Review: "Russian Doll" on Netflix

Russian Doll is about drugs.

Okay, it's not totally about drugs, but it's somewhat about drugs, and I really wanted to write "Russian Doll is about drugs" so I did. Okay, so that's out of the way now.

Actually, Russian Doll is about a woman who, while supposedly celebrating her 36th birthday, keeps dying in bizarre ways and then keeps reliving the same day over-and-over Groundhog Day style. Frustrated by this eternal recurrence, she ventures to figure out why -- dying again and again in the process -- eventually meeting a mysterious man condemned to the same fate. (And sometimes she does drugs.) 

I'm about half-way through this 8-part series and greatly enjoying it -- it's very funny, and I have no idea where it's going. That's a good thing -- it's completely unpredictable, very original storytelling. Natasha Lyonne plays the lead, and she's great -- fast-talking, wise-cracking, kind when she wants to be, tough when she needs to be, smart as hell, sexy in a dirty kind of way, no nonsense, unfiltered in her opinions, the ultimate NYC broad. The fact that she keeps dying is her only vulnerability. This is Lyonne's show in every way (she co-created it), and she's extremely watchable in every way.  

Obviously, Russian Doll set in NYC -- specifically the East Village, and the show rarely strays from the neighborhood. The show is a murder mystery, social satire, magical realist comedy/horror mash up and, something that is very hard to be these days, a great NYC show. 

Russian Doll is a great ride (especially, at one point, in an elevator but I won't give anything away).

Sesame Street @ 50

The world changes constantly but Sesame Street endures -- the legendary kid's show turned fifty this year and shows no signs of disappearing.

Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Bert & Ernie, Grover, Elmo, and so many others are still going strong. 

Apparently the show almost did go off the air but HBO and various business decisions saved it. Thank God!

Like everyone my age (even older), and certainly younger, I grew up watching Sesame Street. It helped me learn letters, numbers, and instilled in me a love of learning. No, the show didn't educate me, it didn't raise me, but it remains a happy memory from my childhood, and enriched me as it has so many others.

Now I have kids of my own, and they love Sesame Street too (well, my oldest says she's too old for it now but my youngest still loves it -- she calls it "Sessee"). 

Did you know Sesame Street has won more Emmys than any other show in history? Did you know there will soon be an actualy Sesame Street in NYC?

As a kid, I actually thought there was a real Sesame Street, and took the theme song -- "Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?" -- literally. Now there will be!

Happy birthday, Sesame Street! Here's the first episode from 1969: 

Cuomo's MTA Plan

The NYC Special Election of 1950

Last night there was a lively debate for the Public Advocate special election on February 26th. As previously noted, this is the first city-wide special election since 1950, when Acting Mayor Vincent Impelliteri was elected to complete the term of recently-resigned Mayor William O'Dwyer.

This upcoming special election was triggered when former Public Advocate Tish James was elected as New York State Attorney General last November and subsequently vacated the office. She ran for AG after former NY AG Eric Schneiderman resigned in a scandale.

Not surprisingly, scandale is what triggered the last city-wide special election in 1950. O'Dwyer was under heat for his connections to organized crime so he accepted President Truman's offer to become Ambassador to Mexico and promptly resigned in the summer of that year. City Council President Impelliteri became Acting Mayor and then ran in the special election.

This was at a time when Tammany Hall still exerted a lot of power over NYC politics and, for whatever reason, Tammany and Impelliteri had had a falling out -- so Tammany didn't support him for mayor. So Impelliteri, or Impy as he was popularly known, quickly created and ran on his own party line -- the Experience Party -- and won.

His victory would be short-lived. In 1950, the New York State government was completely controlled by Republicans, under the leadership of Governor Tom Dewey, and they did everything they could to thwart Impy's initiatives to govern the city (it's the opposite today, where the Democrats completely control the New York State government). Robert Moses was another powerful presence, heading various state and city agencies that turned Moses' policy preferences (i.e. building highways) into the mayor's. So Impy was boxed in -- and, in 1953, Tammany got its revenge when it supported Robert Wagner in the 1953 primary and Impy lost.

NYC would then not have another city-wide special election until now -- for almost 69 years. And whoever wins this race for Public Advocate will be in a powerful position to run for mayor either in 2021 or later on. 

Travis Buys a Gun

Learn more about this classic scene, and others, in Martin Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece Taxi Driver. 

Where have you gone, Bloodgood Cutter?

Part of what makes NYC so great (besides, you know, everything) is that this is a city full of "characters" -- real life people who almost seem to have sprung from fiction. Teddy Roosevelt,  Jimmy Breslin, Woody Allen, Howard Stern, Ed Koch, John Gotti, Al Goldstein -- these are just some of the past and present "characters" who have defined the NYC sensibility (for better or worse).

But none of them were named Bloodgood Cutter -- and, if his name wasn't enough, he was a New York City character both in real life and fiction.   

Born in 1817, Bloodgood was something unimaginable in NYC today -- a "poet farmer". He came from a family of farmers on Long Island and eventually cultivated farmland in what today is Little Neck, the easternmost part of Queens. Very religious, he spent a lot of time in Queens, particularly in Flushing, where he would preach about living a virtuous life. And he loved poetry -- particularly his own -- and even self-published his own, apparently very bad, 500 page book of poems called "The Long Island Farmer's Poems." He was also ahead of his time -- apparently, he was very against smoking long before it was fashionable.

I'm sure if he was alive today, Bloodgood would have a lively social media presence.

But Bloodgood did have a "rendezvous with destiny" -- in 1876, he took a trip to the Middle East and one of his shipmates was a certain well-known writer named Mark Twain. The scribe of Huckleberry Finn became quite fond of Mr. Cutter and decided to base a character on him in his subsequent novel Innocents Abroad. And so the eccentric farmer-poet from Queens was enshrined in history.

Talking about being enshrined, Bloodgood Cutter's grave is quite a site to behold -- buried in Zion Episcopal Church in Douglaston, it's a fitting resting place for an NYC character in NYC.



By the way, talking about New York characters, there's currently a new documentary about the two great NYC reporters Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill now on HBO called "Deadline Artists."

Impressionist NYC

Some might call these blurry, but I call them "impressionist", views of NYC from the BQE on Saturday night. 

Polar Vortex Hits NYC

Fly Fliers Away!

Now that it's opening a massive new complex is NYC that threatens to increase the already spiraling COLA in this town, Amazon is trying to win over public opinion by going on a massive PR campaign.

It's not exactly working.

Oh, Amazon is making promises to hire low income workers, set up programs, etc. -- promises, promises that I'll be shocked if they ever keep.

But one thing they're doing is mailing fliers to just about every resident of NYC touting the benefits of this project. We've gotten more than one -- it feels like 1,000.

Memo to Amazon: you're not going to win "hearts and minds", you're not going to get people to approve of something they disapprove of by clogging their mailboxes with junk. Stop with the fliers!

This is NYC, we're not exactly un-sophisticated, and we know (not very good) propaganda when we see it. Save your money and a few forrests while you're at it. 

Changing Tastes

If you want a perfect snapshot of how NYC has become gentrified, look no further than two establishments in Chelsea.

One is a bar called The Half King that, for years, has been favorite watering hole for journalists. Its  good old fashioned "joint", a booze swilling tap house, and, of  course, it's closing -- its fortunes paralleling the profession so many of its patrons practiced. It's a classic case of rising rents (mainly due to the Highline that has changed the neighborhood) and changing tastes. 

Then, a few blocks away, there's Cote -- the extremely chic Korean BBQ restaurant that some friends and I went to this weekend. Oh man, it was good! And expensive. It's a restaurant inside a nightclub -- very dark, lots of techno music playing, you know, that whole thing -- but the food is outstanding, especially the array of meats that were cooked and served right at our table. The cocktails were, truth be told, a bit mediocre and served with copious amounts of ice but, if Korean BBQ is your thing, this is the place to go. It's also the kind of place that's taking over NYC -- high end, exclusive, expensive, and a bit pretentious -- but, at the same time, so, so good. It is, yes, tasty. 

Tastes change, for the better, for the worse, sometimes at the same time.