Some Wives in New York?
New York just is not the city it once was. I realized that again courtesy of my TV. I was flipping through the dial and came across Bravo’s new reality show, The Real Housewives of New York City. The show basically tracks the real life adventures of several housewives who reside in Manhattan. I caught the first few minutes and had enough.
Basically in those few moments it showed huge closets full of clothes, references to the Hamptons, and middle aged women obsessed with money, fame and money. If this is New York, then I have had enough! There has to be something more there. No doubt there is, but this is the image out there today-forty year old women worrying about which designer miniskirt is right for going out tonight. This is who inhabits the city today, or so we are told.
In the seventies we had two very different New Yorks. There was the village which was the capital for punk rock, with a range of acts coming out of that scene. The easy ones include the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, and there are more. Meanwhile, uptown you had Studio 54. And lets not forget John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, which took place in Brooklyn.
In the eighties we had rap start up in the Bronx. Brooklyn in the 80’s had the rock capitol-L’amours! You look at these and wonder, wow, we go from cultural dynamo to watching crap involving middle ages women act like teenagers, with no real appreciation of the life they live-not a clue!
And I am not just talking about music and culture. New York is and always has been about greed. There were the Carnegies, the JP Morgans, and the Rockefellers. Even today you have Michael Bloomberg. These are the possibilities of wealth. Even on the darkside you have the John Gotti and Lucky Luciano. These are people who know greed and did something with it. They, like the rockers and coke heads above, made NYC. And while we are talking about struggle and toil,lets not forget that part of New York which is routinely glossed over-the homeless-those who really struggle and do not succeed or even survive.
What can I say, New York has changed. The good news it will change again. As one poet by the name of Phil Lynott told us back in 1980:
“I’m just talking to you over these waves
Not just about another time and another place
And before we knew it
The old wave was gone and controlled” (Talk in 79 from his Solo in Soho album)
And do not forget, the Lizzyheads are playing at the Trash Bar on Sunday, March 16th! They will be well worth skipping Law & Order Criminal Intent on Bravo. . .
Bob Schaffer
