Monday, August 7, 2017
Sunday, August 6, 2017
Saturday, August 5, 2017
MID-DAY NOT-SO-MINI-RANT
So the town I live in made NPR news this morning. NPR & The NY Times and other media have been noticing this Jersey town for years. The Times has had articles about how it's the most gay friendly community outside the Bay Area and the best racially integrated community of its size in the country etc.
So what was a WASP fortress I spent very little time in when I was growing up in the town next door, is now a liberal bastion. But despite that, the news story was about how the police chief and another officer have been fired or suspended because of an incident on the night of July 4th when after the town fireworks a squad of cops, including the chief, not only physically forced a bunch of black teenage boys across the town line into the predominantly black Irvington, but as recently released video reveals some of the cops beat some of the boys, including one who was handcuffed. And it turns out some of the boys lived in the town the cops were forcing them out of.
So despite the liberal population of the town, and its racially mixed make up (I've seen more interracial marriages here than almost anywhere) and tons of gay couples and etc. the cops proved themselves to be just as capable of acting on the impulse to treat the challenge of policing black young men exactly the same as too many "American" towns and cities. And "a few bad apples" were not stopped by the good cops.
Not to compare the situations as equal, but it's like the fact that the little village part of the town, the neighborhood my apartment is in, has retained its quaint charm because the buildings were not torn down and replaced but repurposed instead and the businesses were all mom and pop stores. The citizens fought back every attempt to bring in national chains or to build big structures, to the point that when the commute to NYC became much easier in the late '90s and some wanted to build parking structures for the commuters to park their cars the town instead introduced jitney service so commuters could leave their cars at home and the town could avoid the monstrous parking structures.
The town managed to do this for the entire 20th century and well into this one. Then, several years ago the US Post Office moved to a smaller space and put the old building right in the center of the little village up for sale. There ensued a fight over what would replace it. Nationally recognized architects were asked for their ideas by citizens groups, other organizations were consulted, all had plans that could repurpose the post office and renovate it to keep the spot pretty much the same or similar.
The grocery store across the street from it offered to buy it and renovate it to have a bigger store, but the town wouldn't give it the designated parking spaces it asked for, which seemed highly suspicious, especially since by then there'd been a proposal to allow a developer to bulldoze the P.O. and replace it with a big condo structure with retail space on the first floor. There was a citizens campaign to keep that from happening. It seemed like every lawn in front of ever house and every business in town had a sign saying something like "Keep The Village a village"—meaning no big buildings and condos etc.
There seemed no doubt what the will of the citizens of the town was when new town council members were elected who promised to fight any new and oversized structure. I thought that was that, but somehow, within a year, the developer had won, and over the next couple of years the post office was bulldozed and the building begun. The structure is complete now and dominates the little village like a giant ugly eyesore, to me (and the old-timers I've talked to). And of course the first business sign already put up for the first-floor retail spaces is STARBUCK'S.
So just like that, the centuries of measures that both Republicans and Democrats and WASPs and, later, racially integrated townspeople took to keep "the village a village" have been undone. In a powerfully liberal community! We organized, but obviously not enough. The developer and his money and connections won out, despite the make up of the town. And as it turned out, that developer was, and is, a supporter of the current president's and supposedly was part of his transition team.
I'm probably too old to be able to live to see the day when that new structure gets torn down and the Starbuck's goes out of business. But I hope that day comes.
So what was a WASP fortress I spent very little time in when I was growing up in the town next door, is now a liberal bastion. But despite that, the news story was about how the police chief and another officer have been fired or suspended because of an incident on the night of July 4th when after the town fireworks a squad of cops, including the chief, not only physically forced a bunch of black teenage boys across the town line into the predominantly black Irvington, but as recently released video reveals some of the cops beat some of the boys, including one who was handcuffed. And it turns out some of the boys lived in the town the cops were forcing them out of.
So despite the liberal population of the town, and its racially mixed make up (I've seen more interracial marriages here than almost anywhere) and tons of gay couples and etc. the cops proved themselves to be just as capable of acting on the impulse to treat the challenge of policing black young men exactly the same as too many "American" towns and cities. And "a few bad apples" were not stopped by the good cops.
Not to compare the situations as equal, but it's like the fact that the little village part of the town, the neighborhood my apartment is in, has retained its quaint charm because the buildings were not torn down and replaced but repurposed instead and the businesses were all mom and pop stores. The citizens fought back every attempt to bring in national chains or to build big structures, to the point that when the commute to NYC became much easier in the late '90s and some wanted to build parking structures for the commuters to park their cars the town instead introduced jitney service so commuters could leave their cars at home and the town could avoid the monstrous parking structures.
The town managed to do this for the entire 20th century and well into this one. Then, several years ago the US Post Office moved to a smaller space and put the old building right in the center of the little village up for sale. There ensued a fight over what would replace it. Nationally recognized architects were asked for their ideas by citizens groups, other organizations were consulted, all had plans that could repurpose the post office and renovate it to keep the spot pretty much the same or similar.
The grocery store across the street from it offered to buy it and renovate it to have a bigger store, but the town wouldn't give it the designated parking spaces it asked for, which seemed highly suspicious, especially since by then there'd been a proposal to allow a developer to bulldoze the P.O. and replace it with a big condo structure with retail space on the first floor. There was a citizens campaign to keep that from happening. It seemed like every lawn in front of ever house and every business in town had a sign saying something like "Keep The Village a village"—meaning no big buildings and condos etc.
There seemed no doubt what the will of the citizens of the town was when new town council members were elected who promised to fight any new and oversized structure. I thought that was that, but somehow, within a year, the developer had won, and over the next couple of years the post office was bulldozed and the building begun. The structure is complete now and dominates the little village like a giant ugly eyesore, to me (and the old-timers I've talked to). And of course the first business sign already put up for the first-floor retail spaces is STARBUCK'S.
So just like that, the centuries of measures that both Republicans and Democrats and WASPs and, later, racially integrated townspeople took to keep "the village a village" have been undone. In a powerfully liberal community! We organized, but obviously not enough. The developer and his money and connections won out, despite the make up of the town. And as it turned out, that developer was, and is, a supporter of the current president's and supposedly was part of his transition team.
I'm probably too old to be able to live to see the day when that new structure gets torn down and the Starbuck's goes out of business. But I hope that day comes.
Friday, August 4, 2017
THE DARK TOWER
I went to see Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, and some other great actors in this film. And discovered Tom Taylor, the young actor in the leading role. He's terrific.
But as for the movie itself: what an absurdly silly abuse of money and talent.
Thursday, August 3, 2017
MORE DUOS FROM MY "HOLLYWOOD" YEARS (THIS TIME THE 1990S)
me & actor/writer Bill Mosley on location in Alaska on a day off from White Fang c. 1990
Eve Brandstein (my multi-talented partner in Poetry In Motion) & me sometime in the early '90s
me & Katy Sagal sometime in the early 1990s
me & my love Kim at Cafe Largo Poetry In Motion night ,early '90s
me & my love Kim at Cafe Largo Poetry In Motion night ,early '90s
poet Doug Lang & me early, '90s when I was visiting DC
the late great poet & small press publisher Jim Haining & me in Portland OR mid-'90s
me & screenwriter/poet Tommy Swerdlow mid-90s
me & artist Don Bachardy mid-90s (he was a friend who painted a portrait of me, as he did all his friends, & I was writing an article about him for the then new mag VENICE I helped start)
me & my godson Nick Browne mid-'90s in Pacific Pallisades
me reading an original poem & flower girl at the multi-talented and old friend Annabel Lee's wedding in NYC mid-'90s
actor/writer and old friend Jamie Rose & me in the mid-'90s
me & my then lady Crystal 1995
my old and post-op brain is not calling up the name of the actress in this photo with me, we were making a short film in Death Valley, the best time I ever had acting in a film, mid-90s
me and actor/writer/director and old and dear friend Karen Allen at The Bookstore in Lenox where I was reading from my latest book and she was introducing me in 1997
my then daughter-in-law and good friend Jennifer Baxandale Lally & me the later '90s
me & then actor and close friend Jim Keefe, late '90s
me & actor and old friend Louis Perez on the set of NYPD Blue, late '90s
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
TIMELY TUNE
I think I first heard Mose Allison play and sing this song of his live in 1960, when he was still a young man and I was an even younger one. It fit a few people I knew at the time. But listening to it in this era, it fits a whole mess of folks living in and hanging out at The White House, especially the blob supposedly in charge:
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