So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Haversack]

Inkstainedwretch wrote: "A bit of movie trivia: Paul Muni shooting up his boss's office in sheer elation over the firepower of his new Tommy gun was replicated in 1969 by Sam Peckinpah with General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) shooting up the town square with his new Browning machinegun. The enthusiasm of these child-men drunk with the sheer power of their unprecedentedly powerful weapons was both funny and scary."

I have to admit to a certain amount of exhilaration when first provided the opportunity to use a variety of infantry support weapons albeit under range control. However, once you see the results of such use not under range control you get awfully sober awfully quickly. And then you carry on.

 

[Edward]

times when you need to be very alert, in NYC.

Samec most anywhere, I suspect. NYC has changed a lot , though, it seems. I remember when the popular image was basically The Warriors, with more guns. Then in the mid 90s, I remember taking to a guy who'd been there; he poo-pooed the international fear of Times Square and said it was "just fine, as long as you don't stay past when the theatre crowds are all gone." I visited in 2004, and Times Square was one of the safest places I've ever been. I've still always got one eye on my wallet in any crowd, though.

Movies depicting someone being shot with very few exceptions is a fantasy.

In real time, you get shot, your body goes into shock, you loose what ever
control you had over body functions and pass out for loss of blood.
Scary, yes.
Funny, no.

Interestingly over the years a lot of Americans I've met have commented on how much more violent British films feel. It seems that because we're not a gun-culture per se, so the violence depicted in our films is much more likely to be based around fist fights and knives, that provides something more viscereal, more shocking. I can see it, I guess. Used to 'know' a guy on a musicians' forum whose grandfather had been in WW2. Reckoned he'd killed forty or so men, all in open combat, but there was only one that, decades later, he woke up screaming after having nightmares about: the guy he'd bayonetted, who he'd had to kill with his own physical force, not the gun's, and with whom he locked eyes during the process. No less deadly than firing the gun, but so much more personal and direct.

 

[Fading Fast]

Samec most anywhere, I suspect. NYC has changed a lot , though, it seems. I remember when the popular image was basically The Warriors, with more guns. Then in the mid 90s, I remember taking to a guy who'd been there; he poo-pooed the international fear of Times Square and said it was "just fine, as long as you don't stay past when the theatre crowds are all gone." I visited in 2004, and Times Square was one of the safest places I've ever been. I've still always got one eye on my wallet in any crowd, though....

Many old time New Yorkers partially lament what is called the "Disneyfication" of Times Square as it really is safe (with the exceptions you note) today, but, basically, just another place where the soul has gone out as Corporate America has come in.

In the '70s, Time Square was really ugly and gritty with every sexual want and every drug for sale in a very raw way. And all the human despair and wreckage that goes along with that was on full display. That said, it was real and it was alive with a visceral energy that is gone now.

While, I assume, no one really wants that to come back, turning Times Square into another glorified mall is also dispiriting, so some, not really, miss the "real" Times Square.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

There is something innately compelling in the really vile, slummy, violent cities and districts that draws us to them. Dickens' London is perhaps the most famous, but Hugo's Paris is not far behind. New York's Five Points of the 1850s is notorious. Look up the Old Brewery sometime. San Francisco's 19th century Barbary Shore and Natchez-Under-the-Hill of the same era were horrific but fascinating places. Times Square of the '70s was just a more recent example.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I've still always got one eye on my wallet in any crowd, though.

How does America carry it's purses? In the backpocket, like the most old-fashion Germans or in the (more secure) sidepocket, like me?

No one could grab my sidepocket, unnoticed.

 

[Fading Fast]

There is something innately compelling in the really vile, slummy, violent cities and districts that draws us to them. Dickens' London is perhaps the most famous, but Hugo's Paris is not far behind. New York's Five Points of the 1850s is notorious. Look up the Old Brewery sometime. San Francisco's 19th century Barbary Shore and Natchez-Under-the-Hill of the same era were horrific but fascinating places. Times Square of the '70s was just a more recent example.

To your point, as a kid in my late teens, going to Times Square in the '70s felt dangerous but exciting. Your pulse would quicken - you knew a lot of bad stuff was happening around you. You could see drug deals, the aggressive solicitation of prostitution, ticket scalpers, everything was for sale and it genuinely was scary but also really interesting.

My home town was a boring working / middle class thing - Times Square was like walking onto the set of "Blade Runner." Now I kinda sadly chuckle when I walk through it and see the Hershey's Company candy store or the Build Your Own Bear place.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

The biggest fans of the juvenile delinquent films of the '50's-'60s were small-town and suburban kids like me who found it all very exciting.

 

[tonyb]

The biggest fans of the juvenile delinquent films of the '50's-'60s were small-town and suburban kids like me who found it all very exciting.

Your post provides further evidence in support of my assertion that "gangs" and the like are, to a significant degree, a media creation, inadvertent as it may be.

Our popular media, fiction and nonfiction alike, glamorize violence. Today's young "gangsters" commonly invoke the names of Al Capone and "The Godfather." A "gangsta" rapper has all the more cred if his CV includes a gunshot wound or two and a stint in the joint.

Breathless reports of gang violence, and the proceeds of their criminal enterprises, make those associations all the more attractive to the wannabes, especially those wannabes who harbor no realistic ambitions of professional careers.

 

[Edward]

While, I assume, no one really wants that to come back, turning Times Square into another glorified mall is also dispiriting, so some, not really, miss the "real" Times Square.

It sound similar to London. There's an awful lot of misplaced nostalgia for seedy areas of London like Soho, for instance, though when you scratch the surfaxce what people are really nostalgic for was the first wave of gentrification, before the blandness of the masses and the profit motive took over everything. There's got to be a realistic, happy medium between "most likely to get stabbed in" and "nothing but concrete and glass apartment blocks that sit empty, owned by foreign oligarchs who never live ther,e but hey, that drug money won't launder itself". Certain parts of London are failing to find it.

There is something innately compelling in the really vile, slummy, violent cities and districts that draws us to them. Dickens' London is perhaps the most famous, but Hugo's Paris is not far behind. New York's Five Points of the 1850s is notorious. Look up the Old Brewery sometime. San Francisco's 19th century Barbary Shore and Natchez-Under-the-Hill of the same era were horrific but fascinating places. Times Square of the '70s was just a more recent example.

Whitechapel, where I live, is the one everybody remember in London, because of the Krays, and before that, Jack the Ripper. It intrigues me though that nobody has ever thought to do a show based on the Blackfriars area, which back in the Ripper era even Whitechapel folks didn't dare set foot in.

How does America carry it's purses? In the backpocket, like the most old-fashion Germans or in the (more secure) sidepocket, like me?

No one could grab my sidepocket, unnoticed.

I don't know about the Yanks; me, I only ever carried one wallet in a back pocket - and that had a chain on it.

The biggest fans of the juvenile delinquent films of the '50's-'60s were small-town and suburban kids like me who found it all very exciting.

Replace those exploitation flicks today with 'gangsta rap', and the most profitable audience is exactly the same: midle class, suburban white kids desperate to shock their parents. Real rap died in the 90s. Or, at least, it was killed.

Your post provides further evidence in support of my assertion that "gangs" and the like are, to a significant degree, a media creation, inadvertent as it may be.

Our popular media, fiction and nonfiction alike, glamorize violence. Today's young "gangsters" commonly invoke the names of Al Capone and "The Godfather." A "gangsta" rapper has all the more cred if his CV includes a gunshot wound or two and a stint in the joint.

Breathless reports of gang violence, and the proceeds of their criminal enterprises, make those associations all the more attractive to the wannabes, especially those wannabes who harbor no realistic ambitions of professional careers.

Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.

 

[GHT]

It sound similar to London. There's an awful lot of misplaced nostalgia for seedy areas of London like Soho, for instance, though when you scratch the surface what people are really nostalgic for was the first wave of gentrification, before the blandness of the masses and the profit motive took over everything.

What you have just described there is Carnaby Street, circa 1963. It was a working street, with warehouses and businesses alongside new shops. To afford such retail outlets many would sub-let either the attic or basement to the emerging bands, some of whom went on to become mainstream big time. It was truly a magical street, I loved it.

 

[Trenchfriend]

These little, more roundish (german) pears at the wayside. They are sweet, juicy, absolute freestanding Bio, but their tannins in the peel, I TELL YOU! Like, you would gulp sodium-hydroxide-solution and scratch your throat. But luckily, there are other sorts around, which are not that heavy.

 

[rocketeer]

What ticks me off? Gets my goat?(never understood that one).
How words have changed from being acceptable to unacceptable and vice versa.
Pimp
Meaning someone who lives off the earnings of a prostitute. Now means just to embellish something to make it glitzy and flashier. I can only assume this was brought on by the 'Pimpmobile' a car driven by that kind of person in the 1970s(Need to see Live and Let Die if you don't get it).
Porn.
Often meaning 'dirty magazines' or films etc. Now it can mean something desirable such as so called designer jewellery or a house/flat/appartment in a desirable area. The TV series 'Pawn Stars' is obviously using word play, as was its other show 'Pawnography' drawing viewers in with this double entendre
Pussy.
A child's name for a cat. Is that acceptable now?
A slang word for a ..................................

What has prompted this question was a feature in a newspaper(a real one ) but as we can't show a real paper here is a link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-lost-words-help-swear-like-Elizabethan.html

Sorry, don't know if this has been covered before or even if it is beyond Fedora Lounge's policy on posting. Maybe a child may read it and ask mum or dad a HUGLEY embarrassing question.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Actually, it ticks me off, that on the general 90's-revival at the streets, only very very less girls do the "crunchy way" of the 90's, like this!:
http://www.asos.de/lee/lee-rider-sc...lstyles=241&gridsize=4&gridrow=8&gridcolumn=1

Very very less...

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Have you consulted someone about your denim fetish Trenchy ?

 

[Trenchfriend]

Have you consulted someone about your denim fetish Trenchy ?

It's not only because of the denim. The whole appearance!

And WHEN there are some consequent girls around, they sadly do the "bad way" of the 90's:
http://www.asos.de/7-for-all-mankin...lstyles=241&gridsize=4&gridrow=4&gridcolumn=1

Damn...

 

[2jakes]

Mars and Venus on the road.

 

[Stearmen]

What has prompted this question was a feature in a newspaper(a real one ) but as we can't show a real paper here is a link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-lost-words-help-swear-like-Elizabethan.html

Sorry, don't know if this has been covered before or even if it is beyond Fedora Lounge's policy on posting. Maybe a child may read it and ask mum or dad a HUGLEY embarrassing question.

Funny on the meaning of the word polecat, these days, it refers to a man, as in, "you dirty low down polecat!"

 

[Stearmen]

Mars and Venus on the road.

 

[2jakes]

 

[Trenchfriend]

Just unbeatable:

"EEEEE, an OIL-TRUCK!!!!"