Coney Island is hip and if in doubt there’s always Brighton beach. That’s the new hipster word on the street for Summer in the City. Hot times! Thank you Lovin Spoonfull! Thank you Lawrence Ferlinghetti, West coast’s answer to poetic genius! His Coney Island of the Mind is an awesome collection of his Summer of Love point of view with the Coney spin working overtime! Check it out! They are cramming the B the A the F the Q, anxious to hit the boardwalk and the gritty pebble filled sand of these two iconic Nyc legendary beach escapes. Oh Coney has the history of the proverbial cat where it keeps coming back to life, over and over, and Brighton, well is it really America? Whenever I go, I know I’m in Kiev, stepping down from the 75 year old steps of the elevated subway platform engulfed by the smell of knishes, the sound of Russian spoken , the sight of the old world shops and inhabitants of a NY village they have claimed as theirs and made it home. 
I am thinking about M&M, the Russian food store of all flavors and favorites, the liquor stores where they sell the Vodka Standard the Mother of Vodka, and every flavor Schnappes known to man, and the homemade delicacies offered on the sidewalk stands each one looking tempting and appetizing but I have a mission and it’s the beach so I keep walking walking till I see the glory of the boardwalk and the sky and water beyond.
Tatiana is my sign that I am really here. The boardwalk mega restaurant, serving up every Russian delight in mega portions to the sun drenched , beach lover, who maybe didn’t make it to Miami, or Bahamas , or Long Island but hey, made it here and it feels pretty damn good!
Apartment escapee, summer weekend warrior, Nyc homesteader, you made it to one of the coolest beaches around! The other one is of course Coney Island.
Coney is Pop Central! The dreamland of colorful, kitsch, whimsy, childhood fun of past memories, from Mermaid parade to Famous Nathan’s the Emperor of hotdogs, the Polar Bear clubs meeting place every New Year, and those frank photos iconic and so real of the under the boardwalk make out sessions, of the fifties when coney was the cool summer beach paradise everyone who was anyone escaped to whenever they could.
And now? Well now, it’s cool again. Because hipsters loooove anything that’s kind of tattered, rough around the edges, bohemian, gritty, even if it’s seen as dead and buried by the people who lived it when it was Really cool. Like they discovered a rare artifact while on an archeological dig that’s suddenly made them famous. It’s soo ironic how 
old cool becomes new cool only through hype and bullshit, word of mouth blah blah with a dose of the media megaphone thrown in for good measure.
But for me, I dig it because it’s Verrry POP! Couldn’t get better than Coney for POP culture incarnate. That insane looking roller coaster now rebuilt, the fried clam bars and greasy fries, the oddball diverse mix of people crushing the boardwalk for a glimpse of the ocean, a scent of saltwater, a breath of ocean air, kids hysterical with happiness over the sight of cotton candy, hotdogs, and corny blowup toys, all give me and others the feeling of days long gone, called childhood, where the best thing, the most exciting thing in summer was going to the beach, and for city folk that meant Coney Island.
I painted Nathan’s in the 80’s, being attracted to the iconography of the hot dog, one of the important cultural foods symbolic of American life. I saw the artsy pop style trending like an electric current throughout the entire scope of the Coney Island fabulous persona. It is and was there , a powerful, je ne sais quois, element of crazy, fun, excitement, individuality, funk, subterranean stuff the stuff that art comes from the stuff that feeds the artist hunger with an ever abundant source, inspiring, elevating ,and delivering more and more art. But face it kids, Coney, and Nathan’s go hand in hand. Coney is Americana on steroids! It’s pop culture at its max. It is the beach place for the people. I mean the Real people. 
The elite hop the jitney, and head for the Hamptons, or hop their Town car without a look back. But for the Brooklyn, Manhattan transplants who are young, voted for Obama, bearded, tattooed, fedora headed, skinny jean, techies, the Hamptons seems kind of square. Stuffy, old, and wayyyyy too rich. I mean these hipsters aka the young, the “are we gonna be able to get hired after we graduate?” kids, are shacked up 3 and 4 in an apartment, in order to make rent. Hamptons? Uh, isn’t that the Mecca of the Wall Street screw ups who basically have these hipsters in hock for life , with unbelievable student loan bills they won’t ever be able to pay ????? Like, really, are they heading for Hampton hell? Nooooo. It’s Coney, it’s Brighton all the way!
A quick train ride, transversing the hinterlands of avenue H,J,M, Kings Hwy, Sheepshead Bay, graffiti left over from the 80’s providing an entertaining view as the train takes you closer and closer to the seaside amusement park , that’s hard to believe still exists – a place soooo much cooler than the picture perfect, oasis, aka Hamptons.
That’s what pop culture, art, posters, cards, all represent. Youth. Lightness. Fun. Frivolity. Kooky. Divine. Freedom. Drag. Bukowsky. Satie. Jeff Koons. Elvis. Liza with a Z. Blondie with a B. Kiki with a K!
That’s Coney Island!
It’s Nathan’s!
It’s POP all the way, from that iconic boardwalk ingrained in the bowels of history, to the sparkling icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s fifties legends of romance and pure delight.
And 70’s horror stories of gangland wars, neglect, and the junkie haven it became.
It’s now reborn, renovated, and rediscovered by the new New Yorkers, the hipsters, the kids, the newbies
The old becomes young again!
It’s appeal, it’s nouveau, honky Tonk vibe, is IN again. yes and it’s hip and it delivers in spades.
Lucky us, Brooklynites, Lower Eastsiders, Downtowners, we get to experience the beach in the city , get our grooves on in Coney technicolor Madness, do summer our way, and beach it with the best!
Old school, new school we are all a part of this urban technicolor dream show in which we live!
GO!
Writer, screen director, raconteur, bon vivant, a personality like no other. Let’s call him John Waters, because that’s who he is. He used to drop in the Greenwich Village bookstore I worked in, during a past life, to check on his new book, browse, and inevitably he would attract autograph hounds and fans who recognized him. He was always very gracious and happy to oblige. A very cool cat!
So I had to check out his book “Role Models”. When I saw we had it stacked up on the main Info counter in the front of the store. It is autobiographical, and he shares with us a telescopic view into his private world, the one that led him to evolve into the innovative filmmaker, director, fashionista, author, hitchhiker, and pop culture icon that he is today! WOW. I read this book, calling it a page turner is an understatement, and saw the genius in just how deep still “Waters” run. I know. But it’s true because from his chatting about coming out in his home town of Baltimore, his celebrity crushes, his journey to the present, his show biz persona, his lust for literature, the reader gets him as a real guy and not just an obscure character in a literary biographical text.
So I love his chapters – Bookworm, and Roommates. The thing Waters is super passionate about is reading. His collection of books in his personal library is awe inspiring , thousands of choices, and he makes it clear just how book crazed he is, owning this obsession with pride! Check out his 5 top books! You probably never heard of them but trust me, you will wish you had!
Let’s just say I was delightfully, gleefully surprised, and happy to see this sexy message exposed publicly in such a commercial venue, projecting that rare combo of literature and lust.
people don’t read. Not like they used to. The computer has made them lazy. Bookstores have been closing like it’s the end of time in a Sci-Fi novel, and the epic Bradbury classic Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t seem so crazy anymore. Waters talks about how to him, riches aren’t about buying houses and cars and jewelry. Being rich to Waters, the guy who thinks outside the box, means he gets to buy books with a wanton freedom, never having to look at the price and discriminate. In bookspeak that means never having to give up a favorite choice, when you really want more. No need to choose through that hateful process of elimination. An impossible task for book people who love whatever their eye is drawn to, and if you read the first page without putting it down, guess what? You’re hooked! You have to have it. Love really is blind for the book lover set loose in his favorite bookstore. So yes John Waters, it’s good that you can afford to go crazy at the bookstore choosing what you want and not what you can only afford. That does make you really rich!
But back to this poster. The one about books and sex. If it isn’t it should be your new standard, your raison d’être, your mantra. This concept of books as aphrodisiac, is off the grid, kinda like, reminiscent of whoever it was who said that the Mind is the sexiest part of the body? The “sexy librarian” mystique didn’t come from nowhere now did it?
Maybe you don’t hang on Crosby Street at the Housing Works bookstore, an old school style bookstore still going strong in the Soho, Nyc neighborhood of celebrities, tourists, and people watchers.
As is true for many writers and readers they also love art. Either as creators, or collectors. Art and books are a match made in culture heaven. In “Role Models”, his chapter called “RoomMates” gives us a look-see into his roomies, and by Roommates he is referring to his art collection, the constant companions he lives with and considers his friends. He seems to choose his “Roommates”, based on personal instincts that have nothing much to do with the going popular trend or fad. He just likes what he likes, and takes it home to live with him. He is happy he doesn’t live with human beings and happier that the artists whose work he does live with are such an adaptable match for him and above all, doesn’t take up his “mental space.” Cy Twombly has always been one of my favorites, and after reading this chapter, I discover he is also Water’s idol. His attempt to describe what it’s like to “read” a Twombly painting is excruciating, because Twombly challenges with a vigor that disrupts and disturbs. It is an exercise in mind opening, head spinning, mind altering craziness. If you want to mess with someone. Put a Twombly in front of them and watch their reaction.
Everything cool for those of us who think outside the box is in this book. If you are living in the material world you won’t get him, but if you are one of the “special” ones, who exist in their own unique and original boundless life, removed from the matrix of conformist limitations and social expectations, it’s got it all! The movies, the sex, the fashion, the culture, the books, the art, and even Johnny Mathis. An all purpose manual for unique personalities walking their own path. Sheeple need not bother. They just won’t get it!
I have always had a passion for posters! Posters have always caught my attention with the speed of lightening — the colors, the bold lettering, the subject, the commercial effect, all of it has never ceased to catch my eye and draw me if I see a poster I like, it’s a happiness on steroids moment! And other than my own work, I love the posters of 
Who can forget the famous Monterey Pop poster with Janis Joplin front and center? Or 
Toulouse Lautrec had his famous poster of 
Posters are a glossy, bold, immodest, brazen way to 
While cruising Brooklyn galleries last weekend looking for information and inspiration, I notice now that spring has sprung the Fedora fetish has come to life with a frenzy! It’s everywhere and anywhere, that little straw hat with the black band perched slightly sideways on heads roaming the streets of Nyc , and particularly dominantly Brooklyn. It’s positioned on hat heads, meaning the head that’s genetically made for a hat, and unfortunately on non hat heads as well. That’s unfortunate. But it does give the hipster look to the non hipster who craves that appeal. Easy. Just put a fedora on and boom! You are a hipster, except now it’s become tired. Used to be the artsy types sporting a fedora with the cocky self assured confidence of the innovator style setter. But that was 2 years ago and now it’s still hanging on with a vengeance but lacking the nouveau allure it had in its infancy.
Some lucky people can work the fedora with swag but the ones who fail give the fedora a bad name . So why do it? In the art Soho days of the 70’s when art was dirty and kind of the way it is supposed to be, nobody would have been caught dead wearing a fedora. Waaaay too affected pretentious and downright silly. But in the Soho of past days, guys wore a lot of hair and girls did too. Remember the Broadway show 
But today it’s all about about a Fedora! That snappy down in the front and up in the back look that defines the hat is ambiguous at first glance but historically 
Hipsters have a fashion look that’s obvious. Too obvious. Trouble is that it’s all the same. The artists are copycats, paper doll cut outs where one can be exchanged for another. Patti Smith was one of a kind as were 
Brooklyn is the Foodie Mecca where Hipsters & Co. don’t just eat to live, they live to eat! Who can blame them when we see the media injecting all of us with heavy doses of food porn every single day.
Those days of my youth when food was actually used for nutrition and sustenance mixed with the occasional pleasurable dining experience are sooo over!
“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire”. That’s a well known quote by underground author Charles Bukowsky. Artists need to walk that walk.