A Letter to the Editor of The New York Times Regarding the Trump Assassination Attempt

To the Editor:

Political violence has no place in this country and I’m glad former president Trump wasn’t seriously injured by this heinous assassination attempt. But that should not prevent us from having an honest discussion about several things.

Just days before this happened, the president of the Heritage Foundation, authors of Project 2025, said we were “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”: an implicit call to violence.

One party, the Republican Party, has consistently blocked every attempt to stem the epidemic of gun violence in his country.

It was Trump’s supporters who attacked the Capitol and beat police officers.

It was Trump himself who said he could “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it,” who said there were “fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville, who encouraged his supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies and has consistently used violent rhetoric in his campaign, who wanted to call in the military against Black Lives Matter protesters, who said that former Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark Milley should be executed and former Congresswoman Liz Cheney should be tried for treason.

Let’s be honest about which party—the Republican Party—has consistently endorsed violence as a legitimate means of resolving conflicts.

I’m not condoning what happened. I’m just saying that, given Trump’s and the Republican Party’s history of violent rhetoric, it’s not surprising.

Paul Hallasy

New York, NY

The Problem with Biden/Democrats and Trump/Republicans

It’s been a difficult week for me.

In the week since the presidential debate and Biden’s subsequent pushback, I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not Biden should drop out of the race.

The New York Times editorial board and several of their columnists (Thomas L. Friedman, Paul Krugman, Michelle Goldberg) have come out in favor of Biden dropping out. So have several senators and congressmen (including New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler). The Times isn’t a radical, left-wing newspaper and these senators and congressmen aren’t radical, left-wing politicians.

All are in agreement that Biden has done a great job as president and is a decent, respectable man.

That’s not the issue.

The issue is who can beat Trump. And Biden has been struggling in the polls since the get-go and it’s only gotten worse since the debate.

Of course, no Republican has said anything about Trump’s lies, his own erratic behavior, his multiple indictments (and convictions) or the fact that he tried to overturn a free and fair election. There’s absolutely a double standard here.

But in the television age, you need to be able to speak on television. It doesn’t matter how smart or experienced you are.

I’m glad Biden has somewhat overcome his childhood stutter, but that’s not good enough.

My takeaway from the debate is that lies told forcefully are more effective than the truth told weakly.

And I hate to admit it, but Trump is a creature of television, a reality TV star with a sixth sense for going after people’s weaknesses.

Personally, I think Gavin Newsom would wipe the floor with Trump. He’s extremely articulate and 20 years younger. And I would pick Gretchen Whitmer, who would also wipe the floor with Trump, as his running mate.

I know it’s late in the game. I’m not sure what Democrats should do.

I just don’t want us to make the same mistake with Biden as we did in 2016 when Democrats anointed Hillary Clinton, who was further ahead in the polls than Biden is now but had similar issues.

And I’m feeling an awful sense of deja vu.

Happy Fourth of July! It May Be Our Last!

I just went to Target to buy a new fitted sheet, walking through TriBeCa to their Greenwich Street store. Everyone who can afford to has left town. Even the few “affordable” options have jacked up their prices for the holiday so that only the most wealthy can be spared. The only people I see are tourists and the poor people (like me) who couldn’t afford to get the hell out of Dodge. There are hustlers selling counterfeit goods on Canal Street. Walking down West Broadway, all the restaurants and high-end clothing and furniture stores are closed. Even they don’t want to deal with the tourists. Walking back home, the entire West Side along the Hudson River is closed off for the Fourth of July fireworks. I cut through SoHo and there are throngs of tourists clogging the sidewalks amidst a few hardy restaurants sporting American flags. Someone has blocked off the western end of Spring Street and is cooking on a barbecue grill in the middle of the street while a fire hydrant sprays away.

If I had to pick a movie to describe my mood right now, it would be either Nashville or Taxi Driver, those two great films from the ’70s that predicted the apocalypse because they thought that we’d never seen (or would see) anything as bad as Nixon and Watergate.

Little did they know.

I’ve been in a bad mood since the presidential debate (well, actually, since Gay Pride Day, which I completely ignored this year, its forced pressure to be happy being second only to New Year’s Eve). If you saw, or even heard of, the debate, you what I’m talking about. Watching Biden struggle through the first ten minutes (not to mention the remaining 80) was painful, like a punch to the stomach, especially considering who he was up against.

You know who I’m talking about.

What can I say about Donald Trump that hasn’t been said, except to say that I hate this man with a passion. He’s a liar and a bully, a pathological narcissist, and his lies during the debate went unchecked by the moderators. It wasn't until days after the debate that I was reminded that Biden had just flown across nine time zones to attend a fundraiser in Los Angeles and then three time zones back to Washington before the debate. No wonder he was out of it!

Even so, I would vote for Biden’s dead corpse before I voted for that sleazy opportunist and grifter, Trump.

It’s hard not to feel like this country is in full meltdown, what with Project 2025 and what Trump has already told us he would do if re-elected. (Hint: it rhymes with “retribution.”) And then the pièce de résistance came on Monday, when the Supreme Court (on the last day of their term, of course) basically upended the Constitution and told Trump (OK, any president, but let’s be real: Trump) that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted as long as it was within his “official duties” as president.

Remember when Trump said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it? Well now, thanks to the Supreme Court, he can!

So forgive me if I won’t be attending the fireworks (not that I ever gave a shit about them). But the overwhelming hypocrisy of celebrating how great we are seems especially hypocritical this year.

Happy fucking Fourth!

Where Have All the Old Punks Gone?

Last night, my friend Lisa had an extra ticket to see Chris Spedding at Bowery Electric. I’m not particularly a fan, but I feel like when something like this falls into your lap, you have to say yes unless you have a good reason not to. (And the fact that I’d normally be watching TV on a Wednesday night was not a good reason not to.)

Chris Spedding isn’t exactly famous, but he’s a well-respected “side man,” a musician’s musician who played with Roxy Music at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Previously, I’d only seen Spedding play with Robert Gordon (another show that Lisa invited me to). And before that, my only memory of him was of seeing his face on an album cover 40 years ago, when he looked quite stunning.

But for me the real show was the audience.

Before I even walked in the door, I spotted an old woman entering the club wearing a CBGB T-shirt. If ever someone could say, “I have T-shirts older than you,” it was her.

Then I entered and the real show began. (I wish I’d taken pictures, but I don’t think that would’ve been cool, even though I saw other people taking pictures.)

Where do I begin?

I’ve never seen so much black, leather and leopard print in one place. But something was amiss. At first, it was like entering a time warp. It was like being 19 again and entering the Mudd Club or Berlin.

Except everyone was 40 years older!

My friend Lisa and I seemed to be the youngest people there. (OK, not everyone was old. The bartender, who was absolutely adorable, seemed to be about 19 and much too healthy to be working there.)

Someone actually showed up with a cane! I was half-expecting someone to show up with a walker!

I saw one guy who looked like Alan Vega, the lead singer of Suicide. (Yes, that was the name of an actual punk band. It was the ’80s, what can I say?) Except that Alan Vega is dead.

Another guy in a leather top hat could have been the winner of the Alice Cooper Look-alike Contest.

There were two aging punk women in frizzy hair and black eyeliner screeching at each other. One of them had brought an album with her. (You know, those round vinyl things we used to play music on?)

I just had three questions: 1. Where did all these people come from? 2. What did they all do for a living? and 3. How can they afford to live here?

You used to see people like this in the East Village all the time. But that was 40 years ago. Were these the same people 40 years later? Even if they were rent-stabilized (like me), how had they survived? Did they now live in the far reaches of the Bronx or Staten Island and take the subway in to see Chris Spedding?

I thought of East Village fixtures like John Spacely (a.k.a. “Gringo”), whose eyepatched likeness used to hover above St. Mark’s Place. Or Jimmy Webb, the eternally youthful sales clerk at Trash & Vaudeville.

I had to remind myself that the Sex Pistols first appeared on the scene in 1977. That was 47 years ago! So even if these people were 16 back then, they’d be 63 now.

That’s almost (gasp) my age!

I wasn’t sure whether I should be inspired or depressed. Was it hopeful that Chris Spedding was 79 and still rocking out or pathetic?

Was this my future? (Or, even worse, my present?)

After the show, I conducted a little mini-tour of my old haunts for Lisa. “This is where CBGB used to be. I’ve actually played there.” (It’s now a John Varvatos boutique.) “This is where The Great Gildersleeves used to be.” (It was torn down and replaced by an NYU dorm.) “This is where I ‘met’ (in the biblical sense) the Ramones’ art director, Arturo Vega, and where the Ramones used to crash.” (There’s probably some rich stockbroker living there now.)

I eventually made it home on time to catch the second rerun of Seinfeld. After all, some of us old punks actually have to work for a living.

Why I Can No Longer Watch Jon Stewart

I had high hopes for Jon Stewart, really I did. I even added Comedy Central to my Spectrum channel lineup specifically so I could watch The Daily Show.

I didn’t appreciate the way Stewart was unceremoniously dropped from Comedy Central along with his compatriot, Stephen Colbert. Colbert was kicked upstairs to Comedy Central’s older sibling, CBS, where he continued to thrive, while Stewart was left to wander the streaming wilderness.

But Stewart and Colbert were built for a time when politics were, for lack of a better word, normal. The stakes in this election are about nothing less than democracy vs. autocracy. Given that choice, everything else pales in comparison.

This is not the time for cutesy old man jokes and bothsidesism. What we need is the full-throated condemnation of someone like Lawrence O’Donnell (The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell) and the analysis of his legal experts (and frequent guests) Laurence Tribe, Andrew Weissmann and Neal Katyal.

As it happens, Stewart debuted a few days after Donald Trump made a speech in which he said he would encourage Putin to attack our NATO allies if they didn’t “pay up.” (Never mind the fact that NATO countries don’t actually pay America anything.)

In normal times (i.e., pre-Trump), Republicans would have gone ballistic over a comment like this. Instead, there was crickets, if not outright support.

And what was the news media covering when this happened?

There were tons of stories about President Biden’s age, brought on by special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s retaining of classified documents (which Biden, unlike Trump, promptly returned), in which Hur inserted his personal opinion about Biden’s mental acuity. There hasn’t been such an egregious case of editorializing since Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, preemptively cleared him before Robert Mueller’s report on the investigation into “Russiagate” was released!

On the same night that Stewart’s show aired, O’Donnell, on his show, used the example of Franklin Roosevelt, who was one of the most accomplished presidents in history despite being confined to a wheelchair,¹ to make the point that it’s not one’s appearance that matters, but how qualified they are at making decisions.

The New York Times, which published more stories over the weekend about Biden’s age than about Trump’s NATO comments, tried to atone for their lopsided coverage by publishing an essay by a neuroscientist, explaining why we shouldn’t be concerned about Biden’s memory lapses.²

Paul Krugman expressed a similar opinion in his column.³

Meanwhile, Trump makes gaffes on a daily basis and the media doesn’t even bother to cover it.

So, forgive me, if I won’t be watching The Daily Show’s election coverage for the next nine months. I’m afraid it would only make me more infuriated than I already am. I think the nostalgic comfort of Seinfeld might be more what I need in order to be able to go to sleep.

1 https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-biden-on-his-worst-day-is-better-than-trump-on-his-best-day-204101189938

2 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/opinion/neuroscientist-on-biden-age-memory.html

3 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/opinion/biden-trump-america.html

The Beatles: Get Back

Just when I thought I couldn’t be in any more awe of the Beatles, along comes The Beatles: Get Back, Peter Jackson’s three-part, uncut version of their 1969 documentary, Let It Be, to blow the top of my head off.

I’m old enough to have seen Let It Be when it was originally released (and buy the album). I don’t remember too much about the movie but I think it’s mostly remembered as an account of the Beatles’ breakup, most of which was blamed on John Lennon’s girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, Yoko Ono.

What I see when I watch the uncut version, however, is four men who clearly love each other, particularly John and Paul. Their relationship is so close, it’s like they’re two halves of the same person. Most of the film is taken up with the four of them laughing and joking.

Yes, it’s true that George Harrison walks out of the recording session and threatens to leave the band at the end of the first part. That seems to be the real reason for the Beatles’ breakup (among other things): the fact that George felt that his opinion wasn’t valued and not enough of his songs were being included on Beatles albums.

But the real revelation of this film is the sheer depth and breadth of the Beatles’ talent. During the course of Get Back, you hear songs that not only are not included on Let It Be. (Some of them wound up on Abbey Road, some of them wound up on Hey Jude, some of them wound up on Paul and Linda McCartney’s Ram and some of them wound of on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.) Some of them are not on any of the Beatles’ studio albums (and I had all their albums from Rubber Soul onward)! Some of them are not even on their Anthology collections! I’m hearing Beatles songs I’ve never heard before!

Beyond that, their knowledge of the pop music that preceded them—people like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, as well as lesser-known artists—is truly encyclopedic, as is evidenced by the number of these songs that are in their repertoire.

But the thing that will truly blow your mind is watching songs you know like the back of your hand come to life.

They’ll start out with maybe just a bit of the melody and no lyrics and they might just hum along or sing nonsense words. Then they’ll gradually start adding lyrics until the whole thing takes shape. And finally, at the end of the film, you see them performing some of the finished songs. It’s nothing short of miraculous!

Oh yeah, and one more thing: Paul was absolutely beautiful.

All of Us Strangers

All of Us Strangers is the most disturbing movie I’ve seen since The Deer Hunter in 1979. (That movie left me crying in my childhood bedroom afterwards. I remember my brother coming into my bedroom to ask me what was wrong.) When I got home, I posted on Facebook that, “while I thought it was extremely well done (particularly the performances), it's not a movie I'd recommend if you're feeling sad or depressed or don't have access to a therapist immediately afterwards. I also had to check Wikipedia when I got home to find out wtf happened in it and I'm still a little confused.”

I’m slightly less confused now but after a somewhat sleepless New Year’s Eve, I’m still disturbed by it, but I can’t discuss it without revealing some plot points, so here goes.

SPOILERS AHEAD

All of Us Strangers is about two gay men, Adam and Harry, who live in a mostly empty apartment tower on the outskirts of London (they seem to be the only two tenants in the building) who meet and start a relationship. During the course of the movie, it’s revealed that Adam’s two parents died in a car crash when he was 12. It’s a little confusing, though, because throughout the film, Adam visits his childhood home, where his parents are still alive and basically the same age he is. At the end of the movie, according to Wikipedia, Adam returns to his apartment building and “goes to see Harry but finds him long dead in his flat's bedroom, with the same bottle he was drinking from on the night they met empty in his hand." So does that mean their entire relationship was a fantasy?

One of the most depressing things about the movie is that it uses the song “The Power of Love” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (quite powerfully, I might add) and I had to remind myself that that song is 40 years old.

So where do I begin?

On the one hand, this is a powerful, thought-provoking film with great performances by the entire cast (especially Andrew Scott as Adam, but also Paul Mescal as Harry and Jamie Bell and Claire Foy as Adam’s parents), but you might feel suicidal afterwards. I think it speaks to the alienation of living in a large city like London and also deals quite effectively with the issue of coming out to one’s parents and wanting to be accepted by them.

I think the movie’s message is that love transcends death (or “the power of love,” like the song used in the movie), but, damn, at what cost?