Things haven't been going too great for NYC Mayor Eric Adams, in case you hadn't heard. In fact, the stench of his travails has wafted across the pond.
On the great Rest is Politics podcast from the UK, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair sidekick Allistair Campbell and former UK Member of Parliament Rory Stewart discuss, and take listener questions about, political issues all over the world. Both men are brilliant, knowledgeable, and great broadcasters, and the podcast has become a worldwide hit.
On their latest episode they talk about the US-UK Special Relationship and they also talk Turkey -- the country that is. But for about five minutes, starting around the six minute mark, they talk about Eric Adams and the wierdness that is not only NYC politics but also all American urban politics.
It's a short segment but certainly worth a listen. When classy Brits start talking about what a weirdo you are, it can't be pleasant.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of The Power Broker, Robert Caro's brilliant book about the career of NYC master builder Robert Moses.
I've blogged A LOT about Robert Moses over the years and you can find it all, including my own review of The Power Broker, right here (there's also a big exhibition about it at the New-York Historical Society).
When Caro wrote in the book in the last 1960s and early 1970s, he was a young man looking to reveal the story behind how Moses built NYC. By this time, Moses himself was an old man, looking back at his controversial legacy.
Now, fifty years later, Moses is long dead and Caro himself is an old man, looking back on the legacy of his book about the man and what he did to NYC.
Below you can see a 1977 interview that Moses gave to publica television about his career and the book that made him infamous. And then you can watch a very recent 2024 interview with Care reflecting how his great book came to be.
I'm a big fan of the author Rachel Kushner -- her 2013 novel The Flamethrowers a personal favorite. She also has a new novel coming out called Creation Lake that I'm looking forward to reading and that's just been nominated for the Booker Prize.
Kushner is a California-native and -based writer but she spent about a decade in NYC in the 1990s. She recently wrote about her experiences living in the city as a transient resident and how, although she's neither from here nor stayed here, her memories of NYC remain close to her heart.
For us NYC natives, this is and will always be home -- no matter how far we may stray from it.
But for people who were born and grew up elsewhere, then lived here for a while before moving home or moving on, experiencing NYC as a chapter in life is always a fascinating story. It's like they were dropped into the stream of a continuing soap opera, played their part, and then left while the storyline continued. Their time in NYC is finite, tied to a particular time in their and the city's life, and they are forever intertwined in a unique, unreproduceable way. What they remember about a city that's always changing but fixed in their minds is always something worth learning about.
The brilliant actor James Earl Jones recently died at the age of 93.
Yes, I know, he's best known as the voice of Darth Vader and the Lion King, and he appeared in many classic films like Field of Dreams, Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America, The Hunt for Red October, Matewan and others.
But James Earl Jones was also a great Broadway actor, appearing in numerous plays between the 1950s and 2010s -- including The Iceman Cometh, Of Mice and Men, Fences (a legendary performance), Driving Ms. Daisy and finally You Can't Take It With You. Even if he hadn't made any movies, his theater resume would enshrine him in acting immortality.
Yet not only did he make the aforementioned movies but James Earl Jones' very first movie was the Stanley Kubrick 1964 classic Dr. Strangelove. Jones was cast as one of the bombers that's been sent to attack Russia, faithfully executing his orders and mission while unaware that they're about to destory humanity.
If you want to understand the greatness of James Earl Jones' acting talent, just watch and listen to him flip switches, turns nobs, and repeat tactical orders -- and make it mesmerizing. And how amazing was it that, in the early 1960s, when black Americans were being terrorized by southern police and fighting for civil rights, the Bronx-born genius director Kubrick cast a brilliant young black actor in such an important role?
Such is the stuff as legend. Watch this great sequence from Dr. Strangelove below and an interview that James Earl Jones gave decades later about how he ended up in one of the greatest movie's ever made.
So the FBI just raided the homes of the First Deputy Mayor, the Schools Chancellor (on the first day of school no less!), the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, and, oh, the police commissioner!
This is, uh, not good. But, if you've been following this blog and its musings on Hizzoner, it's not exactly a surprise. At this rate, Adams heading to be another Jimmy Walker or William O'Dwyer.
We live in interestinging times ... and it's so boring!
More than once or twice I've blogged about the oddity that is Mayor Eric Adams -- you can read all about it here, no need to rehash it.
This new article elaborates more on this oddness, calling him the "chaos mayor."
But more than cataloguing the mayor's chaotic reign, it also shows how Adams, like other prominent politicians of this era, simply have no idea whatsoever of what it means to be a leader. They spend their time blaming others for their problems, they use overheated crises-ridden rhetoric, they constantly attack the press as being out to get them, and they openly engage in self-pity.
Poor me! Poor me! Everyone's mean to me, I'm a victim, all these conspiracies and dark forces are out to get me!
It's not like they have power or something.
In Adams' case, it comes down to his handling of the migrant problem. When they started coming into NYC, Adams showed that he was overwhelmed and unable to handle it. He said this problem was a "crises" that would "destroy New York City" and that we were about to "lose" the city. When the press asked him how he plans to handle this problem, he told others that they had to provide the answers about how to handle the problem. He demanded severe budget cuts in order to handle the problem -- even though the city is running surplus. Instead of projecting confidence in his skills and in his administration's ability to handle this problem, he basically said "I can't handle it! Oh my god, the city is going down, you tell me how to fix it!"
Real leaders rush into a crises, come up with a plan, handle it in a pragmatic and confident manner, restore order, and fix it. Like that old guy in Godfather II, leaders say "This is the business we've chosen!" and get on with the job, showing that they're in charge and getting things under control. They don't whine and complain, attack their critics and demand pity. They work -- and the positive results speak for themselves and their leadership abilities.
You see this same problem with Trump --- the constant consipiracies, the constant attacks on critics, the constant self-pity. The former British Prime Minster Liz Truss, who managed to the screw up the UK economy in six weeks so badly that her own party kicked her out of office, is now out complaining that the Bank of England and the "blob" that is the UK Civil Service is responsible for her fall -- and not her own decisions. She was Prime Minister when the Queen died in 2022 and apparently Ms. Truss's reaction to this was "Why me?" Can you friggin' believe that?
It wasn't always like this. Leaders led and did the job. Jimmy Carter didn't complain, deflect, or demand pity during the Iran Hostage Crises. Reagan didn't either during Iran Contra. My God, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton got impeached and still worked hard!
Eric Adams, like Trump and Truss and others, doesn't seem to get this. They think serving in high office is an excuse either to live the high life or execute ideological agendas -- not govern, not serve the public. And when things don't go their way, instead of sucking it up and getting to work, they WAAAAAHHHHH!
The thing is, the public is much smarter than these folks. Trump lost the presidency (and hopefully will again), Truss was kicked out, and Adams looks like he'll lose next year.
The people want leaders and problem solvers -- not showboating, self-pitying egomaniacs. You chose this business, get it done.
