"Remembering Long Island's forgotten rock festivals" by David J. Criblez at Newsday

Today, Thursday, August 11, 2022, Newsday published "Remembering Long Island's forgotten rock festivals" by David J. Criblez. Most of the article is about Summersault '74, the September 8, 1974 festival at Roosevelt Raceway featuring The Beach Boys, Joni Mitchell, Jesse Colin Young and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Richard Grayson, 71, of Brooklyn, is quoted twice.

A 28-Year-Old’s Diary Entries From Early September, 1979 | Thought Catalog

A 28-Year-Old’s Diary Entries From Early September, 1979 | Thought Catalog

Friday Evening in Bayville: Dinner at Ransom Beach

After more than five months in Arizona and Southern California, we escaped (a very mild) winter in New York and are now back for summer on the island on which we were born -- Long Island (yes, Brooklyn is part of Long Island).

This evening around 7 p.m., we drove by one of our favorite places on the North Shore, Ransom Beach

in beautiful and funky Bayville, hanging out on the sand and rocks we've loved since we were in college in the 1970s and used to come here to escape in our forest green '70 Pontiac Custom S or our little gold '73 Mercury Comet. Sometimes we came with a friend (girl), but mostly alone.

Once, on a overcast winter afternoon during the Carter administration, we wrote a really bad poem here.

This evening we just walked around and went across the street to Ralph's to get one of their really good pizzas for dinner.

Ransom Beach is formally called Charles E. Ransom Beach. When we got home tonight, we finally decided to find out about Charles E. Ransom and discovered that he was a politician from Sea Cliff who never lost an election and served as Clerk of the Town of Oyster Bay, Clerk of the County of Nassau, and Supervisor of the Town of Oyster Bay. He compiled a collection of vintage photographs and narratives in his book Gaslight and Gingerbread: A Photographic Recollection of Old Sea Cliff.

Here's what Newsday said about this gorgeous place named after him:

Ransom Beach runs for 800 feet on the Long Island Sound in Bayville and is one the best North Shore beaches. It’s a simple beach with gentle waves, ideal for those looking to relax.

Ransom Beach does not have a concession stand onsite but there are many small restaurants across the street where beach goers can stop in for pizza, Greek meals, or ice cream. Boaters can travel to Crab Shack in Connecticut, just 30 minutes across the Sound. On a clear day visitors will catch a clear, picturesque view of Connecticut across the water.

The popular live concert series, Music Under the Stars, is held during the summer. Fishing is permitted; however, dogs are not. Entry to the beach is free. There is a parking fee though local residents can just walk in.

Tonight we're grateful that we are an honorary local resident and could enjoy an hour remembering past good times in Ransom Beach, which we mention visiting in the May 28, 1990 diary entry in our book Summer in New York.

We hope to be back in Bayville again real soon.

New York Newsday features Op-Ed Column by Richard Grayson: "A Rap Smuggler Sings the Blues"

New York Newsday today (Tuesday, August 14, 1990) features an op-ed column by Richard Grayson: "A Rap Smuggler Sings the Blues," about his efforts to send 2 Live Crew's As Nasty as They Want to Be CD's to South Florida, where they are banned as obscene.


A RAP SMUGGLER SINGS THE BLUES

By Richard Grayson

I am a writer living in exile in New York City. Currently I am involved in smuggling forbidden works to the people of my homeland, whose government would immediately arrest me if I were caught. But I'm not a Chinese dissident, or a member of the African National Congress, or a freedom fighter from a totalitarian nation.

I'm a snowbird.

I live in South Florida much of the year but return to New York every May. I enjoy the contrasts between the streetlife on Manhattan's Upper West Side and the palm trees and swimming pools of Broward County. And I dislike northern winters and tropical summers.

For months I had followed the controversy involving the rap group 2 Live Crew and the sexually brutal lyrics on their album, "As Nasty As They Wanna Be." Two judges have ruled that the band's songs violate Florida's obscenity laws. I have listened to people argue the issues on Miami talk shows and in the local newspapers, and I have discussed censorship with my writing classes at South Florida colleges.

Several months ago, Broward County sheriff Nick Navarro arrested a record store owner for selling the album.

As a writer who has received government funds for my fiction, I had been shocked when Sen. Jesse Helms succeeded in placing content restrictions on grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Helms and his right-wing allies kept saying that the issue wasn't one of censorship but of abuse of government funding. They assured us they would let the free marketplace take care of art they deemed obscene. But apparently the free market wasn't working in 2 Live Crew's case; their album has sold over a million copies, and not one penny from the taxpayers was involved.

I thought a lot about this as I took a 40-block stroll on upper Broadway one evening. Stopping in at record stores along the way, I found a few copies of "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" in most of them. It seemed absurd that in New York I could buy the album with no problem, but in Fort Lauderdale I could not.

Late that night I hit on a way to fight the Florida censors. I wrote a press release announcing the formation of Radio Free Broward, dedicated to sending the 2 Live Crew album to fans in the "captive counties" of South Florida that were covered by the federal judge's ruling. Calling myself a member of the "snowbird exile community," I faxed the press release to South Florida news organizations. Soon I was giving interviews to local radio and TV stations and newspapers.

Since the Radio Free Broward story was covered in the media, including on MTV, I've received over 20 letters and calls from South Florida residents asking how to get a copy of the 2 Live Crew recording. I send back letters quoting a price and explaining that I'm not making any profit, just covering my costs. I've filled half a dozen orders so far, sending the obscene materials via the U.S. Postal Service. (It's not obscene on my end, so it's legal to ship the recording, postal inspectors have told me.) Almost every day, another query or order arrives.

There have been some interesting letters. One, from a Miami Beach man who told me he was born in Cuba, said the actions of the federal judge and the Broward County sheriff, both Cuban Americans, made him feel as if he were still living in a communist country.

The saddest query came from someone who was afraid to give me his name. The writer had me send the album to a post-office box and paid me cash. Perhaps he feared entrapment, but it disturbs me that a U.S. citizen who just wants to buy a record feels like a criminal.

I also got an unsigned postcard (palm trees on the back) that read: "You are a pig and your mind is in the sewer. . . Stay in New York!"

The truth is, I haven't heard a single cut from "As Nasty As They Wanna Be." I have no interest in the kind of lyrics 2 Live Crew's songs contain. But as a writer, I can't abide any words, however vulgar or sexist or anti-Semitic or homophobic, being banned in the United States.

So while I'd prefer that people spend their time and money on different kinds of music - or better yet, on my own books - I'm determined to give my fellow Floridians the same rights I enjoy while I'm living in New York. The last time I checked, Broward County was still covered by the same Constitution as Manhattan
and Brooklyn.
____________________________
Richard Grayson's most recent book isNarcissism and Me (Mule & Mule). He teaches English at Florida International University and Broward Community College.

Newsday reviews Richard Grayson's WITH HITLER IN NEW YORK

Today, Sunday, September 9, 1979, Long Island's Newsday reviews Richard Grayson's short story collection With Hitler in New York in Section C on page 23. The back cover of the paper has a teaser for the review: "Best Seller for a Newcomer?":

Book Review


Saturday-Night Hitler


"WITH HITLER IN NEW YORK AND OTHER STORIES," by Richard Grayson

(Taplinger, 190 pp., $7.95)


Reviewed by Ethel Shapiro Sarrett


How would the Jewish residents of Brooklyn react if Hitler came to visit them today? This is the premise of the title story of a book that marks the debut of a promising Jewish comic author. At 27, Richard Grayson has the wild sense of humor of a "Saturday Night Live" regular. Some may find his gags offensive; others will be laughing all the way to the analyst's couch.

In the title story, the narrator picks up a German chap named Hitler at Kennedy Airport and brings him back to Brooklyn to the general apathy of everyone concerned. ("Ellen's mother does not talk to Hitler except to say, 'Pass me the salt bagel.'") Hitler gets stoned over the Belt Parkway, translates a Yiddish song on the Brighton Beach boardwalk, and comforts the narrator when his grandfather dies. What is the reader to make of this? Is Grayson saying that the post-Holocaust generation is so jaded in 1979 that they would not care very much if another Hitler appeared? Or is he, since his Hitler is not a Nazi leader but a college student and brewery worker, trying to rid Jewish-Americans of their irrational (if understandable) antipathy to things and persons German? Grayson seems to want to have it both ways.

In the section titled "Family," Grayson gives us portraits of normal Jewish life – with a lot of mishigass thrown in. Great-Grandma Chaikah can't understand why no Jews ever make strikes on "Bowling for Dollars." Grandma, forced to rely on Social Security, shops for groceries by removing price stickers until she gets to a price that she likes. Grandpa spends most of his time watching "Eyewitness News " and wondering whether Farrah Fawcett has a foreign accent.

But there is poignancy here as well. In "Wednesday Night at Our House," Grayson employs a question-and-answer format to schematize the dreary, immobilized lives of a Brooklyn family of five, each member to weak to help the others.

Grayson takes risks. Sometimes his jokes fall flat. But more often than not, the reader is dazzled by the swift, witty goings-on.


Ethel Shapiro Sarrett is a free-lance reviewer.