Remembering Sterling Morrison

Every successful band has "that guy" (or girl, let's not be sexist) who is neither the lead singer nor the front-man but who is the backbone, the conciliator, the person who keeps the band grounded and makes it good. In this case, this person isn't the third wheel but the third leg of a musical stool.

In the Rolling Stones, lead singer Mick Jagger and frontman Keith Richards were held together by their great drummer, the late Charlie Watts.

In the Beatles, lead singer John Lennon and frontman Paul McCartney were the flashy stars but guitarist George Harrison gave it an extra quiet cool.

And in the Velvet Underground, my personal favorite band, it was Sterling Morrison.

So who was he? 

In the new Apple TV documentary made by Todd Haynes, you get some idead but not much. The stars of that band were the irascible but brilliant and literary Lou Reed and the equally brilliant but stubborn muscial experimenter John Cale. Together, they crafted stunning, musically groundbreaking songs that influenced singers like David Bowie and bands like U2. But during the Velvet Underground's short but memorable run, with Reed and Cale making music history but also at each other's throats, Sterling Morrison's base guitart (and regular guitar) kept the beat going on.

Like Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison was a native of Long Island who met Velvet drummer Maureen Tucker during childhood and Reed up at Syracuse University in the early 1960s. Later, back in NYC, as Reed and Cale were putting the Velvet Underground together, they invited him to join. At the time, they were just a bunch of kids in their early 20s looking to make music and get noticed. They made music but success passed them by -- instead, they made musical history.

Morrison stayed with the band throughout its tenure, dealing with Reed and Cale's fallout, plugging away on the guitar as the band toured the country. But in 1971, very dramatically, he quit the band when they were due to return to NYC from Texas -- at the airport, he told his bandmates he was staying in Texas and moving on. Morrison then worked on tugboats, eventually becoming a captain, and also completed his PHD in Medieval History at UT-Austin, eventually teaching there as well. He would play around Austin, occasionally with his old Velvet friends, until he rejoined the band during its reunion tour in 1993. In 1994, he was diagnosed with cancer and sadly died in late August 1995, at the age of 53. 

In 1996, when the Velvet Underground were inducted into the Rock'N'Roll Hall of Fame, Reed, Cale, and Tucker performed a special song in Morrison's memory, a beautiful tribute to a great friend and talent.

Sterling Morrison was never the star, the frontman, the one everyone paid attention to and talked about. Instead, with him, it was all about the music, the work, helping to craft Reed and Cale's ideas into reality, making a great band even greater. And that's why, even more than a quarter century after his death, we remember him still.  

Adams vs. Sliwa -- The Debate!

By the way, sparks didn't really "fly" at this debate -- more like wafted. 

Colin Powell RIP

Sad news: the great pubilc servant, Secretary of State and four-star General Colin Powell, has died at age 84.

His life and career are the stuff of what American myth are made of: born to poor immigrants, he worked hard and proved himself and eventually reached the highest reaches of the US government, both in and out of uniform. 

And he was a New Yorker -- born in Harlem, raised in the Bronx, and a graduate of City College. 

I distinctly remember when, in the summer of 1989, he was appointed Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, my mother pointed out his humble NYC roots and was impressed that not had he become the first black man to reach such heights in the US military but that he was also the first ROTC graduate to do so. Then I remember in 1990 and 1991, Powell along with Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf became the face of American triumph in Operation Desert Storm aka the Gulf War. Sadly, a decade-plus later, he became the face of American bumbling in the second Gulf War, the misadventure in Iraq. 

Still, his life was an inspiration, not only for black Americans but for all who saw nobility and purpose in a life of service and hard work. And he never forgot where he came from.

RIP.

Rainbow Over NYC

 

Adams vs. Sliwa?

Did you know that in less than a month the very fate of NYC is set to be decided?

There's a mayoral race, an extremely consequential mayoral race, going on right now but you'd hardly know it if you look at the news. 

Democrat Eric Adams, the Brooklyn Borough President, is running against Republican Curtis Sliwa, the radio host and founder of the vigilante Guardian Angels. The two of them are barely engaging, or attacking, each other. They're barely campaigning. Because everyone assumes Adams will win (including Adams), he's spending most of his time laying low, running out the clock, and raising money. Sliwa, meanwhile, with little money or support, is prowling around the city trying to win as many voters in person as possible. It's bizarre.

You might say, it's the mayor's race that isn't.

The media is paying it very little attention. There hasn't been a debate yet and there might not even be one since Adams isn't taking public funds for his campaign. Most candidates for high office seek to generate news to win votes. They seem to be doing the opposite. 

I can understand that, after last year's insane presidential election, a calm and low key NYC mayoral election is a welcome reprieve -- but it's a little strange, and more than a little scary, that the press and public seem indifferent to covering the race and the candidates that will guide this city for the next four years. 

And if the next mayor, whoever it is, turns out to be a disaster, we might look back at this time right before the election where the city showed and indifference to its fate -- and came to rue the day.

New York City will survice regardless, but can't we do better and pay a little more attention?

Take the Cannolis in 525,600 minutes: Creating "The Godfather" and "Rent"

Two vaunted pieces of NYC culture are the 1972 movie The Godfather and the 1996 Broadway musical Rent. This year Rent celebrated its 25th anniversary and, next year, The Godfather will celebrate its 50th.

One is about the mafia in the 1940s and '50s; the other is about young people in the 1990s. While both works couldn't be more different, they remain beloved classics since they are brilliantly crafted stories about the city as a place of great opportunity and great danger. In short, both stories are about NYC as a place where the American dream thrives -- if it doesn't kill you first. 

There is a new genre of info-tainment that's becoming more popular: books, documentaries, podcasts, and movies about the creation of classic works of entertainment. Sometimes, even not that classic.

And this year is no different. There is a new movie coming soon about Jonathan Larson, the creator of Rent, based on a meta-musical he wrote about the making of Rent called tick ... tick ... Boom. It's directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Also, there is a new book called Leave the Gun, Take the Cannolis about the making of The Godfather. You should read this fascinating excerpt about how Marlon Brando came to play -- and discover -- the character of Don Vito Corleone, one of the most iconic performances in cinema history. 

Whenever you encounter a masterpiece, a perfectly realized work of art, it's easy to believe that it somehow grew out of the earth, emerged complete from the ground, like some kind of beautiful plant. But no. There was time when their creators would struggling, working hard, putting the pieces together, re-working and re-writing and re-doing it all, probably fighting feelings of failure and doubt, doing their level best to create something good -- and they had no idea at the time that they were creating something that would resonate across time. They just wanted to get it done and get it done as best they could. History would take it from there. 

Cynthia Harris RIP

Cynthia Harris was one of those actresses who never became a big star -- but who was in everything. She has died at the age of 87.

With a career spanning decades, she is probably best known for playing Wallis Simpson in the 1970s mini-series Edward & Mrs Simpson and then, in the 1990s, as the intimidating mother-in-law Sylvia Buchman on the great NYC show Mad About You.

In between, she appeared in the huge 1987 hit movie Three Men and a Baby -- another NYC classic.

Cynthia Harris was herself an NYC native and, in addition to appearing in movies and TV, had a very successful stage career -- including in the original run of Company back in 1971. She was one of those solid, dependable actresses who could do anything, a great talent. She will be missed. RIP. 

John Lewis, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd in Union Square

"Law & Order" Returns!

Eleven-years ago the TV show Law & Order was cancelled by NBC. It was a big surprise, especially since it had run for 20-years and had become a television and NYC institution. Of course the Law & Order "franchise" still went strong with spinoffs like L&O: SVU, L&O: Criminal Intent, and a new one called L&O: Organized Crime. But the mothership had sunk, the "one that started it all" was gone.

At the time I blogged a passionate screed about its cancellation, and how odd it was that there were all these spinoff shows while the original show had been killed (a murder mystery that an episode of Law & Order might have even solved).

Well, never mind. After eleven years, the OG Law & Order is back! The show is being officially revived or renewed -- whatever -- for a 21st season. When it will premiere, and who will be in it, remains to be seen (rumors abound that some of the old cast members might return but nothing is confirmed yet).

I'm generally not a big fan of all these reboots since they almost always fail to capture whatever magic existsed in the original versions. But L&O was and is different -- it was like an old fashioned newspaper serial or a folk song -- it was never young and never got old. The cast kept changing, each episode was a stand-alone story, each week it basically renewed itself, and it's something that can probably go on forever. 

Let's hope it does -- for the sake of television and NYC.

The Upper West Side: Sexy, Scary ... Suburban?

Yours truly has not yet seen the popular new show Only Murders in the Building that involves Steve Martin and Martin Short solving murders in an Upper West Side building with, of all people, Selena Gomez. But the show is a big hit and it's apparently created some interest in the popular neighborhood not seen since the days of You've Got Mail twenty-odd years ago. 

What's happened to the Upper West Sideis indicative of what's happened to NYC in general over the last fifty-something years: from hellscape to playground, from wild to, well, kinda boring.

This years marks the 50th anniversary of Panic in Needle Park, the movie Al Pacino made just before The Godfather. The brutal story about heroin addicts hanging out in Verdi Square on West 72nd street made the Upper West Side look like a village of the damned. This was on the heels of 1968's Rosemary's Baby where the Devil literally took over the body of a young housewife living in the Dakota, just down the block. A few years later came Taxi Driver, with Robert De Niro's crazed Travis Bickle turning into a horrific vigilanty -- and living and hanging out mostly on the Upper West Side. Then, in 1989, Pacino returned to the neighborhood in Sea of Love where he pursued a serial killer, Even the city's "hoity toity" lived in the squalor -- in 1990's Metropolitan the young Tom Townsend lived in the 'hood in genteel poverty -- in great contrast to his Upper East Side debutante friends.  

But forget the movies -- reality was just as scary and sexy. John Lennon was killed in front of the Dakota in 1980. The swinger's club Plato's Retreat was going full blast. I grew up in the area and remember the Upper West Side as a decaying but nonetheless fun neighborhood -- and it felt like a neighborhood, a community, a place unto its own.

This article from Town & Country nails the evolution of the Upper West Side, how it's gone from a place of wildness, a sexy and scary place, into a not terribly interesting suburb. Lots of chain stores, lots of high-end boutiques, lots of expensive restaurants, lots of new glass buildings. Now it's safe. It's "family friendy." It's dull. Don't get me wrong -- it's lovely, and a great place to live. But the Upper West Side of yore is, well, yored. All we have are the memories.