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.
Over the years I've blogged a lot about how 1970's and '80s NYC was Funky Town.
And Funky Town was a big, wild place!
Here are some more examples of that time, that seems so far away and yet is right around (literally) the corner:
Back in those days trade school commercials were all over NYC television, like these for the Albert Merrill School and Apex Tech (that lovely set of tools is yours to keep after you graduate).
Then there's movies. A lot of great movies were shot on the streets of NYC back then -- The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, and Saturday Night Fever, just to name a few. As you might imagine, shooting them on location could be a challenge. Recently I read about the making of the 1974 original movie The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. You gotta love it -- it's an action movie that stars Walter Matthau and Jerry Stiller! It's a great NYC movie that mostly takes place on the subway movie but it was a tough movie to shoot in the fall of 1973 -- as this article points out.
Talking about NYC movies of the 1970s, recently I was on the East Side and walked by The Copinette restaurant that has a plaque outside, commenterating its appearance in the 1971 Oscar Best Picture winner The French Connection.
And of course, there's The Sexy.
Before AIDS closed them down, sex clubs were prominent around town. Here's previous Mr NYC interviewee and former adult film star Hyapatia Lee talking about her visits to Plato's Retreat and The Hellfire Club and the wild, sexy times she had in this town.
And talking about sexy clubs, one night in 1975 a young songwriter named Van McCoy went to the Apple's Apple nightclub and saw people dancing in an interesting way. He therefore decided to write a song called "The Hustle" and it became one of the most famous, beloved, and iconic disco songs of all time:
So there's just some more examples of Funky Town, a place long-gone but that will forever live in Mr NYC's heart.
The thing about NYC is that it's a city with a fascinating past but that is always, relentlessly, looking into the future. And Mr NYC tries to be as future-oriented as possible, following the trajectory of the greatest city on earth.
But ... the past never fully vanishes. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, we are always going against the current, "borne back ceaselessly into the past."
To put it another way, people will always be fascinated by NYC back in the day.
So here are some various examples.
Nostalgia for NYC back in the day is so huge that there's literally an entire Youtube Channel called ... NYC Nostalgia. It has numerous videos chronicling life in NYC in the last couple of decades and centuries, including about things you might not necessarily realize existed. For example, did you know there were motorcycle gangs all over NYC? Yes, there were, as this video shows:
Then there's the money. Yes, NYC was built by great wealth and generated great wealth. Heck, there's an entire show about it called The Guilded Age about the late-19th century when NYC's wealth changed the entire nation.
Sometimes this wealth produced great things and sometimes ... not so much.
This was true even before the Gilded Age, before families like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers -- families that name many of our streets like the Astors, the Jeromes, the Schermerhorns, the Delanceys, and many others. Here's a great video about some of these families that used to rule NYC back in the day, the original city elite:
And then there's the darkness. Look at this photo taken in October 2001 at Ground Zero, a month after 9/11:
Ouch. You got then-Commissioner Bernard Kerik who ended up going to jail for corruption (and is now deceased). It includes then-Mayor Rudy Giuilani who later committed treason but trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and wound up broke, indicted and disgraced. And then there's the now former Prince Andrew, who's been arrested for corruption and settled a mult-million dollar sexual abuse lawsuit. The photo above was taken only six or seven months after this infamous photo:
The then-prince was in NYC at that time to pay his respects to the families whose loved-ones has perished, to visit and thank the first responders for their work, and extend sympathy to a traumatized city.
It appears that, during this visit to NYC, in the aftermath of this horrific event, Prince Andrew came to town not only to provide comfort but also to do some partying with Russian broads. Watch this video about Andrew's 9/11 jaunt, it'll both fascinate and disgust you:
And to think that these dark people were the ones taking care of NYC at this dark time only makes the darkness even darker -- darkness on top of darkness. And today when we see images of the now former prince, this is what we see:
But let's end this look at NYC back in the day on a happier, funnier note.
In the early 1980s, as Saturday Night Live was transitioning out of its '70s heyday, the show went into a critical and ratings downturn -- and flirted with cancellation. But it was saved by a 19-year old kid who was still living with his parents in Brooklyn named Eddie Murphy. His comic brilliance was so blazing, so wild and fascinating, that he saved the show that has lasted for half-a-century. When SNL started back in the day it was a curiousity -- a quirky, funky 1970s late-night sketch show from NYC. But Eddie Murphy turned it into an institution that defines the city and its impact on American culture to this day.
By the way, you can watch one of Eddie Murphy's funniest "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" sketches below and the entire archive for your enjoyment here.
The long-time civil right activist Jesse Jackson has died. He was, in many ways, the bridge between the activism of Martin Luther King and the Presidency of Barack Obama.
Jackson kept his civil rights fight going for his whole life -- and he had lots of controversies and lots of successes. He was an American original, a man who burnished his way into history, a legend.
And he was funny.
In the early 1990s I remember when he popped up on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" and he did a brilliatly hilarious telling of "Green Eggs & Ham." In fact, it was so funny that In Living Color felt the need to match it -- and did, also hilariously. This was back in the day when comedy was edgy, slightly dangerous, and so much more relevant than it is today.
A much younger Jesse Jackson also appeared in 2021 documentary Summer of Soul about the musical festival in Harlem in 1969. Jesse Jackson's life was truly mult-varied, and epic. RIP.
As a young, overeducated man who grew up with lots of books in the house, I will confess that I had literary pretensions. I dreamed about writing a great book that would be critically acclaimed and would sell big and would be turned into a hit Oscar-winning movie and that I would be rich and famous and happy for the rest of my life.
Yeah, so that didn't happen. I became Mr NYC instead.
But I will confess that, when I was operating under such a delusion, I wanted to write like Rick Moody whose 1994 novel The Ice Storm became a great movie in 1997.
As I write this post, ice has consumed the life of NYC ergo my thoughts are turning to the meaning of ice, of what ice can represent -- beyond the expanding molecules of H2O.
The Ice Storm is a very funny, very dark story about two families in New Canaan, CT, a wealthy suburb of NYC. The story takes places over Thanksgiving, 1973 where the fates of two families tragically collide while an ice storm bears down on them. Interspersed with the domestic drama -- focused on adultery, alchoholism, teen sex & "swapping", drugs, and lives held together by lies -- are wry commentaries about the popular and political culture of early 1970s America. The country is enjoying movies like The Exorcist and books like Breakfast of Champions while the Watergate scandal envolopes the nation -- the idea that darkness and corruption are endemic to the very soul of the country that the characters live in (the October 1973 Saturday Night Massacre had just occurred, as shown below).
In a sense, they and us are already doomed.
The novel is a great read although you'll want to take a breather every so often. Moody's writing is funny but also deeply sarcastic and cynical, very "in quotes", often mocking and derisive in tone. The best word to describe the novel is "acerbic." But the humanity in the darkness of these characters' lives cuts through, and that's what makes it a powerful read. And it has an interesting twist at the end.
The movie is also powerful although a bit more overtly emotional. It was directed by Ang Lee who would later go on to make big hits like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain. The cast is amazing -- Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver along with a young Christina Ricci and Elijah Wood. Even more interesting is that this was the film that brought Tobey Magiure, pre-Spiderman, and Katie Holmes, pre-Dawson's Creek/Tom Cruise, into prominence. And it's beautifully directed and shot, the beauty clearly at odds with the ugly lives portrayed.
It also is something of an NYC movie -- this is a story about the commuters, the people who live comfortably outside the city but whose jobs and identities exist there. And at one point the Tobey Maguire character flees to a night of booze and drugs and a failed attempt at sex at an Upper East Side apartment before he flees to Grand Central Terminal before the very real "ice storm" prevents him getting home.
What The Ice Storm reminds us is that darkness and corruption in the personal and political lives of America is nothing new -- it seems to be our constant, perenial existential state. I'm personally interested in this story because it's set just a few short years before I was actually born -- given me a sort of window into the world that I was soon to join.
And given the current weather both real and political, it's a book and a movie more timely than ever.
Nearly fifty years ago -- on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976 -- the great rock band The Band gave their final performance (with the original lineup) at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, CA.
It was a nearly six-hour long show where The Band played their greatest hits ("Up on Cripple Creek", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "It Makes No Difference") with with many guests including Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Hawkins, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Neil Young, and Mr Bob Dylan (amongst others).
The concert was filmed by Martin Scorsese (the same year that Taxi Driver was release) and it became a landmark documentary, considered one of the greatest concert documentaries ever made, called The Last Waltz.
This one concert -“The end of an era” was how many people referred to the close of 1976. The dreams of the 60s and early 70s had faded, and we were ready for a revelation, a revolt, a changing of the guard. Punk rock—and, later, hip-hop—wanted to give music and culture a good slap in the face. It felt like everyone wanted to break something. - performed and recorded just over a month before my birth -- was a singular moment in music and cultural history. Robbie Robertson, the lead guitarist and chief lyricist for The Band wrote, in 2016:
“The end of an era” was how many people referred to the close of 1976. The dreams of the 60s and early 70s had faded, and we were ready for a revelation, a revolt, a changing of the guard. Punk rock—and, later, hip-hop—wanted to give music and culture a good slap in the face. It felt like everyone wanted to break something.
The end of that era, that faded world, was what I was born into -- and its intense to think about, how my beginning was at the end of something.
I love the music of The Band, and I went to see a re-release of The Last Waltz with my friends in 2002. As mentioned, the concert took place in San Francisco but, about a month earlier, The Band appeared on Saturday Night Live and was introduced by the writer-actor Buck Henry who mentioned that their final show was coming up.
What an amazing moment in culture -- and in the history of SNL, NYC, and the culture at large.
Happy New Year! Before we march any further into 2023, I want briefly want to remember someone who left us 2022 -- the wild comedian Gilbert Gottfried.
A Brooklyn-native and lifelong New Yorker, Gilbert had a massive 40+ year career as a standup comic, actor, voiceover artist, commercial pitchman, and TV host. He should never had had the big career that he did: he was physically unattractive, his voice was grating, he was beyond offensive, he was a just plain weird. In short, Gilbert Gottfried was the total opposite of what it normally takes to succeed in showbusiness and yet he did, brilliantly, because he was funny as hell, a total original. Audiences couldn't get enough of him because, in so many ways, he was them and they him.
Gilbert had some notable career highs -- he was in Beverly Hills Cops II, was a voice in the 1993 classic Aladdin, and was featured in the popular documentary The Aristocrats. He appeared on the Howard Stern radio show many time, birthing many classic bits. He was always on TV doing standup and selling out clubs. He was everywhere, all the time, and very popular.
Gilbert was also part of the notorious 1980-81 cast of Saturday Night Live, (famous for being totally awful but for giving the world Eddie Murphy).
In the 1990s, Gilbert hosted the USA cable channel show Up All Night, a truly bizarre thing where, on Friday nights, he would introduce bizarre B-movies then do shtick before and after commercial breaks. Gilbert hosted the Friday night version and then Rhonda Shear hosted the Saturday night version (I think I'm right). I would watch Up All Night and enjoyed both of them more than the movies (it's because Gilbert was funny and Rhonda was hot) and it was a real relic of my youth.
Gilbert died in April 2022 at age 67. The world, and NYC, is much less funny without him.
This summer I finally got around to seeing a movie that had been on my "When I get around to it" list for literally decades -- the original 1980 classic Fame.
The late great movie critic Robert Ebert wrote a review of Fame when it was originally released that is so good, so beautifully descriptive, that I'll quote part of it here (I certainly can't write anything better):
"Fame" is a genuine treasure, moving and entertaining, a movie that understands being a teen-ager as well as Breaking Away did, but studies its characters in a completely different milieu. It's the other side of the coin: A big-city, aggressive, cranked-up movie to play against the quieter traditions of Breaking Away's small Indiana college town. Fame is all New York City. It's populated by rich kids, ghetto kids, kids with real talent, and kids with mothers who think they have real talent. They all go into the hopper, into a high school of kids who are worked harder because they're "special" -- even if they're secretly not so sure they're so special.
Fame centers around a bunch of kids over their four years at the High School of the Performing Arts, otherwise known as "LaGuardia." On the one hand they are regular high school kids, blossoming teenagers with all the regular wants and fears and academic pressures, but, in addition to their studies, they are also training to become actors, dancers, and musicians. Drawn to the school from all walks of life, from across all five boroughs -- rich and poor, black and white, very talented to barely talented -- they work hard, dream hard, and experience numerous joys and heartbreaks. The movie centers around Montgomery, an actor and closeted homosexual; Lisa, a dancer who becomes an actor; Coco -- a dancer and singer; LeRoy, a dancer who is as troubled as he is talented; Ralph, an actor and aspiring comedian, along with Doris, a shy fellow actor who falls in love with him; Bruno, a brilliant musician; and Hillary, a wise-cracking dancer who falls in love with LeRoy. The movie does not have a simple, straightforward plot but, instead, shows a series of interlinking stories, following the characters as their lives change and evolve over their four years together.
Released in May 1980, Fame became a sensation, a surprise box office hit considering that it had no famous stars, no simple or traditional plot, and was about, of all things, a bunch of odd-looking teenagers at a performing arts high school in NYC. It came at a pivotal moment for both New York City and America: NYC was still recovering from its mid-1970s almost-bankruptcy, and was still plagued with its "Fear City" moniker; culturally, however, it was thriving -- "Saturday Night Live" was the hottest thing on TV, Woody Allen was at the height of his career, Studio 54 was raging, and Broadway had big shows like "A Chorus Line" and "Annie" running. And then here comes along this little gem of a movie about a bunch of ragtag NYC kids trying to make it through high school while starting a career in the arts -- and audiences loved it.
America, on the other hand, was changing -- Ronald Reagan and the triumph of cultural and economic conservative was months away, and the country seemed more than ready to rid itself of the tumult of the 1960s and '70s. Fame, in some ways, was a last hurrah of that era, a paean to a time that was troubled but also creatively alive and exciting, a celebration of the arts and artists, and a love letter to NYC, a city that the rest of the country loved to hate. It was an early middle-finger to the political and cultural world to come -- but also, ironically, the unofficial beginning of the 1980s teen movie crazy.
Even though the movie is called Fame, it could also have been called "Sweaty" -- the students literally sweat for their art (especially the dancers) as much as they are sweating about their futures of making it in showbusiness. There are many uncomfortable scenes where the characters face the limitations of their talents, their relationships, their aspirations, their place in this crazy world of the arts. While this movie is a celebration of the artistic spirit, it's not sentimental in any way -- it brutally shows you the grimy, often sleazy showbiz world these kids inhabit, without sugarcoating it.
In that way, it's a real NYC movie.
As you might imagine, Fame is full of amazing acting, dancing and music. There are beautiful scenes of dancers moving gracefully, of musicians giving their all to make the best sounds they're capable of, of actors trying to nail a scene, and also wonderful show-stopping songs. These include the Oscar-winning title song "Fame (I'm Gonna Live Forever)", "Out Here on My Own", "Hot Lunch", and the amazing final number "I Sing the Body Electric" that is performed in rousing spirit at graduation. Everyone in the whole movie sings, "And in time, and in time, we will all ... be ... stars!" Most of them, of course, will never become stars -- but they can and should always dream.
And that's what this movie is all about -- always dreaming, never giving up, even when the world tells you that you should.
Fame has had a surprising after-life since it came out over 42 years ago. In 1982, it became a TV show that ran for five years, with some of the movie's actors joining the show along with a whole new cast of characters and stories. In the late 1990s there was a second, short-running series called "Fame: LA" with all new characters and stories set on the West Coast. And then, in 2009, there was a remake called, unimaginatively, Fame that the critics hated but had some box office success (Kelsey Grammer was in it if you can believe it). Fame was a forerunner to other "I wanna be in showbusiness" projects like Smash or Glee or even The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. In seems, in this era of a million TV shows, like the Fame property or IP or whatever is just ripe for a comeback -- heck, if they can bring back Full House and Quantum Leap, why not Fame?
A few ironies about this movie and my review of it:
First, the director. Even though Fame is a down-and-dirty NYC movie, it was directed by a British guy -- Alan Parker -- whose previous film had been the intense, Oscar-winning, Turkish-set triller, Midnight Express. Fame was obviously a big change of pace, and he would go on to direct other arts-centric movies like The Commitments and other intense movies like Mississippi Burning. A great talent, he died in 2020.
Second, Irene Cara. Oh, how I loved her! I was already planning to write this review before I learned, just days ago, that Irene Cara who played Coco in "Fame" had died at the age of 63. She is amazing in this movie, and performs its most brutal, emotionally intense scene. She also sings most of the songs, luminously, and, if someone became a big star out of "Fame", it was her. Three years later she would win an Oscar and a Grammy for writing and singing the song "Flashdance ... What a Feeling!", easily the best dance pop song ever. She was an amazing talent whose career and life ended far too early -- but her songs will truly "live forever."
Third, and finally, my "history" (of sorts) with Antonia Franceschi, who plays the funny, horny, and super-talented dancer Hillary in Fame. Antonia was a young aspiring dancer at the School of American Ballet when she was cast in Fame and, interestingly enough, even though the movie became a huge hit, Antonia eschewed an acting career to spend the next twelve years as a dancer at the New York City Ballet before embarking on a long career as a choreographer. Very recently, I contacted her to see if she would do an interview for this blog but it didn't quite work out, even though she was very polite and informative in her replies.
But here is the plot twist (of sorts) that was promised ... drum roll ...
I've blogged about how, back in the mid-1980s, I appeared in "The Nutcracker" at the New York City Ballet. Well, I recently went back to look at one of the old programs I saved for my run in "The Nutcracker" and guess who appeared with me (and many others) in the opening party-scene -- that's right, Antonia Franceschi! So yours truly, Mr NYC, has performed on stage with a cast member from Fame! How cool is that?
Fame is truly a classic, a movie that may be decades old but that feels so fresh, so alive, so true-to-life that it never gets old, never gets boring, never feels outdated.
It's a must-watch for anyone whoever was young, whoever loved the arts, and whoever loved NYC.
When I was in high school, on those wild and crazy Saturday nights when I was at home, before watching Sisters and Saturday Night Live, I'd listen to a quirky show on WNYC radio called Modern Times, hosted by radio-lifer Larry Josephson.
Despite its august title, Modern Times was a freeform show where Josephson rifted on odd topics, occasionally playing music or comedy bits. Sometimes he'd interview people as well. Josephson's manner was calm, quiet, but funny. I remember that he played Bob & Ray's hilarious rendition of "Do you think I'm sexy?" whose career he was involved in promoting. One time I remember he told a scary but fascinating story about coming home one day and confronting a man with a knife who was going to rob him -- and instead they had a long conversation. I never heard a show like it, before or since.
Josephson had a long career in NYC radio, mostly at WBAI, and was part of the freeform radio-generation that included Joe Frank, Bob Fast and Steve Post. In many way, they were podcasters before podcasters, making radio interesting and showing what was possible with the medium of air, uncorrupted by commercial interests. He was a pioneer, and we won't see his likes on the radio ever again. RIP.
Recently the oldest ferry in the fleet of the Staten Island Ferry was decommissioned and put up for sale. The initial asking price by the city was for less than $200K but, shockingly, a bidding war broke out and it was finally purchased for closer to $300K. (Just further proof that all NYC real estate is valuable, even if it's an old frail boat that has to be docked somewhere).
The reason that this purchase is making news is because two of the buyers (in the consortium that funded the acquisition) are Colin Jost and Pete Davidson. Both men are sons of the Forgotten Borough, cast members of Saturday Night Live, and lovers of super hot and successful woman -- Scarlett Johansson for Mr. Jost, Kim Kardashian and various other beauties for Mr. Davidson; considering their busy jobs and amorous duties, it's amazing they had time to buy a boat!
Their plans for this ferry are unclear but tentatively it will be some kind of "entertainment venue." It might be an event space, or a performance space, or just some kind of floating nightclub. Millions of dollars will doubtless be needed to turn it into something cool but, whenever it opens to the public, it's certain to become quite a hot spot (my wife has already said she wants us to check it out which of course seals the importance of that excursion).
I have to say I'm a big fan of this project because I love the repurposing of old and useless NYC infrastructure into something new and artistic (like the Highline or the TWA Terminal). It gives the city a sense of renewal and reimagination. In this case, this ferry that used to shlep New Yorkers back and forth between Staten Island and Manhattan, mostly people commuting to and from work, will now be a destination party boat, where people can let loose and get wild.
Considering that two if its owners are renowned swordsmen, much like Studio 54 before it, it will probably become a place where ladies and gents (and ladies and ladies and gents and gents) will engage in all kinds of coitus. In fact, my guess is that soon people will stop calling it a "party ferry" and it will become known as a "p***y ferry." And if another ferry is decommissioned, sold and turned into a party boat, we may have more than one of these floating around the waters of NYC.
Who knows? We might have two p***y ferries passing in the night!
(I wrote this whole blog post just to make that joke, forgive me.)
Assemblyman Dick Gottfried, who has represented the West Side of Manhattan in Albany for 52 years, will retire at the end of 2022. He's the longest-serving legislator in New York State history, a link to this city's and state's past.
When he entered the Assembly as a twenty-something, Richard Nixon was President, Nelson Rockefeller was Governor, and John Lindsay was Mayor. The Watergate scandal was two years in the future, the NYC fiscal crises was 5 years in the future (as was Saturday Night Live), Son of Sam was 6 six years in the future, and 9/11 and COVID-19 were 30 and 50 years in the future. His long career was a part of and an undercurrent of this history, a source of stability in tumultuous times.
Politicians like Dick Gottfried are increasingly rare these days in that he was a public servant as much as a politician. He didn't want glory, fame, or money, and he didn't get into nasty scandals or say bombastic things -- he just served his constituents, faithfully and honestly and thoughtfully, for more than half-a-century. This city and state were lucky to have him and we can only hope that we'll get more public servants like him in elected office in the future.
On March 23, 1991, two days before he won the Best Actor Oscar for the movie Reversal of Fortune, Jeremy Irons hosted Saturday Night Liveand performed this wild monologue:
Irons has said in interviews that hosting SNL was one of the most terrifying things he ever did -- which he why he's probably never hosted it since then.
Almost exactly thirty-years later, the man behind the sketch, the man who wrote it, then-anonymous comedy-scribe and now current Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk told the story behind this monologue, and how Irons originally didn't want to do it and yelled at him:
Great story! The story behind the scenes is always more interesting than the scene itself.
It's hard to imagine that an episode of Saturday Night Live like this would ever air today -- one hosted by the most outrageous comedian of his time and, as the musical guest, one of the darkest and most groundbreaking musicians in rock history.
But this actually happened on the night of November 15, 1986 when bad boy comic Sam Kinison -- riding high as a comedy king and coming off the success of his movie Back to School -- hosted the show for the second time. He was his usual over-the-top self, jamming with the band, performing an over-the-top monologue, and yelling and blazing his way through several sketches. There was no comedian quite like Sam Kinison before or since. Sadly he died in 1992 in a car accident, but his comedic legacy lives on.
I can't find any clips of Lou Reed from this show but, according to the information I have, he perfomed the songs "I Love You, Suzanne" and "The Original Wrapper." I've posted those songs here.
This was just one of many shows in the long, long history of SNL -- but it was also a moment in time when the rebels, the contrarians, the lunatics of comedy and music crashed the gates and ran the asylum ... at least for this one night.
New York City in the 1970s and ’80s has become almost mythical -- like Paris in the 1920s or London in the 1960s. It was an era of great danger and temptation as well as a period of artistic revolution.
Andy Warhol, Jean Michel-Basquiat, Julian Schnable, and others ruled the art world; Saturday Night Live and David Letterman were changing television comedy from the NBC Studios at Rockefeller Center; on Broadway, shows like Pippin, Evita, A Chorus Line, Cats, Lez Miz and the musicals of Stephen Sondheim were reinventing the American musical; Woody Allen was making classic films like Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah & Her Sisters, and Crimes and Misdemeanors; Studio 54 and disco culture captured the popular imagination; sex clubs like Plato’s Retreat and Hellfire were turning respectable middle-class couples into sexual adventurers; and the adult film scene in NYC still existed.
Lynn Paula Russell was part of it.
Here Lynn tells us about her adventures with the Broadway theater and sexual underworld of NYC, and how her experiences in in the city changed her life.
You're an Englishwoman and, I assume, lived and worked in the UK most of your life. But you worked in NYC several times in the 1970s and 1980s. Tell us about your time as a children's theater actress in NYC in 1970 and as a painter of Broadway theater performers in 1979. What was it like, as an Englishwoman, to come to this big wild American city at such a crazy time in history? What do you remember most about the city back then?
Yes, let’s talk about NYC! My first visit in 1970 was really only a flying visit. As I mentioned earlier, I was part of a small troupe of actors who had been touring around England visiting schools and youth clubs. This group was part of a children’s theatre company that consisted of several groups so it was extremely exciting that ours was chosen for the first tour of the USA. And to add to this, it had been decided that the most economical way of transporting us, with all our props and costumes, was on the magnificent, newly built QE 2 liner. The fact that we travelled this way meant that I had one of the most memorable experiences of my young life, which has remained with me to this day. Sailing in to NYC past the famous Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty, I felt as if I were in a movie.
On that day in October 1970, the sky was unbelievably clear as the ship majestically made its way up the Hudson, sailing close to the West side of Manhattan. I had never seen such buildings before, and at that time the Twin Towers of World Trade Centre were just nearing completion. I couldn’t believe it! The height of it terrified me. It seemed to belong to another planet. We could even see the little figures walking around on scaffolding at the top. I felt dizzy just looking. That human beings could not only dream of creating such a building, but actually have the courage and skill to accomplish it, struck me as the big difference between my culture and the American way. Back home, everything was so much smaller and more tentative at that time. Whenever an ambitious idea was suggested, there would always be a hundred reasons why it couldn’t be done, whereas here in America, people would always find a way!
In 1979, I came with my partner to spend 2 months exploring and doing some painting. I had originally been encouraged to come by Martin Charnin, the director of Annie and through my connections with the production I was able to go backstage at the Alvin Theatre [now the Neil Simon Theater] where it was still playing. You asked about my observations of the city – well, here I have to say that there was a disappointment regarding the ‘Great White Way’ as portrayed in Hollywood movies. When we finally got to see it, it wasn’t very white at all! And when I was shown the slightly antiquated backstage equipment at the Alvin, I was amazed – compared to the lighting board I had operated for Annie, the American version looked utterly primitive!
But apart from this, we loved the city, it’s good humor, and the fact that everyone working in the service industry treated you to a broad smile and a sardonic quip. They were all entertainers! We had heard so many stories about NY being dangerous. There were dire warnings about going into Central Park after a certain hour, but nothing ever happened to us and we ignored the doom mongers.
How had the city changed, in your experience, between the 1970s and 1980s?
Not easy for me to compare experiences of the city because in the 80s I was seeing a completely different side of it. In the earlier visit, we explored 42nd Street and marveled at its lights and adult movie houses, but in the 80s I remember actually going into one of them to meet Henri Pachard, who had his office in the backstage area. It was a curious experience. Back then 42nd Street was still alive with those same cinemas, but had I visited in the next decade, most of them would have vanished.
Interesting that London’s so called ‘Red Light’ district, Soho, began to be ‘cleaned up’ at about the same time. If you go to Soho now you won’t see a single strip joint, sex shop or prostitute. All consigned to the past. But back in 80s NYC, it was all still very much alive on the legendary 42nd Street. Also alive and flourishing, in another part of the city, were the offices of Screw magazine, which I visited on several occasions and met the editorial team. During the last of my visits I did a couple of illustrations for High Society and was able to glimpse the inside of a plush office on 5th Avenue. This was a much more up-market publication.
Now I am remembering visiting Plato’s Retreat – a large night club, designed especially for swingers. We had nowhere like this in London. I remember being invited to be part of a little cabaret there, but have to say that during the day, when we were rehearsing, and the interior was not seen in sexy subdued artificial light, it looked decidedly run down. The man who had started it, Larry Levinson, had just come out of prison so probably in his absence, the vitality had begun to drain out of the place.
Does anyone remember Plato’s Retreat now?
Oh, people remember it -- and miss it!
Before I leave this subject, I must also mention The Hellfire Club. In this case, being run down was quite deliberate. This place specialized in being dark, grubby and un-salubrious. I was invited to go there by a couple who were fascinated by the S/M scene and knew that I had an interest at the time too. They collected me from my hotel in a huge stretch limo, in which champagne was served as we made our stately way to the Club. When the chauffeur drew up at a shabby address in the Meatpacking District, I was utterly horrified, and even more horrified by the club itself. But I was there to experience it, so experienced it I did – having got myself decked out in a skimpy leather outfit specially for the occasion. I was led around the dark dungeons on a lead, and we were able to watch all the other slaves with their masters and mistresses.
Apart from these outings, most of the time we were filming and I saw plenty of interiors of huge loft apartments in the city or beautiful houses with swimming pools out on Long Island. However, to sum up, I have to say that being in NYC filled me with such a special sort of energy. I cannot begin to express the difference it made to my personality. I became more confident and more extrovert as a person.
In the final part of our interview, Lynn tells about her time in the NYC adult film world at the end of its Golden Age and what she learned from it.
You can visit Lynn Paul Russell’s website and an exhibition of her work at:
If you scan the NYC radio dial and hit 105.9 FM, you'll land on the city's only classical music station WQXR 105.9 FM. But for nearly 80 years its home was a little further down at 96.3 FM. Back in 2009, when this blog was about 2 1/2 years old, I chronicled the station's historic move up the dial due to its change in ownership.
Between 1944 and 2009 WQXR was owned by The New York Times as a commercial entity. Not only did the station play classical music but it was, as you might imagine, heavy with news. In between the sonatas and interludes, symphonies and overtures, concertos and chamber music -- the whole array of the classical music cannon -- there would be news delivered directly by Times reporters. The station was a high-class, uber-sophisticate mixture of beautiful music and substantive infotainment.
My dad used to listen to this station all the time, and I was introduced to all sorts of great music that a kid my age might otherwise not be exposed to. The hosts were amazing as well: amongst them, Robert Sherman, June LaBelle, and the afternoon guy, a very funny man called Lloyd Moss stood out (he used to joke, during traffic reports, how there was always some overturned tractor trailer in the report that someone must be moving it around the city). There were also lots of special music programs like "First Hearing" (where original recordings of classical music would be played) or "Woody's Children" (which Sherman hosted and that played folk music) or live broadcasts from Symphony Space and the Metropolitan Operas on Saturday afternoons.
As a commercial station, WQXR played ads but they were ads made especially for WQXR. They were very well-produced, and I remember ads for champagne like Veuve Cliquot or B. Smith's or Broadways shows like "Six Degrees of Seperation" or "On Borrowed Time" or high-class restaurants like the long-gone Le 1900.
Then there was the news.
I remember that every morning before I went to school, my dad would be listening to the news on WQXR and there was a special segment called "The Washington Report", a phoned-in segment by R.W. Apple Jr., the Times' long-serving Washington correspondent. (I remember right after the 1992 election, Apple talking about how the Republicans now had "re-find" themselves after their defeat, much like the Democrats in the 1980s.) At 6 PM every night there was a 45-minute news show called "New York At 6" where there would be a 10 minute national report, a 10 minute "metropolitan report" (i.e. local report), and then various Times' critics would do reports on things like theater (Frank Rich), restaurants (Brian Miller), movies (Janet Maslin) and others. My mom would usually be making dinner during "New York At 6" so I'll always associate this program with the smells of cooking. I also remember that each program would start with the announcer stating very proudly, "THIS ... IS ... NEW YORK ... AT SIX!" followed by swelling and soaring music. At 9 PM each night a reporter would then read the headlines from the front page of the next day's Times, a few hours before the paper would hit the streets. Remember, this was before the Internet or social media so broadcasting the next's days headlines was actually a big deal.
WQXR also had an AM station. During the week WQXR AM would split off and broadcast a cooking show, a story hour, and a odd comedy show form the BBC called "My Music." You can hear all about that here:
The station was a real jewel.
But then, in 2009, as the financial crises and vagaries of the newspaper business bore down on the Times, the "paper of record" decided to sell WQXR. The powerhouse public radio station WNYC decided to buy it and then turned it into the non-commercial entity it is today, moving it up the dial to 105.9 FM. So the good news is that WQXR still exists and NYC has a thriving classical music station. But the old WQXR 96.3, the WQXR of my childhood that was so great, is long-gone. Here you can listen to its sign-off and remind yourself that, in NYC, everything always changes eventually.
The "coming-of-age" story is an old one. A young man or woman, usually raised in a conservative, closed-knit family or community, goes out into the world and learns important Life Lessons. These include personal and professional triumphs and failures, romantic thrills and disapointments, and a transition from the innocence of childhood to the wisdom of adulthood.
All of us come of age some way, somehow, and stories about it are great fodder for movies.
Once upon a time childhood ended for most young people when they graduated from high school -- even in college, after the age of eighteen, people were considered adults. That's when they came of age! But in 21st century America, childhood and "coming of age" seems to last until people are thirty. More and more Americans in their twenties are living at home, delaying marriage and childhood (the marriage and birth rates have plunged in recent years), and treating adulthood as a disease to be avoided at all costs.
That's a great way to say that this is exactly what the new movie The King of Staten Island is about -- a man of 24, living with his mother on Staten Island, unemployed and totally directionless, smoking tons of weed, hanging out with his posse of similar overgrown children, and hooking up with a girl who, despite her better judgement, loves this guy.
The guy in question is named Scott and he's played by Pete Davidson from Saturday Night Live. Based on Davidson's own life (whose from Staten Island and whose father died on 9/11), Scott is living through the trauma of his father's untimely death many years earlier, his sister who has now left home for college, and his widowed mother who is coming out of her shell and starting to date again. Scott is feeling left behind, miserable, but a series of events change the direction of his life and family -- giving this otherwise hopeless young man some hope for the future.
That's it. That's the whole plot of the movie.
And it is executed quite well. Davidson is a very good leading man, the supporting cast is just as interesting as him (especially Marissa Tomei who plays his mother), and there are lots of funny scenes. There are few movies about working class life, so it's great to see one when it comes along. The movie is directed by Judd Apatow quite well, and he gives it the humane, loving touch that he has in so many of his previous films. And yet, like his previous films, Apatow makes the movie too damn long. He tells an hour-and-a-half long story in almost two-and-a-half hours, there are lots of scenes that, while entertaining, are totally pointless, and, just when you think the move is over ... it goes on ... and on ... and on.
And, as the title suggests, it's a big Staten Island movie. The borough is shot and presented in a loving way, making it seem like a forgotten jewel beyond Manhattan and the rest of the city, the most loving portrait of the forgotten borough since Working Girl. At one point one of the characters observes that, one day, Staten Island will become a hot place to live like Brooklyn.
