Photo source: Flaming Pablum
I first saw ‘Gringo’ (also known at ‘Story of a Junkie’) shortly before I moved to New York. It must have been about 1990. Even by then, the NY of this film was on the way out (the film was finished I think 1982), but it’s worth recalling just what the East Village looked like in those good old bad old days. The trash!
‘Gringo’ was John Spacely. Spacely cleaned up after the film (I’d heard he later credited the film with helping him clean up) and remained a fixture on the East Village for years afterward. Unfortunately he’d contracted HIV using needles, and died of AIDS related complications in the early 90′s.
For years a mural of Spacely, complete with eyepatch, loomed over the 3rd Ave side of St. Mark’s Square, so high up you could see it from blocks away. I never did find out if it was a promotional for the film, a tribute, or something entirely different. It must have disappeared around the beginning of the Naughts.
Below is the closing sequence. If you can get through the first 15 seconds or so (warning: it opens with Spacely throwing up!), it’s actually a very bittersweet piece, and a snapshot of a New York long gone. Gringo is a film well worth seeing to understand something of the NY of that era. Among the best lines: “New York survives on drugs – without the drug trade, the city would collapse.” Which may well have been true for certain neighborhoods at the time.
Sorry folks – 12 hours after I put up the post the segment from the film I’d wanted to show (the end, with an evocative sequence of John Spacely, aka Gringo, walking through the East Village, then skateboarding the off ramps around the edge of the island), has been removed from Youtube by the film-maker Lech Kowalski. Well, so much for that. You’ll have to watch it on netflix or something – if you want a view of the down and dirty of Alphabet City, it’s worth watching.
In lieu of the film, here’s a not bad reveiw from DVD Talk.
Anyway, here’s another take on that era, a fine essay from Luc Sante (thanks to Jeremiah for providing the link):
Lost City: Luc Sante’s look back at 70′s New York
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I remember for seeing him on the street… and the mural pissed some folks off — glamorizing a junkie and junk and addiction…
I skipped the video. tired of seeing people puking. and have you noticed an upsurge of folks nodding out on the street?
CO – Yeah, well I could see that. On the other hand . . . I would say that film in no way glamorized drug addiction. You’d have to be crazy to want to live like Spacely or anyone else in the film. It’s more a portrait of the darkness that existed in New York (and many other places) at that time.
Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the youtube vid so can’t edit out the beginning -otherwise I would. What I really was going for was the wequence afterwards . ..
I don’t get to the Village too often anymore, but on my last visit didn’t notice any great uptick in people nodding out. But then . . . I’m not there.
T.
I had always wondered about that mural, but now I wonder if I’d seen it in real life or in photographs or films–New York is like that. Hard to know what’s my memory and what’s collective memory.
Looks like the vid was denied permission to run or something. Perhaps ask the person who holds the copyright nicely? You’re doing a service to it and the time.
Bucko – Yeah – It’s funny, even after I’d seen the film I didn’t make the immediate connection between the mural and the film. It was just part of the look of St. Mark’s.
I see the video was yanked – too funny. The whole thing was on youtube until recently and this sequence at the end was the only part left. I was going to write Lech (Lech Kowalski was the film-maker today so I’ll see what the deal is). The film is on Netflix . . .
T.
Cool – I never knew this about the mural either. And, funny, enough,I can’t remember when it disappeared.
Yeah, nor can I. I think Flaming Pablum write about it a year or two ago, tracing its origins, when it disappeared.
I remember Spacely. He kicked my friend Valerie for no reason on Canal st. in front of the diner. Her boyfriend Niel cuesed him out, wanted to fight but we draged him away. Then Spacely, while neil’s back was turnrd, pushed him into the traffic. Fortunatly the light had just changed. Niel banged his head on the bumber of a cab and was knocked out. Spacely proceded to beat the crap out of him. I had to beat Spacely unconcious with a chain and that is how John Spacely lost his eye. You’re welcome. Oh and I was dressed in drag at the time.
Hi Dean,
Wow! That’s some story. I never met the man, but saw a lot of footage of him at various points in his life – not just the film but later after he’d kicked heroin and even on his deathbed. I knew people who knew him – some people liked him, some hated him. Anyway, thanks for writing.
T.
I loved Spacely and this film, it was bittersweet. Some scenes bleed the whole needle thing, rebooting the syringe, a ridiculous amount of times. Sad to read so many other horrified reviews. John came from the Venice boardwalk, no father, grew himself. The search for love went on with a natural poetry, but when drunk it came out challenging.
HI JP,
I agree it was bittersweet. I also agree about the needle scenes. I guess the director was trying to capture the circular nature of a drug addicts existence – it always comes back to the needle. But the search for love comes out too. Drug addicts are not easy people to know . . .
T.