The officially unofficial site for details and discussion about the history and legacy of Mike Porco's Center of Folk Music, Gerde's Folk City (&other pertinent stuff)
deBlasio and Cuomo talk flippantly about stretching this into May or beyond.
or 2022. why not forever?We won't get there without a crime wave and senseless death from something other than COVID-19.Restaurants, music venues, mom-n-pop stores will be unable to re-open without foot traffic. SEND THE HEALTHY BACK TO WORK.Let New Yorkers assume their own risk. The City and State Government is in the way or our Right to Work, Right to Assemble, Ability to earn.
No storm ever lingers forever. We’ll get beyond this black cloud. Get Vitamin C and D3. Get Zinc and tonic water with quinine.
Our existing immunity is our only real defense.
People have died with COVID-19 when coupled with chronic illness.
I think we are watching a predictable petering out of COVID-19. Its gonna take some time but I am an über optimist. If that’s how I’m described, I’ll take it. If my view here on this blog is seen as insensitivity or denial of the nature of COVID-19, I beg to differ but time will reveal the truth by the numbers in the end.
WEAR A MASK
I’ve decided to don one as a precaution. I have elderly clients and neighbors.
I’m an avid bicyclist here in NYC. The death rate for my age group from COVID-19 is quite laughable in comparison to my daily risk.
What level of risk do we not already assume by crossing Madison Avenue at rush hour?
We enter the outside world at our own risk.
Granted, the safety protocol to mitigate the spread of COVID has been enacted to reduce the risk to others. I am not insensitive to that. My gripe is that the State and City Government is in the way of our Right to Work, Right to Assemble. It’s not Martial Law but it will probably feel like THIS in New York. It’s criminal to prolong it. I don’t trust the CDC with my life.
Crime wave in...10...9...8...7...
It has been declared that the majority of New Yorkers are too young, too healthy and too alive to go about their business. It has been decided that we are not to be allowed to judge our own risk.
“Many are too youthful and positive to go to school and congregate at houses of worship.
Many are too vibrant and musical to create their own safe community,” they may say.
The chronically ill must be protected from exposure to the COVID virus.
The clock ticks and it won’t be long before many defy orders to limit movement. The city will be (is) filled with desperate people.
These ’15 days’ may last to April 15. It’s already day 11 (March 26) and I’m over it.
The day the Folks return to work will be the biggest day of business for many businesses. Black Friday in April.
That said, I’m excited for the end of this panic.
I see us on the cusp of the Roaring 20’s. Banks failed in the early 1920’s but it didn’t affect society at large. It wasn’t a cyber world then. Many more families were self sufficient.
Today, we live in a smart-tech world. The return to ‘’normal’’ may include the need for official papers to leave your house for work. It may include limited State-toState travel. It may lead to a cyber-election. It may lead to immunization verification to enter the subway or office buildings. Business transactions may become cashless. Let the end-times debate begin.
For now, I would trade off some of that for the promise of a global renaissance. I’d love to see people recognize our success over COVID and know that we, collectively, are sailing along together. I hope we recognize that we need to rely less on Amazon and more on neighbors.
Why are we using the Chinese model to combat this virus?
They first isolated patients. Then they shut doors. Then they shut down a region from travel. Then they go collect the dead from their homes. Then they go back to work and monitor other countries unique responses.
Freedom of assembly and right to work are freedoms we took for granted before this. It must return without permanent limitations OR ELSE.
“Or else” we will see all of our cherished rights fade away without debate. Currently, the State is treating all kids, teachers, bankers, musicians, servers and business owners as too incapable to assume their own risk.
”You’re all too alive to go out and die.”
I’m done with it but I shall wait impatiently. I’ll vent online while the internet is still a thing. I fear that the fuse is lit and crawling along towards an explosion of crime and violence. Let’s call the whole thing off!
But be prepared. Prepare to stay in for several more days. We won’t survive weeks more of this. There will be a new definition of “going POSTAL” after a while.
Soon, the State imposed cocoon will crack and we’ll all be ‘allowed’ to go outside again. Guess what: We’re gonna party and thrive like it’s 1999!!!
So be prepared for that, as well. The year 2020 will reveal inverse realities for many of us; perhaps all of us. It will be a mirror image of the past. Day to day, as quickly as a stay at home order can be decreed, a ‘get out and live’ order can be mandated.
This shutdown is holding many hostage on both coasts and will not last indefinitely. It’s a LIE to say that it will not end and that this will ‘become our way of life.’
We’ll all have the cleanest gyms and hands, but this will pass.
Get ready to frequent those music concerts. Be ready to mass up, elbow to elbow, 3 deep at the bar. Play 2 hand touch football in the park. Go to $5 movies, $5 concerts and $5 burgers. Buy $5 items that were once $9.99!
A worse scenario concurrently hangs over us. That might mean a shutdown until the riots and food runs out. Lack of rent money will make the ‘stay at home’ order become an academic anecdote. The level of this business shutdown is the exact level we’ll put up with. I’m already over it.
My recent video series began 4 days ago with a $50 pledge to a friend. Twenty days from now, it could be a life or death situation for thousands (really millions) who, on average, were never exposed to COVID-19. Oh the irony.
My other video logs should reveal that I do have empathy for those in the direct path of this pathogen. The rest of us should LIVE LIFE. Kiss, cavort and buy beer.
Of course, other factors could make my prediction 100% wrong. Those $10 items might be $25. The food may stop. The Market may stop. The 401(k)s may be absconded and won’t I look silly for being optimistic.
That’s why I’m praying for and betting on a mass awakening and coming together. At the moment. The ‘Great Fathers in DC’ are plotting to send millions of Americans thousands of dollars so it can’t be all that bad. It’s a good start. My New York City will be on a delayed curve compared to the rest of the nation but we shall land on our feet. We need to tend to what we can control which is ourselves.
I’m committing to my small team and if we all carry a little more water then we will make it to the greener pasture. We will venture beyond to brighter fields leaving that black cloud behind us. We’ll GET TOGETHER.
I bring it up getting together because I’ve been known to organize groups of listeners for musicians in my circle of friends.
Should those utopian days be delivered upon us, I’ll do what I can do to make a small show for some musician in need.
The longer this lingers, the further away into the future goes that idyllic view.
Stay positive!
Visualize music in the streets.
Know your rights!
The most vital: Speech, artistic expression, assembly and press.
Quinine in Tonic water helps get zinc absorbed. Vitamin C and D3 are vital to the immune system. Zinc works well with Vitamin C. Get exercise. Get out where you can while you can. Your immunity is your only defense.
I was fortunate to meet and speak with Oscar on a few occasions. I was able to thank him for helping my Grandfather make Gerde's Folk City what it became. Oscar was the City's authority- quite literally- on Folk Music at the time of Gerde's Restaurant's conversion from Wine and sauce shop into ''New York's Center of Folk Music.'' Oscar helped Mike Porco weed out talent and create a crowd around the best acoustic entertainment Washington Square had to offer
Here's an excerpt from a radio broadcast from at Gerde's when Israel G. Young was booking the FIFTH PEG:
Ed Herlihy:….''We take you back to New York's first Folk Music cabaret Gerde's- G-E-R-D-E and our reporter at the club…''
Sean Fitzpatrick: This is Sean Fitzpatrick and I'm talking to Oscar Brand, an expert on Folk music….and Oscar we're wondering if this is the beginning, well, it looks like the beginning for Folk music's spreading to the general populace.
Oscar Brand: Well, I'm hoping so. I think that the best way to make people learn about Folk music is to let them hear Folk music….and if this club is successful in the way that other clubs around the country have been successful, I will be a very happy, grateful and fulfilled young man.
Reporter: Thank you, Oscar Brand.
Oscar: It's a pleasure to talk to you even if I don't know what I'm talking about! (laughter)
~ Recorded January 1960,
The Fifth Peg at Gerde's
11 W. 4th St.
NYC
If you trust them, I have a bridge nearby to show you.
Isreal Goodman Young saved free speech once
(photo Dave Peller)
DID I MENTION
A #SONGCONTEST I have running…?
Vinyl pressing of your song is the prize.
THE MIKE PORCO SONG INITIATIVE wuz
conceptualized for the purpose of promoting #UNITY and #FREESPEECH
Unity for all people, not just the psychopaths running 'things.'
Mike was my grandfather and is well remembered by artists in #WashingtonSquare for supporting the talents of the best musicians to ever stroll through #GreenwichVillage.
IZZY YOUNG recently came to NYC to do interviews for my documentary on Mike Porco and Gerde's. Folk City began as an idea in the minds of a stranger named Tom Prendergast and Israel Young. It was called "The Fifth Peg" for the first 5 months of 1960. Izzy is the only man on earth that could tell me the story. And in the end, he taught me a ton more about bricklaying.
I knew he was no schmuck right away, partly cuz he said so
(photo Dave Peller)
A lovely walk with my friends Terri Thal and Izzy. Beautiful people
Laughing one's ass off
Izzy smells a fucking rat
self portrait
Tracey Grisman sketch at brunch
stills from the formal interview
Dave Grisman and Izzy at the Folklore Center's last location on 6th
Izzy not letting Happy go
Getting the scoop at the scene of the crime, 4th and Mercer
Talking man-to-man
(photo Jack Hirschorn)
Interview with Journalist Frank Beacham
(photo Jack Hirschorn)
Still on 4th and Mercer
(photo Jack Hirschorn)
A still from the video footage
Jane, Happy and the Wizard of Iz
