The Deuce

                                             
I have been catching up on the HBO series "The Deuce" which is about Forty Second Street back in the day. My day.  The 1970's and the 1980's.

This series specialized in the sex trade. Whores, pimps, massage parlers and bars of Times Square. It is by the same guys who did the Wire and it is just about as great as that series. David Simon, George Pelecano's and Richard Price are the main writers and they do an unbelievable job.

I started working in Times Square in 1970 when I was about 12. I would go with my Dad to an accounting firm where he did taxes and I made copies or filed or ran off downstairs to get coffee or sandwiches. It was the way it was depicted in this series There were whores all over the place but they pretty much left you alone. Later as a teenager I used to go with my buddies to the movies on the Deuce. Bruce Lee. Kung Fu. Pam Grier and the Hammer. All of the flicks that used to play in the movie houses that you see on the marquees on this show. We would go to the Garden and catch a Knick game and then go to Thads steakhouse for a three dollar steak I think I ate many times in the diner they show with Leon the dude who went upstate for shooting a pimp. It was always full of pimps and hos. And cops. I know I had hung out at the bar that they called the "High Hat." It was based on a couple of joints from that time that we were real familiar with so to speak. I started going to hang out when I was about 15, I was big for my age and if you had money nobody carded you. The thing that they show about the Mafia is right on the money. In fact there was a half a wiseguy we knew from President Street that got us into a couple of after hours like the one they use as a main part of Season Two.

The scenes with the cops on the pad also brought back a lot of memories.. I remember having to hand over an envelope. Both to the cops and the wise guys who both wanted a taste. You know what? Things were better in those days. Sure you had to pay but you got service you know what I mean. Homeless guys couldn't set up shop outside your store. You could call the cops and they would take care of it. Or better yet you could call the crooks and they will really take care of it.

I have been nostalgic the past few days. I am rereading a bunch of Lawrence Blocks books about his alcoholic detective Matt Scudder. His life was a lot more like mine as opposed to Vinnie the Barman in this series. Still and all they remind me of how it was.

I have to say the whole thing is right on the money and very well done. Gritty and realistic. Highly recommended if you want to know what New York was really like back in the day.

(Enjoy the clip. I heard variations of this rap several times when a pimp was working on a girl in one of the gin mills like Smiths or the Blarney Stone. Shit you could hear while you were waiting on a light to cross the street. The scene is really well written and Method Man can really act. He's got some chops)

Who loves you baby.....New York that is...!

We had a very tough day yesterday. We were out all day at a doctors office and it was like being in steerage in the Titanic. Then coming home a tractor tailer burst into flames and it took an hour and a half to get somewhere that should have taken fifteen minutes. What a shit storm.

We were both exhausted. We like to sit in the living room after dinner to wind down after the days activity to catch a couple of shows on Hulu. Without cable we tend to binge watch stuff. Recently we have been watching this Brit comedy/drama Atlantis that is pretty funny. But it only had two seasons so we didn't want to burn it off too quick. Luckily one of our favorites shows started a new season on Amazon Prime. Bosch.

This is the series based on the famous novels by Michael Connelly about Harry Bosch an LA detective. It revels in all the cliches. He's a rebel. Troubled. Listens to jazz. Fights with his bosses. All the usual bullshit you have seen a million times before. But it is really well done for the genre and I really recommend it.

So we start watching it and right off the bat the wife falls asleep because we were exhausted. Which means I have to shut if off. I can't keep watching it and have her miss it. This has happened before and it never works out well. So I turn it off and start flicking around. What do I find. Kojack.

A place that is so infinitely unknowable

"Walking is the best way to see a city"

The link is a vide of two dudes walking every street of every New York borough and share their insights about the benefits of walking. Both of them are so taken by the city they walk it all day long.

There is more to their story at the New Yorker than the video allows.

Everything in the world is in New York City. And you challenge, "Everything?" And I go, "Yes, pretty much, even Cleopatra's needle." Nailed it. You can see how the city can cast its spell completely.

Comments on another site that linked the video are all positive, and that from a group that can be described in a word: cynical. They brag about all the walking they've done and how well they've known cities that way.