"When Harry Met Sally ..." @ 30

Every so often a movie comes along that's more than just a movie but becomes a talisman for life. It helps you navigate your own path forward, your own relationships and feelings, and it becomes a part of your heart.

For my generation, it's When Harry Met Sally ... which came out 30 years ago this month. I was a kid burgeoning on teenager-dome, and this movie -- this great, brilliantly written, magically acted, beautifully made, perfectly executed film -- made me think about what it might be like to be a grown up, to date, to have different kinds of friendships, about what kind of person I might become. I can't say, by any stretch of the imagination, that I live a life like any of the characters in the film (well, maybe a little, once upon a time) but this movie, and the issues it raises about men and women, are as timely today as they were back then -- and, believe you me, this movie was the topic of many conversations I had as a young man with both men and women.

If you've seen this movie it's impossible not to fall in love with it. There are so many great scenes, hilarious lines and moments, such fascinating characters, that to try to describe it or sum it up here would be to do the movie a disservice. And, if you haven't seen it, stop everything and SEE IT NOW! You will fall hopelessly in love with it. 

Naturally, When Harry Met Sally ... is a great NYC movie. It is a shameless "love letter" to the city, showing its full beauty, you might call it pure NYC p-o-r-n. While today NYC is a dream scape for many (or nightmare, depending on who you talk to), it's hard to remember that, back in 1989, NYC was perceived by most of America and the world as being in crises -- the Central Park Jogger, the crack epidemic, high crime, urban decay, political corruption. The city was seen as a scary place and this movie said -- "No! NYC is as great as ever!" In so many ways, this movie was far ahead of its time.

I've blogged about When Harry Met Sally ... over the years and you can find the complete coverage here.

So go out, get a pastrami sandwich, and watch or re-watch this classic NYC fable.

The Movies Come Home to NYC

Hollywood, California has long been the capital of movie making in the United States, an empire of dreams and fantasies burned into celluloid, built in the desert West. 

But like all American myths, its story begins Back East.

The movie business started in New York and New Jersey more than a century ago. Before California almost completely annexed film production for most of the 20th century, there was a thriving movie business in Queens -- specifically the studio spaces of Astoria. Movie stars like Rudolph Valentino even lived in that natural precursor to Beverly Hills called Bayside. 

The Marx Brothers shot their earliest movies at the Kaufman Astoria studios and other movies shot here as well in the 1910s to 1930s. But soon thereafter movie making in NYC became scant, the exception to the rule.   

That's all changed today. Thanks to tax credits and other developments, movie making in NYC is thriving as never before. Over 300 movies were shot here last year! And it's not just because NYC is a great natural location for movies -- there is now extensive studio space in Queens (Kaufman and Silver Cup with outposts in places like the Bronx) and Brooklyn (Steiner Studios). And now the great actor Robert De Niro along with his real estate developer son are planning to open a new studio called Wildflower, also in Queens. If this plan goes through, NYC will rival Hollywood for studio space -- a coming home for the business that started here more than 100 years ago.

Sidenote: I actually briefly went to school with Robert De Niro's son. I didn't know him at all but sat in front of me in math class. He didn't care about math all then but, I guess, that's changed now! 

Women's World Cup USA Champions in the Canyon of Heroes!

Never Forget Them

This is a post about my favorite kind of person, the NYC hustler -- in this case, a few of them. They include a poet, a movie theater programmer, a nasty guy who wrote nasty books, and a kooky faith healer. It's also about a structure that could have become one of our iconic buildings -- and was! -- until it wasn't.

They were (and are) regular New Yorkers who hustled in their odd respective fields and found great success -- and, in one case, great failure. All of them except one are gone now but let's remember them:

The poet was named Marie Ponsot who just died at 98. She was one of the last links to the Beat generation, a contemporary and colleague to folks like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and others. Her poems were about the complications of love and existence and she won big awards and taught at Queens College. Interestingly, she took a long hiatus from her career to raise seven kids but then later resumed publishing and teaching to great acclaim. 

Then there's Ben Barenholtz who used to program the downtown Elgin and Waverly movie theaters before having a very successful career in film distribution and producing -- including taking a chance on a couple of young filmmakers called the Coen Brothers. Ben's biggest claim to fame, besides launching two of America's greatest cinematic talents, was basically inventing the Midnight Movie. In 1970, he started programming movies at or past midnight, a move that people thought was crazy at the time -- until it was met with massive success. The midnight movie is now a tradition around the world and this guy was the hustler who started it.

And then there's another writer, a wacky guy named Harold Robbins who died almost 20 years ago. A Jewish kid from Brooklyn, he migrated to Hollywood where he wrote trashy books that become popular trashy movies. He made tons and tons of money and lived it up in lavish style. Lots of coke, lots of booze, lots of broads, lots of craziness ensued. He was also a complete liar, trying to convince people that he was some kind of war hero -- his life was fiction as much as his books. Of course, it all ended in tears -- by the time he died he was broke, disabled, homeless. He's one of those guys who lost everything but gained every kind of amazing experience in life that most of us could only dream of.

Okay, so this one isn't gone, she's still alive and apparently thriving. She's another New Yorker gone Hollywood -- Audrey Hope, "crystal healer" to the stars! She apparently uses crystals on the bodies of celebrities to help them restore "balance" and achieve "wellness" and all sorts of crap and yet apparently she makes a great living and is very popular. Talk about a hustler but apparently she's totally legit. Gotta give her credit for that! 

And keeping with the crystal theme -- did you know that Bryant Park is only a park today because the structure that once stood there, the New York Crystal Palace, burned down in 1858 (part of it also burned down in 1856)? This was a huge exhibition space, domed and massive, based on a similar structure built and designed by Prince Albert in London. It was, at the time, the tallest building in the city. The Crystal Palace was deemed so impressive and major that, at the opening ceremony in 1853, it was dedicated by then President Franklin Pierce. Within just a few short years it was gone, a hustle that failed. But for a time it reigned in glory. (It reminds me that great speech Tywin Lannister gives in Game of Thrones about how the castle Harrenhal was supposed to be the great legacy of the lord who built it but then it was destroyed by dragon fire by Aegon Targaryen).

These are my kinds of people, the hustler, the strivers, the people who took chances and made something. In many way, this little blog is my attempt to be one of these kinds of people -- people we should never forget.    

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