I can’t help it, and with apologies to Bowie
The blog is dead, but I must send this out somewhere:
Staples
I’m not given to posting stuff from Instagram, but holy crap, this is wild. Those of you who pay attention to baseball no doubt know that Aroldis Chapman, the Reds’ crazy fireballing pitcher, was hit in the face by a line drive in spring training. The video is pretty dramatic.
Anyhow, he’s going to be fine, hopefully, and will actually be back on the field in a few months. But to treat him, apparently they needed to put a plate in his head. And this is what that looks like:
Man oh Manischewitz, that looks painful.
Headline of the Day
Man Steals 15 Pounds of Crab Legs from Chelsea Whole Foods: NYPD
And not only that, but the man was a recidivist (are you still a recidivist if you didn’t get caught the first time? I leave that to you, gentle reader). Matt Katz reports:
A man stole more than 15 pounds of pricey snow crab legs from the Chelsea Whole Foods over the course of a week, police said.
Ahelah Browne, 36, stole five $64 3.165-pound packages of crab legs from the 250 Seventh Ave. store before he was arrested Tuesday, police said.
The accused thief swiped seafood on Feb. 22, 24, 27 and 28, and on March 1, the NYPD said.
Browne was arrested after a Whole Foods manager took video surveillance footage to the 10th Precinct, police said. Authorities charged Browne with petit larceny for the thefts, which totaled $320.
Well, now that you’re up to date on today’s breaking news, there’s only one thing to do.
Crab People.
Play ball!
So spring training has started, which is a nice thought given the ridiculous weather here, but given the Olympics and whatnot, there hasn’t yet been much buzz. But it seems that at least someone has noticed. Check out this dude watching Yankees spring training camp:
(Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post)
I love that. Happy spring. Almost.
Are we not men?
The guitarist from Devo died.
Bob Casale, a guitarist who was an original member of the influential rock band Devo, died on Monday. He was 61. Devo (the name is short for “devolution”) began in Akron, Ohio, in the early 1970s and first attracted national attention in 1977 with a frenzied version of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
The group’s first album, “Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!,” produced by Brian Eno, was released in 1978; its off-kilter rhythms, deadpan lyrics and use of electronics quickly attracted a following and had a strong influence on the music that came to be known as new wave.
Devo’s longtime drummer Alan Myers died last year.
They’re dropping like flies, man.
La Marseillaise
So I happened to be watching TV this morning when the ceremony welcoming France’s philandering President (redundant, I know) Hollande to the White House was going on. Classic, very nice ceremony with Hail to the Chief, the Star-Spangled Banner, and the French national anthem, the Marseillaise.
Now I’m no great fan of France, well, except for their food, wine, culture, etc. But the French themselves, eh. But I have always been extremely fond of their national anthem. And for this I credit Messrs. Bogart and Henreid. And Ingrid Bergman, who I love.
Reuben Kincaid
… from the Partridge Family died. I had no idea that his name wasn’t actually Reuben Kincaid. I assumed that was a name you couldn’t really make up.
Dave Madden, a comic actor who played the child-hating agent on the hit 1970s sitcom “The Partridge Family,” died on Thursday in Florida. He was 82. “The Partridge Family,” which ran on ABC from September 1970 to March 1974, revolved around a widowed mother and her five children who form a band. Towering and rumpled, Mr. Madden played Reuben Kincaid, the agent who managed the band and regularly clashed with its impish preteen bassist, played by Danny Bonaduce.
The series starred Shirley Jones, with her real-life stepson David Cassidy as the resident heartthrob. But it was Mr. Madden and the freckle-faced Mr. Bonaduce who were the reigning comic duo. “His relationship with Danny Bonaduce is what made the show work,” Ms. Jones said of Mr. Madden on Thursday, “this strange, mad little boy and the grown man who was even worse as a father figure.”
Though Mr. Madden played a man bedeviled by the youngsters surrounding him, off camera he “loved kids,” Ms. Jones said.
Personally, I always liked Susan Dey. Well, rest in peace Mr. Madden.
Snow Job on West 52d Street
What you see is what you get.
On death and dying
We’re having a morbid streak here on THEG (and no, Marty, Anonymous Guy isn’t dead, and if he were, which he’s not, I didn’t kill him; I swear). But I don’t make the news, I just report it.
First, they are closing Milady’s. That’s right, another one’s gone. For those of you who don’t know it, Milady’s is (was) a great local bar in SoHo that has stubbornly remained the same (cheap, working class, mildly menacing — I recently made the mistake of walking in there in a suit and tie) through the gentrification and then Prada-ization of the neighborhood. On the one hand, it’s amazing that it lasted this long. So I come here to praise Milady’s, as well as to bury it. Jeremiah links to this intriguing writeup from Bryan Miller in the Times circa 1992:
Milady’s, at the corner of Prince and Thompson Streets in SoHo, is rather nondescript from the outside. Inside, though, about 6 P.M. on Fridays, it becomes a raucous after-work clubhouse. The spacious room has rec-room paneling, sound tile, red-and-white-checked tablecloths, Connie Francis on the jukebox and a big color television mounted overhead.
Frank Genovese, the 35-year-old owner, grew up a few blocks from the bar, and later worked there before buying it 10 years ago. “I thought of making this place much fancier than it is,” Mr. Genovese says. “But then in my experience the chi-chi places make a lot of money for a very short time — but then?” He says his bar is having its best year in memory. Milady’s is primarily a neighborhood bar, although periodically celebrities like Madonna (“She comes with two huge people and has a club soda at the bar”) and Sylvester Stallone drop in for fresh homemade ravioli or the house favorite, a charred chicken salad with five types of greens and a mustardy vinaigrette.
Sucks.
Edit: In my haste to post this, I neglected to note that Milady’s was bar 297 in Marty’s epic NYC bar crawl. You should go over there and read all about Marty’s visit way back in 2010, but here’s a taste:
- Marty Wombacher at Milady’s
The second morbid item of the day is to note the passing of Judy Protas at the ripe old age of 91. Who is Judy Protas, you ask? Well, she’s the writer who came up with the ridiculously brilliant “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s” advertising campaign. Talk about leaving your mark. Rest in peace, Ms. Protas. I hope there’s lots of rye bread wherever you are.
Polite New Yorkers
You know, I don’t want to be too one-note, and I know it’s not the original, which remains, but I don’t like this at all. Eater reports:
A reader sends in these deeply troubling photos of classic New York hot dog stand Gray’s Papaya being disassembled, piece by piece. Our tipster notes: “Sad news as it appears the Gray’s Papaya on Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue is dunzo. Walked by this afternoon and saw a demolition crew taking down the iconic neon sign and removing the fixtures inside.”
An employee at the Upper West Side original confirmed that the Greenwich Village location had closed, although he was unsure if it was done for good, or just shuttered for a revamp. But it looks like this goose is cooked.
And, in fact, in the short and undistinguished life of this blog, this is the SECOND satellite Gray’s location that has shuttered. Total fuckjob.
Here’s a video focusing on the 8th Street location. I’m not sure why they made it, and I’m pretty sure they are wrong that this location opened in 1973 (that was the original), but the chick in the video seems real friendly.
I’m not a bipolar
This is the most bizarrely infectious song. So since it’s in my head over and over again, here you go. You’re welcome.
Wiley. Weirdo. But he’s not a bipolar. Goddamn it.
Now this would suck
Rumor is out that J&R Music World may be closing. If true, it would mean that yet another one-of-a-kind New York institution will be gone, and we’ll be left with the same generic megastores found in malls across the land.
I always loved the random and incongruous mish-mash of stores and floors that J&R was made up of, even if it didn’t always make much sense. I mean, where else is a guy supposed to pick up a new Technics 1200 (also apparently dead!! WTF!!!!!)?
Tellin’ it like it is
Walking down the street the other day, I came across this legal notice taped up outside a local deli.
Apologies for the poor image quality, but the noteworthy item to me is that the identified Licensee is:
Too Old & Too Tired Deli Corp.
I respect the honesty. And yes, that is actually how the company is registered.
Channel J
I would be remiss if I failed to mark the passing of Al Goldstein, one of the more fascinating, and grossest, gentlemen ever to grace my television screen. Note that earlier this week, The Observer posted an article titled “Al Goldstein Is Not Dead”, but that claim appears to have been overtaken by events, at least according to the Times:
Al Goldstein, the scabrous publisher whose Screw magazine pushed hard-core pornography into the cultural mainstream, died early Thursday in Brooklyn. He was 77. Mr. Goldstein did not invent the dirty magazine, but he was the first to present it to a wide audience without the slightest pretense of classiness or subtlety.
The manifesto in Screw’s debut issue in 1968 was succinct. “We promise never to ink out a pubic hair or chalk out an organ,” it read. “We will apologize for nothing. We will uncover the entire world of sex. We will be the Consumer Reports of sex.” “He clearly coarsened American sensibilities,” Alan M. Dershowitz, the civil liberties advocate and Mr. Goldstein’s sometime lawyer, said in 2004. “Hefner did it with taste,” Mr. Dershowitz added, referring to Hugh Hefner, the founder and publisher of Playboy, which predated Screw by 15 years. “Goldstein’s contribution is to be utterly tasteless.” Apart from Screw, Mr. Goldstein’s most notorious creation was Al Goldstein himself, a cartoonishly vituperative amalgam of borscht belt comic, free-range social critic and sex-obsessed loser who seemed to embody a moment in New York City’s cultural history: the sleaze and decay of Times Square in the 1960s and ‘70s.
A bundle of insatiable neuroses and appetites (he once weighed around 350 pounds), Mr. Goldstein used and abused the bully pulpit of his magazine and, later, his late-night public-access cable show, “Midnight Blue,” to curse his countless enemies, among them the Nixon administration, an Italian restaurant that omitted garlic from its spaghetti sauce, himself and, most troubling to his defenders, his own family. “I’m infantile, compulsive, always acting out my fantasies,” he told Playboy in 1974. “There’s nothing I’ll inhibit myself from doing.” Alvin Goldstein was born on Jan. 10, 1936, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to Sam Goldstein, a news photographer, and his wife, Gertrude. They had another son, Bob.
Unfortunately, I can still picture Mr. Goldstein shirtless on Midnight Blue, blathering on Channel J (remember this corded remote?), before or after Robin Byrd and her crocheted bikini.
For better, and for worse, the dude was memorable. Rest in peace, Al. You were one of a kind.
Half Full
It’s the holiday season, so I thought I would share a heart-warming story. Blind dude falls onto subway tracks; seeing-eye dog (named Orlando) follows his guy down to the tracks; construction worker coaches blind dude to nestle in the trough between the tracks to avoid oncoming train while passengers yell at the train operator to stop. How’d it turn out? All is well.
Holy crap. I just clicked on one of the stories, and it looks like Orlando and his dude (named Cecil) are okay, but he’s going to have to give him up:
Williams said the Labrador retriever, who will turn 11 on Jan. 5, will have to be put up for adoption soon because his insurance will no longer cover the cost of caring for the dog. Williams said that if he could afford it, “I would definitely keep him.”
Motherfuckers!!
Well, worry not, the interwebs are in motion and people are raising money for Cecil and Orlando to be able to stay together. Even net of all the scammers, these dudes should be good to go.
Cue Bing Crosby. Ah, fuck it, cue Joan Jett.
WWOZ
Last night I turned on WWOZ for a bit. Now if you don’t know what WWOZ is, you should learn. It is a great radio station out of New Orleans that, thanks to the wonders of the interwebs, the Yankee likes of yours truly can now partake in from the comfort of his own kitchen.
And why should you listen to WWOZ? Because in just a few minutes of listening, I came across the following. First (actually, I think this song came second, but never mind all of that), they played a song by the Asylum Street Spankers called “Beer” that contains the immortal line “Tripping on acid makes you flaccid.” Right? Hard to beat that one. Here’s the whole shebang:
Second (actually, first), they played a song by a group called the Prisonaires. That’s an interesting name, isn’t it? Well, here’s a bit of their story, courtesy of Sun Records:
As their name suggests, this doo-wop group was formed while each member was in the State Penitentiary, Tennessee, USA. The founding member was lead singer Johnny Bragg (John Henry Bragg, 6 May 1925, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, d. 1 September 2004, Madison, Tennessee, USA). The group was paraded around a variety of receptions and civic functions as demonstration of the jail’s enlightened rehabilitation programme, where they played a mix of blues, gospel and pop songs under armed guard. New warden James E. Edwards then arranged for two talent scouts from Sam Phillips’ Sun Records to see the group.
They were subsequently driven down to Memphis in June 1953 to record a song written by Bragg and fellow inmate Robert Riley, “Just Walkin’ In The Rain”. The record took hold first on radio and then became a major seller, moving over 250,000 copies, despite a competing version from Johnny Ray that sold eight times that amount. They gradually became high-status figures in Tennessee, and never betrayed the trust placed in them by trying to escape their guards on their numerous forays outside the prison. A second single followed in August 1953, the highly spiritual “My God Is Real”, followed by “I Know” and its autobiographical b-side, “A Prisoner’s Prayer”. While recording it they made the acquaintance of Elvis Presley, who later visited them in prison.
And a trailer for a documentary:
Well, how about that? Who knew? There you have it. Two reasons (of many) to listen to WWOZ.
Guns & Ammunition
Junior Murvin, who originally sang the fantastic reggae song Police & Thieves (later popularized by The Only Band That Matters), has passed on.
Born Murvin Junior Smith – most likely in 1946, although some sources say 1949 – he was raised by his great-grandmother in the bustling coastal market town of Port Antonio. His father died when Murvin was young, and his mother subsequently emigrated. At the local Methodist church, Murvin operated the pump for the pipe organ but he was too shy to join the choir.
Armed with some of his strongest material, addressing the political and social upheavals that were having such adverse effects on Jamaica, Murvin travelled to Perry’s Black Ark studio in May 1976. Police and Thieves immediately captured Perry’s attention and, after adding lyrics of his own, Perry arranged for Murvin to record it with the drummer Sly Dunbar, the bassist Boris Gardiner and the guitarist Ernest Ranglin. Murvin’s debut album, also named Police and Thieves, was highly acclaimed, but a planned follow-up was scuppered by Perry’s breakdown in the late 1970s.
Man, “scuppered” is an awesome word. I’m going to have to use that shit more often. Anyway, rest in peace, Mr. Murvin. You were scuppered far too soon.
Rant
Today the New York Times, formerly known as the Paper of Record, put a picture of a woman’s dead body above the fold on the front page of the Sunday paper (and no, I’m not linking to it). Not to sound like the old fucking man I am, but reputable newspapers didn’t used to put pictures of dead bodies on the front page, and they certainly didn’t do so to illustrate a story that was not “breaking” in any way.
It’s ridiculous. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Well, now that I’m on about dead people, here’s the Dead Kennedys. Seems timely.
Canucks
One of the problems with the hiatus from posting is that I’ve totally missed out on commenting on the brilliant crackhead Mayor Rob Ford saga playing out up in Toronto. So, to catch up, here goes:
(Thanks to Animal.)
The M Train
One of the reasons that I needed to get back to posting, which I’ve intended to do for some time, is that I came across this image today that apparently was snapped on the M train. Now I used to ride the M train way back when it stopped at Cortelyou Road. I don’t even know where it goes now, but I know it’s turned from brown to orange.
Since I saw this fantastic image on New York Shitty, I figured I needed to post it here, where far fewer people will ever see it. The original image is from Greenpointless, and is brilliant.
Greenpointless
Don’t call it a comeback…
Obit of the Day
Now I don’t know anything about this dude Mott Green, but if the headline is any indication, he led a distinctive (if short) life:
Mott Green, Jewish anarchist chocolatier, dies aged 47
I’m too cheap to pay to get the whole article, but the tease is plenty:
Mott Green (ne David Friedman), a visionary anarchist chocolatier who abandoned his upper-middle-class upbringing in favor of an idealistic, sustainable lifestyle, died June 1 in Belmont Estate, Grenada, following an electrical accident. He was 47.
“Electrical accident.” Sure. That’s what happened.
Graffito of the Day
Posada in Williamsburg
The Half Empty Glass 