Admin recalls, one year later: While we certainly can’t “blame” anyone for not being here, or even alive, in the early 1980s, there are some things– many even– that only New York City natives can understand, & especially those of us from the so-called “outer boroughs.” It’s the same for wherever ya’ll are from too, of course; the key difference being, we would never presume to tell the locals about… themselves, at least not seriously, or before asking a lot of questions first. Others are hardly so discrete, & jive “authority” seems a tough pose to shuck, as the twined inanities of bloggers and most journalists demonstrate ad nauseum. The cure: another terrific album from 1982 which nobody we knew had at the time, History Is What’s Happening* by The Ex. Ya’ll can see one version of it here: I’m 124th from left, BZA is buying a hot dog on the boardwalk while the young, not-yet-then a publisher swims in on an unusually small wave, 12th in the ocean from the right. The photographer was likely standing on the 7th floor terrace of a small, one bedroom apartment at 8800 Shorefront Parkway in scenic Rockapulco, Queens.
* a title which, amazingly, can also be read as shown below. Credits note: “written by” authentic Los Angeles black folk… “Saul Turtletaub and Bernie Orenstein.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpj6ihSwPXw[/youtube]
