Love Story: Bait and Switch

I had no intention of watching Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. I thought it was going to be just another example of Ryan Murphy trash TV. It lured me in with its promise of ’90s nostalgia and the usual Murphy mixture of beautiful people in glamorous locations, but then turned the tables on me and became something that I was still thinking about hours after it ended. It became a deeply affecting drama that turned two people who had been mere tabloid fixtures into three-dimensional human beings I actually cared about. It became more than just a love story, but a meditation on the destructive nature of fame itself.

The series starts with the courtship of JFK Jr. and Bessette, a publicist at Calvin Klein, with Bessette playing hard to get, while JFK Jr. is still nominally dating actress Daryl Hannah.

This is the fun part of the series. This is the part that gave me something I never knew I wanted: ’90s nostalgia. A pre-cell phone era filled with glamorous restaurants (Odeon, Indochine, Bubby’s), great music (Madonna, Sade), and celebrities (Calvin Klein, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss).

By the end of the series, JFK Jr. and Bessette are struggling to keep their marriage together as Bessette, who has quit her publicist job due to all the media attention focused on her, feels trapped inside their apartment.

I don’t know what went on in the personal lives of JFK Jr. and Bessette, so I have to look at this as a work of fiction. (There’s a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode that says some people and events were fictionalized for dramatic purposes.) But as a work of fiction, it’s extremely well done.

The great writing (Connor Hines is the primary screenwriter) is helped by strong performances by Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, Jessica Harper as Ethel Kennedy, Constance Zimmer as Carolyn Bessette’s mother (Ann Messina Freeman), Naomi Watts as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein. Even Paul Anthony Kelly (JFK Jr.) and Sarah Pigeon (Carolyn Bessette), who, like the people they portray, are two of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, turn in affecting performances.

There’s been some controversy about the portrayal of Daryl Hannah (played by Dree Hemingway). She comes off as a bit of an airhead. (If you read Hannah’s well-written essay in The New York Times, you know that she’s much more than a ditzy movie star.) But even the fictionalized Hannah comes across as someone who tried to save JFK Jr. from the trap of his own fame.

Murphy is primarily known for guilty pleasures like The Beauty, Feud and American Horror Story. But this, along with The Boys in the Band and The Normal Heart, may be one of the best series he’s done.

I just hope it doesn’t spawn a JFK Jr. bus tour.

"All the Bands in the ’80s" FULL MOVIE

The End of a Revelatory Job

The view from my host stand

The most challenging (or, at least, different) job I’ve ever had just ended. I was a host at an outdoor restaurant in Bryant Park Winter Village. I worked in freezing temperatures, rain and snow, and now that it’s over, I’m sad. Not just for the loss of income and routine (although both those things are true), but something more ineffable. In many ways, it was a revelation. When you observe and deal with people for six to seven hours a day, you learn a few things.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

I dealt with people from all over the country and all over the world. Most of them were polite and grateful for the smallest act of kindness. (Fortunately, politics never came up. I did have one customer with a Trump hat, but I didn’t say anything.)

Here’s another thing I learned: I love kids. (And, it should go without saying, dogs.)

Whenever I saw a family with a baby, toddler or small child, my heart just exploded with paternal love. I thought, Is there any love greater than that of a parent for a child?

There’s a scene at the end of Marty Supreme when Timothée Chalemet’s character bursts into tears when he’s shown his newborn baby and I thought, Of course! The enormity of that moment must be overwhelming!

I’m not saying I’d actually want to raise a child to the age of 18. That must be the most difficult job in the world. But it must also be the most gratifying.

I also want to give a shout out to the deli owner who brightened my day every morning I ordered my coffee and bagel with a schmear. These are the kinds of people who make New York City great!

My original intention in writing this was to write a positive, uplifting piece after what I think we can all agree was one of the most horrendous years any of us have experienced, and I hope I’ve accomplished that. (I could write a whole other piece on the first year of Trump 2.0, but that would take an entire book!)

People have been railing against the commercialism of Christmas at least since Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and I have a bit about Christmas that I do in my stand-up act.

Yet this was the first year I actually experienced the Christmas spirit!

But don’t think I’ve gone soft. After all, they start advertising for Valentine’s Day on December 26.

"All the Bands in the ’80s" Screening

I’m going to be having a screening of my screenplay, “All the Bands in the ’80s” (the full movie) on Saturday, January 24, 2026 at 9pm at Pangea, 178 Second Avenue, New York City.

There’s no cover, but Pangea has a $20 minimum. Advance tickets are available here: https://cur8.com/23871/project/135388. (You can also use the QR code on the flyer.)

If you can’t attend the screening, I’ll be posting the full movie on my YouTube page (YouTube.com/paulhallasy1) the next day. (You can watch the scenes I’ve already filmed there now, but I’m not posting the last scene until after the screening.)

CBGB Festival

I’m more of a new waver than a punk rocker, even though I played at CBGB in 1983. So I debated whether or not it was worth paying $179 to go to the CBGB Festival at Under the K Bridge Park in Brooklyn (especially considering I once paid $3 to go to the actual CBGB on New Year’s Eve). I waited until the last minute and finally relented because I thought it might be my last chance to see Iggy Pop live.

You see, I was supposed to see Iggy Pop (and Siouxsie Sioux) two years ago at the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, but his set was cut short because of so-called “dangerous weather” (i.e., a thunderstorm that never actually materialized) and Siouxsie didn’t get to perform at all. (Yes, I’m still pissed off.) To their credit, they came back the next day to do a makeup show, but I couldn’t afford a $90 Uber round-trip to go back and, besides, I had plans to have lunch a friend of mine.

Another reason I decided to go is because Iggy Pop is a major inspiration for my screenplay, All the Bands in the ’80s.

So I entered the CGBG Festival at about the halfway point. The first act I saw was Johnny Marr, formerly of the Smiths. Much to my surprise (and delight) he tore through a number of Smiths songs: “Panic,” “This Charming Man,” “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want,” “How Soon Is Now?” and “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” as well as “Getting Away With It” by Electronic (the group formed by Marr and Bernard Sumner of New Order).

I was in ’80s heaven!

Next up was the Damned. I’m not as familiar with their music, except for the vaguely new wave-ish “Eloise.” I like Damned guitarist Captain Sensible’s song, “Wot,” but they didn’t play it. Oh, well…

Then came guitar virtuoso Jack White, another performer I’m not that familiar with apart from the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” which he closed with and whose riff the audience sang. White’s like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. He doesn’t sing as much as yelp, but boy can he play guitar!

Finally, it was time for the man, the myth, the legend: Iggy Pop!

After two years of waiting, I was a little bit taken aback. How can I put this delicately? Let’s just say, he’s a 78-year-old man performing shirtless. (I guess I wasn’t that close to the stage two years ago.) Nevertheless, his hair is fabulous and his voice is intact. And the songs! “Lust for Life,” “The Passenger,” “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Even if you haven’t followed his career closely, you know those songs!

But for me, the importance of Iggy Pop is more symbolic. The fact that he’s still rocking out is an inspiration.

As his character says in my screenplay, “Sometimes you just have to grab life by the balls.”

Now I just need Siouxsie to do a show in New York City.

Johnny Marr

Captain Sensible from The Damned

Jack White

Iggy Pop

Gay Republicans in D.C.

Oasis at MetLife Stadium

I went to see Oasis’s long-anticipated show at MetLife Stadium tonight. It was a sea of bucket hats and Adidas track jackets! I didn’t think they were that popular in America and yet they sold out two nights!

For the uninitiated, Oasis is a British band that was popular in the ’90s, consisting mainly of two brothers, Liam and Noel Gallagher, who, apart from their music, are most famous for fighting with each other. The band broke up in 2009, so it was major news when they announced they’d be touring this year.

To be honest, I’m not a big Oasis fan. But somehow, songs like “Champagne Supernova” and “Wonderwall” were ubiquitous in the ’90s. I heard them on DARE.fm (formerly WLIR/WDRE), but where did everyone else hear them? (I vaguely recall seeing their videos on MTV.)

It was instructive seeing them live, though, to see how Liam and Noel traded vocals and how Noel backed Liam up on vocals and guitar. (Liam doesn’t play any instruments, unless you count maracas and tambourine.)

I kind of preferred Noel’s vocals. Liam seems to perform all his vocals in the key of sneer. He’s also not the most exciting performer. He usually plants himself behind his mic stand with his hands behind his back and just stands there. It’s not exactly a Madonna concert, where every move is choreographed. (The video projections helped immensely.)

It was basically a greatest hits show that came in at about two hours. Other highlights included “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Live Forever” (although they didn’t play my favorite song of theirs, “I’m Outta Time”).

But here’s the thing about stadium concerts: the audience has become the star. It’s bad enough they now watch entire concerts through their cell phones. They now sing louder than the band onstage (and often out of tune).

The most charitable thing I can say about such concerts is that they show how music can bring us together.

In these troubled times, you have to take your pleasure where you can.

Liam

Liam

Liam

Noel

Noel