Interview: Greg Young of The Bowery Boys Podcast

Easily the best podcast about New York City history is The Bowery Boys, created and still hosted today by Greg Young and Tom Meyers. On each episode, these two uber-NYC enthusiasts deep-dive into so many aspects of this city's history: the people, neighborhoods, events, and eccentricities that have formed this most amazing of places. They go way back in history and make it relevant to life in the city today. The enthusiasm and joy that Greg and Tom bring to each episode is infectious, and the show has gone beyond the podcast into books and tours. 

It's brilliant and extremely fun, and I get excited every time I see a new episode pop up in my IPhone. 

The Bowery Boys, still going strong after more than a decade, is extremely popular with listeners from all over the world. Greg Young was kind enough to answer some questions for Mr NYC about the podcast, the city, its history, and his favorite NYC-related things.  

Tell us what inspired you and your co-host Tom Meyers to create The Bowery Boys podcast. What makes you keep doing it after 11 years? And why call is the "Bowery" boys? 

We started the podcast in 2007 as a way to keep us inspired about the city and to learn more about our neighborhood at the time (which was the Lower East Side). We have not been exhausted by the information we continue to find about the city, so we keep doing the show! The Bowery Boys were a 19th century gang that roamed the streets of Five Points, the notorious slum that once sat near Chinatown today. Although we like to also consider ourselves in the tradition of the ‘Bowery b’hoys’ and ‘Bowery g’hals’ of the 1830s and 40s, Irish-phrased slang for the new young Irish immigrant populations that were moving into lower Manhattan at the time.

While the podcast is about the history of NYC, it seems focused on how the history of the physical city intersects with its cultural and social history -- as well as its "mystique." Is this is a good way to describe the podcast or am I missing something? What else would you say the podcast is about? 

All of that – and more! I’d say the meaning of our show has evolved as well, especially now that we’ve done it for 11 years. Things we talked about at the beginning have changed or are now entirely gone. It’s interesting listening to our early shows just to compare how the city has developed – in some ways good, others bad. For instance, it’s almost amusing to hear our early shows on the High Line and the Meat-Packing District, recorded years before Hudson Yards project was dreamt up. 

How do you guys go about finding subjects to discuss and what is your research process like? How do you avoid being repetitive? 

Topics develop out of research or are inspired by current events or pop culture moments. For instance, our next show is on the history of the New York comedy scene, inspired by our affection for the The Marvelous Mrs Maisel on Amazon. And it’s okay to be a little repetitive, we have discovered. Sometimes it’s worthwhile to approach subjects again from a different point of view. We just recently did a show on Emma Lazarus, incorporating the history of the Statue of Liberty into that, but from the angle of immigration (a hot button issue these days). 

The podcast goes pretty far back into the history of NYC. Are you guys most interested in NYC before the 1950s and '60s or do you ever like to get into recent history? 

We do whatever interests us. When we do recent history, we like to interview people who remembered the history. Sometimes, due to time constraints, its just easier for us to talk about older topics but technically no decade is off limits. Our comedy show in two weeks will have a whole section about the 1990s. 

Do you have to fight the urge to make the podcast Manhattan-centric and is it harder to do episodes about the outer boroughs? 

It drives me crazy because I’d love to do more about the outer boroughs. But we have such a diverse audience at this point – with as many listeners outside New York City as in – and Manhattan tales are still the most popular. PLUS you can’t overlook how important New York (which was just Manhattan until 1898) is in American history. That said, there will be a LOT more Brooklyn and Queens in the coming year. 

Tell us about some of your favorite episodes and what made them so special? 

So many ways to answer this! We love our ghost story shows of course – we get to be melodramatic and over-produced – and we love our big infrastructure shows the most (like the subway, Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs, the grid plan). Personally speaking, I love the music shows. I come from a career in the music industry and was so thrilled to do shows on Billie Holiday and The Cotton Club that were brimming with music. 

What are some of your favorite pieces of NYC historical trivia -- and what things about the city's history do you think are important for anyone who lives here to know? 

I’m currently obsessed with the origins of place names. Find an interestingly names street and go down a rabbit hole of how it got its name. For instance, there are a row of streets in Greenpoint that are alphabetical north to south (Ash Street, Box Street, Clay Street etc.) and its all to do with the 19th century industry that once lined the waterfront there. 

Have you ever read The Power Broker and what are your thoughts on the legacy of Robert Moses? 

One of my favorite books of course! I’ll say this – our city could probably use a 1930s Robert Moses right about now, to erase and reverse some of the damage that 1950s and 60s Robert Moses did to this city. 

What are favorite NYC neighborhoods and why?

I have about a million, but I always suggest people visit Roosevelt Island. You’d be surprised how many native New Yorkers have never been. It’s got a ton of history and some excellent views. Plus – SMALLPOX HOSPITAL RUINS. 

What are some of your favorite NYC movies, TV shows, and novels? Which movies, in your opinion, show off the city the best or makes people really understand why life is (or was) like here? 

The aforementioned Mrs Maisel, Mad Men, The Knick – are all excellent portrayals of New York. The Alienist was often good, even though it was filmed in Europe. In terms of recent movies – believe it or not, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them actually does an amazing job at re-imagining 1920s New York. Loved the Saiorse Ronan movie Brooklyn, the Oscar Isaac movies A Most Violent Year and Inside Llewyn Davis. I just recently re-watched Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and thought it really held up. 

As the city becomes more and more gentrified, do you think NYC is in danger of losing parts of its history or has historical preservation done enough to, well, preserve it? Tell us your thoughts about how you think NYC should keep its history while also moving into the future? 

New York City always needs to keep changing; it can’t afford to be a museum artifact like Paris or Rome. We’ve got excellent preservation laws in place and well-regarded community groups fighting to save those artifacts that are most endangered. But I do worry about classic mom-and-pop places disappearing with skyrocketing rents. There are some excellent ideas in play to help save them, but the best way to save those types of businesses is to actually frequent them, spend money at them. We can’t lament the loss of a classic diner or a deli if we’ve never bothered to step foot in it. 

What are your hopes for The Bowery Boys podcast moving forward? What does the future hold? 

More live shows, a new spin-off show for 2019, and another book! 

Finally, what do you love most about NYC? 

My answer changes every week. Last week’s answer – the beauty of snow falling in a brownstone neighborhood with a canopy of trees. The week before – my local bakery’s bagels. Next week’s answer – visiting the American Museum of Natural History on Wednesday to watch workers inflate the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats. 

Thanks Greg!

You can find podcast episodes and more info about where to download them here. 

The Bowery Boys Go to Holland

It's no surprise that I'm a big fan of the NYC podcast The Bowery Boys, blogging about episodes every so often and interviewing one of the co-hosts in 2018. 

Recently the boys did a series of episodes exploring NYC's Dutch roots by actually going to Holland and visiting the towns and areas where so much of this city's history began. It's a fascinating look at how much of the city we know today, the mightiest city in the world, came from this small European country -- and how this town was once a colony of a mighty overseas non-English speaking empire.  

America may have been born in the streets of NYC but, before NYC was NYC, it was a small Dutch town in the New World.  

After all, New York City used to be New Amsterdam, neighborhoods like Harlem came from  the Dutch town of Haarlam and the entire borough of Brooklyn came from a place called Breukelen.

And if you've ever read The Great Gatsby, it's famous last paragraphs, as Nick Carraway stares across Long Island Sound at the huge rich homes and the symbolic green light, he wonders about what it must have looked at, unmolested, for "Dutch sailors' eyes." 

I haven't listened to the entire series yet but plan to finish it soon -- and encourage you to do so!

Classic Mr NYC

"He made this city!"

In the movie Chinatown, the evil Noah Cross says this twice about his former business partner Hollis Mulwray. Cross both loved and hated him. Mulwray built a dam that brought water to LA and made them rich. But when Mulwray refused to build another dam -- as part of a dark plot to steal water and land in the Valley, and to make LA even bigger -- Cross murdered him. Still, even after that, Cross pays tribute to his victim's great legacy.

Cross and Mulwray are entirely fictional, obviously, but Mulwray is based on the very real William Mulholland who built the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, bringing massive amounts of fresh water to the young desert city. Within a decade its population has tripled -- oh yes, Mulholland made that city.

New York City is, of course, much older and not on a desert. And if you asked most people today who "made" NYC, they might point to Robert Moses or argue that no one person is responsible for "making" NYC in its 400-something year history.

But they would be wrong. One man did make NYC, at least the city of five boroughs we live in today: Andrew Haswell Green.

I blogged about him briefly a few years ago, specifically citing a Bowery Boys episode about the man. Yet I realize that I have not really given him his due: Green truly is the "Father of Greater New York." His vision, his efforts, his ideas, were resposible for: Central Park, The New York Public Library,The Metropolitan Museum, The Bronx Zoo, The American Museum of Natural History, Riverside Drive, Morningside Park, Fort Washington Park. And Green chaired the committee, and had the vision, to consolidate the five counties of Bronx, New York, Queens, Kings, and Richmond into one city -- Greater New York.

So yes -- he made this city! The NYC we live in today was Green's vision. 

And the reason, I think, I never properly gave him his due it because our city, his city, hasn't done it either.  

Remember in Godfather II when Hyman Roth says about his (also) dead former partner Moe Green that he was responsible for creating Las Vegas? And remember when Roth yells that there isn't even a signpost or plaque commorating this "great man"? 

Well, in Mr NYC's opinion, the memorials to Green NYC are extremely insufficiant. There's a small park on the Upper East Side and a bench in Central Park. There's also an island up in the Niagara River named after him. But these minor memorials don't seem to, in any way, really give the man his due. He doesn't even have a street or a building named after him! Ed Koch has a friggin' major bridge named after him -- but not this guy? Green needs to have a massive memorial named after  him, a huge tribute.

Why not City Hall? 

Because he made this city! 

Mr NYC Ahead of His Time

So this will be a twofer today for "Mr NYC Ahead of His Time."

In 2011, and in the years since, I blogged about the great 1930s movie star Greta Garbo who moved to NYC in the early 1950s and spent the last decades of her life living as a recluse.

My first blog post about her was called Garbo Walks, and was about how for years on end it became a sport for people in Manhattan to spot the great star walking the streets. (She died in 1990.)

Well, it was a great to see the wonderful NYC podcast The Bowery Boys now do a podcast episode about this very subject called Garbo Walks: A Tale of Old Hollywood in New York City. It's a great piece of city nostalgia that looks at the contradiction of someone who many viewed as a goddess of cinema, a living silhouette of beauty and talent -- but who was in fact just an eldery retiree who kept to herself, who "'vanted to be alone." 

But the world wouldn't leave her alone. Even in 1985, when she hadn't made a movie over 40 years, her 80th birthday became big news! Mr NYC may be ahead of his time, but Garbo is timeless. 

We've Been Here Before -- and We'll Meet Again

Man I love The Bowery Boys! The only good thing about this COVID-19 situation is that they have been dropping lots of great episodes of their podcast lately, including their newest one -- The Staten Island Quarantine War. It is a must listen and a must read (their web page for this episode includes lots of great pictures and info behind this big "war").

Who would have thought that something that happened more than 160 years ago on Staten Island of all places would be so relevant today?

Long story short: there used to be a big quarantine hospital on the northern St. George's tip of Staten Island that the residents hated, petitioned against, rioted against, and eventually burned down, in 1858. When you see all these people protesting against quarantine orders today, it's both depressing but also somehow historically satisfying to know that we've been here before, this is actually nothing new.

People hate quarantines -- whether it's something they are forced to live in or with. Being quarantined is barbaric. It's like being in jail or dealing with kids confined to their rooms -- it totally goes against the human spirit that years for freedom. But sometimes, both for the people being quarantined and for the greater good, it's necessary. 

But learning about this moment in NYC history, you learn that pandemics and quarantines -- like wars, depressions, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, etc. -- or any great events that traumatize an entire populace, are not a new experience in human history. 

To paraphrase the end of the first chapter of Brideshead Revisited, we've been here before, we know all about it -- and some day it will end. To quote Queen Elizabeth II's recent remarks about COVID-19, reminding us more than 80 years after she comforted her fellow children during World War II, "we'll meet again."

At Home in New York City

Gosh darn it, those Bowery Boys have done it again -- another great podcast episode (two this time) called At Home in New York City, about what it's actually like to live in NYC, and about what makes it home for the millions of different people that live here.

This story captures what makes every New Yorker's story of living here both unique and universal, both personal and public -- about the city we all see and the city we all feel inside us all. It's heartwarming and uplighting to listen to, especially in this dark time. 

These episodes also read from E.B. White's famous 1949 essay Here is New York where is writes about the three types of New Yorkers and also how NYC gives people both a great sense of privacy and a great sense of belonging.

Enjoy both the podcasts and the essay, and you'll remember why we all love this town.

Remembering Fernando Wood, NYC's "Scoundrel" Mayor

Imagine a politician who built his wealth in real estate, was a racist demagogue who supported the Confederacy, incited a riot, married and fathered multiple children with multiple women, tried to undermine democracy and the law to make himself a dictator, and used his executive public office to enrich himself ...

Of course I'm talking about the mid-19th Century NYC Mayor Fernando Wood.

Born in Philadelphia in 1812, Wood migrated to NYC and worked as a laborer, got involved in Tammany Hall politics, and was eventually elected to Congress in 1840. After one term he left and got into real estate, accumulating a fortune but remaining involved in politics until he finally was elected mayor in 1854.

His administration was basically a giant shakedown and bribery operation but he did notch some significant achievements: rebuilding the city harbor, overseeing the approval and eventual creation of Central Park, and implementing the grid system. He also attempted to change the city charter to essentially make the city government the extension of one man – him – so he could act as a dictator. When he ran for re-election in 1856, he furloughed the police department and got a band of thugs to menace and beat up voters in order to get reelected. He was never prosecuted for this. 

Defeated for a third-term, Wood eventually got elected mayor again in 1860 – just as the Civil War was breaking out. He supported slavery and the Confederacy, and called for NYC to secede from New York State so it could keep trading with the south.

So did Fernando Wood ever face public disgrace or jail for his corruption and crimes?

Oh no. In 1862, he returned to Congress and opposed abolition. And he remained in Congress, becoming chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, until he died in 1881, a very wealthy man with a mansion on West 77th Street.

He also had three wives and fathered 16 children. The man was forever busy.

Today we live in an era of aspiring dictators and corrupt chief executives with a love of racism and violence and money. So while history has not been kind to Fernando Wood's memory, in some ways, he'd be right at home in our era.

But he's been condemned, at least, by popular culture: see the 2012 Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln and listen to the 2011 Bowery Boys episode.

In many ways, Fernando Wood makes later NYC mayors Jimmy Walker and Eric Adams look like pillars of virtue.

Here's to Flatbush

The story of Flatbush is the story of Brooklyn and NYC as a whole -- how a Dutch village turned into a suburban oasis before transforming into an urban hub. 

Flatbush is a city within a city within a city -- and one of the most diverse neighborhoods in NYC.

In recent years, part of the it was renamed Little Caribbean, recognizing its history as a welcoming refuge for Caribbean immigrants. 

The latest episode of the Bowery Boys tells the story of Flatbush and its amazing history. It shows how Flatbush, like the city as a whole, is always changing while keeping its history never vanishes. 

Bob Dylan: Live from Riverside Church -- July 29, 1961

There's a new movie that's just come out called A Complete Unknown about Bob Dylan's early years in NYC. A Minnesota transplant, he hit the Greenwich Village club scene in 1961, and within a couple of years he was famous, his folk songs becoming an indeliable part of American culture. 

During those early days in NYC, Dylan was gigging everywhere he could, most famously at the Gaslight Cafe in the Village. But his first known broadcasting gig happened on July 29, 1961 -- just six months after he'd moved to NYC -- at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights. He was one of several singers to perform at the Riverside Church Hootenanny, and it was broadcast on the church's radio station WRVR 106.7 (today it's the much listened to Lite FM).

Below is a segment of that broadcast featuring young "Bobby" and you can find the set list of the songs he sang here. It was also at this event where Dylan met Suzy Rutolo who would become his girlfriend and creative muse -- they would be together when Dylan began to produce his most famous, legendary works. And even though Dylan in NYC in the early 1960s is most commonly associated with Greenwich Village (as the Bowery Boys have recently done an episode about), it was actually uptown -- in the same neighborhood that produced George Carlin, Fiona Apple and Mr NYC -- that the first step in the legendary journey of Bob Dylan through American culture was taken. 

P.S. Riverside Church means a lot to me -- it's right near where I grew up, it's where I went to nursery school and where I eventually got married. So it's really cool to find out what an important piece it played in both the lives of Bob Dylan and yours truly.

P.P.S. And while we're thinking about Bob Dylan, let's not forget about Llewyn Davis because, remember, for every Bob there's a lot more Lleweyns. In fact, you might say the Mr NYC is the Llewyn Davis of NYC bloggers!

The Maestro of NYC

It's hard to imagine but once upon a time, back in the 20th century, orchestra conductors used to be actual celebrties. Arturo Tosconini lead the NBC Orchestra and Lawrence Welk had his own popular TV show.

But no conductor was more famous, or more acclaimed, or left a greater legacy, than Leonard Bernstein.

Leading the New York Philharmonic for many years, Bernstein was the most famous conductor in America between the 1940s until his death in 1990. He was so famous that he was constantly on television, including with the "Young People's Concerts" series, and he also composed the scores for symphonies and requiems such as Mass. And his impacted popular culture too, writing the gorgeous scores for such musicals as On The Town, Wonderful Town, and, most historically, West Side Story.

And he was a true blue New Yorker, a keeper of the cultural flame at time when people loved to hate the city, and (even though he was a Massachusetts transplant), the spirit of his work -- as those three musicals prove -- was imbued with NYC.

Bernstein is the subject of a big new movie about his life called Maestro that was written, directed, and stars Bradley Cooper. It's an extraorindary movies but focuses mostly on his fraught relationship with his wife and the fact that he was a deeply conflicted bisexual. You should also listen, after watching this movie, to this Bowery Boys podcast episode about Leonard Bernstein's life in, and work about, NYC. His career could never happened without NYC, and NYC is a better place because of his work.

Consolidation & Andrew Haswell Green

If you want more info about how NYC consolidated in 1898, go the Bowery Boys website and download their great podcast episode about how it happened.

In essence, it comes down to one man: the father of consolidation, the one who got the ball rolling, is someone who most New Yorkers probably have never heard of: Andrew Haswell Green. And yet, if we seek his monument, look around us.

A 19th century lawyer, Green became parks commissioner and, like Robert Moses a century later,  was also a city-planning Svengali: he created the Museum of the Metropolitan Art, designed Columbus Circle, financed the creation of the New York Public Library, and facilitated the creation of Central, Riverside, Morningside, and Fort Washington Parks. Eventually he was appointed by the New York State Legislature to design a plan for consolidation and, although he didn't over "the final product", Green's efforts created the template.

His vision for the political, physical, recreational, and cultural life of NYC is the city we live in today. 

100 Years of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Yesterday marked the 100th year since the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

If you want to know the whole history of how this NYC -- and now American -- tradition started, listen to this great episode of the Bowery Boys. 

Also, did you know that back in the 19th century -- before the parade -- there used to be a Thanksgiving tradition called Ragamuffin Day? Apparently it involved people dressing like homeless people and knocking on people's doors asking for treats -- something that morphed into Halloween in the 20th century. 

And here are some Mr NYC-exclusive photos of the parade taken at an exclusive vantage point:

And you can watch the whole thing here:

The Future Always Wins

We've been at war a lot for the last few decades -- and I'm not talking about literal shooting wars like Vietnam or Iraq. No, I'm talking about the various wars that we've declared on poverty, cancer, drugs, crime, terrorism -- you name it -- on any number of nouns and tactics. As George Carlin once said of Americans: "We like war! We're a warlike people!"

Indeed. And this year of 2016 might be the year that we declared war on something else -- the future.

You see it in our politics, both right and left. Donald Trump declares that he'll make America great "again" -- we were great once, in the past, you see, but no longer, so he'll bring that great past back if elected president. And yet another person named Clinton aims to occupy the Oval Office, with all the perils and benefits that a President Clinton can offer. Both candidates promise to take the world's greatest superpower into the future by appealing to our feelings about its past.

Our popular culture has been an even bigger dredger-upper of yore: look at the reboots of movies like Ghostbusters and TV shows like Full House. Even new stuff is old: the most popular new pop culture event of the summer was a Netflix series called Stranger Things, a creepy show that takes places in a creepily believable 1983. Nostalgia is all the rage.

More ominously, this strong desire to resurrect that which is gone has taken the form of terrorism, specifically those terrorists who think that if they kill enough people or blow up enough stuff that it will somehow resurrect a 7th Century Caliphate. Less bloodily, but in many ways more consequentially, the United Kingdom decided that it loved its past so much that it voted to shatter the post-World War II European economic consensus and chuck its membership in the European Union, thus becoming a true island nation once again -- the so called "Brexit."

The allure of the past is so great that the world seems ready to muddy its present and compromise its future in pursuit of a time that is well and truly gone -- forever.

Why? Why this overactive drive to revivify previous eons?

Well, the easy answer is that the present sucks. Wars, recessions, gentrification, growing student debt, decreasing worker wages, the spiraling cost of living and the stalling creation of jobs, technology that becomes obsolete the moment you buy it, is making people mushuggina. Things are changing, things are always changing, but more and more things seem to be changing faster and faster -- and for no good reason except that it benefits a wealthy, elitist few. More and more people feel that they have less and less control over their lives, that there are fewer paths to prosperity and security for them and their families, and that the future is a bleak, unsparing, hopeless place. So we want to retreat. We want to go back. We wish to return to a "safe space" where we are in total control, where we already know the ending to the story, where the worries of the present and the threats of the future are nought.

As the great English author Evelyn Waugh famously wrote: "We possess nothing certainly except the past."

Certainly, here in NYC, the past is something that people cherish. In a dynamic world, NYC is probably the most dynamic place in it, so attempts to remember, mourn, and, yes, even recreate its past abound. Just look:

• The Stork Club, the place where Walter Winchell once ruled, making and unmaking reputations with his powerful newspaper column, is fondly remembered.
  
• Television, specifically local television, which used to set the agenda for the city in a way it rarely does today, is also being recalled. Back in the day, a TV anchor named Bill Boggs was one of the most important people in town and these days he's reminiscing about it.
  
• Local businesses, stores that served the community while also making a profit, are vanishing. This article is about TekServe, the Chelsea Mac service store, that I used to go to many times back in the day and that was a staple of NYC life, has closed down. This one really hurts because, as the writer of this article notes, this closure is another "downside to the city’s real estate boom. It’s driving away the unique, friendly places that make living in the city worth the effort ... [a] rapid deterioration of the city’s street-level fabric."
  
• Here's one counterfactual: Chumley's is coming back. The old speakeasy that closed in 2007 after an industrial accident is set to re-open soon. I remember going there many years ago and loving it -- but this resurrected saloon just won't be the same, it simply can't be. Times may heal wounds but it doesn't fully obliterate them.

Then there are those who make it their business to give old NYC a voice:

• The Bowery Boys are a couple of guys with a long-running, very successful podcast about the history of NYC. Now they have a book out, about "adventures in old New York."
  
• Even porn is getting in on the act! Yes, pornography is now a nostalgic reference point for NYC. Check out the Rialto Report, a comprehensive website, blog, and archive about the adult scene in NYC back in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. For a subject matter that is so naughty, this is an incredible elegant and beautifully presented site that makes art and history out of something lots of people consider simply obscene. And it's history alright -- an incredible history that you won't learn about in school or museums.

What the aforementioned demonstrate, I think, are what is good and bad about nostalgia and our changing city and world. It is painful, awful, and ultimately detrimental for local businesses to close and even local television stations to become irrelevant. It lessens the vitality of life in NYC. And I do understand -- oh man, do I ever! -- at how frustrating and scary the rate of change in our world today is, at how fast things vanish only to be replaced by something unrecognizable and nowhere near as good. It's not something that anyone, I think, under the age of 25 will ever get used to. At the same time, how wonderful is it, thanks to the Internet, that blogs and websites can exist that remember the past, that preserve it, that give it context and meaning in a way that, otherwise, would elude it? And how wonderful it is that new things are being invented that will improve our lives and (perhaps, just perhaps) give us all better futures.


Loving the past and trying to remember it should never be the same as hating the future and seeking its destruction. Trump/Clinton, Brexit, terrorists, pointless TV show and movie reboots, etc. etc. do nothing, ultimately, to make us feel better. They don't bring the past back. They can't! They are, to varying degrees, acts of desperation, a metaphorical lashing out at our present (obviously TV/movie reboots are not as awful as Donald Trump nor are either as awful as terrorists but I hope you get the drift). The brilliant comedian Marc Maron recently said on his podcast, specifically about the 2016 election but also, I think, about this larger issue of fearing the future:

"It’s a tragedy that there’s so much desperation ... How do you relieve that desperation, that anger, that hopelessness? ... Here’s why people vote for Trump: ‘Fuck It!’ ‘Fuck It All!’ That’s got to be the rationale ... It's the possible annihilation of all progress with no real plan."

And that's ultimately the problem: people want to "annihilate progress" that they feel has hurt them but, for the most part, people have no idea what to replace it with except with some gauzy nostalgia. The Trump candidacy is a perfect, almost frightening example of this: he promises to "make America great again" and "bring the jobs back" and "restore law and order" -- but how? How will we be great again in way that we aren't now? What jobs are coming back? Law and order -- believe it or not but our country has never been this safe! Again, he plays on our anxieties about the present and our fears about the future by invoking a past that will never return. And here's the rub - that past was never that great to begin with.

Do you want to go back to a world where gays were closeted? Where minorities were openly discriminated against? Where smoking was tolerated everywhere? Where women were raped and the men who did it got away? Where there was no Internet? Where people who were born into poverty stayed there. Do you really truly want to return to that world? Not me.

But at the same time part of me does. Part of me wants to go back and relive those supposedly simpler times. Part of me, a big part of me, fears the future. But the future is coming, it's always coming. The future always wins even as we strive to beat it. So let's get ready for it and work to make it better. Not destroy it -- or think we can replace it with the past.


As the great American author Scott Fitzergerald wrote: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessy into the past."