CITY FOLKS: Yoko Ono talks about living in New York with John Lennon (above) on PBS and Fran Lebowitz’s special airs on HBO. (
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Was New York more fun in the ’70s?
No. And definitely yes.
We all know the reasons it was worse: Crime, filthy punk clubs, graffitti, no tourism. But it was also better because of filthy punk clubs, graffitti and all the crime, which kept the annoying tourists away.
And, of course, there was regular coffee. And there were John Lennon and Fran Lebowitz, who both moved here in the 1970s.
Lennon (with Yoko Ono) arrived as a thirtysomething, jaded superstar who’d quit The Beatles.
Lebowitz came as an 18-year-old unknown writer who was about to become a superstar. She was already jaded.
Tonight, these two NYC icons are on TV in dueling documentaries that are so brilliantly done that you will mourn not just the senseless loss of Lennon, but the senseless loss of artists in Manhattan because of AIDs and high rents.
The bio “LennoNYC” is a hard look at the often wracked-with-pain years Lennon lived here. The documentary, made with Ono’s cooperation, unearths all kinds of obscure clips of Lennon rehearsing, writing and playing with the Elephant’s Memory band (his inexplicably favorite in the city), as well as home movies of him and Ono doing things like regular NYers.
For example, Lennon tells in one clip how thrilled he is to be able to shop unmolested at Charivari and use his credit card like everyone else.
The filmmakers don’t avoid the misery either. Ono talks about throwing Lennon out after he humiliated her at a party by having sex with another woman. He said he was depressed that Nixon had won the election. Don’t ask.
Ono sent him packing to LA, and told her friend, the gorgeous May Pang, to move in with him. Again, don’t ask. Ono says she didn’t want to live with him anymore, but she wanted someone to take care of him. Clearly, the woman is not Sicilian!
It’s painful, brilliant and, oh God, the music.
On the other hand, the Lebowitz film, “Public Speaking,” directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by Graydon Carter — combines hilarious, contemporary interviews with Lebowitz about life in NYC, mixed with old clips of her in the Andy Warhol days, and great clips of her appearances on old talk shows.
In a lament to the homogenization of the country and the city, there’s a hideous clip of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. — two of the two whitest, most affected, effete and brilliant minds of the time — arguing about, yes, race!
Vidal calls Buckley a “crypto-Nazi” and Buckley lashes back threatening, “Listen you queer . . . I’ll sock you in your goddamned face!” Neither man stopped being droll long enough to uncross his legs and throw a punch, it goes without saying.
It was that kind of era — and Fran was right in the middle of it, making jokes that would forever ring true.
Here’s the woman who wrote the painfully truthful line, “You are only as good as your last haircut.” Amen.
So, was it better in the ’70s?
I don’t know, but I know now I’m so depressed I’m taking out a loan out to buy a mocha latte frappacino at Starbucks.