Mr NYC in California

This is another "blast from the past", my memories of traveling in California in the 1990s and early 2000s. 

I've actually been there several times and love, love, love it. Sadly I haven't been in over 15 years but, here they are, my favorite places to go and things to do that, if you ever find yourself in the Golden State, you might enjoy as well:

Los Angeles: I didn't spend a lot of time there but my main memories of LA were doing the Universal Studios tour (got to see the backlot where Back to the Future was shot) and the Nixon Museum (where they sanitize the disgraced man's legacy). I also went to the taping for the pilot of a very bad TV show where the warm up comedian was funnier than the actual show.  

The best part of LA -- leaving it, and driving up to Northern California. We drove along the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the most mind-blowing vistas in the world. We also saw Monterey and Carmel, two gorgeous towns between the state's two major cities (Clint Eastwood himself was Mayor of Carmel at one time). 

San Francisco: the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was interesting. This was ground zero for the counter-culture, where The Greatful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and other great bands came to define the 1960s and American rebellion. My brother, his friend, and I walked around there on a Sunday night and we saw lots of young white homeless people who asked us for money for "kitty food." Then we went into an ice cream store where the young lady behind the counter wore just overalls and sunglasses -- at 9 PM at night. I don't remember the flavor of ice cream I ordered but I do recall her telling me that my selection was "mellow." I kid you not, this happened. I don't remember much of the food I ate in SF but the Stinking Rose restaurant was amazing. It's a place where they serve garlic on everything so be sure to go with people who really like you. Palo Alto: I loved Antonio’s Nuthouse, an “iconic” bar with lots of peanuts on the ground. There was also a gorgeous movie revival house (don't remember the name) there where we saw a screening of Lawrence of Arabia. Before the show there was a man playing music on a beautifully restored organ.

The Coppola ranch is something you must see. It is, obviously, gorgeous, and you can buy lots of great wine from the vineyard there. Also, if you're a big fan of Coppola's movies, you can see the desk from The Godfather, the "solid gold telephone" from II, surfboards from Apocalypse Now, and the great man's Oscars and Palm D'Or awards.

Santa Cruz: this area is near SF and is, obviously, stunning. I remember eating two great breakfasts there: one a veranda of a beautiful house and another at a restaurant on the end of a pier, the moutains surrounding us. 

San Simeon or the ”Hearst Castle”: this is the great estate built by William Randolf Hearst that inspired Xanadu from "Citizen Kane”. The Castle is an incredible marble  monument to aquisition, paintings and fabrics adorning every wall. There are swimming pools everywhere where Heart, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin and others used to party. The estate is massive, full of wild animals, and is roughly half the size of Rhode Island -- it's that big. San Simeon is a monument to American nobility -- an man-made tribute of a man to himself. I hope to return to California at some point in the future to see a lot more. And, when I do, I can't wait to blog all about it. 

P.S. California has a brand new Governor, Gavin Newsom, who was once mayor of San Fracisco and will take office in January.

P.P.S. Here's an interesting thing that happened to me in California: on my last night in LA, I returned late to the place where I was staying when I got a message from my mom that a "large package" had arrived from the top college I had applied to. The next morning, on a payphone at LAX next to the gate for my flight home, my dad told me over the phone that I'd been accepted. It was a life-changing moment -- a golden moment in the Golden State. 

Contra-peak!

I've become a big fan of the new New York City Transit head Andy Byford -- the affable Brit imported to our city to "turnaround" the ailing subway system. He did it in Toronto and other places so hopefully he'll work his magic here as well.

He seems to be doing so -- this amazing radio interview he did gives a great overview of the many improvements that have been made to the subways just this year and the concrete plans he has for next year. Also, he talks a great deal about how the new Amazon facility in LIC will affect the subways and commuting in the future. Byford has a great tactical mind, an ability to solve short-term problems with a long-term outlook. He's got transportation in his bones. 

You should listen to this interview. My favorite part, however, is when he talks about how, with the new Amazon facility, there might be a lot of "reverse commuting" that Byford calls "contra-peak."

So, whenever you're going against the grain, whenever you're going one way when everyone else is going another, tell them you're going "contra-peak."

"The World Before Your Feet": A Documentary

This blog celebrates all things NYC but perhaps no one has celebrated it quite like a guy named Matt Green -- who literally walked on every block in every street, and in every park, and passed  by every house and every building, across all five boroughs, some eight-thousand miles. It took him six years to complete and cost him his apartment, his job, and two girlfriends. 

This journey of a lifetime, this incredible accomplishment, is the subject of a recently released documenary The World Before Your Feet that is now playing in theaters.

I haven't seen it yet but, obviously, want to. According to the reviews, the documentary is less about a guy exploring his city but more a study of obession, of striking out to accomplish something while everyone else in your life things your crazy to do so.

I love NYC and would love to see a lot more of it but I don't know if I have the physical or mental stamina to do something like this. But this guy was brave enough to do it and it's literally made him a movie star. 

See, obsession gets you somewhere. 

Andy Wahol & The Velvet Underground in the NYC Memory

This weekend the wife and I checked out the Velvet Underground Experience (it's not at a museum but an exhibition space). 

This exhibit is not just "about" the Velvet Undergound -- as the name denotes, it's an immerse experience that transports you back into the world of the downtown 1960s New York arts scene, the time and place from where the Velvets emerged. It gives you a good sense of the cultural excitement, the political tumult, the social experimentation, the wildness and sexiness of a very different time and city that birthed one of the greatest, most musically brilliant bands in history. There are photographs and videos of the leading cultural figures of that time, including Lou Reed, Andy Warhol, and Allan Ginsberg (you are greeted at the beginning of this exhibit by an audiovisual recording of Ginsberg reading his great poem "America"), to put you into the mood and mindset of 1960s NYC.

Throughout the exhibit you learn about how the VU came to be formed and their musical evolution. There are these wonderful booklets that you can read that are short bios of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker -- the real Fab Four. There are also bios of the people who influenced and worked with the band, including the singer Nico. There is lots of "projection" in this exhibit, including a place where you literally lie on the ground (on pads thankfully) and look up at short films of the Velvets and The Factory's early years.

While the exhibit is amazing in many ways it also feels incomplete -- the exhibit focuses mostly on the Velvets early years and their relationship with Warhol (who only produced the band's first album). There is very little about the band's end or their penultimate album that produced perhaps the band's greatest song ever -- "Sweet Jane." Also, considering that this is one of the most influentual bands in history, the exhibit gives short shrift to its influence and legacy (there's only a wall with some posters and recordings of covers of the band's songs -- not much). Still, if you're a fan of the VU, and of this now legendary time and place, it's worth checking out.

And, if you can't get enough of Andy Warhol, you can go check out the big exhibit about him at the Whitney (I haven't seen it yet but hope to). You can also read these articles (here and here) about Andy Warhol and life at The Factory. When Warhol died in 1987, he went from man to myth -- and these articles try to seperate the two.

Perhaps it's not surprising that these exhibits are being mounted right now. The NYC of the 1960s feels like not only another time but also another planet, a world completely different from our own. Back then, NYC was a decaying city where culture was exploding. Today, the city is exploding (economically at least) but it has become culturally dull. We are no longer the city of The Factory -- we're the city of Amazon. No longer does someone like Andy Warhol define the future of NYC -- Jeff Bezos does (and he doesn't even live here!). 

And so we remember -- the history, the myth, the legacy -- of Andy Warhol and The Factory, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, of NYC then and now -- and of a past that haunts us, for better or worse, that still shapes the city we live in.

Freak Snow Storm in NYC 360

More, More, More Reiki in NYC

New Yorkers, and all Americans, are a stressed out bunch. It's odd that, in the richest city in the richest nation in history, the one thing we don't seem to be able to purchase is genuine relaxation and peace of mind. 

Quite the opposite in fact -- the more prosperous we are, the more stuff we have, the more technological and sociological developments we accrue -- the more exhausted, the more tense, the more stressed out we are. 

More more more! How do you like it?

Progress comes at the ultimate price of our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Go to some of the least developed societies on earth and the people seem a lot more chillaxed.

Here in NYC, and elsewhere, whole industries exist to bring moments of calm to roiling lives. Masseurs, yogis, and spas all offer -- for a big price -- to temporarily relieve people of their stress. 

One of the weirder offerings to enter this fray is reiki, the "laying of hands", where people literally lie on table and a "specialist" lays hands on, or just above, the person in order to "re-channel energy" and relieve them of their stress and restore well-being. It's very "meta", very weird, very pseudoscience-y, and even people who enjoy other relaxation treatments find it strange.

But reiki is becoming mainstream. Even here in NYC, parents are apparently teaching their kids to do reiki in order to calm there school-related stress. I've never had a professional reiki session but I might and I might even teach it to my kids to relieve their stress -- but I don't necessary think it's worth the price tag to do it too often.

That said, I might try it and, if you want to try it out for yourself in NYC, just do a Google search and you'll find an enormous number of reiki specialists available to treat you. (Just keep in mind that some of them are, uh, well, not exactly legit.) 

El Chapo In NYC

El Chapo, the big time Mexican drug lord, basically the Pablo Escobar of our day (although Pablo was Colombian), is now standing trial right here in NYC.

It was, as you might say, a long time coming. 

El Chapo has been in and out of jail down in Mexico for years -- he'd get busted, be put into a high security prison, and then escape. His power and wealth were such that he could bribe numerous Mexican officials and hide with impunity. Finally, he was captured and extradited to the USA. Now he's in supermax lockup at the Manhattan correctional facility and then, every day, is trekked across the Brooklyn Bridge for his trial. 

I'm guessing that El Chapo will be convicted but, like all defendants in the American system, he's entitled to the presumption of innocence (haha) and a fair trial (good luck).

It's interesting how there's been no outrage about El Chapo being tried here in NYC. I remember a few years ago they were going to try one of the 9/11 terrorists and it became this loud politically-charged controversy. Naturally, this happened because, at the time, Obama was president and his Justice Department had decided to give him a civilian and not a military trial. The Republicans, as is their wont, decided to whip up racist warmongering hysteria about it, trying to make us believe that having this trial in NYC was a huge security threat. Now, of course, a racist Republican from NYC is president -- and not a peep.

Interesting. 

FYI - if you're interested in more of the history of the drug trade, the fourth season of Narcos, set in Mexico, begins soon on Netflix.

Stan Lee, RIP

The brilliant comic book creator and Marvel founder Stan Lee has died at age 95.

The list of classic characters he created and co-created is jaw-dropping: Spider-Man, Iron-Man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Dr. Strange, and The Thing (amongst many others). 

A son of the the Upper West Side and Washington Heights, Stan Lee loved NYC and made it the backdrop for many of his characters. Peter Parker (aka Spider-Man) is from Queens and The Fantastic Four have their own Manhattan building.

Even though Stan Lee was a creator of superheroes, they were also recognizably human -- they might have superpowers but they had normal vulnerabilities and insecurities. They were New Yorkers to their cores -- tough but humane, smart but sensitive, aggressive but compassionate. Just like their creator. Just like NYC. 

RIP Stan Lee -- we won't see your likes again. Excelsior! 

P.S. Not only was Stan Lee a great creative mind but he was also a solider, a veteran of WWII.

And here they talk about The Thing in Reservoir Dogs. 

It's Official -- Amazon & 25,000 Jobs Headed to LIC

Who Makes a City?

Recently I watched again the great 1974 movie Chinatown, the noir thriller about the battle for land and water in 1930s Los Angeles. While the movie itself is fiction, the story is based on the very real history of how William Mulholland brought water to -- and stole it from -- Los Angeles. He was a man of humble origins, a hardworker, an immigrant (!) from Ireland who worked his way up the economic ladder, and helped shaped the nation's second largest city -- while making himself rich and causing the death of 500 people in the meantime. A legend and a monster all at once.

History is made of such people, and the people who powered the growth of cities are no exception.

In NYC, the masterbuilder Robert Moses is the most obvious example -- a great builder of roads, bridges, parks, and everything else who brought this city into the 20th century -- and also destroyed neighborhoods and lives forever. But Moses was not the only transformative New Yorker -- think of the great artists and businesspeople who have shaped it -- Broadway producers like the Shuberts and the Nederlanders, filmmakers like Scoresese and Woody Allen, businessmen like the Rockefellers and Lew Rudin, the list of New Yorkers who built this city and made it rich (literally and figuratively is great). Some were great, some were awful, and many were both -- but they gave us our city, for better or worse. 

That's why I loved reading this excerpt from a book about the growth of New Orleans. It's about the various characters -- some inspiring, some frightening, many just down right weird -- who shaped the Crescent City in the 20th century. I love New Orleans and have blogged about my 2009 trip there as well as other things I love about. As a city, it couldn't be any more different from NYC but, like NYC, it has great characters over the years who made it the great place that it is.

And, if you're the mood for some good New Orleans grub, consult this list of the best canjun-creole joints in NYC.