“Sticky Fingers” is a dark record that finds the Rolling Stones in the mother of all transitions. Freed from both their contract with Allen Klein and London Records and their rivalry with the Beatles, who, upon their break-up, left the Stones as “the World’s Greatest Rock-n-Roll Band.” The record features the official debut of their new guitarist, Mick Taylor, the young blonde blues virtuoso from the U.S.A. who replaced Brian Jones as lead guitarist before Ron Wood claimed that position as his birthright. It also features the debut of Rolling Stones Records, the tongue-and-lips logo and Mick Jagger as consummate businessman.

Fortunately, Keith Richards had not yet fully succumbed to the junk dependency that ultimately claimed Brian Jones and was able to keep Mick Jagger in check and ensure that the Stones remained musically vital and interesting (at least until “Goat’s Head Soup”). Nevertheless, “Sticky Fingers” is the druggiest record the Rolling Stones ever released. It’s one of the druggiest records of all time. In between the album’s opener, “Brown Sugar” (among other things, a euphemism for heroin) and its closer, “Moonlight Mile,” with the singer’s “head full of snow,” at least half of the record’s songs directly reference hard drugs. When they’re not singing about a drug overdose, as on “Sister Morphine,” or about getting over a heartbreak “with a needle and a spoon and another girl to take my pain away,” as on “Dead Flowers,” Jagger and Richards still don’t hide their (mostly Keith’s) drug problems too well.

The album’s second track, the bluesy, druggy “Sway” poetically says “It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway,” but it sounds an awful lot like “It’s just that needle, it’s got me in its sway.” And on “Bitch,” one of “Sticky Fingers’” two great riff rockers, they liken love to being “juiced up and sloppy.”

On its surface, “Bitch” seems like just another of Mich Jagger’s misogynistic songs, but the “bitch” here is not a woman but the feelings of love and lust that she conjures. It’s the man in the song who is reduced to an animal, a horse kicking the stall or one of Pavlov’s salivating dogs. Like “Satisfaction,” the song is built around a Keith Richards riff written for horns. Unlike “Satisfaction,” however, the Rolling Stones of 1971 can actually afford a horn section, which gives the song a lift and a majesty that earns that title of “the World’s Greatest Blah, Blah, Blah…”

The album’s other great riff rocker is its classic opener, “Brown Sugar.” Now here’s a song that employs classic Mick Jagger misogyny along with a distressing racism. Those of you who were too busy headbanging to Keef’s clarion guitar might not have noticed that the song’s lyrics are about an American plantation master having sex with his young slaves (the song, for those of you who are trivially-minded, was originally titled “Black Pussy;” at least Mick remembered some semblance of taste). What makes a good little Labour Party member go so bad? It has to be distance. It’s the same distance that compelled Prince Harry to wear that ridiculous Nazi uniform to a party recently. To the Brits, the Nazi’s were those guys who dropped bombs on London. Wearing their insignia has been a wonderful way to rebel since the earliest days of punk. The Holocaust, with its wholesale slaughter of Jews and European Gypsies, queers and commies has no immediacy to them because it wasn’t their people who were slaughtered. Likewise, the British outlawed slavery long before their rebel colonies, and their slavery was not so pervasive and hereditary. So, to Mick Jagger, it has no immediacy. It holds no immediate connection or shame. It’s camp.

Country music is also treated as camp by Jagger. By this time, Keith Richards had struck up a profound and influential friendship with Gram Parsons, the former Byrd and founder of “alternative country.” Rock-n-Roll’s basic chemistry is one part blues and one part country. The Stones had long embraced the former, but Parsons convinced Keef that country was beautiful and primordial. He had also influenced their earlier hit, “Honky Tonk Women,” but on “Sticky Fingers” the Stones turn in two bona-fide country ballads. One is “Dead Flowers,” which marries its drug references and spiteful lyrics about an ex-girlfriend who thinks she’s the “queen of the underground” with a steel pedal guitar and Mick’s sarcastic affected drawl. It is a touchstone for much of what is ironic and self-conscious about today’s “alternative country.”

Far more beautiful and sincere is “Wild Horses,” for which Mick plays it straight. The song was a rare instance (and perhaps the last) of Jagger and Richards allowing another artist, in this case Parsons’ Flying Burrito Brothers, to record one of their songs before the Stones. The Flying Burrito Brothers play the song straight-forward and sincerely, probably inspiring the Stones to do the same. It was a fitting gift to Gram Parsons. The only other gift he got from Keef was a taste of his super-human tolerance for drugs, which was too much for Parsons, who died three years later.

“Wild Horses” was a Jagger/Richards composition, although Marianne Faithful has recently claimed that she co-wrote the song. This is a plausible claim, since Faithful wrote “Sister Morphine” all by her lonesome, only to watch her own recorded version of the song make no dent in the charts and then have Keith Richards and Mick Jagger (by then, her ex-boyfriend) claim co-songwriting credit on the Stones’ rendition of the song, which has become a classic. However, it seems “Wild Horses” was composed by Keith Richards as a lullaby for his kids. Jagger sang it at Faithfull’s bedside after an overdose (perhaps the one that inspired “Sister Morphine”). When she awoke, she told Mick “wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” but this was just a sub-conscious memory from her coma.

The album’s cover artwork is classic Andy Warhol: a black-and-white close-up of a blue-jeans-clad crotch. Inside the album, the same crotch is stripped to the underwear, an erect cock evident. It makes explicit what Warhol’s cover to “The Velvet Underground and Nico” made implicit. Like the V.U.’s “peel slowly and see” banana, “Sticky Fingers’” cover was interactive: the original pressings of the l.p featured a fully functioning zipper. It’s artistic touches like this that we will miss when recorded music makes the final leap to digital downloads. We’ll also miss fully-realized albums like “Sticky Fingers,” which is an essential component for any argument in favor of rock-n-roll as a long-playing album medium.

I killed a cat today. I was walking Elana back to the J train. She asks if we could go to the cheap fruit stand and buy some pineapple. I tell her it’s a little out of the way, but we go anyway. We turn the corner and walk down Jamaica Ave. under the elevated train tracks. Before we walk ten feet we spot a cat in the road. “Ooh, kitty,” she says in that voice that’s affected for babies and kittens, “get out of the way if you don’t want to get hit.”

The cat looks dazed. It’s walking in front of cars, slowly and off-balance. It stands in front of a car that’s stopped at the red light. The light changes, and the driver has to back up and turn to avoid the cat, who’s barely moving. We surmise that it’s been hit by a car and debate what to do. “There’s an animal hospital nearby,” I say. She starts emptying her bag so that we can have something to carry the cat in, but the cat’s still walking into on-coming traffic. I need to get him out of the road now. I walk towards the cat and bend to pick him up, but I hesitate. He’s a mess. I don’t even know how to carry a healthy cat, let alone a badly injured one.

Some guy yells at me from down the street. He’s carrying lumber, I assume for the construction site two blocks away. “Jus’ pick up da fuckin’ cat,” he yells helpfully, “he ain’t gonna hurtcha.” This guy’s one of these New York characters. I don’t see him picking up the goddamn cat. But I do, finally. I’m not gonna put him in a bag, though, like roadkill. I carry him in my arms. He’s dirty and he smells, and I worry about my dry cleaning bill, to tell the truth.

Elana’s shaken up. She apologizes for not being much help, and says she has to walk ahead of me because it’s too upsetting. I ask her if I’m holding the cat right. She tells me I am. Because she’s walking ahead, she gets to the animal hospital first. When I walk in the lobby, she’s already talking with the vet, who’s explaining the situation. It’s about the delicate matter of the cost. The city-run animal shelter is a few blocks further, he tells us. They won’t charge, but they are required to euthanize strays. We ask him how much money, and he says about $50, just enough to cover the expense, which we agree to pay.

He brings us to an examination room, but he has a few other matters to attend to before he can examine the cat. I put the cat on the table and he starts walking in a daze again. He’s gonna walk right off the table. I hold him down a bit by petting him. “Calm down, kitty,” I say in that baby/kitty voice. I joke with Elana that “I guess I bought myself a damn cat, if he pulls through.” I see the cat’s face for the first time, and see now why Elana had to walk ahead. He’s a gooey mess. His mouth is open in the shape of an “o” and it’s oozing green snot. He’s still restless, but I calm him and he curls his body against my arm.

The vet returns. He feels the cat’s body and doesn’t think anything’s broken. “I’m not sure he was hit by a car,” he says. “If he’s unspayed, he’s probably feral.” The vet checks and is right. This is nobody’s cat. He was sick, and walking in the street to die. Elana leaves the room. The vet asks me to stay with the cat for a moment while he gets the medicine. When he returns, his assistant brings me to another room where I can wash my hands while he puts the cat down.

I join Elana in the lobby. She apologizes again, but she felt dizzy, which is understandable. I tell her I need to go to the ATM. She says she has her checkbook with her, but I tell her my bank has an ATM just two blocks away and that I’ll be back in five minutes.

The ATM is across the street from the fruit stand that we wanted to go to. I go inside, but there are no pineapples. Of course.

When I return to the animal hospital, Elana’s settling up the bill with the vet. It’s only $35. I give her a $20. We leave and separate. She, to Williamsburg; me, to the dry cleaner.

At the cleaners, I empty my pockets and remove my coat. The lady at the counter does the usual inspection. “Missing a button,” she notes. “Yeah, and this pocket’s torn and the lining’s all ripped up,” I tell her to make clear that I won’t hold the establishment responsible for that. “I just have to make do for the rest of the season,” I continue. “Yes, more storms coming,” she says in her Chinese accent, while fishing through a container of loose buttons. “A ha,” she says, as she finds a perfect match for my missing button and smiles.

This story has no moral, except that we should all heed Bob Barker’s advice and spay and neuter our pets. I would have taken that coat to the cleaner another day, and she would have found the button then instead, or I would have just thrown that old coat out in the spring. God does not work in mysterious ways and all things do not happen for a reason. I suppose we gave that cat some comfort in his last minutes, but I didn’t stay for his last minute. I left to wash my hands.

Today’s newspaper is sure to make one consider some grave options. First, there’s Hunter S. Thompson, who, before blasting himself away on Sunday, left instructions to have his cremated remains blasted from a cannon. Second, is the far more grim news that the New York City medical examiner’s office has given up identifying the remains of 1,161 victims whose bodies could not be identified or were never recovered from the World Trade Center attack.

Many families of victims have delayed holding services, awaiting discovery of all or part of their loved ones. Others have buried partial remains only to have more parts discovered later.

This post is not meant to take anything away from those families’ grief, or from their desire to mark the lives of the ones they lost. I just don’t understand the need that people feel to have a proper funeral.

If I had a spiritual bone in my body, I would describe myself as a secular humanist, but I don’t, so I’d rather be defined by my lack of beliefs and simply call myself an atheist. As such, I just don’t feel any sense of proprietorship over my body once I’m dead. I don’t feel a need for a proper burial, and I don’t really understand why anybody else would feel the need either.

Cemeteries are pretty. I like to walk around Maple Grove Cemetery, with its well-kept lawns, shady trees, curious tombstones and squirrels, ducks and turtles. Don’t call me morbid. As I’m fond of pointing out to my friends, cemeteries were the first urban parks in the early industrial era. Civic leaders found the idea of people having picnics in cemeteries to be a little distasteful and so parks like Boston’s Public Garden and New York’s Central Park were created.

Most cemeteries aren’t even as pretty as Maple Grove. They’re less historical, less ornate; just big lawns punctuated with concrete slabs. It just seems like a terrible use of real estate, and I don’t want any part.

Consider this my Last Will and Testament. When I die, take my organs (the liver will likely be of no use to anyone, but the lungs are clean), cremate my remains and spread my ashes over the Meadow Lake (the former “Lagoon of Nations” of the World’s Fair) in Flushing Meadows.

If anyone feels the need for a physical marker to remember me (What, I ain’t memorable enough as it is?), be creative! For example, I received a fundraising call from Queens College a few weeks ago. Donors who give at least a certain amount will be memorialized with a brick near Powdermaker Hall. Now, that’s what I consider a fitting marker. Not only would it take up very little space (which is still be utilized for a worthwhile purpose), but it would support a worthy public institution that has benefitted me and in which I truly believe. Moreover, I couldn’t think of better company than the Freedom Ride martyrs Andrew Goodman, James Cheney and Michael Schwerner.

My letter to Newsday was published on Tuesday the 23rd. It’s essential to keep up the opposition to Wal-Mart’s siege of our union cities. Wal-Mart opened a store in Garden City a few weeks ago. It’s their first significant toe-hold in the New York metro region, as they seek to open stores in Rego Park and the Bronx. Cities like Detroit and Boston are also on Wal-Mart’s hitlist.

Wal-Mart is anti-competitive. They engage in predatory pricing practices that force smaller shops in the areas near their stores to close. True, Wal-Mart drives down prices, but they do this by driving down wages, not just in the communities where Wal-Mart stores operate but in the factories of companies that do business with Wal-Mart, America’s largest retailer. They pay sub-poverty wages. They discriminate against women in their employ. They are militantly anti-union.

Against a back-drop of all this bad press, Wal-Mart has unleashed a multi-million dollar PR offensive, featuring grinning idiots in blue smocks, to convince communities like New York to let them in. Join the SEIU’s Purple Ocean membership organization, and use their Wal-Mart fact-checker as you draft your own letters to the editor and Community Board testimony.

There’s long been speculation that the Plaza Hotel would close its doors. Hotels don’t seem to have a very long shelf life these days. New amenities are rolled out by competitors, new audio-visual and networking technologies are introduced, new demands are made of conference and banquet space. New hotels can build for the modern marketplace, but older hotels have to pay a fortune to be retro-fit. Add to that the usual wear and tear that a hotel goes through (carpets wear thin, wallpaper fades and let’s not talk about those mysterious stains that turn up in the strangest places), and you wind up with the need for a hotel to close operations for top-to-bottom renovations every couple of decades. Many hotels decide to forgo the renovations. They close down, tear down, go condo.

The Mayflower, the Stanhope and the Regent Wall Street are just a few of the hotels that have closed their doors in the past year. They’ve been supplanted new hotels like the Mandarin Oriental in the Time Warner Center and the so-hideous-it’s-beautiful Westin in Times Square. This cycle of openings and closings has been going on for a long time, which is why there’s been speculation about the fate of the Plaza for such a long time. The question comes up every time the hotel is sold. Donald Trump made some vague threats to go condo when bought the hotel in 1989, but that was just some macho posturing against the hotel workers union.

The truth is that the hotel has looked the worse for wear for a little too long, so when Elad Properties bought the hotel recently, nobody was surprised when they announced that the hotel would close for renovations in April and reopen as a mixed-use building, with condo apartments, retail space and a much smaller “boutique” hotel in one part of the building.

The hotel workers union rallied in front of the Plaza yesterday. The union has formed a Save the Plaza Coalition. They’re enlisting support from politicians, celebrities and members of the community. They’re filing for landmark status for interior sections of the hotel, but the company was likely to preserve that famous dining rooms like the Oak Bar and the Palm Court anyway.

A spokesman for Elad told the Daily News, “This isn’t about landmarks, this is about losing 900 jobs at the hotel.” So what if that’s the case? Since when are 900 working people’s livelihoods of no concern? That’s 900 people with good pay, health care and seniority. That’s an awful lot of middle-aged waitresses, cooks and room attendants having to compete with younger workers for new jobs that won’t pay nearly as much or have the same benefits and security. Elad’s callousness is astounding.

The Plaza will be saved. The building itself is a landmark and is in no danger of being torn down. The famous interiors of its lobby and dining rooms will likewise win landmark status and will remain open to the public. What is in danger of being lost is hundreds of jobs if the hotel closes the vast majority of its guest rooms to the public. I don’t support tax breaks as a solution to keep wealthy owners making a profit. I do think public pressure might convince Elad that gutting the Plaza is not worth their time, and the publicity might inspire a group of buyers to get together and “save the day.” Maybe Donald Trump will buy back one of his formerly prized possessions. He could make a TV show about the renovations. That might pay for the hotel right there.

Harvard President Lawrence Summers is sunk. He’s catching a lot of hell from his faculty and students over some stupid remarks that he made, by way of explaining Harvard’s gender imbalance in the sciences, that suggested that women aren’t as good as men at math and science. The controversy hasn’t let up, and as Summer’s character has been debated in the national press have come repeated complaints of his bullying and autocratic style, and constant reminders of how he chased Cornell West away to Princeton. It’s over for Summers. I’ve seen this movie before.

In my Junior year at Queens College, we brought down our president. Allen Lee Sessoms was appointed in 1995. He was Queens College’s first black president, one of the minority administrators appointed by Giuliani and Pataki in order to dismantle the hallmarks of the CUNY system and kick out thousands of minority students.

Sessoms wanted to break Queens College away from CUNY and make the college its own university, catering to middle class students from Long Island and out of state. He wanted to build dormitories in order to attract these students. He staked his reputation on a state-of-the-art AIDS research center. And he was a vocal supporter of Guiliani’s campaign to repeal CUNY’s 150-year tradition of open admissions (which meant that high school graduates from New York City’s public schools were guaranteed admission to CUNY; if they didn’t meet academic standards, they would have to take remedial courses to catch up, but could study at the university anyway).

When the Bar Association released a study on the open admissions debate in October of 1999, it included this passage:

The expletive was “shit.” He was calling us “shit.” It took a few weeks after the report’s publication for it to get circulated much on campus, but when it did, boy, was Sessoms in trouble. The teacher’s union was after him. The student groups were after him.

This is from a pamphlet that my own Young People’s Socialist League distributed: “While we are outraged by Sessoms’ words, what we really oppose is the action behind the words. From his illegal eradication of remedial education to his abrupt expulsion of thousands of poor students to his constant public CUNY bashing, Allen Lee Sessoms has demonstrated the contempt at which his words merely hinted.”

As the controversy raged, Sessoms sealed his fate by publicly guaranteeing that he had secured funding for his AIDS center. When the deadline for producing the money came and went, he had to admit that he was bluffing. His reputation couldn’t recover, and he announced that he would not seek re-appointment at the end of his first five-year term. Sessoms was gone by the end of the semester.

Summers, like Sessoms, is attempting to change the structure of the university he leads, seeking greater centralization of the university’s mostly-autonomous schools. This means that he came in to the university facing powerful, entrenched opposition. Such arrogance as he displayed is so unwise, it betrays a greater character flaw. Summers better start thinking of how he will finesse his exit, since it seems doubtful that he can change his ways and win back his campus. Allen Sessoms never tried to apologize for the “Shit in, shit out” controversy. He could read the writing on the wall. It was time to leave.

“Ray” is not a very good movie, but, as it is essentially a string of re-enacted musical performances, on the chitlins circuit, in the studio and in “mixed-race” concert halls, you won’t really notice until the end of the movie. When the last three minutes of the movie are narrated by on-screen captions that begin “For the next 40 years…,” it feels like the shortcut of lazy screenwriters (which it is), but the truth is that this is a jukebox movie, and, by 1965, Ray Charles had recorded his most legendary work. What was left to re-enact? The Pepsi commercials?

The movie is compelling, but it is entirely because of Ray Charles’ brilliant body of work. A documentary might have better suited the material (certainly a talking head interview with Quincy Jones now would have been more impressive than Larenz Tate’s ill-suited pipsqueak impersonation of “Q”), but, the songs would likely not have the same “pop” if they were merely the soundtrack to a bunch of black and white photographs.

Jamie Foxx’s impersonation of Ray Charles is credible and professional, but it is not great art. I never “lost” Foxx in his character. It was always clearly Jamie Foxx impersonating Ray Charles during historic moments. I’m afraid this movie is indicative of a pattern that will develop and mature with the upcoming Johnny Cash biopic. Yeah, the tunes are classic and the stories are compelling, but I’d rather read a biography and listen to the records.

Wow. Oh, boy. Five bands on four stages. Simultaneously. How could it fail?

Sunday night’s Grammy’s telecast was the second lowest rated, ever. There are many observations one could make about the Grammy’s, but why bother? Dead people win awards, the best new artist will be forgotten in ten years time, the alternative award is an alternative to nothing, blah, blah, blah.

The real lesson from Sunday is that music is just not a mass medium. Sure, everyone listens to music, but their tastes are personal. Television can pump money into a sitcom or TV cop drama, advertise the program endlessly and showcase it at 9 p.m. Eastern (8, Central and Mountain) and millions of people will watch. Likewise, a big budget Hollywood spectacular will almost always recoup its investment, at least after it’s released in Japan.

But no amount of financing is necessarily going to make a record a mass hit. Most big hits are flukes, capturing a particular moment in time and culture. The “Record Industry” basically pours millions of dollars into the artists who have already sold big, hoping that lightening will strike again. The other, smaller artists are basically loaned money with which to record, promote and tour. If they happen to be this year’s fluke to sell a bunch of records, well, then they get paid.

It’s a lousy system and produces mostly lousy music. Between sticker prices and digital downloads, the “Record Industry” might finally die a merciful death soon, and allow the vast universe of innovative indies the space to pursue their art and provide us all with our own personal “stars.”

I’m happy about this, but I want to take a moment to mourn the eventual loss of one of rock-n-roll’s most entertaining traditions: the song about the record company.

I originally dreamed up this column on Sunday morning, while listening to the Smiths’ swan song, Strangeways, Here We Come, which features the delightful record label kiss-off, “Paint A Vulgar Picture.”

At the record company party
On their hands – a dead star
The sycophantic slags all say :
“I knew him first, and I knew him well”

Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package !
Re-evaluate the songs
Double-pack with a photograph
Extra Track (and a tacky badge)


Already, the Smiths had watched their singles, B-sides and album tracks get repackaged for both sides of the Atlantic, but they were yet to witness the post-break-up avalanche of “best-of” collections.

Their label was Sire, and its legendary president was Seymour Stein. Ten years later, Belle and Sebastian recorded a song about Sire’s attempts to sign them to the label, simply called “Seymour Stein.”

Half a world away
Ticket for a plane
Record company man
I won’t be coming to dinner

They didn’t sign with Stein, who famously snatched up the Ramones and Talking Heads in the 70′s. In the 80′s, Stein personally wooed the Replacements to his label. On their Pleased To Meet Me album, the
Mats made fun of how they “fell up” into the major labels.

One foot in the door, the other one in the gutter
The sweet smell that they adore, well I think I’d rather smother

Are you guys still around? (I don’t know)
Whatcha gonna do with your lives? (nothin’!)

The “whoops-are-we-supposed-to-be-taken-seriously-now, indies-to-majors” song is notable sub-genre of the song about the record company that Pavement did justice to on 1994′s “Cut Your Hair,” which, in between its Spinal Tap jokes about their recent drummer switch, observed:

Advertising looks and chops a must
No big hair!!
Songs mean a lot
When songs are bought


Another sub-genre of songs about record labels is the “fuck you” to the record label that just canceled its contract with the band. The classic is the Sex Pistols’ “E.M.I.” with its piss and vinegar take on the first of two labels to drop them before Virgin ultimately released Never Mind the Bollocks.

Don’t judge a book just by the cover
Unless you cover just another
And blind acceptance is a sign
of stupid fools who stand in line like EMI

Twenty years later, Spoon found unexpected pathos in their deceptive A&R man, Ron Laffitte, in “The Agony of Lafitte” (and its B-side, “Lafitte, Don’t Fail Me Now”).

When you do that line tonight
Remember that it came at a stiff price

The daddy of all songs about the record company is actually the B-side to the daddy of all rock-n-roll records, “Satisfaction.” The Rolling Stones’ “Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man” assailed a worthless PR dude in America.

I’m a necessary talent behind every rock and roll band
Yeah, I’m sharp
I’m really, really sharp
I sure do earn my pay
Sitting on the beach every day, yeah

The great irony is if that record’s A-side hadn’t been one of those fluke hits that captured the cultural zeitgeist and convinced the major corporations that music could be big business, well, it would be a curiosity rather than a harbinger.

I don’t have much sympathy for the plight of the oh-so glamorous Village and Lower East Side. This is the bitter little Holden Caufield in me winning out over the urban planning nerd and the socialist. I just feel like the invading Darwinist hordes, the yuppies, limeys and spoiled NYU students who priced out the previous residents, will get what they deserve. Either they too will one day be priced out, or they will be left with a community that’s been sucked dry of vitality and art.

Nightlife is what attracts many to downtown, but high rents are forcing prominent nightclubs to close. The Bottom Line closed not too long ago, and now Tonic and Fez are following. New York University actually foreclosed on the Bottom Line, which couldn’t meet the exorbitant rents that the university charged. The truth is that the Bottom Line should have hired new management years ago. The club was a beautiful cabaret with a full stage and generous seating, but it was stuck in a time warp. Musical scenes came and went in New York, but the Bottom Line could always be counted on to host David Johansen. (I saw Alex Chilton there, solo, and Ray Manzarek joined by Jim Carroll – great artists, but dating from the mid-60′s to the late 70′s).

Fez was a wonderfully intimate setting, with full-seating and a wonderful showcase for singer-songwriters. I saw Rhett Miller of the Old 97′s a couple of times there, test-drive new material. I also saw and met John Doe.

Well, they’re both gone, and, much worse, CBGB’s might follow.

Downtown’s latest problems are further vindication of Jane Jacobs, whose book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” is the bible of civic activists. Her book was not so much researched as observed. One thing that Jacobs observed was how too much of a good thing in a neighborhood can ruin what was good there in the first place. She used as an example a vital 24-hour neighborhood, with shops and restaurants and homes all within walking distance. Into this bustling neighborhood, at a prominent intersection, would move a bank. The bank would prosper and thrive and soon another bank would move across the street. Perhaps a third and even a fourth would join the block. Pretty soon, the character of the neighborhood has been altered. It is no longer a 24-hour neighborhood because the banks close at 5:00. The street goes quiet in the evenings and, with fewer “eyes on the street,” crime increases. Residents move out of the neighborhood and a vicious cycle begins. Balance is what Jacobs is arguing in favor of.

Balance is lost downtown. The 24-hour party people pay huge rents as admission to an urban playground. Corporate retail chains (your GAP’s and American Appaerel’s and what-have-you) buy their way into the neighborhood to get in on some of that party money. The stores price out the nightclubs. The 24-hour party starts closing early. The neighborhood becomes a bore, and the party people move on.

As it is, the artists have moved on. It seems like all the up-and-coming bands in New York are based out of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn. Not only that, but they cut their teeth playing at Brooklyn clubs like North Six and Warsaw.

Thirty years ago, the members of Blondie rented a loft on Bowery across the street from CBGB’s. Now, if NYC is to be the home of any more future legends, be they Radio 4 or the Black Spoons or someone we’ve yet to hear of, their story is totally unlikely to start in Manhattan. They’re much more likely to be a Brooklyn band, playing Brooklyn clubs for Brooklyn residents.

Perhaps one day, if Williamsburg gets totally gentrified too (not too far-fetched as of this writing), the next generation of rock-n-roll bohemians will live in apartments that face the J train on Jamaica Ave. in Richmond Hill, and cut their teeth playing the Republican Club and the RKO Keith.

The news that the UFCW had organized a Wal-Mart store in Quebec was hailed as a real breakthrough in some quarters of the labor movement. Quebec has a card-check authorization law, which means the union merely has to present union cards that represent a majority of the workers in the bargaining unit in order to be certified. This avoids the bruising, months-long anti-union campaigns that employers like Wal-Mart engage in when unions in the U.S. petition the NLRB for a union election. Quebec also has a right to a first contract under law. In the U.S., many companies “recognize” the union but never agree to a contract, which leaves the union dead in the water.

So, of course, with favorable laws like that (which, by the way, there’s nothing stopping New York or other so-called “blue states” from enacting similar laws), Quebec was recognized as a weak spot for corporations like Wal-Mart, where unions could get a foot in the door and then leverage those properties in tougher fights in other parts of the world. Predictably, Wal-Mart closed the store.

Below is a letter to the editor of Newsday.

February 11, 2005

Letters Editor
Newsday
235 Pinelawn Road
Melville, NY 11747-4250

To the Editor:

Wal-Mart’s decision to close a store in Quebec where workers had recently voted to form a union should be a cautionary tale for Queens. Wal-Mart’s claim that union demands would have made the store unprofitable is an obvious lie. The contract was to be settled by an impartial arbitrator who would never have imposed terms that would force the store out of business.

Wal-Mart’s long history of union-busting is well-documented. The company harasses, intimidates and fires workers who stand up for their rights. It breaks the law with impunity. In China, it cuts dirty deals with the government. And if all of this doesn’t work, and the workers still succeed in forming a union, Wal-Mart pulls up stakes and leaves.

Why then should citizens of Queens allow Wal-Mart to build a new store in Rego Park? After they put all of our favorite small businesses out of business, after they dump untold fortunes into lobbying against fair wage, benefits and rights bills in our City Council, and after their workers inevitably seek union representation, Wal-Mart is just going to close this store. We’ve seen this movie before. Let’s rewrite the first act and prevent Wal-Mart from ever poisoning our community.

Yours,

Shaun Richman

As if unemployment isn’t depressing enough, try ducking into a movie theater for a matinee to escape your problems for a couple hours. It’s awards season, so Hollywood and Indiewood trot out their “issues” pictures and tearjerkers. A few weeks ago, Alan Amalgamated and I had to walk clear across town to avoid cinematic child molestation, genocide, abortion and assisted suicide in search of a few laughs. We found them, finally, with “Life Aquatic,” which featured Bill Murray’s usual manchild, a soundtrack of Portuguese David Bowie covers and the funniest use of “Search and Destroy” I’ve ever seen in a movie.

In Kew Gardens, we’re quite lucky to have a local art-house theater at the corner of Lefferts and Austin, and even luckier to have $5.50 tickets on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, being an art-house, it’s more prone to weepy winter syndrome than most theaters. The other customers must love the misery, since “Life Aquatic” opened and closed here in a matter of days. “A Very Long Engagement” had a similarly brief engagement. Of course, even I was bothered that it was not somber enough. It’s a World War I movie, for crying out loud! It was a bit like “Paths of Glory,” if Frank Capra had directed.

“Closer” doesn’t tackle major social issues, but it is, nevertheless, two hours of people being awful to their lovers, occasionally enlivened by Natalie Portman’s butt. I’m sure it will win a bunch of awards. (I’d like to take this opportunity to say “Hi!” to all the readers who have just stumbled upon this page by googling the words “Natalie Portman’s butt”)

Today, I saw “Vera Drake.” Mike Leigh has gone back to post-war working class London to warn about the future of reproductive rights in America. He aims to put a human face on the “a” word (uttered just twice in the film). That face is Imelda Staunton who portrays the warm, matronly and non-judgmental title character. Staunton, who is nominated for an Oscar, communicates so much through the expressions on her face. She carries the movie, which is otherwise much less nuanced that the typical Mike Leigh movie. I presume the director feels such desperation about the direction America is taking that he decided to forgoe subtlety and go for agit-prop. There’s a place for that. I certainly feel that I got my $5.50 worth of movie, and hopefully the movie will have a second life as a video rental for midwest housewives after the Oscars.

Salmon is a great fish. Cheap and plentiful if farm-raised, it doesn’t have a very strong “fishy” flavor. In fact, it’s very good at absorbing flavors, which is what makes steaming it so much fun. You can experiment with all sorts of liquids. I find that sherry gives the salmon a pleasant sweetness. I have a bit of a sweet tooth, so this recipe is a bit like candy. If you want to eat more like an adult, there are simple modifications that you can make to this recipe that suggest themselves.

Ingredients:
1 lbs of Salmon fillets
1 and 3/4 cups Sherry
3 tablespoons Pecans
1 tablespoon of butter
1/4 cup of Honey
Dash of Paprika

1. Slice the salmon filets into strips that are no thicker than 1 and 1/2 inch. Brush the scaly bottom of the filets with olive oil. This won’t necessarily prevent the fish from sticking to your steamer tray, but it will make it easier to clean. Lightly sprinkle the fillets with paprika and place on steamer tray.

2. Pour 1 and 1/2 cups of sherry in steamer pot. Place steamer tray, with fish, in the pot and cover. Put on high heat and cook for 14 minutes. Note: you can’t really “oversteam” the fish; it will merely get softer. However, after about 14 minutes, the fish will be steamed all the way through and the wine will begin to evaporate.

3. Chop the pecans into quarters and place on a cookie tray. Toast them in the oven for 10 minutes on 300 degree heat.

4. To make the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Mix in the honey and a little bit of sherry. When the sauce starts to bubble up, add the toasted pecans. Don’t keep the sauce on the burner for more than four or five minutes, or it will carmelize.

5. Spoon the honey sauce over the salmon fillets. I would also recommend cooking up some greens as a side (asparagus is good, but I prefer string beans). You can spoon the honey sauce over the greens, too, if you are a big kid like me and won’t eat your veggies unless they taste like candy.

6. Enjoy! Tell me what you think.

I don’t know when or how I became a trainspotter. I just find myself walking through the older neighborhood to my south, Richmond Hill, to clear my head and wait for the odd train to pass by.

Richmond Hill was established in the late-19th century to be “country homes” for New York commuters. Eventually, the rest of the city grew out around the neighborhood, which simply became a part of New York City, although a distinctive part. The neighborhood has grand architecture, including its own Carnegie Library, a landmark RKO movie palace and lots of faded glory Victorian mansions. In the heart of the neighborhood is a dead train station.

The LIRR’s Montauk train line snakes through the neighborhood. It’s an overpass at Lefferts Blvd. that ducks under the elevated J train. It’s a dead end of many residential blocks. It’s two lonely non-electrified tracks that wind through a valley in Forest Park.

The train line’s western terminus is Hunter Point Avenue in Long Island City, where commuters ride ferries to Wall Street or Midtown. It’s not the most convenient commute. When the MTA closed the Richmond Hill station in 1998, only seven commuters rode it daily. Still, those seven people must have found it to be a quicker way to get to work than the Kew Gardens station eight blocks to the north, which zips passengers to Penn Station in under 20 minutes. Or else they just found it to be a more scenic route.

The official justification for the closing was that the behemoth double decker diesel trains that the MTA introduced that year were too high for the station’s antique platforms. The LIRR scaled back service on the line to just four trains every week day; two head towards Hunters Point Avenue in the morning rush, and two head back to Montauk in the pm.

The rarity of these trains is what makes them so interesting. Watching the train go by at a quarter after five is like being comforted by some ancient ritual. You don’t really know who rides that train or why, but you know that it will glide by again tomorrow at the same time. Sometimes I forget what time it is and I’m delighted to watch the train pass below me in the park, a modern marvel of a train chugging along on tracks that use centuries-old technology, zipping through a forest that’s been here longer than humanity.

A lot of people in the community want the whole train line shut down. They feel it’s too exposed, too dangerous for their kids. It is curious that the MTA would keep a train line in functional operation for just four commuter trains a day. Some people think they keep it running for the handful of factories and warehouses that still use the tracks to ship via freight. (I saw one such freight train today, and it was a special treat, coming, as it did, with no announced schedule.) Other people think they keep it around “just in case.”

Train infrastructure is expensive and difficult to set up; preservation of what’s already been set up just seems wise. Indeed, one of the many projects that the MTA has on its wish list is a new main line for the LIRR. Most trains that go to Penn Station pass through the same congested section of track in New York City (you know, the station stops that make Long Islanders grumble about slowing their commute: “…making stops at Woodside, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens and Jamaica; change at Jamaica for the train to…”). The congestion will just get worse when the LIRR finally begins service to the east side’s Grand Central Station.

That being the case, the old Montauk line makes a likely candidate for a new main line. One of the most expensive elements of creating a new train line is the cost of right of way, but here in the Montauk line the LIRR has miles and miles of scenic right of way, owned in full.

If modernized, electrified and expanded, the train tracks will lose some of their charm and I doubt I would remain a trainspotter for trains that zip through every 15 minutes. But faded glory is only interesting for imagining what was. I’d rather see rejuvenation through a return to full-service commuter transportation and new affordable housing and commercial development.

Mike Bloomberg’s missing a real opportunity. On Friday, a New York State judge ruled that the state constitution, which places a much heavier emphasis on equal protection and civil rights than the United States Constitution, should be read as to allow same-sex marriage. Licenses for such same sex marriages could have been issued as early as tomorrow, if Mayor Bloomberg hadn’t announced that the city intends to appeal the decision to the state’s Court of Appeals. Bloomberg, who made a point of announcing his personal support for gay marriage, said he wanted to make sure that the decision was supported by the state’s highest court as soon as possible.

In fact, he is trying to have it both ways. He is trying to be pro-gay marriage for New York’s generally liberal general election voters, and anti-gay marriage for voters in the Republican primary, where he faces a real challenge from an actual Republican, former City Council Minority Leader Thomas Ognibene.

This is a shame, because Bloomberg could have done something so much bigger. This is February, which means not only are we on the heels of Bush’s State of the Union address, in which he reiterated his support of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but we are just one week away from Valentine’s Day. I can’t think of a more grand, romantic gesture than the defense of equal rights and progress in the face of bigotry and reaction. Bloomberg should have opened City Hall’s steps to all couples, gay and straight, who want to get married on Valentine’s Day. It would be a potent symbol to the rest of the country that, while Bush won, his victory was narrow and regional and that, in New York at least, we’re not going to roll over for his agenda.

It also would have scored a lot of votes in the general election for Mike Bloomberg. But, he needs to win his primary before he can take his campaign to all of the city’s voters. The Republican party in New York City is tiny. There are more independents than Republicans and Democrats outnumber the Republicans by five to one. The tinyness is what appealed to Bloomberg in 2001. A socially liberal Democrat, with a huge personal fortune and media empire, he bought the Republican ballot line in 2001. Now he faces a real rebellion from this tiny collection of Archie Bunkers. Expect to see Bloomberg take two sides on a lot of issues in between now and September.

Ironically, if the Liberal party still had a ballot line, I think there would have been same-sex weddings on Valentine’s Day. It’s important to note that by the time of its demise the Liberal party was neither liberal nor a party, but a corrupt patronage mill with a name that appealed to enough voters as to allow the only two Republican mayors that New York elected in the last half of the 20th century to eke out wins. If Bloomberg could count on being on the Liberal ballot line in November, like Rudy Giuliani and John Lindsay before him, then even if he lost the Republican primary, he could still compete in the general election and maybe win (like Lindsay did in 1969).

Of course, one would expect someone who bought his way in to high office in order to do something good and leave his mark, to stake out the right position on same-sex marriage anyway, because it is the noble thing to do.

I had a taste of this dish at a restaurant in Washington’s Dupont Circle. I’ve ordered it at a few other restaurants, but found the quality to vary wildly (One diner in the West Village, which shall remain nameless, served up a hash of white button mushrooms and imitation crabmeat). I decided to take a crack at the dish myself. I thought it was promising enough to memorialize the recipe here for future experimentation.

Ingredients:
8 ounces of lump crabmeat (I found a can of Phillips brand crabmeat for $6; usually this will cost upwards of $10)
4 Portobello caps (No more than 3 inches in diameter)
1 small green pepper (I only used about 2 tablespoons of chopped pepper)
1 celery stalk
2 slices of bread
3 cloves of garlic
1 shallot
Olive oil
Small jar of alfredo sauce (Do yourself a favor and use light alfredo sauce)

1. Place the portobello caps, bottom side down, on a cookie sheet or tray and place in the oven at 350 degrees. Be sure to brush the mushrooms with olive oil so they don’t stick to the tray. Bake them for ten minutes, or until they begin to wilt.

2. Finely chop the garlic, shallot, celery and pepper. Toast the slices of bread and break them up into itty bitty little bits.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan or skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and shallot. Allow a minute or two to blend, then add the pepper and celery. Allow five minutes for vegetables to reduce.

4. Slowly mix in the crabmeat. Wait three minutes and then fold in the bread crumbs and alfedo sauce. Cook the whole mixture for an additional five minutes.

5. Flip the wilted mushrooms over so that they are upside down. Again, make sure to brush the caps with olive oil. Spoon the stuffing onto the mushrooms. Place back into the oven for five minutes, until the stuffing turns slightly brown.

6. Enjoy! Tell me what you think.