Alison Steele @ 25

One of my most popular posts, and one of my personal favorites, is also one of my oldest -- my fall 2007 post about the late great radio DJ Alison Steele, "The Night Bird."

Alison's hypnotic voice, her reassuring words, plus the great music she played, kept insomniac New Yorkers soothed and happy for many years. A bigtime talent in the era of the great radio DJs (the 1960s to '80s, even the early '90s), Alison was one of the few female DJs of the era, and one of the most beloved. She was also an influence on other radio talents, as NPR's Terry Gross has attested.

Alison died 25 years ago on September 27, 1995.

As I wrote earlier, I specifically remembering hanging out in a friend's dorm room during my freshman year of college, browsing the Internet which was still a new fangled contraption at the time that I was getting used to, and seeing this news. The idea of getting news outside of TV or the papers was relatively new, and seeing this post about her death shocked me -- not only was I learning about it in a then-unconventional way, but I had just  been listening to Alison a few months earlier, when I would wake up early to listen to the end of her show, just before Howard Stern hit the air. She was a part of my high school years, of a life that I had just left behind, and her death, in a way, ended that chapter of my childhood. And I was surprised at how sad I was by this, and how I would probably never hear another voice like her's again -- and, after 25 years, I haven't.

You can read my complete Alison Steel coverage here. But you should also check out her original obituary where she was, quite rightly, called a pioneer.

You may be gone, Alison, but never forgotten. Fly on!

NYC Ghosts Redux

Over the years of I've blogged about the ghosts of NYC, and how NYC is and always has been, in some ways, a ghost town.

Recently it's felt like a literal ghost town -- COVID-19 has emptied out the city's streets in ways that were previously unimaginable outside of a horror movie.

But in a city that's always being reborn, constantly changing, evolving, re-imagining itself, a perennial busy body, the relics, the parts of its past that still exist, still endure, are still here -- at least for a while -- reminds us of a previous time, an older city, a different world -- a city that, while mostly gone, isn't as completely gone as people might think. 

Two most additions to the Mr NYC Ghost Canon:

There's the story of a woman who lived in Soho for almost 50 years, supporting herself in odd jobs and selling amateur crafts. She was a regular lady, the kind of middle-class NYC denizen that used to be able to live in Soho no problem, now replaced by the gentrifiers, the uber-wealthy. In 1972 she bought her loft for $15,000 -- and just sold it for $2.4 million. Yes, she's rich now, her loft a goldmine that will fund her later years. But it's gone forever, and all that she has left are the memories of it -- the ghosts of her past and of the city's past. It's amazing that she held out for as long as she did! She's moved out -- but the ghosts will endure. 

Then, there's the Ottoman Empire. NYC is, of course, famous for its immigrant communities, many of which have come to define certain neighborhoods: Greeks and Egyptians in Astoria, Chinese and Italians in Lower Manhattan, Russians in Brighton Beach, Koreans in the East Thirties, Germans and Hungarians on the far Upper East Side, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in East Harlem and the South Bronx, Eastern Europeans in what is now the East Village, the Hasidim and Orthodox Jews in Williamsburg. Turkish immigrants have never had quite such a defined geographical presence in NYC but, as this article points out, the Turkish imprint in NYC is quite strong, the long gone Ottoman Empire still present in NYC -- you just have to know where to look for it and understand its history. 

The number of ghosts in NYC is forever unknowable. 

Desus & Mero: Laying Their Bronx Smack Down for America

There are many late night shows on TV these days, but none is as blunt or as funny as these two cats from the Bronx, laying down smack for the America each night. 

Hey, even fancy people like New Yorker writers and CBS Sunday Morning (below) like them!

Review: "Apropos of Nothing" by Woody Allen

When I heard earlier this year that Woody Allen was publishing a memoir, believe it or not, even though I'm a major fan, I didn't feel inclined to read it. First, at the time, the world and my family were being enveloped by the COVID-19 nightmare, and reading a book like this seemed totally irrelevant. Second, I've read a lot about Woody Allen's career and somehow felt this book wouldn't tell me anything new. Third, I personally dislike the entire genre of autobiography, even by people I admire -- autobiographies are inherently one-sided and sanitized -- and I find them mostly creepy or boring. So I figured that, if I ever did read it, it would be years from now, after the man was deceased.

Then Hurricane Farrow happened.

It turned out that Woody Allen and his estranged son (?) Ronan Farrow had the same publisher -- so Ronan threatened to dump them. Then Ronan's family relaunched their smear campaign against Woody. Then a bunch of employees at the publisher staged a "walk out" in protest of this book and got the publisher to cancel it. Oh yes, this was 21st century "woke" social media censorship at its finest -- and it failed. Another publisher picked up the book and published it. And, as a Woody fan, but also as someone who detests censorship in all its forms, I bought the book -- and read it.

Indeed. I read it -- the book Ronan Farrow doesn't want you to read! The book that set the publishing world ablaze!

So ... what about the book itself?

Eh, it reminds me of why I'm not a huge fan of autobiographies. Parts of the book are very funny but most of it is boring. Woody spends a longgggg time writing about his childhood. He seems to alternatively venerate and loathe his parents. He tells lots of stories about his upbringing that, while mildly amusing, aren't particularly interesting. Nostalgia is either fascinating or dulls, and most of Woody's falls into the latter category. It's amazing, however, to reflect that someone who came from such a humble, poor background, whose parents sound rather hopeless and less than nurturing, rose to such great heights as he did. It wasn't fate or genius -- it was just hard work and a cultivated talent for joke telling.

What's rather strange is that Woody writes about his momentous life and career (from TV writer, to standup comedian, to movie actor, then director and cinematic legend, in addition to his relationships and marriages) in a strangely casual way. It's as though his life was just a bunch of things that happened to him, and who really cares? He seems genuinely unimpressed by himself and his achievements. You get the sense from reading all this that Woody would probably be no more or less happy, no more or less impressed with his life, just be exactly the same kind of person he is if he had turned out to be the druggist his mother wanted him to become -- instead of the cultural icon he turned into.

There's also a lot of diversions in this book -- he'll be writing about something that happened fifty years ago, then quickly move on to something that happened much more recently, then go back to his original memory. It gets rather annoying after a while -- as do many of his not terribly amusing ripostes.

My biggest disappointment with the book is that he spends very little time actually writing about his movies. It's basically, "I made this movie, then this one, then this other one," like he was an assembly-line worker and not a cinematic visionary. Granted, he's made so many movies that a comprehensive account of each one would take up multiple volumes; but there's a lazy quality to how he writes about them -- just a few sentences, maybe a few paragraphs, and that's it. And what he writes about them isn't particularly revealing. Bakers are more excited about their cakes.

And, yes, Woody goes deeply into "la scandale" that has, sadly, often overshadowed his work. I won't recount it here except to say that the amount of evidence and logic he presents to support his innocence is overwhelming. You can't argue with it. You can't deny it. You can't undermine it in anyway. What's bizarre, both to Woody and most of us who believe in, you know, reality, is how many people are willing to believe lies because they make them feel good -- and how willing other people are to become part of another person's sick agenda. Then again, look at the state of our country and you begin understand how logic and reality or so often ... trumped ... by emotion and magical thinking.

My final verdict on this book: read it if you're a major Woody fan but don't if you're not. It confirms what I don't really like about autobiographies but there's some stuff worth reading about -- just not as much as I'd hoped. 

P.S. Ronan is a real asshole -- and, worse, a hypocrite. He abuses his power and clout to exact revenge upon people he hates -- in this case, his estranged, maybe dad. Also, Ronan made his name not only by investigating other people's sex lives but also their abuses of power -- and then he turns around and abuses his own! Right now Ronan is the Golden Boy of the media, and criticisms of him don't stick. But I don't think anyone will look back on his efforts to censor this book as anything less than disgraceful. As Ronan himself has proven, golden halos don't last forever. 

RGB RIP

Sad news for NYC. Sad news for America.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- child of Brooklyn, legal genius, feminist icon -- died on Friday, September 18th, aged 87.

Even if she hadn't spent more than a quarter century on the court (she was confirmed in 1993, after almost 13 years serving on the US Court of Appeals, so almost 40 years total as a federal judge), she would be a legend. Ginsburg blazed a trail as one of the few women graduates of Harvard Law of her era, then became one of the first female tenured law professors at Columbia. In the 1970s she advocated for gender equality in multiple cases before the Supreme Court, winning almost all of them. Then, as a Supreme herself, her votes and decisions on gender equality, gay rights, and other social justice cases helped to make America a somewhat better, somewhat fairer place. She dissented a lot -- such was the make up of the court -- but her voice was always heard. 

And she had a long, happy marriage to her husband Marty, a legal genius himself. I heard a story about Marty and Ross Perot -- after he and Ruth had moved to DC, he became a professor at Georgetown Law. Ol' Ross was have a legal problem and, during one lunch with Marty, Marty solved it for him -- saving the Texas billionaire a lot of money. Ross then endowed a chair for the man at Georgetown. But, in many ways, Marty built his life and career around Ruth, such was his love for her.

I found out about the death of RGB this past Friday evening as I was standing in a deli kiosk at Penn Station. I was holding a strawberry parfait thinking, "I guess I'll buy this and eat it on the train," when the TV above, tuned to CNN, showed "BREAKING NEWS." I've become a little cynical about "BREAKING NEWS" because so little of it is usually news but then I saw them say that RGB was dead -- and my heart dropped. I'll never forget it.

Rest in peace, Ruth. We didn't deserve you, and we were lucky to have you for as long as we did. 

(Some) School Openings Delayed (Again!)

 

Gotta Love New Yorkers

As NYC went into COVID-19 lockdown, every life in the city changed. Some people started working from home (like yours truly) while others lost their jobs and began grappling with the misery of unemployment. Everyone with children had to make accommodations with schools closed. And we became extremely aware of the city's essential workers, especially those in hospitals, keeping NYC and its citizens literally alive.

One of the most overlooked among our essential worker heroes were the meal service workers in our public schools. While children and teachers and maintenance people went home, they stayed and made meals. These meals were then distributed at the schoolhouse doors each day to any New Yorker who wanted one. They literally fed our people every single day -- at 54 million meals and counting, the demand for their work is as essential as anything.

And they've kept at it not only through the virus but also through the brutally hot summer, working in close quarters in hot kitchens for long hours. Their physical and psychological stamina is truly amazing and humbling to behold. The city is lucky to have them.

They keep us alive.  

These meal service workers don't get the same praise or recognition as people who arrest criminals, fight fires, cure sick people, or the like. They don't make movies and TV shows about them, they don't wear cool uniforms, flash badges, or create great drama ("Hands up! Don't move!" "You're not going in there! Oh yes I am!" "Paddles! Stat!"). They just quietly and faithfully nourish and rejuvenate us.

And in filling our bellies, they also fill our souls.

Review: "Casino Royale" (1967)

One of the weirder things to have ever emerged in cinematic culture is the 1967 movie Casino Royale. Produced at the height of James Bond mania, Casino Royale was actually the first Bond novel published by Ian Fleming. However, the producer of the original Bond films, Cubby Broccoli, had lost out on the rights to an eccentric producer named Charles Feldman. Feldman decided to produce the movie as a comic parody, with multiple James Bonds and storylines. It has a huge cast, full of the biggest stars of its era: Peter Sellars! David Niven! Ursala Andress! William Holden! John Huston! Jean-Paul Belmondo! As the villian, Orson Welles!

And so many more!

This is one of those movies where the story behind its making is more interesting than the movie itself. It was made in London during the swinging sixites, and tons of money was spent on it. It took almost six months to shoot. Along with Cleopatra, it's one of the 1960s biggest cinematic boondoggles. Truth be told, it's a long, most unfunny movie, with lots of dumb gags and pointless scenes. Everything about the movie is a mess: the production design, the length (two-and-a-half hours!), six credited directors, nearly a dozen or so credited writers. It reeks of chaos.

So why am I even reviewing it all? 

Well, because Woody Allen is in it -- and he's the only funny thing in the movie. It's clear that he wrote his own dialogue because it's actually funny, unlike everything else in the flick. Believe it or not, he plays the real villian, the true evil mastermind that each Bond film has (the bad-guy-behind-the-bad-guy). In this case, evil mastermind Woody is developing a nefarious plot to kill every man on Earth above 4 foot 6, leaving him as the tallest man alive. This will make it easier, he assume, to get chicks. In fact, at one point, evil mastermind Woody gives an inspiring speech, a speech laying out his vision for the world he seeks to dominate. In this time of a presidential election, no speech is more inspiring than when evil mastermind Woody says:

Think of it! A world free of poverty and pestilence and war! A world where all men are created equal. Where a man, no matter how short, can score with a top broad. Where each man, regardless of race, creed, color, gets free dental work. And a chance, of subscription buying, of all the good things in life.

The last part is true -- through subscription i.e. internet shopping, you can get just about all of the good things in life delivered to you these days. Free dental work? We're ... working on it! Top broads, however, are and forever shall be in short supply as the demand for them is all out of proportion.

Woody Allen made this film right after his debut in What's New, Pussycat? in 1965 and before he began his remarkable directing career with Take the Money and Run in 1969, two years after Casino Royale. He was only about thirty years old in this movie and, had he decided not to make his own films, would probably have been stuck in junk like this forever. Woody said afterwards that he knew Casino Royale would be horrible when they were making it and that he never even bothered to see it. He got paid a lot of money and was at the start of his career. That's why it's interesting to see him in it, knowing how talented he was and is, knowing the great films he would later produce, hamming it up.

Oh, and the movie has one other virtue: the funky opening credits and theme by Mr. Burt Bacharach!

Classic Mr NYC

Thirty-years ago the brilliant show Northern Exposure debuted on American television. Set in the bizarre small town of Cicely, Alaska, it featured an ecclectic group of characters and their odd-ball behavior, centered around a Jewish New York doctor forced to live and work there to pay off his medical school debts.

Northern Exposure was a forerunner, along with a lot of other great shows of the era (Twin Peaks, thirtysomething, Quantum Leap), to the now Golden Age of Television. The writing was brilliant, the acting was first rate, and in tone and attitude and perspective this show was as NYC as it gets -- even though it took place far, far away from here. 

I blogged about this show on its 20th anniversary and now a young woman -- who only caught up with it two years ago and probably wasn't even alive when it was on TV -- writes about discovering and falling in love with this classic piece of Americana. 

We Remember

 

NYC Resumes Indoor Dining -- Sorta

So the good news is that NYC restaurants may offer indoor dining again on September 30th. But it comes with all kinds of rules that almost make it pointless -- 25% capacity, temperture checks at the door, tables at least 6 feet apart, strict air-filtration requirements, at least one diner must leave contact tracing info with the management, masks on at all times except when at the table, no bar service. I don't know how any of these restaurants, with all this extra work and limited clientele, will be able to earn enough money each night to make this worth it. Also, these rules really show that re-starting indoor dining probably isn't safe and worth doing. But the desire for normality is strong -- even if the way to make "normal" possible is totally bizarre. 

The Timelessness of Edith Wharton & Dorothy Parker

Two NYC writers are celebrating milestones this year -- many decades after their deaths. Both are women, both were trailblazers in their times, and both are legends today.

First, Edith Wharton. One of the most successful writers of her era, Wharton was born in NYC in 1862 to a wealthy family. She was a debutante, loved traveling the world, and eventually settled in Paris. She never published anything until she was 40, but then published many acclaimed books like The House of Mirth and Summer, as well as novellas and short stories. But her masterpiece, her most acclaimed work, the one that has enshrined Wharton's legend, is The Age of Innocence. Celebrating its 100th birthday this year, the novel was published when Wharton was nearly 60 years old and won the Pulitzer Prize. The plot concerns a wealthy lawyer named Newbold Archer in 19th century NYC who is set to marry a kind, dull woman named May but finds himself falling in love with a woman named Ellen who is fleeing a bad marriage from a Polish count. This is probably the most powerful, painful story ever written about unfulfilled love and passion, of romantic roads not taken, of the choices we make and avoid. The book was turned into a big movie in 1993, directed by Martin Scorsese, who called it, believe it or not, one of the most violent stories he ever directed. You should read this great analysis of the novel, the film, and what it's like to read this 19th century story, written in the 20th century, now in the 21st century. 

Next, Dorothy Parker. She was an all-around writer -- essays, reporting, poetry, screenplays, plays, and short stories. Born in New Jersey in 1893, she lived and died in NYC in 1967. She wrote constantly, about everything, for everyone, and was a key member of the Alquonquin Roundtable. She had many wild love affairs and marriages, becoming a very notable wit -- "Men seldom make passes to girls who wear glasses" is probably her most famous quote. Among Parker's most notable works: she wrote the script for the original 1937 move A Star is Born, remade many times, most recently with Lady Gaga. She was also an activist: upon her death, she left all her money to the NAACP. And in death she kept being a riot: her ashes spent years being passed around from a crematorium to lawyers' offices to a filing cabinet in Baltimore. Now Dorothy Parker is back in NYC forever -- her ashes were recently interred in Woodlawn Cemetry in the Bronx, joining a prestigious group of people in the afterlife. (Welcome home, Dorothy!) A movie about Dorothy Parker was made in 1994 with Jennifer Jason Leigh playing the lady herself. It's very funny!

"Metropolitan" @ 30 and "Grey Gardens" @ 45

American society venerates wealth.

We love money. We are a capitalist and Calvinist people -- we believe that accumulating dough is a smart and moral thing to do; that people who have "made it", who have "lived the American dream" possess not only intelligence and talent but also a kind of virtue, an inherent goodness -- because, of course, all of their wealth came from "hard work."

Yes, this is the big lie we tell ourselves when it comes to wealth in America -- that it is mostly gained through effort and diligence, through "grit" and perseverance -- not luck or privilege or anything else. As a relatively young country, we Americans love to hold ourselves apart from other older nations and societies where wealth was attained so long ago that no one remembers how it was gotten in the first place and that is simply passed down from century to century without merit. No, in America we earn our money -- and anyone who doesn't recognize our "hard work" and virtue in attaining it, any government that seeks to tax it, and anyone who dares criticize it is "anti-American." 

Case closed! 

What's also, I'm sure to some, "anti-American" is losing wealth, of having all your hard-won money and its residual privileges fade away. No, in America we believe that wealth should beget more wealth (it often does), that making more and more and more and more money is the only way to go -- it's not enough to live the American dream once, oh no, you and your family must keep living it over and over and over again ...

The America dream, this virtuous pursuit of wealth, is endless -- and exhausting. 

So at the risk of seeming "anti-American", at the risk of going against our country's mythology, I will state proudly that I love stories about decaying wealth and privilege -- of fallen status, of dissipation. Why? Perhaps because I have a tragic sense of life. Perhaps because stories of failure are, in so many ways, more interesting and revealing about human nature than stories of success.

This is a long way to say that this troubled year marks the odd anniversaries of two very different but nonetheless brilliant films about decaying American wealth and privilege -- the documentary Grey Gardens from 1975 and the comedy Metropolitan from 1990.

Both are about white people who grew up in wealth and have seen or are seeing it slip away. Grey Gardens is about Jackie O's cousins the Beales, a mother and daughter living in squalor in their once gorgeous Hamptons home. They spend their days remembering their time as grande dames of New York society, anger and rage and confusion at their plight popping up every so often. Metropolitan is a much more genteal but nontheless honest look at NYC debutantes who are increasingly aware that the wealth and privilege they grew up in, the glowing world they expected as children to inherit, might not always be there for them -- and they don't know what to do about it (one character says he'll solve it by marrying a rich woman).

Although both films are over a quarter, and almost a half-century, old, in this age of deep income inquality, of white rage and diviseness, of institutionalized racism and sexism finally being held to account, of the horizon of the American dream shrinking, they feel more prophetic and relevant than ever before about how wealth and privilege ultimately lead to a kind of insanity and misery. 

I've blogged about both before so, instead of doing so again, I'll include links to my previous posts as well as recent profiles of the films and people involved here and here and here and here.

This is anti-Americanism as its very finest -- and funniest. It's the dark and darkly comic side of the American dream, of the emptiness of money and materialism and status, and of how the gaping whole of need that exists within all of us can never be filled by them. 

Tom Seaver & Sophia Farrar RIP

We lost two important but very different NYC icons this week. They were people who did good and did right by their city -- and both were closely identified with Queens.

Tom Seaver was a legendary baseball player who, within three years of its creation, led the Mets to its first World Series victory in 1969 (along with Joe Namath leading the Jets to a Super Bowl victory that same year, it was a great time for NYC sports). Dubbed the "Miracle Mets" during his time with the team in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Seaver not only won a World Series but was also one of the best pitchers the game has ever seen, striking out batters at an amazing rate -- over 3600 strike outs in his career, placing him 6th on the all-time list. He played for other teams later in his career but his time with the Mets has gone into the history books. He has died at the age of 75.

Sophia Ferrar was a very regular person who found herself thrust into history in a very unwanted way. On the night of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was murdered into Forest Hills, one of the most notorious murders in NYC history. Allegedly her screams were heard and ignored by roughly 38 people -- although this has been hotly disputed over time. But what isn't in dispute is that Sophia, on that night, heard Kitty's screams in the middle of the night, got dressed, ran through alleyways to find her, then held and comforted Kitty in her final moments until the ambulance came. Sophia was a hero. She was a good samaritan. She was a great New Yorker. She has passed away at 92. 

Remembering "Kate & Allie" (1984-1989)

The TV comedy premise of two divorced women moving in together and re-starting their lives has found new life on Netflix: the streamer has two such shows, Grace & Frankie and Raven's Home. But the origin of this concept was Kate & Allie, a popular and very NYC-based show from the 1980s (on ... CBS!), that's largely forgotten today.

Kate and Allie are recently divorced middle-aged ladies with three children between them. They have moved into a Greenwich Village apartment, dealing with the challenges of single-parenting together, making up an impromtu family. While the show was "edgy" for '80s TV (Divorce! No men! Set in NYC!) it had your old-school basic sitcom format -- something would happen, hilarity and confusion would ensue, a resolution would be found, and important life lessons would be learned. It was unrelentingly wholesome, promoting "traditional family values."

And all on videotape!

Seinfeld this was not (in fact, it went off the air just a few weeks before that other classic NYC sitcom would premiere) but it was a smart, occasionally funny, and very white show, an artifact of its era. Kate was played by Susan Saint James (a popular actress from the 1970s show McMillan & Wife) and Allie was Jane Curtin (a few years after her run in the original cast of Saturday Night Live). Their kids were played by, among others, Alison Smith and Ari Meyers who went to mildly successful careers afterwards. 

A couple of interesting things about this show.

First, since it was about two women living together, and on TV during the Reagan era, CBS apparently told the producers to make it very, very clear that Kate and Allie were not lesbians. In fact, they tried to get each episode to end with them withdrawing into seperate bedrooms. The non-romantic nature of their relationship was hammered home a lot.

Second, Kate & Allie was a rare thing for the 1980s -- a show set and made in NYC (the only other sitcom shot here then was The Cosby Show). One thing that distinguished it from most sitcoms of its time was that each episode had a "cold open" where Kate and Allie (or their kids) would be filmed on the streets of NYC, with no audience or laugh track obviously, making an observation about the city and its people. It firmly established the show as rooted here and gave it a real city-vibe. As a kid who lived in NYC then, it was nice to see a show that took pride in being set here, unlike most shows that were set in anonymous suburbs in middle America.

I don't know if Kate & Allie is streaming anywhere but you can find lots of episodes of it on YouTube. Enjoy!