Earlier this year, I saw at Anthology Film Archives a selection of public access TV from circa 1980 called TV Party, hosted by the late downtown scenester Glenn O’Brien. It was interesting to watch in a documentary way of the NYC underground scene of the downtown world of art, post-punk, No Wave, experimental film, etc. I liked it as a time capsule, but also found it extremely tedious to watch talentless hipsters muck around in front of the camera in unedited shots with technical difficulties (a lot of sound issues with the audio); the cameraman focusing on an unaware woman’s breasts several times; party guests poking fun at a guy passed out from drugs at a party and seeing it as a joke instead of a problem; the host grabbing a woman in a tight headlock and wrestling her to the ground, and despite her laughing, it looked messed-up to me.
There were some highlights: Jean-Michel Basquiat as a background player, looking like a baby-faced kid; a guy singing a song about fast food and working “Chain of Fools” into it; awkwardness of a bad post-punk band with a Casio keyboard beat; and a shy British guy from the Flying Lizards clearly weirded out by the NYC hipsters and their bullshit.
It was good to watch to see it as a representation of what the scene was like then, but seeing so many hipster assholes also took away the coolness for me, like demystifying it for me. So I had a half and half reaction to it in all.
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