Those Were The Days

so I'm taping this at eleven o'clock. Mike lea back in two hours, so you'll get this sometime in the afternoon. I just when my back goes out, and you do, guys don't have a bad back, but it's been good for a long time. But I was pulling something out of the trunk, a box out of the trunk, and of course I tweeked it doing that, and I was like, ah, damn it, all right, it'll be okay. I'll just take some mbipro fin lay on the heating pad. Let's give

you right. And then later that day, what was the Actually.

very good. I liked him that I forgot about him and I liked him again and now I realize I like him again. Good series. I liked it a lot. But of course these series just the way that the industry is now. They're setting the women, the girls and women they're putting in these movies. I understand they need to have more visible roles. And what have you. But do they always have to be the goddamn hero in

the in the movies and the series they're in. They always have to be the ones who solve the case, save the day, do better than the man did in the end, save his life, then find the killers, killed theb It's the same format every fucking show I watch. I'm five minutes in, I already know, Oh, that's going to recruit. She's gonna get a lot of attention, a lot of experience on the job. He's gonna be old curmudgeon, but she'll soften him up. They'll meet in the middle,

and she'll save his life. It happens every fucking time. But I still liked it. I like Intrusion with Frieda Pinto. Oh God. First of all, just about a house that keeps getting broken into a beautiful home. But I'll tell you this movie nothing else. If you think Freeda Pinto was as beautiful as I do, then watch this movie because this director is in love with her. There's about twenty shots of her just focused on her face, and we get it. She's beautiful. Good movie, crumb chaser, small movie,

independent movie, horror film. It got me. It wasn't scary. It was more like, holy shit, like you get angry for these people what they're going through. I'm not even gonna explain the plot. It's crazy. But another pretty girl in that Spencer cop. I want to saw it. Two Mark Wahlberg movies almost a third because I don't he plays the same guy in every movie. He's always the cop or the guy coming back to be the cop again. He's gonna save the day. He actually real soft around

the ladies, hard around the guys. I don't know.

comedic timing instant family. Another one outlaws Under the Shadow of the Moon The Lifeless, which was based on a best selling book that was cute, made me cry of it at the end. California King another independent movie. Not that great, but good people to look at. But what I'm learning watching all these movies, you end up forgetting the plot when you've been something. I watch four or

five movies in the weekend. You almost thought that they'd blend into each other, especially with some of the same actresses and actors are in each movie. Then you're really lost. But I'm learning that. Okay, Sophia Carson, there's all these young ange news now that are coming up that I think are in every friggin Netflix movie. Sophia Carson in The Lifeless is adorable, very pretty chick, Like I said

Freida Pinto, Victoria Justice former Nickelodeon. I think Starr now in every movie she smokes and has a tits out, which is fine with me. I love her and Bellaforne for the same reasons. Belle Thorng's got a movie I called Saint Clair, which I'm dying to see. But guess what Shit had did I know? I didn't tell you. On Friday? Shit had lost his bank, cark his ATM car, going back and forth to the motel with the ECAD that should have been out. Did I tell you that? Oh? Yeah,

we lost AC I think I tell you that. And I had to get into an I take three days. I said to the guy, there's one hundred dollars and if you get it tomorrow, I need. I can't live with his house. I'm at a motel. He got it the next day, but I'm shuttling back and forth to the motel for two days. And I had to fucking cart on my desk. I didn't see it. I panicked. I went to the bank and canceled it. I'm shy. I must have forgot this somewhere. I come back to

the hotel. It's right there. But they couldn't reverse it. It was just hidden in the spot you wouldn't have seen anyhow. Was like in my bank card. I couldn't watch certain movies because they certain Amazon, Prime and Apple are tagged to this bank card. Long story whatever. So I always saw some movies. But to all these young women, Isabelle March said Nina Dobrev Isabelle Schlesinger, who was great in uh one of the I think it's Spencer. She does

a real Boston chick who's in love with Wahlburg. Would hate himt the same time. That was a fun performance and she's sexy rose Byrne. I've seen a million times beautiful, funny, great comedic timing, but all those films and there wasn't really one big leading late rose Byrn is like the biggest and all those films, you know, every marriage on screen, Uh, the man is an asshole. The wife or girlfriend calls

all the shots, even the secondary characters. You know, it's bad enough that Wahlburg's wife was giving him a ship, but then Tom Segura is playing the brother in law who's given the sisters shit. I mean no, she's given him shit because he's a pussy too. It's just they're all even the father, the thanksgiving, the table, the spelling shit, candle burns the house because it's just like Kenby's. Can a woman make a fucking mistake once in a while,

always putting their husbands down? It's ridiculous. How many times can I hear a woman in the movie say just please keep me now shut, let me do all the talking. Hey you no more talking, You're done, and the man just takes it and slumps in his seat. I want to see a man once take a woman to the size. Listen, do me a favorite. You embarrassed me again in front of my friends, I'll fucking leave your assy. You'll never see me again. Your fucking head will spin. You Act

like a fucking lady, Act like a wife. Let's get it into you. You got into me, like at the fuck out of me. That has to happen once. The last time I saw something like that, and this is obviously overboard, but it was like, oh my god, he just said that. Michael Chicklis and The Shield years ago.

I loved that movie. That show. There was a female cop who kept like thinking she was better on the job of some shit, and she interjected him too many times, and she came into the room one point and he actually said, I don't want to hear what you have to say. The next time I want your opinion, it'll be about making me a sandwich or giving me a blow drop that my draw was wide open. Okay, we can't go back to that, but we can get away

from the man always being the adult police. Ever happens, and it's listen, it's gonna stay this way for long, maybe forever, maybe when the Muslims take over in America. Let's say, one hundred years from now and fundamentally changed this country into the land of mosques and Sharia law, like they're doing in England and Germany and France, people being killed with machetes. I mean, these fucking these countries. Oh God, you're just let in the enemy. You just

let the enemy in. And we did the same thing with Biden. Same shit. Now we're finding out through Hunter Biden. His father was on ambient during those debates. Not one of the medications he's prescribed, but he took ambient because he's eighty one years old flying around the country. Son said, And they gave a man being to sleep, he's an old man. That's not true. It's not true. Who's going

ambient this whole presidency? Stop it. But yeah, the Muslims, they're gonna take My buddy and I, kenn Eve were talking. He showed me this big video of what's happened to England. I've seen a million times, all these Sharia law courts and just Muhamad the number one baby name, All these mayors of different cities in England are Muslim. All these men, what do you think is gonna happen? Meanwhile, sixty to seventy percent of Muslim women don't work and are getting benefits.

Most men don't either and live on benefits. All kids live benefits in schools and what have you. In Europe, and most families have five to eight children. Gets over, it's over. So when I said one hundred years, my buddy Kenny said, you're being kind. You're being way too kind. It's gonna take less than that. So I think our kids will be fine. But our kids' kids are gonna have a real fucking issue one day. Just shut them,

do you. Rocott just got back. Funny. You take these kids out now and they come on the next day, they sleep over. I never worry. I guess my father didn't. My mother you would worry when I left the house for the night, But my father never said he lost sleep. I sleep. I just trust them anyhow. Uh yeah, the pendulum, I mean, look, the pendulum shouldn't swing all that way with the way Muslims treat women. Fucking Flintstone era, Flintstone Age, and that's probably the only I'll tell you right now.

The Flintstones is probably the only show Muslims think was a good show in America. But when they take this country over. Those of you who are left, you're gonna scream and cry and wish on your life that Archie Bunker wasn't so bad after all. You're gonna wish he was back. But everything's going to shit. Everything's going to shit. I gotta see. I very rarely watch network TV. I don't even know why I haven't. All I watch is streamers and Fox. But uh, I gotta watch the w NBA.

Woman's a game. They came out to, all the women came out to with T shirts that said, pay us what you owe us. Listen. There are definitely several w NBA players who light up the league and they're the main reason why anyone watches this shit show. Obviously, Caitlin Clark is number one. Angel Reese for all the shots she misses and all the me bounds she gets in her big mouth, she's staying in the public's eye as well. There's there's two handfuls of others who are great at

what they do. The rest of them get the fuck out of here. Product is shit. The league is a joke. Most boys varsity high school teams could destroy any w NBA team wouldn't even be close. And then during the WNBA All Star Game. You have three female broadcasters at the game, which is interesting because on every fucking men's sports telecast baseball, basketball, football, we have to have a woman in the booth or a woman courtside calling the

action or being the expert analys analyst. So some idiot female figure of the name says in the halftime break about the two teams paraphrasing, but this is exactly what she said to a degree. Someone's got to step up tonight because so far this games looks like a girls' night out in can Kun no d no d as in no dick, because there's no men. When an all girls trip to can Kun and there's no defense in

the game, it's just okay, cute, cute. But if a male comic or broadcast has said that, they'd be canceled, called upon to apologize to old women after the next commercial break, not even next to the next day. But they just laughed it off. The worst things somebody said was even the doghouse, and they laughed. They giggled one off the air. Double standard. Everything's changing fast. I think when I lay on my back for two days, I get at what's the word wistful, nostalgic. I see so

many articles about things being done in our world. Our old world is just God. The world we grew up in is coming down so fast, and this New America is being put up so quickly. And it's happening a lot in New York City. It's even happening a lot in LA. There's so many landmark restaurants and nightclubs and properties that are gone the last five years or so that Alison Martinez was great at writing about because she

knows it all. She's the historian, and it's just a sin and you know, her places means so much to her when she was a kid growing up as mine doing New York. When I was a kid growing up, but I lived in New York City's meatpacking District, way downtown West Village, all the way by the Hudson River. There was this iconic diner that was featured in the movie Taxi Driver, which I loved, obviously DeNiro and Scorsese,

and it was a famous diner. There was something that just grabbed me about the meat district, the fact that literally it's called the meat district because there are butchers there butchering animals and you know that meat then goes on trucks and gets transport of the different you know, restaurants and supermarkets, what have you. And these guys, these butchers would be in the streets with bloody white long aprons on trucks would come out and you'd see these

carcasses come out and they'd hang them on hooks. It feels like nineteen twelve, right, this is this is nineteen ninety seven, and they're hanging them on hooks and pushing them. They go into the building. This is like from two am to six am. That's when these people work. And it's literally blood in the streets and they get the houses out and wash the streets and you can see the blood go down to the sewer grats. It's like archaic, but you know what, can I tell you? The public

wants what they want red meat. And there was this diner, a couple of diners in the West Village in the Meat district that I was in love with because of what they meant to me. And this little diner which ended up being around the corner from my apartment, Hector's Cafe and Diner. Seventy six years it was there, and it was underneath the old railroad track which is now called a high line, and very expensive big hotels, big boutiques,

and restaurants out the ass. It's closing the close a couple of days ago because the local butchers who supply this place struck a deal to pack up so New York City can build affordable housing and public space on that block. Affordable housing, like I told you when I lived there in my loft, caused twenty seven to fifty

a month. Okay, I met a guy who has my loft years later in New York City on the street because he got my mail and he recognized me, and he's paid I think like forty eight hundred or something like that. It went up. It's skyrocketed. He worked on Wall Street. It meant nothing to him and his girlfriend living him, she worked on Wall Street too. They're like, it's pretty good. It's not that bet, not that bet. It's a fucking loft. It's three bowling lanes wide. Anyhow.

But the old man there, Nick capalonis of course in Old Creek, but they weren't making money anymore. But back of the day when I used to go there at that crazy hour because I'd come home from my nightly rounds. You know, they knew everybody's first name, last name, who had kids, what the parents were, where they went to school, you know. And there were people who'll be like, you know, sixties seventies and say, my grandfather broughab me here. So it was just a great place. It didn't look great,

but you knew it was there. It was tucked away. It was part of that old New York that when I was a kid, you had to drive around and walk around to find walk around actually, because there's so many little nooks and crannies in the city, especially downtown. But yeah, they're looking to make a sixty six thousand square foot project with mixed income housing, public open space, make the Whitney Museum bigger. Oh, come on, ridiculous. It's so sad. So many places are gone. But scrosec used

that place in Taxi Driver. It's been used in Law and Order many times. Oh god, it's part of the New York spirit. You know. It's just sad when these places go. It's a places like that are a dying breed. How many times can you eat at a bagel boss or a fucking you know, name your five guys or name your breakfast joint. That's a lunch and dinner joint. But you know what I mean. Do we have to all go to a big Saphora. Can we have little shops? The problem is they can't afford the real estate. But

the meat district was my home base. You know a friend of mine, a friend of mine owned a chicken plant over there, and you don't hear about that anymore. El Farrow at one point was the oldest Spanish restaurant in New York City on Jaine Street, tucked away you walk down steps to get inside of it. Summer spot. Oh what's the greatest shrimp? I hel shrimp and garlic sauce and these old metal dented pots or pewter pots. Beautiful. Took the kids there every date. There Rosalie and Jack

a hundred times. Maybe my first wife and I found that place. Manny and Pepe were the owners. Tight loud, skinny skinny bar at the walk sideways to get past it to go to the dining room. The best potent red saying grea in the world. Then when I moved into my building, I remember looking out the windows, I could see the twin towers and one it's so cool. Look at the other look to my left and I see I said, is that Florent Diner? Yeah, it is. The real estate guy said, Florent Diner. FloraNT was a

twenty four hour French American diner. It was a New York institution. It's gone now. It's gone, very diverse clientele as you can imagine LGBT crowd, of course, because the guy who founded it, FloraNT Morley, was gay and the dining became a big spot, especially during the AIDS epidemic. I wasn't going there at that point. But these places are used to paying six thousand a month rent and they get shot up to thirty thousand a month when rent. When some big shot buys the whole building, it makes

unavailable to live. Same should happen to the famous bar Hogs and Heifers, which the movie Kyrie Ugly is based on. The owner told me when I called, because I was still working, what happened? They arja closing, so some rich arab bought the entire building that her bar was in and the rent went sky high. She told me that it's the rent went up so much that in order to keep the joint, she'd have to raise the cost of long neck beers from five bucks to thirty seven

to fifty each. Can't do that. And the other day I got word from a patron Frank Jamond was on Long Island. He's my guy out there on Long Island, and he remembered hearing me talk about one of the greatest restaurants ever, Laparma in a little town called Williston Park. Beautiful neighborhood, big, beautiful, bustling restaurant where even a reservation there was always forty five to sixty seventy minute wait for your table, but it was just worth it. Everybody

there wanted to be there so bad. That's shrimp. I always say shrimp s It's my favorite. Everything was so great. We never had food like this. Horsefield went there. I was desperate to take a girl there right. I wanted to take a girl there so bad. I was divorced. And one day, being my buddy Johnny Glente, who I wrote with at Newsday, we're driving and we were going to put a book together about all people, the different jobs they have, the weird the night jobs, the weird jobs.

Who cleans the phone bolts at night? Who works at a lighthouse, who's a night watchman and you know, everything and everything at night after hours kind of shit. We're interviewing people for this book, and we're going to the highway in New York City one night and pull up to her light and there's a girl to my left driving. It's being John. I'm driving my car, she's driving hers, who's an absolute stunner. And she looked to her right. I looked at my left. We caught each other. She

flipped her hairs mild and the light turned green. I said, oh my god, I gotta get that. He goes, calm down, Pope. I said, no, no, no, I gotta get this girl. You just got out of a marriage. I know. I gotta get this girl. Next light, boom, flirting. Hey, Hey, what are you doing? Hey? You know, just guys talk. And she's smiling, laughing. The next light, we'll both stop. She puts up her hands. She shows me at ring uh. I said, come on, one more fling, one more fling.

Come on, when are you getting married? Now? We're talking and each light and she's liking it. Getting married in September. This is like June, like you got time. We got plenty of time. You never know what does your boyfriend do? He's a trader. Really asked if he wants to trade his future for mine, and she's giggling and laughing. Gas come on, just pull over, pull over. My buddy's going you too much. I'm embarrassed. I could just come on, just let me talk, let me give me number, Just

give me. She pulls over. About five nights later, he couldn't believe it. I get out. I go to a car ridiculous head to tell ridiculously beautiful and I give it a whole pitch. You know, you never know what life's about. You see somebody, you make a face. You know this could change our lives. Just the whole thing, a bunch of bullshit, but it works sometimes. Excuse me a number. I call him, all right, and we set up a date. She does in Nassau County. I said,

I'm gonna take you to La Parma and Williston Park. Oh, I've heard of that place. It's great. Look one meal. If nothing happens, if there's no sparks, I'll go on my way. But if there's sparks, we should think about this. And she's laughing, Okay, I'll meet you at La Parma. Great, I set up a date. I get there, I'm so ready. She don't show, she don't call, she don't show. I call, she don't pick up. I was like devastated. I called Johnny, I said, she and show. What are you gonna do?

I'm gonna go back at her again. Pope just relaxed. I can't I call her again? What happened? Oh, I'm just I got cold feet. He's such a good guy, my guy. I'm sure he is. I'm a good guy too. This won't take any time. Don't worry about Let's just see what happens. Said another date, La Parma. This time she shows up, but I mean had to tee knockout. We had dinner, very nice and yeah, there was some flirting, but she did she stuck to her guns. She said,

I think you're really andsome. I think you're funny. Maybe if I met you a couple of years ago, be different. But I got to move forward with my guy, and I like that. She said, my guy. Once you said my guy, my heart melted for him because that's a good I like that. That's very loving and possessive. And I said, you know what, that's fine. He'll never know you know not to worry about. You did what you have to do, or at least what I told you had to do, and now you can move on. She says,

you are relentless. I said, I know, but you don't see girls like you. And we parted and I told John we had dinner when you see her again, said we're not. We just have to do what I had to do. But she's got a guy, and that's it. You knew she had a guy. I don't care. Well they wasted money on dinner. It's not a waste, John, it's life lesson. It's a story. It's oh man, all right, But yeah that's gone. Man. You know what else is gone?

And nothing has replaced it. I heard a tuck across and that guy named Walter Kerrn on the other day. And Walton knows an awful lot about an awful lot of things. He used to work at Spy Magazine. Spy Magazine was the most influential magazine of the nineteen eighties. It is a big reason why I grew up wanting to write the way I did and and talk the way I talk when it comes to you know, not talk, but like the way I use certain expressions and stories, largely because of what Spy had still did me. It

was a very It was the most influential magazine. Like I said it, it made It remade New York's cultural landscape. It changed the whole talent of magazines. Graydon Carter was behind it. It was cruel at times, it was brilliant. It was written beautifully. The design was very pretty. And everybody feared this magazine if you lived in New York. But we all grabbed it because at any minute they could be talking about you. And this is no magazine I know of that's so talked about a lot, you know,

or held up as a benchmark. So many people talk about this. In fact, some people talk about it who were who couldn't have read it when it came out because they were too young. But I guess they caught up because it's online. You can read it online. But you know, I'm a few years out of college and into my first year of marriage, and I said, have got nothing was funny. The Cosby Show, I mean SNL was you know, rumbling along with the kind of a

shitty cast. Johnny Carson was getting old. National Lampoon was not my cup of tea. There was no Onion yet, no Family Guy, no Simpsons, no Seinfeld, not even Kids in the Hall. So Spy Magazine was everything, and it was it just it made me when I when I read it, it was like seeing the early SNLS or for discovering Monty Python. You know, memory when you discovered Monty Python, how how you felt like? At least for me, I thought, oh my god, no one knows about this

but me. It comes on once in a while on Channel thirteen at night on Sunday nights before school. But I saw Spy Magazine. I subscribed immediately, and they just ripped people apart. But also the way they combined their their storylines, and you know, it was lowbrow, silly, but very high brow investigation, very smart staff. It was. It was more like if you read Spy, you felt like you were at a club, a club with very funny people around you, too smart to be scared of anybody.

Anybody's anything, anybody anything said, if you know what I mean? And I wanted to be those people. I wanted to I wanted to sound like them. So I started reading Lynda Stacey's column in Newsday inside New York. She was the first thing. She was the first column I read that. I said, that's exactly how I write, like. I love writing this way. I love breaking stories this way. And to work with it was a dream come true because then we had two. Then we were a double ball shotgun.

Then the Wittis comes along with his acerbic wit, and now we're running three three battles, And in my opinion, we were the best gossip comments because we mixed humor, a cerbic wit with breaking news. I mean they took apart Bill Cosby. One issue they had a picture of a picture of checking a pay phone for change, which I love things like that. They Wance did a survey with college freshmen asking them their opinions on the situation in Fredonia, which is a country that was made up.

It's a country that was in a Marx Brothers movie, and people would comment very important people would comment on fre Donia and the situation that. So they would capture this at printed. What else they do? They opened up a fake food restaurant and a New Jersey mall selling bunny meat. People were so nauseous about that. Although rabbits,

but they couldn't take it. They did so many things, you know, they oh, one time they sent checks for twenty five cents to billionaires just to see if somebody like Rupert Murdoch or whoe you would cash it, and most of them did. I can't take it. They even did an article about the ten most litigious New Yorkers and on that list was a very famous writer named gor Vi dal who was known to be very litigious.

So he gets this. The story runs, No one calls, but Gourvi Doll calls Graydon Carter at Spy magazine and says, this is I can't have this. You better run a correction. This cannot be in your magazine. This is detrimental to me. Blah blah blah. If you don't take it out, I will sue. And Graydon Carter said, don't you see the irony here that of the ten most litigious people in New York, you're thrying to assume it and he hung up the phone. You knew they had him by the bulls.

But that's the kind of shit they did. And it was actual journalists who ran the show, Like I said, Craydon Carter, Kurt Anderson, Walter Kern. So many young guys coming up the ranks that would eventually become big stars as well, and it just they set themselves apart from so many different magazines. There would be no Daily Beasts or so many magazines. Today they kind of talk and write with a little, you know, little snide comments. New York Magazine turn more snide. My column was an offshoot

of Spy I know it. And they made you look. I never even heard of tribecka New York City when they wrote about it. Never heard of it. They were great, But now what the hell's out there? Do you see anything you liked? Is there a magazine? First of all, do you even see magazines anymore? Used to be on every corner in New York a newsstand, a magazine stand, and they used to be on opposite sides of the street.

They were everywhere. Now there's like a few left ones on the ones in the village, I think on prints in the spring, which is kind of big. Even in La La used to have these block long newsstands. Every magazine from all over the world and newspapers from all over the world were there, and you just perused that because then forty minutes there opening up papers and they didn't bother you to if you're touching, you buy it. If you're read it, you buy it. They didn't care

about that. It was just great. Those are gone now, so I don't like the Well, actually I forgot one thing they did perfectly that no one's done since is separated at birth, which was just you know, they would put two people's faces together and make you think for the first time in your life, these people had to be brother and sister, but they got separated at birth, and it was so it was so great and funny

to see the people they picked. Well, they did an audicol white Santa Claus doesn't exist, just very naughty things, and they really went after Trump like you have no idea, but they went after that also held them up. That's why Trump has loved Graydon Carter and virtually hated Graydon Carter. He does that a lot, as you can tell. But they nicknamed Trump the short fingered Vulgarian with the Vulgarian and people thought they meant Bulgarians from the country. And

Trump couldn't take this. He would write letters, he would make phone calls to Graydon Carter. But then it got really strange. At some point they read a big article on why President Trump and why they urged him to run for president. This is back in nineteen eighty eight, and they wrote, we have come to believe that Donald trump candidacy is viable. This is the one candidate who will not let you down. After all, we already have Donald Trump's personal guarantee that if he did run a president,

he would win. You see what I'm saying. I mean, that's very very It's just such great stuff. I mean, now you got influences of spy magazine everywhere. The Daily Show with john'still is a perfect example of what spy magazine would have been on TV. Gawker, which is gone now there is a great example of that as well, mild Colum the Onion and for all tents and purposes, now this podcast at times, maybe not this show, but this podcast. But back about nineteen ninety two, it's not

to disappear. And other things became more relevant. Newspapers, i mean, magazines began to dwindle, and TV and media began to take hold, and the Internet began to take hold. But I'll tell you when spy works, and you can hold a magazine in your hand, or wrap it up into a into a tube and put it under your arm. No one does that anymore. There's nothing worth taking and reading anymore. But in my day, there wasn't anything more cool, more fun and more smart then spy. There's certainly nothing

like that out there now, no way, nohow. But we got to move on, right, guys. That's the way the world works. In with the old, I mean, out with the old, in with the shit. Alright. My first showback. I'm a little rusty because I'm still kind of in pain here my throat from my six hundred milligram motrins I took two this morning. Ton't do a fucking thing. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Anyhow. That's it for today.

That's your daily Unfiltered podcast for July twenty first, twenty twenty five, and I'll talk to you this later