Ink Lake

Hey Kids...Want To Learn How To Be A TV News Reporter?

Sic Transit Gloria

Nikolas Giakoumidis - AP

When I read the amazing news that in the course of building a new subway line in Thessaloniki, Greece, workers have unearthed a 2,000 year-old Roman road, I couldn’t help but think of this scene from Federico Fellini’s Roma.

The road still bears the marks from horse-drawn carts, as well as children’s games. Thankfully, unlike in the movie (which is fictional), this bit of history will be preserved. 

One Door At A Time

I’m in the Times today, in Clyde Haberman’s column, regarding the widespread flouting of  the law requiring stores to keep their doors closed when they run the air-conditioner.

“If, after the smoking ban was enacted, 40 bars decided to invite smokers to light up, I presume we’d hear from the mayor,” Mr. Kaufman said.

It would be good if the mayor, who cares so much about our waist-lines, showed some leadership in something he professes is a priority of his administration (keeping the planet we all live on, habitable for human life).

Stay tuned.

 

(Alycia Kravitz / Gothamist)

How To Be A Good Dad: Try

Now as an antidote to Murry Wilson, some good advice on father-hood from Louis C.K.; via Gothamist.

Father's Day From Hell Or "I'm A Genius, Too"

I repost my annual tribute to one of the worst dads ever... 

Most people familiar with the Beach Boys, are aware that Murry Wilson, (father of Brian, Carl, and Dennis, and uncle to Mike Love), was something right out of central casting; petty-tyrant division.

A factory worker who had a minor hit with a novelty song, (“Two Step, Side Step”), he never gave up his dream of making it big in music. He encouraged all of his children to play instruments and sing, and as they began to perform, poured his energies into promoting and producing his talented progeny.

Wilson was an alcoholic, who frequently belittled, humiliated, and often hit his children. Brian suffered permanent hearing loss in one ear from a 2 x 4 that Murry clocked him with. (You hear Brian allude to that on the recording.)

Wilson had a glass eye, as the the result of an industrial accident. When the Wilson children were little, he would take it out, and make them stare into the empty socket.

As the Beach Boys fame grew, Wilson kept believing he was critical to their success. At some point, Brian set up a phony mixing board in the studio, so Murry could think he was doing something, twiddling those dials. Meanwhile, an engineer located elsewhere would do the real work.

Eventually, the group fired him. Over their objections, he sold the publishing rights to their music for a fraction of their worth. He died of a heart attack at age 55, (the age I think he was born looking), and is buried in an unmarked grave in Inglewood, California.

This audio was recorded on Jan. 8, 1965, when Murry, already drunk, comes into the studio as the group is cutting, “Help Me, Rhonda”. Things go downhill from there.

Edited version (12 mins)

Full version (40 mins)

A couple things strike me about it — how collected Brian is, (though he paid a huge mental-price for it later), and just how pathetic Murry is — going from threats to bathos and back, three times in the same sentence. No one deserves a parent like that.

Lastly, and it’s right at the beginning of the longer version, you hear just how amazing the Beach Boys sound. It was everything Murry wanted to be and to have, and wasn’t and didn’t. 

More here, and thank you Michael Shelley for jogging my memory.

Ramona Come Closer

Ramona Flowers: “What kind of tea do you want?”

Scott Pilgrim: “There's more than one kind?”

 One of the 1.3 million small pleasures in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. A movie, that as Robert Wilonsky of the Voice, wrote, “fits in more ideas per frame than most filmmakers per feature.”

Bastards Finally Steal Bike — Faith In Humanity Restored

Came out to walk the dog at six this morning, and the bike was finally gone. I was just about to get in touch with Ripley’s and Leonard Nimoy’s people, too.

A day-and-a-half without a lock. Come on people, I’m not running a hotel here!

I wonder who took it... delivery-guy, blog reader, Bionic Bigfoot?

Brooklyn 1, Diogenes 0

I put this old bike out on the street yesterday afternoon. No chain, no Kryptonite, no nothing. More than 30 hours later, it’s still exactly where I left it. 

I’m wondering if people think it’s some kind of police sting, or performance-art. 

Note to anyone walking on Pierrepont Street — you won’t get arrested or covered in chocolate if you take it. This is clearly not the New York of my youth.

 

Thanks

Robert Capa

Less Than Zero

Did anyone really need the Times to tell you that the Soho House is a douche-factory?

Good thing us Jews don’t believe in Heaven. Otherwise, I feel I’d have a hard time justifying to St. Peter why I even read about a place that strives to be a,

“boho-chic enclave that attracted a glamorous cast of film types, literati and rockers”.