I didn't realize that it had a name but it does: that shot ... that shot when a person or a couple of people are walking the crowded streets of NYC, a long-lense camera focusing on them as we follow their journey -- both literal and existential -- is called "the Tootsie shot."
That's because, in the 1982 classic Tootsie, we follow the crossdressing hero played by Dustin Hoffman as he/she walks the crowded Manhattan streets as they try to restart their acting career as a woman.
I just listened to an entire podcast episode about this particular shot, and how variations of it appear in different ways in many NYC movies. But what this shot contains, what all the version of it contains, is the same visual meaning -- that of a person, alone in NYC, is starting a new journey that will change his or her life.
And here's the thing: "the Tootsie shot" is much older than Tootsie itself. In the 1969 classic Midnight Cowboy -- more than a decade before Tootsie -- Hoffman himself walks on the streets in a crowd, bellowing his classic line, "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!"
There are many examples of this famous shot from different NYC movies over the decade -- including two with John Travolta playing the Brooklyn dancer Tony Menero.
Here are some great examples of "the Tootsie shot" in some classic NYC movies:
Last night's NYC primaries made history -- two members of Congress were defeated as were several members of the state legislature, and the Democratic Socialists of America saw several of its candidates win (including the Brooklyn Borough President who was running for Congress losing).
Even though Tammny Hall is long gone, it's spirit remained in NYC politics for decades -- static, perenially status quo, incumbents getting reelected over and over and over again. Rarely, very rarely, did incumbents lose -- until the last few years. That's now accelerated, and incumbents are starting to drop like flies.
Only time will tell but it appears that NYC's political future will be much more dynamic.
And while NYC's political future is being forged, its past is being memoralized -- although somewhere far from NYC: a new presidential library for Theodore Roosevelt, only one of two presidents born in the city, is opening ... in North Dakota. It might seem like an odd place but TR spent a lot of time in the state during his youth and had many formative experiences. Also, city-boy that he was, TR founded the national parks, preserving so much of the nation's wilderness. So it's appropriate his library would be out there -- cementing his legacy in the place where he forged it.
When it comes to NYC politics, these days we're truly living in the past and future at the same time.
I was pondering something lately and, as a ponder, it was an admittedly silly ponder but ponder about this silly matter I nonetheless did ponder.
The ponder was about Anthony Bourdain, the late writer/broadcaster about food and travel who died by his own hand in 2018. He went from being a line chef to a celebrity due to his brilliant writings and TV shows that observed the world around us and what we eat. He became acclaimed and famous for making us look at and understand our world better -- and making it more delicious.
Oh, yes, and he was my neighbor -- something I've blogged about more than a few times before.
Bourdain is still remembered and celebrated almost a decade after his death -- now with a movie about his life set to debut this this year -- which is something few us will ever get.
He achieved, in a word, greatness -- and yours truly lived in the shadow of his greatness.
This blog has always been my attempt to understand NYC better and to share my observations about it to the world. But I never will achieve the greatness that Bourdain did although I think I've also contributed something of value to the culture too.
And as once-neighbor, in a way, we share a certain past -- although he went on to greatness and I have spent my time laboring in the shadows.
In 'udder words, if Anthony Bourdain was ...
... Bob Dylan, I'm Llewyn Davis. If
... Mozart, I'm Salieri.
... Jesus, I'm Brian.
But greatness is not, should not, be the purpose of life. Greatness finds people -- like it did Anthony Bourdain. However, we should all try to contribute what we can, when we can, where and how we can. And I've done that! Maybe my contributions are in the shadows but they're not totally in the dark.
Tomorrow is Primary Day in New York, and the fate of many political careers for State and Federal elected officials will be decided.
The big ones are the Democratic Congressional Primaries between Congressman Dan Goldman and former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, and multiple candidates (including Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of the late President Kennedy) who are running to replace retiring Congressman Jerry Nadler.
In heavily Democratic NYC these primaries are usually more important than general elections. And for decades incumbents almost always won -- there have been a few exceptions, including AOC's big 2018 victory, but VERY few -- which meant that winning a primary was almost like a Papal election (if you won a primary or survived a primary challenger, you could serve for decades). For example, I remember 20 years ago there was a nasty primary in Brooklyn to replace the retirning Congressman Major Owens; then-City Councilwoman Yvette Clark won and she's been in office ever since.
There 'ya go.
But in the last few years incumbents have been less-and-less bullet-proof in primaries: Queens/Bronx Congressman Joe Crowley lost to AOC in 2018, then Bronx Congressman Eliot Engel lost to Jamaal Bowman in 2020 and then Bowman lost in 2024 to now-Congressman George Latimer. Lots of state elected have also lost their seats in primaries in recent years. And it's expected than Goldman will proabably lose to Lander and that Congressman Espaillat might lose to a strong challanger. This article talks about the shifting sands of primary politics in NYC -- even if you get elected to Congress, your own party might throw you out in a few short years.
To quote former British Prime Minister John Major, "Politics is a rough old trade."
In the very first year of this blog, back in 2007, I had the honor of interviewing legendary Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto. He gave me a funny, quirky interview, and I was very grateful for his time. The name of his long-running column was "La Dolce Musto."
When I was a kid I remember the now-legendary 1986 Mets World Series victory. There was something special, timeless and singular, about it, more than just another run-of-the-mill World Series, and it's fondly remember 40 years later.
I think it's fair to say that the 2026 Knicks NBA Championship will also go down in the history of NYC as a special, timeless and singular moment. This wasn't just a big victory by the city's basketball team: this was a moment where the city's spirit decided to sing -- and sing loudly.
Damn, never though I'd see this: there's an upcoming HBO documentary about naughty NYC late-night cable TV host Robin Byrd who ran her stripper/adult star-filled show from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.
And it's called, haha, Bang My Box.
Robin was an "Only in New York" type, a former adult star who appeared in Debbie Does Dallas and who, along with Al Goldstein, brought "the sexy" and scandalous to NYC week-after-week in those pre-Internet/social media days. I remember watching Robin regularly during my high school years (and then in repeats for years afterwards) and she was truly a, uh, needed night cap.
I've blogged about Robin over the years, including back in 2009! And I interviewed former Robin Byrd guest, former adult star Hyapatia Lee, back in 2019. And now ... mainstream culture has caught up with Mr NYC, giving us this documentary about this NYC icon (believe it or not, it's produced by Sarah Jessica Parker), and proving, yet again, that Mr NYC is Ahead of His Time.
I'm looking forward to seeing this doc and also feel, quite smugly, that I recognized Robin's cultural significance much earlier than anyone else!
Postscript: Robin's show ended in April, 1999, just weeks before I graduated from college and two years before 9/11. It felt like, feels like, the end of old NYC and my childhood. Le sigh.
Rocky was an old-school DJ who worked all over the country, eventually coming to the late 95.5 WPLJ FM in NYC in the early 1990s. Rocky had two stints at WPLJ in the 1990s and 2000s, and also did time on 77 WABC AM radio. He was a good natured, sweet man with a great voice.
And I worked for him!
Well, not really -- in the summer of 1994 I was an intern at WPLJ (as I've blogged about before) and logged his show a few times. He was always very nice to me the few times we spoke and it was a good hang at his show.
In fact, when I was logging his show, I met Pat Morita from the Karate Kid movie series. He was visiting the show one day to promote The Next Karate Kid and he shook my hand by saying "Hi, I used to be a movie star." Rocky and Pat talked about how Pat's new co-star, a young lady named Hillary Swank, was really talented -- and a few years later she'd win two Academy Awards.
Another memory of working with Rocky Allen: the dude was funny, much funnier off the air than on. During commercial breaks and when songs were playing, he and the staff would tell wild, hilarious jokes and stories. I remember ...
... one of his producers telling us about going down to visit his girlfriend in Florida and found her banging another guy.
... Rocky's sidekick, Blaine Ensley, looking at a newspaper and, referencing the then-Paula Jones lawsuit against then-President Clinton, asking me, "Do you think Bill showed that chick his weenie?" I had no answer for that nor did I think he really wanted one, although it was obviously a foreshadowing of things to come.
... and from Rocky himself. He once hosted a short salon with me and the guys in the studio about whether or not not "fat chicks" gave "better blow jobs." Rocky did not believe that weight was necessarily proportional to skill (and Rocky himself was very fat so he could and should have advocated for this "position") but the other guys were convinced -- overweight ladies were more talented at this particular activity. So these days, whenever I see fat ladies, I think of Rocky and the gang and smile.
One of the reasons I love history is that it's the gift that keeps on giving. There's so much of it, and so much to learn, that as much as you know or think you know, there's always more .. and more ... and more ...
I love learning about people who lived in the past who might not have been the most famous and powerful people of their times but who nonetheless lead interesting lives that sometime intersected with history. And as we get older, we start to see how much of our lives have also, at very times, intersected with history.
And sometimes history can be wacky ... literally.
Recently I came upon some cultural history that, for decades, has been suppressed but that recently has become freely available ... thanks to YouTube. And boy is it wacky!
In 1975 the Maysles brothers made the classic documentary Grey Gardens about Edie and Edith Beale, the reclusive cousins of Jackie Kennedy who were living in squalor in the Hamptons. But it turns out that a couple years earlier, in 1972, Jackie Kennedy's sister Lee Radziweil and her then-boyfriend, the photographer Peter Beard, went out to the Hamptons to visit the Beales and filmed them.
The result was a documentary that came out in 2016 called That Summer, and it's a fascinating, new look at these two legendary eccentrics in a context that is both familiar from Grey Gardens yet also humanizes them more than that documentary did. This was a part of the past that we thought we knew but, once this footage was uncovered, we literally saw and learned even more about these two cultural icons.
And then ... there's Martin Lawrence. Yes, in the early 1990s, Mr. Lawrence was the star of his hit sitcom Martin! and he was on top of the world. Naturally he was invited to host Saturday Night Live in 1994 and, uh, let's just say that he brought a bit of a "Def Comedy Jam" mentality to the whitest comedy show on TV. He did the usual monologue and it went off the rails when he started talking about the recent John Wayne Bobbit case (the guy who got his weiner cut off) and then it becomes about Mr Lawrence's beliefs about the important of feminine hygiene.
It was so raunchy that it was edited out of the West Coast broadcast and all subsequent broadcasts. But, uh, well, now we can see if for ourselves. And it's naaaaasty! But it's a piece of forgotten cultural history that is now uncovered (you can see the edited and unedited versions below).
By the way, the musical guest for Martin!'s episode was the Canadian band Crash Test Dummies. They had a huge hit at the time with the song "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm", and it's a rather bizarre contrast to have had an aggressive black comedian host like Martin Lawrence with a superwhite band like Crash Test Dummies.
While we rightly think we're living in bizarre times, when you uncover the cultural of the past, we should realize that the bizarreness was there all the time.
Let me be honest: The Rocky Horror Show is not really my kind of show. I've seen the movie, and enjoyed it, but let's just say that I'm a Square and this is not a show for my kind. But when you have friends and family who are most definately not Squares, ya go.
And I did. And I enjoyed it!
Back up: both the show and the movie are the brainchild of a man named Richard O'Brien who wrote and first staged this show in 1973. The plot is about a young stranded couple who, on a dark and stormy night, knock on the door of a strange house and get sucked into a world that turns out to be ... otherwordly. Great songs, and tranvestites, and all sorts of funky stuff ensues and it's a great time.
Silly as the show is, this current new Broadway production is very well done -- especially Luke Evans as the mysterious Frank-n-footer and Stephanie Hsu as the impressionable young Janet. Rachel Dratch, once of SNL, is brilliant as the Narrator, and the whole case, you can tell, is just having a great time.
The show is a wild good time -- even the audience gets into the act, and many were dressed as transvestites (!). So while The Rocky Horror Show ain't exactly South Pacific or Gypsy or Hamilton, it's still a memorable classic, and this particular staging of it is very well done.
