The Miss-Appropriation of city funding, Chirlane McCray de Blasio
City Hall, Downtown Manhattan, New York
Mayor de Blasio is in quite a pickle. He hasn’t been able to get aid from the state and because congress couldn’t agree to a goddamn stimulus, the Blaz can’t get federal funding despite all his pathetic begging and pleading and probably compounded by his asinine decision to paint Black Lives Matter in front of the President’s luxury tower. So the city’s budget ax is going to come down on a lot of administration departments and city services.
First Lady Chirlane McCray is employing a shadow staff of at least six full-time workers who don’t appear on her official roster — with their salaries paid by other city agencies or their roles obscured within the wider office of her husband, Mayor Bill de Blasio, government sources say and records show.
McCray, who is mulling a run for Brooklyn borough president, volunteers her time and is not employed by the city government. But she has built up a portfolio of work that includes a billion-dollar endeavor to improve the city’s mental health services, known as ThriveNYC.
Her staff now stands at 14, sources say — at a time that the mayor is raising the specter of laying off up to 22,000 municipal workers in October because of a pandemic-driven budget gap.
Asked for a list of her current staff members, McCray’s office last month provided the names of eight full-time employees who together collect roughly $1.1 million in salaries through the office of the mayor.
But according to current and former employees in the Mayor’s Office, as well as public records, McCray’s staff count has actually been 15 throughout much of 2020, with a collective payroll that’s closer to $2 million. A recent departure brought the staff ranks down to 14.
That count excludes other city and nonprofit employees who support McCray on specific projects that she oversees — including private fundraising on behalf of the city government, managing the Gracie Mansion mayoral residence and spearheading ThriveNYC.
The six current off-roster workers include Felicia Lee, a $140,000-a-year communications advisor employed since April 2018, whose salary is paid by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The salary of a $130,000 director of policy, Grace Choi, hired in January 2019, is paid by the city Department of Social Services, according to city government sources and public records.
McCray’s 2019 public schedule shows both Lee and Choi regularly attended meetings with her — including a January 2019 “Team Lunch” at La Masa restaurant in The Bronx.
Yet officials in McCray’s office did not name those two staffers among the eight full-time employees.
McCray’s social media manager, who has been working for her for two years, also was not listed on the staff roster provided to THE CITY. Public records show she is on the payroll of the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.
The sources and records show McCray also hired a $70,000 videographer in February, whose name was not on the list of staff members provided to THE CITY by her office.
The videographer, whose work for McCray includes a “Baking with the First Lady” clip that was posted during the height of the pandemic in early April, is listed as a Department of Health employee in city records.
Yesiree, de Blasio’s co-mayor wife’s own cosplay administration will evade getting touched while over 22,000 other city workers not in Chirlie’s little circle will get lawnmowered. What’s interesting is how Chirlie’s redundancy angels are set up in de Blasio’s administration in various city service departments where cuts are certain to go down, which are all associated with their particular skill sets and even brazenly with the NYC first lady’s videographer as a DOH worker, the way her husband is doing this is pure gangster shit like putting mafia soldiers on no-show building contractor payrolls or even a less ethical version of musical chairs.
There shouldn’t be a shadow of a doubt anymore about this shadow government. The Blaz has assembled a political campaign team in city hall for his damn wife just like he ran an illicit 501 c 4 PAC Campaign For One New York fund in there that was feigned to support progressive policies like Pre-K and affordable housing while it was mostly exploited to dole out services favorably to his real estate donors. And is shamelessly doing this despite the still existential threat from and economic uncertainty induced from COVID-19 and found a way to exploit the pandemic to integrate it with Chirlie’s boondoggle Thrive program, which has turned out to be a bigger slush fund.
And what about ThriveNYC? It’s now going on 2 billion dollars in money spent squandered and it has not produced any results on it’s efficacy and efficiency in providing mental health for New Yorkers who truly need it because ThriveNYC doesn’t even target the people who could use mental health aid, which are the homeless, people with mental afflictions, victims of domestic violence and abuses while incarcerated in prisons. In it’s first 3 years of it’s existence all it produced were banal ads reaching out to people with work anxiety and a hotline number that barely got an answer from people.
But First Lady de Blasio has been a frivolous spending festering boil in city hall for quite a while, because her idiot husband basically turn her role into an defacto/proxy administrative government office. Not only is she the boss of the ThriveNYC boondoggle, but the Blaz also appointed her as chairwoman of the Mayor’s Fund To Advance New York City, the 25-year-old city government instituted “non-profit” entity where massive donations from real estate developers with business for the city plus other rich, powerful and even famous citizens of New York contribute and also sit on the board with her. (Remember that the Blaz was soliciting cash for CONY while this sanctioned slush fund already existed.). And if you think it’s a conflict of interest to disqualify her, wrong, because the first lady is a volunteer servant and not a paid employee, which is how the Conflicts of Interest Board approved her. Which made her the ultimate “agent of the city”
The thing with Chirlie is that like her stupid husband, they spend like gambling addicts with money that doesn’t belong to them like the city’s largesse, thinking that the more they piss away expecting another jackpot. But since NYC’s first lady has been watching piles and piles of money go in and out of city hall from her “volunteer” position, she’s obviously feels entitled to it herself thinks she can put her greedy hands in the city largesse till and spend a few billions that no one would notice.
She is in many ways the Blaz’s nepotism parasite hire version of what Jared Kushner is to President Trump, given many duties and responsibilities but absolutely unskilled at how to do them. Although in Chirlie’s case, she’s been very adept on how to weaponize her position and ruse as a volunteer to promote herself as Jared utilizes his position to obscenely enrich his wife, stepfather’s and his own family’s fortunes with the policies he steers for the nation.
As for accountability for Chirlie’s ThriveNYC profligacy, good luck getting answers or even documentation about their costs and how it vaporized. The thing with ThriveNYC is that it’s like a startup tech company, all hype ad gloss and filled with people who don’t have a clue what they are doing pushing a product that has no substance while wasting and pissing tons of investment money. When the product is a bureaucracy and that money invested by taxpayers.
But now with the city going broke and services being cut leading to dilapidated park space and garbage piling on the streets to go along with the rise in crime and scarcity of real affordable housing and homelessness during this new depression, NYC’s first lady continues to be a money devouring parasite in City Hall and pussy-whipped de Blasio will not and will find ways not to mention how he’s sacrificing his employees to finance his fucking wife’s delusional political ambitions and still useless ThriveNYC program which is nothing but a patronage mill and hangout for Chirlane’s sorority friends.
Another thing about Chirlie is that her presence is pronounced and induced in City Hall because the de Blasio is a fucking idiot who has absolutely no idea how to govern and apparently he’s dependent on her for ideas, which is why he’s contrived this political posse for her and splayed them out in different departments. Because the Blaz knows that Chirlie is his meal ticket to still remain a somewhat relevant politician in New York City and having her as the Brooklyn Borough President, which is just a rubber stamp redundancy position itself, will enable them to continue to enjoy the bennies and perks that comes with, which will translate well with their Park Slope home property values. There’s no way this Brooklyn power couple is going to let a pandemic cockblock that.
It’s time defund and maybe cancel Chirlane before this city gets even more broke.
The recently departed legendary journalist Pete Hamill once said about New York City that it’s a “city of daily irritations, occasional horrors, hourly tests of will, and even courage, and huge dollops of pure beauty”. And strolling by the Belt Parkway recently all of those and some sorry imitations of them manifested on a formerly grassy knoll separating the highway and the South Conduit and it was more dollops of ugly than anything. The only dollop of beauty found is a dismembered doll head captured in the lead photo, which resembles Marie Antoinette or maybe Kellyanne Conway.
About those ugly dollops, I managed to catch them while kneeling to get that photo of that abandoned toy and the sense that something was off andwrong was immediate. As vehicle after vehicle on the service heading for the exit ramp veered off course and improvised short cuts to get off the Belt.
The location of this is on 124th and South Conduit Blvd in South Ozone Park and it’s a remote residential area north of the JFK airport. Barely any pedestrian or even bike commuting goes here. The actual exit ramp for 130 st. is about a few blocks east.
But apparently, those venturous drivers looking to depart from the Belt didn’t want to wait that long…
What was once a standard exit ramp has extended to three of them, leaving muddy trails, butchered grass and damaged though still sturdy curb making mounting onto the Conduit still an arduous task and an hazardous act of futility. These drivers would probably take the same amount of time driving to the proper exit than they would taking these shorts.
It would be natural to cite this illicit activity and vehicular highway infrastructure vandalism to the current dystopian state and economic budgetary malaise New York is in and the fact that drivers are taking advantage of it along with the rise in speeding. But from the view of this layman detective, it’s obvious that these crappy new trails have been an open secret among drivers for a long time.
A very very long time…
Hopefully if this goes viral (and twitter can be picky) the city’s or states Department of Transportation will hurry up and put up new fencing to deter drivers from certain death from the cars speeding down the road from Lefferts Blvd.
When in Rome…
Missed Con Ed doing the same thing behind me while watching that city truck finish.
But I was able to catch this sad sack car trying to hop that curb.
That should lay to rest any proactive measures to prevent an accident over here. Although witnessing this vehicular cumbersome ballet was surreal, with cars and pickup trucks coming from the illegal exits and speeding on the boulevard, there was a sort of solidarity going down between all of them. Which reminds me of another Pete Hamill quote: “In the end, the only thing the true New Yorker knows about New York is that it is unknowable”
So in a positive but unsettling way, it’s a bit reassuring that people are making concerted efforts to avoid crashes, but it’s certain not to last, because all it takes is one impatient selfish asshole (or dollops of assholes going by the number of new passages here) and one second to wreck your car, end your finances, your livelihood and ultimately your life. All for a cheap convenient way to get to your destination faster (however misconceived).
The city and state better fix this shit before someone gets killed.
It was about a year ago that I wrote a post called Affixing A Hole, observing and photographing grotesque cracks and craters on the streets and storm drains and the innovation that gets implemented by the city’s Department’s of Transportation and Environmental Preservation to deter people away from the hazards. Now it’s 2020 and it looks like shit hasn’t changed a bit.
Strolling through Ozone Park I saw a familiar sight, another hole smack dab in the middle of the intersection on 107th ave. and 106th st. with a traffic cone being used as a butt plug so drivers can cruise over with ease, just like the pics I took in Manhattan and around here last year, except this time city workers aren’t even trying to thoroughly cover it up.
Since this has been the default method for remedying damage to the blacktop, our city workers are not even trying to see if it can fit. They couldn’t even shove this bitch down far enough.
Fortunately that’s not a busy traffic area, imagine if there was a hole even more massive and heinous with a big ass objectile vainly trying to obscure it’s hazard…
Imagine no more, because here is the intersection of 96th St. and Liberty Ave
It’s stupefying. It really makes no sense why a dangerous blight like this isn’t immediately prioritized and promptly fixed.
It couldn’t be at a worst spot too, the street there is a one way going north which makes right turns problematic and with the green light on the avenue you have to compete with vehicles usually blazing from the west from Rockaway Blvd. which intersects with Liberty. It’s also a veritable commuting minefield for pedestrians being that the stairwell for the Rockaway Blvd. A Train is right there.
It’s also incomprehensible that this temporary “fix” was done by professionals, because it looks like it was assembled by a bunch of concerned good Samaritan hobos who just passed by and was so disgusted that they had to do something about it. But no, the proper markings are there in spray paint of where they have to cut and dig again.
This crater has obviously been here for a while too. Because it’s a certainty that giant orange thimble (bollard, whatever) was standing upright and was easily knocked down by one of our city’s many careless drivers. If you close it’s actually two thimbles (bollards). Maybe Polly’s D.O.T. thought the extra weight from the one inside would hold it steady. No dice kid.
Actually, that knocked down thimble is confirmation that hole has been like that for a while because Polly’s D.O.T. has used metal city corner garbage cans to act as a deterrence to protect drivers from wrecking their vehicles, and the one that was placed back on the corner obviously didn’t do the job they expected it to do.
Pulverized.
Sure we’re still in an existential crisis of a global pandemic and economic uncertainty but this slacker ineptitude was going on for decades before there was a novel virus and frankly it’s still pretty expensive to live in the city despite an eviction moratorium.
And there’s the big ass factor that infrastructure repair and modernization was still going on because of it being an essential service. How else would all those ambulances be able to take all those COVID sick people to the hospitals and the cops able to get to the protests and engage in civil war with the demonstrators? So there really is no excuse for this shit. Especially even more since Mayor de Blasio decided to exploit the Black Lives Matter movement and painted a bunch of streets with the BLM slogan materializing his virtual signal tweets and yet the holes in Ozone Park still happen and get neglected on the regular. And get bigger and deeper too.
Strolling back to the base, I came upon the first sight and it looks like little Coney couldn’t hold the fort:
When it comes to road infrastructure and safety in South Queens, it still doesn’t matter and never even did.
Update:
Thanks to Queens Patch, who retweeted my story to Polly’s D.O.T., the Liberty Ave. crater at 96th street actually got repaired.
Kinda.
Looks like someone left, actually lodged a Capri Sun juice bag here for some reason.
Let’s see what’s underneath…
Shame! Shame on you NYC D.O.T.
Commuters are even afraid to drive over it.
Apparently, this pathetic Ozone Park Patch job is an established norm. Because this is what I found a block east on 97th.
I remember back in February whenCOVID-19 was getting constant coverage and was getting pretty fucking serious. Trump just got his fat ass saved by the Senate only a few weeks earlier and corporate news had a brand new void to fill their repetitive 24 hour culture of fear format. Then a novel virus fell on their laps and the news cycle went with it. (And for once it’s a good thing they did and didn’t downplay the severity of the spread)
It only took weeks when a few more cases spread out thru the nation after landing in Washington weeks earlier; anxiety was setting in on the general public which shortly progressed into widespread panic as people were grabbing anything they can get to ward off the contagion as liquid soap and detergent and hand sanitizer were ravenously devoured off the supermarket and chain pharmacy shelves (oh and toilet paper too). Then another PPE product was suddenly in hyper high demand; protective face masks. What was once a reliable and cheap staple for doctors, nurses and construction workers were getting cleared off the shelves during the panic buy frenzy.
Around that time, Trump came up with the travel ban against China, then declared the virus defeated and went back to dissing his foes in Twitterworld and golfing then he left whatever news and updated info about coronavirus being broadcasted and published by mass media to be handled by Dr. Anthony Fauci, epidemiologist and career government worker.
When 15 cases suddenly appeared in disparate cities across the nation which Trump remarked would go immediately back down to zero in utter incomprehension of how a disease spread, Dr. Fauci was thrust into the spotlight to tamper the President’s wacky summations which at the time provided sanity and relief to the press and the public.
When the press queried Dr. Fauci about preventive measures to defend against contagion he advised the American citizenry to thoroughly wash their hands for 120 seconds, stay six feet apart at all times in public places and not to touch their faces with their hands (and that includes face palm reactions). Then he advised the nation that protective face masks were not necessary for daily use and it was best and in the long run safer if those masks were instantly available and sufficiently supplied to hospitals so doctors and nurses that need them and use them the most (which he repeated to a national televised audience on 60 Minutes as COVID-19 was ravishing Northern Italy killing hundreds of people a day.)
Q: Are face masks needed?
A: "Absolutely not."
NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci says that there is no reason at this point for people in the U.S. to wear surgical masks to protect themselves from #coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/S7gxQsBL6Z
At the time this was a rational response from the good doctor, these masks needed to go to essential workers in the front line to battle the insidious contagion.
After this, Dr. Fuaci has been the go to good guy face wrestler to President Trump’s bad guy heel wrestler with corporate news, celebrity entertainers and the majority of citizens. The reliable arbiter of all information about COVID-19, especially during the nadir of President Trump’s heinous interpretations of the disease when he looked to his task force and suggested injecting bleach and UV rays to stem the spread of the pathogens inside the body.
In this current health crisis with no determined end in sight, Dr. Fauci was and is still revered like a rock or a movie star in a world where those icons don’t currently exist. Which is why it’s quite a dismaying and revolting shock with what he flippantly said a few weeks ago on some news blog I never heard of called The Street:
“Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N-95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply,” Fauci said. “And we wanted to make sure that the people, namely the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected.”
Masks are not 100% protective. However, they certainly are better than not wearing a mask. Both to prevent you, if you happen to be a person who may feel well, but has an asymptomatic infection that you don’t even know about, to prevent you from infecting someone else,” said Fauci. “But also, it can protect you a certain degree, not a hundred percent, in protecting you from getting infected from someone who, either is breathing, or coughing, or sneezing, or singing or whatever it is in which the droplets or the aerosols go out. So masks work.”
So right now, unequivocally, the recommendation is, when you’re out there particularly if you’re in the situation where there is active infection, keep the distance phsyically and wear a mask. So although there appears to some contradiction of why weren’t you saying this then and you’re saying this now, the circumstances have changed, that’s the reason why.
My fucking eyes and ears must be deceiving me, but no that’s definitely the good doctor.
Say it ain’t so Tony.
But he did say it. He said it loud and as disingenuous just like all the misinformation that was given to Americans from the start of the coronavirus outbreak took the country by storm and under siege to this day. Of which he was a seminal part of.
In a way, Dr. Fauci is dropping this as if it’s OK to reveal the truth now because of the three month window, which is kind of like the amount of time that has to elapse when you make a joke about a dead celebrity or a tragedy with high casualties. Except this outstanding revelation would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if Dr Fauci legitimized the usefulness of the masks instead of keeping it like a secret for 4 months.
It might be vitriolic to call Dr. Fauci a lying prick and hyperbolic and inappropriate as well given that he’s still the all star cleanup hitter and is still the only trustworthy official on Mike Pence’s coronavirus response team that Trump authorized back on leap day 2020 but his response in that video is terribly and blatantly contradictory, confusing and condescending. Especially the last paragraph there where he quipped about the “appearance” of “some contradiction” as if the 320 million citizens who are asking his hypothetical question are the ones contradicting themselves then caps with a nyah nyah response since the circumstance is quite convenient for him now because of his status as the nation’s epideomologist. (It’s also quite convenient for all elected officials running states and cities who get to determine whose essential enough to run a business or not and where gatherings are allowed or forbidden.)
The guy is trying to cop out of the fib he made with the subtlety and sleaze of a snake oil salesman or a public relations tool. But technically that’s actually part of Dr. Fauci’s job in the administration besides mopping up after Trump’s erroneous COVID takes and his and Pence’s arrogant defiance to avoid wearing the masks themselves. Because even though Anthony Fauci is a doctor first beloved and trusted by the people and starstruck journos from corporate news networks and newspapers, he’s still a bureaucrat and serves at the pleasure of the President who happens to be a obstinate self-serving motherfucker and also a careerist because dishonesty is essential to his job as one.
Consider Fauci’s other rather odd circumstantial moments before and after he recommended with conviction that it was unnecessary to wear masks . During an interview with Greg Kelly in January, Fauci told him and the United States that the novel virus was nothing to be alarmed about at that time and then on March 26th, Fauci suggested wearing the mask not because Trump declared a national emergency but to wear it symbolically as a sign of respect to others while still claiming of how ineffective they are against infection. This notably stands out because President Trump has never been seen wearing a mask since the outbreak exploded and still refuses to this day. But a sign of Fauci’s circumstantial convenience narrative that he used on The Street was revealed in a CNN interview with Jake Tapper when he made a Faucian Slip about the prospective data of the amount of cases to deaths from COVID-19 as he predicted the amount of deaths under his tongue after he used that same number to predict the amount of cases.
Dr. Anthony Fauci says there could potentially be between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus and millions of cases. “I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target, that you could so easily be wrong,” he adds. #CNNSOTUpic.twitter.com/F2MOHY3xl4
Going by these appearances, the good doctor Fauci has been eloquent yet still dishonest and has exhibited quite a proclivity for double talking and double backing on his statements and advisories.
It was around this time that (most) state governors decided to ratify mask mandatory wearing and social distancing guidelines, but a majority of Americans still did not adhere to them. Despite the lionization of Dr. Fauci by corporate news and social media, he still was not deemed credible by masses of people. Particularly in the young adult demographic and Trump’s base.
And despite Fauci’s ill-advisory recommendation for people to be selfless and not buy masks; hospitals were still under supplied of face masks as well as other PPE’s like smocks and gloves and COVID-19 naturally spread like wild fire, infecting the entire country. As of today over 120,000 people have died (and still dying but in smaller daily increments) and infections are still going up as more get duly tested.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stop the mass panic buying of them by the general public and also from greedy wholesalers looking to gouge prices because of the scarcity of the product which went along with hand sanitizer and rubber gloves, bringing the prices of these cheap items to upscale retail price levels, leading to bare shelves in stores everywhere. Making it unavailable and unattainable for the people suddenly alarmed by the novel virus encroaching into their zip codes. The PPE shortages got so extreme that in New York City, NYPD Chief Patrick Monahan ordered cops to pick up steal hundreds of thousands of face masks from a FEMA warehouse that were meant to go to hospitals that were ran out of them, but got pinched by Dr. Oxiris Barbot of the City Health Department who caught the brazen heist and fed the chief his lunch by cursing his ass out and getting the masks to doctors and nurses that were already getting swamped with COVID positive cases. What makes this police high brass malfeasance even worse is that a vast majority of cops are constantly photographed without masks on.
But the most warped thing about Fauci’s circumstantial advisories is that even the emperor of China, the nation were the virus originated, advised his citizens (and the world) to wear the masks in January. Which makes it bizarre (and suspicious) that Fauci would blow even that off considering everyone is blaming that nation for birthing coronavirus. It also didn’t help that the majority (or maybe the entirety) of the masks were made in China and Trump’s travel ban against them had an impact on exportation.
The most bothersome thing about Fauci’s evolution from his initial lackadaisical response in January as the novel virus decimated Wuhan to his immediate dismissive to not buy masks in February is that what if he did take this seriously like you would expect a professional virus analyst to do. Maybe Trump could have fully authorized the Defense Production Act sooner to replenish the National Emergency Stockpile, then masks and tests would have been mass produced earlier for everyone to wear and get access to, certainly over hundreds of thousands of citizens wouldn’t have perished, millions of people wouldn’t have contracted the disease and millions of people wouldn’t be out of work and the country wouldn’t be mired in a new depression.
But Dr. Fauci never asked or advised that, he just did his and is still doing his job like a good careerist and bureaucrat. But it’s enhanced with iconic status and celebrity in an era when there really is no interest in celebrities or icons. Which only enhances his credibility despite the utter lack of it. Which is why he can circumvent questions from a starfucking talk show host or timid corporate news show hosts with aplomb and not get followed up with jedi mind trick responses like this after following Trump’s bullshit with his own palatable pile of bullshit with his fog of war take. Which was based on another tragedy that also cost over hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.
"I don't want to have anything taken out of context, b/c I already one of those in the last couple days, so I don't want to go through it again. Could things have been done better? Of course" — Fauci on the Covid response & Trump getting mad at him for pointing out the obvious pic.twitter.com/eXl0PXfE9f
The unsettling problem is Big Tony is still around giving interviews and making statements while Trump is still calling the shots. In a way, Fauci is not out of place in Trump’s administration, because he’s just another self-serving deceiver in an administration full of them. He’s definitely not going to resign because he’s still the only one most of the public still believes, fortunately for him it’s hard to play catchup to what even the seemingly credible people say in a 24 hour news cycle integrated with social media platforms that update every minute.
And Fauci is needed now more than ever because COVID positive cases are rising again in the southern states that opened too soon. Plus vaccine trials are occurring and we need the good doctor to mollify us with more vague determinations and sound(s good) advice to give us a semblance of hope to all of us as we live under the New Normal in #COVID19World.
Who knows, maybe working for Trump and covering his fat ass for continuing to undermine the contagion as his popularity wanes, Fauci will quit and explode into a rage and use his iconic status for good, making the rounds on TV and streaming media while yelling about how much he hated working and lying for the President.
But now that the (his, our) circumstances have changed. For the time being or for good if a vaccine doesn’t surface or if another flu strain suddenly manifests. Do like Big Tony says (now), keep the distance and wear the mask.
Technically with all this uncertainty, mostly by Fauci, you really don’t have a choice.
Recent available testing for COVID-19 has revealed that over 10,000 people were infected with the disease in just the past week. It also brought upon a general moment of clarity and surely an everlasting fury regarding New York City’s stunning low amount of hospitals to house and care for everyone that will test positive for the disease and certainly for the amount of people that are going through the worst of it.
As the NY Post reported last week when Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio were apoplectic about the low amount of beds that will take for the dramatic rise of cases that have just unfolded over the weekend.
Now everyone pretty much knows that the reason why New York City is was grossly, criminally unprepared for this outbreak; because a lot of them went broke and the state and the city not only didn’t adequately fund them but actually enabled their closings with budget cuts and chummy pay to play land deals which led to crucial health care services getting terminated and replaced with high-end condo towers and housing. Even the rats that burrow in the lots during the nascent stages of development even know this.
A grand example of this devastation and deprivation resulting in this harried urgency to save thousands of lives is the notorious closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, Manhattan which was the biggest MASH unit on 9/11/2001- the previous greatest attack on the U.S.A. this century. What remains of St. Vincent’s now is ultra-luxury condominiums, even though it still looks like a hospital.
St. Johns was unceremoniously shut down back in 2009 and left hundreds of people out of work and a vast community without to go for urgent health services in case of sudden illness or injury. In 2011, Fun Size Mayor Bloomberg’s Department Of Buildings zoned the property for a mixed-used building to include a mall and a parking lot (even though there the Queens Center Mall is across the street and another mall is two blocks away west).
And like St. Vincents, it still looks like a fucking hospital. For some reason the new owners decided to let the building remain as is.
It took 11 years and as our city does not have the beds to put the sick and chronically ill on and nurses and doctors are frighteningly lacking medical supplies like face masks and respirators, it should be absolutely not heartening to know that dwellings are now available.
Yes, they are NOW LEASING apartments at the fucking hospital, even while scaffolding is still surrounding the building. Oh, but don’t dare call them apartments, the appropriate nomenclature for the building known as “QB” are “lofts”. I find it curious why they are advertising them as such, even with the kitschy faux bespoke label up their on the banner on that filthy garage.
Now these “lofts” could have been on the market already even as the mayor’s big dumb mouth was talking about instituting a “shelter-in-place” rule and as Cuomo already declared shutting down the schools and was mulling shutting down New York State with the exception of essential services, but these photos were taken on Thursday 3/21. And the owners decided to put a cute little Open House stand by the curb cut going into ramp where the ambulances used to go.
What’s darkly humorous is that this is that this isn’t a heavy pedestrian area, made worse with the barren streets right now. And those rusty scaffolds don’t make the building look hospitable at all (pun intended)
Now with the whole damn state of New York officially shut down at sun down and with military vehicles roaming the streets and more aggressive orders to commit to social distancing, it’s fucking pointless to be even looking for a new place right now with views of the boulevard viaduct, shopping malls, the Grand Central Parkway and barely used bike lanes and even including the eviction moratorium bestowed upon the citizenry by our benevolent friends at REBNY.
Although there would be a moment when this would warrant derisive laughter, that is dead and gone. Just like this building which would have been an immense help for the victims of COVID-19 and government officials careless stupidity and their obeisance to their developer overlords and their never ending unsatiated greed for to monetize every crack on the sidewalk.
The Wuhan Coronavirus, or as it will be known from now on here as the clinical term COVID-19, has taken New York and the rest of the world by storm. Governor Cuomo has decreed, as well as other governors throughout the nation, a vast crowd control limit of 50 people in public spaces. President Trump buckled down after months of dithering and hoping this shit will blow over and declared a national state of emergency and suggesting crowd limits of only 10 people.
Maybe the most devastating effect it will have from this biological menace to society is the existential threat on free assembly and protests and also on how the news has been and continues to be presented. And as displayed by those two officials and the majority of information disseminated about COVID-19, it’s mostly conflicted and contradictory.
Certain “self-care” experts are already saying you should avoid reading the news more often in order to ward off stress while you have no choice to be cooped up in your apartments. While you definitely won’t get critically ill or die if you isolate yourself from the news, whether legitimate or manufactured, it’s still as much of a health hazard to lose a step on rapidly changing events that are happening under the radar from this pandemic.
Some might even take advantage of this as people are reasonably distracted by any slight symptom they have that will lead to the virus. And predictably Mayor Bill de Blasio has already pounced on it as he blew off a conference call with local journalists citing the current state of emergency but still found ample time to speak to CBS radio and two cable networks ( which surely required an amount of time he could have spoke to the press in city hall to make up his big monster head for the camera lens). Even President Trump is being accountable for once in his presidency and his life by making pressers almost daily, even if he is sowing more confusion with contradictory and tone deaf statements and recommendations.
Which is exactly why we all have to continue following the news, not just on COVID-19 but also on what our elected leaders are doing and saying and to keep in tune with what’s going on in the offices and on the streets even still. If you blow it off, they will feel even more comfortable with being unaccountable for their lies, actions and inactions With the state locked down and no sports and entertainment to distract as usual, keeping yourself updated and informed will not be that overwhelming. Like sunlight, information and awareness are the best disinfectant.
Up and down: Ice-T, Lou Reed, Beastie Boys, Neil Young, The Ghetto Boys and Faith No More
Because of pressing matters going on NYC with crime and local and national politics getting worse, the Impunity City best music released three decades ago since 2019 is late again. Also, the Grammy Awards came earlier this year and the big winner was this teenage girl named Billie who swept all Album, Song and Record of the year along with best new artist. I haven’t heard her music, or maybe I have since supermarkets, chain stores and recent TV shows and commercials feature today’s blandly dull music. My assumption about the young lady’s tunes might have validity because the last “musical” “artist” that swept the Grammies like this was the horrendous commercial MOR soft rock hack Christopher Cross in 1981 and his music has not even endured on the multiple lite music stations in New York. I’m sure Bill will come up with as good a follow up as Chris Cross.
Anyway, this is the music that in my not so humble opinion ruled and still kicks the living shit out of the shitty sense depriving music of today. And to start this list, it’s strictly rap. Because as one of the talents on here uttered, hip hop ruled in 89:
Beastie Boys, Paul’s Boutique
King Ad Rock, MCA, and Mike D were going through some shit after their raucous classic Licensed to Ill got released, going on a massive tour with their Queens allies Run DMC and LL Cool J, they dumped their manager Russell Simmons, parted with producer Rick Rubin, left Columbia distributed Def Jam records and took their gear to sunny California and signed with Capitol Records, hooked up with Tone Loc’s producers the Dust Brothers and got to work on their highly anticipated follow up.
And what manifested was one of the greatest LP’s ever created. Or with the wicked amount of samples, kinetic beats and abstract and pop culture heavy lyrics and rhymes maybe it’s fit to call it curated. After the smooth creepy intro for all the girls the drum roll crashes into “Shake Your Rump”, introducing without question the Beastie New Edition abandoning the sound and style of their first album that was limited to a few break beats and metal lick samples but still keeping up the raunchy and sophomoric subject matter but with a nastier twist with new takes and metaphors for them. Then the song ends abruptly and slides into the low down blues homage to a charismatic bum named “Johnny Ryall” and is followed by the homage to scurrilous vigilante vandalism (and the Beatles sans John)”Eggman” which wildly samples Superfly and Psycho. Then it’s the slow, sleazy outlaw funk of “High Plains Drifter” that rides steady on an Eagles Loop about gambling on horses. The “Sounds Of Science” continues the Beasties Beatles muse by rhymin while stealing loops from Sgt. Peppers and Abbey Road. The first side closes with the Funkadelic sounding “3 minute rule” continues the braggadocio with live playing along with the stellar scratching by DJ Hurricane and the first single, the old school hip hop and Jerry Lewis inspired gigolo anthem “Hey Ladies”
Then you flip the cassette, press play and are greeted with a hillbilly romp which gets abruptly cut down for the live playing molten Sabbath style ode to ultraviolence “Looking Down the Barrel of A Gun”. The felonious “Car Thief” and the their take on the fucked up state of society of that time “What Goes Around” continues the Beasties current obsession with glorious 70’s funk and R&B.
Then the album gets real gone with the last two tracks beginning with “Shadarach” as the Beasties get biblical by comparing themselves with the title character plus fellow prophets Meshach and Abegnego over a Sly Stone background vocal riff as well as one of his most reliable drumbreaks. Then the pinnacle and most ambitious track and hip hop song of all time comes on “B-Boy Bouillebaise”. Continuing drawing inspiration from the Fab Four (which was convenient being their label mates now) the fab four minus one styles the song after the song suite that codas side 2 of Abbey Road and it’s fucking mint, starting with 59 Chrystie St, aggressively watching ladies on the street go by followed by the human beat box saliva spreading “mike on the mic”, then proceeds to two standout songs “Stop That Train” and the MCA solo track “Year And A day”, probably the best MC and DJ performance on the album as Yauch goes off on a stream of consciousness freestyle as Hurricane scratches the hell out of the Isley Brothers “That Lady” on the 1 and 2’s. That fucking track is one of those songs that you wish would go on for another 7 minutes (surprised it was never made into a 12″) but it gets cut down and seamlessly seques into “Hello Brooklyn” about more Beastie wilding on a rubbery electro beat. Then it goes into the Nola funk of “Dropping names” and “Lay it on me” then going into the Mike D’s solo cut “Mike on the mic” and after a cameo by WOR weatherman (and inspiration for Ad-Rocks hello shoutout) it concludes with the call and response AWOL.
Although not the greatest hip hop album ever (it’s still belongs to Public Enemy), this landmark album belongs to pantheon of other rock and roll landmark recordings. With themes and styles of the Beatles axis of classics Sgt Peppers, White Album and Abbey Road. The genius song craft and pristine production of the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. The sequencing and collaging of effects of the songs like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of the Moon and the Paul’s Boutique’s surreal still life photography and mystique layout similar to Led Zeppelin’s Zoso. And with the initial terrible sales of the album after it’s release, it can also be compared to Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, which was another chaotic masterpiece full of wonderfully weird songs that was initially blown off but grew popular and sold more records as the years went by.
Most of all, Paul’s Boutique was the album that not only brought progress to hip hop but was responsible for bringing all genres of music and diverse cultures together. This album was lollapalooza before there was a concert festival for it.
The really great thing about this album is that even though the Beasties went to the west coast to record this infinite classic, it’s still 100 New York. It shows that besides consuming lot of beer, mushrooms and weed, you can still make inspired music by just being homesick.
Ice T, The Iceberg: Freedom Of Speech…Just Watch What You Say
Introduced with a PSA by the Dead Kennedy’s lead singer Jello Biafra with a loop of Black Sabbath’s first song blaring in the background titled “Shut up Be Happy” a take on one of the biggest hits of all time and the worst song that came out that year, Los Angeles citizen and vulgarian gangster MC Ice T unleashed this motherfucking hip hop manifesto on the nation. Fueled by rising crime, gang related and territorial violence, rampant drug abuse, and police brutality as well as brazenly lame attempts at oppressing musical expression by the likes of the PMRC and the FBI, Ice-T wrote his most fearsome and offensive songs yet. The result was this concept like album that seamlessly weaved all these issues.
“The Iceberg” rolls like a blaxplotation flick theme as Ice talks shit like Dolemite, then takes a 180 degree turn with the kinetic single “Lethal Weapon” which about killing your rivals by being informed than with tech 9. Then it’s followed by the funky classic karma stories of “You Played Yourself” and the funky but grim gangbanger revenge tale “Peel Their Caps Back”. Ice-T then puts out his first straight forward metal song with his guitar compadre Ernie C on the humorous “That Girl Tried to Kill me”.
After the rollicking “Hit the deck” Ice-T drops science about virtue signalers on “This Ones For Me”. After the fugitive on the run “The Hunted Child” and nine minute posse cut “What You Wanna Do” (featuring Everlast) the penultimate second title track “Freedom Of Speech”, although dated because of the targets of the PMRC and other oppressors of free expression at the time, Ice’s furious lyricism and the relentless music still maintains the songs relevance and universalism, especially when it closes with Jello Biafra returning to give an ominous warning of the supposed harmlessness of labeling and rating music.
The hilarious thing about all this that after the PMRC got what they wanted the music industry slapped all those Parental Advisory stickers on LP’s, tapes and CD’s, the targeted genres of hip hop and heavy metal got more explicit and vulgar. And on this masterpiece, Ice was obviously glad to oblige those assholes.
De La Soul, 3 Feet High And Rising
As the Golden Age of Rap was in it’s nascent stage, the majority of hip hop artists were rapping about politics, ultraviolence and about how bad each and every one of them were. Then three kids from of all places Amityville, Long Island called De La Soul got signed to Tommy Boy and put out this sensational aberration. With a ridiculous looking album cover that looks straight out of nursery school, the music and rhyme styles contained were the most innovative of that year. Produced by Stetsasonic’s DJ Prince Paul, MCs Trugoy the Dove and Posdnous and DJ Mase assembled 24 tracks of quirky funky tracks and silly ass comedy skits that was devoid of filler.
Even though you have to wait 2 minutes to get to the first song it doesn’t disappoint. Taking a damaged Sesame Street record and looping the drum beat and mixing it high, De La goes off the wall with schoolhouse rock revamp “The Magic Number”, the follow up “Change in Speak”. “Jenifa taught me” is a sex song that gets nasty as 2 live crew but with very clever metaphors and colliquialisms, almost like Dr. Seuss. Then De La Soul hit hits the streets and raps ’bout the blight, desperation and depression in “Ghetto Thang” and then goes into the lovey dovey track “Eye Know” featuring Steely Dan and Otis Redding hooks then goes into a couple of goofy tracks before heading into the first single ripping on biting rappers as gophers on “Potholes In My Lawn” (and yes that is a hook from the Little Rascals theme).
Side 2 kicks off with the anti-drug dealing and using PSA track “Say No Go” followed by the shameless self promoting “Plug Tunin”. After another nasty song of De La and some guests in the studio faking orgasms, it’s followed by the sweet posse cut “Buddy” with the Native Tongues crew of the Jungle Brothers and the debut of Q-Tip on the second vagina euphimism of the album (the other being Jenny from earlier, both takes on the hip hop penis names of Jimmy and Jimbrowski). After a Sly Stone sampled Native Tongue roll call the Funkadelic Knee Deep drum break kicks into the immortal individuality anthem “Me, Myself and I”. Then the album closes out with the hardcore “L.I.F.E.” and the dippy hippy “D.A.I.S.Y. Age”.
Like Public Enemy’s Nation of Millions, this hip hop landmark also changed hip hop sonically too with its wild and creative (curated) usage of samples and beats. It didn’t even take long because the Beasties Pauls Boutique would use this same style on their release just six months later.
Ghetto Boys, Grip It On That Other Level
What’s great about America, at least what we’re told, is that anyone can become successful through hard work and determination but mostly you just have to be at the right place at the right time with the right message or medium. That’s where the Ghetto Boys from Houston and their trailblazing second album comes in.
Willie D, Bushwick Bill, DJ Ready Red and the incomparable MC Scarface quietly dropped the rawest and hardest rap album of the year. Even though they were immediately lumped in the gangsta rap genre, the Ghetto Boys lyrics delved a lot deeper into the psychosis of their subjects and were graphic in their depictions. The intro take no prisoners cut and first single “Do it like a G.O.” rides on the “pusherman” riff as they rail not against sucker m.c’s but sucker radio programmers. Then comes “Gangsta of Love” as the Boys brag about sexual conquests and prowess while Ready Red cuts and deconstructs Steve Miller’s “The Joker” for the chorus and the hooks.
After calling out phonies on “Talkin loud, saying nothing” they are followed by the ass kicking proclamations of Willie D’s “Read These Nikes” and Bushwick Bill’s inspiring self-defense anthem “Size Ain’t Shit” which features the timeless idiom “Play pussy get fucked” and Ready Red freaking the shit out the Odd Couple Theme.
Following the nihilism of “Seek And Destroy”, addressing persecution and compromising on “No Sell Out”, another cynical take on the ladies “Let a ho be a ho”, Scarface lets loose with his gangsta storytelling on his namesake song while riding on the Eric B Paid in Full beat and the follow up “Life In The Fast Lane”. As with most classic albums they leave the best songs for last, as Scarface and Willie D ruthlessly scaremonger their listeners with the serial killing themes of “Trigga Happy Nigga” and the maniacal sociopathy of “Mind Of A Lunatic”.
Jungle Brothers, Done By The Forces Of Nature
The Jungle Brothers followed up their stellar debut “Straight out the Jungle” with this 60 minute masterpiece about the urban jungle and party utopia of NYC. Of all the hip hop albums, this one stood out as the music on this was very club-oriented and the majority of the lyrics were more dedicated to women and getting down than M.C. braggadocio.
The first single “Beyond This World” rides on a relentless bass groove guaranteed to make anyone move as the lyrics grimly focus on the realities of their surroundings in the urban jungle. “Feeling Alright” has the JB’s walking on the poor city streets on a pleasant day bereft of the usual blights as the followup “Sunshine” continues that mood.
Then it’s the should have been a huger hit “What U Waitin’ 4” which was clearly made for mass consumption and soul train lines as well as the Zapp-fueled follow up “U Make Me Sweat”. The album takes a break from the housin’ as the JB’s encourage self-education with “Acknowledge Your Own History”. And the side closes out with a killer virtuoso cut “Good News Comin'” by DJ Sammy B.
Side 2 opens with the jazzy and spacey title track and the tribal bangers “Beads On A String”, “Tribe Vibes” and “J Beez Coming through”. Then the J Beez comes up with their universal tribute to the ladies with “Black Woman” and ends with the hope for the future anthem “Dayz To Come, a Native Tongues posse cut follow up to De La Soul’s Buddy “Doin Our Own Dang” and finishes it off with a street corner blues ditty “Kool According to A Jungle Brother”.
This album did not really do that well even though it came out at the right place at the right time and is one of the greatest hip hop albums of Rap’s golden age even with a major label distribution and budget by the W.Beez (Warner Brothers Records). If this came out 15 years later it would give Outkast competition. The J.Beez were truly ahead of their time.
Boogie Down Productions, Ghetto Music: The Blueprint Of Hip Hop
While a lot of rap artists were loading tracks with samples with excellent results, Boogie Down Productions went back to basics with this phenomenal album (remember when basic wasn’t a lame slur?) with a few choice breaks and lifted hooks and a live band as Blastmaster KRS-ONE goes beyond the Bronx and tackles universal themes based on acquired knowledge he obtained by studying and dwelling in local libraries when he was a homeless teenager.
Following the War-inspired boast track “The Style You Haven’t Done Yet”, on “Why Is That?” KRS delegitimatizes the perpetual myth of Jesus Christ as a white man as depicted in churches and government institutions. On the co-title track “The Blueprint” he schools other rappers on hip hop’s musical integrity with the same fervor he dissed the Juice Crew on Criminal Minded.
Then BDP includes his excellent track “Jack Of Spades” from “I’m Gonna Get You Sucka” and it doesn’t seem out of place at all like most previously released inclusions. “Who Protects Us From You” is a great treatise on aggressive arbitrary policing which the album cover brilliantly conveys.
“You Must Learn” continues KRS-one’s self-proclaimed MC role as “The Teacher” by giving a Black History lesson condensed in three and half minutes just like Stevie Wonder did on his classic “Black Man” (which was five minutes longer). “Jah Rulez” “Hip Hop Rules” “Bo Bo Bo” and “Gimme Dat” continue BDP’s devotion to reggae music which is more pronounced than any other hip hop group in that era. And the album closes with the brilliant anthem “World Peace” which doesn’t display naievte at all, as KRS proclaims that “you got to just take it”.
Queen Latifah, All Hail The Queen
Even though pioneering female MC’s like MC Lyte and Roxanne Shante were around making great singles, they fell just a bit short making a great and cohesive album. Then a 19-year-old woman from New Jersey dropped this bomb on the masses. With beats and sounds constructed by the brilliant producer and Flavor Unit co-leader 45 King and her fellow Tommy Boy labelmates, Queen Latifah’s lyricism and wild rhyming styling made All Hail The Queen established it as a landmark for women rappers.
On the opener “Dance for Me” she excellently exudes her command and her MC entitlement status immediately and keeps up the club groove on the followup single “Come Into My House”. “Mama gave birth to the Soul Children” is great collaboration with label mates and Native Tongue allies De La Soul. “Latifah’s Law” and “Wrath of My Madness” shows the Queen can rock a gangsta flow like her XY competitors.
Then comes “Ladies First, one of the best songs of 1989 and probably the greatest female empowerment anthem ever as Latifah and Monie Love brag and boast while throwing fire on male dominance perceptions, the Queen continues relentlessly and savagely on that concept on the accusatory “The Evil That Men Do” after the back to back rawness of “Queen and King Creation” and the wicked “Queen of Royal Badness” then the album comes to a close with “Princess of the Posse” and the smooth “Inside Out” as Latifah showcases her excellent singing skills.
Queen Latifah would make a few more albums later on but they didn’t come close to it, probably because she was pursuing an acting career which continues to this day. Which is too bad, since because of her success in T.V. and film, her groundbreaking album has been virtually forgotten even though it as significant as Aretha Franklin’s “I’ve never loved a man the way that I loved you” breakthrough album.
3rd Bass The Cactus Album
When this album came out on Def Jam it was almost a curiosity. They already were when their first single and video debuted on Video Music Box (greatest music video show ever). It was easy to cynically define this. The Beastie Boys left Def Jam, so the label had to find a new white rap group. But with the Golden Age of Rap standard at the time, they have to lyrically and musically gifted. MC Serch from Far Rockaway and Prime Minster Pete Nice from Brooklyn had absolutely no problem filling that bill.
3rd Bass first album like De La Souls 3 feet high (also produced by Prince Paul) seems to be a concept album, presuming the Cactus is like the Holy Grail or Burning Bush of hip hop, silly as it sounds. What’s not silly is how perfect and combative this album is. “Sons Of 3rd Bass” is a direct unprovoked dis of the Beastie Boys, as much you want to disagree with it it’s still a funny song. Then comes the “Gasface”, which is an unprovoked yet justified dis song on the punks behind power structures and establishment narratives.
Following five seamless tracks of super rhyme skills and dope beats provided by DJ Richie Rich, Serch and Pete tell their life stories about how their love for rap on “Product of the Environment” followed by their jazzy off-kilter explanation of the meaning behind “The Cactus” (which disses nascent superstar rapper MC Hammer for the second time on the LP). After a ludicrous homage to Tom Waits comes a sincere love ditty to the two boroughs they hail from “Brooklyn-Queens” even though it’s mostly about the predominant subject of gold-digging women and closes with the first single “Steppin’ To The A.M.. Another great release from the legendary Def Jam label.
(There were so many outstanding hip hop albums that came out that year it was hard to leave them out, so consolation prizes go to Kool G Rap and DJ Polo, Schoolly D,The D.O.C., Nice And Smooth, Big Daddy Kane and Roxanne Shante)
Three legendary and reliable rock and roll singer songwriters made their greatest albums after about almost a decade of creative futility.
Neil Young, Freedom
After releasing Rust Never Sleeps in 1979, Neil Young was floundering aimlessly in the 80’s after signing to David Geffen’s label (with the exception of the underrated Trans LP) jumping from genre to genre and making forgettable music. Then he went back to his old trusty label, did one more genre jump and then reverted back to form with the second best album he ever recorded. He just needed the creative freedom to do it, which may have been partly the inspiration for the title here.
But this album is not about Neil’s liberation from a shitty record deal, it’s about America and how the nation was still struggling after a decade of Reaganomics and the first years of Bush as depicted in the opener “Rockin’ in the Free World” which was reminiscent of “Hey Hey My My” off Rust but about homeless crises and economic disparities and with an optimistic/sarcastic jingoist chorus. “Crime in the City” continues the themes of the “Rockin..:” and focuses again on urban decay from the perspective of the cop and the criminal. “Don’t Cry” is a break up song and also the first song on the album that debuts Neil’s embrace of white noise style utilized by Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr, it sort of depicts that the separation wasn’t that amicable. “Eldorado” utilizes the same racket, disrupting the mood of the flamenco ballad. “Hangin’ on a Limb”, “The Ways of Love” and “Someday” are more additions to Young’s pantheon of classic ballads.
Then the album gets darker starting with the remake of the Drifters “On Broadway” as Neil extends the song and turns it up to 11 when he gets to the line “plays this here guitar” and turns the lilting song about strolling on the street into a heavy metal apocalypse of despair as Young codas the song with a man begging for crack. “Wrecking Ball” is another exemplary ballad like the previous one as the follow up “No More” is also another great song tackling insatiable drug addiction leading up to the metallic reprise of “Rockin’ In The Free World” with an extra verse maligning inequitable budgetary spending towards the military industrial complex over the needy and the environment and capped it off with his most scorching solo since Hey Hey (Into the Black) from a decade earlier on Rust Never Sleeps.
No one in rock music got more political and passionate than Neil Young did on this classic.
But one other rock and roll living legend did:
Lou Reed, New York
In the 80’s, Lou Reed was still making significant music (even a classic like The Blue Mask) even though he wasn’t getting much attention until he wrote some commercial songs that were sorta hits, he also sold out to the man by appearing in a motorcycle commercial. Then when the year 89 was just a baby, Lou Reed came out with this vicious, stripped down one hour hate/love letter to his hometown and the greatest but not at all safest city in the world, New York, Reed’s greatest album of his solo career. New York was like a collection of short stories and metro news articles set to raw rock and roll.
Starting with “Romeo Had Juliette”, Lou reduces Shakespeare’s fable to a nasty lay between the unrequited lovers and a naked city gang war playing outside then the bleakness continues nicely to the sorrowful and gorgeous ballad on AIDS victims missing from the “Halloween Parade. The beautiful “Dirty Blvd”(a surprise hit single) documents the tale of two cities and graphic descriptions of the city’s denizens and sights, showing that the wild side he once sang about as got worse and is more hard to escape from. “Endless Cycle” stresses the generational repetition of domestic and drug abuse, and “There Is No Time” lists everything citizens and officials waste their time on while nothing progresses. On “The Last Great American Whale”, the subject mammal is addressed mostly as a symbol for humanity’s ails and ignorance.
Side 2 delves into city survival themes on “Busload of Faith” is a rollicking anthem of self-perseverance and maintaining hope in the worst conditions and elements. “Sick of You” is a hysterical breakup song that blames every horrible current event on his significant other. The inspiring and relentless “Hold On” documents the dystopian society that evolved from the bias crimes, street riots and daily violence of the past 3 years. “Good Evening Mr Waldheim” calls out Jesse Jackson’s and Pope John Paul II’s hypocrisies than the at the time Austrian President and exposed former Nazi. “Xmas In February” gives a shout out to Vets destroyed by the Vietnam War, which around that year made up a lot of NYC’s homeless population. “Strawman” is a rousing anthem trashing the one percent and their worthless contributions to culture and society, false prophets and grand expensive events leading to inevitable disaster. And the closing “Dime Store Mystery” he reunites with his Velvet Underground bandmates John Cale and Moe Tucker on the albums only avant garde track about a street killing.
New York was a collection of short stories, metro news articles and police blotter set to two guitars, bass and drums. There hasn’t been anything in 30 years that has come close to it and going by the times in 2020, this album is purely due for a sequel. Too bad it will never happen because Lou’s been dead for 6 years and the majority of New Yorkers are transients and tourists.
Tom Petty, Full Moon Fever
Tom Petty decided to stable the Heartbreakers (except for his trusty lead guitar player Mike Campbell) and hooks up with his fellow Wiburys for his official solo debut Full Moon Fever and it became his second biggest hit album and best album of his two decade career.
The album timely summer release contained excellent songwriting and exuded cool vibes on the laid back transcendance of “Free Fallin'”, the stoic defiance of “I Won’t Back Down” and the back to back polar relationship songs of devotion and distance in “Love is a long road” and the haunting “Face in the Crowd”.
Then comes the unforgettable undeniable starter riff of “Running Down a Dream”, a four and half minute blazer track about driving and ambition and the greatest top down cruising song since Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” . Following the great remake side 2 opener of a Byrds classic, Petty writes a rocking ode to a wild impulsive babe on “Yer So Bad” and segues into the needy yet bittersweet “Depending On You”. The next two songs also take on similar relationship themes on “The Apartment Song” and “Alright for now”.Then the concise perfect album closes with a Wilburys’ styled rocker “A Mind With A Heart of it’s Own and closes with the status seeking and materialism trashing of “Zombie Zoo”.
Like Paul’s Boutique, this album also embraces the sun and expansive sights of Cali while staying grounded to the artist’s stylistic and hometown roots and is bolstered by lush production this time with co-producer ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne. Tom Petty would continue to make classic songs but arguably couldn’t come close to this again.
Aerosmith, Pump
Aerosmith’s comeback following their collaboration with Run DMC and the multiplatinum success of their 1987 album Permanent Vacation is really one of rock and roll history’s greatest stories and it also established the connection of rock and rap as allies in musical rebellion. But like the band once sang on an overlooked great album leading to their revival, let the music do the talkin’; and did they ever on the their monster album Pump, their hardest and best album since their magnum opus 76 LP Rocks.
Starting with “Young Lust”, Boston’s furious five bust out the gate and brings down the garage with a relentlessness that the Replacements abandoned on their own 89 release that came out months earlier which segues into the honky metal tonkin’ song about high maintenance women on “F.I.N.E” . The band then channels both Guns’N Roses and the Beatles on their classic song about public fornication and cunnilingus on “Love in an elevator”.
The band gets into social subject matter for the first time on the autobiographical drug foibles on “Monkey On My Back” and child abuse and paternacide on “Janie’s Got A Gun”. The rocking doesn’t stop on the three following tracks starting with the AOR hit “The Other Side” but the band gets hard and funky again on “Voodoo Medicine Man” and ends with the goosebump begging and pleading ballad “What it Takes” featuring Steven Tyler’s best singing on the album. Still holds up FINE.
Before it was a brand, alternative rock music was making headway and although it was an off year for heavy metal a few innovative new bands broke out in a huge way.
The Cure, Disintegration
The Cure’s gradual evolution from post-punk to goth to new wave to radio friendly commercial success put forth a lot of great music but spotty albums in the 80’s and then at the closing of the decade Robert Smith hunkered down, got sad and composed Disintegration. And the result is the most beautiful and atmospheric downer of an album ever made. The ironic thing is that listening to this brings forth joy at The Cure’s expense, being their phenomenal performance on this classic.
As wind chimes ring for almost 30 seconds a crescendo of synthesizers form an expansive chilling wall of sound on the modestly titled “Plainsong”. Then its the beautiful bass-lead riffing reminiscing ballad “Pictures of You”. The ascending “Closedown” belies the dread of the one stanza of the song. “Lovesong” is the most detached song ever with that title and gives the Cure’s label Elektra the massive money making hit they wanted, and got another hit with the equally catchy “Lullaby”.
“Fascination Street” is wall of massive sound and the heaviest and groove laden song they ever wrote. Following that songs brief respite in the outside world the album depression themes go full on for the next 20 minutes with “Prayers For Rain” and the ambience of “The Same Deep Waters As You”, both songs which Smith uses his thoughts of aging as drowning metaphors (explains the cover with him glaring under the surface of a lily pond). “Disintegration” is the Cure’s definitive epochal song as the music coincides with the feeling of collapse from excessive drug use. The album closes with “Homesick” and melodica driven “Untitled”. Moping never sounded so good and inspired.
Pixies, Doolittle
What do you do when you put out a barrier breaking original rock and roll album that introduces an innovative composing style (soft verse/loud chorus) along with inventing a new genre like on “Surfer Rosa”? If you are the Pixies, you make the obligatory landmark album as your follow up. Though Surfer was a landmark too, Doolittle has more modern rock for your dollar.
As the two note bassline from Ms. Kim Deal comes on, Joey Santiago melodically abrasive guitar licks come in on the opening track “Debaser” and Black Francis goes off like a banshee while yelling ho-ho-ho on a song about a foreign horror flick. “Tame” and “Wave of Mutilation” continue with the garish surrealistic violent themes with heavy metal pop hooks. “I Bleed” is a little singalong style ditty as Deal follows Black’s lead on a song seems to be about genocide. Then comes the college station hit (on an album with a dozen of them) “Here Comes Your Man” which rides on a Beach Boys riff as Black croons about an eerie boxcar ride. After the biblical discordant noise rocker “Dead” comes the Pixies stunning crossover AOR radio hit about the man-made end of civilization and the planet Earth “Monkey Gone To Heaven”.
Surrealism and the off-kilter post-punk music collectively fuel the short spurt tracks “Mr Grieves” and “Crackity Jones” which gets disrupted by a silly love song sung by drummer Dave Lowering and blends into the next three tracks “No 13 Baby”, “There Goes My Gun” and Baby”. The album codas with two disparate moods on the evocative spaghetti western soundtrack “Sliver and the violent torture imagery on “Gouge Away”.
Unfortunately this album would be the last time the Pixies would coalesce all the band members talents as Black Francis got tyrannical on Kim put a cap on her sexy voice on the Pixies last two albums. Creative decisions sure can kill a band.
Faith No More, The Real Thing
One of the greatest phenomenon’s in music is the proverbial artist that came out of nowhere. And with the legendary multi-genre spanning heavy metal band Faith No More they literally did just that (except to the people who already knew of them from their last album in 1987 and their crossover hit We Care A Lot). Even the first song and single on the monstrous “The Real Thing” might have been self-referential- the punk and organ driven “From out Of Nowhere” even if it was a standard metal song about a woman. Then it’s the classic second track and international super smash “Epic” as Faith No More merges rap and metal and new singer Mike Patton distinguishes himself as a dynamic frontman on a song about tripping balls.
“Falling to Pieces” continues in the funk vein with Billy Gould’s rubber bass line and Mike Bordin’s big beat drumming as Patton continues his schizo rapping and singing style and gets maniacal on guitarist Jim Martin’s metallic “Surprise! You’re Dead”. The Songs “Zombie Eaters” and “The Real Thing” are where the band adds progressive rock to their heavy metal hip hop boulliabaisse.
And the album closes with the noir tale “The Morning After”, the classical driven instrumental shredder “Woodpecker From Mars” and a stupendous remake of “War Pigs” (which was probably ordered by the major label as insurance for a single) and “Edge of the world” where Mike Patton brings out his inner lounge lizard.
Sepultura, Beneath The Remains
Morbid Angel, Alters Of Madness
When Metallica went double platinum with ..and Justice For All bringing faster and harder edged music to the mainstream, major labels went on a frenzy signing dozens of other thrash metal bands that released quality but insignificant albums. Fortunately the existence of indie labels still existed and two bands would release landmark and still influential albums of their own.
New label Roadrunner records picked up Sepultura from Brazil, who already had two great albums before them, and out came “Beneath The Remains” which continued and expanded Metallica’s metal composition standards on their four masterpieces. With an ominous opening Max and Igor Cavalera and lead guitarist Andres Kisser slash and burn on the title track about a soldier’s accounting and responsibilty behind a shelling of a village. “Inner Self” and “Stronger Than Hate” deals with an individual’s convictions and the emotions that drive them. “Mass Hypnosis” covers the cults that blindly worship religious institutions.
“Sarastic Exsitence” graphically describes the effects of being institutionalized. “Slaves of Pain” and “Lobotomy” explore themes of accepting oppression and servitude to power, and the unstoppable force of the music concludes with the and the avarice and evolutionary themes of “Hungry” and “Primitive Future”
Underground label and British export Earache Records quietly hit America’s shores with bands like the legendary Napalm Death, Carcass and various other bands that took metal to new extremes, playing louder and faster with albums that were lyrically more gruesome, graphic and Satanic. But their American franchise band was a black metal group from Tampa Bay, Florida called Morbid Angel and their perfect debut album “Altars of Madness”
Starting with “Immortal Rights” and “Suffocation”, the band breaks open the gates of hell with the complex and stellar virtuosity musicianship notably by lead guitarist Trey Azagthoth and drummer Pete Sandoval as bassist and vocalist David Vincent possessed vocals give the devil his due and praise. “Visions from the Darkside” is another demonic allegory comparing hell and war. “Maze Of Torment” describes a few rings of Dante’s Inferno.
The next four songs continues giving the devil his due with blistering leads and blast beats while like “Damnation” and “Blasphemy” direct their bile on their rival christian institutions and the closer “Evil Spells” references the sad sack Faust. I bet Slayer regretted taking the year off when this was out.
Nirvana, Bleach
Last year was the Sliver silver anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s suicide at his house in Aberdeen, Washington but it was also the 30th anniversary of Nirvana’s debut on Sub Pop records “Bleach”. Budgeted for a measly $6,000, Kurt, Kris Novaselic and two drummers pre-Grohl pounded 12 classic songs songs laying the genesis of the hardcore and metal (with pop sensibilities) “grunge” sound that would take over and save the music industry in a few years.
Kurt Cobain’s and the band’s approach was at first derivative of the his favorite bands at time, especially the Pixies, Sabbath, R.E.M., various indie punk bands and his beloved Melvins (their drummer Dale Crover plays on a few tracks here). The first two tracks “Blew”, “Floyd the Barber” and “Paper Cuts” clearly show the Melvins influence on Kurt. Although the next track “About a Girl”, his song crafting potential comes through on this Beatles styled track and the catchy bubblegum guitar riffing of “Love Buzz” (a remake of a cheesy 70’s pop song).
The albums best tracks delve into anti-social hardcore punk and existential dread of “School”, “Negative Creep” and “Scoff”. “Swap Meet” is a very funny story song about the title subject as Nirvana continues to perfect the pop/hardcore sound laid down by contemporary and temporary superstar band the Pixies. “Mr. Moustache” and “Sifting” are fast and slow savage takedowns of Kurt’s targeting society’s worst elements, bullies and authority figures.
Ministry, The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste
Ministry already established themselves as metal saviors on their last album “Land of Rape And Honey” the year before but apparently that wasn’t enough as they brought more guitars and stacks on this followup.
The metal machine music on “The Mind is A Terrible Thing to Taste” goes from zero to hyperdrive immediately starting with the staccato machine gun riffing classic “Thieves” as Alain Jourgensen, his silent partner Paul Barker and Wax Trax label ally Chris Connelly renovate their industrial music sound they helped pioneer with powersaw flourishes over a hip hop beat disrupted by trash metal spurts following the verses condemning thieves, liars, hypocrites and bastards. “Burning Inside” continues the onslaught on a relentless hardcore track about drug withdrawal overwhelming the body.
After the Art of Noise/Motorhead romp “Never Believe and the bass and synth ambient “Cannibal Song”, “Breathe” (you fuckers!) opens up side 2 with 5 minutes of hard driving pounding repetition. “So What” is the epic track that rolls on dub, ambient music and audio chatter reminiscent of the best of PiL and Pink Floyd that gets disrupted by Jourgensen’s abrasive shouting and power chords. Then comes a surprising appearance of a guest MC that is tasked to rap over a collapsing wall of sound and fury on the albums loudest song “Test”. The album closes with the death march instrumental “Faith Collapsing” and the ambient “Dream Song”.
With this album, Ministry jumped into the forefront of the rock and roll revolution as aggressive music would take over and dominate the mainstream in a short amount of time.
Goo Goo Dolls, Jed
After Paul Westerberg and the Replacements disappointed most of the world with their bland followup to their garage rock masterpiece “Pleased to meet me” in 89, other bands they influenced had to fill the void left by them (which includes the aforementioned Aerosmith) But hardly anyone knew that three punks from Buffalo, New York would take that sound and aggression and put out a power pop punk classic.
Robbie, Johnny and George Goo took their Mats as well as their Cheap Trick, Metallica and Ramones influences and put the pedal to the metal on this overlooked gem of an album. The albums first four tracks are perfection “Out of Sight” ,”Up Yours”, “No Way Out”, and the sparkling phenomenal instrumental “7th of Last Month” another one of those songs that you wish were longer, and continues the onslaught with “Sex Maggot” and “Love Dolls” until it’s interrupted with a lounge lizard guest star crooning with the Goos on the CCR remake “Down On The Corner”
The band branches out musically with dynamic melodies on Side 2’s opening tracks “Had Enough” and the gorgeous “Road To Salinas” , returns to the snotty punk of “Misfortune” and closes with a Stones cover song and Johnny’s warm acoustic standout coda ode to “James Dean”. Like “Jed”‘s cover, the Goos played like they were DWI and crank and every song was catchy and memorable and laid the groundwork for the pop punk driven hardcore that would be monetized by bands like Green Day and Blink 182 about a half decade later.
Prong, Force Fed
New York City Hardcore became a huge movement in the late 80’s and maintained its relevance by staying provincial and being populated by excellent bands like the Cro-Mags, War Zone and Agnostic Front just to name a few. Which led to the spawning of the thrash metal godhead band Prong.
Their debut “Force Fed” (which was recorded in 87) showcased excellent and almost poetic songwriting and performing on dense hardcore songs barely exceeding 3 minutes as per the NYCH standard. Tommy Victor’s stellar riffs open up “Freezer Burn”, “Forgery” and “Senseless Abuse” while Ted Parsons relentless and savage drumming conjures up the feeling of a runaway local subway train. “Primitive Origins” slows it down just a little bit until reverting their normal breakneck pace of the first 3 tracks as “Aggrevated Condition” reveals the influence of their contemporaries Slayer and Anthrax.
The brilliant debut album continues it’s savage head banging neck breaking pace while buttressed by killer instrumentals on songs like “Decay”, the title track, “the Taming” and the tracks “The Colisseum” and the chugging “It’s been decided” respectively. Then closes with the apocalyptic themes incorporating elements of arty noise in “Look Up At the Sun” and Drainpipe”.
The album is a 30 minute treatise on mass consumerism and the biological breakdowns of disease. Like the best metal bands Metallica and Slayer, Prong’s focused aggression and musical execution made them stand out.
Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814
Even though there were a lot of albums that needed acknowledgement, they had to be set aside with every listing it’s obligatory to include a blockbuster release. But obligation doesn’t mean shit with Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation. It wasn’t just an album, it was also a movement and it warrants mention and recognition here also. Produced by The Time’s Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (who also produced her previous blockbuster mallrat album Control), Ms. Jackson and her studio allies took the sounds and signs of the times from contemporaries like Prince, Tracy Chapman and Public Enemy, the new jack swing genre and even industrial music and assembled an excellent commercial and conceptual R&B pop album.
Ms. Jackson starts off the album showing off great songwriting and sincere takes on current events, pleas for activism and politics on the hard driving funk songs “Rhythm Nation”, “State of The World” and the brilliant “The Knowledge”. Then come more and more hits in the world wide hit confections “Miss You Much” and “Love Will Never Do”
Then the world party gets disrupted with the pathos of “Living in A World (they didn’t make)” as Ms. Jackson laments about what the children of the future that Whitney Houston sang about are going to inherit from their adult leaders if they are able to survive in the streets rife with gang violence.
Ms. Jackson slips politics on the dance track “Alright” (Kendrick Lamar would do something similar with his same titled hit), followed by the bouyant”Escapade” and the surprisingly good frozen metal track “Black Cat”Ms. Jackson wisely decides to leave the love songs for last with great tracks like “Lonely” the hit “Come Back to Me” and “Someday is Tonight”. An amazing and well composed and sequenced album from a remarkable talent. Which is not a surprise coming from a woman from a musical family and who played Penny on Good Times and Willis’s girlfriend on Different Strokes.
Honorable Mention: Public Enemy Fight The Power 12” single.
Even though Public Enemy already established themselves as the only band that mattered with two great albums (including what is still the greatest rap album ever made), they were still a great reliable singles band capable of dropping hit after hit like Sly and The Family Stone used to do when they first came out. So it was only natural when Spike Lee got down with the P.E. and let them write the theme song for his landmark and best movie “Do The Right Thing”.
When “Fight The Power” came out a few weeks before the movie released and killed everything else on the radio, making the call to assemble and gather arms one of the greatest political protest anthems as well as the biggest song of the summer. The song was so catchy that the character Radio Raheem played it about 20 times in the movie it propelled and would ultimately play it to (his) death.
“Fight the Power”, the music provided by the Bomb Squad and the virtuoso cutting and fading by Terminator X was as incendiary as Chuck’s vitriol proselytizing and pop culture shaming lyrics, followed by the Brandford Marsalis free jazz sax coda carrying the song to the end. Though Chuck dates the song on the first line, Fight The Power’s music and the message stays powerful and relevant even in this near quarter old century we’re in now. Especially with Trump in the White House and Bernie Sanders bringing a formidable challenge to his fragile and waning reign on the nation.
How they rank:
Beastie Boys, Paul’s Boutique (Album of the year)
Lou Reed, New York
Neil Young, Freedom
Ice T, The Iceberg: Freedom of Speech, Just Watch What You Say
Pixies, Doolittle
Faith No More, The Real Thing
The Cure, Disintegration
Tom Petty, Full Moon Fever
Ministry, The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste
Jungle Brothers, Done By The Forces Of Nature
Ghetto Boys, Grip It! On That Other Level
Nirvana, Bleach (Best new artist)
Sepultura, Beneath The Remains
De La Soul, 3 Feet High And Rising
Boogie Down Production, Ghetto Music: The Blueprint Of Hip Hop
Queen Latifah, All Hail The Queen
Prong, Force Fed
Morbid Angel, Altars Of Madness
3rd Bass, The Cactus Album
Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814
Goo Goo Dolls, Jed
Aerosmith, Pump
Public Enemy, Fight The Power 12″ (Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year)
(Acknowledgements due to some actual essential music in 2019; Tool’s first album in 13 years “Fear Innoculum” and L7’s killer comeback “Scatter the Rats”. Also death metal band’s MGLA “Age of Excuse” and Cattle Decapitation’s mind blowing and expanding apocalypse album “World Atlas. And Lizzo is pretty good too)
From 8 p.m (6 Pacific) to 8:07 p.m. was the greatest and most pleasurable 7 minutes of TV history of this 20 year old century. Ricky Gervais, actor and comedian and mostly creator, producer and writer of “The Office”, demolished the fourth wall of celebrity and the power entrenched with it and reminded the audience of their complicity of everything wrong in society, the world and how they have obtained their obscene wealth.
Hosting the Golden Globe awards for the fifth and most definitely the last time (unless the rich and famous are purely sadomasochistic), Gervais went deeper with his vitriolic roasting of all the talent and executives in the audience than he did the last four times, which was just comparably ordinary roasting of their dubious talents and the mediocre product they put out. Because the last year have been quite different for the rich and infamous. Not only has the movie and TV industry over-saturated the market with garbage comic book series and unchallenging and unmemorable storytelling, unnecessary rehashes and “prequels”, but the whole poisonous crony culture and underlying corruption that was once kept secret from the masses. Ricky also deconstructed the phoniness of the industry permeating politics and discussion befouling social media and opinions and (hopefully) may have destroyed starfuckery.
Sure he got to skewer some fellow celebrities and odious pop culture contributions, most dutifully about Felicity Huffman’s brief incarceration making license plates and the odious infinitely singing talk show minstrel James Corbin and how he played a fat pussy last year and then starred in the bomb “Cats”. But this one cut deeper because like the comedy, it’s all about timing and easy targets. Especially when the targets are high up. And this years targets were Harvey Weinstein and Jeffery Epstein.
When Ricky brought up Weinstein, a big fat ugly movie producer who molested hundreds of actresses and models, he gave a warning to all those in the crowd of award contenders, assorted billionaires to be cautious if Ronan Farrow has a scoop on them. I wonder if the actresses who were already did his movies without having to survive his skeevy advances stifled a nervous laugh at that. Gervais responded to the nauseating collective groans with vicious disdain and told them to come off it.
As well as they should since Weinstein’s trial for his sexual harassment and sexual assaults just began. The big load is even showing up to trial pushing a walker with tennis balls on them since his fat ass and lousy posture has put too much weight on the stands. Even though only a few weeks before his first court appearance he was at an East Village niteclub sans walker but with an entourage and an astroturfed audience in tow, viewing a female comedy and improv show much to the horror of the performers there and some lady patrons seizing the opportunity to yell at him and his foul presence. Currently, the jury has finally been selected and Harvey is still pushing that walker to court. He’s either goldbricking being that he’s been producing movies all his life he figured he can give a performance too or pushing that walker is the closest he can get to simulating unwanted sexual advances on a woman.
But the next one was the granddaddy of all big shot audience roasting, as he was doing a joke that somehow integrated promoting his show on Netflix where he plays a person trying to kill himself and doesn’t, he compared the protagnists’ failure with the perfect execution of Jeffery Epstein, who didn’t kill himself either. That really killed the whatever noise was left in the ballroom. I don’t think anybody even budged. Ricky, absolutely delighted at the silence and surely the look of shame and menace on the faces of the powerful crowd, told them I know he’s your friend and mused aloud that they all must have been upset to take their own private plane to the Golden Globes.
It must have been easy to deliver the Epstein punchline and the body blow to the elite crowd when an hour before the Globes broadcast and Ricky’s monologue, 60 Minutes did 12 minutes on how Epstein didn’t kill himself by having a forensic doctor, Dr. Michael Baden, hired by the brother of the banker/hedge funder/secret agent man/sex trafficker/pedophile who proved just that.
Pictures showed the blanket that was alleged Epstein used to commit suicide and it didn’t even have any indentures on the fabric. Not only that, but the material looked so flimsy and weak that it’s doubtful that it can even be capable of squeezing the cream out of canoli. But there were plenty of electrical cords in the cell though. Then there was the xray of his neck which showed an extra broken bone that could only be done by strangling and not from self-harm. And the clincher that really should confirm a murder took place that night in the MCC, there was blood found in Epstein’s eye socket capillaries. According to the Dr. Baden, when you hang yourself to death, blood doesn’t flood to the head. And the blood mostly flows to your legs but Epstein’s were pale. This was just reconfirmed on the Dr. Oz show too.
Gervais nailed two perfect jokes with such uncanny perfect timing on that glorious evening. The real kicker is that it overshadowed as well as overwhelmed the actual awards show and winners. But Rick wasn’t through getting medieval on those superstar jabronis. For the last two minutes he railed about their hypocrisy embracing social issues and causes and the vicarious way they bring attention to them without doing anything of substance or even while still engaging in harm while being philanthropic. When he brought up Apple’s CEO for producing a show for their own network about women’s empowerment, Rick immediately brought up the fact that Apple still uses child labor and pays shit wages to factory workers assembling their cellphones. And in the best joke of the night, also how every actor is full of shit themselves for feigning concern for human plight when if terrorist organization ISIS had a streaming network they would jump at a chance to do a show for them (actually, ISIS has been using Facebook and other platforms for their streaming network for their mass murders for years). Then he capped it off by telling them to take their tacky trophy, thank their agent and their God and fuck off. Magnifique’
The only thing that was missing in his savage monologue was that he didn’t bring up how the best picture nominees, Motherless Brooklyn, was responsible for the death of a fireman and the destruction of a building that burned down after shutting down a sprinkler system and leaving other fire hazards behind during production. And the subsequent coverup and undermining of a fire marshall’s report by FDNY high brass.
While they should all fuck off, they should not thank whatever God they obey, they should thank Mr. Gervais, for he is their only God.
Why is that? Let me explain…
In the aughts after the tremendous acclaim and success of “The Office”, Ricky was given the opportunity by Hollywood for a full length feature film that he would star and produce in. A movie called “The Invention Of Lying”* It was highly anticipated (mostly by his fans) and it was taking quite a while to come out. The movie was about a utopian society (or planet) where the concept of lying was non-existent, everyone told the absolute truth, even when it was awkward. Then when someone close to Ricky’s character was about to die and saw how people were getting upset around him in the hospital room, Ricky invented a lie about a place where people went when they expired and it was managed by a big man who lived in the sky. Ricky’s protaganist then became a messiah figure among the general public for the rest of the film.
But on that Sunday night on January 6 2020, Ricky was (and still is) the big man on earth,using the truth like it was just invented to destroy the perpetual phoniness and power structures that are still gripping and shaping societal norms, wasteful celebrity worship, dubious self-serving philanthropy and an inequitable justice system.
While there are other entertainment truth tellers fomenting discord to the rotten and weak yet still powerful establishment like Jimmy Dore, Lee Camp and Joe Rogan, Ricky Gervais is clearly the most omniscient of all of them because of his creation The Office and the American version that starred Steve Carrel which lasted for 10 years and still going in syndication, so Ricky’s making lots of dollars to live comfortably, and continuing to create new shows and work standup and basically say whatever the fuck he wants being an A-lister himself. Money is power as well as speech in America and Gervais is using it wisely and brilliantly. Comedy hasn’t been used this efficiently against extreme and undeserving power structures since the late great Bill Hicks.
With his truth drones striking the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Gervais has basically become The One, like Kenau in the Matrix, our fact-based Messiah. And like Brian from the Life of Brian, he is a very naughty boy but doesn’t give a shit what the rich, famous and powerful think of him as he lays out their true selfish motives, dubious altruism and villainous business models for all to see and will surely continue to do so.
Surely he would hate this divinity as well as he would mock this take like he does to his orange shaped head engineer Karl Pilkington, but if Ricky doesn’t get sainthood when he dies much later on, for the sake of humanity let there be a hologram of Mr. Gervais hosting all the entertainment award ceremonies in the future. Plus an infinite stand up residency in Las Vegas.
*(The movie, while entertaining and heavy on pathos, didn’t do that well. Mostly because it was reduced to a romantic comedy instead of a dystopian story with unfortunate ramifications, which is what I expected. Jennifer Garner was lovely in it though)
Remember when Queens Boulevard was called the boulevard of death? Because of the high amount of vehicular accidents that put the fear of death in pedestrians that out of necessity would dare to tread across the four lane quasi-highway? Well, it has got comparably safer to commute and cross than in the past, but it has been replaced by a new form of existential threat, and that is over-development. With this post, I bring forth three technically new buildings that have been built but have remained strangely unfinished and apparently have yet to be occupied. (But strangely they are already on the market).
Welcome to the christening of Queens Boulevard as the Boulevard Of Zombie Condo Development here in Impunity City
Your city.
Lets begin at this mesh covered monstrosity at 64th St.
This sign has aged quite a bit, but upon closer inspection, this building was supposed to be completed a few days from now in the year 2018
Next, let’s cross the BQE and check out this budding condo building by 69th St.
Look it’s already garnering interest, but too bad the poor buyer is going to have to wait a little much longer, for this was supposed to be done in the vague completion date of Winter 2018
But the one down the block by 70th St. and Queens Blvd. is the most undead of them all.
But at least it comes with genuine street art, so the developer saves a few dollars on artwashing, avoiding to commission some bland pseudo famous graffiti tagger.
Lo, this zombie condo complex is four years behind schedule…
This building gives off quite an ghoulish aura of mystery. For who knows when construction actually started for this development and when it actually stopped. And of course why it stopped, for there is no D.O.B. certificate on it like the others and a stop work order was clearly and vainly ripped off the building placard.
To be fair and balanced here, those photos were taken in late August/early September. And some progress had occurred when I returned on a mild day just before Thanksgiving…
The mesh was taken off of the 58th building. But it still remained dormant and not a creature was stirring. Well, surely rats might be stirring in this one, they are fricking everywhere and prefer to squat in these ample abodes if they are not in a NYCHA building.
Well, most of the mesh is off. And the faded placard is still there after 3 months.
The 69th St. building was less zombiefied. For what looked like there were what I assume are contractors or realtors present.
But the zombie building on 70th is still in craptacular shape…
…and to go along with the eerie vibe when one passes by, it seems the zombie condo building has become haunted. Because some entity or apparition put up some real estate banners on some of the crappy little balconies on the higher floors.
The genuine graffiti still remains. The same tags too.
And the same placards still remain too, even the scraped stop work order wasn’t even removed by the elements or even a dabble of goo gone. Which doesn’t do much to ward off suspicion about why this building is still like this for so much time. And it’s safe to presume that there is no “affordable housing” in these complexes because the developments were initiated before de Blasio’s bullshit Housing New York program got implemented.
With the widely reported and countless updates about the dearth of affordable housing and the escalation of the homeless population, it’s shouldn’t be perplexing why these luxury condo buildings (at least what they are advertised to be) are wasting so much space without being used for so long. Another big waste is how the city gave them permits to build these zombie condos in the first place despite the need for more more housing and better quality housing for the poorest citizens of the five boroughs.
The biggest irony of all is the next big residential complex a few blocks away is the Pan American Hotel, which has operated as a homeless shelter in almost the exact amount of years has the 70 St. Zombie Condo development has been behind schedule for completion. In fact, the hotel may have started being a shelter the same exact year as the perceived schedule completion date!
Another interesting about these zombie buildings is that those bike lanes were approved and installed as these were still being constructed (except for ol’ 2015 there). Surely the city expected those residents there to be utilizing these lanes on the regular. But as those three zombie building eyesores remain lifeless, the bike lanes that were once universally rejected by the communities of Woodside and Elmhurst continue and still remain barely used and barren most of the time.
It might be apt to also call these zombie bike lanes too. Too bad this wasn’t much help for this bike shop since it got stretched to Rego Park either.
Yet still more unaffordable and unattainable condo development is still on the way on the Boulevard of Zombie Condo Development, leaving the working poor and shrinking middle class go wanting for a roof over their heads and the luxury of privacy.
This fugly zombie condo complex by the Queens Center Mall is a year late too.
Apparently, one clear reason that these buildings are taking so long to be finished is because of mandatory safety training rules that had to be made into law. Somehow they didn’t have the sense or the morals to implement these rules in the first place.
Somehow, these buildings are still just standing there unoccupied. Could be these condos are too pricey or to shitty looking to risk putting your savings in there and living in it for the rest of your life and probably too risky and not ample enough to raise a family in.
But at least the developer of this monster is showing some accountability:
It’s too bad when all of these zombie apartment buildings finally get done (with the exception of Zombie 70), they will remain lifeless. These zombie condo buildings will just sit there gathering moss and dust as the real estate market speculation/fabrication for the cost of these dwellings ludicrously rise.
These towers only reason for existence is to show that you can work in this city, but you sure as hell can’t live in it. While hundreds of thousands of citizens can barely scrape enough cash to save to transition or to make the rent where they are right now.
New Yorkers and tourists alike can rejoice over extra elbow room this holiday season as they visit the iconic Rockefeller Christmas Tree in Midtown. Mayor de Blasio on Friday announced a temporary expansion of the pedestrian space around Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall to help ensure the safety and comfort of visitors at the famous holiday tree.
“The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is New York City’s crown jewel during the holidays, and we’re always excited to welcome the world to see it—but when the world descends on Rockefeller Center for a month on end, additional tools are clearly necessary so that our Vision Zero agenda stays in place,” de Blasio said. “This historic announcement pedestrianizing Rockefeller Center will keep holiday revelers safe while ensuring minimal disruption to the rest of the life of the city.”
Officials will be using moveable barriers to help with partial or full street closures to help with foot traffic.
The FDNY-Uniformed Firefighter Association is criticizing the decision to shut down streets around Rockefeller Center for pedestrians during the holidays.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that the city would expand pedestrian space in the area and close streets to traffic, saying the increasing number of people in the area is “creating a real safety issue.”
Gerald Fitzgerald, president of the firefighters union, put out a statement Sunday saying he believes there will be increased citywide gridlock as a result of the changes — and that gridlock could affect emergency vehicles.
“The move to increase ‘pedestrian space’ surrounding Rockefeller Center is misguided and makes this city less safe – plain and simple. As it is, traffic is interfering with our firefighters’ abilities to reach the scene of a fire, but this new plan will have wide-felt repercussions in the form of traffic from river-to-river. We all want pedestrian safety, but a key component of safety for all is the ability for New York’s first responders to reach the scene of an emergency, and this is not the best way to ensure the safety of New York’s over 8-million residents and millions of holiday visitors,” he said.
It’s the worst wonderful time of the year
As the city’s decision has caused such division regarding safety fears
It’s the worst wonderful time of the year
At the worst fucking area of all
At Rockefeller Center there’s too much congestion for daily commuters to bear
It’s the worst fucking area of all
There’s barriers and bollards and cops that are guarding the masses from unconfirmed terrorist threats,
The buses are backed up and people are mashed up like cows trudging to their abattoir deaths.
It’s the worst wonderful time of the year,
With thousands of cops deployed to four blocks for danger perceived to be near
It’s the worst wonderful time of the year
(Swinging part)
Traffic’s a standstill from pedestrian overfill of tourists and commuters on cellphones
From taking pictures and texting their messages to all those that no one else gives two fucks about.
It’s the worst wonderful time of the year.
Now this space is established as bus service gets ravished to convenience holiday cheer
It’s the worst wonderful time
The worst wonderful time
It’s the worst wonderful time
of the year!!!!
(Here’s the fucking tree, the reason for all this stupidity)
This was posted first on Queens Crap but it bears repeating on here. And it surely fits the title of this digital publication, because this is one of the most brazen acts of impunity ever photographed considering the brief chain of events in the course of 12 hours.
City Council members overwhelmingly backed Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s plan to rein in widespread abuse of city-issued parking permits, approving all nine of his bills he put forward to crack down on placard abuse.
“Placard abuse is corruption,” Johnson told reporters ahead of the Council’s Tuesday vote. “We’ve tolerated it for years as one of those unchangeable facts in New York City, but those days are hopefully over.”
Tell me/us more, tell me/us more Cojo. And maybe with less trepidation this time.
Critics frequently complain the NYPD fails to crack down on placard abuse since cops are frequently spotted misusing them, but Johnson told reporters DOI’s involvement ensures NYPD will take the issue seriously.
“We wanted an outside check,” Johnson said. “Traffic enforcement agents who are supposed to be writing the summonses and tickets … don’t always do it because they are afraid of policing the police.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for both of those final comments by the speaker to manifest. Thanks to the ace photography of long time Queens Crap commentator and blogger George The Athiest: Who: The Columbia Association of the NYPD. Where: In Elmhurst on the Queens Boulevard south service road between the new Georgia Diner and Grand Avenue. When: Tuesday evening, November 26, 2019. What: Columbia Association police membership needs convenient and difficult to find on-street parking. Why: It seems that this membership has parking privileges that the rest of the citizenry does not.
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Regular street parking cannot be found, so we drive up onto the sidewalk. Nice.
As far as the eye can see, along the service road: dozens of bumper-to-bumper private cop-owned cars parked to the right of the bike lane up on the sidewalk. The Grand Avenue cross street is just below photo at the bottom. The Georgia Diner is situated way off in the distance in the upper left behind the stopped bus.
Illegally parked vehicles “respect” the bike lane by
not intruding on it although the drivers’ sides of these vehicles
are on the sidewalk. Why can’t non- police owned vehicles
do the same in light of the recent loss of parking spaces caused by bicycle lane construction?
All that’s needed is an official placard?
Apparently, the answer still is yes. But why would de Blasio’s NYPD do this so brazenly and arrogantly? Back to the NY Post:
Of the nine bills passed, all but one was approved unanimously.
However, five council members voted against a ban on city officials parking in bike and bus lanes, at bus stops, in crosswalks, on sidewalks and in front of fire hydrants.
So that’s how the NYPD will continue to get away with placard abuse, it’s transparent that during the writing of this bill some beneficial loopholes had to be placed (wonder who the furious five were). But come on now, to do this on the same day? They could have waited maybe a day or two to go back to their recidivist power tripping habits and parked all their cars in a nearby garage, since they and de Blasio are usually obsessed with optics.
But what’s more concerning is the shocking lack of local news media scrutiny, especially from the so called city blogs that publish anything bike related like Gothamist and Streetsblog. Maybe it’s Thanksgiving and all but this happened on Tuesday and I published it immediately on the night it occurred when it was messaged to me by GtheA. I even made sure to tag it on the Twitter to the intrepid placard corruption and they immediately like and retweeted it.
Usually when they do this it goes viral, but for some reason nothing came up, no likes no retweets and no subsequent news or even a request from the networks or papers. You think with all the coverage that bike commuting is getting, from new infrastructure and street redesigns to a rise in cycling advocacy that this didn’t get any follow up outrage from them.
It’s sour grapes but I don’t give a shit. The NYPD should not have been doing this and it sets a bad example to every citizen, young and old and will cause even more scofflaw behavior among them because they will have a reason to justify their illicit actions behind the wheel or even riding a bike or scooter. You think these cops on that evening would have thought for a second how their own illicit behavior here would set a pattern akin to the Broken Windows concept that they keep bringing up to enforce laws against lesser crimes.
And the fact that the aforementioned city blogs did not even pick up the scoop of this defiant abuse of power like they usually do whenever a biker gets hit by a car or a row of patrol cars block a bike lane is perplexing.
So to all these off-duty cops and the city blogs and also local corporate news media, what’s the fucking excuse?
The Miss-Appropriation of city funding, Chirlane McCray de Blasio
![Screenshot_2020-07-27 JQ LLC Impunity City on Twitter Last week I posted on here and #ImpunityCity about this giant hole in[...]](https://impunitycity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/screenshot_2020-07-27-jq-llc-impunity-city-on-twitter-last-week-i-posted-on-here-and-impunitycity-about-this-giant-hole-in....png?w=722&h=534)
Wear the mask, but respect is optional.
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Photo and caption by George The Atheist.
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Impunity City 
