Interview: Victator from "Living and Lovin' in NYC"

It’s embarrassing to admit but yours truly has only recently discovered the wonderful world of podcasts. (In case you’re unawares, podcasts are digital audio files that you download from the Internet. The best ones are like listening in through a keyhole to a casual conversation). I’m a huge fan of the mother of all podcasts, WTF with Marc Maron, which is so huge that last year President Obama appeared on it. 

But I recently came upon a relatively new NYC-located podcast called Living and Lovin’ in NYC, a humorous roundtable of New Yorkers talking about, you guessed it, the wonders and travails of life, love, and sex in this most massive of urban jungles. The hosts are amusingly named Victator and NuBritt (currently on leave but sending in updates from a road trip) and the newest host is a trans fellow named Issac. They also have lots of guests who make the show even more entertaining. 

I was lucky enough recently to interview Victator, a native New Yorker who identifies as queer and is the ringleader of Living and Lovin’ in NYC. In this interview, she tells us about the origins of the show, her thoughts about living and “boning” in NYC, how these things are changing – and about how to have a really good “slutty summer” (you might want to take notes, she gives great advice!). 

How did Living and Lovin' in NYC come into existence? 

Every time I hung out with NuBritt I'd repeat our conversations about dating and fucking in my head because I thought they were so spot on and hilarious. I listen to a lot of podcasts and one sunny day I was on my way to therapy listening to one, and thought, wait, NuBritt and I need to do this. I immediately sent her a text and said you and I should do a podcast about dating and fucking. I know there are a lot out there but ours would be better. She enthusiastically agreed and we soon recorded from her kitchen table while drinking bourbon. (We now record and steam live at Radio station, kpiss.fm and drinking during recording has become a mandatory tradition). 

What's a feminist shock jock and where did you get the funky nicknames Victator and NuBritt? 

When we were listening to our first episode, I immediately thought of the shock jocks I used to listen to growing up. You know, Howard Stern, Jaggar from Love Phones. They're dirty, crass, and say what they want and what they mean. We are feminists, but we often sound like bros who've had too much to drink and won't shut up. Hence the term "feminist shock" jock was born. Our nicknames just happened to be what we called each other. My best friend's name is Britt. And when I met Laura Jean I told Britt how great she was and Britt cutely replied "is she my replacement?" As a joke (cuz bros tease each other), my friend Katy started calling LJ NuBritt and we've never stopped. I'm the Victator because whenever I'd hang out with LJ I'd seem to make all the decisions about what we would do and where we would go. But I'm a benevolent Victator so everyone always had a good time. 

Side note: Love Phones was a nightly call in show on radio station Z100 back in the 1990s. If you were a horny teenager in NYC back then, like Victator and me, then you might remember it. Naturally I never called in. You normally needed to have a sex life in order to do so. 

What makes for a great show? 

Well I can't speak to great shows in general, but I think ours is great because we're honest as fuck. There's no pretense. We're completely ourselves ... Maybe a little too much sometimes. But I think that's what people identify with. I've had listeners tell me they've shared some of our experiences but would never consider talking about them out loud. So when they hear someone else do that, perhaps it makes them feel like less of a freak for a moment. We're also never preachy and keep an open mind about topics that are sometimes hard to discuss.

You guys talk seamlessly about gay and straight sex and relationships. Now that gay marriage is legal and gay rights are overwhelmingly supported by the public, do you think the way people (certainly New Yorkers) talk about sex and love is changing?  

This is actually a hard one for me to answer. I think the reason is that for a long time now most of my friends have been queer or passionately queer friendly. So I don't know what straight people say about sex and love behind my back. I'm a native New Yorker like you and I went to elementary school in the Village, where we had out gay teachers. So for my little bubble, I've felt pretty comfortable my whole life (and I'm endlessly grateful for that). It hasn't been that long since marriage equality has existed, so I don't see an immediate stark cultural shift. I do think that some straight people (especially if they're from here) might be unaware that there are still a lot of struggles for the LGBT+ community. I met a married lesbian couple from Florida the other day that said they're not comfortable holding hands in their home town. Also, while I've found that while more people seem to be "down" with being a homo, the way they try to relate to me can still be problematic. I've met plenty of cis straight dudes who try to relate to me by objectifying women in unsavory ways. I guess they think that since we like to fuck the same gender, and because I'm perceived as pretty masculine, I'm not going to identify with the women and join the dousche parade. 

Are trans rights the new frontier in the fight for gender equality? 

If Isaac wants to weigh in into this, he should feel free. I don't want to cissplain on this one. 

What makes for a good "slutty summer" and what advice would you give people who want to pursue one, male or female, straight or gay? Also, are fall, winter, and spring decent slutty seasons? 

Well a good slutty summer consists of multiple partners, good booze, and a consistent approach to not getting emotionally attached. I don't know how to tell straight people to go about it, but I think solid advice to anyone would be, make your intentions and limitations clear. This might seem controversial, but for ladies seeking ladies, I'd recommend finding a hot queer lady with a boyfriend who wants some lady sex on the side. There are a lot out there, and I had a great experience with them. And, Hey, I say be slutty all year long if you can. The summer worked well for me because I was especially horny and wasn't really feeling the serious dating thing. Also, if you're into public sex, there's no better time than that of warm weather.  

You said on one episode that it's actually easier for gay men to get laid than gay women. REALLY? 

This is also a little difficult to answer, because I really can't answer on behalf of gay men and I want to avoid perpetuating the stereotype that gay men are naturally more promiscuous. On the contrary, my queer lady friends have all been horny as fuck and looking to bang, but just seemed to have a more difficult time finding partners. For one, strict lesbians are the smallest part of the LGB population - - there just aren't that many of us. So if you're a gay lady who only wants to fuck gay ladies, you're maybe in for a tough time. But I have no problem dating or fucking bisexuals and other women who bang women, so it's a little easier for me on that front. 

As NYC becomes ever more expensive to live in, is this still a great city to get laid and fall in love in or is it getting ... harder? 

I've never thought about how the cost of living here affected my heart or vagina. I mean, I'm in my 30s and have roommates. And most people I've dated and banged have roommates, so that's always a little tricky to navigate. But I say if you live with someone, you've gotta be down to hear them bone once and a while. That said, it's just standard manners to not be screaming "you fuck me like a pickle in peanut butter!" at 3 a.m. 

What do you guys love most about NYC? And sex! 

I love that I will never run out of people to meet. For friends, enemies, and lovers. There's a lot of people! What do I love most about sex? Peanut butter and pickles. Kidding. Probably. 

Tell us something about yourselves and your podcast that we might not know.

Kindergarten Cop had made me cry on more than one occasion.  

What is the future for Living and Lovin' in NYC? 

I don't know. We were recently listed as one of the best podcasts about sex, so hopefully we can keep being fucking awesome. 

Thanks Victator!

Livin' and Lovin' in NYC is available on iTunes, livinandlovininnyc.com, and wherever podcasts are found. It was also recently listed as one of the 11 Best Sex Podasts by Thrillist at https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/11-best-sex-podcasts.

The Trump Files

The files here on Mr NYC about The Donald, the man who might (shudder) be president, are (mercifully) thin. However, over the years, I have occasionally blogged about the spray-tanned one and the complete (mercifully) thin files are here if you care to peruse. Or don't. It's probably better if you don't. Who needs the agita? But it's there if you can't get enough.

New York Values Revisited

As the clown show known as the Republican Presidential nominating campaign reaches the inflection point called "Super Tuesday" this evening, one memorable incident was when, as you can see in the video below, Texas Senator Ted Cruz criticized Manhattan billionaire Donald Trump for possessing "New York Values."

This was meant as an insult.

Republicans from elsewhere in the country don't like New York because they think we're all, as Woody Allen once said "Gay Jewish homosexual pornographers" and that we have evil gross "values" that we want to inflict on their God fearin', flag waving, gun lovin' way o' life. (Never mind, of course, that most Republican states have higher percentages of divorce and teenage pregnancy than New York -- they love guns, Gods, and embryos and hate everything and everyone else. Real Americans!)

Of course being a lifelong New York, I have nary a problem with gays, Jews, or even pornographers even though I'm none of things things. I've known lots of homosexuals and even been to a gay wedding reception, most of my friends are Jews (this is, in fact, true) and I have dated Jewish ladies, and even though I'm not a pornographer nor have I ever met one, I am a man with a fast-speed Internet connection so, uh ... let's just say I have no problem with pornography so long as it doesn't involve children, animals, or very bad story lines.

But seriously, New York values are distinct in many ways, despite the fatuous comments of the junior Senator from Texas. And out of this silliness comes this delightful series of radio segments from WNYC about "New York Values" exploring the values of NYC in in culture, in media, in history, even architecture. The segments are short but very enlightening and, if like me, you're an NYC junkie, they're well worth listening to. 

Of course, Donald Trump is, sadly, a New Yorker. He's gross, loud, vulgar, racist, sexist, xenophobic, and has very bad hair. He's been a staple of NYC media since my childhood because he makes good copy but he seems intent on becoming an American Putin. It's scary, and hopefully, once all the final votes are counted in his dreary election, he will be kept out of the White House and will remain hunkered down in Trump Tower, Tweeting and yelling at his staff. But Mr. Trump is just one New Yorker in a sea of over 8.2 million of us and this town is so much better than the man whose name sadly pollutes too much of our city's real estate. 

It is ironic, though, that the "family values" Republican party that claims to speak for the American heartland is about to nominate for the presidency a thrice-married New Yorker who has five kids by three women (imagine if he was black?) who has openly supported Democrats in the past. 

This is truly a crazy time to be alive. And a unique moment to be a New Yorker. 

Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump on "New York Values"

Ted Cruz Hates “New York Values” But Sure Loves New York Money

It's 2016 ... and "things are changing"

As 2016 began, so did the final season the PBS super-hit "Downton Abbey", the British upstairs/downstairs story of a great estate, set in the early 20th century, when "things were changing." 

What kind of things? Well, women were getting the right to vote, this funky thing called radio was becoming popular, people were dancing the Charleston, and, basically, the landed gentry could no longer afford to own their huge, expensive estates and employ hundreds and hundreds of people. Pretty soon, the nobility would become more of a curiosity and less an imposing force.

This blog has exhaustively chronicled how NYC has been changing over the years. One of my favorites is from December 31, 2013, when I bade farewell to "Funkytown", remembering the deaths that years of Ed Koch, Al Goldstein, Lou Reed, and Stan Brooks, great New Yorkers all of a bygone era. As 2015 has now ended, we can add two more great New York icons to the memory bank: Janet Wolfe and Dr. Zizmor.

Who are they? New Yorkers who impacted our city in smaller yet wonderful ways.

Janet Wolfe, who died last year at age 101, was the founder of the NYCHA Symphony. After a career as a bit movie actress, doing PR, and working for the Red Cross in Italy during WWII, she founded this symphony orchestra (in her early 60s no less) for public housing residents in 1971. What a wonderful, imaginative thing to do! For four decades, she brought great music to people who would otherwise might not hear it, and she did with verve, with excitement, and with love. She was the best kind of New Yorker and, even though she lived a very long life, we lost her too soon.

And what about Dr. Zizmor? He's not dead yet (he's still a youthful 70-something) but the friendly dermatologist whose silly ads papered the subway system and local TV programming for decades has apparently closed shop and retired. No longer can people get appointments with Dr. Z to have their skin treated by one of his famous chemical peels. His ads were one of those things about the NYC culture that were just ... there ... never wavering ... and they provided a certain kind of reliability and comfort to people in an ever churning city. No more. And, as this article indicates, the old school, local pitchman in NYC is just another thing -- like the subway token -- that has gone away.

So "things" are always "changing" in NYC. Stay tuned. 

Woody Allen @ 80

Today one of NYC greatest living film directors, every body's favorite nebbish Woody Allen, turns eighty years old. 

Eighty! Who knew he was so young?

After all, Woody Allen has been a cultural force in this country and around the world for over fifty years. Since his days as a TV comedy writer in the 1950s, to his days as a stand-up comedian/actor/game-variety-talk show presence in the 1960s, to his now legendary filmmaking career which blasted off in the early 1970s and lasts to this day, Woody Allen has done so much to shape comedy, movies, and American popular culture over the decades that it seems like he has always existed -- and always will.

Only Keith Richards seems more durable. 

For a man who's so obsessed with and afraid of death, Woody seems impervious to any kind of mortality -- either physical or professional. He has just kept rolling along, producing a new movie every year, decade in, decade out. So many others actors and directors have risen and fallen during his time, coming and going like presidential administrations and TV shows, being "hot" for a time before fading away -- and yet Woody endures. How much longer he will endure is anybody's guess but, for the time being, he's still here, making movies. 

P.S. You might enjoy this 1996 profile from The New Yorker about Woody Allen. Even though the article is almost twenty years old, even then he was almost four decades into his film career and already legend. And to think he still had some of his biggest success, and another Academy Award, in his future. Amazing. 

Memo from NYC

In the history of art -- music, literature, painting, sculpture, film, etc. -- blogging is a very new arrival. In fact, it's so new that many people might not think of it as Art at all. How much skill, you might wonder, does it take to sit down at a computer, pound out a few words on the key board, link to a few sites, upload a few pictures, and hit "Publish"? Not much, you might presume. However, making an interesting blog takes a certain amount of thought, talent, and attention, therefore blogging is more of an skilled "art" than you might think.

In this era of the Internet, art of all kinds is widely disseminated online. How artists get paid for work available at the click of a mouse is an endless, almost maddening point of contention between artists and consumers. This is not a subject that I will belabor here because it is, quite frankly, a hopeless and unsolvable bore. But I do want to make one point: companies expecting artists to give them free work is a goddamn outrage! 

Remember Wil Wheaton?

If you're a child of the 1980s, like moi, you certainly do. He was in the 1986 movie Stand By Me and then the late 1980s/early 1990s TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Kind of a big deal back in the day. As a grown up, Mr. Wheaton continued to act but he also worked in tech. He also is a blogger and, apparently, he recently posted something on his blog that was so interesting that the Huffington Post asked if they could re-post it on their site. He asked, quite reasonably, how much they would pay him for it. Their answer? Nothing! Oh no, they told him, the compensation is that we give you a ... "platform" ... which will give you ... "exposure" ... so that somehow ... somewhere ... someone down the line will pay you for ... something ... But, in the meantime, a big wealthy company gets free content.

Mr Wheaton was livid. They wanted to post his work and not pay him for it. He was pissed -- and rightly so.

This happened to me very recently. I thought about blogging about it earlier but didn't because I assumed no one would care. But the fact that this happened to Wesley Crusher's doppelganger shows how over matched us humble artists are against the corporate behemoths that would exploit us like 19th century plantation owners.

This is my story.

Several months ago I got a message from Uber.

Yes, that Uber -- the corporate giant that wants to take over the taxi industry in every city around the world. They wanted me to blog about how great Uber was. I had never actually used Uber but, hey, if they wanted to pay me for a writing gig, I was willing to listen. Give me a free Uber coupon or something, give me some dough, and I'll write something. I'm happy to be a sellout -- for the right price. So I told them this (well, I left out the "sellout" part but said that I could write something) and asked how much money I would get.

Their answer? Oh, we can't pay you a dime but we'll link to your blog on our site and won't the "exposure" for you be great?

I didn't bother to answer Uber and deleted all their messages. Expletive them.

The noive.

Uber is currently valued at $51 billion dollars. The Huffington Post is valued at $1 billion. And yet, somehow, these BILLION DOLLAR companies can't afford to pay bloggers a few bucks to post their content? As De Niro exclaimed in Goodfellas: "What the matter with you? What's the f@#$@#@#ing matter with you?"

I get that we now live in a so-called "disruptive sharing" economy (whether we like it or not), but when big companies like the Huffington Post and Uber ask writers for free content, that ain't sharing -- that's theft. Plain and friggin' simple. Links that provide "exposure" on "platforms" is not compensation -- at most, it's a favor. Not compensation. Get the difference?

This blog is written by moi as a labor or love and its content is free. This is my choice. And what (very) little money that this blog generates goes directly into my pockets -- cause I created this blog and all its damn content. That's my business.  But if I write something for a big for-profit company like Uber that exists to enhance their business and not mine, then that is not a labor of love -- that's just good old-fashioned capital-L Labor. And, for most of the last couple of centuries, people have expected to be paid for their Labor. Civil wars have been fought and revolutions started over just this very point of contention. But now these big tech and Internet companies think they're so special that they should be the exceptions to this rule that undergirds most of civilization.

Some might think that people like Wil Wheaton and yours truly are just big greedy complainers. But no, this is not greed. This is about respect and proper compensation for "services rendered." Capitalism is about the exchange of goods and services. Asking people to give you free stuff ain't capitalism. It's not an exchange. It's not fair compensation. It's just nasty, mean-spirited theft and exploitation. And nothing more.

If getting people to work for free is part of the "new economy", then count me out. Call me old-fashioned, call me a troglodyte, but I think people should be paid for their work. I think big wealthy companies exploiting people is wrong. I've never sat at the cool kids table so if my attitude on this subject is "uncool" then so be it. The uncool never bothered me anyway. 

As a person I onced worked with said, "I may be a whore, but I will thank you that I'm not a cheap one."

Or, in this case, a free one.

HEY, WHERE DA' PORN AT? The New Times Square

So Goes Times Square, so goes NYC ...

I've blogged countless times over the years about the transformation of NYC from a bustling, fun, dirty, dangerous city into a sanitized fun-house mirror of itself catering to tourists and rich foreigners. The cost of living in this city, while never cheap, is now astronomical, and the vestiges of old NYC - like coffee shops, rent controlled apartments, corner drug stores, and porn theaters - are fast disappearing. Because NYC is so vast, because it's a hodgepodge of over 300 neighborhoods (many of which are bigger than most towns and cities in the rest of the country), it's impossible to point to one spot in NYC as representative of greater whole changing dynamic. However, if you had to look for one example, then obviously Times Square, Crossroads of the World, is the place. It has changed so dramatically over the last quarter century, done a complete 180 in the city's and the public's imagination, going from "scary" to "boring", from "gross" to "respectable", that's it's almost impossible to comprehend. Times Square basically is NYC -- only more so.

This lengthy article from this week's New York magazine reviews the transformation of Times Square over the years, from a den of moral inequity to a den of economic inequality. Times Square, it reminds us, has always been the nerve center of the city, representative of it in so many ways. So when it changed, the rest of the city was destined to follow it.

Also, you might be interested to read (or read about) a new book called City on Fire about NYC in the last 1970s era, when the city was dangerous -- and wonderful.

Then, finally, read this article about the boom in 1970s New York nostalgia. Apparently, it's a "thing" now.

If you get a time machine and travel back 40-something years and tell New Yorkers what their city would become, most of them would ask to get into the time machine and travel back to the future with you. But for many of us, if we could go back to that old NYC, some of us, including yours truly, might choose to stay there ... for a while at least.

As Fran Leibowitz said: Times Square today is like a gay bar in the 1970s -- no one admits to going there.

Preserving the Past

Sure, lots has changed in NYC over the years but two things in this city seem immune to the ravages of time: Chinatown and the Dakota building. How have they survived while so much has been changed?

First, in Chinatown, the community, politicians, and business leaders have made a concerted effort to keep this classic neighborhood intact. It's a wonderful example of how vision, intelligence, political will, and good old fashioned hard work and fight huge forces -- like big money and the real estate industry -- to keep a great neighborhood alive.

Second, the Dakota -- this old fashioned building has stood the test of time. Why? Who can say? Perhaps it's because it's just such a gorgeous building that the idea of demolishing it or changing it substantially seems incomprehensible. Perhaps the residents have kept its integrity intact (unlike the Apthorp). Who knows? The only thing we do know is that it still stands -- and probably always will.

Did you see this?

A couple of weeks ago, DNAInfo published a map of NYC neighborhoods -- the borders of which were drawn by their readers. 

There are several hundred neighborhoods around the five boroughs, all leading and bleeding into one another. Where the boundaries of one neighborhood end and the others begin has been -- and probably always will be -- a matter of debate. 

And what this map proves is that, while we may all agree that we live in NYC, exactly where in NYC is open for discussion. 

You know, us New Yorkers, we love to argue, even about where in the city we live!