"Watchmen" & NYC: It's Complicated

I never read, and knew nothing about, the original Watchmen comics series when they were published in 1986/1987. At the time I was a little too young either to understand or appreciate them. Honestly, I've never been a big comics/superhero fan so I didn't pay this series, amongst many other superhero series, much attention.

Honestly, I've always felt that superheros are for kids or adults with maturity issues.

But I decided to check out the new Watchmen series on HBO simply because of the cast -- after all, when you have Jeremy Irons, Regina King, Tim Blake Nelson, Jean Smart, and Don Johnson on the same show, I'm watching the damn thing, no questions asked. 

And I did. And I love it.

Unlike most superhero shows that are about endless explosions and easily defined heroes/villains driven by ridiculous things like world supremacy or just pure destruction (so many of these villains want to both destroy and rule the world at the same time which makes no sense), Watchmen is rooted in history. It's rooted in the humanity of its characters and the people of this country. The actions of the heroes and villains make sense -- and the subsequent violence is something you feel, that impacts you emotionally, that shows you the true horror of it. 

The real villain in Watchmen is the history of racism of the United States. The real heroes are those fighting it. The real violence is the violence we commit against ourselves. Most of all this is a show about identity -- not only the secret identity of its superheros and villains, but the identity of America, the identity of all of us. 

Many of the characters in this show wear masks for a variety of reasons, good and bad. The show is about the masks we all wear and how our identities are both empowered and weakened by them, about how the masks we all wear to protect us also warp us -- and our world at large.

I will NOT attempt to summarize the story because I don't want to ruin the pleasure of watching Watchmen but the last few episodes are some of the best TV I've ever seen.

So, you might ask, what does this show have to do with NYC? Well, at the heart of the Watchmen series is the after affects of what happened to American after NYC suffered a giant squid attack in 1985. This attack was masterminded by an evil genius who was actually trying to bring about world peace (he did -- but it's complicated). And the most recent episode centered around a young black police officer in 1930's NYC who, unknowingly, founded the Watchmen. It's an incredible, beautifully told story. 

I can't recommend this show enough!

Bloomberg Officially Running for President

Coney Island & Fifth Avenue Immortal

There are no two worlds in NYC as different from each other as Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and Coney Island out in Brooklyn. And yet they reflect and compliment each other in great ways. 

One is the epicenter of business, advertising, glamour, elegance, and wealth. The other is the epicenter of wildness and fun. People go to Fifth Avenue to work and revel in the elegance of NYC. People go to Coney Island to let loose in the craziness of NYC.

That's why I loved seeing these two articles about 5th Avenue and Coney Island past. One is an article about a new collection of pictures of 5th Avenue from the 1960s -- one where the men and women are dressed very formally in Mad Men-esque attire. The other is an article from the 1970s about a gang member in Coney Island who's trying to go straight, living in the shadow and danger of the Boardwalk, a world unto itself. 

Then, of course, there are the famous events that takes place in both locales each year -- the Easter Parade on 5th Avenue and its famous bonnets and Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on the 4th of July. Two great, totally different, NYC experiences.

Heck, 5th Avenue and Coney Island are so iconic that there are even great songs about them! Lou Reed's classic "Coney Island Steeplechase" and Irving Berlin's Easter Parade. 

NYC is forever complimenting itself, a ying and yang all its own.

Studio 360 New York Icons

The great cultural radio show Studio 360 (hosted by Mr NYC interviewee Kurt Anderson) has a recurring segment called American Icons that reviews important works from our nation's culture. These include things like the classic novels The Great Gatsby and Moby Dick, special moments like Jimmy Hendrix's performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, the Harley Davidson motorcycle, even the old TV soap Dallas. The segments look at why these various creations, from different points in American history and in radically different art forms, made a lasting impact on not only American culture but also the American psyche. These American Icon segments are some of my favorite things to listen to.

But wait, 'dere's more!

Recently Studio 360 launched a new New York Icons series that does the same thing for distinctly NYC-centric works. So far: the classic salsa album Siembra, Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar", and the musical West Side Story. There are lots of classic movies and books and shows that could qualify as New York Icons, as well as moments like 1951 "Shot Heard 'Round the World", or Mayor LaGuardia reading the comics on WNYC radio, or Studio 54.

The possibilities are endless.

May I make one suggestion to the creators of the New York Icons series? Maybe you should include blogs. And, if you're including blogs, maybe you could include, oh, I don't know, Mr NYC!

In Search of Exiles

One-hundred years ago tonight Prince Edward of the United Kingdom was honored with a big dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. He was concluding a long North American tour, previously visiting Canada and Washington DC, and was closing it out in grand style in NYC. At this moment in time, Edward was at the center of the world -- the handsome young star of the royal family, icon of the British Empire, and a future King. The world genuflected to him, he was beloved and  feted everywhere he went -- and it was impossible to imagine on this night 100 years ago that, less than 20 years later, he would become one of the most famous exiles in history.

1919 was a turning point in world history -- a year after the end of the War to End All Wars, WWI,  known then as the Great War. The world was putting itself back to together, trying to pick up the spiritual and literal rubble of the most useless, insane act of violence in world history. The culture was changing too, casting off the crusty old world Edwardian culture and embracing the world of Dadaism and post-structuralism. This brilliant podcast from WNYC is all about how the "shell shock" of the war changed the culture of the world forever.

As for Edward himself, he would return to the Waldorf many years after 1919. He had abdicated the throne, a fallen man, exiled from his country and family, shacking up with his twice-divorced American wife, uninvited to his niece's wedding and coronation. In the new season of The Crown, Edward is shown at the end of his life in 1972, still showing a great, almost masochistic love for the family and monarchy that had doomed him into exile. (Right now, 100 years later, that niece, Queen Elizabeth II, would surely love to exile her son Prince Andrew after his bizarre TV interview where he spoke, badly, about his friendship with the late NYC financier/predator Jeffrey Epstein. While he probably won't be forced into literal exile like Edward was, Andrew probably will be in a kind of functional exile from now on. He shamed himself, and now his family and his country want little to do with him. So into the wasteland of exile he goes.)

But exile isn't just for royalty! In the era of #MeToo, any number of formerly prominent men are being exiled from their careers and social lives, banished from their professional circles and polite society. Liked Prince Edward 100 years, they used to exist at the center of things, they were the honored guests in powerful worlds -- only to be cast out, shunned, told to take a physical and reputational hike.

What does it mean to be an exile? To be banished from a place or a group of people? It means, most simply, to occupy a negative space -- not to live but simply to exist in a place far away (literally and otherwise)  from where you want to be. It means your invitation has been rescinded, your credentials revoked, your entry badge confiscated -- you're persona non grata in a place where you were once very ... persona grata. In short: it means you go from being wanted to unwanted.

What's more painful than that?

Here's another great example of a famous exile.

The great NYC journalist Pete Hamill, in late 1974, visited San Clemente, California in search of Richard Nixon. Two years earlier Nixon had won the biggest landslide in American presidential history -- he carried 49 states! -- and was as popular and powerful as any president had ever been. Nixon strode the world stage like a colossus, opening diplomatic relations with China, limiting nuclear weapons with the Soviet Union, and winding down the war in Vietnam. And then ... in 1973 and 1974, the Watergate scandal consumed him, forcing him to resign in August 1974 and into exile in California. In this article, Hamill roams around the area near Nixon's home, talking to people there about whether or not they have seen America's most famous exile (they hadn't), wondering about the state of mind of a man who very recently had not only lived in the White House but who also seemed to have the literal world at his feet -- and was now a hermit in a small Southern California town, hidden not only from the world he used to dominate but from his very own neighbors.

Later on Nixon would move to NYC (he died here in 1994), not quite as reviled as he had once been but still an exile from the world -- the political world -- that he had once ruled.

But being exile isn't just an existential state, it's more a state of mind. Being an exile is defined by a never-ending "wanting", a non-stop desire to have or be something you once had or were, now gone and locked away from you. It's defined by the aforementioned negative space, by a perennial emotional and mental sense of absence.

Being an exile is like being a living void, a sort of real-life zombie.  

Right now, there are hearings going on in DC about whether or not Donald Trump, the most vile president in US history, should be impeached. Maybe he will be, maybe he won't. But we can only hope that this modern day monster will be one day become an exile too, banned not only from the White House and political world but from the America's consciousness. Hopefully he will suffer a poitical and reputional fate, a total and complete exile, as bad as the ones Edward VIII and Richard Nixon and many others have suffered.

Three Funny Unrelated NYC Clips

Here are three funny clips that have NOTHING to do with each other except that are tangentially-related by one thing -- NYC -- and, yours truly Mr NYC, love for them.

First funny clip: former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg swallowing his multi-billion dollar pride and announcing that he was wrong to support and implement the totally racist "stop and frisk" policing policy when he was in office. He's been out for almost six years and, I guess, had has time to reflect on this policy since his successor as mayor stopped it and crime has only gone down since then. What makes this funny, besides seeing a super rich and powerful guy publicly eat crow, is that he's only doing it now since he's running for president. It's an expedient coming to Jesus moment for an otherwise stubborn man. Funny!

Next funny clip: did you know that the great '90s NYC show Mad About You is coming back? Yes! It's back! Starting on November 20th! NYC's favorite yuppies Paul and Jamie Buchman will return to their living room and invade ours with their amusing hijinks and banter and all-around hilarity. And they're really freakin' old!

I remember watching this show in college when I was living far away from the city and it gave me some much-needed doses of NYC-therapy. It's also the show that made me want to get married and tell my beloved that I was her "houseboy Coco" (okay, that's creepy, I admit, but I was young). I cannot wait to see these new episodes -- just hope they're as good as the originals!

Final funny clip: one of my favorite movies of this year is Dolemite is My Name, the sweet Eddie Murphy-starring biopic of influential '70s comedian Rudy Ray Moore. Mr. Moore's comic alter-ego was a man named Dolemite, a "rappin' and tappin'" pimp who claimed that "Dolemite is my name and fucking up motherfuckers is my game!" In addition to this impressive skill, he could also "handcuff lightening and throw thunder's ass in jail!" so he was quite multi-talented. 

Mr. Moore wasn't just a comedian but he also made a movie about Dolemite -- and the biopic is about the making of this movie. Mr. Moore had a strict criteria for what made a great movie: comedy, kung fu, and "bitches", and the original Dolemite had all three.

Anyway, in the early 1990's, Rudy Ray Moore, as Dolemite, did a brilliant rap contest with the highly popular NYC rapper Big Daddy Kane. It became known as "Dolemite vs. Big Daddy Kane" and it is easily one of the funniest, wildest, dare I say most poetic things I've ever heard. In this rap, which you must listen to, Dolemite states that he does not take a back seat to any rapper and he informs Mr. Daddy Kane, that "when it comes down to rappin', I was through with it before you learned what to do with it!" He then talks more about performing various feats of impossible physical bravery as well as how he likes to ride "up and down in" a woman's private area and make it "weaker" and "deeper." Lovely #MeToo era stuff. Anyway, listen and laugh! 

Ray Donovan is Back!

New York City's favorite private investigator/henchman/all-around badass transplanted from Boston-by-way-of-Los Angeles is back! Can't wait!

Hear from the great man himself talk about how he brings this new NYC icon to life:

Interview: Margo D. of the Brooklyn Fit Chick Blog/Podcasts

As a pop culture junkie, a podcasting junkie, and an NYC junkie, it was a thrill to discover the Brooklyn Fit Chick blog. This imaginative, dynamic site houses not one, not two, but count 'em five (!) podcasts that cover the gamut of popular culture -- everything from tawdry reality shows, to  great music, to classic films, and, as the monicker implies, fitness (which she also teaches).

Fitness is perhaps the only thing I'm not a junkie about although my New Year's resolution will be to become one!  

Teaching fitness and producing five podcasts certainly requires a lot of energy, and Margo D aka. the Brooklyn Fit Chick has more of it than most. She even had enough energy to answer a few questions for Mr NYC readers where she talks about her podcasts, feminism, pop culture, and, naturally, fitness.

Before I ask anything else, why do call your blog the Brooklyn Fit Chick -- and what makes you or anyone else a Fit Bottomed Girl?

I entered the Blogging world ten years ago just to have a hobby from working all of the time. I wanted to talk about health and fitness which I did for years. Now I concentrate more on pop culture. A Fit Bottomed Girl is more of a taste of mind than a physical designation. You seek to be fit in mind, body, and spirit. Because Fit Bottoms come in all shapes and sizes!

Tell us quickly about the different podcasts you host, and what inspired their creation?

I met my "Book Vs Movie" co-host Margo P. at a fitness convention five years ago. We were both fitness Bloggers at the time. She had her own podcast at the time and would have me on as an occasional guest. One time, we spent most of the show talking about the book movie of Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil. I just came up with the idea for a show "Book Vs Movie" on the spot. It's now my longest-running show! I'm really proud of how we have grown!

Other shows?

I was a writer for years for the Fit Bottomed Girls site and pitched them the idea to create a podcast about 3 years ago and happily, they said yes! We have over 150 episodes and our content is super inclusive and welcoming. I'm really proud of it. Since then I have helped create other shows including "The Best Neighbors Podcast" which is a pop culture show with my neighbor Erin. (We also dish about reality TV!) "Not Fade Away" is a music show I occasionally attend. The "Dorking Out" show and "What a Creep" I co-host with my friend Sonia. I'm very busy creating them! It's my form of self-expression.

You really seem to love the highs and lows of popular culture -- great movies and music, "guilty pleasures", trashy reality shows -- and getting into the stories behind them. Do you consider yourself a cross-cultural connoisseur?

Yes! I spent a couple of years at Lucky magazine which combined high and low brands for fashion. I feel the same way about music, books, and movies. I kind of love (and hate!) a little bit of everything. I intensely dislike people who claim to hate reading as much as those who have a snobbish attitude about culture.

Your blog focuses a lot, but not exclusively, on female-oriented pop culture. Would you call your blog a feminist blog?

I identify as feminist but my Blog is not about politics. I do call out misogyny and sexism when I see it. But I also love trashy shows like the Bravo Real Housewives. Feminism is not a fringe group!

In addition to all your podcasts, you also teach fitness. As a very lazy person, what's a good workout routine to get back into shape?

Honestly, try to get a good walking routine going if you can manage that. I hurt my ankle last year and had to cut back which was the worst! As a New Yorker, I love walking. The YMCA is an inexpensive option for a gym and they have some great classes. My best advice is to try different workouts until you find something that resonates with you.

What makes a great workout playlist and what are some of your favorites?

I find mixing up different genres of music to be the best option when you have a variety of ages in your classes. In my heart, 90s music will always be my favorite but it can sound "old" to twenty somethings and younger. I try to listen to current music as much as I can and Spotify offers some great suggestions. On my playlists, you will often find Foo Fighters, Lizzo, Pink, Metric, and Rhianna!

What's your favorite thing about Brooklyn and New York City?

The people! New Yorkers are super fun and have a great attitude about life. I love the culture and history here. New Yorker is a wonderful mix of high and low brow entertainment and fashion. The best restaurants are only a subway ride away. What is better than that?

Thanks Margo!

Jeers & Cheers

A churro vendor getting busted in the subway? Jeers! 

People shouting "Lock him up!" in Donald Trump's face? Cheers!

City of Power

So former Mayor Mike Bloomberg is running for president and just about everyone in the media  and public at large thinks he has no chance of winning. He probably doesn't except for one thing -- he's so mind-bogglingly rich, worth around $60 billion, that he can definitely make an impact on the election -- win, lose or draw.

Bloomberg has the kind of power that no elected office can give.

No mayor of NYC has ever become president. It's kind of amazing to think that being the CEO of the country's biggest city has never been a stepping stone to being the CEO of the country. The current British PM used to be the mayor of London. Former French Presidents have been mayors of Paris. But in these United States we have (until recently) mostly elected Governors and Senators to the presidency. Running a big city -- even the biggest! -- just hasn't been a route to the Oval Office.

If you think about it, there's a reason for this -- this is a country that worships the "heartland", the Norman Rockwell-ish concept of the "small town" (never mind that most Americans don't live in small towns and Norman Rockwell himself was from NYC). Americans like the idea of their presidents representing the "real America." One of our Founding Fathers, and our nation's third President, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, lionized the idea of America being full of "gentlemen farmers", his idea of the rural life being inherently superior to the urban one -- the country was for saints, the city for sinners. The "real" Americans, the saintly Americans, were too be found tilling the soil and plowing fields, not engaging in trade and making money in the streets. 

In NYC, we know what people mean by the "real America" -- it means white America. Racism is basically why no NYC mayor has ever been president.

For most Americans, cities are too Jewish, too black, too Hispanic, overall too brown and swarthy, to be, you know, "real." Any NYC mayor running for president carries that kind of "baggage" -- the baggage of being from a place that is majority non-white, that is decidedly non-rural, that has a whiff of sin and sordidness, etc. etc. etc. Even though the current Prez might be from NYC, he presents himself as being a champion of the heartland, a virtual enemy of the very city where he made his name. Yes, he's as big a sinner as this city has ever produced but he's white and a self-proclaimed champion of all white people, sinner and saints alike -- so the "real" America gives him a pass.

But even though NYC is not the nation's capital, even though no NYC mayor has ever ascended to the presidency, this is and always will be a city of power -- financial power, cultural power, media power, and people power. DC might make and enforce our nation's laws but it's NYC that makes our country's magic, that captures and powers the country's information and imagination -- and money. 

We New Yorkers love our power. We love our comic-book superheroes and supervillians like Spiderman and the Joker. And we love the power behind the power, people like Robert Moses, currently being resurrected as a fictional character in the movie version of Motherless Brooklyn.

NYC is a city of power. 

We might not be the "real" America but we possess the "real" American power -- power that comes not from the government but from the imagination, power that comes from money and not from laws, power that comes from culture and not from elections. We are the most important and dominate city in the country, and we weild a power over the vox populi that no president ever will. 

Is Mr NYC Rude Enough?

These days, thanks to the Internet, newstands don't sell that many newspapers anymore, they're mainly just places to get soda, gum, candy, or water. But when I was a kid, on the streets of NYC, there were myriad newstands bursting with piles and piles of the big daily periodicals, practically falling onto the  sidewalks -- The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post, Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today. There were even foreign-language newspapers -- Chinese, Russian, Arabic. This is where you went to buy "serious" papers for "serious news" but, if you wanted to read something that spit in the face of serious news and contained articles that were unapologetically nasty and controversial, you could, for free, get the "alt-weekly" like the Village Voice or New York Press in the single-standing kiosks on the streets.

Then the Internet came along and the alt-weeklies went into sharp decline as the "alt-press" went online. The most infamous of these online "rude" new sites was Gawker followed by other such sites as Vice, Deadspin, and others. For them, no one and nothing was precious, they didn't play the "inside game" of mainstream news reporting, they published the real dirt on politicians and celebrities, their "news" content was unabashedly voyeuristic, trashy, and mean. And, of course, there were blogs, where ordinary schmoes like yours truly could type away with giddy abandonment, being as rude and insulting to anyone and everyone as they wished.

But now these online sites are vanishing, either through declining readership, mismanagement, or lawsuits. And, according to some, so are blogs -- because social media rules our world now and is where all the "rude" content now lives, blogs have become passe, they are a relic of the mid-2000s. Blogs, apparently, aren't rude enough to exist.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

That got me thinking. Would this blog get more traffic, get more hits, be more popular, even get some kind of media attention, if it was really really mean? If, instead blogging about the spirit and psyche of this town, I "went medieval" of people and said nasty stuff about them and just became, quite frankly, another digital prick? Or, as Mick Jagger might croon: "Ain't I hot enough? Ain't I rough enough? Ain't I rich enough?"

Well, I can answer the last one - I ain't rich enough but, for the last two, I'll let you, the dear readers, to decide.

Barney's RIP

Barney's is closing -- the iconic if overpriced department store that, like so much retail, has become a victim of online shopping and outdated business models.

And yet another piece of the NYC soul dies.

The Joker Stairs in Da' Bronx

I have not yet seen the Joker: Origin movie and probably won't until it pops up on cable -- but it's  done quite well without my help, becoming one of the highest grossing movies ever. And this movie's done something even more impressive -- it's turned the Bronx into a major tourist site.

At one point in the movie, as the man who becomes Joker descends into madness and evil, he crazily dances down a steep, very long staircase. This scene was shot in the quiet Bronx neighborhood of Highbridge, near Jerome Avenue. It's about as far from the glamour of NYC and Hollywood as possible, it's about as far from being a tourist destination as one can imagine but, since the movie's release last month, people from around the world have been flocking to this staircase, filming themselves dancing down these now iconic steps, making Jokers out of themselves. The residents of this neighborhood are seeing a daily influx of people happily making fools of themselves, clogging up the staircase and the block its on, all in attempt to recreate cinematic glory.

Why has this happened? Why has this scene and these steps suddenly become such a cultural phenomenon that people are going far out of their way to schlep to the Bronx, find this previously anonymous staircase, and record themselves dancing down it? It must possess some kind of magic, a kind of X factor, a je ne sais quoi, that only the movies can create.

Guess I gotta see the movie!

Trump Leaves NYC for Florida

And New Yorkers rejoice! 

May he never, ever return!