former NY mayor Ed Koch, sad old timid reactionary waiting to die

retro blast: Ed Koch owns an engraved headstone (decrying "Muslim terrorism" via a Daniel Pearl quote), and occupies the same old closet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/nyregion/01koch.html

For the record, Mr. Koch, a lifelong bachelor, declines to say whether he is gay. “I do not want to add to the acceptability of asking every candidate, ‘Are you straight or gay or lesbian?’ and make it a legitimate question, so I don’t submit to that question. I don’t care if people think I’m gay because I don’t answer it. I’m flattered that at 84 people are interested in my sex life — and, it’s quite limited.”

I’m flattered that at 84 people are interested in my sex life — and, it’s quite limited.

― Dr Morbius, Monday, March 2, 2009 2:55 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

irresistible selective quoting

I initially read that as the implausible "84 people are interested in my sex life."

m2

Ha - me too!

Also, Morbs, you are totally insane. Please never change.

dude is character from a saul bellow novel

8 autobiographies?

really.

that's using the term very loosely

Koch is the public figure I've seen on the street I most wanted to spit on. If only someone had killed him 30 years ago.

jesus morbz

shakey morbs collier

Oh Morbz! You're one of a kind! ONE OF A KIND!

maybe youll get lucky and he'll get daniel pearl'd before he dies of natural causes

“After eight autobiographies and two children’s books where I never said anything about who I'd smash,” he said, “People are really wondering if I'm a fudge on the low.”

Always fun when he'd show up in Conan bits

I love this thread btw.

jesus, morbs, is there ANY public authority that you like (other than, i dunno, wavy gravy)?!?

vintage ACT UP photo:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4hfeiYr3Zq4/RgtqVKTa9AI/AAAAAAAAAik/ezKQDgs1SGw/s1600-h/6.jpg

He recalled the funeral for a much-loved mayor of Madrid: “Eight hundred thousand people turned out. That won’t happen with me,” he predicted, “but I hope a lot of people do go to the cemetery — which, by the way, is conveniently located at 155th and Broadway on the subway.”

well forget (xp) that, anyway... Are you familiar with Koch's race-baiting from the mid '70s on, and his shameful inaction re AIDS during his mayoralty? He hasn't been a liberal since the '60s.

i wish dr morbius was mayor

papa doc morbius

Yeah, Ed Koch is up there with Roy Cohn in the backstabbing closet case dept. I'm with Morbz on this one- I hope they're keeping Gay Hell nice and hot for him.

who else is in gay hell?

dr mayorbius

when Charlie Crist and Lindsay Graham die, they can serve as Gay Hell's valets.

so gay hell is for republicans?

and ed koch?

I've run into Ed Koch on the street before too -- IN CHICAGO.

so gay hell is for republicans?

Pat Benatar to thread.

Ed Koch is a Dem In Name Only even by the bestial standards of the mules. Supported Bush in '04, always spoke well of Reagan, gave the primary-season kiss-of-death to Gore in '88 when Al was still the "Likud Senator."

I lasted one semester in grad school and one of the textbooks for an urban plannng class was an Ed Koch paperback.

also, one of Ed's "autobiographies" was titled Giuliani: Nasty Man. (This was after Ed had helped get Rudy elected mayor; those two gals have had more breakups than a bipolar high-school couple.)

dammit, ned already made a pet benatar joke

sad gay in him room

Where would you adopt a pet benatar?

anyway, i don't want to romanticize ed koch or beat up morbs for bitching about him -- i'm old enough to remember him and his annoying "how am i doin'?!?" schtick, then all of those corrupt NYC councilmen who were indicted or killing themselves by the end of his term, and his basically shitting in david dinkins' bed on his way out of office, but that's it. from what i know about NYC's 1970s fiscal crisis (just from reading about it, not living through it), it wasn't of his making (thank lindsay for starting it, and abe beame for doing absolutely nothing while he had a chance) and i don't know if any other mayor would've done a better job.

as for being a race-baiting DINO, koch was a pussycat compared to philly's frank rizzo (of whom i do have some vivid childhood memories). shit, giuliani was a pussycat compared to rizzo.

ed krotch. this guy invented the mensware collared shirt stained in the pits with the sleeves rolled up. I bet he smells like a deli all the time.

http://69.20.67.100/library/photos/179/179082.jpg

Least favorite People's Court judge.

ed koch was running for reelection the year i moved to nyc. one day early on i went to look at an apt in some ratsass east village tenement and walking back across ave a toward the subway all of a sudden I'm surrounded by a crowd of beefy bodyguard types in suits. in the middle is a familiar bald head and i recognized the mayor. it seemed incongruous, seeing him in this neighborhood where in those days even the police rarely patrolled. i feel like he said "how'm i doing?" but I probably embellished that. that's my koch story.

As much as he grates online, I'm starting to think that I'd really like Dr Morbius in person.

their feud has gone on long enough

er morbs & Koch I mean

morbs, is it true that one of mario cuomo's campaign slogans during koch's first mayoral primary was "vote for cuomo, not the homo"?

(this is a serious question)

It was on a flyer in '77. Cuomo always denied anyone authorized it; Koch flatly denied he was gay at the time. If you read the NYT piece up top, Koch has "forgiven" Cuomo.

which makes this koch quote from the article kinda funny:

‘Take me totally or don’t take me. No salami tactics.’

couldn't resist, though it was childish ...

jesus, morbs, is there ANY public authority that you like (other than, i dunno, wavy gravy)?!?

Dolly Parton counts, I think.

as far as politicians go... how old are you?

the question was authority I LIKE, not someone I obey as if they were His Holiness Pope Benedict.

(not that i watched the fuckin Larry King clip)

He just endorsed the Republican candidate in Weiner's district -- where all the Dem choices are Likud-like -- to "send a message" to Obama on the Middle East.

Die already.

my mom worked on one of his early campaigns, he was a genuine progressive at one point, getting support of community organizers and such. obv he slowly became a kind of reactionary troll and by now he's on the dark side of the moon. kind of sad.

yes, he was a reformer vs the machine in the '60s.

I think there’s an appeal to a lot of those movies, like Escape from New York or Maniac Cop, a view of Manhattan covered in garbage and graffiti.
The graffiti was sickening! I never extolled graffiti as a new art form—that’s bullshit. Put it in your house, but not in my house, and not on the subways.

That’s what those films tapped into—that fear.
Yeah, there’s no question about that. Particularly in the subways. Let me be maybe too bold about it. Can I tell you a little anecdote?

Do it.
I wanted to get rid of New York’s graffiti problem, but I wasn’t in charge of the subways, the MTA was. I called the MTA into City Hall and told them they had to get rid of the graffiti. I presented them with a plan to do it: Kids were spray-painting train cars in the yards at night because there weren’t any fences. I told them, just put up a fence and put some dogs inside. They got scared, worried that the dogs would bite people, so I said, “OK, if you don’t want any chance of dogs biting people, get wolves.” That’s the problem with the new Liam Neeson movie, The Grey. There’s no recorded case of a wild wolf ever having bitten or attacked a single human being in North America.

I don’t believe that.
Well, it’s true. The next day Clyde Haberman of the New York Times came to me and told me he’d checked my statement and that there are records of domesticated wolves biting humans. I said, “I know that! I’m not talking about a domesticated wolf. I’m talking about wild wolves. Let’s have wild wolves protect the trains. If the wild wolves become tame, replace them with more wild ones.”

So you recommended that the MTA fight graffiti with wild wolves?
Yes.

so he's not dead yet eh

Ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild wolf.

I told them, just put up a fence and put some dogs inside. They got scared, worried that the dogs would bite people, so I said, “OK, if you don’t want any chance of dogs biting people, get wolves.”

funny that a guy who was a lawyer pre-politics would have such little regard for the city's potential tort liability for dog or wolf attacks.

if the wolves wouldn't bite people then they wouldn't deter crime!!

amazing that ironic wolfshirts weren't all the rage in koch-era nyc.

Koch writes possible self-rehabbing review of an AIDS documentary, draws fire from Larry Kramer ("We must never forget that this man was an active participant in helping us to die, in murdering us"):

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2012/10/closeted-former-nyc-mayor-ed-koch.html

Sully's mentioned this btw

this one's for you, morbs

https://archive.org/details/pra-IZ1228

thx... I listened to Rothenberg, probably heard some of these then!

The good news always comes far too late, but the fucker is dead.

Even more over

RIP one of my favorite thread titles ever

I got good price for you, Mayor Kochie. How I'm doing?

Enjoyed the documentary. I didn't think it was hagiography, unless hagiography is anything that doesn't unequivocally present him as a villain--it wasn't difficult for someone like me who only knew him from a distance to understand why he inspired such loathing. I'll skip anything more about my own reaction to him in deference to anyone who lived in NYC during that time. Three great bits of music: John Cale's "Fear Is a Man's Best Friend" (thrilling surprise cut way too short), "Smalltown Boy," and "The Only Living Boy in New York City" over the end credits. Koch's line about Abe Beame right near the end is classic.

fuck the bastard's bones in hell

I know you guys refuse to acknowledge one single positive thing but hey

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, March 13, 2013 7:22 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink