Favorite Eighties NYC

Jeff Koons

never used this term much but he was yuppie scum. everything negative about the 80s. he probably voted for Reagan as an art statement.

Spike Lee

another feared interviewee who turned out cooperative, thoughtful & funny. i got to hang on the set of do the right thing for a day, v v cool.

oh yeah I guess I saw the first of Bill Irwin & David Shiner's theatre shows in the '80s -- great.

John Lurie

never connected w/his "fake jazz" thing but he cut a mean profile. effortlessly stylish.

Robert Maplethorpe

no surprise that his art caused an uproar in my puritanical hometown Cincinnati. kind of symbolized my journey to NYC though i operated in a different milieu let's say. he was a visionary, truly.

Jay McInerny

read BLBC in a day and enjoyed it but felt shitty, depressed and vaguely guilty afterwards. just like snorting coke always made me feel.

David Salle

a big name friend or associate of better-known painters? i followed art in the 80s but can't recall his work at all.

Julian Schnabel

the "plates guy" turned out to be a better film director than painter. don't you think?

Martin Scorsese's After Hours

holds up well. not definitive or iconic but delivers some authentic period flavor and local color.

Rev. Al Sharpton

google his name and Jacksons Victory Tour. should've gone to prison for Tawana Brawley affair.

Donald Trump

ironically his father made a fortune building middle class housing projects in Queens

also became a Republican spy later xp

Robert Wilson

wildly imaginative & creative but always stops short of making sense to my earthbound tastes. genius, emperor's new clothes or both?

David Wojnarowicz

i was obsessed with these short stories he published in East Village Eye, Bomb and the Just Another Asshole anthology. first person monologues and overheard dialogues zeroing in on the lower west side gay underworld and lower east side drug scene. life in the belly of the beast. brilliant, scathing, scary REAL.

John Zorn

admire his tenacity but never connected w/his music, even in my noize daze. like Robt Wilson a lifer.

Is Arthur Russell too 70s?

sorry for any namedropping or humblebragging but this list was like This Is Your Life Age 23-31.

xp

no but Arthur Russell was really low-profile for most of his life. even people on the music scene weren't completely aware of the scope of his accomplishment.

one name left off is Frankie Crocker, WBLS-FM program director and the best radio DJ I've ever heard. He defined the sound of the city 1980-1984 or so.

Love these stories, M Coleman!

And Frankie Crocker and Keith Haring definitely left off in error.

cool thread, thanks for the stories m coleman. voted for wojnarowicz.

this is really great

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/fales/woj/dscref11.html

cool poll. m coleman, do more.

I saw Ed Koch once... by the payphones of a downtown Chicago hotel lobby about 8 in the morning in 1994. He looked somewhat discombobulated and the longer-than-usual feeling of deja vu I felt trying to recognize this familiar stranger was also a little disorienting. Finally, I remembered something Shirley MacLaine said in her psychic book about Ed Koch's long fingers and yeah, dude was totally Bela Lugosi in that regard.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Foreman ftw along with his right hand man James Urbaniak

always wanted to encounter DB on the street but no such luck.

This thread really brought the lovebug.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

thanks m coleman those were fun to read

No Ugly George, no cred