to be some sort of bespoke eyewear boutique. Pour one out.

Parsing “The Things All New Yorkers Should Know (But Most Don’t)”

There are few things that irk the snots out of me more than “content” created by self-appointed “New Yorkers” (whether the term credibly applies or not) who volunteer tips, pointers, “insider” info and “life hacks” about what’s what in New York City.

Nine times out of ten, these things have been produced by whistle-headed whippersnappers who’ve spent all of about six months living here and think they know the score. I’ve railed at self-styled influencer folks like Brett Conte, Cash Jordan, Elana Taber, Shelby Church and Sarah Funk about this kind of stupid shit, although I’m always quick to mention that each of these individuals entertain vastly greater audiences than this here silly blog. That doesn’t mean they’re right, though, now does it.

Then, of course, there are periodicals like Time Out that routinely post these clickbaity listicles about the best and/or secret locations, services, shops, bars, theaters, retail outlets and amenities that “only Real New Yorkers” know about. And if they are actually right about any of them, all they’re doing it is spoiling it by evangelizing them.

I’ve wrestled with the “real New Yorker” quandary here many times, usually with regards to whether being a native New Yorker like me gives one an edge (ultimately, I’d suggest that it doesn’t). My point was that when you compose your own list in your head of folks who seem to personalize the concept of a “New Yorker” – whether because of their lifestyle of their vocation or their outlook or whatever – very often you’ll find that those individuals actually moved here from somewhere else to re-invent themselves. So much for being a native. Also, there are plenty of actual native New Yorkers who are complete fucking assholes who don’t know shit from Shinola about being an actual New Yorker – and, yes, I’m obviously talking very specifically about that orange pile of abject sewage, Donald Trump. But I digress.

Why am I bringing all this up again, you ask? Well, recently, the Curbed section of New York Magazine (who I do love but have had issues – pardon the pun – with before) posted a magisterial piece, “The Things All New Yorker Should Know (But Most Don’t).”  The presumptuous title alone is enough to set my teeth on edge but this one is actually pretty good. Some of my favorite pointers therein are below, and I endorse all of them.

The Chateau Diana sold in every bodega is actually “wine product,” and it’s disgusting! Avoid. 

Always Use the 81st Street Entrance to the Met (and when it’s particularly mobbed, walk in — very carefully — through the parking garage on 80th Street.)

Don’t see ‘Shen Yun.’

Always avoid Terminal 5. It’s still a pain to get to and has bad acoustics. -- this is fucking Gospel!!!

The best outdoor concert venue is Forest Hills Stadium. Every seat has a direct view, and there is excellent food.

Just go to the Knickerbocker for dinner. Call 212-228-8490 and ask for a booth.

You can get Prince Street Pizza delivered to the Scratcher bar, on East 5th Street, and forgo the line.

For restaurant reservations: Always call first. You should resort to OpenTable or Resy (or, God forbid, Tock) only if a restaurant doesn’t have a posted phone number.

The famous mutton chop at Keens is actually lamb. It’s fine — but not so good that you should avoid a steak if that’s what you really want.

The Conservatory Garden is the most tranquil part of Central Park.

If you’re lost in Central Park, find a lamppost.The first two or three numbers on it will tell you what cross street you’re closest to.

Find the whole article here.

Screaming on the Expressway

There’s a billboard you can spot from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, not too far from the sprawling grounds of the Calvary Cemetery, that’s mystified me for quite a little while, now. Ostensibly, it’s designed to catch the eyes of commuters coming and going towards the city on what becomes the Long Island Expressway, a little further along. I first caught a glimpse of it a year or two ago while on a crowed Hampton Jitney bound for my mom’s place out in Quogue, and did something of a double-take, but we passed it so quickly that I couldn’t tell if I’d imagined it or not. Ever since, I’ve continually tried to take a closer look at it to verify my suspicions. Yesterday, on our way back from visiting my mother, I managed to whip my camera out at the right moment and take a picture of it.

Here’s that billboard now. Click on it to enlarge. 

...and here's an even clearer shot I found online...

Based out of Deer Park, Long Island, the North Shore Neon Sign Co. is evidently one of the region’s busiest suppliers of neon signage, and their handiwork can be seen all over Times Square. That’s all well and good, but that doesn’t explain the sign. Were their slogan — “We Hang to Live” — not odd enough, take a look at that accompanying graphic. I’m not quite sure what it’s supposed to be, but it looks a little like an inverted Christmas ornament. But look closer and folks of a certain sensibility might see something familiar. Am I wrong, or isn’t that the signature logo of The Screamers?

For the non-music nerds, the Screamers were one of the original bands to emerge on the Los Angeles punk scene in the late `70s, alongside iconic names like The Weirdos, X, FEAR and The Germs. Sort of the West Coast’s answer to New York’s Suicide, the Screamers completely eschewed guitars in favor of drums, electric piano, synthesizers and the voice and disarming stage presence of lead …er… screamer Tomato du Plenty. While the band has since garnered a reputation as a formidable influence, marked by their confrontational performances and stylized presentation, they never released a proper album. They’d made plans to release a video-only collection of music, but the finished product never came to fruition. Here in 2025, there are bootleg live recordings, demos and a few of those video performance clips floating around, but they never signed a record deal and never released a proper record. The band broke up, and Tomata moved around a lot, but passed away in San Francisco of cancer at the age of 52.

None of that explains why the band’s logo — designed by one Gary Panter, and modeled after the face and head of spiky haired Tomata — now adorns this North Shore Neon billboard.

This is not the first time the Screamers logo has been appropriated, though. Billy Idol approximated it in the animation for his video for …aptly enough.. “Scream” in 2005, but this is a little further flung than that.

Anyone know?

One clue: the artist responsible for the logo, Gary Panter, according to his website, lives in Brooklyn.

Here's what remains of the Screamers...

Those Barbarian Times: East Village `86

Here’s a curious one.

I must confess that, until this morning, I’d never heard of Terry Mann, the artist featured in the video below for the song “Barbarian,” a compelling little period piece captured around Alphabet City and other parts in 1986. I’m quite curious as to where exactly that big, open lot featured in the beginning was shot. I want to say those quick tracking shots (where Mann must have been stood at the rear of a flat-bed truck, maybe?) were taken around the Financial District, around the same neighborhood Yoko Ono and Zbigniew Rybczynski shot the clip for “Hell in Paradise.”

Here’s the info that goes with the clip:

Courtesy of NYC's Manic/Tango Productions, a music video production house once operated by the team of Abigail Simon and Tal Yarden out of 377 E. 8th St. in the East Village.

Clipping from the Video Track section of Billboard magazine dated June 28, 1986: "CBS International recording artist Terry Mann's video for 'Barbarian' was filmed at the now -defunct Manhattan cabaret 8 B.C. The clip is said to reflect Mann's East Village roots and employs some 50 extras, including members of local acts the Tomboys, Hell At Forty Feet, Band of Thieves, Harry Boy, and the Dogs. Abigail Simon produced for Manic /Tango; Tal Yarden directed." Professionally digitized from 3/4" U-matic tape by Rick Lombardi of Telefilm Transfers in Southampton, PA: Tape generously provided by Abigail Simon from her personal archives, who shared some background info: "Cornelius who owned 8BC is the main Mad Scientist dude, members of the Bad Brains, Frank Maya , and some other notorious east village characters of the time are in the cast...even Tal! it was a complete family production, shot in 8BC before the club was turned into Postmasters Gallery."

Regular readers might remember my invocation of 8BC from last April.

According to what I believe is his own official website, Mann abandoned New York and the travails of the duplicitous music industry to become a nomadic busker around Europe before settling in Amsterdam. You can find out more here.