Where have you gone, Tammany Hall?

In American politics today, the most common complaint is, why can't politicians get anything done?

Of course, our political system of checks and balances was intentionally set up to make it difficult to govern, lest we slide into tyranny. However, in recent years, it seems like our politicians have gone from governing and legislating into simply engaging in deliberate gridlock. It does "We the people" no good.

The people, of course, are at the heart of any democracy -- because here the people rule. At least, in theory. In practice, of course, people powered government is rough and messy business, much like the people themselves. That is why political parties came into existence, as a way for people and groups with similar interests to organize and claim power. It's always why the engines of political parties, i.e. "machines", became so vital in the 19th and 20th centuries: they helped people claim power and use the government to improve their lives.

A machine works like this: the people who work and vote for or finance the dominate political party in their respective city or state get benefits when the politicians they support get into the power. This can be a job or social services or various government favors. It's very much a transactional, back scratching way of governing. It is the "business" side of politics and government. 

Political machines, of course, have long been derided as sources of corruption since they can warp the machinery and priorities of government and leads to bad policies. Government ceases to function properly when instead of being used an instrument to help the population at large it is used simply to benefit the people who run and support it. However, political machines were not always sources of patronage and corruption. Instead, they were mechanisms to help the poor and dispossessed grab away the levers of government from the rich and connected. 

Here in NYC, from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, Tammany Hall was the most powerful and notorious political machine in America. Tammany Hall ran NYC like the Vatican runs the Catholic Church: absolutely. The "bosses" of Tammany, like the infamous Boss Tweed and later people like Carmine DeSapio, would handpick candidates for mayor and other municipal offices and they were almost guarenteed victory on election day. At its height, Tammany's power reached to Albany, with even governors needed the backing of the powerful organization to get elected. But Tammany was not just a cease pool of power and corruption. In its early days, before the government granted social services, it was also a place where poor people and immigrants could go to get a job, food, shelter, even winter clothes. It helped the people at a time when the government and the wealthy didn't, and all it wanted in exchange was a vote. For many New Yorkers at the time, this was a great deal. 

In many ways, Tammany became a victim of its own success and power. By the mid-twentieth century, many of the politicians it had supported, like Governor Al Smith, had instituted social welfare programs in New York State that made the services Tammany used to provide people irrelevant. In the 1930s, the New Deal and the election of Fiorello LaGuardia as mayor made Tammany both irrellevant and, for the first time, politically weak. And, of course, corruption went from the "honest graft" of the 19th century, when politicians and bosses helped the people and themselves, into the vile corruption of Mayor Jimmy Walker -- who spent his days and nights drinking and chasing women while his city fell apart, thanks to the Great Depression and incompetency of City Hall. 

By the 1960s, Tammany Hall was dead. Many said and would say today good riddance. But is the city better off because of it? At its height, Tammany Hall was a strong advocate for New Yorkers who had no other. It truly cared and helped everyone. Today, who does that? Unions? The rich? Ha! And when you see ineffective the city, state and federal governments have became at truly improving the lives of ordinary people, Tammany Hall in its glory years seems truly glorious indeed. 

There is a new book that looks to reexamine the legacy of Tammany Hall. Perhaps, it argues, Tammany Hall has been unfairly condemned. And perhaps the people of our city would do better if another Tammany Hall could rise, a political organization that simply looked out for everyone without regards to wealth or connections. 

P.S. Where was Tammany Hall? It was originally located right off Union Square on East 14th street. The original building was demolished in 1927 but then moved to East 17th. 

Inside Llewyn Davis: The Next Great NYC Movie

Setting a movie in NYC has become so common that it's almost boring. Not that NYC is boring but, as a cinematic milieu, it has become so cliche that I roll my eyes whenever I see another movie set here. Even Woody Allen, the quintessential New York filmmaker, has started making his movies in other places, and it seems to have made his movies better. If you're gonna make a movie set in NYC these days, there needs to be a damn good reason.

Well, leave it to the Coen Brothers to find one.

Although based in NYC, these great filmmakers are originally from Minnesota, and they set their movies in a variety of locales (like Raising Arizona, Fargo, the noiry Los Angeles of The Big Lebowski, just to name a very few). But their most recent film -- Inside Llewyn Davis, criminally overlooked at the recent Academy Awards -- is a total New York movie, and a great one at that. Here's what it takes to make a great NYC these days (according to the high rigorous standards of Mr NYC):

1. Time and Place. Inside Llewyn Davis takes place during the winter of 1961, mostly in Greenwich Village, the Upper West Side, and a little bit in Queens (there's also a subplot with a road trip to Chicago but that's almost a different movie). The Coens do an amazing job of showing how the streets, buildings, and storefronts of these neighborhoods, and, best of all, the subway in really looked in 1961. Back then, these neighborhoods were working class, bordering on poor, and were drab and run-down. The subway was even dirtier than it is now. You see the seeds of the decay that would later be exacerbated by the 1970s financial crises, before the city was "reborn" in the 1990s. This is not a nostalgic, romantic, paper-dollish look at working class NYC in 1961. Watching this movie, you feel like you've been transported back to a specific time and place in NYC, and it makes you see the city again for the first time.

2. Community: Inside Llewyn Davis is set in the folk music scene that sprouted in Greenwich Village in the late 1950s, then culminated in the 1960s with the explosion of Bob Dylan (this film is set roughly a week before Dylan first performed at the Greenwich Village club the Gaslight). Like the 1920s American ex-patriot writers in Paris, or Andy Warhol's Factory later in the 1960s, the downtown folk music scene of the late '50s, early '60s has now become legendary, almost mythical, with singer-songwriters like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, John Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary all getting their starts there. This film shows how hard making a career in folk music was and how, for many, fame and fortune eluded them. This film not only takes you back to NYC at a special time and place but also into a world who legacy continues to this day.

3. Characters: Llewyn Davis is based on the life of Dave Van Ronk, who was a popular Greenwich Village folk singer during this time. Van Ronk was an early influence and friend to Bob Dylan and, although he never achieved that level of fame, he left an amazing legacy and created some great music that is played throughout the movie (including the song "Hang me oh hang me" posted below). Van Ronk's real life was a little different from Llewyn Davis (he wasn't a couch surfer, he was married, and he didn't knock up his friends' wives, for example) but, when he died in 2002, he seemed fated for obscurity. However, the 2005 book about him, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, and now this film, have given Van Ronk, a great New York character, his due.

4. "No fakery": as I indicated before, Inside Llewyn Davis is not a nostalgic look at 1961 NYC or the folk music scene. It is, like many Coen Brothers flicks, totally unsentimental, almost brutal in its outlook. This is not a film that shouts "It was so much better then!" Instead, it aims to show you what the city and this community were like, warts and all. You get a feeling that you are watching real people living their day-to-day lives, and they are confronting problems that are recognizable to people today. While the movie is set in the past, it's the present for them. Most importantly, even though it's a period piece, there aren't lots of references to the fact that it's 1961 (except for one very funny scene where Llewyn Davis and two other singers croon a pop balled called "Please Mr Kennedy Don't Shoot Me Into Outer Space"). Instead, the film takes for granted that you know what we going on back then -- this a story about people, not a history lesson.

So that's my criteria for making a great NYC movie these day: a story rooted in a specific time,  place, and community in the city without either being self-conscience or displaying any cheap nostalgia. Inside Llewyn Davis does this beautifully, it's a great movie, and deserves to ranked with the great NYC movies of all time.

The War on Breasts

It's not easy being a stripper. Not that I've ever been one but I can imagine: literally taking off your clothes in front of a bunch of horny drunk guys, getting hollered at and groped, all for a few bucks here and there. Not an ideal way to earn a living.

Then there are the strip clubs themselves. They iz naaaasssty. (Not that I've been to any but, uh, I've been told.) And they are owned and operated by people who you probably wouldn't want to invite home for dinner. Not ideal workplaces. Not ideal employers.

Then again, life is not ideal. Few people earn a living exactly as they wish. Most people work for people they'd otherwise have nothing to do with. But, in the New Economy, any job is a gift.

Here in NYC, however, strip clubs and the jobs they provide are vanishing. And it's on purpose. Community leaders and politicians are pressuring the NY State Liquor Control Board to deny strip clubs liquor licenses. In the last few years, the number of clubs all over NYC has declined, in some places dramatically. As soon clubs lose their licenses, their business plummets. They try to substitute with things like "mocktails" and other novelties but the reality is no booze, no bidness. Men may wanna leer at breasts, but if they can't enjoy a drink or two while they do it, they have little interest. After all, they can stay home and be pervy on the Internet in private -- for free.

I'm of mixed minds on this. As the father of a daughter, the idea of her working as a stripper is awful. (My mission in life is to prevent this fate. I'm even thinking of starting a support group for fellow fathers of daughters called Keep Her Off the Pole.) And as a homeowner, I wouldn't want a strip club near where I live. But ... I really don't like the idea of legal businesses -- and I repeat legal business -- being harassed out of existence, with the government using a loophole to close them down. So long as they are not near schools and don't disturb the community, why can't they exist? Shutting them down because they offend some peoples' private morality is wrong. After all, if it was up to me, stores wouldn't sell cigarettes and there would be no such thing as a gun shop. But no one's threatening to close them down.

Stop the insanity!

This is just another example of the cultural bleaching of NYC. How the Tyranny of the Boring has taken over what used to be the most exciting city on earth. Okay, we got rid of the hookers in Times Square. Great. We did that for tourists and it helps NYC economy. But attacking strip clubs in Queens and the Bronx? All that does is put bartenders and waitresses and strippers out of jobs. It doesn't protect anyone!

Yet another example of the Bloomberg legacy: working class folks lose jobs while the rich build bigger and bigger highrises.

Eliminating strip clubs in NYC is one of those things that takes us one small step closer to becoming Cleveland. (And no, Cleveland doesn't rock. Otherwise it wouldn't be called Cleveland.)

So join me fellow New Yorkers. It must be stopped. This war must not continue. This war must end. We must stop this War on Breasts!

All we are saying ... is give teats a chance!

Review: "Waiting for Godot"

Having a small child running around makes it tough to blog and even tougher to get to the theater. Fortunately, the baby-sitting Gods smiled down on the wife and I last week and we finally got to see Samuel Becket's classic "Waiting for Godot" on Broadway.

It stars Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, those two Knight Commanders of the British Empire better known as the mutant overlords Charles Xavier and Magneto from the "X-Men" movies. In "Godot", they play Vladimir and Estragon, two "tramps" in worn-out clothes who reek of old shoes and garlic, as they wait eternally by a tree for Mr. Godot. While they wait, they are distracted by a riotous man named Pozzo (played awesomely by Shuler Helmsley) who is lugging along his slave Lucky (the great actor Billy Crudup, paying his dues for dumping his pregnant ex-girlfriend) who he plans to sell off at a fair. Contre temps ensue. Vladimir and Estragon try to stop Pozzo from his mistreatment of Lucky, to no avail. At one point, Lucky gives a long, fast, totally incomprehensible speech about nothing at all. Finally, they leave. Vladimir and Estragon go on to sing, dance, and, on occasion, speculate about hanging themselves from the tree. At a couple of points, as night falls, a young boy shows up to say that Mr. Godot will not be coming today but will tomorrow. Vladimir and Estragon need only continue to wait. Then Estragon drops his pants.

Let's get the easy stuff out of the way: this production is excellent. Natch. Watching Stewart and McKellen is to see two master actors at the top of their game. They throw themselves completely into these ridiculous characters, their feeling and depth of character is intense, and they bounce around the stage like two kids in a playpen, so pure is their love of the play and each other. You wouldn't think you were watching two veteran actors in their seventies who do this eight times a week. The real revelation, for me, was Shuler Helmsley, playing the revolting Pozzo. He absolutely commands the stage, stealing almost every moment from Stewart and McKellen -- and that's no easy task! As for Crudup, his performance is one of the most thankless, physically difficult ones that I've ever seen and, no shock at all, he pulls it perfectly. This production of "Waiting for Godot" is Broadway theater at its very best.

Now the not-so-easy stuff. Becket's "Waiting for Godot" is a very silly play about life's most serious subject. In Becket's view, life is just one long wait for death. In order not to get bored by the wait, to get distracted, human beings mistreat each other and fill out their lives with nonsense. Existence results in debasement. And we convince ourselves that we're not waiting for death but, instead, waiting for ... well, you can't spell "Godot" without G-O-D. We're always promised that God will come, that He will "save" us but ... not quite yet. As for the world itself, like the tree, ultimately it exists as nothing but an instrument for suicide. Life is death. The world is our murderer.  

Obviously, Becket's view of life in the world is a little bleak. Some might even say nihilistic. It's less a play and more a meditation. Even though it didn't premier until 1953, Becket wrote "Waiting for Godot" in 1949, a few short years after WWII, when humanity nearly destroyed itself, so his cynical view is understandable if a little outdated. But it's still relevant, and the religious, philosophical, existentialist, and humanitarian themes of the play have been and will be debated for decades. It invites controversy. It asks tough questions and provides no easy answers. That makes it great art.

And if you want to have a great time on Broadway, seeing this production is one of the best of life's distractions of all.

"The Tonight Show" Returns to NYC after 40 Years

Living the Dream

Many people dream about living and making it in NYC.

Here is one of those stories.

Paul Colby, RIP

Put this in the category of people who should have been famous - but weren't.

Paul Colby managed and owned the famous Greenwich Village club The Bitter End for decades. And, unlike so many of those clubs, it still exists today. It was, and is, a small cramped venue where people interested in emerging artists came and gave the newbies a chance to practice their craft in front of an audience.

And several of these newbies became legends.

Everyone from Bob Dylan to Woody Allen to Lady Gaga got there start performing there. Kris Kristofferson practically credits the The Bitter End for his entire career.

Several years ago, when CBGBs closed, there were lots of stories of unpaid rent and mismanagement that led to its demise. Sure, there was a greedy landlord who hiked the rent but many disputed why this great club had to close. So it's a wonderful thing that someone like Paul Colby could keep a place like The Bitter End running for years. Without him, none of these artists would have had a stage to perform on.

A great New Yorker with a great legacy, Colby died recently at the amazing age of 96 years old. Because of him, our city's cultural life was made a lot richer and, for that, we thank him.

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, 1964

Woody and Mia: The Aftermath

Woody Allen is one of the greatest artists that America has ever produced. As a comedian, actor, author, playwright, screenwriter, and film director, he has produced an amazing body of work, including comedy albums, books of essays, plays, and movies that have influenced generations of writers and directors and will stand the test of time. His work has always had a distinct New York persona, a neurotic nebbishy voice in a country full of sell-satisfied swagger.

That said, Woody Allen doesn't sound like a very nice person.

From everything I've read and heard, he's narcissistic and selfish. He's cold and aloof and, as wonderful as his work is, he doesn't sound like he'd be so wonderful to hang out with. And, in 1992, he shocked the world by dumping his long term partner Mia Farrow for her adoptive daughter Soon Yi Previn. People were understandably upset that the great Woody-Mia artistic and personal collaboration had collapsed -- and, more to the point, they found the Woody-Soon Yi relationship creepy. But that relationship -- now marriage -- has lasted for more than twenty years. It seems to be loving and, in its odd way, meant to be. As the pope might say, who are we to judge?

But judging Woody Allen seems to be all the rage this day.

Twenty-years ago, Woody and Mia went through a grueling, almost two year custody battle over their children, both adoptive and natural. Eventually Mia won custody of the kids and cut them off from Woody. But, most horrifyingly, Mia Farrow accused Woody Allen of molesting their adoptive daughter Dylan at her Connecticut home. This awful accusation was investigated fully and Woody Allen was never charged.

That seems to have been the end of it, at least for the next two decades. Woody remained with Soon Yi and kept making movies. Mia Farrow acted here and there and did great humanitarian work. While Woody and Mia's families never reconciled, at least they seemed to have maintained a peaceful distance, the wounds slowly healing if never completely.

Well, now the scabs have been flicked off.

It began late last year, when Mia Farrow gave a long interview to Vanity Fair, demonizing Woody Allen all over again. And a now grown-up Dylan Farrow, in the same article, gave details of the alledged sexual abuse she supposedly suffered at Woody's hands. It was shocking stuff, like going back to an old nightmare. If true, then Woody is a child molester who should have been charged and gone to jail a long time ago. But, if false, it's a totally malicious smear. In a situation like this, there is no middle ground. Someone is lying and we can never know who.

The article created some hubbub, not just for the allegations but also for Mia Farrow's bizarre claim that Ronan, the son that she and Woody Allen had in the mid-1980s, might actually be Frank Sinatra's (you can't make this stuff up). Then, in January, the Golden Globes gave Woody Allen a lifetime achievement award (as usual, Woody wasn't there, so Diane Keaton, Ms. Annie Hall herself, accepted it for him). During this segment of the show, Ronan sent out a nasty Tweet while also re-posting the damning Vanity Fair article. Sometime thereafter, Mia Farrow Tweeted the same article and condemned the award as an insult to all survivors of sexual abuse. And now, Dylan Farrow has released a letter, really a blog post, to the New York Times, re-alleging the abuse.

Hmmm?

The Vanity Fair article, the Tweets during the Golden Globes, now this letter, all seem like some kind of coordinated smear campaign against Woody Allen. Again, it's very important to point out, that this matter was investigated fully at the time and Woody Allen was never charged.  Obviously, like the rest of the world, I can't claim to know the whole truth. But unlike Roman Polanski and Micheal Jackson, Woody Allen was never charged because there was no evidence. People can be accused of committing any crime but without evidence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt, they can't be charged and convicted of a crime. Even if new evidence emerged proving Dylan Farrow's claim true, the statutes of limitations expired a long time ago and Woody Allen can't be charged for it now. But Mia and Dylan Farrow haven't produced any new evidence -- just the old allegations.

If this abuse really happened, then it's tragic that Woody Allen was never punished. But Woody had never been accused before -- or since -- of child molestation, and molesters rarely only have one victim. Also, this allegation came on the heels of the Woody-Mia split, with Mia pressing hard for Woody Allen to be charged. The timing of it looked like the attempted revenge of a woman scorned and she was using her daughter as the weapon. It obviously failed.

So what's the deal now?

In her letter, Dylan Farrow rhetorically asks the various stars of Woody's movies, "What if it had been your child?" She also accuses Hollywood of "turning a blind eye" and somehow siding with Woody Allen against her. In her thinking, the fact that he still has a career is an insult to her and all victims of child abuse.

Maybe you agree -- and that's fine. But let's put this in some context.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Woody Allen easily made the best movies of his career: Bananas, Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days and Crimes and Misdemeanors. The ones from the 1980s also starred Mia Farrow, and she was great in them. After Woody and Mia split, for the most part, Woody went into a creative decline. Sure, in the 1990s, he made a few good ones -- Bullets over Broadway, Deconstructing Harry, Sweet and Lowdown -- but most of his films were less than great. And, in the 2000s, with the exception of Match Point, most of Woody's movies were outright clunkers and he seemed like a total has-been. However, in the last few years, Woody's career has regained steam. Vicky Christina Barcelona and more recently Midnight in Paris got great reviews and won Oscars (including Woody's first in 25 years). Midnight in Paris was also a huge box office hit. And last year's Blue Jasmine was a big success as well and the star, Cate Blanchett, appears poised to win the Best Actress Oscar. Also, in March, a Broadway musical version of Bullets over Broadway is supposed to open and has generated great buzz. 

Suddenly, at age 78, Woody Allen is cool again.

In many ways, this late career resurgence gets to the heart of Mia Farrow and her family's lingering grudge against Woody Allen: he abandoned them twenty years ago and is still successful to this day and they can't stand it. So Mia Farrow and her family are on the attack: they want to destroy him. This seems to be their wish: that no one will finance, or act in, or distribute, or watch, or give awards to, any Woody Allen movie in the future. They hope that Woody Allen, after almost 50 years in the business, will be shunned from it forever and never work again and presumably he and Soon Yi and their children will end up on the street. Really, what else could they want?

Mia Farrow and her family couldn't convict Woody Allen in a court of law so they want to convict him in the court of public opinion. Clearly, Mia Farrow is still bitter, still angry at Woody Allen. He hurt her twenty years ago and she was understandably angry -- but instead of trying to rise above it and be the better person, she's given into the anger and transferred it to her children.

As for Dylan, she's clearly in pain. She truly believes that she was a victim of abuse and the awful thing is that she just might have been -- and it will never be officially punished. One can only hope that she find peace and joy in her life and the years ahead.

But what good is this smear campaign doing? What's the point? It's just bringing up a lot of anger and hurt feelings, it's just re-litigating a matter that was settled twenty years ago and cannot be changed today. It's also unclear why Mia Farrow and her family somehow think that the entire film industry should somehow judge Woody Allen's career based on his private life and on their allegations against him. Hollywood only cares about his movies -- how good they are and how much money they make. A court of law are where people are convicted for their crimes and sent to jail -- not a crazy business based on illusion.  
 
When something awful happens to you, either you can give into the anger and bitterness, give into the rage you feel towards the person who hurt or you can show that you are stronger than the hurt, stronger than the damage done to you. You go on, regroup, live to fight another day, and show the world that you cannot be crushed. Clearly Mia Farrow and her family cannot do this. Is trying to destroy Woody Allen going to change their pasts and improve their futures? Somehow I think not.

Jon Stewart on Rep. Michael Grimm and NY1