Tag: New York

Shattered – The Rolling Stones, Schmatta

“Shattered” is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones from their 1978 album Some Girls. The song is a reflection of American lifestyles and life in 1970s-era New York City, but also influences from the English punk rock movement can be heard.

wikipedia

Uh huh shattered, uh huh shattered
Love and hope and sex and dreams
Are still surviving on the street
Look at me, I’m in tatters!
I’m a shattered
Shattered

Friends are so alarming
My lover’s never charming
Life’s just a cocktail party on the street
Big Apple
People dressed in plastic bags
Directing traffic
Some kind of fashion
Shattered

Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex
Look at me, I’m in tatters
I’m a shattered
Shattered

All this chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter ’bout
Shmatta, shmatta, shmatta, I can’t give it away on 7th Avenue
This town’s been wearing tatters (shattered, sha ooobie shattered)

Location, location, location. If there’s an element of luck to my story, it’s that the Stones—Mick, Keith, and Woody—lived in the same place as me. If Picasso had a “blue period” and Orson Welles a “film noir period,” then this was the Stones’ “New York period.” They wrote songs about the city—their new album gave a shout-out to 8th Street—and became part of its fabric. When Mick sang about walkin’ Central Park and about schmattas on Seventh Avenue, he was drawing from experience. I mean, how many non-New Yorkers even know what a schmatta is? (Yiddish for “rag.”)

Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with the Rolling Stones (and Lived to Tell About It)
Bill German
(Great book, by the way. Highly recommended.)

The Capote Tapes – Trailer

Answered Prayers was meant to be Truman Capote’s greatest masterpiece, an epic portrait of NYC’s glittering jet-set society. Instead, it sparked his downfall. Through never before heard audio archive and interviews with Capote’s friends and enemies, this intimate documentary reveals the rise and fall of one America’s most iconic writers.

With unprecedented access to access to George Plimpton’s taped interviews for his biography, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. The documentary features interviews with Dick Cavett, André Leon Talley, Jay McInerney & Dotson Rader and introduces audiences to Kate Harrington, who the daughter of one of his lovers, John O’Shea, and in which Capote served in a surrogate father role. Previously never disclosing any details before, Kate opens up about living life with Truman Capote during this period, and shines a new light on his character through their close relationship.

AIDS – Early Warning of, New York Times – July 3, 1981

Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.

The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses, mostly in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area, are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment.

The sudden appearance of the cancer, called Kaposi’s Sarcoma, has prompted a medical investigation that experts say could have as much scientific as public health importance because of what it may teach about determining the causes of more common types of cancer.

RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS
Lawrence K. Altman
July 3, 1981

Fresh Air Interview – Desus and Mero

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. My guests Desus and Mero host the Showtime comedy series “Desus & Mero” Sunday and Thursday nights at 11. Their third season resumed after a monthlong hiatus last night. It was their first show back in the studio since the pandemic. At the heart of the show is Desus and Mero talking to each other, making each other and the audience laugh about everything from politics to viral videos, sports, pop culture and the Bronx, where they each grew up in the ’80s and early ’90s. The show also has sketches, and in each show, Desus and Mero do an interview. They get high-profile guests like Barack Obama, Anthony Fauci, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chadwick Boseman, Seth Meyers and Chris Hayes, who went to school with Desus.


NPR

Hunts Point Market Strike

Hundreds of workers at The Bronx’s Hunts Point Produce Market are still on strike after negotiations broke down over a $1 an hour raise.

But for many workers, who earn between $18 and $21 an hour on average, they’re seeking more than a pay hike.

“Just say ‘Thank you.’ Don’t say we should be lucky to have a job,” said Hiram Montalvo, a “box man” who unloads trucks. “Say thank you that we’re actually coming to work and risking our lives so that they can take care of their families as well.”

The workers, who are members of Teamsters Local 202, voted to go on strike on midnight Sunday after talks over an hourly raise disintegrated last week. Management offered a 32-cents-an-hour boost.

‘We’re Not Asking For Very Much’: Hunts Point Market Workers Strike For a $1 Raise — and Respect
The first strike in 35 years at the Bronx-based food hub has hundreds of workers on the picket line — buoyed by political candidates and besieged by the NYPD.
CLAUDIA IRIZARRY APONTE

http://www.thecity.nyc