How’s he doin’?

Oliver Mannion and I have been watching The Bronx is Burning, the ESPN adaptation of Jonathan Mahler's book telling the story of the New York Yankees’ tumultuous championship season of 1977 set against the background of New York City collapsing every which way.  Oliver’s getting a kick out of it because he knows the baseball history from just having watched Ken Burns’ Baseball and because, thanks to a fifth grade history project, he’s something of an expert on the 1970s.

The series takes a sort of John Dos Passos’ USA approach to telling its story.  It intersperses scenes of the Reggie Jackson-Billy Martin-George Steinbrenner clubhouse psychodrama with real television news clips of reports on the blackout, the hunt for Son of Sam, the heat wave, the city’s economic meltdown, the FALN terrorist bombings, and the mayoral race.  One of the clips shows quick shots of the candidates running against Mayor Abe Beam and as one of them flashes by we hear a reporter say that this particular candidate is a relative unknown in city politics.  Polls show that only 6 percent of New Yorkers know who he is.

Oliver laughed at the guy’s poor showing and asked me if I’d ever heard of him and if he ever amounted to much in politics.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, “He had some success.”

Comments

[Tom W.]

If you wanna go deep, you'll want to watch this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1080761/

[DaveMB]

I suppose someone has to mention that Ed Koch has endorsed a _Republican_ for the special
election for Anthony Weiner's US House seat. In this climate, he thinks an extra vote for the
Hostage-Taker Party would be less of a disaster than the Democratic candidate's position on Israel.

[actor212]

Dude was my Congresscritter when I was a kid, so in junior high (1970) I stood up and asked him when he'd run for mayor.

You may blame me.

Dave, he was once upon a time the most liberal member of the NY Congressional delegation. When he ran for his third term as mayor, I think he might have had a stroke or something because he went full metal moron suddenly.

I had lunch with him a few years ago, not intentionally (a restaurant I frequent near work attracts politicians). He's still a delightful conversationalist, but damn, he's lost his fucking mind.

Al D'Amato (same restaurant, different lunch) at least gets the humour of the situation he finds himself in, after his Senate tenure and running the state thru Pataki. Him, I'd lunch with again. Koch, not so much.