Street Life

P Jackson's The Two Towers ran last night on Cable ,
seeing it again just reminded me how great these movies were ,
so well done , suspension of disbelief and such superior detail and execution .
Sad, sad docu on Indonesian street kids on NHK , cute boyish 14 year old girl ran away from home because her father would hit her .
Her life on the street though looked almost better then what home had to offer .

Just came bk from a nice walk down to the used bookstore ,
grazed on details of how Miles Davis' producer Macero and Miles got into such an argument to start the "Bitches Brew" sessions in Carr's Miles book again ,
Shamballa Editions book on Buddhism and ways of the Warrior,
Julie Burchill's slim "The Boy Looked At Johnny" tucked away into a row of music books.
Heading North up Second Avenue through the East Village I can see many empty store fronts , almost entire blocks vacated as rents go up even higher.
Glancing West at the sunset's red pink clouds on the way up to 23rd Street to eat , checked JAS Mart and found sweet photo book on the making of Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride" at Shakespeare Books.
Nice shop , Shakespeare

On not so crowded off the main streets , slippery ice and snow pack
tourists coming out of restaurants , pretty women trying to hail taxi at 5 PM,
beautiful Asian woman striding down sidewalk across from the old Gramercy Hotel,
new restaurants , closed restaurants , no sign of Sunday's Times yet as any newstands.
As i walk I am thinking about many things , and came home inspired

Now playing : Iggy Pop "Mass Production"

I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You

Avoiding black puddles sluice and steam vents billowing in the cold ,
made my way through town after some hours of snow fall in the morning
and found myself hesitating around ol'St.Marks Place.
Popped into Kim's but found almost nothing of interest , whole thing felt so faded
so many CD's of ... stuff filed into Staff's choices , genre names ,
stuff useless to most but lined up almost pinned in place like an old thing you used to play with.
St Marks Books where I have spend many hours in these NYC decades,
came across a Euro picture book Band Of Outsiders foreword by the guy from Interview 'O'Brien so you know it will have Warholin it (where's Edo? heard enough about the 'other half'already), but there among those photos there were many others of the raw early 'punk'(an unfortunate turn of name , doncha think?) and No Wave's time.
B&W photos of Diego Cortez , Lydia Lunch , James Chance , Bradley Fields ,
Adele B , Scott and Beth B just sitting on cars in front of CBGB's or lined up for the one shot.
One with Jim Jarmusch , Klaus Nomi and Chris Parker from Jim's "Permanant Vacation".
just kicking it in front of CBGB's , captured what NYC was like then, everyone casual and semi friends , no one with alot of money but sharing some time to kill.
These photos I note because I came to NYC that spring of '78 and was in the same clubs , knew some of the same people and shared smokes and drinks with them too.
A photo of director Nicholas Ray smoking a cig at CBGB's ...
You know who that is - right ?

Some amazing photos , wait - two whole contact sheets of Iggy And The Stooges @ Max's (or was it Electric Circus ?). Iggy in the cover of Raw Power phase , peroxide blonde
and shirtless , the other Stooges just looking so dark and druggy , one guitarist wearing a black corset cut out gimme danger little stranger.
Supremely wasted in the 1970's.
Cue "Dum Dum Boys" off The Idiot.
Bowie and Jackie Curtis in R Cutrone's cage up on second floor of The Mudd Club,
must have been right around the time I met the Bowie @ Mudd ,
same period before release of "The Lodger" when he shot the "I Am The DJ" video (same track featured in the recent silly Sat Radio ad where Snoop is looking for his big neck rack and Bowie has it).
Richard Hell concentrating on posing in his Apt. mirror,
possibly the same E 12th St. Apt. he's always been in.
Walking back thinking of photographer Roberta Bayley whose excellent work is in the same book ,
thinking of all those people who made up those scenes (Max's , Mudd , Danceteria) how you can now see their late '70's & 1980's persona's on the pages of these books but where are they all by now ?
Saw quite a few of them at Arturo's party when they named 'Joey Ramone Place'
and that was great ...
But what about today ...
Blasts of wind down Second Avenue making the turn North towards home.
Odd mood mingling , coming and going .
Getting dark already

Open the current Voice and there's a write up of photog Mick Rock's recent opening at Tribeca Grand.
Ck email to find one asking if I fancy heading out to Ocularis to catch Weasel Walter's showing on No wave videos.
No, not tonight , but bless'em for me

Now Playing . Earlier Keith Jarrett's Koln and Paris Concerts, now Ramones