New York Magazine has an online feature called “21 Questions.” They choose a celebrity – an artist, an actor, a random NYC flash-in-the-pan – and ask the same set of questions: What do you think of Donald Trump? How much is too much to pay for a haircut? Do you give money to panhandlers? (The best set of answers ever were given by the actor Bernie Kopell, whom you will probably remember as Doc on “Love Boat,” but who for me will always be Siegfried on “Get Smart.” He's in his late seventies and funny as hell.)
Anyway. This past week they gave the questions to Alexis Bledel, AKA Rory from “The Gilmore Girls.” She did okay; she's no dummy. But on “Who's your favorite New Yorker, living or dead?”, she surprised me with “John Lennon.” She's right, of course. He lived in NYC for a long time, a good chunk of his life, and he died there.
So it made me think about the question, all of a sudden. And suddenly I thought: of course! Ray Davies!
Yes, I know he's English. But he was a Manhattanite for a long time in the Seventies and Eighties and into the Nineties. And he comes back frequently. So he's eligible.
Ray is/was the lead singer and songwriter of the Kinks. You remember. “Lola.” “Apeman.” “Waterloo Sunset.” “Village Green Preservation Society.”
My friend Joanne, who is a pretty amusing person herself, is the number-one Kinks fan in the world. She got me listening to them back in the Seventies. Then, in 1978, when we were both graduate students at Brown, she convinced me to go with her to Lawrence, Massachusetts (or was it Lowell, Massachusetts?) and see the Kinks perform. It was a low point in their career; the hall wasn't very full. We raced outside after the concert to stake out the stage door, and found only one other fan waiting. The band members passed by: Mick Avory the drummer, who was very funny; Dave Davies, Ray's brusque angry brother, who pushed past us without talking.
And finally Ray.
And he was wonderful. He had sunglasses on at eleven-thirty at night. He signed everything Joanne gave him, including the copy of “Pippi Longstocking” she had in her purse. She complimented him on his sunglasses, and he said, with the biggest grin in the world: “They're Cool-Rays.”
Ever since, whenever I encounter a celebrity (or something resembling one), I remember Ray Davies, and how gracious and funny he was at eleven-thirty at night after a not-very-successful concert in a working town in Massachusetts.
It's settled, then. Ray Davies is my favorite New Yorker, living or dead.
Now: how much is too much to pay for a haircut?
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