Marc Spitz - Poseur: A Memoir of Downtown New York City in the 90s

Table of Contents

We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of LA Punk
(with Brendan Mullen)

I need to be myself.
I cant be no one else...
Oasis, Supersonic, 1994

Upon hearing these lyrics, my father, Sidney Spitz, then forty-four, took his sneaker off the gas pedal and slowed the copper-colored Mustang abruptly. One trailing motorist honked loudly from inside her black Datsun, then sped past us. Another did the same and also gave us the finger. My father, squinting in his rearview mirror, stuck his left hand out the window to wave those still behind us around. He hit the hazards and lit up a Kent King.

Why are we slowing down? I asked.

Id just turned seventeen. It was the late winter of 1987. I looked behind us. Had I missed something important in my fretting about math, girls, and whether or not the Russians loved their children too? These three things sometimes had me sleepless by day and would contribute to sleepless nights in front of reruns of Family Ties well into the following year. We were on the Long Island Expresswayoperative word express. Go fast. Get home in time for Sunday dinner and 60 Minutes and an early bed. Do not reduce speed unless...

Punctured tire? Bloody cat? Were there cops? Sometimes there were cops. My father got into trouble. I knew his temper. I had it too.

What did he just say? he asked.

Who?

The guy?

What guy, Dad? I was pleading now.

Your singer!

It seemed this was an internal problem; a soundtrack predicament. Id selected the cassette. It was the playful indie duo They Might Be Giants self-titled debut. The song was called Dont Lets Start. It was my property. And Id chosen to share it as we passed time in traffic.

I dont know.

Other cars continued to dust us as he rewound my tape, grimly.

Zeeeech. Click.

Everybody dies frustrated and sad and...

Unsatisfied, he rewound it further and more violently.

Kreeeeeeeeeeeetch. Click.

The old man shook his head.

I thought thats what he said, he muttered and ejected the tape. If there had been a button on the dash that would also eject me in my all-black uniform of baggy sweater, vintage raincoat, skinny black Stephen Sprouse trousers, and clown-shoe sized John Fluevogs, I think hed probably have pressed that as well. The sweater was already controversial. Sids mother, my Grandma D, for Diane, knit it. It took her longer to make than all the other unsolicited pieces of winter-wear combined, and thered been dozens over the years.

Why dont you ever wear what I give you? she once asked me before I asked her to try her hand at an all-black pullover. Shed been hurt and maybe a little angry about all the Christmas reds and ringed blue-and-tan offerings Id politely accepted then placed in the closet forever.

Its not personal. I only wear black, Grandma, I told her frankly.

But why?

Artist.

She seemed relieved and took up the challenge, then never stopped complaining about it. Two years later, with enough Baileys Irish Cream and pretzel nuggets in her, shed still point a swollen finger at me accusingly and growl, I nearly went blind making you that black sweater. Black! Black! It was all I saw! It was as if shed cable-knitted a death cloud and unleashed it on the world with her two pink metal needles between puffs of... a Kent King.

I was wearing my hair in long, draping, jet-black bangs in the spring of 1986. Id dyed it in June for the occasion of Depeche Mode with openers Book of Love (of Boy and I Touch Roses fame) at Radio City Music Hall and placed a streak of yellow down the middle of my skull like a highway warning: Do Not Cross. But Sid still had power over meand the brawn to stay the boss, in and out of a moving car. Normally, I found the closeness of the driver and passenger seats useful. I liked to study the old man. In the car, I could hear him breathe, watch him react, and try to figure out who he was. Those times could be tense too. I am, hopefully, a member of what will remain the last generation to be hit with fists or objects like hairbrushes (a favorite of my mothers) as discipline. Parents dont really slug anymore, and when they do, it makes the papers. When I was growing up, however, that was pretty routine. Once, when I was especially obnoxious, Sid picked me up by my legs and pushed my head into a toilet bowl. Id mouthed off to my mother and the housekeeper, a stern Belizean woman named Olive. I never did it again. This isnt an endorsement for that kind of rough discipline, but I suspect today theyd probably send me (and Olive) to a counselor to talk about our feelings.

At seventeen, in 1987, I had my own car and a set of college applications on my desk, but I was still a minor. Sid remained entitled to these weekend custody hours, and lets face it, after someone treats your face like a plunger, you tend to defer to him when he tells you hed like to see you on a Sunday afternoon. It was a big deal to be playing my own music for him at all. Usually dominion over the dial was his. Sid handed the They Might Be Giants cassette to me. He held the object with the edges of his fingertips, as if the toxic sentiments he believed its songs contained might somehow seep into his pores. I returned it to the case with the pink and green sleeve and placed that in my book bag with my other cassettes and notebook.

Do you believe that? he asked, as he turned the dial to CBS FM. Don K. Reeds Doo-Wop Shop. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers was more like it, as far as he was concerned. I didnt know what to say. He asked again. I said, Do you believe what he said? In that song?

While I remained scared of him, on that day, my father seemed older and sadder then than Id ever seen him look before. Wed been making these trips from Long Island into Manhattan for most of the decade, since hed moved out for good in 1980. He was the man who introduced me to Manhattan. It took some time but I eventually realized that this was not Manhattan in full. It was only ever Sids version of the City. We did the things he could handle. Wed emerge from the Midtown Tunnel, head downtown, park the Mustang in a garage, then eat a pair of slices at Rays Pizza on Sixth Avenue and Eleventh Street. Rays was a large, heavy slice, with a thicker layer of cheese than most. It was famous, like all Rays claimed to be, but most acknowledged that this was at least one of two or three that may actually be the original. There were photos on the wall, after all, of the cast of the NBC sitcom Gimme a Break! flipping dough. Then wed go to the Postermat on 8th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue. It was always the next stop. The store was deep and narrow and felt like a scene. People lingered. The clerks were hip. They played WNEW, the local rock station, loudly. Scot Muni and Dennis Elsus set up lots of Tull, Zeppelin, Neil Young, and Yes, who were my fathers favorite.