Howard Stern's "Crucified by the FCC" (1991)

In the late 1980s Howard Stern was exploding on the radio, re-writing the rules of what you could and couldn't say on the public airwaves. Originating on station 92.3 K-Rock in NYC, the morning "shock jock" was getting his show syndicated in markets around the country, entertaining and outraging listeners across the fruited plain. 

This also brought his show into the crosshairs of the Federal Communications Commission which started imposing million dollar-plus fines on his company for "indecent content."

Until 2005, when Howard left regular radio for satellite, he would continue to get fined and harassed by the FCC.

But in 1991, Howard did something brilliant -- he took the uncensored segments from his show that had gotten him fined and produced an album of these supposedly "too hot for radio" bits -- including phone sex, people burping, and a man playing the piano with his wiener -- called Crucified by the FCC. The album included commentary from Howard and others about why these bits got them in trouble with the US Government.

Listened to today these bits are totally silly and not even that outrageous -- and compared with what's on social media and podcasts and YouTube, they're downright. But most of all, it's really funny stuff.

If you want to hear the whole album go here -- and watch these TV segments from the early 1990s when this album was released. 

Review: "Big City Blues" (1932)

I love old movies that give you a real-time window on the past -- of a world both distant and familiar.

Such an example is the 1932 B-movie Big City Blues. It's about a young man named Bud who leaves small town Indiana to start an exciting life in NYC. He connects with his con-man cousin Gibby and a dame named Vida who lead him to a party where things get out of control and someone gets killed -- making Bud hightail it back to Indiana but never giving up his dreams of living and making it in NYC.

This movie has to be seen to be believed -- it's a perfect example of early 1930s pre-code Hollywood with lots of fast-talking characters and hammy acting. It's only an hour long and doesn't have much of a plot but it's a fun short movie that's all about how NYC is a great place to live -- but also with dangers lurking around every corner.

There's a few interesting things about this movie, especially in retrospect.

First, as mentioned, it was made in the early '30s just before Prohibition was repealed so there's a lot of stuff about bootleggers and speakeasies in it.

Second, the cast: it stars a young man named Eric Linden whose acting career was short-lived although he later on had a small role in Gone With the Wind. The "dame", Vida, is played by Joan Blondell who had a long career afterwards -- one of her last movies was Grease in 1978. And in a small part as a guest at the party where everything goes wrong is a young, smart talking Humphrey Bogart -- then just an up-and-coming actor before being lifted to cinematic greatness in the 1940s.

Third, it was directed by a man named Mervyn Le Roy who a few years later would produce a little flick called The Wizard of Oz. 

Fourth, there's a lot of references to the then-Mayor of NYC, Jimmy Walker who had managed to become something of a national celebrity of that time. Much like our current mayor, Eric Adams, Walker was a notoriously corrupt party-hound incompetent. Funnily enough Big City Blues was released on September 10, 1932 just nine days after Jimmy Walker had resigned and fled the country due to corruption charges headed his way. Just two months later New York-native Franklin Roosevelt would be elected president.

So this movie captures NYC at a turning point in history, when the anything-goes, criminal culture of the 1920s was slowly being crushed under the heels of the Great Depression and the New Deal. 

P.S. There's a great monologue at the beginning of this movie by the Indiana train station master. I can't post a clip of it here but look for it here on You Tube -- it's brilliant. 

RaiNYC

New York City got a lot of rain on the day of our lord, September 29, 2023.

Like, a lot, a lot 'o rain.

Apparently city officials of all stripes were yelling about it late Thursday night, early Friday morning when the extent of this was becoming clear. If you monitored social media, local elected reps were literally waist deep in water, trying to help their constituents. But the mayor ...

... well, rumor has it that, while Thursday night the city gubment was getting warning of a massive rainstorm headed our way, Mayor Eric Adams was out late at a club. No statement, no press conference, no plan. And he slept in Friday morning while the city was getting hit by a monsoon, the commute disrupted by flooding, all kinds of mess -- and he was nowhere to be seen or heard from for hours.

I blogged in August about what kind of Mayor Eric Adams is -- and, yet again, as this lack of response to this mess proves, I was ahead of time.  

Queens Man Goes Out of Business

Remembering "Caroline in the City"

In the mid-to-late 1990s the NBC television network was riding high with shows like Friends, Seinfeld, Mad About You, Frasier, ER, Law & Order and others. In an era before streaming and cable "prestige TV", before YouTube and social media, when hit TV shows accumulated literally tens of millions of viewers, NBC was the highest rated network with its Must See TV lineups. 

One of those shows was Caroline in the City.

A sitcom about a cartoonist (Caroline) living in NYC with a wacky next door neighbor, an on-again/off-again boyfriend, a wacky assistant who's secretly in love with her, and various other wacky people who drop in and out of her life, the show ran for four seasons from 1995 to 1999. It was kind of like Sex & the City before that show ever aired -- but much, much more sanitized. Often squeezed between airings of ratings juggernaughts Seinfeld and ER, Caroline in the City was the classic "time slot" hit -- a show that got big ratings because the shows before and after it got even bigger ratings.

Unlike several of the aforementioned shows that remain beloved classics today, constantly in reruns or on streaming, or that have even been rebooted (like Law & Order and Frasier), Caroline in the City is completely forgotten today. Set in a fantasy-land NYC about white people obsessing about their love lives, it's the kind of show that, today, most people probably askance at. 

Yet I remember the show, somewhat fondly, for a couple of reasons.

First, it starred the wonderful Lea Thompson who a decade earlier had been in the Back to the Future movies (as well as other '80s classics like Some Kind of Wonderful and Howard the Duck). While the show wasn't great, she was ... some kind of wonderful in this show. Second, the show aired during my college years -- in fact, interestingly enough, it premiered a month after I started college and went off the air a month before I graduated. So, for me at least, it's a kind of time-capsule of a very special, very specific time in my life -- even though I didn't watch the show regularly. 

So today I remember a show that, while not great, while it might not "totally hold up", hold a weirdly special place in my heart. 

Royal Redux

This week Prince William of the United Kingdom -- who became Prince of Wales following his father's elevation to the throne last year -- will be visiting NYC this week. He'll be at the UN General Assembly, doing something with his Earthshot Innovation prize, and promoting various environmental causes. 

This visit is, apparently, a new phase in his royal career -- now that William is next-in-line to the throne, only a heartbeat away from becoming the next UK Head of State, he needs to develop an image and reputation as a global statesman, a leader, as someone taken seriously by his country and the world as its next sovereign. Being Prince of Wales is a lot like being Vice-President -- being the the person who's there to take over when the top person goes, either suddenly or eventually.

The British royals have long visited our fair city -- as this articles indicates. The link between NYC and the UK is quite strong after all -- this city is named for a city in the UK (York), two of its boroughs/counties are Kings and Queens, the British imprint on this town is quite noticeable. So when they come to America, NYC might feel a bit like home.

You can also read my previous coverage of the royals in NYC here and here.

The Fall of a "Good Republican"

New York City is, for the most part, a one-party city -- the Democrats control the three city-wide offices, four of the five borough presidencies, the vast majority of the City Council seats, and most of the city's state legislative and Congressional delegations. But there are red dots in this blue mess, a handful of Republicans in the council and state/federal delegations -- and, of course, for 20 years, we had two Republican mayors.

One of those red dots was Eric Ulrich.

First elected to the City Council in 2009, representing Howard Beach way out in southeastern Queens, Eric was young, smart, fast-talking, and good on TV. He popped up on NY1 and WNYC radio a lot and he always seemed to know what he was talking about, always had a quick answer to whatever question he was asked, always was engaging. He was seemed like a bright-light of young Republican promise in a sea of dull Democratic hacks. His promise was strong, his future seemed golden. Eric was supposedly that thing the media and too many Democrats wish existed but really doesn't -- the "good Republican", the "reasonable Republican", the Republican who is conservative, yes, okay, but who you could "work with", someone with whom you could "find common ground" with and come up with "common sense solutions."

That kind of crap.

During the De Blasio years, along with most of the media, Eric would rag on the mayor all the time, even though he voted for most of mayor's policy agenda. I remember seeing Eric on TV once complaining about how the sanitation department hadn't plowed his neighborhood fast enough after a snowstorm (because, you know, some people think their neighborhoods get plowed too quickly) and this was apparently proof-positive that De Blasio was a bad mayor. When pressed that crime was low and the city didn't appear to be in any kind of crises (this was pre-COVID), Eric blithered on about how the city was experiencing "a crises of confidence" which is the kind of thing that's obviously impossible to prove.

But Eric also wasn't a big Trump guy so that obviously made him a "good Republican" in so many people's eyes -- that mythical creature like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Eric Ulrich stayed in the council until 2021 when he was term-limited out. Then, Republican though he was, he joined the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, a supposed Democrat. At first Eric was a "special advisor", then he got a big job as the city's building commissioner. As you might imagine, in a city with LOTS of buildings, the building department is a very powerful, very important agency -- it has over 1700 employees. Then, quite suddenly, after less than a year on the job, he resigned in late 2022. Turns out, Eric was under investigation for participating in a gambling ring. Okay, that's not great -- but it turns out there was more. Eric apparently used his city elected and administrative offices to help himself get a steep discount on an apartment, Mets tickets, art, and repayment of his gambling debts. He's just been indicted for corruption and is looking at jail time.

And so there goes another "good Republican."

Double-Rainbow Over NYC -- September 11, 2023

Garbo Redux

I've always been fascinated by the 1930s movie star Greta Garbo, the great Swedish actress who made classic movie after classic movie -- before quitting and remaining a recluse for the rest of her life. Over the years I've blogged about her life in NYC where apparently she became known as the "hermit about town."

Now there's a new biography about Garbo coming out, including new info a lesbian love triangle she was in with notorious woman-snatcher Mercedes de Acosta. 

Equally intriguing is that apparently, in the 1950s, when Garbo was herself in her 50s, she went to a party one night hosted by the acclaimed playwright and screenwriter William Inge. He held it, of all places, in his apartment on my beloved Riverside Drive.

One of the guests was a handsome young actor, just starting out on Broadway, named Burt Reynolds. The older Ms. Garbo was quite struck by the hunky young thespian and made overture after overture to him to take her home and do the funny business ... and he chickened out.

That's right, "the Bandit" might have shtupped Ninotchka. How cool would that have been? And this meeting happened, of all the square places, on Riverside Drive!

Apparently the divine Garbo didn't always 'vant to be alone. 

Ruschell Boone RIP

I'm so sad that NY1 reporter and anchor Ruschell Boone has died from cancer at the age of 48. She was so great on TV, such a magnetic presence, such a smart grownup reporting on a world run by children -- and she also just plain ol' adorable. A great journalistic talent and NYC icon. She'll be greatly missed. RIP.