From KCRW, Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

New York was an interesting place in the

70s, the big blackout, son of Sam. And of course, there's a decade that James Walcott

made his trek from Baltimore to New York City. All of his adventures in New York in the

70s are the tale in his brand new memoir, looking out by life getting down in semi-dirty

in 70s in New York. Jim Walcott is here. He's back. Jim, thanks for being back here.

Thank you for having me.

And that's the thing.

You really basically are almost like Christopher Isherwood in New York in the 70s.

Well.

Not entirely.

He had a different set of activities in Berlin and all.

But you can't look at the book and not think about New York as being like

Weimar Republic Berlin.

Well, I'll tell you, Isherwood, it really is one of my favorite writers, you know,

particularly those earlier books, because I love the sort of, I love the fact that you're

aware that he's seeing these things and he's there, but he isn't intruding that much into

it.

You know, he's sort of, there's, I wouldn't say it's self-effacing, but, you know,

well, the famous line, I am a camera eye, you know, it, and I like the kind of, there's

a coolness to his writing that I, that I like because for one thing, then it lets, if the

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