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."
Now, if you'd like, you can go back and read about Michael's memory of his first 1984 "La Dolce Musto" column in the Village Voice.
Michael is an Only in NYC type, the kind whose likes we might never see again.
Well, well, well, Mr NYC really is ... well, maybe not exactly prophetic than certainly perspicacious.
In the early days of this blog I wrote about the early 1950's NYC Mayor Vincent Impelliteri -- perhaps the city's most forgotten 20th century chief executive. Well, a man named George Arzt, a lifelong city government journalist and staffer, actually knew "Impy" back in the day. Arzt is retirning after 60 years working in and around city government and he's given a great exit interivew that you can read here.
And then here's another interview you can listen two between podcaster/comedian Billy Procida and adult film star Sonia Harcourt -- where they talk about polyamory and swinging and all sorta of sexy stuff. I interviewed both Billy and Sonia several years ago so it's great to here two previous Mr NYC interviewees talk to each other ... and apparently that's not all they did!
Enjoy!
Well, I'll be darned. Mr NYC's powers of prophesy have hit again.
In 2021 I blogged about the late 1980s Broadway musical Chess, about how it was a big spectacle with great songs and a muddled plot, and how it didn't last very long. Towards the end of my post I speculated (if I may be so gauche as to quote myself): "Maybe one day it'll come back to Broadway, if the plot can be brought under control and if there is interest in a show about something that clearly is now a historical era."
Guess what? There is a revival! Currently in previews and due to open on Broadway soon. And apparently it has an all-new book, a reworked story, which it very much needed.
Hmmmmm? Do you think perhaps the producers behind this revival saw my blog post and it sparked the idea to bring Chess back? Probably not. But a blogger can dream.
Last year I blogged about how,when Howard Stern talks about bitches, it's funny. And when he talks about bitches with rappers, it's really funny.
In 2005 Howard and 50 Cent talked about bitches and remembering the names of 50's bitches, and then in 2007 they revisited the subject in a wide ranging interview. It's funny and fun. Watch it:
American politics has gotten ugly -- and, as we know, quite violent -- in the last few years. And especially yesterday.
It's easy to point a finger at you-know-who but really that's the wrong person.
Point it not at the clown in the White House but at his forerunner, the person who set the stage and made him possible -- Newt Gingrich. The former Georgia Congressman who masterminded the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress is the one who created the ugly political atmosphere that chokes us -- and sometimes kills us -- today.
Believe it or not, I blogged about all this back in ... drumroll ... 2008. The year 1994 was a transformative year in American culture and politics ... and, arguably, not for the better.
You should listen to Mr NYC interviewee Kurt Anderson (also from 2008) talk about the lasting impact of 1994 on our politics in a recent podcast with Molly Jong-Fast. As always, Kurt is very smart and incisive. And, as always, Mr NYC was and is Ahead of His Time.
I recently blogged about the 1985 NYC crime classic movie Year of the Dragon by the mysterious New York director Michael Cimino. I blogged a few times about Cimino over the years, and you read all those posts here.
But you might not have known that, during the 1960s, when he was a young aspiring filmmaker in NYC, he made some brilliant TV commercials, including this one for United Airlines. This was the height of the Mad Men era, when advertising was become a respected artform all its own, and this is the kind of ad that Don Draper might have dreamed up.
Anyway, this short commercial is worth watching, the start of the career for a director who would achieve greatness -- and infamy.
So today is a combined Classic Mr NYC and Mr NYC Ahead of His Time post:
First, the Waldorf-Astoria is reopening after an eight-year renovation. Mr NYC spent his wedding night there. Read about that here and then watch this story about the new Waldorf below:
The one and only time that I've been to Los Angeles was in late March 1995. My brother was living there and I visited him during my Spring break. I was there for a week and we drove north with a friend and visited San Francisco and then drove back along the Pacific Coast Highway, visiting San Simeon and gorgeous Central Valley places like Monterrey and Carmel.
I blogged about it extensively in 2018. And I concluded the post about how, just before I boarded my flight back home to NYC, I spoke to my dad by phone, informing me of my college acceptance.
Something I didn't mention, however, because it was totally irrelevant, was that my last full night in LA was the same night as the 67th annual Academy Awards. It was the same night that Forrest Gump swept the Oscars but also when Quentin Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay for Pulp Fiction.
So I was fascinated to stumble upon an article about the Oscar party held that night in LA by Harvey Weinstein and his company Miramax that had produced Pulp Fiction. Apparently, in a city and business known for wild parties, this was the wildest party in Oscar history. Many big stars at the time congregated, people got into fistfights, Harvey Weinstein threatened to go steal the Oscars from the Forrest Gump people -- and a wanted criminal crashed the party, apparently being persued by the cops while Hollywood partied.
It was, apparently, the last kind of wild, out-of-control Oscar party that Hollywood used to have. In the decades afterwards, the business and the parties became more sedate. And as you always see when you look at a moment frozen in time, some of the people at the party have continued to thrive -- like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Samuel L Jackson -- while others -- like the host, Harvey Weinstein himself, and Kevin Spacey -- went into infamy ... and prison.
And to think that yours truly Mr NYC was in LA that night. Crazy. Only in the movies ...
P.S. This Oscars ceremony also had another NYC twist -- David Letterman was the host and he notoriously bombed. "Uma" ... "Oprah" ... "Uma" ... "Oprah."
Yeah, it didn't work.
In 2021 I blogged about the infamous NYC madam Polly Adler.
Now there's a great little video bio of her you can watch.
But remember, you heard about her here first -- Mr NYC ahead of his time!
In 2008, when this blog was less than two years old, I made a trip to China that I blogged about here.
It was the second time in my life that I'd gone to China and, for literally years afterwards, I've been meaning to do another post about my first visit.
The problem is that my first visit was in 1985 when I was eight years old and we were there for a month. So I don't remember everything about it and couldn't, I feel, do a post justice.
But, finally, I will do a post -- picking up random shards of memories from long ago, providing impressions, of my first trip to China 40 years ago with my dad.
What I remember is that, back then, China was still coming out of its first years of hardline Communism. Mao had been dead for less than a decade, and the country had yet to experience the massive economic growth and wealth that defines it today. I remember everyone riding around on ringing bicycles, most people living in small thatched houses like huts, and lots of people walking down the street eating out of rice bowls.
It was, obviously, a very different world from 1980s NYC. Whe started our trip in Shanghai and I don't remember much about it except that, in the hotel lobby, they were playing Madonna's "Like a Virgin" in Chinese and that there was the first of several-to-be-encountered pitchers of boiled water in our room.
Later on we visited cities like Chongqing and also saw the amazing, historic Terracota Warriors that had only been discovered 11 years earlier in 1974.
I remember we went to Beijing and saw the Forbidden City for the first time -- and then one night ate Peking Duck and went to the Chinese circus.
I remember walking around Tiananmen Square, four years before the exploded in deadly riots.
I remember seeing pandas in the zoo for the first time, also the Summer Palace.
I remember we stayed somewhere at a hotel by the river and they would catch fresh fish from the river and serve it in the hotel dining room -- and I'd mash it up into rice and cover it in soy sauce and it was delicious.
I remember we took a cruise down the Yangtze River for more than week, and I'd stand at the prow, pretending to pilot the boat like any eight year old boy would.
I remember long, long train rides where we'd stare out the windows at farmers with huge water buffalo worked the land.
I remember visiting the house that my family built in a city on the sea back in the early 20th century -- and lots of Chinese school kids doing exericess on the beach.
I remember lots of rescheduled Chinese domestic flights on CAAC, the official Chinese airline, that everyone joke stands for "China Airlines Always Cancels."
I remember long drives where I would listen to tapes of "The Chronicles of Narnia."
I remember ending our trip in Hong Kong which was still a British colony at the time. The streets were even narrower than NYC, the wealth of the city fully on display. One day we went to the Royal Yacht Club for a drink -- that was cool! And I remember the huge, gorgeous harbor and the huge boats on it, glowing on the water at night.
I remember that, on our trip home, we flew from Hong Kong to Tokyo and then, flying westward, I remember that my last view of Asia was the gorgeous Mount Fuji shining bright in the night sky.
I remeber that Beverly Hills Cop was the movie being shown on the flight and, after it was over, that another movie called Iceman started but then I fell asleep and, when I awoke, we were back in NYC.
And I remember when I got back that I told everyone about this amazing trip I took -- and no one really cared.
China really is just amazing -- and it's more than a country, it's a civilization with a history we can't even begin to understand. You should go.
And if you want to understand the 20th century history of China, you should watch the 1987 Best Picture Oscar winner The Last Emperor about how the long, long, long reigning Chinese monarchy fell and it led to decades of war, leading to the Communist revolution and country that exists today.
I hope to go back to China one day -- and blog about it better then!
Five years ago, on New Year's Eve 2019, I did a big interview with former adult film start, and current Native American activist, Hyapatia Lee. She talked freely about her amazing life and career, including about the times she visited NYC and appeared on the Robin Byrd Show.
Well, Hyapatia also has a great YouTube channel and, in her most recent post, she talks more about her time in NYC, her visits to Robin's show, and her experiences in the business. Enjoy! Love you Hyapatia!
And, again, Mr NYC is ahead of his time!
In 2018 I did a short review of the classic late 1970s adult film Debbie Does Dallas which, despite its title, was actually filmed in Brooklyn. It starred a woman named Bambi Woods who was catapulted to adult stardom by the film.
And in 2021 I interviewed the former adult star Lisa Cintrice who starred in Debbie Does Dallas 2 and had a scene in a bathtub with Ms Woods. After this, Bambi Woods vanished from the public eye, and in the forty-plus years since no one has been able to find her -- there have been rumors that she died in 1986, others that she moved and continues to live as a housewife in Iowa.
Either way, back in 1979, Bambi Woods was very much a star and she gave this short interview about the movie that had made her infamous. It's a moment in time when the adult films business in NYC was at the vanguard of popular culture -- a moment that, in retrospect, passed quickly.
Over the years I've blogged about my love of Venice, the great Italian city of isles that, in some ways, is the true spiritual sister of NYC.
And like NYC, Venice is a city of beauty and inspiration.
That's why it was fun to read this article about the legendary designer and business Diane von Furstenberg who has recently taken up residence in a Palazzo on the Grand Canal. Like many brilliant people before her, who came to NYC to realize their dreams, she's done the same with Venice. It's a fascinating story.
And, in some ways, she follows in the footsteps of those other great Venetians Marco Polo, Veronica Franco, and Casanova -- as well as countless New Yorkers -- who take their destiny into their own hands.
Both ladies worked, in their very different capacities, with a big adult star of the time named Siobhan Hunter. A gorgeous young woman with long brunette hair, she was a mysterious, alluring, and absolutely gorgeous creature of 1980s NYC adult cinema. She appeared in several films from 1984 until the early 1990s, working with all the big names of the era (men and women), and developed a huge fanbase.
And then ... she vanished.
The rumor is that she went to medical school in Mexico and became a pediatrician, living a quiet life far from her days -- in mind, body, and spirit -- from her time as a big NYC adult star.
Recently there was a short bio of her Siobhan posted to Youtube. You can watch it below and also read my interviews with Barbara and Lynn here.
If you're out there Siobhan, Mr NYC would love to interview you!
In the wake of the 2008-2009 cultural phenomenon "Jersey Shore", guidos and guidettes become, very briefly, all the rage. Hence, more than 15 and a half years ago, yours truly paid tribute to this with this rather odd blog post about a Staten Island girl who had posted a video where she complained about not being married.
It's a hoot. Anyway, enjoy. And if you want even more Staten Island girls, including another one from the girl in the original 2009 video, see below:
A Holocaust survivor, an immigrant, a pioneering and influential sex expert, Dr Ruth was an inspiration and an American original. She has passed away at the age of 96 -- but her humor, her brillance, and her openhearted nature will live forever.
And she was a total New Yorker, a resident of Washington Heights, and beloved character of the city. She was one of us -- and always will be.
I wrote a few years ago about the time Dr. Ruth came to my college and brought the house down with a hilarious story involving a couple rekindling their intimacy with onion rings. I'll never forget it!
One month from today there will be a big election, called a General Election, in the United Kingdom -- where the fourteen-year rule of the Conservative Party is expected to end with the Labour Party replacing it.
Ever since I saw the British show "Yes Minister"/"Yes Prime Minister" as a kid, I've been more than midly obsessed with British politics. Therefore, on the night of July 4th, as most Americans will be celebrating our independence from the UK, I'll be feverishly following the UK election results as they trickle in from across the pond.
Even though New York City has been independent from England's "Green & Pleasant" for over 240 years, the British impact on this city is inescapable. After all, this is New York City, after York, a big city in England. And over the years I've chronicled the deep synergy that exists between this city and Britain -- and you can read it all here.
This city would not, could not, exist the way it does today without it's British lineage and influence. And the UK wouldn't exist today without us -- after all Winston Churchill, Britain's savior of a Prime Minister, had a mother from Brooklyn!
If you want to get a literal taste of Britain in NYC, you can visit the great restaurat Tea and Sympathy downtown. And you want to learn more about British politics, you must listen to the excellent podcast the Rest is Politics that is so smart and informative and looks at policy and politics in the UK and beyond.
The definition of something being "haunted" means it's been "frequented by a ghost." What's a ghost? An apparition, a nebulous image of something or someone that used to exist, used to live, appears to still exist but is in fact dead.
In some ways, every word that has ever been written is a ghost -- each word is an imprint of someone's mind, someone's thought at the time it was written. The words might have been written a long time ago, the thought long dissipated, the writer might long be dead, but their words still live, the thought they were recording at the time still provoke.
The written word haunts us all.
Think about it. The phrase "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" still gives me chills even though its author has been dead for nearly a century.
This idea of words being ghosts occurred to me recently when I read about a few perfect examples of their haunting power.
As I wrote last summer, Quentin Tarantino was preparing a movie about an underground 1970s movie critic that sounded intriguing. I called the post The Romance of the Underground Writer and I expounded on the idea of writers (much like myself) whose words are read by few people but are beloved by those who do read them. Sadly it appears now that Quentin has dropped this movie and won't make it so this underground writer will truly remain underground. This unmade movie, like the writer and his words that it was about, will remain forever a ghost.
Then there's a couple of Village Voice articles about music writers and their ghostly power.
Lester Bangs was a legendary rock critic who became nearly as famous as the singers and bands he reviewed. He was so influential and admired that Philip Seymour Hoffman played him in the 2000 movie Almost Famous. But even as brilliant as Lester was, he could get it wrong sometimes. In 1980, Lester wrote a long commentary about how the Rolling Stones 1978 album Some Girls wasn't that good and that, after almost two decades together, perhaps the Stones should break up.
Just to give you an idea of how wrong Lester was, Some Girls contains, amongst other songs, "Beast of Burden" and "Shattered", brilliant, classic songs. And, of course, 44 years after this article was written, the Stones are still together, selling out shows. Even though Lester Bangs has been dead for more than 40 years, these words from this review still haunt him, even if his overall reputation remains deservedly undiminished.
