SKETCHPAD
TIMETRAVELLERS
For two weekends a year, a flotilla of flappers in
ropes of pearls and men in bow ties storm
Governors Island for the Jazz Age Lawn Party.
As Aperol spritzes flow, they dance the Charleston
and party like it’s 1929. —Rachel Syme“I’m wearing saddle
shoes and Argyle socks.
This is something
I’ve been doing since
I was one or two.
My parents really like
that jazz music. I
like hip-hop.” —Basil
Gershkovich, age ten“Flappers were punk
rockers. They were the
ones saying, ‘No, I’m
going to do what I want,
I’m going to cut my hair,
I’m not going to wear a
bra or a corset, I’m just
going to enjoy my life and
drink until my husband
or boyfriend goes to war.’”
—Analucia McGorty,
costume designer“For me, it’s about the fashion. If someone
put so much effort into dressing like that,
they must have been happy.” —Aicha
Metivier, consignment-store managerILLUSTRATIONS BY JOANA AVILLEZ
“This is a Stetson.
Everybody thinks
Stetson is only cow-
boy hats, but Stetson
made every kind of
hat. It’s really rare
to find old boaters in
good shape. A man
would wear one for
a summer and then
throw it in the gar-
bage.” —Michael
Arenella, bandleader“This is an original
World War One officer’s
uniform. I also do
American Revolution
reënactments. I’m on
the British side.”
Lee, retired detectiveto still be trying to reconcile his broth-
ers’ divergent tastes. “I don’t have that
many vivid musical memories,” he said.
“But one of them is me in the car, and
Rick puts on a cassette of that first
R.E.M. EP, ‘Chronic Town,’ and turns
it up really loud.” That sonic experience
still resonates, thirty-seven years later, on
his new record.
Making music wasn’t a viable career
option for Kevin or Rick, although both
eventually found a way to work with
musicians. When Rick started his com-
pany, he named it Chronic Town. He
was an executive producer of HBO’s
“Vinyl” and the movie “Wolf of Wall
Street” (Martin Scorsese is also a client).
As a manager, he plays a big-brotherly
role in the careers of his many younger
clients; DiCaprio is the same age as Petey.
“The joke is, our parents were way
more strict with Kevin,” Rick said. “So
he becomes a lawyer. They weakened a
little bit with me, so I became a man-
ager. The third one they gave up on,
and he became an artist.”
Pete started writing songs as a young
teen and picked up the pace at Syra-
cuse University. “I would call Rick in
L.A., which was long distance in those
days, and play them for him,” he said.
“And he’d always stop what he was
doing, and he’d listen, and he’d get
stoked. It’s still going on, twenty-five
years later.” Rick helped convince their
parents that Pete had “something really
fucking special,” as Rick put it, and that
tax-lawyering was not in his future.
“Rick can make people believe things
about themselves that they didn’t even
realize yet,” Pete said. Following his
brothers to L.A. felt natural to him. “I
would have followed them to Dover,
Delaware,” he said. “I just wanted to be
around them.” Their parents moved out
West in 1999, after their father retired;
their mother worked as Kevin’s recep-
tionist for years. These days, the Yorns
are a Hollywood tribe. Kevin’s ex-wife,
Julie Yorn, produced “The Dirt,” the
Mötley Crüe movie, with Rick.
In spite of the Yorn migration, “Care-
takers” seems to have Montville on its
mind. The first line of the first song,
“Calm Down,” goes, “All is well in my
hometown.” The Yorns may be gone,
but Petey is still back there in the base-
ment, listening.
—John Seabrook