New York: Day One - In, Out, Upstate
With Hip hop's 50th Anniversary due to be celebrated on August 11th, I figured the only place to be in the world right now was New York City. I shall be reporting right from the heart of it all over the next 10 days, so please do check back daily for updates, but first I've come about 4 hours drive upstate to Syracuse for a couple of days to see my good friend Joe Driscoll and his partner Eliza.
Being here in Syracuse gives me a chance to acclimatise to the idiosyncrasies of our East American cousins gently. To be honest, I couldn’t have felt more like a lost tourist travelling here from JFK. All my preparation for the trip went out the window as I grappled with a variety of trains and tickets to get to Newark Airport. Maybe it was just the long journey to get there but it felt like every stage of the trip required a new set of rules and nothing was signposted properly. The one time I tried to ask someone for directions, they sent me the opposite way to where I wanted to be, in the way that only stubborn old men can do. My saving grace in it all of course, was the Jersey Club playlist I made especially for this part of the day. I managed to catch a snatch of two body poppers blasting similar sounds from a boombox in the station. It felt for a second like I was having a true New Jersey experience, but then their stereo seemed to die instantly and that was the end of it. Then I hit Newark Airport, which is quite spectacular in being one of the worst airports I’ve ever been to, absolutely massive but (and I’m mindful it might have just been a bad day for them) total and utter chaos. Everybody was stressed to the maximum, but luckily by the time I got there I'd already been: pulled out for extra intense security checks; had both my check-ins fail; dealt with grumpy staff galore; and lost my coat, my shades, my USB and my house keys, so nothing much more could phase me.
This isn't my usual fly by night holiday of cheerful abandon though, I'm well prepped for this trip. My itinerary is coming in at around 12 A4 pages and I've spent months reading, watching and listening to New York related content, almost exclusively. I even crammed a few extras on the plane too, rewatching the incredible Summer Of Soul, which got me wondering if I can fit Mt Morris Park (where it took place) into my schedule somehow. It still managed to choke me up a number of times: When 5th Dimension sang ‘Age of Aquarius / Let The Sun Shine’ like they had everything to prove; Mavis Staples helping Mahalia Jackson to sing ‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand’; Nina Simone's motherly love and affection for her audience mixed with pure fire and fury. It's such a powerful film, I can't recommend it enough if you've not seen it.
Next I watched In The Heights, a film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda's first musical, before his gargantuan success with Hamilton. Its ultra glossy, slightly trashy Broadway fun, set in Washington Heights and its gloriously heavy on the Latin music flavour, with plenty of hip hop on the side. It plucks all the right heartstrings and has also potentially extended my itinerary even further again. I'm trying to figure out if I can fit the North Manhattan neighbourhood in somehow while I’m up visiting Harlem and Sugar Hill.
Thankfully Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game hasn't added any stops to my trip, but it has made me rethink my previously positive feelings on former New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Who may have been a relatively non corruptible liberal politician on one hand, but on the other, he was a fun stealing villain who banned pinball in the 1940s. The film is a funny and heartwarming docudrama that’s well worth a watch.
I also managed to fit in a documentary on Grandmaster Flash. Despite being well versed in his history, I actually learned a few things. But I'll save that information for after I go and see him play in Crotona Park this coming Friday, by which point the music will likely start coming thick and fast.
