Stopping the music

Last July, I posted the intro to the most deliriously awful movie set in New York, 1980's "Can't Stop the Music" starring Steve Guttenberg, Bruce Jenner and the Village People.

Well! I just got a little note from the folks at YouTube about the video...



Harumpf!

Still, there are other copyright enfringement videos that you can enjoy until the YouTune killjoys remove them...

Like the intro to the arthouse hit Weekend at Bernie's!



Or my exclusive video of Olafur Eliasson's waterfalls on the East River...

At CB3/SLA meeting: Le Souk denied; residents speak of "mayhem" and "crazy fistfights"; proponent suggests people would prefer living in Staten Island

As you read this, the CB3/SLA licensing meeting is just wrapping up (that joke never gets old!). An EV Grieve reader was there for part of the meeting and kindly filed this report. For that, we offer many thanks to this dedicated soul.

Things got off to a good start at 6:45 with the announcement that eight agenda items would not be covered, leaving only 27 matters to discuss.

After a brief discussion of budget priorities (largely a formality) the action got underway with Renewals with Complaint History.

First up was St. Dymphna's of 118 St. Marks, looking to renew its full liquor license. The board raised the issue of whether the establishment is allowed to utilize its back yard space, citing a 2007 DOB decision which indicated the back yard could not be used, and the fact that its SLA renewal application did not indicate a back yard space was in use, though it is. The establishment is under new ownership, and the current proprietor indicated he was not familiar with that DOB decision or the previous complaint history. The Board voted to approve the renewal with the stipulation that the back yard space not be used.

Next up was Spur Tree Restaurant of 76 Orchard Street, looking to renew its restaurant wine license. No one was present to represent the applicant, and the board voted to deny the renewal for non appearance.

Le Souk

That took us right to the main event -- Le Souk -- which was called in not to discuss a renewal but to address the complaints that have been lodged against it since reopening. The discussion started with a recap of the December 2008 board decision to not vote on the club's renewal, the club's license being suspended at that time. Six residents were then given an opportunity to speak. Le Souk's opponents described the improvements in quality of life during the time the club was closed.

One resident was quoted via letter as saying "life was so peaceful on Avenue B" during that time. Opponents reported that since the club has reopened, "all sorts of mayhem" has occurred, including "crazy fistfights" and "animal behavior." One resident opined about the nature of Le Souk patrons, stating that they "drive the taxi drivers to the point of insanity," a reference to the honking problem on the corner. It was also noted that the police do not ticket for honking on the corner of 4th and B despite posted warnings, purportedly because they are not able to determine which cars are doing the honking.

Seriously. One resident indicated that "life has been intolerable since Le Souk has reopened" and the letter writer was again quoted, saying "a superclub like Le Souk has no business in the neighborhood." Residents also cited loud music emanating from the club and Web site reviews which tout dancing going on in the club in violation of cabaret laws.

Two Le Souk proponents spoke in favor of the club, one saying that "the community was in shambles while Le Souk was closed," the argument focused on economics and the idea that this is not the time to shutter a club that brings much business to the neighborhood. He also suggested Le Souk is doing a better job now relative to the abysmal job it had done in the past (not the most ringing endorsement) and made a reference to some people maybe preferring to live in Staten Island.

Le Souk's proprietor indicated that traffic is a problem throughout the East Village and not a function of his club, saying in fact that he does not have a traffic or congestion problem in front of his establishment. He was then scolded by the board for failing to organize a meeting with residents to work through issues outside of the CB meeting process, as he had promised to do sometime in March. A member of the Le Souk management team indicated they would make the meeting happen this time. It was noted that Le Souk has 7,000 square feet of space.

By this point the room had become quite hot and a Le Souk proponent had to be directed by the board to stop speaking out of turn, one board member wondering aloud if security needed to be summoned. After much discussion of the language of the motion, the board voted to deny the renewal, when it comes up. In response to a direct question from a resident, asking if Le Souk would begin turning down the volume of its music starting this weekend, Le Souk indicated that it would.

Thailand Cafe

It was now 8:02. Still so early and only 23 agenda items to go. Next up was Thailand Cafe on 2nd Avenue, looking to add some manner of outdoor seating. The board expressed concerns with the already numerous outdoor seating arrangements on that stretch of 2nd Avenue, and whether the clearance depicted in the plans between the outdoor seating and bus shelter in front of the establishment would actually be as large as the plans suggest (15 feet). Residents were organized against the plan, 10 or so standing together to indicate their opposition. One suggested the idea of dining outdoors several feet from a stream of city buses would perhaps not be the best dining experience ever. There were also 23 letters submitted in opposition. The board voted to deny this plan due to bus shelter proximity and existing levels of sidewalk congestion in that area.

At this point one of the board members learned that an attendee was waiting to speak on the matter of Chickpea, agenda item 28, and let him know that the item had been announced among those canceled at the outset. Mercifully this happened two hours into meeting and not 10.

Cien Fueguos

Next up was Cien Fueguos LLC, looking to open a Cuban fine dining establishment at 95 Ave A. The owner and team made a fantastic presentation, top to bottom. They produced 1,000 signatures from East Village residents in support of their plan, 200 of them living in the immediate vicinity. Numerous residents spoke on their behalf including the owner of the building. The presentation included statistics on the prevalence of Cuban restaurants in Manhattan (there are just 43, and only five of those are considered fine dining establishments) which were compared to comparable statistics for Italian restaurants. The owner operates four other establishments in the East Village without incident and the management team's experience running orderly restaurants was touted, as was the fact that the venture will bring 40-50 new jobs to the neighborhood and include a sandwich shop. The board issued a favorable opinion on the application with basic stipulations, some of which the operating plan for the establishment already included.

(Someone said this owner is the guy behind Bourgeois Pig and Death & Co.. I thought Death and Company had some issues in the past, but am not sure. They were pretty clear about the owner running four places and not having problems.)




Caffe Bon Gusto

Next up was Caffe Bon Gusto, for which the sailing was not smooth. The applicant himself did not show up, instead sending two representatives, one of which seemed to be his attorney. The board noted that the application (for a wine license) was more or less identical to the application it rejected in September 2007. And that with only 10 signatures in support of the restaurant -- four of those from residents not in the immediate vicinity -- the applicant has not demonstrated that his establishment will provide a substantial benefit to the community, a requirement to secure a favorable opinion from the board in a resolution area. No residents signed up to speak for the club, but the applicant's attorney noted that no residents turned out to speak against it either.

Postscript

At this point our reader left. It was after 9 p.m.

How do they manage to get through 27 agenda items? I can't fathom it.

More about the closure of Kim's: 'We are NOT closing because record stores are dying'

[Photo from last Monday by Williams Klayer]

As we first reported last Monday, Kim's Video and Music is closing soon at 124 First Ave. The following email went out this past weekend to the Kim's faithful…

If you haven't heard already, earlier this week we announced that Kim's Video & Music, here on 1st Ave, will be closing its doors this July. Business here has been steady and our Record Store Day last Saturday was easily the best yet with new and old customers flooding the store for 200+ exclusive releases. The point is, and you should be aware, that we are NOT closing because record stores are dying, business is bad, it's not like it used to be and oh terrible world. Not at all. The actual reason for our closing is that the lease is up in July and the rent is being raised to an amount we simply can't work with. It's an unfortunate situation and we really, really appreciate all the positive vibes and eulogizing that has been sent our way this week. We are hopeful that a new Kim's can be erected this summer, (likely at a smaller location), and we are in the process of exploring that possibility. Until then, please stop in at 124 1st Ave (between St. Marks/7th) to say hi and take advantage of our closing sale. ALL Music & Video is 30% off.

This will be the last New Music Newsletter until the foreseeable future. Kim's WILL be stocking New Releases as they come out until we close ... Other than that, thank you for your continuing support and business over the years and hopefully we'll see you at a new (and improved) Kim's later this year.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] A really bad sign outside Kim's Video & Music on First Avenue (31 comments)

Source: Kim's staff looking for ways to save their store

Out and About in the East Village

In this ongoing feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Anna Pastoressa
Occupation: Jack of all trades
Location: 2nd Street and Avenue A
Time: 4:15 pm on Friday, July 15

I was born in Rome. As a young person, I thought that I was in a small world, and I wanted to see the world. So I used to travel a lot, and then I decided I wanted to come and visit the U.S. It was just a visit.

When I came, I liked it, and I traveled all over the U.S. I decided that I wanted to try to stay, but New York was not my first destination. I lived in New Orleans, I met somebody there, and I got married. That’s what made me stay here in this country. Eventually, I divorced that person and I decided to come to New York. I’m from Rome and I needed to be in a big city. New Orleans had a small-town feeling.

I moved here in 1983. I came right to the East Village. I used to live on Avenue C. It was the cheapest place to be, but it was also a dangerous area. It was like the wild west, but I have to say, the drug dealers who were in charge of the neighborhood, they kept the neighborhood safe. I used to walk around Alphabet City in the 80s by myself, at night. I knew the drug dealers would be in the doorways minding their business, and making sure that the neighborhood stayed safe.

You know, I felt safe, as crazy as this sounds. It was very hard to take a cab home, because cab drivers used to drop me on 1st Avenue. They’d said, ‘You have to walk. I’m not taking you to that jungle.’ I would be mad, because I wanted to go home, but they would systematically drop me on 1st Avenue, and I would have to walk all the way to Avenue C. But then I thought, ‘Okay, from 1st Avenue to Avenue C, there are going to be the drug dealers helping out.

In fact, there were some people who were pickpocketed, and the drug dealers were the ones who saved them, or they would chase the thief. They used to tell them, ‘Do not rob in this neighborhood. Do not come here to steal, because we will beat you up. We don’t want the cops here, so you don’t do this in this neighborhood.’

I knew the drug dealers, to the point where I had an old funky car, and I used to park it around the neighborhood. One time, the car got broken into. They broke the glass, and one of the drug dealers saw the car and said, ‘What happened to it?’ I said, ‘Well, look, they broke into the car, and I don’t even have a radio. There is nothing to steal.’ And he said, ‘Where did you park it?’ I said, ‘I parked it two blocks away,’ and he said, ‘You don’t park it there. You park your car on this block and nothing will ever happen to your car.’

I remember having a little trouble sometimes with kids in the neighborhood. They would play basketball and bounce it on my car, or be a little rowdy. There was one particular kid, I was trying to park the car near my house, and he was trying to take over the parking spot and put his ball there. So one time I wanted to park there, and he started bouncing the basketball on my car, and bent it.

I got so upset that I went to the drug dealer, and I said, ‘Listen, you told me to ask you for help. Please help me, this kid is not being nice to me. I know the kid, he lives right there, a few doors down from me.’ The drug dealer took care of it. He brought him to me and said, ‘You say sorry to this lady. Don’t you ever, ever bother her again,’ and the kid was like, ‘Sorry!’ I felt so bad for him.

The funny thing is that I saw him growing up after that, and he turned into a very nice man. To date, when I run into him, we laugh. He keeps telling me, ‘I’m so sorry for what I did as a kid,’ and I say, ‘Stop it. A long time has gone by. You’re a wonderful, nice young man. Leave it alone. You were a kid.’ We still laugh. We can never forget that incident.

I had a lot of friends in my neighborhood. We were all artists, musicians. I know a lot of people here who are into visual arts, music, theater. We used get together and Tompkins Square Park was our playground; that was our meeting point. We would go together to plays. There used to be a lot of alternative theaters in this area. People had theaters in their homes, and they had galleries in squats. It was a very nice period. As much as it was considered bad, or it had a negative connotation, I think it was a fun time of New York City, and of this area. There was a lot of freedom. We knew everybody. It was like being in a village. It was a real village.

Then we grew up, we got married, we had children, and our children play together in Tompkins Square Park. It was the playground for our children. We would have parties and be with our children. We looked out for each other’s children.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Updated: Lower Avenue B residents concerned over proposed new bar-restaurant

A restaurant called Brownstone Bar & Grill is on this month's CB3/SLA docket to take over the space last held by Affaire, the French bistro and lounge, which closed at 50 Avenue B last August. (Brownstone, whose CB3 application lists a menu of "Caribbean/Southern food," was originally on last month's docket ... but was a scratch.)

And Brownstone's possible arrival has sparked concerned neighbors to join forces to possibly speak out against a liquor license for the address. There are now flyers hanging in buildings and along Avenue B.

According to the flyer:

Help Stop a New Rowdy Late-night Club from Opening in Our Neighborhood!

We’ve all worked together for several years to force the closure of several late-night clubs that severely degraded the quality of life in our neighborhood. It’s been a long, hard struggle. The last one, Affaire, closed at the end of this summer. Now someone new wants to re-open a boisterous club in that location (50 Avenue B, near East 4th Street.)

We can’t let that happen! All that we’ve worked hard for and accomplished is risk!

WHAT’S BEING PROPOSED:

• The new occupant wants to operate a club for up to 200 people that will stay open until 2 a.m. on Mon.-Wed. nights, and until 4 a.m. on Thurs.-Sun. nights.

• The place will be known as Brownstone Bar and Grill. It plans to feature 8 video screens, play recorded music both as background and as “entertainment”, and host special events.

WHAT DOES THIS SOUND LIKE TO YOU?

Le Souk and Carne vale all over again!

WHAT’S NEXT:

Community Board 3’s SLA and DCA Licensing Committee will be considering an application by the operator for a liquor license at their next meeting – that will be our time to show up and speak out! You can read the full application here.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• Show up at the CB3 Committee meeting to express your opinion and stand up together with each other – Mon. Oct. 7th at 6:30 p.m., at CB3’s offices, 59 E. 4th St. (between 2nd Ave. and the Bowery.)

• Write a letter to CB3 to express your opinion on this matter. Be sure to personalize it, and to talk about your experiences with such places as a neighborhood resident. You can send it to the office, or email it to info@cb3manhattan.org

Neighbors are meeting with Brownstone reps on Thursday night. Here are details on that:

Thursday Oct. 3 @ 7:30 p.m.

535 E. 5th Street (bet. Aves. A & B) in the ground floor Community Room

Hosted by the East 4th St. Block Association

Come meet and ask questions of the operators

Some neighbors here between Fourth Street and Third Street still shudder at the mere mention of Le Souk, which finally closed in 2009 after a lengthy battle with the SLA. (Of course, there were those various mystery parties at the space in recent years.)

Some residents fear a return to the bonkerish partygoing along here last seen in 2004-2006... a stretch that Eater dubbed "Hellmouth" back in 2006.

Meet the owner of the 'In the Air Tonight' car that plays the Phil Collins classic on repeat

Text and photos by Stacie Joy

It's very possible that you at least heard the "In the Air Tonight" car on East Village streets this holiday season — you know, the 1985 Mazda Rx-7 GSL with an arena-ready sound system that plays the 1981 Phil Collins mega-hit on repeat.

A mutual neighborhood friend led me to meet the car's owner — Don Garcia, a Bushwick-based plumber. We had questions for Garcia after the car was spotted in the East Village on Dec. 14... the subsequent EVG video clip was viewed nearly 120,000 times on Twitter ...

Saturday night is not over until the ‘In the Air Tonight’ mobile makes a dance stop pic.twitter.com/IB89cJRyVd

— evgrieve (@evgrieve) December 15, 2019

The two men shown in the video were walking by, and spontaneously felt compelled to start dancing along to the song, featuring that epic drum break, now played at sports arenas around the world. (Gothamist has more on this dance story here.)

This holiday season, Garcia initially used the car — and its sound system — for a toy drive at the St Mary’s Healthcare System for Children. He does the Toys for Tots with the Legendary Muscle Cars Auto Club.











Garcia seemed surprised but appreciative of the attention. He answered some questions before letting me do a ride-along in the East Village as he demonstrated the newly wired sound system and lighting. And of course, playing "In the Air Tonight." (For the record, Garcia did not wear any ear plugs, though I did for this trip)...

How long have you been doing this?

I have had this car for seven years, working on it all that time. But as far as the music and lights part, I started [on Dec. 13] — the day before the videos surfaced.

Why this song?

I was playing this song because it’s such a good song to tune the car stereo and speakers to. It’s a song that makes you want to go out and do something you didn’t think you could. It was me and Lito, the guy who wired my car.

We’d been in Williamsburg earlier testing it out, and we were driving through the East Village when these two guys came out of a bar and requested, well demanded, that we put the song up loud, so we did. They jumped in front of the car and started dancing. We opened the doors at the light, pumped up the sound, and there were about 30 or 40 people standing there watching. When the song ended, we drove off.

Do you play any others?

Yes. I like rap, Spanish music, older stuff with no bad language. I like family-friendly stuff.

Any conversations with the NYPD?

No.

Do you play the same song the entire time over and over?

It's a good song and has a clear sound. People will stop and look, especially at night when you can see the lights.

Garcia also said that he never gets tired of the song.













It was interesting to be in the passenger seat as we rolled through the neighborhood with lights flashing and the song pumping. Lot of bass, and, of course, the famous drum solo. People waved, they pointed, danced, smiled and gave us thumbs up. A lot of people whipped out their phones and started filming. I didn’t see anyone react negatively.

On the end of Kim's

Editor's note: The last of the Kim's closes for good today at 124 First Ave.

By Kelly Sebastian

As any job-hunting 19-year-old in New York City might, I became a bike messenger. Yes, one of those. On a soggy summer day, fate threw me a delivery in the Empire State Building. It felt cool to have this job; that said, it also felt completely fucked up when I walked out of the building to find my bike … missing. Through a crackly-sounding payphone my delivery dispatcher told me to take the rest of the day off. I was sad. I was unemployed.

With my head hung low I began an aimless walk away from Midtown hell, eventually ending up on St. Mark's Place in the East Village. After passing the Astor Place cube and crossing over Third Avenue I spotted that unforgettable purple and yellow sign with it's aggressively playful font. Kim's. I needed a dose of salvation from my shitty day and, as I was beginning my flirt with filmmaking, I decided to get lost in something I loved. In that beauty … film. On the third floor of 6 St. Mark's, the video rental floor — as I was reading VHS sleeve after VHS sleeve, getting lost in the cover art and other people's stories — a clerk from behind the counter asked if I needed help. I told him about my stolen bike, he told me he was a vegan and the next day I started a job a Kim's. If you loved film, you knew Kim's. One word: KIM'S. It was THE place.

-----

I realize now how lucky I was to have been a part of the experience of Kim's, the Kim's culture and the Kim's community. Kim's stores were an anomaly in the cluster of chain-store clutter with a curated collection of film (and music) way beyond the underground. I worked at a destination. A spot people went to discover films, to talk about films (with clerks or other customers). A place where travelers who had heard of the legendary stock, would pop in for a look, as if they were admiring a piece of high art in a gallery.

Working there on occasion I would chance a glance of the mastermind himself standing at the other end of our video rentals floor, beyond the maze of his meticulously categorized collection. I would see Yongman Kim, buttoned up, well-dressed in a suit with arms folded and his smiling eyes observing from a distance — watching his masterpiece perform. I always wondered if he did this at all his store locations. Mr. Kim was passionate about the art of film and the art of business with the spirit of a risk taker having wild ideas from first renting movies out of his original laundry cleaning store to that very brief third floor Smoke Cafe. It's hard to explain Kim's to the plugged-in youth or non-film'centric folks, you just had to have been there.

Kim's was my film school and I know many others could claim this same core-curriculum. The breakdown of cinema history — organized by genre, by sub-genres, by niche and Country, by decade and Director — was any cinephile's dream. Sure, we carried mainstream flicks, but the majority of Kim's customers would be waiting for the newest Herzog film to be released. I would come to understand any given Director's journey by working my way through their catalog. From Godard to Lee, Varda to Linklater. Our organization style could often receive heated friction from our customers. Some loved to complain that True Romance should be excluded from Tarantino's section because he only wrote the screenplay. My out? The sale of that script gave us Reservoir Dogs. We all had our tiffs. I was forever annoyed that Bigelow didn't have her own section yet and that Hitchcock was shelved with American Directors. I wonder who among the contemporary crop of Directors, film movements and episodics would have enough titles and thunder to secure their own tag. The Dardenne Brothers, both Anderson(s), Lisa Cholodenko - surely. Mumblecore and "Peep Show" would have end caps. Orange is the New Black would be in Cult filed under "Women in Prison" alongside Caged Heat.


[Image via]

Being a video store clerk in the East Village was the most interesting public-facing job I would ever make a buck from. Through a customer's rental selection, us clerks got to know our clientele. We got to know your taste in film and what your girlfriend hated. Your Saturday night suggestions came from me, a person, not an algorithm or paid suggestion. A place in time before the Internet had touched and tagged every spec of existence. There was no IMDB — just a clerk who, when you attempted to rent Almost Famous, asked if you'd seen Crudup in Grind or Without Limits.

Soon enough you'd be tossed down a rabbit hole that took you from Crudup to Prefontaine to Leto to Requim for a Dream to Aronofsky to Connelly, which led you back to Crudup, who she shared the screen with in a beautiful movie called Waking the Dead. Remember the times you dashed to Kim's right after work on a Friday night to grab that new release but shit, all the copies were already rented. You instead ended up with the obvious double-feature of La Jette and 12 Monkeys. Or how about that time you realized it was a cinema verite night with Kopple after all. It was a time when the Criterion Collection was just becoming the original viral video everyone wanted to see with, GASP — a commentary track (a groundbreaking idea at the time). Also, a place in a time where you got a same-day porn rental for a dollar and would return the tape warm.

Our daily crowd resembled the poster art for Rock 'n Roll High School. From behind that melamine purple counter four clerks faced a line of genuinely nice folks, sarcastic pot-heads, painfully shy people, everyday assholes, hardcore film nerds and cinema elitists alike. We served established directors, actors and all the pivotal crew members who made film, and really any art, come to life. Oh, and of course those aspiring filmmakers too. We served the ever-changing street kids staying in the rehab facility across the street and the die-hards who came back week after week checking to see if our copy of Two Lane Blacktop had been repaired. At Kim's your celebrity status didn't matter, it was more about if you were renting Van Sant's Ma La Noche.

Of all the eclectic renters there was only one customer who could get me to place any title on hold for him, and he was the mightiest of film aficionados — a guy named Dukkor. Standing high at 6'4", skinny as a beanpole, tucked in a trench coat with his shoulder length, and always wet, jet black hair. Dukkor. An older, ageless man drenched in a cologne called tobacco. Dukkor gave me Dogme 95. When he learned that I was binge watching Von Trier titles he said "Kelly, you MUST watch The Celebration tonight. Not tomorrow but tonight, so that we can discuss Dogme 95 tomorrow." Dukkor, a man with a double-digit membership number, The Duke of all film knowledge, deeper that any Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide.

Our third floor staff was also a cast of characters. There was Matt, Mike (the vegan), Maria, Mike B., Mike P., Sam, Fred, Jeff and other floor employees like Aurelio on the music floor, Igor on the sales floor and Kenny in security. If you knew Mondo Kim's in the late 90s to the early oughts then you know these people. They influenced you and you influenced us. Sure the rumors of rude clerks is true. Do you know how many rude customers we had to deal with? It's fine, we learned to laugh it off and I hope you have too. Maybe I recommended Rosemary's Baby to a pregnant woman; perhaps I ushered a student to the Nick Zedd section when they asked for Citizen Kane in order to fulfill a homework assignment; and yeah, I totally refused to stop watching Poor Cow on our in-store television so a customer could rent it.

Matt, my first manager at Kim's, once told me that our rental floor at Mondo was the East Village's own "Town Hall." So true. Before neighborhood blogs, word on the street, like the lineup of hardcore bands playing at Matinee Sundays at CBGB's, the shuttering of Coney Island High, and Dojo's Soy Burger seventy-five-cent increase, traveled via Kim's. Neighborhood people would come and go. Some never to be seen again. That guy Daniel, for example, was in some band called Interpol who hit the ground running. Oh, and that really nice dude Zoriah, who worked across the street at Joe's CDs, left the city to pursue war photography. The news came through Mondo Kim's doors and echoed from there forward, out into the world. Or at least through the East Village.

I quit my gig at Kim's twice. First, to start working in production and to make more films and projects of my own. The second time I left was for good — a bittersweet exit to again work deeper in the film industry while also taking a job building and curating a new video shop in that triangle below canal — Tribeca Video. I left to apply all my Kim's knowledge and education elsewhere. Over the years I'd stop in to various Kim's locations, an alumni of sorts, to say hi to whoever was still working there and hello to the new round of clerks. I would dig through the genres, see what was new and check on that copy of Two Lane Blacktop.

-----

Now with the heartbreaking news of the final location closing today, I felt it time to share my little slice of the legend that is Kim's. There are endless rumors about the various Kim's locations closing one by one. Was it the skyscraper high rent hikes or was it another case of the Internet slamming it's tsunami of instant gratification down on the slower, organic avenues? Perhaps the Feds were circling back to make another bust on suspected bootlegs. When Mondo Kim's closed the complete rental collection flew off to Sicily after a deal was struck to keep the collection available to all Kim's members. But how do we access that portal? What came of that deal? Could there be a grand dream allowing access of the complete collection online?

Kim's is a cherished experience. One that is shared by all who knew it. When I look inside my memory files I see Mondo's third floor, its physical layout of black wire racks crammed with boxes, precisely labeled - the big purple and yellow genre signs — the maze in all its curated splendor. A place and a time I sadly miss. My years spent at Kim's deeply influenced the person I am today and anyone that new Kim's surely has this personal sentiment as well. Kim's gave us a lot of things, including a neighborhood go-to, a cultural phenomenon, and a film school education for the taking. Thanks, Mr. Kim.

Kelly Sebastian is a former video store clerk at Mondo Kim's (@kel_sebastian)

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] A really bad sign outside Kim's Video & Music on First Avenue (31 comments)

Watch Richard Hell narrate a video on the New York music scene

All Saints and Dazed & Confused have teamed up to present a video on the NYC music scene… and narrated by punk rock pioneer and author Richard Hell.

Aside from Hell's thoughts, the 7-minute video features performances by 7th-grade rockers Unlocking The Truth, ethereal duo Starred and the indie folksters Widowspeak.

Here's a soundbite from Hell, who may be talking about the music scene … as well as life here in general:

"Things always change. And New York teaches you that. It's healthy to know that and to learn not to be sentimental or nostalgic because you can't stop it."

Check out the video...

Remembering Bingo Gazingo

My friend Karen Lillis passed along a link to me the other day about Bingo Gazingo, described by the Times in 1997 "as the near-toothless underground performance sensation." The author of such songs as "I Love You So Fucking Much I Can't Shit" died on New Year's Day from injuries that he suffered after getting struck by a cab. He was 85.

Life Just Bounces had a lovely tribute to the man:

You'd hesitate to call him a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination, but New York street/performance poet Bingo Gazingo's obscurity likely served as an aid to his singular imagination and oddball creativity.

With his often crude, spiky, agitated and hilarious rants about sex, dementia, and, especially, popular culture, Gazingo (born Murray Wachs in Queens in 1924) was a Monday night regular every week at New York's Bowery Poetry Club. He was struck by a taxi on his way to one of these very events, presumably on December 28th, and died on New Year's Day.

As Karen told me, "Bingo was wildly unique, and relentless at what he did."

The Times wrote about Bingo in Janaury 1997:

As a young man, he says, he worked as a logger for Broadcast Music Incorporated, or B.M.I., the music licensing agency, sitting over radio play lists with a blue pencil, identifying songs for which the company was entitled to royalties. And then, he says, he disappeared into the United States Postal Service, where he worked for decades sorting mail and loading trucks. "Doing that is like spending 20 years in one day," he says.

But through it all, he says, he never abandoned his dream of being a songwriter. He wrote ballads, novelties, show tunes, country-and-western songs, anything he thought would sell, and left them at stage doors at the Roxy, the Paramount and the Strand, in a time-honored tradition "to try to get my songs to the artists."

"But they never took one of my songs," he says, waving his hands at the memory. ''I thought I would be discovered or something, but it doesn't work that way."

I always intended to go see Bingo one of these Monday nights, but I never did. Wish I would have taken the time to meet this NYC original....

Here's Bingo in action at the Lakeside Lounge in 2006...



And at the 6 stop at Astor Place...

East of Bowery tonight at Sidewalk

[East Houston and Eldridge, 1987 © Ted Barron]

In 2008, writer Drew Hubner and photographer Ted Barron joined together to create East of Bowery, a collection of short stories capturing unvarnished moments from the neighborhood circa the 1980s.

In December, Sensitive Skin published a book version of the collaboration.

Tonight at Sidewalk, Barron and Hubner will present a multimedia version of East of Bowery featuring live music from Kurt (Pussy Galore, Boss Hog, Lapis Lazuli) Wolf. The show starts at 6:30. (No cover charge, but buy a drink or some food or something.) And if you can't make it tonight, they'll be doing it again on April 18 at the Cake Shop on Ludlow.

Here's an excerpt from Hubner's Next Stop Times Square post:

My last morning was like any other. I awakened with my mouth open, in the snow, with no shelter to speak of. Some of us called the empty lots behind the old matzo shop, at the corner of Norfolk and Rivington, the toxic waste dump. One never knew what or who might end up there, shiny needles, wine and other more intimate fluids were exchanged freely, we kept each other warm with song, spit and stories, of better, longer days and places where the sun filtered soft and lovely through fluttering leaves and left Indian paint patterns on our innocent faces.

Maybe there were fifty or so of us in the lot that night, none of our mothers when they walked us to kindergarten that first day and left us in the parking lot imagined their lovely child would ever end up in a place like this, even for one night. Everyone knows vacant lots are haunted by the men who once came home here where the walk was and hugged their pealing children tightly to their chests. It was almost an entire block, big enough for a baseball field. Some of us had fashioned temporary bivouac structures out of discards: cardboard boxes, found pieces of wood and orphaned plastic tarp.

------

Read an interview with Baron and Hubner at No Such Thing As Was.

Find East of Bowery here.

(Semi) Daily Pixel is Baron's photo site.

Find more information about the book at Sensitive Skin.

[International Bar & Grill, 119 St. Marks Place, 1986 © Ted Barron]

A Visit with Frank 'Frankie Christmas' Bianco

Text and photos by Stacie Joy

It’s hard not to get excited about Christmas when visiting Frank “Frankie Christmas” Bianco. 

The 52-year-old longtime East Village resident, who moved here from Brooklyn in 1980, welcomes me at the door of his fully decked out apartment on Avenue D, where he lives and works as the boutique building’s manager.

He’s painstakingly laid out more than 9,300 lights and six Christmas trees, ranging in height from 2 to more than 7 feet tall, and has a winter wonderland inside the one-bedroom space, complete with music, lights, pine scent, decals, garlands and ornaments.

Drinking a (perhaps) nontraditional beer, Frankie shows me around his space, pointing out special ornaments and his Christmas stockings, and his 30 snowflake tattoos, and custom Santa backpiece, which is truly amazing, in addition to flash pieces dedicated to the holiday elsewhere on his body.

We have a seat at his holiday-themed table to chat about Santa and Christmas and how his obsession with the holiday came to be.

 
When and how did your fascination with Christmas start?

My fascination with Christmas started with my mom who always made Christmas special. As a teenager I started helping my mom with decorations and then I always wanted to go bigger and better. 

Can you walk us through the process of decorating your apartment? When do you start/finish?

I start decorating in September, as it takes close to 100 hours to decorate. It’s more about laying things out and ordering what I need.

What’s Christmas Eve and Christmas Day like for you and your family?

My family is so spread out these days that I won’t know what I’m doing until a couple of days before Christmas. 

What do you friends, family and neighbors think of your decorations? 

Everyone loves it. My family and friends love it and they all know where to go to get into the Christmas spirit. Most of my neighbors stop by and bring their friends to see my apartment. 

Any other holidays pique your interest the way Christmas does?

I enjoy all the holidays throughout the year, but nothing even comes close to Christmas!

Have you ever decorated other locations — commercial, residential, or religious spaces?

I’ve never decorated anywhere else. 
 
Do you have any special plans for next Christmas?

I’m already thinking about how I’m gonna decorate next year…I want to do a tree with Swarovski crystal snowflakes.

The Church of Earthalujah starting 3-month residency at Theatre 80

Starting tomorrow night, The Church of Earthalujah begins a three-month-or-so residency at Theatre 80 on St. Mark's Place...

I asked Rev. Billy what attendees can expect.

The Church of Earthalujah at Theatre 80 is not a political rally in a theatre, not a comedy in an improv club, and not a church service with great music — but if isn't all three, you get your money back.

Find out more about what Rev. Billy is up to right here. Find him on Twitter here.

The Church of Earthalujah
Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir
Theatre 80, every Sunday through June, 7:30 PM, 80 St Marks Place
$10, no one turned away