Review: "Roadhouse" (1989)

This is a very dumb movie but it falls into the unofficial category of New Yorkers who leave NYC for elsewhere and get into crazy adventures in culture clash. It also falls into the it's-so-bad-it's-good genre as well.

The plot is absurd as almost to defy description: it's about a bar bouncer in NYC named Dalton, played by the late great Patrick Swayze, who is such a great bouncer that a bar owner from Jasper, Missouri comes to town to recruit him (as if this is likely to happen). After a two minute conversation offering him a huge amount of money, the bar owner convinces Dalton to pull up stakes, move to Jasper, and start bouncing at his "roadhouse" bar. This bar is so out of control, with drunken brawls breaking out every other minute, that it's amazing it hasn't been closed down by the cops or board of health long ago. Anyway, after some starts and stop, Dalton brings order to the bar -- and he does this through the practice of de-escalation, using the sage wisdom he's gained from (I can't make this up) his PhD in Philosophy from NYU to break up bar fights with overwhelming calmness. 

But then, trouble: a greedy developer in town is threatening and exhorting local businesses, including the bar, trying to drive people out to create land for his ambitions. Dalton then comes to save not only the bar but the town -- and, of course, he falls in love with an extremely hot chick doctor along the way. 

There's lots of violence and flesh in this movie, along with a plot that, dumb as it is, never flags. See if with your friends on a night when you're all a little drunk and want a movie you can make fun of and yell at.

The most interesting thing to me is the performance by Patrick Swayze. He had just become a big star a couple years earlier in Dirty Dancing and this was the first big movie he was in after that. It was a less than impressive follow up but, the next year, Swayze would star in the mega-hit Ghost followed by other hits like Point Break and To Wong Fu ... (much better movies than this). What's great about him, both in this movie and others, was his amazing "presence", the combination of masculinity and sensitivity he projected. He was a great actor, a real star, and I don't think he ever got the critical recognition he deserved. Sadly he died in 2009 from cancer, a great talent gone before his time.   

Jeffrey Epstein Faces Justice

It's about damn time!

Rehab

I don't understand rich people sometimes which why I guess I'll never be one.

Today there's a big story about a guy who bought two small islands off the coast of the Bronx. One of them had a small former radio tower on it that he spent millions rehabbing into a beautiful house -- and he only spent one night in it. He also spent a fortune landscaping the island to make  it beautiful (since the island is basically a rock being constantly pelted with saltwater). The other island is tiny and basically unusable. Now he's trying to sell the islands, apparently uninterested in living in his creation. 

What the hell? He spent around $10 million on one island he'll never use and another he can't! Now he's trying to sell them for $13 and I can't imagine who'll want to buy them. Who the hell wants to live on a island that completely isolates you from the rest of the the city? It might be cool to visit but who'd want to live there? Insanity! 

Meanwhile, in the more civilized world of Riverside Drive, there is a literal mansion for sale around $8 -- less than the cost of fixing up those islands. This Renaissance Revival mansion lies vacant, aching for a buyer. Now, it needs work, it'll cost a lot of money to rehab, but the pictures of it (check it out here) are stunning and mesmerizing -- this mansion even has its own ballroom! If I was one of those super-rich guys, I'd buy this mansion ASAP and fix it up to the "noines." It's the opportunity of a lifetime. And yet, for some reason, in a town of super-rich people, no one wants to buy it! This amazing piece of NYC real estate and history just lies empty!

What the hell is wrong with rich people? Seriously, get your priorities straight:

Rehabbing a mansion -- yes, yes, yes!

Rehabbing islands -- no, no, no! 

Classic Mr NYC

In the last couple of weeks NYC has experienced a lot of rain -- and more is scheduled for this week.

I remember that a few years ago I blogged about a period of almost unending rain and was surprised that it was almost exactly ten years ago. For almost the entire month of June, 2009 it rained every single day in NYC. This resulted in "rain rage", people living in perpetual fury that their plans and lives were being constantly disrupted by the weather.

Read here about a moment in time that's completely forgotten now but, at the time, seemed neverending. 

The Fall of WABC

Just over a month ago the pop station WPLJ 95.5 FM went off the air after being sold to a Christian broadcaster; now its sister station WABC 77 AM has also been sold -- to a local businessman.

This is an interesting development. For decades WABC was owned by big corporations like Cap Cities/ABC, Disney, and, more recently, Cumulus. Now it'll be the personal possession of NYC grocery store magnate John Catsimatidis (more on him and this purchase in a moment).

WABC used to be a huge radio station in NYC. It was a ratings powerhouse and hugely influential in the life and culture of this city. In the 1960s and 1970s it was the music station in town, producing DJs like Cousin Brucie and others, and introducing new bands and singers to NYC listeners. Then, in the early 1980s, it became a talk station -- and made history: its where Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity started their nationally syndicated radio shows, almost launching the conservative media universe that now rules our country. WABC's stable of right-wing radio hosts like Bob Grant and others were (probably) responsible for the election of Governors like Christine Todd Whitman and George Pataki as well as Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the early 1990s.

In many ways, we live in the world that WABC created.

But its been left behind, rattling in the dust. Limbaugh and Hannity moved their shows from WABC many years ago. The Internet and podcasts and social media overwhelmed it, making talk radio seem quaint. It became a victim of its own success. More importantly, as the times changed, as the city it broadcasted to became more diverse, WABC remained, no pun intended, static -- it didn't change, it just devoted itself 100% to angry white male talk, and its rating fell over time. Just as importantly, it was never able to fill the ratings void that Limbaugh and Hannity left behind.

And so, after decades of ruling the NYC radio ratings and government, WABC "bent the knee" to John Catsimatidis. Who is he? He's a businessman who made a fortune running the Gristedes supermarket chain. He's invested in real estate, oil, and other industries and -- like many rich and bored guys in town -- is also interested in media and politics. He gives money to the GOP and Democrats (he's a big Trump supporter), and even has his own radio show where he hosts politicians of all stripes. He's a complete buffoon, one of these guys no one would pay any attention to if he wasn't very rich. He even ran, very unsuccessfully, for mayor back in 2013, and lost big. He's the kind of person everyone mocks behind his back but genuflects in front of -- again, only because he's rich.

What's fascinating about this sale, however, is that a station that was once a part of a huge corporation will be run by one man. It'll be interesting to see if John C. is able to make it into a vibrant local radio station, giving it a new life and relevancy -- or just erode it further. I'm especially amazed that he was able to buy it for only $12.5 million! For a once big-time station in the country's biggest radio market, that's a bargain basement, almost fire-sale price. There are apartments in NYC that cost more, a lot more, than that! It just shows how far the once high flying station has fallen, how irrelevant this once indispensable station has become.

An exhausted volcano.

Good luck, WABC.

P.S. I listened to WABC back in high school and, a short while, after college. Most of the hosts were morons but there was one I loved -- Lynn Samuels, the screechy voiced liberal loudmouth. She was NYC to the core, loud and outrageous, funny as hell, the kind of person I can't imagine being on the radio today. She was very popular and ran on WABC for many years before going off to satellite radion. Sadly, she died several years ago (I even blogged about it here). What she would made of Trump as president is anybody's guess!

NYC Pride 2019 Celebrating 50 Years Since Stonewall

Tiffany Caban & The Changing Face of NYC

Last night, as the results were trickling in for the Queens DA primary and it became clear that Tiffany Caban was winning (although she's not the official winner yet since there are outstanding ballots left to count), I imagined what a great tabloid headline for her victory might be -- something like "Tiffany Takes Queens" or "Upset in Queens" or just "CaBAM!" I remember when Olympic skater Sarah Hughes won a gold medal in 2002, a tabloid headline was simple "Sarah!" -- so how about "Tiffany!" 

Sadly, I didn't see anything like that today -- probably because the tabloids aren't too happy about a social justice-minded Latina winning power -- so I've provided the headlines for you. 

Kidding aside, Tiffany Caban's primary victory is huge -- a very young queer Latina won a very competitive primary against the establishment favorite in a borough-wide race outside the Bronx. She will be, assuming she wins the November general election, the most powerful person in Queens and one of the most powerful in all of NYC. She will end cash bail, cease prosecute weed busts and sex workers, and seek compassionate solutions to crime, not the old shattering so-called "law and order" tactics of the past.

Tiffany's victory is a seismic generational and attitudinal change to law enforcement in NYC. The same multi-racial, multi-generational, multi-everything coalition that elected AOC last year came together again in this race -- and this is now the new normal, the new face of NYC. 

The future is here -- and it's not waiting its turn.

My Bourdain Day

Just over a year ago the celebrity chef/traveler Anthony Bourdain died from suicide. Mass grief  and confusion ensued with tributes and memories of him flooding the airways, Internet, and social media.

Now, a year later, people are turning their grief around. Today, on what would have been his birthday, Anthony Bourdain is being celebrated with the first ever Bourdain Day -- a movement created by his friends, the chefs Eric Ripert and Jose Andres.

To celebrate Bourdain day, all you have to do is raise a glass of something, toast the man, and perhaps post something on social media -- like I will with this blog post ASAP.

Bourdain was a world traveler, an international celebrity, but he was a true-blue New Yorker who always brought the city with him wherever he went -- and brought the world back home with him. His love of food and culture enriched our lives, making us all fuller in both literal and spiritual meanings of the word. 

As a New Yorker, Bourdain had his favorite eating haunts has chronicled here. Also, you can read my tribute to the man here, about how I once met and did a small job for the man himself.

Anthony Bourdain will be forever remembered.

Fight the Power: Caban for Queens DA

In 1989 NYC's racial politics came to the forefront. Though it was 30 years ago, 1989 seems to haunt our present. 

In 1989 we had Central Park Jogger case that led to the wrongful conviction of the Central Park 5. 

In 1989 Spike Lee's great movie Do the Right Thing premiered -- a movie that brutally looked at the racial realities of life in NYC.

And in 1989 Rudy Giuliani first ran for mayor on a platform of racial resentment. He came close to winning in 1989 and finally did in 1993. As this article points out, Rudy as mayor was a forerunner to Trump as president -- white backlash politics, promoting the idea that we were living in some kind of crime-ridden hell hole, blaming the previous black guy who held their office for all their problems, tell lots of lies, and using their power to fight against the demographic changes of the their city and county. The analogy, as this article points out, is imperfect but nonetheless resonant.

The problem for both Rudy and Trump and the people they claim to represent is that, ultimately, they can't change the future -- NYC is very different in 2013 than it was in 1989 (and 1993) and America will be a very different country in 2049 than it is today.

And one way we can make that change is here in NYC, specifically Queens, by voting for Tiffany Caban in the Queens DA race. A social justice reformer, she promises to radically change how we prosecute and handle crime. That's how we can fight the power of the likes of Rudy and Trump -- fight, vote, and make the future we want. 

"Hello, hello": The Gary Love Tape @ 20

If you're a huge Howard Stern fan like me, then you remember when the Gary Love Tape was revealed to the world back in June 1999. 

Back story: Howard's producer Gary made a tape to his on-again/off-again girlfriend back in 1988 begging her to come back to him. The tape remained a secret for more than a decade when a caller to the show revealed -- and Gary confirmed -- its existence. It was finally played on the show and became a classic moment in the history of Howard Stern.

Looking like Daryl Oates, talking into a microphone and video camera, the love-lorn Gary's tape is a hilarious, gut-busting mix of desperation, narcissism, and male entitlement. It's egomania run amock. He tells his ex "This is what I want" and "I feel like my professional life is at a 9" -- pronounced noine -- "and my personal life is at a 2." Then he says "I miss you man" and that he might be open to "mmmmmm-marriage." 

This from a guy who was apparently cheating on her left and right. Fortunately, Gary matured from this and wound up marrying a great (other woman) and having a family. 

It's amazing, after watching this, that any woman wants anything to do with any man. We should all probably be in jail.

P.S. The Gary Love Tape inspired a great rendition of Bruce Springstein's "Secret Garden" known as "Booey Maguire." It's beautiful, touching, and funny as hell.