Interview: Hyapatia Lee - Writer, Musician, Author, Broadcaster, Adult Star & Activist

As a young man in NYC, I would sometimes watch The Robyn Bird Show on late night cable TV. The bubbly host would introduce various adult entertainers who would dance to popular songs, and later on Robyn would interview them about their lives and careers. Twenty-odd years later, I can't remember most of the people who appeared on that show but I remember one very well -- Hyapatia Lee.

To say she was "hot" is an understatement -- her beauty, her sexiness, and her attitude were stunning. She blazed out of the screen. She was a fireball of female power. She was celestial.

And smart! She was well-spoken, funny, and confident. I also noticed that she wore a Native American necklace, and spoke proudly of her Cherokee heritage. As someone young and impressionable, still learning about women and sex, I was mesmerized by this multi-dimensional woman. 

Years later I heard a fantastic interview with Hyapatia on the Rialto Report and learned more about her amazing and often challenging life. She had long ago left the adult business and migrated to grow legal pot in Colorado. Then, much more recently, I found her on Twitter, and she became even more fascinating -- it turns out that she is a Native American activist, author, and broadcaster, as well as a mental health specialist. Hyapatia Lee has lived many lives, done many things, and overcome a lot. So it was a great honor to have Hyapatia politely respond to my request for an interview and tell us more!

You seem to have lived many eventful lives – adult star, pot grower, Native American rights activist/author, and mental health advocate. If you can, what made you want to live these different lives and are there any others that I’m missing? 

I believe we are all multi-faceted individuals. It's not uncommon for people to have multiple interests in life. I also produce, direct, and edit my NATIVE STRENGTH TV show that's seen on ROKU, Amazon, and multiple stations across the country, as well as on my YouTube channel. In addition, I write and record my own music. I started The Lee Studios three years ago. There are plans for movies as well.

I want to live life to the fullest. I want to explore all of the activities that interest me. I also want to keep the Native American culture alive. I just want to enjoy my life. 

You are a woman of proud Cherokee heritage and have incorporated your identity into every aspect of your life (even your adult work). What would you like white and all other Americans to understand about the Native American experience and identity? 

I think most people, even many Native Americans, are unaware of the rich cultural contributions of Natives of this hemisphere. Some people may be aware of the vast culinary contributions, but the majority of our common wisdom has been destroyed by the colonizers and was carefully guarded by the elders. It's time to bring this out in the open and share some of it.

What are the special challenges of being a Native American woman?

The challenge of being any Native American first and foremost is to be recognized for who we are. Most people see us as white or Hispanic. They don't even recognize us when looking right at us! My people have been told to go back to their own country. As a woman, we have the challenge of proving ourselves to be equal and worthy. This is exacerbated by the hypersexualization of Native Women. Being Native or natural doesn't mean being sexually promiscuous. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is an epidemic most often perpetuated by oil pipeline construction workers who camp near reservations. So the biggest challenge for any Native American woman is to simply stay alive.

You’ve always been known as Hyapatia Lee. How did you come up with this name, and what does it mean to you today?

I suppose today it just is "me, a name I call myself." To quote The Sound of Music. LOL. 

Do you still live and grow pot in Colorado?

Yes, I do. With my health condition, cannabis is necessary to sustain life.

I first saw you dancing and being interviewed on The Robyn Bird Show cable television in the 1990s. What are your memories of appearing on that show, of Robyn, and did anything fun happen behind the scenes?

I loved being on The Robyn Bird Show. She was very sweet and professional. When most people ask if anything fun happened behind the set, they are referring to something sexual. Nothing sexual happened on the set of the show. It was professional.

What were your memories of visiting New York City back then? Did you like the city and spend a lot of time here?

I was surprised to spend three months in New York City the first time I was booked there for the opening of my first movie. I did dance shows in between the showings. The shows were sold out. I was only supposed to be there for one week.

You are a woman of great beauty and became famous for it, but your intelligence and spirit has sustained and brought you into different paths in life. What is it like to go from being an object of desire to a person who wants to educate and heal the spirits of others?

Personally, I am a bit dumbfounded. I never considered myself to be a "great beauty." I wrote a dozen of my movies and did the music for Body Girls and wrote an advice column for Cherri for five years. So to me, I have been using my intelligence all along. I guess people are just starting to notice now. I am very grateful. I considered my work in adult entertainment to be trying to heal the spirits of others. My movie Let's Get Physical was about ED caused by a man losing his job as an esteemed dancer after a tragic accident. But no one seemed to notice that, I guess. Sometimes I think some people become blinded by sexuality and entirely lose the message. What were the best and worst parts of being an adult star back in the 1980s and 90s? The best part was being able to write my own movies and being able to spend the vast majority of my time dancing on the road. Was it fun or more work than fun? Dancing was fun. Travel was fun. Writing movies was fun. 

Do you miss it at all?

I do not miss it at all, particularly the sex part. I did not particularly enjoy that part. That was the hardest part for me. I had to emotionally work myself up for a scene. It was a difficult challenge. I much preferred to shoot dialogue, coming from a stage acting background.

Would you ever go back?

I would never go back, not for anything in the world. Never.

Tell us something about Hyapatia Lee that we don’t know, and what are your hopes for the future? 

I have hypopituitarism, end-stage. My fears for the future revolve around the world left to my grandkids.

Anything else you’d like to tell us?

Hypopituitarism is a complicated, deadly condition caused by blood loss and other conditions. It means the pituitary gland has died. That's the master gland. That means I produce no hormones. So this gives me a unique look at life. I see what emotions all the hormones cause. It's also deadly and I'm allergic to the steroid I have to take for the adrenal insufficiency hypopituitarism causes. They make my throat swell shut and I can't breathe. Steroids are needed to bind with glucocorticoid receptors in every cell of the body, particularly the brain, or we die. THC also binds with these receptors and it helps, but it's not enough to keep me alive. Here is my GoFundMe link. This was set up by a dear friend of mine. 

Thanks Hyapatia! All the best to you and your health, your work, and your future in 2020 and well beyond. Good luck! 

Imus Is Dead

Since we're coming off Christmas, I shall adapt a line from A Christmas Carol: "Imus was dead. Dead as a doornail."

Don Imus was a morning radio host in NYC, a so-called "shock jock", for almost 50 years. As I've blogged about before, he was awful on the air and apparently in life too. His ratings were bad. His health was bad. His humor was really bad -- offensive without being thought-provoking, hateful just for the sake of it, childish in its sophistication, a classic example of a privileged rich white man who punched down from a position of safety, an overgrown school-yard bully.

He was often compared to, and was a rival to, Howard Stern. But whereas Howard was and is a brilliant social satirist, a person whose words and humor always have a greater point, a man who makes fun of himself more than anyone else, Imus was empty, mean-spirited Id, attacking wildly and wantonly at anyone weaker than him. 

Just awful.

That said, in a perverse way, one has to admire his life and career, not for quality but quantity. Despite his lack of talent and ratings, despite his addiction problems and stormy personal life, despite the fact that everyone hated him, he managed -- someway, somehow -- to stay on the air in morning radio in NYC for nearly half a century.

That is incredible just unto itself.

As I age, I realize that the greatest achievement in life isn't money or fame or any of the classic monikers of success -- it's just being able to survive, holding on, going on, keeping on, living and then living some more, working and then working some more, and on and on and on. Someday, of course, careers and lives will end -- as they did for Imus -- but he managed to muddle through much longer than either his talent, ratings, or health would have otherwise predicted.

We should all be so lucky. 

Imus is, to me, a dual role model -- the kind of person I don't ever want to be (he was a bad guy and I wanna be a good guy) but also the kind of person I desperately want to be -- a survivor who keeps going until the bitter end.

Mr NYC Reviews the 20-Teens

Hard as it is to believe but, as the minutes tick down towards the end of the year, the second decade of the 21st century is ending and the third is about to begin. This very blog will also enter its third decade which, if you don't mind me saying, is something of an achievement.

So what happened in NYC during this past decade, the twenty-teens?

A bunch of stuff, some great, some awful. The New York Times has an interesting list of developments in NYC in the 20-teens that includes the following: the growth of ferry service around the city (good), the dramatic decline of retail stores and the preponderance of empty storefronts (bad), the phenomena of Hamilton that made Broadway relevant again (good), the rise of cashless businesses (neither good nor bad, just reality), the growth of massively tall, skyline-ruining "needle" buildings (bad), universal pre-K (great!), and others. 

One thing this list also includes is the sale of the Chrysler Building for $150 million after previously selling for $800 million. It's truly bizarre that a huge NYC iconic building could sell for less than the most expensive apartments in town and lots of other big name buildings. The reason? It's very old and has tons of structural problems, dramatically decreasing the value. This tracks another big-name purchase that was sold for way less money than one would expect -- the radio station WABC, which was sold for only $12.5, much much much much less than most buildings or apartments in this city. The reason? Very low ratings with an ossified, dying listenership, and practically zero growth potential in the age of podcasts and the Internet. The Chrysler Building and WABC, once mighty NYC institutions, were victims of the changes of this decade.

Another big-time radio station in NYC that wasn't just sold but vanished altogether was WPLJ, where I used to intern, another demographic/technology victim.

One thing about NYC in the 20-teens is that TV about this great city was better than ever: Mad Men, 30 Rock, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and many others reflected the wild lifes and times, both past and present, of this town. 

New York City also lost of number of icons, some from death, some from infamy: Ed Koch, Lou Reed, Al Goldstein, and Stan Brooks all died during this decade, representatives, in their very different ways, of this city during the era I call "funky town." Of course, some other NYC icons are still alive but have fallen dramatically from grace: Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, Louis CK, and Charlie Rose all began the decade in great positions of power NYC only to end it in disgrace and irrelevance. 

The city also saw some physical transformations: Long Island City went from being a real estate desert to a real estate oasis. Hudson Yards opened, creating a brand new neighborhood in the heart of Manhattan. Pedestrian plazas and bike sharing exploded, literally changing the experience of the city streets. 

There were obviously political transformations: Occupy Wall Street (2001), a new mayor (2013), AOC and the Democratic takeover of the State Senate (largely due to elections in NYC in 2018), and naturally, a New Yorker was elected President of the United States but, instead of being a great thing, it was a national tragedy (2016). 

Sports: the Giants won the Superbowl (2012), and anyone remember "Linsanity" (also 2012)?

As always, a lot happened in NYC during the 20-teens -- some things historic, some things just moments in time. I have no doubt that NYC in the 2020s will be equally, if not more, memorable.

P.S. A couple of non end-of-the decade related stories you might find interesting: one is an obituary for an acclaimed activist-artist and another is a long story about how Robert Moses, in a rare feat of true public service, made the Met into the true "people's museum", marrying elite art with the masses, that it is today.

Eddie Murphy Returns to SNL for the First Time in 35 Years

Remembering Mercedes de Acosta

Many years ago Howard Stern was interviewing movie icon Warren Beatty and got right to the point: "You make great movies," the King of All Media told the legendary Hollywood actor/director/Lothario, "if you didn't bang all those broads ... we'd talk about the movies, but the broads get in the way." (Then Stern told Beatty something about smelling his hand and the interview was over.)

Howard spoke the truth.

No matter how great a film icon Mr. Beatty is, no matter how many great movies he's directed and starred in, he'll best be remembered for his other great "productions": Natalie Wood, Joan Collins, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Madonna, and many others. 

So was the case of Mercedes de Acosta.

Born in NYC in 1893 to affluent Cuban immigrants, Mercedes was a playwright, poet, and novelist. Her career trajectory was a little less Warren Beatty and a little more Llewyn Davis -- professionally, she was a failure, her work forgotten, her career unsuccessful. But she's remembered nonetheless. Why? Well, personally, she had some very successful "productions": Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, and many others.

Even though she married a man, Mercedes was a notorious, unashamed lesbian at a time when this could literally land you in jail. She made lovemaking into an art form, her skills became as legendary as any movie or work of literature. Most of all, she had a boundless, rapacious spirit. Mercedes was someone the world wanted to classify one way -- a boring married lady who did nothing -- and she refused to stay in her lane. Instead, she travelled the world, wrote prolifically, and seduced many women. She's probably best remembered for the quote: "I can get any woman away from any man." 

Fearless! 

Mercedes lived the life she wanted, even if it didn't always bring her happiness. (Maybe the "broads" got in the way of her having a more successful career but, honestly, I'd rather be remembered for "productions" like Mercedes de Acosta and Warren Beatty than any play or movie.) Sadly, Mercedes died in poverty in 1968, taking her legendary skills into the afterlife. In many ways, her life was sad but she was brave, she was courageous, and -- if sometimes a little fearless and irresponsible -- she lived her truth until the end.

How many of us can say that?

As Seen on Northern Boulevard

Snow Squall in NYC

Memo from NYC

After last night's historic impeachment vote of Donald Trump -- his greatest presidential achievement and the only thing he's ever really earned on his own -- many pundits are wondering about the political ramifications of it. Specifically, there seems to be a consensus, based on absolutely no evidence, that this will "backfire" on the Democrats and that Republicans will benefit in their efforts to keep him in office.

Yeah, sure, okay.

Obviously it's impossible to predict how impeachment will play politically leading up to next year's presidential election but, so far, the evidence is not side of this idiotic consensus. Last month there was elections for Governor in Kentucky and Louisiana, deeply Republican states, and the Democrats won. In Virginia, the Democrats won control of the statehouse for first time in thirty years. Democrats also swept local elections in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Missouri, all states Trump won in 2916, many of them for offices that Republicans had held for years and years. So, thus far, the evidence is that not only is Trump 100% guilty of impeachable offenses but also that he is hurting his Republican party badly at the ballot box.

But pundits don't let reality get in the way of a good "narrative", of a popular meme.

Here in New York, there are a few closely-watched congressional races that the pundits think might be affected by impeachment. What's so interesting about observations like this one, is the utter moral bankruptcy. There's no belief that doing the right thing, the noble thing, the courageous thing is good -- it's all about political positioning, etc. 

And this is the greater evil that faces our country right now -- not just a bad, corrupt man in the Oval Office but a media and political class that has no decency, no sense of right and wrong, no sense of the great American experiment's Constitutional moral imperatives, just "Who's gonna win?" This corruption in the American power structure goes beyond this president or the next election and it won't end with the impeachment trial or the next election.

It will only end until we the people make the media and the political class pay with their jobs, their money, and their power. We have the power. Let's use it!   

NYC Rallies for Impeachment

Memories of Moondog

New York City is replete with "characters", oddballs and others, who become semi-famous, sometimes notorious, in the city for their work or their "shtick" (often both). Think Al Goldstein. Think the Naked Cowboy. Think Rudy Giuliani. (Mr NYC is, perhaps, an aspiring NYC character, albeit a digital one.)

Then there was Moondog

For many years, until 1974 when he moved to Berlin, a man in a viking helmet, adorned with a cape and holding a spear, could be found standing on 52nd street and 6th Avenue on most days. Just standing there, quietly, stoically gazing at the passing throng -- although sometimes he sang and read poetry. Most people thought he was some kind of weirdo (he was!) but he was so much more than that -- the man, who became popularly known as Moondog, was an accomplished musician who wrote symphonies and songs, and who toured and appeared on the radio and television to play his music. Even more impressive, he invented actual instruments, odd contraptions that made nontraditional sounds, and that included synthesizing the sounds of the city streets. 

A transplant from Kansas, a true Renaissance journeyman, NYC was one of Moondog's many haunts. Sadly he left the city before my time and died in 1999, but a new re-issue of his work his bringing Moondog back into the public consciousness, reviving memories of the talented oddball Nordic hero of 6th Avenue, and keeping his legacy alive.

Harvey Speaks!

Fallen movie producer Harvey Weinstein recently gave an interview where he says that he can't possibly be that bad a rapist because he helped further the career of a lot of actresses and female directors. Also, he's now using a walker because he messed up his back in a car accident. 

Poor Harvey!

This is something that rich and powerful people can do (or at least try to do) that most common people can't: they can do horrible, evil things -- commit crimes even! -- and then use their money and power to launder their reputations. For example, for all of the raping Harvey did, he raised money for AIDS research and gave lots of aspiring people in the movie business career breaks. We see billionaires, like the Koch Brothers, whose companies pollute the environment and undermine the social safety net but they also give lots of money to cancer research and arts organization. I remember, back around 2002/2003, when the Enron scandal was a big story, many of the executives involved pleaded for lenient because their money and wives for adult literacy. 

This is what's wrong with our whole economic and social system: the rich and powerful can evade serious consequences because they can buy the best legal services and bribe the right people. They can use the media to rehabilitate their image. They can twist everything around to their advantage.

And the rest of us? Who cares?

The Amazon of NYC

Late last year, and earlier this year, NYC was roiled by the proposed Amazon headquarters for Long Island City that would potentially create thousands of job -- but only if the city and state agreed to tax breaks and virtually no oversight. Amazon balked and pulled the plug on the plan, leading to pundits and others bleating about how opponents to the plan had cost the city jobs, the city was becoming unfriendly to business, blah blah blah.

Oh wait.

Amazon just announced that they are still coming to NYC -- this time to Hudson Yards. And they're doing it without demanding tax breaks or any other give-aways or corporate welfare! 

See, Amazon was always planning to come to NYC. The idea that they were doing the city some big favor by opening a headquarters here and needed favors to do so just exposes what a shakedown their original proposal was.

This just proves that you should never give into bullies, never submit to their pressure, because, when you fight back, you prove just how weak they are.  

Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It" Joins the National Film Registry

So was "Clerks" which was released 25 -- not 37! -- years ago. 

Staten Island Silliness

One of the things I've noticed about the Republican Party is that, whenever they lose elections, they want to re-write the rules or re-shape the contours of the electorate. It's not enough for them just to accept defeat and try to win next time -- oh no, they shout "VOTER FRAUD!", try to rig the game, unlevel the playing field (cheat, basically) to gain a seemingly permanent advantage.

Hence the GOP has given us things like voter suppression laws and outrageous campaign finance regulations and extreme gerrymandering of political districts. I remember back in the early 1990s when the Democrats controlled Congress and most state legislatures, Republicans yelled and screamed about the virtue of term limits until they got control of Congress and most state legislatures and suddenly shut up about term limits. 

What a coincidence!

Being a Republican means being a full-time hypocrite and liar as well as conveniently forgetting things when they stop being useful (i.e. a Democratic President having an affair is bad but a Republican President paying hush money to an adult film star to cover up an affair is good). 

Locally this GOP-inspired silliness has led the only Republican dominated borough in NYC, Staten Island, to consider actually seceding from the city. They don't like living in a city dominated by Democrats, they're sick of losing and being out of power, so they want to set up shop on their own. I remember (also back in the early 1990s) the secession movement was such a big thing in Staten Island that there was actually a referendum vote to make it happen -- until it ran in to the teeth of the law. Then Rudy became mayor and the Staten Island secession movement died.

Now it's back! 

Republican members of the state legislature and city council are initiating "studies" and drafting laws that would make it possible for Staten Island to seceded and, in some cases, join into a bizarre, illogical, never-tried-before political alliance with upstate New York. These proposals will obviously go nowhere soon in Democratically-controlled New York but the fact that Republicans here are even toying with dumb ideas like this shows how they can't help themselves -- when they can't win the game they try to mess with the referrees, damage the equipment, litter the field. 

In a couple of days, over in the UK, there will be an election that will be about Brexit, the country's attempt to leave the European Union. This Brexit thing has been going on for three years, ever since the UK bumbled into this mess via a referendum with no plan, no vision, no idea of what Brexit would actually entail. It has convulsed the country and thrown the country into a complete nightmare -- worse, in many ways, than the nightmare of Trump in this country. Many people in the UK think this election will "Get Brexit Done", that it will resolve the crises they didn't realize would even be a crises to begin with -- but Brexit is such a massive legal and political divorce that it will never, ever end. It's yet another lie, another fantasy being sold by liars. 

And whether it's Trump or Brexit or the silliness of Staten Island secessionists, all of this reminds me of the scene you see in so many movies and TV shows where a married couple gets into a bad fight, one of the spouses quickly packs up a bag and storms out of the house --- only to discover he or she has nowhere to go. It's like the people who quit jobs out of frustration -- only to realize the financial and career abyss they've flung themselves into. It's all a lot of fashionable nihilism, a neat and totally false promise of "If we just leave, if we just quit, if we just overthrow the overlord happiness will ensue." 

It doesn't. It won't. It's all a lot of silliness, a totally false bill of goods.

Just like Staten Island secessionism.  

Best Movie of the Decade: "Inside Llewyn Davis"

As the second decade of the 21st century ticks to a close, lots of 10 Best of the Decade lists are being crafted (Top 10 Best movies, TV shows, albums, tech innovations, etc). And if you're following movies this holiday season, then there's one actor, one mug, you can't escape: Adam Driver, who first appeared on the great NYC-centered show Girls in 2012 and is now starring in one movie after the other (just this fall, he has The Report, Marriage Story, and the next Star Wars movie). 

But back in 2013, he still just "that guy from Girls", and one of his first movies was a small part in the brilliant Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis about a failed folk singer in 1961 Greenwich Village. (The titular character is played by Oscar Isaac who went on to reteam with Driver in the Star Wars flicks.)

I've blogged extensively about this movie, about how subversive and beautiful and dark it is, about how it's a great NYC movie but also how it also stands everything about American movie making on its head. According to many critics, it's one of the best movies of the entire decade -- and it's certainly mine.

There's one scene in the movie that makes it transcend from merely good to truly great (this critic even says its the best scene in any movie in the entire decade): when Llewyn auditions for the music producer Bud Grossman. Everything about the scene is perfect: Llweyn and Grossman sitting across from each other on the vast floor of a nightclub, resembling not a producer and an artist but an interrogator and a hostage or a jailer and a prisoner, chairs stacked on tables in the background, morning sunlight inappropriately sneaking in. There's a sense of foreboding and doom in the entire mise en scene, the darkness that is the folk singer's life drowning out any light of a better future. Hoping to get Grossman to represent and promote his career, Llewyn sings his heart out, giving a moving and deep performance, leaving his entire soul on the shiny and impersonal club floor. When he's done, a quiet moment ensues, Grossman looking at him tentatively, before delivering the devastating verdict, the career death sentence: "I don't see a lot of money here." Grossman gives Llewyn some unhelpful advice about staying out of the sun and joining a trio before Llewyn leaves, his hopes blown out casually and easily like the tiny flames of birthday candles. 

This scene shows the wafer thin line that exists between success and failure, between hope and devastation, between dreams and reality. It demonstrates the capriciousness of life, the chaos we all live in and try to escape. And it does it brutally and unsentimentally but also beautiful. Truly classic.

They Made Our City Better

Two obits this week about New Yorkers who made this city a better place.

First is Jay Kriegel who was a city government phenom before becoming a real estate developer and creator of multiple civic organization. While never an elected official, his list of accomplishments in bettering the life of this city is outstanding. He devoted his whole life to this city, a real NYC superhero.

The second is Rae Rubinstein who, in the 1970s, was a prolific photographer of the downtown arts and rock'n'roll scene -- Andy Warhol, Waylon Jennings, you name, she shot them. Her photos were fantastic and she lovingly recorded a great time in the city's history 

RIP

Did "Cats" Save Broadway?

Nearly 40 years after it debuted on Broadway, the movie version of the musical CATS is scheduled to open soon. The movie trailer debuted over the summer and it's hilariously bad and cheesy, social media having had an understandable field day with it.

But most people probably don't remember the ads for the Broadway CATS back in the '80s.

I remember seeing these commercials all the time as a kid. Whereas the movie trailer is just dopey, the Broadway ads scared the hell out of me. You saw these frightening looking people dressed less like cats and more like feral (I guess Jelickle) bigfoots running around while the Grand Daddy Bigfoot flew across overhead. Then you heard this music that sounded like God or the meshech himself was descending from heaven. It was freaky. Along with ads for Mount Airy Lodge, the Milford Plaza, and 1-800 chat lines, this ad seemed to be on a constant loop and always would be -- "now and forever", you might say.

Anyway, this article makes the case that CATS came along at an uncertain moment in Broadway history and basically saved musical theater as we know it. It was the start of the modern-day "rock operas", the audio/visual extravaganzas that would conquer the Great White Way for the rest of the 20th century (think Les Miz, Starlight Express, Miss Saigon, etc.). Without the mega-success of CATS, we may never had Hamilton. Interesting theory.

Chemical Reactions

I don't usual do a "Throwback Thursday" kind of thing but I guess here's my small contribution to the meme: my grandfather used to work at Chemical Bank. It was a big time bank in NYC and the whole country (in 1996 it was bought and subsumed into Chase Bank, thus vanishing into history).

Anyway, this is an old 1960s commercial for Chemical Bank and, if you ever doubted that the patriarchy exists or wonder why women are so angry, this was the commercial's slogan: "The New York woman. When her needs are financial, her reaction is ... chemical."

Wow! I can only imagine the Mad Men-like white guys with slicked back hair wearing tweed suits and glasses, sitting around a conference table trying to come up with a catchy slogan for this client, and one of the creeps saying, "Guys! Guys! Guys! I got it, I got it! How about this? 'The New York woman. When her needs are financial, her reaction is ... chemical ...'"

"Oh that's good!"

"Yeahhhhhh!"

"I like it!"

"Definately ..."

"I think we got it boys, I think we got it!" 

Now wonder Trump is President.

Met Steps

Recently the wife and I have been watching the true crime docu-series about the 1986 Central Park "preppy murder" of Jennifer Levin by the handsome psychopath Robert Chambers. Like OJ or Lorena Bobbitt, it's been fascinating for us to see a tabloid story from our youth (actually, more like our childhoods) revisited in-depth with a new, more "woke" perspective. 

My main takeaway is this: Jennifer Levin was a great lady whose only flaw was that she was attracted to a total and complete loser who only had his looks and literally nothing else going on his life. If he wasn't handsome, no one would have paid this guy one moment of attention. But he was "hot" and for this reason and no other, chicks dug him. Jennifer dug him. And for that she died. 

What's even scarier for me is that this murder happened just blocks away from where I went to elementary school at the time. And it happened right behind one of my favorite places in the who city -- the Met. 

So it was weird watching this series about this horrible crime that happened behind the Met while reading this cheery story about native New Yorkers and their love for the steps at the Met, a place where lots of New Yorkers and visitors like to hang out, make out, talk, and just generally congregate -- a sort of Washington Square Park North. It's a story of literal darkness and light, beauty and horror, the twin identities of NYC.

I've never spent a lot of time on the Met Steps myself but I used to skateboard around them as a kid -- and I remember my mom telling me once, "Oh, it's a big pick up area." 

Good thing I'm married. And not a handsome psychopath (more like an un-handsome neurotic).

Classic Mr NYC

Last year I did an interview with NYC columnist-novelist Amy Sohn about her career as a writer as well as her thoughts on the #MeToo movement and the evolution of NYC. She's very smart and funny, a real-life Carrie Bradshaw. 

Now Amy can add stand-up comedian to her resume as she wrote about recently in this heart-wrenching column for The New York Times. It appears that she's become a real-life Mrs. Maisel -- a newly single mom, finding a new life on stage. You should read both the interview and the column and learn from someone who's not afaid to face her fears. 

There are 637 Languages in NYC ...

There are 8 million (more like 8.6 million) stories in this city -- so it's probably not surprising that many different languages are spoken here. But it surprised even a supposedly jaded, sophisticated New Yorker like myself that there are over 630 languages spoken within the five boroughs -- more languages than there are countries on Earth.

But it's one thing to read that there are approximately 637 languages spoken in NYC but it's another thing to see where in NYC they are spoken.

And now you can! 

An organization called the Endangered Language Alliance recently published a map that shows exactly where in NYC these six-hundred-something languages are spoken -- over 1000 locations in all. It's a scannable, zoomable PDF map so you can really drill down into different boroughs and neighborhoods to see where these langauges -- some you've probably never heard of like Chavacano in Queens or Hausa in Brooklyn -- are spoken, probably right next door to you. 

Just another amazing fact about this amazing town!

The Scary Grease Jar Monster

Over the weekend, out in Jamaica, Queens, the basements of around 300 homes were flooded by sewage water. According to this report, these people woke up to a foul smell and discovered their basements were pools of wet foulness after several interconnected pipes in the neighborhood failed -- all because some schmuck poured cooking grease down a drain.

For shame! Didn't their mothers teach them anything?

Growing up, whenever my mom cooked anything that produced a lot of grease, she was always very careful to pour it out of the pan and into a big jar. She told me, quite clearly, that you never poured grease down a drain because it could clog up the pipes and create plumbing problems. Since then, I have always poured it into a jar. As we saw out in Queens, mama was right.

Mama taught me well!

That said, I can understand why people cheat and pour it down a drain instead of going the jar route. Once you pour the grease into the jar, especially after you pour several different batches of grease into the same jar, the grease takes on a life of its own. This ... thing ... actually starts to tell a story. Used more than once, the grease starts to form into different geologic layers, different shades of foulness. There's the turkey grease! There's the bacon grease! That was for the pork roast! And so on and for forth. The grease jar is the yucky legacy of several tasty and unhealthy meals, several heart attacks avoided. Still, the grease jar is scary! 

You want to avoid it by all means necessary! 

And as a kid, the grease jar in the kitchen gave me nightmares. I was grossed out but also fascinated by this jar of cooking grease nastiness that would sit in our kitchen like some kind dangerous lab animal. As a kid with a wild imagination who had probably watched too many cartoons, I always imagined that the grease would come to life, blast its way out of the jar, and then eat my family alive. After all, the grease was a menace, it was being imprisoned in this jar because of its threat to the plumbing system so imagine what other horrors it could inflict! If this grease was endangering a whole apartment building's pipes, imagine what neat work it could make of one little boy? The grease would just sit there, quietly mocking me, its threat obvious to me if no one else.

So that, in short, is probably why this moron out in Queens poured it down the drain -- like me, this person was probably afraid of The Scary Grease Jar Monster.

Midge is Back!