sensibly ridiculous

Racism, the Army, and Pvt Danny Chen

2012-01-06T19:13:00.002-05:00

For kids that get bullied in high school the conventional wisdom is that once you graduate It Gets Better. Once you leave the regimented confines of school, once the forced interactions with would be tormenters ends you're allowed to explore the world, find other people like yourself, and really explore the better parts of being alive. That's what we tell children, harassed and hopeless, unable to see any way out. In my personal experience, and in the experience of the vast majority of others who have made it past bad situations, this is a truth.

For Danny Chen, however, reality was cruelly the opposite.

Chen was born in Manhattan's Chinatown, and while he had his share of scrapes growing up there's nothing to show that his high school career was particularly trying. He was in his school's gifted program. He made good grades, and good friends. He could have gone to college on scholarship. He joined the U.S. Army instead.

He craved adventure, a way to prove his mettle, a path separate from that most Asian-Americans walked. Letters home from boot camp reveal that he was the continual object of racial slurs, but while boot was physically, mentally and emotionally demanding he loved how it pushed him, how it made him tougher, and he pushed through to the end.

He said he couldn't wait to deploy.

In August 2011 he was sent to Kandahar, where roadside bombs were an ever-present threat, into one of those situations that you always hear about in military movies: crucibles that bring men together, building bonds of trust in situations where mistakes might result in death. Instead, what Chen found was more racism. Harassment. Persecution. He was the only Chinese-American in his platoon. Army officials said, "...his superiors had considered him not fit enough when he arrived, and singled him out for excessive physical exercise: push-ups, flutter-kicks, sit-ups, sprints done while carrying a sandbag. Such punishments resemble the “smokings” that drill sergeants mete out at basic training to correct mistakes." This later led to further 'punishment'.

They belittled him with racial slurs. They forced him to do push-ups with a mouthful of water, refusing to let him swallow or spit any out. And, on September 27, a sergeant allegedly yanked him out of bed and dragged him across about 50 yards of gravel toward a shower trailer as punishment for supposedly breaking the hot-water pump. He endured bruises and cuts on his back. Army officials told Chen’s family that although the leader of his platoon found out about this incident, he never reported it as he was required to.

One week later, on the morning of October 3, Chen was scheduled to report for guard duty at 7:30 a.m. But when he got to the guard tower, he realized he’d forgotten his helmet and didn’t have enough water. A superior sent him back to the trailer to get what he needed, then allegedly forced him to crawl, with all his equipment, across some 100 meters of gravel in order to return to the tower so he could start his shift. While he was on the ground, two other superiors pelted him with rocks. And once he reached the tower, a superior grabbed him by his body armor and dragged him up the steps.

Just after 11am on October 3 a gunshot sounded from the guard tower. Chen had shot himself in the head.

Eight men were charged with involuntary manslaughter related to Chen's death and are facing court martial. All are white. They include a lieutenant, two staff sergeants, three sergeants, and two specialists. I'll tell you right now more than eight men were responsible for contributing to this young man's death. Racism welcomed Chen to boot camp. Racism followed him through his time there. Through it all he persevered, likely assuming this was just a function of boot; something he'd have to tough out before being assigned to a unit of brothers. He made some friends. But when he deployed to Afghanistan racism followed him there, too.

Environments like this don't happen by accident. Intolerant attitudes like this can't grow unless they are allowed to. Unless the perpetrators are given tacit permission. Eight men have been charged for Chen's death. How many others through boot camp were just as racist toward him a those in his unit? How many soldiers saw this and did nothing? How many took part? The line currently goes that our armed forces are there to protect our freedom. How can that be true if the prejudice of its members is allowed to go on unchecked? Who are these racist soldiers protecting? Whose values? Whose lives? If they weren't protecting Danny Chen, can I really believe if they had a choice they would protect me?

I read about this story with a mixture of shock, horror, deep sadness, and confusion. I don't know how to react because it doesn't seem like any reaction will be helpful or constructive. Chen is dead, and nothing I do can change that. His parents lost their only son and though eight face trial I find myself questioning whether anything will change for the next Danny Chen.

In World War 2 the 442nd infantry regiment, made up entirely of Japanese-American soldiers whose families waited out the war in relocation camps, was the most highly decorated unit in the history of the American armed forces (for its size and length of service.) They fought to prove their loyalty, to prove to the country they loved that they and their family belonged, and that their country could be proud of them. Sixty years later and now I wonder if all that blood earned Asians-Americans in this country any loyalty at all.

(Many of the facts and stories were taken from this heartbreaking account in New York Magazine.)

Hollywood and Asian America a Century Later

2012-01-06T11:19:00.000-05:00

Over the last few years the subject of Racebending has weighed heavier and heavier on my mind. I was well aware that in the early eras of film white actors routinely played Asian lead characters; the racism of the time relegating Asian actors to supporting and extra roles. I knew that, decades later, these norms had remained strong enough for David Carradine to supplant the iconic Bruce Lee in the television series Kung Fu. It wasn't until the recent debacle that was Avatar: The Last Airbender, however, that I truly began to see that Hollywood, more than lazily resisting change, was continually reinforcing these archaic norms onto the movie watching public.

If you don't remember, The Last Airbender movie was a live-action, big screen adaptation of the excellent three-season cartoon of the same name. Though made in the United States, Asian influences were everywhere and it was pretty obvious from everything about the cartoon that the characters were supposed to be Asian as well. The movie, predictably, featured all white leads with the exception of the villains. And the background characters.

So it was pretty serendipitous that, on the day I read that the white-washed live-action adaptation of Akira was tabled - again - for creative and budgetary reasons, I came across this passage in American Chinatown referring to early Asian-American actress Anna May Wong:

Anna May found success in the U.K. and Germany, in films like Picadilly (in which she played a scullery maid who eventually becomes a nightclub star) and onstage in a German operetta (she performed in fluent German, to rave reviews). Returning to Hollywood in 1930, she struggled in the ensuing decades to find better roles, speaking out against negative Chinese stereotyping. "Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain?" she asked in a suprisingly blunt interview with Doris Mackie of Film Weekly in 1933.

For any not familiar with the current plans for Akira, though the character names will not change (Akira, Tetsuo, Kaneda, etc) the film will be set in New Manhattan instead of Neo Tokyo and all of the film's lead roles will be played by white actors - except for the villain. Tell me, how far have we come in the last 80 years?

In the lead-up to The Last Airbender's release I was reading a lot of coverage (and having more than a few conversations) stating that it was impossible to know whether the studio had planned to hire white leads or if the white kids that went out for the part happened to be the best. Looking back at the last 80s years of Hollywood cinema, at what point are critics allowed to take the exclusion of Asian actors from lead roles as a symptom of a great problem? How long, and how many slights, will it take before it becomes obvious that this is a pattern of behavior and movies that engage in this sort of casting CANNOT be examined independently? (Incidentally, the casting call for Akira leaked in March of last year so there are no illusions about the studio's intentions with this one.)

I'm sure folks will point to Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Lucy Liu as Asian actors that have become names on the big screen. But let's take another look at Anny May Wong's life (once again, via American Chinatown to see how far we've really come:

In 1928, the leading role of a Chinese slave in The Crimson City was given to Myrna Loy over Anna May Wong, who had to resign herself to a bit part. The slight was widely seen as the trigger that sent her looking for more sympathetic and realistic Chinese roles in Europe. Anti-miscegenation laws in effect in the United States meant there could be no on-screen kissing between Asian and white actors - even if they were both playing Asian characters.

So let me ask, of all of the screen time logged by the three actors I mentioned above in American-made films how many screen kisses have they gotten? Li and Chan are action stars! And they still, in a genre known for its gratuitous sexuality, can't get any! If it had been Jason Statham in Romeo Must Die you know he would have gotten a kiss from Aaliyah. The most Chan has been given, that I can remember, is the opportunity to hold Claire Forlani's hand at the end of The Medallion and a short peck, viewed from a distance, at the end of Rush Hour 2. While male Asian actors have largely had to deal with by asexualized on screen female Asian actors have had to deal with being hyper-sexualized - as long as they are subservient. They are only allowed to be affectionate when the male lead gets to be dominant. Lucy Liu - at this point type cast as the unmovable ice queen that strong Asian leads have been pigeon-holed as for decades - has one memorable screen kiss to her credit: making out with Calista Flockhart on Ally Macbeal fifteen years ago. Do you think, had Angelina Jolie starred opposite Antonio Banderas in Ecks vs Sever, that the female lead would have been given a child and no physical interaction with the male lead?

I really don't know where I'm going with all this. I just know that, as an Asian-American that likes seeing the occasional movie, it's incredibly frustrating to see Hollywood continually fall back on habits that are decades older than the Civil Rights Movement.

Favorite Five Albums of 2011

2012-01-04T16:43:00.004-05:00

This past year was one in which, I have to admit, I kept up with new music less than is normal for me - and certainly far less than I wanted to. It was only a few years ago that I'd scour the interwebs every Monday night in search of some possible gems about to drop on the following Tuesday. Work and occasional other interests took up more of my time this year, however I was still able to find five albums that I couldn't put down.

Before we get to these, however, I'd like to spotlight one honorable mention. The Alabama Shakes put out a self-titled EP this year that, had it been a full length of similar quality, would undoubtedly be at the top of this list. Soulful in every way imaginable these four songs are moving, passionate and evocative of a wide range of emotions. I could gush for a while, but I'll just end this with a plea for anyone reading this to click through to the link above and at least give these tunes a listen. I personally think the $4 asking price is more than a bargain.

Now, without further ado:

5) Feist - Metals

Circle Marries the Line

4) Admiral Fallow - Boots Met My Face
I first heard of this Scottish band from NPR's SXSW preview and was elated to find that immediately after the festival they'd be playing Mercury Lounge - with a follow up at Brooklyn's own steam punk bar, the Way Station. I immediately bought the album: ten tracks of delicate beauty. The music within is rich, lush and filled with a sadness that is at times elegant and at times bombastic. While "Squealing Pigs" got the early attention - drawing comparisons to Mumford and Sons - it's the softer "Four Bulbs" that caught my ear both on the album and in person.

3) Joy Formidable - Big Roar

Big Takeover

A Balloon Called Moaning

able to

Whirring

Cradle

2) Bon Iver - Bon Iver

Bon Iver

For Emma, Forever Ago

third favorite album

Calgary

Holocene

1) Black Keys - El Camino

Sister

Lonely Boy

Fat Boy Slim

Bon Iver

After Evictions Does Occupy Really Need to Occupy?

2011-12-21T12:42:00.001-05:00

The first Occupy Wall Street encampment began September 17 with a few dozen protesters rolling out sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan. Since then Occupy movements have sprung up in cities in every part of the United States, all securing encampments in public parks to serve as meeting places, staging grounds, and symbolic homes to this nascent, nonviolent revolution. Fast on the heels of the first tent on public space, however, was heightened police presence, posturing from myriad mayors' offices and eventually eviction of the peaceably assembled protesters.

In the national narrative Occupy survived eviction, re-occupation, and re-eviction in various cities from Seattle to Portland to San Francisco to Chicago to Boston to, famously, Oakland, et al, but through it all it seemed as though as long as the first encampment at Zuccotti Park - redubbed Liberty Park - stood then Occupy still had a space to thrive. Indeed, at first it seemed that the New York movement would have an easier time standing up to mayoral pressure since Liberty Park was one of New York City's many privately owned public spaces*. Eventually though, on November 16th, even this encampment proved vulnerable and in an early morning raid police cleared the park, leading to the arrest of several protesters, severe property damage - including the destruction of several laptops and several thousand books - and the arrests of many protesters and journalists.

Since then Occupy has taken on a more ephemeral feeling and many writers and pundits have questioned whether there is a need for such a public occupation at all. Some have written that Bloomberg did Occupy a favor by evicting them in such a forceful, tone-deaf, media-savaging manner since the group would have been hard-pressed to stay through the winter anyway and being forced from the park - rather than having to abandon it - leaves the group with moral high ground and public sympathy.

Others have pointed to recent direct actions as a metamorphosis into an Occupy 2.0 guerilla movement that eschews the need for public space and instead seeks loud, public confrontation with those it rails against.

The Mic Check, for example, is something I've found to be quite a powerful symbolic tool to speak truth to power in a way that shatters the bubble most politicians tend to live in, and gains publicity at the same time. Taking a queue from the "People's Mic", a method of amplification taken up because megaphones were outlawed by police in the early days of the protests which involves a group of people repeating the words of an initial speaker for greater volume, Occupy supporters across the country have taken to infiltrating speaking engagements of prominent politicians and hijacking the conversation to bluntly voice their concerns. The first instance I'm aware of occurred when a group in Wisconsin Checked a speech by Governor Scott Walker, but this has since spread like wildfire. The CEO of Wells Fargo, GOP Presidential candidates Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, and even President Obama himself have all been targets.

This is a particularly powerful device for two reasons. First, the kinds of rallies in which these occur are usually safe affairs, populated by supporters in which the speaker in question rarely expects any kind of challenge. These events have become bland soap boxes that serve as platforms to shout sound-bytes that may or may not be cogent, and may or may not (usually not) speak honestly to the problems the country currently faces. I love that Occupy is forcing these public figures into uncomfortably facing the consequences of their politically calculated decisions. Second, this kind of immediate confrontation, while rarely ever addressed at the time, serves as a powerful way to contrast the shortfalls of the country with the political theater that rarely seeks to address these shortfalls. Once these clips hit YouTube they serve as a striking expression of frustration on the part of the American People.

Since Zuccotti was cleared Occupy has also put a renewed focus on its occupation of foreclosed homes. For a long while (as far as I've heard Occupy Atlanta may have been the first) occupy groups have taken to staking out homes in foreclosure to rally public opinion and put pressure on banks to renegotiate mortgage payment schedules to keep families in homes. Several families across the country have been able to stave off eviction thanks to the efforts of local Occupy groups, and now that many of these groups have no home they have increased their focus on making sure evicted folks can re-enter theirs. The group launched this new focus with great fanfare this past month with a large march through the hard-hit eastern neighborhoods of Brooklyn, moving a family into a home and throwing a block party in celebration. This was a much needed reach into the poorer parts of New York that may have felt an affinity for the goals of OWS but, for one reason or another may have been unable to join in the protest.

These efforts have largely been successful at further shifting the economic conversation to income inequality - with the added benefit of doing direct, immediate good - so in light of that does Occupy really need to keep trying to re-establish a public space? Over 50 protesters were just arrested last weekend trying to set up a new camp at Duarte Square, on land owned by Trinity Church on which OWS has been seeking permission to camp. Were those necessary and worth it?

I say yes. Definitively, unequivocally, yes.

These very public occupations serve so many functions that have been vital to the growth of Occupy and, I believe, will be vital to its survival going forward. First and foremost they've been a very open, honest face for the movement. I've talked to folks who have doubted the convictions or intentions of the Occupiers. Or who have dismissed them as hippies or malcontents or career activists (not that there's anything wrong with any of that.) My response to these accusations has always been a longwinded, logical defense but in the end I always ask that, before anyone judge, they just go down to the park and have some conversations with the people down there. The people who think Occupy is just a bunch of jobless college kids might be surprised to find the middle-aged mom who brought her kids down for the day to show them what change really looks like. Or the working class man just off a ten hour shift coming down to the camp to give what little spare time he has to build a better future. Or the 1 percenter who believes America needs equality more than they need lower taxes. Those who write the group off as a mouthpiece for the Democratic party will take solace in the fact that most at any occupied park will rail against the Democrats as readily as they will against the Republicans. This openness, this community, this exchange of ideas absolutely cannot be replaced were Occupy to go underground, only to surface for direct actions. This course would only serve to further distance the movement from those it is working for, and it assumes that, by this time, anyone who would have signed on already has and writes off everyone else.

Further, there's a very human reason to re-occupy. Many of the people who have put their bodies on the line for Occupy in its early days - when the park was an absolute necessity - have nowhere else to go. In New York many that were displaced from the park have taken to spending their nights in churches because they don't have homes to fall back on. Some were homeless folks to whom Occupy gave community and food, yes, but also direction and hope. Some were activists who chose to leave behind leases to give themselves fully to the movement. These folks cannot be forgotten since it was upon their shoulders that this movement was built, and upon their shoulders that many police batons have fallen.

Finally, obstinately, Occupy must continue to try to re-occupy because the group has every right to hold the space it does. Last I checked the United States Constitution supercedes park regulations and the First Amendments states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It is not up to various mayors' offices to limit free political speech. If assembly for government redress isn't protected and unrestricted 24-hours a day than it might as well not be protected because protest in a fashion that is comfortable for the powerful is not protest at all. Occupy's fight for space, for the right for Americans to have a voice anywhere in America, for the power of speech outside of a "free speech zone" is a worthy fight on its own, outside of all other factors.

One of the chants most favored with the Occupy protesters is, "This is what democracy looks like." When I'm in an occupied park, in its chaotic, diverse, idealistic, hopeful glory I can't help but agree.

*In New York City many large companies make deals with the city to circumvent certain zoning rules by building parks or atria for public use.

Occupy Wall Street: Why Do They Occupy?

2011-12-07T19:45:00.013-05:00

I've recently had several conversations regarding the Occupy Wall Street protests basically revolving around the question, "What are these things about?" Most people that are friends with me on Facebook or Google Plus, or who follow me on Twitter know that I've been following these goings on pretty closely (and have been plastering coverage all over all of my various social media personae.)

Full disclosure: I've never stayed overnight at the park, and I've never faced down police. I have marched with the movement several times, have brought food down to Zuccotti park on several occasions and have been an ardent supporter for quite some time. The vibe I've always gotten from marching with occupiers and hanging around the park during "off" times is very different than what gets out on a lot of broadcast news channels. There's a lot more age variation for one, and it's not just the stereotypical protester-type that shows up. Yes there are some overly idealistic college kids and there are some older lifetime protesters, but Occupy Wall Street is more complicated than these folks. Those are usually the people that give the most sensational soundbites, or tell the most familiar story which is why they tend to end up on the news. In truth, the vast majority of OWS supporters have jobs. Some have families. Some have never protested anything before. Some are even in the 1%. Their stories are varied and not easily related in a five minute montage on the evening news. If you really want to know the people in this movement just look around you. If the first person you see is not a supporter then chances are there's someone in the movement much like them.

Why do they occupy? Well, according to Twitter the reasons are more varied than their backgrounds. It's a common complaint that OWS has no singular purpose; no clear, concise list of demands. I respond by saying if the issues of the last couple decades had only resulted in a short, easy-to-read list of problems then Occupy Wall Street wouldn't have the support that it does, and wouldn't be as necessary as it is.

Even though the list of grievances seems legion, I personally believe that the lion's share of them share one philosophy: that in the United States of America when it comes to opportunity we should all be equal.

It's become increasingly true that opportunity depends more on how much money you already have than how hard you're willing to work. At the same time it seems like there's not the same degree of risk involved when comparing average folk to the high-powered and high-moneyed. When homeowners "bought more house than they could afford" due to predatory lending practices they lost their homes during the sub-prime mortgage crisis. When investment firms bought up those bad mortgages (and repackaged them as sound investments) and were threatened with collapse when their high-risk investments fell apart they were given government funds to stay afloat and their executives went to the Bahamas and received million dollar bonuses. People across the country, across varying age ranges, across different professions have gotten to a point where they don't see any opportunity to improve their lives. Unless you are in the top 1% of wage earners you are likely working harder now for a lower standard of living than you would have 15-20 years ago and it's increasingly difficult to find a different job or even go to school to retrain in a new skill.

For those saying that OWS is about anger or jealousy, I can only say that from my experience the occupy protests are the exact opposite. Sure, during standoffs with the police (generally over whether park rules supercede the first amendment) emotions run high and negative emotions can come out, but the beating heart of this nonviolent movement is not hate directed at those with plenty. It's realizing that after so many years of working and scraping for a better life there's a real chance now to make the system work for everybody, and not just the few with the deepest pockets and the best connections. It's love and camaraderie for those that are coming together to reshape the country to fit the ideal of their collective American Dream. It's re-igniting, finally, that one thing so many people across this country had lost after watching so many lose their jobs and so many struggle: hope.

How Verizon Became an Occupier for One Night

2011-11-17T20:30:00.000-05:00

This was projected onto the Verizon building from an apartment across the street. Easily visible from the Brooklyn Bridge as occupiers crossed over. Video here

30 Day Song Challenge Days 10-13: Weekend Catchup

2011-11-13T15:42:00.001-05:00

So I'm behind. Time for one giant post catching me up.

Day 10: A Song to Which You Fall Asleep

I'm going for the positive interpretation of this one - a song you enjoy falling to sleep to - rather than the negative - a song that is so boring it puts you to sleep. I don't really feel like trying to recall whatever song Incubus or Kill Hannah were playing when I fell asleep seeing them live.

My choice is a bit odd for this one because it's actually about not going to sleep and instead staying up all night with a significant other and, well, using your imagination. Maybe it's a desire to fall asleep to a sweet song for sweet dreams, maybe it's Amy Millan's soft, smoky, almost whispered vocal, maybe it's the trancy electronics. Whatever it is I always feel pleasantly ready for a good night's sleep whenever it comes on. The surreal, dreamy music video seems to back me up.

Day 11: A Song From Your Favorite Band

Check out post number 1 for my feelings on favorites. TL;DR I hate them. I guess I'll pick the Weakerthans, and since I like cats I'll go for this song:

It's a cheerful song from a band that's wonderfully good at communicating loss and longing.

Day 12: A Song From a Band You Hate

Hate is a strong word. But it's a fairly accurate one.

Day 13: A Guilty Pleasure Song

I don't believe in guilty pleasures when it comes to music. If you like it, like it proudly no matter what some asshole might say about it - even if that asshole is me. I've jokingly given people shit over Hanson and earnestly given them shit over Nickelback, but if that's the kind of stuff that does it for you then by all means listen proudly. I have no illusions that everyone loves the music I love, but I also have no illusions that it matters that anyone else love it. I've had this conversation enough times, however, to know that most people will not let this drop until I give an answer. And, of course, I know the kind of answer they're looking for: a song that I'm not 'supposed' to like as a indie music fan, or as a male. Even though I'm not ashamed at all to admit I like me some Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, or Kelly Clarkson I've learned to recite these names just to end that line of conversation. Just like I'm ending this post.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 9: Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake

2011-11-09T18:48:00.001-05:00

Day 9: A Song That You Can Dance To

I’m going to slightly modify this one since it’s too broad as it is. There are pretty much infinity songs that I can dance to depending on what you mean by ‘dance.’ Slowdancing or slamdancing? Skanking or bootyshaking? Break? Interpretive? (OK, I can't do those last two.)

In the name of fun I’m going to assume this means bootyshaking. And not just a song that you CAN dance to. A song that you HAVE to dance to. A song whose beats conjure an irresistible urge to break-it-down. A song that, as if by magic, instantly forces feet to step and hips to shake, resulting in the inevitable busting of moves.

Now, before I get into the song I picked please feel free to peruse this Grooveshark playlist of songs that didn’t quite make the cut.

And now the main attraction:

I could talk about how it's the flourishes that make this song, from the short hits of keyboard to the splashes of smooth saxophone to Michael's velvet "heee hee" to the sexy blues guitar riffs that pick up towards the end. But I'm not a liar. Everyone knows that the lifeblood of this song, the engine that makes it move is one of the hottest bass lines ever written. Everything else balances on its ever-grooving shoulders. Remove any other element and this song is still a hit that makes your internal organs beat in time. Take away that bass and it's a nigh-unrecognizable shell of itself.

There are a lot of great dance songs out there, but, as is his wont, in this vein Michael Jackson created a song that stands tallest among giants. In the Highlander universe of dance songs in which there can be only one "Billie Jean" has beheaded all other challengers and absorbed their power. "Billie Jean" defeated M. Bison on level 7 difficulty without losing any health. "Billie Jean" successfully played DragonForce - "Through the Fire and Flames" on expert without missing a note on its first try. If a group did a routine on America's Best Dance Crew to "Billie Jean" they would lose because the judges would pick the song as the winner. Chuck Norris tried writing the best dance song ever and just ended up with "Billie Jean" again.

It's the first, last and everything.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 8: Sing With Me, Sing for the Year

2011-11-08T21:55:00.001-05:00

Day 8: A Song to Which You Know All the Words

Searching my head for a song that fit today’s prompt was a fun exercise if only to remind me of the songs I used to have memorize. These are the songs, after all, they were played incessantly out of tape-decks, CD players, car stereos, computers and portable MP3 players at various stages of my life. Going through these tunes was like flipping through a musical biography.

For instance, the first song that I could sing all the way through from memory was… actually, let’s not go that far back. The SECOND song that I could sing all the way through from memory was Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” I can actually remember the first time I heard it. I was at a friend’s birthday party (let's call him... 4)and he was opening presents. There were two gifts that were clearly (from the size and feel of the wrapped package) CDs and as he went to open then he hopefully chanted, “Metallica, Metallica, Metallica, Metallica,” and cheered when he tore through the wrapping paper to reveal Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. I’d never heard either but his enthusiasm rubbed off onto me and as we listened to the albums I launched into two pre-teen years that were exclusively dedicated to Metallica and Megadeath.

This almost magnetic attraction to metal was broken in middle school when I learned all the words to the majority of Green Day’s Dookie, and then later in high school when I learned all of Blink 182’s Dude Ranch and Less Than Jake’s Hello Rockview, among many others. Of course there were some clunkers here or there on my way to memorizing Rilo Kiley’s “Pictures of Success” and Belle and Sebastian’s “Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying.” But I think in large part I still enjoy (in some cases nostalgically, but in most cases not) the tunes I used to know by heart. I could probably still sing along, actually, if the song was playing in the background.

These days I memorize a much smaller percentage of my favorite songs than I used to. I listen to more new albums a year than in high school and the list of older albums that are still in steady rotation is far longer. The only song to come out this year that I can confidently claim to know front to back is probably Admiral Fallow’s "Four Bulbs". That’s not the song I want to spotlight right now, however. Instead, my pick is going to go to a song from one of my favorite albums from last year, M. Ward’s Hold Time. It’s a song that I like to think I can sing half-decently and one that, when I do sing it, always brings me a measure of peace. It’s also really pretty.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 7: Do You Remember When We Used to Sing?

2011-11-07T21:03:00.001-05:00

Day 7: A Song That Reminds You of a Certain Event

The redundancy of these prompts is making these posts a lot less interesting. Most of the instances I noted from the last two days have not only involved a someone/somewhere, but a particular event involving that person or place. Now I’m stuck trying to find a song/moment I haven’t already addressed and then trying to find something new and interesting to say about how music works with memory. Let’s see how this goes.

Way back two days ago I mentioned a certain wedding involving a certain song about heights and a certain lifting into the air of a certain fri3nd. Well, since I was responsible for the playlist at this reception there were clearly several awesome songs played that night leading to multiple memorable moments. Not least of which (actually, most of which) being this song:

This has been one of my favorite Get Up Kids songs for quite a while and I slipped it in thinking it would just be a nice slow dance song. In hindsight I clearly underestimated the power of several drunk, reformed emokids. You see the groom, most of the groomsman, and a large chunk of the similarly-aged attendees had been in our youth (and to some degree still are in adulthood) Chuck Taylor-wearing, navel-gazing, non-ironic, die-hard fans of second-wave emo bands like the Get Up Kids, Saves the Day and Jimmy Eat World. So as this song opened – one of only a handful of happy love songs in the genre – and the newlyweds began to dance, we – mid to late 20-somethings channeling our mid to late teens – linked arms around them and began to sing.

In my head I remember a tender moment in which several close friends serenaded a just-married couple, pouring the emotions we felt into every word, articulating what the two of them really meant to each of us. Reality probably looked more like a group of fairly drunk guys surrounding a mostly sober couple screaming lyrics loudly enough to drown out the actual song. Hopefully it was more touching than ridiculous. To this day I haven't seen the video.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 6: Somewhere Out There, Out Where Dreams Come True

2011-11-06T21:00:00.001-05:00

Day 6: A Song That Reminds You of Somewhere

Initially this was kind of a difficult one for me in light of yesterday's challenge. Songs that remind me of people usually remind of specific times with those people which are also rooted in specific places. As such most songs that remind me of a somewhere also remind me of a someone. As I combed my memory/song library only two instances came up that brought to mind a place that wasn't also strongly attached to a person.

Exhibit A:

I got my driver's license in 1999. That year I was living in Broadview Hts, OH, just over the border from North Royalton. The intersection of State Rd. and Royalwood Rd. held the last stop light before my house, and the time from this light turning green until I pulled into my driveway at home was exactly 2:02. How do I know? Because in 2000 this was one of my favorite songs and countless times coming home from work or hanging out with friends I'd sit at this light and queue up this song. When the light turned green I'd unleash those power chords and accelerate home. I'd never go particularly fast (at most 5 or 10 mph over the 35 limit) but belting out power-pop late at night on an wide, nicely paved, empty road with the windows down it felt like I was flying. I have a lot of positive memories and warm feelings surrounding "I.O.U. One Galaxy", many of which involve friends, but the strongest one will always be me, alone with a short stretch open road.

Exhibit B:

I came to Death Cab for Cutie kind of late. This song, the first track off of their debut album, came out in 1998 however I didn't get into the band until I hit my middle years of college in the summer of 2003. Discovering indie rock is what college is for, right? Between the end of summer quarter and the beginning of fall that year some friends and I went camping around Hocking Hills, OH right about the time I was wearing out this CD (well, would be wearing it out if it was possible to wear out CDs.) Even though there were three other people in the car at the time whenever I hear this song I don't think of them; I think of a warm late-summer day driving through middle-of-Ohio greenery. I don't remember what conversations we had, or if we had any conversation at all. I just remember sun reflecting off the dashboard, wind in my fingers as they dangled out of the driver's side window, and winding roads with trees on either side.

When I came up with these songs I was struck, but not surprised, by the fact that they both were heavily connected to driving. Ohio is still a place where independence and freedom is largely - especially at young ages - emotionally tied cars. The midwest is a place with a lot of space and driving was an easy way toss myself out into the middle of it. The space inside was either my own or shared with people I chose to share it with. I've previously written about my feelings regarding music and driving so I won't repeat them here. I'll just state that I spent a LOT of time from the ages of 16-23 listening to music in my car. Though the geography outside of my driver's seat often changed the somewhere my music lived was, in large part, my car stereo. Though that's a place I can't have back now (and wouldn't if I could since driving in New York City is always an annoying prospect for me and gas is like a million dollars per gallon now) it'll always be a place I look back on and cherish.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 5: Remember, Remember on the 5th of November

2011-11-05T22:01:00.002-04:00

Day 5: A Song That Reminds You of Someone

Easiest prompt yet. As soon as I saw this one I knew which song I'd pick. Of course, just diving right into that piece from the get-go wouldn't be fun, would it? No, first I need to blather on about a bunch of other songs in addition to today's selection.

Music can be a pretty powerful trigger for memory, but it can also be a pretty random one. Some associations come through significant personal events and some seem to just inexplicably happen. Whenever I encounter any song by Broken Social Scene I immediately think of a friend of mine who once randomly asked me on Facebook if I'd ever heard of them, and the only time I remember ever hearing Franz Ferdinand's "Do You Want To?" was when I was dancing with a girl I'd just met at Thursday's in Akron. I've danced with plenty of girls, so the reason I'd remember this so vividly escapes me. The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights", however, is a song I've heard countless times but now whenever I hear it I instantly think of a particular fri3nd and his wedding when we lifted him up into the air when this song came on. Whenever I hear "Baby Love by the Supremes I always think of my aunt who apparently used to sing it to me when I was a baby and who told me about this when I was a teenager by singing it to me again.

So which song has a connection so vivid for me that it immediately sprang to mind the instant I read "Song That Reminds You of Someone"? Well, let me start off by telling you a story.

The year was 2000. I was fully immersed in a pop-punk phase and my favorite bands at the time were Rancid and Less Than Jake. I was driving with a couple of friends of mine, let's call them 4 and 6, and we were listening to the self-titled first album of a certain L.A. pop-punk band that had become one of our staples. We were rocking out, as always, singing along, but when this song came up we took it to another level.

As the song progressed I pulled up to a stop light, put my foot securely on the brake, and belted out the lyrics along with my two friends. We were bouncing out of our seats when the guitar breakdown started at 1:27 and when it hit for real at 1:43 let me tell you: we air guitared that shit hard. Like no other three people have air guitared anything in the history of air guitar. The unfettered air guitaring madness of those five seconds has reverberated forward through time so that hearing any snippet of this song immediately brings me back to that moment with those two guys. The lyrics advise to, "Feel it all and know that this will pass," but this is something that never has, and I hope never will. Air guitar.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 4: Sad Songs Say So Much

2011-11-04T23:30:00.001-04:00

Day 4: A Song That Makes You Sad

After lamenting yesterday that I had too many sad songs in my music library you'd think today's prompt would be easy for me, but actually it's probably even harder. See, it's actually really rare for a song to bring down my mood. A really well done sad song tends to have either a tragic soulfulness (think anything Solomon Burke has ever done) or a raw, visceral power (see: Rites of Spring) and I tend to get caught up in its purity of declaration; lost in the poetry of the lyrics. I love being moved by music and when an artist or group makes me feel something through song I can't help but fall in love with the beauty of their expression. In these cases I feel inspiration more than anything else.

When my mood is down to begin with I'll even use sad songs to bring me up as hearing someone else deal with pain brings a sense of comforting camaraderie. Perhaps this really is the reason it's so hard for me to find music that makes me sad - I use so often use my favorite sad songs therapeutically. Sometimes, in the throws of anxiety and heartache, the only proper medication is pouring two fingers of whiskey while Morrissey pleads for something he wants.

Only one song has ever made me cry, Autopilot Off's "Friday Mourning", and that had more to do with circumstance than the actual song. It popped up randomly on WinAmp a couple of hours after I'd learned my grandmother died and I insta-bawled, but the song had never affected me that way before and hasn't affected me that way since. It was just sort of a coincidental trigger - I never strongly associated the song with the event. For a while The Good Life's "Album of the Year" brought me down because it pretty accurately reflected a situation I had going on, but that kind of pain always fades and the song lost its effectiveness over time.

As a sucker for love songs I suppose the song that really affects me, the one that brings me down despite its delicate, graceful instrumentations and simple, evocative lyrics, is Iron and Wine's "Naked as We Came".

It's an incredibly pretty song that's wonderful to listen to, but whose ultimate message is that even the most perfect love will end in death. No matter how storybook the life the last chapter is already written. This is a hard truth to bear since it is so immutable. Songs about pain and loss are easier to take because along with all the sorrow there's always hope that something better will come along after. That your life will move on once the hurt heals. In this song there is no pain to get over, nothing to move past; only the fact that once you move past it, once that pain ends, another end awaits you. The best times are at the beginning, waking up next to the person you love, and nothing ever disrupts this except for the one thing that's completely unavoidable.

The album that holds this song, Our Endless Numbered Days is incredibly hard for me to listen to for this precise reason as this theme carries through. The record isn't one of sadness, however, but more of, "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." It's about living fully because our time is limited. I don't usually shy away from these themes, but this isn't quite Emerson cavalierly writing,

“Just to fill the hour – that is happiness. Fill my hour, ye gods, so that I shall not say whilst I have done this ‘behold an hour of my life is gone,’ but rather ‘I have lived one hour.’”

There's a resignedness within Days that seems so poignant, so melancholy that I cannot get past it.

Here's to hoping for a cheerier topic tomorrow. After writing this it might be time for some whiskey and Morrissey.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 3 - Happy Happy Joy Joy

2011-11-03T16:19:00.001-04:00

Day 3: A song that makes you happy

Today’s prompt is a bit serendipitous since last weekend I began picking through my mp3 collection to make a playlist of upbeat songs – much like Barney’s get psyched mix.

That project taught me one thing about my happy songs: they are incredibly outnumbered by sad/angry songs. I have days upon days of music at this point and out of all that I’ll probably come up with a handful of hours of happy tunes. Though I’d wager that sort of distribution is the norm among music in general. Those negative emotions always seem to be the easiest to credibly relate to other people. Positive emotions are harder to channel without being cliché.

So, how do the happy songs do it? How are they able to elevate/change a mood?

Some do it by being deep and soulful. A warm blanket you can just wrap around your shoulders and lose yourself inside. Some do it by being cute and sweet, channeling sunshine and rainbows and puppy dogs and whatnot. Other songs bring the smile with a few anthemic, major power chords and sweet solos while others just make you want to dance forever.

Though they work in different ways these songs share the ability to make those bad times seem good and good times seem great.

For my money not many things turn shit to sugar quite like the Beatles’ 1969 album Abbey Road, and of the many life-brighteners on that record Ringo Starr’s “Octopus’ Garden” outshines the rest.

From the casually marching drums and bass to the neatly meandering guitar, this song is so comforting in its simplicity. It exudes a child-like innocence not unlike that Muppet Movie classic “Movin’ Right Along”. It’s a song that walks up, extends a hand, and says, “Relax, stop thinking, enjoy life.” Sometimes those are the happiest moments of all.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 2: A Bad Idea Wrapped in a Bad Song

2011-11-02T22:01:00.001-04:00

Day 2: Your Least Favorite Song

Ugh, another category based on picking one song out of many equally deserving candidates. There are a few difficulties particular to choosing a song for least favorite song. First and foremost it’s a choice that, by definition, should be hard to think of. Most songs that I find to be truly bad are songs that I won’t listen to enough times to stick in my memory. And what does “bad” mean, anyway? Terrible execution? Horrible song writing? Overuse of cliché? General douchitude?

When I was regularly reviewing music I believed that it was better to be spectacularly incompetent than forgettably boring. Practice can make you a better player, but true creativity can’t be learned. By this definition all of the worst songs I’ve ever heard are buried in the waste bin of music history, forgotten and unrecoverable.

But we’re not necessarily talking about “bad” songs when we talk about least favorite, are we? Something can be a least favorite without necessarily being the worst. Like a completely mediocre song that becomes mystifyingly popular to the point where it’s overplayed everywhere. Such force-feeding of an otherwise inoffensive song could certainly drive it into the realm of least-favoritism.

But what about a song that's boring, cliche, overplayed, douchey AND sports a general ideology that's completely irresponsible bordering on dangerous? What about a song that epitomizes a mindset that's as poisonous as it is cathartic and has led to ten years of disastrous decisions? Is that worth least-favorite status?

Why yes, Toby Keith, it is.

It's said that Keith wrote "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" in 20 minutes, in late 2001, in reaction to both his father's death in March of that year and 9/11. It's certainly very emotional, and very personal to him and while the feelings he puts into it are understandable to a degree they are so, so misguided (at best.)

Though I graduated from high school in June 2001 I'd actually turned 18 too late to vote in the 2000 election. At that point I didn't have strong feelings politically, nor was I terribly informed about politics in general but after the World Trade Center attacks I got informed very fast. I wanted to find some kind of reason something so devastating could happen, some sign the kinds of changes it would bring going forward. Most places I turned for information in those early days, however, contained either shock or anger. Worse were the talk radio hosts who, in their hurt, proclaimed things like, "We need to bomb somebody for this. It doesn't matter who we bomb, we need to bomb somebody." Nobody knew how to deal with these events, nobody knew what to do in the face of the feelings of powerlessness that radiated from downtown Manhattan and the Pentagon.

And so we tracked the Taliban to Afghanistan and started bombing them wherever we found them. Still stunned, the pacifist in me felt our reaction was too fast, too knee-jerk and so I joined protests against the war. Months later I watched news footage of missile strikes in Baghdad. Nine years later we're still there. Thousands of American lives later. Millions of Iraqis and Afghanis later. Because we allowed our panic and our rage to lead us into action before we knew what we were doing, before we formulated a way to get ourselves out. We started bombing a lot of somebodies and the bombs are still falling.

Myriad Toby Keiths across the country wrapped themselves in words like freedom and images of the Statue of Liberty, bald eagles and Uncle Sam because they couldn't face the uncertainty of a world in which America was not invulnerable. And in their insecurity they shouted, "You'll be sorry you messed with the U. S. of A./ We'll put a boot in your ass it's the American way." And sharing those fears (and fearing for their jobs) a majority of Congress shouted it too. And America changed from the measured, compassionate, open society I'd grown up perceiving it as into a place that was divided, scared, irrational and dangerously aggressive.

Is any of this Toby Keith's fault? Of course not. He's not the source of all of the close-minded animus and fear-mongering that's gripped this country for a decade. His song is just a really good example of it.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 1 - One Song to Rule Them All

2011-11-01T13:54:00.002-04:00

So it’s November, and that means National Novel Writing Month. Instead of writing a novel I’ve decided to blog the 30-Day Song Challenge. I’ll not likely approach 50,000 words, so it’s not a direct replacement, but this is a little more interesting to me, and is more along the lines of the kind of writing I want to practice right now.

So, without further ado…

Day 1: Your Favorite Song

I’ve always found the concept of a “favorite song” to be kind of ludicrous – with the exception of songs that are tied specifically to a certain event or memory. First dance at your wedding, somehow playing in the background when your first child was born, etc. But such occurrences are rare. Seminal moments don’t happen very often and – outside of the first wedding dance which is usually a pretty deliberate choice that shows a prior connection to the song anyway – when they do happen the odds aren’t great that a song will happen to be playing, let alone a song you like.

In light of all of the possible great songs to pick from having one favorite has always seemed like an indicator that you’re not listening to enough songs. People are multifaceted, and if there’s a song that speaks equally to every aspect of anyone's personality I have not heard it.

And yet here I sit, trying to rifle through all of the possible #1s to find a single song to fit into this little online quiz. I’m not going to bother listing all of the possibles and will just skip to the pick of the day, which – I should point out – should not be taken as an accurate measure of my favorite song because that will change depending on my mood and which contender I’ve heard most recently. And because such a measure is stupid.

I picked this song for several reasons, not least of which being the fact that I love everything about it. I love its sparse simplicity, and how the heavy reverb emphasizes the song's cavernousness before the space is filled in by a fuzzy, dissonant, detached 90s guitar. I love the pace, and the metronome-steadiness of the high-hat which sets the stage for the impartial, analytical, naval-gazing lyrics. I love that the introspection is dispassionately delivered but is, at the same time, deeply personal.

At various times I’ll see myself as a scientist, solving problems logically and sifting through experience with fact to attempt to make sense of my own world, or as a journalist, trying to clearly communicate events or ideas. Sure I’m not handing out pills to anyone, but I like to think that I try to ease the pain of people close to me with a triple cocktail of booze, food and conversation, and anyone that knows me at all probably knows that I’ve been shooting myself with rock and roll steadily and in large volume for over a decade now.

While it’s not terribly emotionally impactful this song has a lot of utility for me. It calms me down when I’m feeling anxious or stressed. It centers me when I feel like I’m drifting in a direction I don’t like. It speaks to me clearly during the times I’m desperate for clarity.

Oh, and by the way, the song is Guided by Voices – "I am a Scientist".

Marching on Wall Street

2011-10-05T21:11:00.001-04:00

So for several weeks I've been on the fence regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement. I hadn't heard much about it at the beginning and as time went on it just seemed to be a haphazard gathering of various idealists of the kind that happen all the time in New York. The mass arrests and pepper-spraying of peaceful marchers made me sit up and take notice, but information about the group itself was still sketchy. The so-called statement of purpose they sent out a week or so ago seemed to confirm all of my fears that the movement didn't have the focus to go anywhere and was doomed to burn itself out sooner rather than later.

In the last week, however, my opinion has changed. As I've read more and more about the group and how it has spread to cities across the country, and as I've seen videos of the occupiers (some - gasp - in button-up shirts! with kids!) speaking clearly about their grievances I've come to realize that it doesn't matter that they lack focus. It's their drive that is key. As their message spreads and is picked up by activists in cities around America, and as labor unions and professional organizers like MoveOn.org begin to coordinate efforts with them, I started to believe that Occupy Wall Street could become a true engine for positive change.

With this in mind I decided to head down to Foley Square in downtown Manhattan today to take part in a march on Wall Street. After I hopped off the 4 at Brooklyn Bridge I got a little turned around, as I always do down there. I walked vaguely in the direction of the square figuring I'd stumble upon it and boy was I right. After a couple of minutes I heard drums and chanting (We! Are! The 99%!) and, turning a corner, I walked smack dab into the Occupy Wall Street procession from their base in Liberty Park heading to Foley Square. Their energy was infectious and I was immediately struck by the diversity of the crowd. The average age was certainly young (mid 20s probably) and there were a fair share of hippies, punks, and disheveled undergraduates but there were plenty of young professionals and middle-aged folk mixed in as well. This certainly was not the rag-tag bunch of cop-harassers and professional malcontents that they'd been painted as. In fact they looked a lot like the crowd from last year's Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington D.C.

As we walked the police were out in force ensuring we stuck to the sidewalk, which we were more than willing to do. This was, after all, just a pre-march toward the real march. As we passed intersections, onlookers with cameras clapped and chanted along while on the street-side over a dozen police motorcycles and scores of uniformed officers kept watch, maintaining their distance as much as possible.

They got bailed out!
We got sold out!

When we turned a corner the group around me started cheering and I heard exclamations of "Wow!" and "Oh shit!" and when I looked up I saw Foley Square already teeming with people. This march was never just an OWS march, but rather several different movements coming together to finally act in concert. Student groups and the New York Socialist party stood shoulder to shoulder with out of work accountants and a slew of other middle-class, middle-aged New Yorkers, and organized labor was out in force, with transportation unions and nurses unions the most visible.

Community activists traded turns on a mic revving up the crowd (Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy look like!) and the Foley crowd cheered in kind as they spotted the giant train of people arriving from Liberty Park. Children were playing, likely not understanding the stakes of the event, while older people almost seemed energized by the outpouring of like-minded individuals just itching for positive change. Two older ladies recounted a protest they attended 25 years ago while a middle-aged woman behind me complained to an organizer that a policeman was not being nice to her.

As the rally reached its peak three labor leaders took the mic (I couldn't make out names) shouting praises to the crowd for coming together in unity.

"The media keeps asking if this movement has legs," they said. "Shit, I see around me all the legs we need. Today we'll show them our legs, our bodies, and our fists raised in the air for change."

Still others came up, like an old woman proclaiming that she'd spent years working for worker rights, and they keep taking more away. She was marching with the youth today, she said, because they were the future. The final speaker - an old school New Yorker judging by his accent - thanked Occupy Wall Street more than anyone. "You've brought us together, and you've shown us the time for meeting Wall Street in city hall and the halls of Washington is over. Now it's time to take our cause to the streets."

The mood was jubilant, even as NYPD took its time letting people out of the square. As we spread out from the park and filled the street it felt for a moment like something could change.

What do we want?
Jobs!
When do we want them?
Now!

That's the nature of protests, really.

It felt the same at the Stewart rally, and at the anti-war rallies I attended in the early 2000s. With so many like-minded individuals in one place those kind of actions always make the world seem more malleable than it is. This movement, however, has one big advantage that no other group I've been around has had: a group of motivated, energetic, angry individuals determined not to let us forget the issues. A group digging in for the long haul, set to keep the alarm blaring lest America go to sleep again. That's the real power of Occupy Wall Street, and its sister organizations sprouting up in DC, Boston, Los Angeles, Columbus and elsewhere. They won't let us just go home, feeling good that we marched and shouted for a couple of hours, back to our normal lives. They will continue to challenge us to be more, to remind us that we want and need to do more.

How do we fix this deficit?
End the war! Tax the rich!

That's the hope, at least. And freshly off the protest line, I'm brimming with it.

Obligatory Ten Year Post

2011-09-11T20:15:00.000-04:00

So today is the tenth anniversary of 9/11. You can tell because for the last several weeks almost every news outlet has been airing retrospectives and today Twitter, Facebook, and most TV station were filled with tributes to fallen heroes/loved ones. And I've spent today trying to run away from all of it.

Not to say that all of my actions have been based around hiding from remembrance ceremonies for the event that is, in my lifetime, the single event most worth remembering. I would have gone to watch football today if it were any other Sunday, I would have drank beer and enjoyed cheap bar food like I have on countless Sundays past. Today, though, what was normally simply entertainment for me became welcome respite from a world that I don't feel I was ready to face.

Over the last ten years I have not shied away from 9/11 analyses or emotional recounts of the events of that day. In fact I've tried quite hard make some sort of sense of what happened, and of everything that's happened since. As today crept closer, though, I've become much more thoughtful and have replayed my own memories of September 11, 2001 several times over. I won't go into what impact it possibly could have had on an 18 year-old kid in Cleveland, Ohio - because writing it seems far, far harder to me than thinking/talking it. I will say that, as today crept closer, it became obvious to me that I would not be able to handle the volume of reliving that today would entail.

It's funny. Ten years is only significant because, through evolutionary chance, human beings come equipped with ten digits and so was born our system of math and, in large part, our conception of the passage of time. But because of this evolutionary trick I can't fathom even attempting to read anything of the New York Times' coverage of the last ten years, and even NPR's snapshot of the music community's shocked reaction was too much for me to work through. I almost lost it several times reading through Brooklyn Ink's fantastic pieces highlighting the after-effects of 9/11, and before today's football game, in the middle of a fairly busy bar, it was all I could do to keep from crying during a pregame tribute to those that died.

I like to think of myself as someone that doesn't run from my emotions. Even if I don't tend to publicly express them I always try to face them. What makes these particular emotions so frightening is my certainty that I cannot handle them. I have no idea how to deal with them. In some ways my emotions today are stronger than they were then because in 2001 all I had to deal with was immediate fear for my family in New York, and immediate sadness for everyone that died. Ten years on I've had to come to terms with just how deep those deaths were felt, and how easy it would have been for one of them to be me or someone I love.

I wrote this in 2001, a few months after the event. It's quite an idealistic piece written by a kid who still believed the ideas of teenagers could change the world. What strikes me as I read it now, though, is how much I wish I could still interact with 9/11 in such a directly reactive way. A non-introspective, progressive way. I wish, today, I could look at it and feel some sense of agency, of action.

Today, however, all I feel is powerlessness and deep, deep sorrow.

Godspeed, Atlantis

2011-07-08T11:48:00.000-04:00

I haven't watched a shuttle launch since I was a kid. My memories are a bit clouded now. We took time out of class when I was in elementary school, gathering in the cafeteria as a teacher wheeled a clunky CRT television set into the room. I recall crowding around with my friends; the lot of us holding our breath as the boosters ignited and the shuttle pushed for orbit.

There's a lot I don't remember about that launch. The year it happened. The name of the shuttle.

But when I watched Atlantis' engines light for the last time my memories of how I felt that afternoon came roaring back. The same adrenaline-fueled giddiness I felt when I was 6 (or 7, or whenever that was) poured over me again at 28.

Thanks for the memories, NASA, and the wonder.

July 4th 2011 - In Which We Eat

2011-07-06T22:57:00.000-04:00

In Ohio my friends and I ate a lot. I don't mean that we ate unnecessarily large portions though, being from the Midwest, that was also true. I mean we spent a lot of time and effort cooking for each other. Pot lucks were frequent in the year before I left and they're something I really miss. Even before I could properly cook these communal meals were something I always looked forward to if only for the warm, easy social aspects of food. For whatever reason - proximity of great restaurants? difficulty in taking cooked food on the subway? - these exhibitions of communal cookery have not been as frequent since I moved to New York.

So it was that on July 4th it was the food and the company, more than the fireworks which were an afterthought for me, that I really enjoyed.

Of course, since one of the hosts was Asian, these pictures are not entirely accurate representations of the evening. By the end it seemed like we'd hardly eaten anything the platters of food were still stacked high. Higher still were our spirits because, really, what's better than great food with great company?

Here's to more nights like this one.

July 2 2011 - That 'Nature' Thing

2011-07-03T20:01:00.000-04:00

Sitting on the Long Meadow in Prospect Park at the tail end of a 7-hour extravaganza of greenery, food, drinks and overlapping circles of friends I breathed deeply of summer air that actually smelled, to me, like summer. The smell of leaves and warm grass; a contrast to the overheated concrete and car exhaust that's the New York norm. I get lost pretty much 100% of the time I go to this park and this day was no exception with my exit taking an even more roundabout, circuitous path than my entrance. As I walked through the paths in the late evening stumbling upon random clearings and piece of mind I caught myself thinking that, with frequent enough visits, the stillness and calm in this park could possibly be enough to balance the chaos that is the rest of this city.

Later that night I saw Bridesmaids and laughed a lot.

Mission: Accomplished

2011-06-23T11:57:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of the year I established several goals for myself and lately I've been eyeing one in particular. The first attempt, earlier this week, was an abject failure. As was the second. And the third.

But this morning I can say with pride that I've completed a task I promised myself I'd take on before fall:

I've successfully poached an egg.

Simplicity

2011-06-15T20:02:00.000-04:00

So I was in Stuyvesant Square Park today writing a new blog entry and when I was on my way out I passed a small group of high school students. They were clustered around one of the tables, just talking and laughing. No drinking, no added excitement, just happy to waste some time on a nice night with some nice company.

I was jealous.

Numbers and Letters/Admiral Fallow at Mercury Lounge 3/20/11

2011-03-22T22:26:00.000-04:00

When it comes to live music there are some bands that just 'get it'. Whether through superior musicianship, arrangement, sheer power of performance or some mix of all three a band will usually reveal early on if it's going to throw down with hot pyromantic fire or deliver something far more tepid and forgettable. There's a certain purity of sound, a clarity of mission, a transformative, magnetic rightness that drips like sweat from every pore.

On March 20 the Mercury Lounge was lucky enough to hose two such acts. Arriving freshly from the marathon of the SXSW music festival both Numbers and Letters and Admiral Fallow turned in wonderfully beautiful sets. The former spoke in tones of brooding, bluesy Americana while the latter delivered disarmingly accented Scottish folk.

The slow pace and frequent repetition of Numbers and Letters is not usually something I enjoy but frontwoman Katie Hasty made me a believer from the moment she opened her mouth. It wasn't her affable Midwestern charm that changed my mind (though the fact that she gave away home-made cookies didn't hurt) but more the unwavering conviction with which she sang. In front of the band's simple yet well-played melodies she projected absolutely everything she had in her. She reached down deep and poured emotion not just from her lips but from her heart, her guts, the tips of her fingers and the soles of her feet. At one point the band faded back leaving her alone, supported only by her guitar and microphone stand; a devastating elemental force of yearning and heartbreak capturing every ear in the room. She even skillfully tackled Tom Waits' Chocolate Jesus.

Lesser groups would be worried about following such a performance. Thankfully Admiral Fallow is no lesser group. The Scots took the stage loose and smiling before launching into a set of pure, humble excellence. Lush, rolling melodies joined driving rhythms to push wave after wave of unassuming yet poignant snapshots of everyday life. Minute details were thrown into sharp relief as perfect expressions of jubilation, hope and yearning swirled together with six players on stage effortlessly moving as one. Each note, each strum, each breath was by itself only gently moving, but taken as a whole the music was tangible, thick, and wildly evocative. The group ran through it's entire catalog (including an Elbow cover) in its set + encore displaying a wide breadth of feeling that had every face smiling, every toe tapping and, occasionally, every eye watering.

And then, the next night, they did it again at The Way Station in Brooklyn. In a much more low key atmosphere, in front of a smaller yet similarly devoted crowd, on a Monday night two days before they were to head back to the UK Admiral Fallow came through once again with an achingly personal performance - lightened by frontman Louis Abbott's self-effacing charm. The venue was far more low-key and homey than at Mercury and the group, eschewing most of its drum kit and the lion's share of its amplification, proved that while greatness doesn't necessarily require volume it always, always, always demands passion. Thankfully it seems that passion is something this group is always able and willing to give.

Life, Love and A Fairytale of New York

2010-12-01T13:27:00.000-05:00

The holiday season seems to come earlier and earlier with Christmas sales even appearing before Thanksgiving this year. Everyone has their own touchtones for these early winter months. Black Friday, in November, is the official start of holiday shopping (as if that needed an official start) and for the next 30 days people will be flooding stores in search of some kind of perfect gift. Christmas trees (and menorahs) are going up, earnestly gaudy decorations are popping up on houses and in living rooms and red clothing is becoming relevant in even the most monochromatic of wardrobes. People in warm climates dream of snow while people in cold climates allow themselves to enjoy it at least through New Year's Day. While the sounds of Christmas are in large part dominated by Bing Crosby and Salvation Army charity bells, in my life no December is complete without one song: The Pogues classic "A Fairytale of New York".

This is not a song I ever sang in school. It's not one I've ever heard from a caroler's lips. But it is the most stirring holiday song I've ever encountered. It's full of nostalgia, longing, a sense of youthful adventure and tragic heartbreak - in short, the breadth of human experience. From its drunken, squalid beginnings in a jail cell on Christmas Eve the song is transported to a past relationship, yearning for the both the sweet fervor of beginning and the rocky agony of ending. Even more powerful than the particular story being told is the idea it expresses: that love and passion don't necessarily fade even though the relationship that spawned them might be irreparably destroyed. Shane McGowan wistfully singing, "I turned my face away and dreamed about you," promises that those feelings have life beyond the moment they are experienced and the song's final, haunting verse reveals through a painful exchange of bitterness and love that while the individual moments my only reside in the past the emotions will always be real.

Musically the song is just as stirring as its lyrics, from the slow, rolling intro sparsely featuring McGowan's gravelly croon over a simple piano to his interplay with strings, winds and Kirsty MacCall's sharp, rebellious vocal. My heart races with impetuous romance whenever I hear her sing, "When you first took my hand on that cold Christmas Eve/ You promised me Broadway was waiting for me" and is wrenched when she spits, "You scumbag, you maggot/ You cheap, lousy faggot/ Happy Christmas ya arse I pray God it's our last". Though the meaning of the chorus changes with every repetition the bombastic fanfare in its rise and fall gives me goosebumps. Every. Single. Time.

This is a carol that celebrates life in all facets, the high and the low. It revels in the stunning, whirlwind beauty of love and the piercing, gut-wrenching beauty of tragedy. The song isn't clean or innocent or full of child-like wonder like most associated with this time of year. Sure, those tunes are enjoyable in their own right. I've played in newly fallen snow, listened intently for the patter of hooves on my roof, and eaten chestnuts freshly-roasted on an open fire. No matter how heartwarming those memories are, however, I could go the rest of my life without hearing "Winter Wonderland" or "Frosty the Snowman". On the other hand I'd be surprised if I make it through the rest of today - or any day this month - without listening to, and being moved by, "A Fairytale of New York".

Girl Talk's "All Day" Doesn't Stack Up to his Yesterday

2010-11-22T19:55:00.000-05:00

A lot of words have already been written around the interwebs about what the new Girl Talk album, All Day, is. I'm going to start with a few things it's not.

It's not groundbreaking. It's not innovative. It's not astonishingly new.

In fact the more spins Gregg Gillis' recent work receives (including the two albums prior to this) the more glaring it becomes that he's just digitally recreating what a lot of great DJs have been doing for years. To say it's earth-shattering is to neglect the work done by Kool Keith (Dr. Octagon), Qbert and Shadow, and the complex mixes that Gillis has been lauded for are easily overshadowed by The Avalanches superb Since I Left You from 2000.

Granted, the novelty of Girl Talk isn't entirely based on his mixing skill. He's become famous largely for taking recognizable bits of iconic rock songs and mixing them in with hip-hop on a massive scale. Rock fans, through his work, are introduced to classic and club hip-hop through songs they've grown up knowing and loving. In this vein, though, All Day still isn't the most interesting piece in Gillis' own catalog. Feed the Animals from 2008 is far more fun and engaging using far more sound clips creating songs that sound more spry and organic. Its an album that creates the same club vibe but relies less on playing huge clips of actual hits. Some of the snippets heard on All Day are actually re-used from the previous record which furthers the impression of this album as a lesser reproduction. Even 2006's Night Ripper seems, to me, the more ambitious project as it isn't as beholden to club hits to create its beats. Biggie's "Juicy" played over Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" might be the best few seconds of work that Gillis has ever done. In light if this (lack of) progression even Gillis' early experimentations with glitch seem more intriguing.

Listening through this album for the first time is sort of like listening to the Ramones' End of the Century after already hearing and loving Rocket to Russia. The production is much cleaner and the techniques are essentially the same but the songs have lost some of their punch. Indeed, the fact that they are so similar to previous work, at some point, simply indicates an inability to grow further. Perhaps a more apt comparison would be to Green Day's Dookie. It's an album that stands on the shoulders of many previous giants and doesn't really build on the band's own work, but became a success precisely because the band's past record brought it to a critical mass of critical praise and underground awareness. It's not necessarily better than Kerplunk but it has undoubtedly cleaner production and it capitalized on Kerplunk's success to launch the trio into the popular consciousness.

This is all not to say that All Day - or End of the Century or Dookie - is a bad album. In fact, it's quite good. Gillis' transitions between clips are much smoother than past efforts and his penchant for instantly recognizable rock riffs with (mostly) club songs remains compelling. It's just a shame to see Gillis' next step after two excellent albums be a step sideways and back.

Joy Formidable at Bowery Ballroom 11-16-2010

2010-11-19T21:31:00.000-05:00

They are not YouTube sensations. They are not darlings of the indie blogosphere. But with a gigantic, cavernous sound, a simple, honest charm and earth-shaking rhythms the three members of The Joy Formidable are everything that's good about rock music.

The British trio finished their American tour at the Bowery Ballroom armed with an off-the-charts energy and enough fuzz and noise to blast the audience back to the early 90s. These tunes were more spry than their Seattle-launched predecessors, however, and grunge's melancholic shoe-gazing was replaced by a sense of euphoric revelry. The show wasn't so much a performance as a celebration and while the audience was pulled into the mass jubilation it was clear that nobody was having more fun than the three on stage. Matt Thomas, a mass of unkempt hair and flailing drumsticks, kept impossibly frenetic beats flying from his kit allowing pauses just long enough for listeners to catch their breath before diving into the next sonic whirlpool. The interplay between Rhydian Dafydd, playing the part of the enigmatic bass player, and the coy, sweet buzzsaw that was frontwoman Ritzy Bryan was adorable as the two long time friends played off of each other during and between songs. Dafydd's bass lines waltzed easily through the pillars of Bryan's gigantic riffs giving each enormously powerful song surprising agility.

While some bands construct songs though building tension and anticipation the Joy Formidable excel at creating successive and increasingly intense moments of release. They fashion moments of unbridled, unrestrained catharsis. They are a maelstrom of passion and intensity and, god, it is a blast getting lost in their storm.

They tore through most of the material from the band's mini-album A Balloon Called Moaning as well as new single "I Don't Want to See You Like This".

The group also unveiled the first single from next year's upcoming full-length Big Roar, the stark and haunting "Anemone".

The set ended with a nigh ten-minute rendition of "Whirring" that still seemed to end all too soon.

It would be easy to say The Joy Formidable are tailer made for anyone who spent the 90s listening to guitar heavy "alternative rock", or followers of the sharp guitars and sharper vocals of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Sleater-Kinney. In truth, though, the band should appeal to anyone in love with fantastic rock and roll. It's a group that grabs hold of ears and hearts and limbs forcing each into realms of purely instinctual feeling. Perhaps most amazing of all they do it with smiles plastered across their faces and a desire to share them with anyone that will listen.

Power Overwhelming?

2010-09-10T15:30:00.000-04:00

During my high school and early college days I was a gamer. By the time I hit my gaming stride at 14 years old I'd already maimed my hands on the NES Rectangle of Pain, ruined my eyes by staring, too close and unblinking, at myriad TV screens and gotten intimidatingly good at Street Fighter 2. After a middle school spent transitioning into computer geekdom - assembling boxes from parts and getting my first taste of online multiplayer through Doom II and Duke Nukem 3D - I entered high school as a Computer Gamer. I'd taken One More Turn a million times in Civilization 2, racked up a Flawless Victory in Red Alert and co-founded one of the more skilled and successful Jedi Knight clans on the MSN Gaming Zone.

And then, in the summer of 1998 at a computer show at a nondescript Hilton Hotel, I found StarCraft.

By this point I was well versed in Real Time Strategy games (a veteran of all of the Command and Conquor titles, Warcraft 2, and lackluster titles Kill 'Em All and Total Annihilation) but in Starcraft I met perfection. Blizzard added a third tribe to the normal RTS dichotomy and yet still somehow managed to attain a better balance than any game before (or since.) It was nearly perfect. That summer (and subsequent summers) it was not strange to find me waking at 9am, making eggs and toast, starting up StarCraft at 10am, breaking around 1 to make cheese fries, eating cheese fries while playing more at 1:30, and not stopping again until dinner at 7.

I literally played that game like it was my job.

And this single-minded, horrifying dedication paid off. I became very good. My friends and I waged epic battles at LAN cafes and across Battle.net.

It's been a long time since I seriously played StarCraft. In college I transitioned to first to CounterStrike - in addition to becoming startlingly good at Super Smash Bros. - then almost exclusively to console RPGs and then mostly out of gaming altogether. A few years ago I logged in again and was amazed at how the building speed had progressed but surmised that certain build orders had become rote and speed trumped strategy. The game had grown past me, and I wasn't too bothered to catch up.

Enter: 2010. After a decade of rumors and teases Blizzard finally released StarCraft 2 and legions pored out to purchase it, including several of my friends. Early reviews state that it's every bit as addictive and epic (maybe even moreso) than its predecessor. For years I checked on the progress of this game, poring over the new units, watching gameplay demos and painstakingly searching through Google pages for a firm release date. And yet, weeks after the game debuted, I still don't have it. The Game won't run on my Macbook that is mostly reserved for Netflix, Facebook, Microsoft Office and Adobe CS4. A wall of computer upgrades $800 high stands between me and The Game and, to be honest, I'm not sure the cost is even worth contemplating.

In the next year or so I'd probably end up needing a new computer anyway, but computer gaming has fallen mostly out of my life and I can't say I miss it all that much. Even if I had the machine to run The Game would I really want to dedicate the time to play it when there are already at least five things I'd rather be writing? I'm generally distracted enough. Can I afford to add the distraction to top them all?

I imagine when I do end up upgrading my computer I will also end up buying this game. But here's hoping that I can at least, in the time between then and now, regain some sense of focus so I'll be able to see Starcraft 2 as one of many releases and not an overriding obsession. I've been waiting for it too long to not get it. After ten years the purchase is inevitable. The anticipation has been bubbling over since before the game came out.

I'm jacked up and ready to go.

Neon Trees Are Terrible... in Awesomeness

2010-08-03T21:57:00.000-04:00

I want to hate Utah pop-punk outfit Neon Trees. I want to loathe this band with every ounce of taste I have. Their music is simply a conglomeration of every pop gimmick that's been popularized in rock music over the last ten years and the record lacks depth, soul and heart both musically and lyrically. There are songs on the band's debut, Habits that literally make me cringe. And yet... and yet there are moments on the record that approach pop perfection with dynamic rhythms, heroin-addictive hooks and beats so catchy they're practically pandemic.

Opener "Sins of My Youth" seems a direct musical rip from 2008's well-meaning but unrealized and annoying post-emo musical Razia's Shadow complete with forceful but non-evocative vocals trying to convey some emotion the vocal never delivers. It's a party song about regretting drugs and parties which, I suppose, is ironic but a sort of irony that is more irritating than clever. This flows into "Love and Affection" which fails to conjure anything close to either emotion with unimaginative melodies lifted from 2004 while "In the Next Room" would make Panic at the Disco wish someone really would close the Goddamn door so nobody would steal their vaudeville-meets-pop-punk shtick. With "Our War" the Forgive Durden circle is drawn to a close with a sedate, contemplative monologue preceding a mostly forgettable closer.

Despite all these issues, despite all these mediocre songs I cannot stop listening to this album. Why? Because of a four song stretch in the middle that makes for some of the best summer music of the year. "1983" is actually probably a stupid song, but as a 27 year-old my senses of the tune's flaws are obscured by nostalgia and its hooks piled upon hooks. "Girls and Boys in School" attacks with a high-hat and snare good enough to fill out the playlist at most indie-rock dance parties in 2006 while "Your Surrender" is a jumping, pounding, pogo-ing anthem of who-cares-what-because-this-chorus-is-so-fun.

None of this would be able to salvage the record, however, without "Animal" which is, I have to say, is an almost perfect pop song. It's nimble and agile, subtle pauses leading into quick, entrancing movements. It has hooks, sing-a-longs, and just enough 2001 garage-rock affect to temper the singer's over-indulgent vocal. The result is a hot, hot, hot song that if their label marketed it smartly, would be an instant mainstream hit. It's exuberance and youth bottled and rendered in 0s and 1s.

Habits spends most of its time mimicking sounds of the band's successful predecessors and in many cases the failings of the songs are more failings of the source than of Neon Trees. When the band hits on something good, however, it's fucking electric.

Real Life Hot Tub Time Machine

2010-07-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

Before last weekend the last time I was in a cabin it was filled with several eager Cub Scouts sleeping in barracks-style bunk beds eating food prepared on either campfire or wood-burning stove. It was a far cry from the cabin-style luxury condo I've just returned from equipped with a full kitchen, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, comfortable couches, two plasma screen TVs, a pool table and a hot tub. Of all it's amenities, however, the greatest was its ability to transport me back to a simpler, easier time of my life.

The Hocking Hills getaway featured several old friends from high school and college - along with a couple of excellent new additions - and its lack of Wi-Fi and cell service was reminiscent of the days I first met most of them. Ten years ago, when cell phones were a novelty and the Internet traveled at 33.6 kbps I was just emerging from a six-year funk to discover that, yes, it was possible to make friends in high school. Several of those same friends just helped me continue my long journey out of a similar funk that started in late 2008.

There was certainly more alcohol at the cabin than there was in those early days - a fact I'm told I emphasized often on Friday night. The feeling of implicit closeness was the same, however, as was the blissful ignorance of the impending Tomorrow.

As far as I know there wasn't much talk about work or career paths or what-are-you-doing-with-your-life because for three days all we were doing was living.

This is not to say we were completely frivolous. We took our cooking and our eating very seriously. We re-lived Nintendo-64 glory days (since I left UC Davis I've never met a group of people that could match me until this weekend) and relished the hot tub and campfire like they were our jobs. Our focus on bocce ball on the shores of Lake Logan was rivaled only by our single-minded pursuit of booze into the early morning.

However fleeting, this weekend brought back not only happier days, but a happier me. Somewhere along the line i became more closed and more tentative and this small vacation from what has become my real life revealed that it's possible to be 27 and impetuous. That 30 is no closer to me today than 24. That while New York is non-stop and fiery and intimidatingly full of potential, so too was I... once upon a time. It reminded me that going back to Ohio means more than seeing old friends; it means once again seeing who I am around them. Hopefully as I flit forward, back to the pace of the present day, the great press of humanity and the insane, rabid pulse of the city I can bring that with me as a steady reminder of who I can be.

The weekend's cast of characters for the curious:

MB & R: Our two hosts. MB I met in high school, likely in Brit. Lit. R I met in college in an Asian-American studies course. I met each of them at the exact time in my life that I most needed to and am lucky to still know them. They now date, live together and own two cats together in Columbus.

B & MP: B I also know from high school. He spent many hours watching movies in my basement and generally making senior year worthwhile. MP is his wife that he met at the University of Dayton. I've only hung out with her a handful of times which is sad, because she is fantastic. They currently live in Tennessee where B is finishing his doctorate in Chemistry.

MW: Another high school friend. We were acquaintances in freshman English, frequently bumping into one another at the top of the curve. Later he served as DM in my first foray into D&D for which I've only recently forgiven him. He currently lives in Cleveland freelancing and making killer hummus.

D: MB's friend in college. I met him a handful of times and was always impressed by his quiet intelligence and affable nature. He is a lawyer in Columbus despite not liking the legal profession.

S: MB's high school girlfriend. I only knew her in passing in both high school and college which is a shame because she is pretty hilarious and awesome. She is a champion drinker who will soon start a job teaching fifth grade in Columbus.

K: A friend of my old college roommate's ex-girlfriend who was later pulled into MB's social circle. She apparently thought I hated her because I always acted awkward around her due to aforementioned roommate's strange, strained relationship with the aforementioned girlfriend. Which is crazy because she's incredibly open and frank and totally refreshing.

A&A: The only people on the trip new to me. They went to high school with R, are together now, and cooked the finest meal of the weekend (which is high praise) with their roasted leg of lamb two ways. He plays the Movie Game with deadly intensity and encyclopedic knowledge while she delights in Lady Gaga almost as much as D and myself.

On Mermaids, Crowds and Drunk Russians

2010-06-20T22:54:00.000-04:00

Some of the best times to be had in New York City come from unexpected places. Deviating from a pre-made plan often leads to amazing, singularly New York experiences.

Sometimes this means leaving the apartment to lounge on a summer patio only to wind up with a paid invitation to Peter Luger's Steakhouse. Sometimes it's a beer after a kickball game on the Lower East Side turning into a forty person flip cup game and ending at a random Chinese restaurant with ten perfectly charming strangers. Sometimes a mostly pretentious thesis show at the New York Institute of Photography filled with a lot of desire but little self-editing leads to a fantastic view of the Manhattan skyline from the room of an art studio in Queens.

Sure, maybe some nights involve stumbling home after trolling several bars looking for one that shows an inkling of entertaining life, and occasionally a day of wandering New York's myriad streets yields nothing more than aching feet. But it's a fact of life that boring days happen. It's a luxury in this city to be able to turn them into something more without even trying.

Yesterday was Brooklyn's annual mermaid parade at Coney Island. It's an extravaganza feature classic cars, costumes, nudity and revelry in celebration of... something about mermaids? Involving American muscle cars? And naked people?

Ambiguous purpose aside, I expected a fairly raucous time surrounded by loud, rambunctious revelers taking in one of the more unique parades around. What I got instead was a fairly standard group of parade watchers commenting mildly on each group/float while the sun etched the summer's first burn into my shoulders. The mild reactions were greatly disappointing and my small crew soon resigned ourselves to a search for food and drink. At Coney Island, a place populated with no shortage of food and drink stands, this usually wouldn't be a problem but due to the parade and our lack of knowledge about the route a long an sun-beaten walk around the Cyclones baseball stadium and down the boardwalk resulted in nothing more than more parade, more cut off streets and some cops standing on a bridge like Gandalf the Grey attempting to hold back a mob of hot and thirsty Brooklyn balrogs. We quickly retreated to a small gezebo to escape the heat, replenish our energy with bread and cheese and possibly to wait out the parade blocking us from carnival food and beer. When it became clear that the parade would outlast our patience we made off down the boardwalk in search of relief from the noise, the incredible press of people and our by now homicidal thirst.

A short walk later (as we watched the crowd change from ironically horribly dressed hipsters to sincerely horribly dressed locals) we made our way to Brighton Beach and began to see promising signs of sustenance. After passing an enthusiastic dog playing with a ball and three identically overpriced beachfront restaurants we came upon what I have to describe as the greatest gem of a hole-in-the-wall I've ever seen in several visits to the boardwalk. A little ramshackle set-up with no name seemed to grow off of the side of one of the Russian ocean-side triplets to offer burgers, hot dogs, pierogies, bottles of Russian beer and small bottles of vodka. As we walked up old Russian men - already drunk on beer and some horribly fluorescent shots of watermelon and vodka - sat around plastic tables and smiled boozy smiles at us speaking a language none of understood.

In other words, it was the best place ever.

Seating perhaps 20 peoples - mostly serving walking traffic and customers just in off the sand - we vultured a table and passed an hour sipping Baltika in the shade. Now, New York has plenty of Big Moments. Concerts in world-famous halls, monuments, Historically Significant neighborhoods and some of the best restaurants in the world. I've been through my fair share and enjoyed every moment of them. These small moments, however, spent sitting in the shade pulling on a pint of a smooth pilsner that was brown-bagged by the same guy that sold it to me while lazily watching people walk up and down the boardwalk are the ones that really grab me. These moments are not fleeting; they pass softly and slowly, begging to be savored and I could have sat in that chair gazing out over that beach and into those waves for hours.

Ohio Through Fresh Eyes

2010-06-02T21:59:00.000-04:00

In 2006 I was chomping at the bit to get out of Ohio. I was on the tail end of four years in Columbus capping 23 years total in the state. Anxiety and frustration flowed through my veins like blood and alcohol and my impatient restlessness was at its peak. I'd been wanting to leave since I was 13 years old, dying to go off in search of some sense of purpose and belonging.

As I drove off in that U-Haul in the mid-August heat there's no way I could have predicted how comfortable I'd feel coming back.

My last several trips back to the state have been for various weddings and generally felt rushed from pre-planned and scheduled commitments. My recent trip back, however, was different. There was nothing to prepare for, no momentous occasions - other than, I guess, seeing a friend's new house but the big decision on that front had been made months prior and they'd moved in the previous week. It was just like the old days, going over a friend's place to hang out. Just with a much longer ride.

Stepping out of the Cleveland greyhound station it struck me - as it has every time I've been back - how much easier it was to breathe. The air smelled sweet without the overabundance of car exhaust that plagues even the far reaches of the five boroughs. Driving through Lakewood with 2 I was struck by the stillness and the quiet. Though it's true we were going through the Cleveland State Campus at 3pm on a Friday in the summertime I can't remember that last time I've been on a street in New York that had that kind of serenity. Even the bar we went to for lunch felt extremely welcoming and homey with exceptional food.

The drive to Cincinnati was most mostly easy - I apparently slept through the traffic outside of Columbus - but between the woods and fields surrounding I-71 and the trees backing 6's new house I believe I saw more green last weekend than I did in the entire last year in New York combined. I realized just how much I was starting to miss open space, and driving, and clear nights and grilling. God I missed grilling.

These aesthetically pleasant tidbits of nature and calm weren't the biggest surprise, however. Moreso was the feeling of hanging out in a house with 2, 4 and 6 (and Mrs. 6) with nothing else to do but enjoy each other's company. These are my oldest friends in the world and a weekend spent lazing and eating and drinking with them was more satisfying than most of the days I've spent lazing and eating and drinking in New York. For the first time in a long time I started to seriously consider the idea that I could live in Ohio and not be constantly planning my next chance to leave.

Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy living in NYC and I'm hardly plotting an imminent move back to Ohio. But the more time I spend away the more I've started to realize that while I might have traveled hundreds of miles east, part of me never left the midwest.

Notes From a Bus Terminal

2010-05-29T12:54:00.000-04:00

The plan was to leave work early, go home, get my luggage, and take a train, a train and a bus to Laguardia. The plan was to board AirTran flight 208to Akron. The plan was to spend a night in Cleveland and drive to Cincinnati the following day for a Memorial Day weekend that was a housewarming and reunion all rolled into one.

As they say, "The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry and leave us naught but grief and pain."

An impromptu Wednesday night drinking session (instead of doing laundry) led to a Thursday afternoon trip to the laundromat led to a $30 car ride to the airport. A disorganized air traffic control tower and a mild rainstorm led to a canceled flight. A burning desire to see old friends led to a 12:45am bus out of Port Authority bound for the North Coast. A Saturday morning re-booking exchanged for a Thursday night Greyhound odyssey. Twelve hours on a bus and four hours in a car. One hour spent driving for every year I've known the friends I'm going to see.

Sitting on the floor waiting to board I'm transported back seven years to this same terminal set to embark on a trip of striking similarity yet stark difference. Tonight is the beginning of a journey, leaving behind a home made in New York for an Ohio that becomes a little more unfamiliar by the year. My 20 year-old counterpart, propped against the gaudy orange wall tile playing Big 2, is facing the beginning of a journey's end. He is returning to an Ohio that's still holding a place for him and leaving a New York that is more eye-opening getaway than prospective residence. We're both hoping to sleep away the bulk of the journey though the 2010 edition hopes to have more inspiration and less raw fish stowed in with the luggage.

To be honest, these parallels with my past travels made the decision to scrap the outbound flight much easier. I was interested in treading a path untrod since before I was old enough to order a drink. This time i have a project and a netbook instead of traveling companions but enough time has passed that, at 27, I'm still able to delude myself with the idea that a 700 mile bus ride holds the promise of a grand adventure.

I expect tonight holds nothing more esoteric than sporadic sleep and more sporadic writing Interrupted thoughts both waking and asleep. Still, there's a certain romance in the idea of taking the longer, less convenient road. In eschewing the quicker, more nerve-wracking trails of the open sky. Time will quickly tell whether this half-formed thought results in memorable experiences or or just stiff limbs and a sore neck.

A Brooklyn Tattoo From Brooklyn Tattoo

2010-05-24T22:24:00.002-04:00

I was perusing Facebook last Friday and noticed that a friend of mine was attending an event at Brooklyn Tattoo on Smith Street and Atlantic in Brooklyn. Curious, I clicked through and arrived at one of the more impulsive decisions I've recently made.

The event, at one of New York's better tattoo parlors, was described thusly:

Brooklyn, NewYork - It is a time honored tattoo parlor tradition to commemorate an auspicious date or event with a themed tattoo. Shops have long been inking “13” on arms for $13 when that date falls on a Friday or offers for $31 tattoos are abundant on Halloween. With this thought in mind, Brooklyn Tattoo has decided to put their own spin on this custom and are proud to announce that they have decided to honor one of their biggest inspirations, the Brooklyn Bridge, by offering 27 dollar Brooklyn Bridge tattoos on Sunday May 23rd, the day before the Bridge’s 127th anniversary.

After reading this synopsis and chatting about it with some friends it took me all of half an hour to decide to imprint the bridge on my upper arm. This may seem like a rash decision, and it may have been partially spurred on by my recent itching for more ink. It'd been five years since I'd gotten my first tattoo and while I'd wanted another one I could neither decide what I wanted nor pool together enough money to get it. However, cost and convenience are - in my view anyway - poor reasons to get permanently marked.

While I don't have a particularly strong relationship to the Brooklyn Bridge - to date, almost four years into my time here, I have yet to walk it - the bridge is an icon of Brooklyn. Even if I don't end up staying in New York long-term I know that my time in this borough will have been an important chunk of my life. If I'm an old man in Portland or Chicago or California or even Ohio I will not regret this keepsake of my time in New York. I might not look at it and see strong memories of the landmark itself, but I will remember countless nights of drinks and laughter from Greenpoint down to Park Slope. I'll remember sitting on the beach at Coney Island as evening deepened into night listening to the New York Dolls play at Siren. I'll remember writing reviews on early summer mornings in McCarren Park, jogging through Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, and playing 10am basketball in Boerum Hill. I'll remember cherry blossoms at the Botanic Garden and an amazing surprise 24th birthday party after finding out I'd gotten my first "real" job.

Within this 4" x 2" bit of ink will reside bar crawls and brunches. Out of the way holes-in-the-wall and established, renowned restaurants. A million small moments that connect the few big ones to make a life.

In the end the decision was easy because, in addition to the cost and the fact that I was going with some of my closest friends in New York, the tattoo does represent something important to me. The bridge is Brooklyn and I am, and will be, proud to wear it.

Props to Robert at Brooklyn Tattoo for doing such a great job.

How an Early Evening Turns Into a Late Night

2010-05-20T23:12:00.001-04:00

For the better part of four years for my friends and I Wednesday has been a bar night. Not a wild, get dressed up, go out late bar night. A blow off steam after work and leave after happy hour night. Occasionally these outings have spilled into Thursday A.M. but generally we'd belly up at 5:30 and be out in time for Lost. Though we've dabbled in other bars our bar of choice has been largely consistent as has our bartender (the wonderful Ms. Heather.) Our times have not always been unpredictable but they have always been fun so when I texted the usual suspects yesterday as afternoon stretched to evening I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into.

Little did I know that I'd be left fighting a hangover for most of Thursday that even an early-morning bacon/egg/cheese croissant couldn't ward off. How did I get from light after-work drinking to trudging through a work day dehydrated, muddled and craving huge bowls of fries covered in cheese and hot sauce? The story isn't funny. It's not strange. It's not surprising. It's probably a little anti-climactic But it says a lot about that bar, this city and the people that choose to populate both.

This is New York. A city whose paths wind and crisscross with myriad others, and a city where a quick drink can quickly turn into a early morning extravaganza. The night started with the usual crowd. Kenny, Ryan and myself on the stools with Heather behind the bar. Beer and whiskey flowed like friendly small talk and soon enough we turned to talk of music, books and the best burrito in Brooklyn. A previous engagement and a call from the wife cleared Kenny and Ryan out early, though I chose to stay on just to finish my dinner. And here the story takes its turn.

At 8pm on a Wednesday this Brooklyn bar is normally not busy and this was a very normal night. As I ate the last morsels of my Mexican delight and sipped the last drops of my whiskey and soda - fully prepared to clear my tab and make my exit - I over hear a conversation to my left. A local helping a tourist - how a tourist traveling alone made it to Bushwick Country Club mystified me - with directions to the Music Hall of Williamsburg for the Public image Limited show. The bit that caught my attention? "Oh, I'm from Cleveland."

A smart man ready to end his night would have left. Being from Cleveland, and finding a fellow Clevelander, I of course had to speak up. An hour and a half and three drinks later and Michelle (I think) the mother from Lakewood was on her way to see John Lydon with instructions to call me if she got lost. Now, I thought to myself, I can close the tab and get home. I still had enough time to get home, pound some water, and get to sleep without ill-effects the next morning.

Cue Heather's iTunes randomly playing Jawbreaker the moment Leah the Jawbreaker fan walks up for another drink. The two commiserated about "Kiss the Bottle" covers and I was given yet another opportunity to shut up and get out of there. Naturally, as Leah walked by I made some quip about Jawbreaker covers never being truly satisfying. She smiled and mentioned I'd probably have more fun out on the back patio rather than drinking by my lonesome at the bar. A nice offer, but it was late and I was at the tail end of several whiskey/sodas two PBR tall boys and two shots of Irish whiskey. Already four hours down, I thought. I should really call it a night.

I gathered my things, put on my jacket, ordered a pint of Gaffel Kolsh and headed to the back.

As I took a seat in the plastic lawnchair next to Leah's she and her two friends were launching into a heated discussion about various aspects of Judaism. Just as I started to think I was in way over my head the conversation changed to who-can-remember and the tail end of the evening was off to the races. We talked about 5-favorite-albums-ever, getting over relationships, the bartenders, and at one point there was an extended discussion about early 90s electronic music. After two more beers (on Leah's command) and a brief stop back inside the bar to listen to 24 Hour Revenge Therapy I doled out my phone number for the second time that night - to a girl that seemed incredibly into some other guy there - and stumbled home.

As I said, anti-climactic. There was no action, no revelation, no great adventure.

But it was a short evening that became a long night because - and this is the closest thing to a motto that I have - you're never alone at a good bar. The bartenders, the regulars and the random passersby are always ready for a drink and a good conversation. And even looking back through a hung-over haze these times spent with strangers are always worth it, even if they never lead to anything else.

Vinyl Exams: The National and Broken Social Scene

2010-05-15T20:57:00.000-04:00

The National's High Violet and Broken Social Scene's Forgiveness Rock Record will likely be remembered as two of the better albums of 2010. Aside from the two dropping in the same month, these releases share several common traits. Both are lush, rich and deep. Both come from bands that have a several album history of excellent music. And both boast fantastically packaged vinyl versions to the tune of 180-gram double-LPs.

High Violet comes shrink-wrapped with a sticker annoyingly attached to the flimsy plastic. I personally can't stand keeping shrink-wrap on a record, usually opting to buy heavier plastic sleeves. Luckily it does seem that the sticker - which is mostly ad copy, but cool looking ad copy - is easily removable and transferable.

The front cover carries a grey background and is adorned with a multicolored, cursive, shadowed rendering of Pope Pious IX's quote defending the dogma of the immaculate conception:

If, therefore, any persons shall dare to think - which God forbid - otherwise than has been defined by us, let them clearly know that they stand condemned by their own judgement, that they have made shipwreck of their faith and fallen from the unity of the Church.

The band's name stands on its side as does the name of the album, inset with foil.

The back cover is a bright purple with white text. The album name once again appears in foil inset.

As this is a double-disc the packaging is actually a gate-fold with the inside spread including the liner notes and a black and white picture of the Dressler brothers, Aaron and Brian.

The sleeve of the first disc (sides 1 and 2) is bright purple on the front with the word "HIGH" written in large white letters. The back features a black and white picture of Bryan Devendorf. A small, easy to miss slip with a digital download code is inserted along with the first disc. The sleeve of disc two (sides 3 and 4) is colored bright purple like the first with the word "VIOLET" in large white lettering. On the back appears a picture of Matt Berninger and Scott Devendorf.

Those lucky enough to have struck early enough to get a numbered, limited edition copy of this album will find that their records are a deep violet and are slightly translucent (hard to see in the picture.)

The High Violet package is exact, concrete and remarkably attentive to detail. The violet/white trim color scheme permeates the entire release with the exceptions of the stylized black and white band photos.

Forgiveness Rock Records comes pre-packaged in the kind of heftier plastic liner that I prefer, which is good since the band and album names are imprinted on the plastic and not on the actual record cover. The front cover art consists of a splice of several different pictures including a crowd scene, a city-scape, a field of flowers, a boat and various kinds of sky. Bisecting the images is a wide cone of light shining upward.

The back cover features a picture of a large, paint-brushed color splotch.

The inside spread sees the album's lyrics hand-scrawled in the background with a mountain range superimposed over the top. This is more art than functional lyric sheet since each half is once again bisected by a white column with a track list and producer's credits.

The front of the disc 1 sleeve is simply the album title drawn in smudged pen and enlarged. This spare presentation could seem anti-climactic but actually conveys a very personal touch. The back of the sleeve reproduces doodles of the various band-members. The disc 2 sleeve has more doodles on the front though the back is the star. As BSS has so many members performing so many different functions within each song, the back of the second sleeve features liner notes and itemized musician credits for each individual song.

The final impression the album leaves is one of incredible creativity but also of deep intimacy. It's just as careful and purposeful as High Violet but evokes a more riotous, frenetic feeling, much like BSS' music compared to The National.

The packaging in both cases is meticulous, reflecting the ethos of each band and each group's musical style. Clearly a lot of thought and love went into these, which is fitting considering the quality of the songs contained within.

Vacation Days Remaining: 12

2010-04-26T13:44:00.001-04:00

There's nothing like a day spent at home that was supposed to be spent at work. Waking up at a time usually reserved for meetings and hurried phone calls. Spending hours lounging in bed, long after the alarm never went off. It's easy to love these days when the sun is out, the temperatures are up and mental to-do lists consist of popping in and out of record stores and early afternoon drinking on some Brooklyn bar back patio. The idyllic neighborhood hopping - traveling between boroughs and leaving responsibility behind.

Even overcast mornings, like this morning, look better at 10 from my living room window on a Monday that isn't a national holiday. There's a beauty that comes from an extra day of rest, even when spent strolling through a light rain with arms full of groceries. Folding laundry at mid-day, listening to the drone of the dryers while the laundromat owner gently hums a soft tune to herself. The beautiful, calming peacefulness of paying attention to the little things. The freedom of forgetting everything else.

I find myself treasuring slow moments in a city that's frequently exhausting. I could be stomping puddles in the Village, indulging in some coffee shop's free Wi-Fi or exploring one of the several museums I still haven't made it to in three and a half years. None of that, however, sounds as good as reclining in my living room as vinyl spins on my turntable, amusing myself at the fact that I was actually at this party but don't remember anyone filming.

Happy Monday to me. It's time to lounge, relax and be merry for days off are too short, Tuesday will be here before long and reality will come crashing in with it.

Written Over Three Very Good Days in New York

2010-04-24T17:15:00.001-04:00

Monday through Friday my days play out much the same. My alarm clock buzzes, I jerk half-awake and I groggily strike out in the direction of the noise hoping to hit the snooze button. Eventually I drag myself out of bed, cook breakfast, take a shower and leave my apartment. On the good days the sun is shining and my landlord's cats are relaxing on the front steps, patiently waiting for me to play with them.

Six blocks north to the subway. Two flights of stairs down to the train. Hoping that the G is not waiting at the platform causing me to sprint or wait an indeterminate amount of time for the next one. A little after 9am I arrive at work. I drink coffee. I open up Outlook and Excel. I mess about with figures and paperwork. I stress out about things over which I have little control. At 5pm (or 5:30, or 6 or 7) I leave.

This flat, grey day-to-day is the basis of my everyday and yet there are times (like now, on my roof, on a 65 degrees and perfect afternoon) when I get the strongest feeling that this 8-5, five days a week is nothing more than an extension of my dreams. A waking, walking sleep. In those hours it certainly feels as if a part of me remains unconscious, waiting for that first breath taken after 5 (or 5:30 or 6 or 7) outside the office's revolving doors. Then during, for example, a walk from Union Square to the East Village for a burger and a beer the best parts of me start to come alive again. Chatting with a bartender for a couple of hours about proper techniques for pouring beer and mid-90s alt-rock seems more like Real Life and Real Experience than an entire day of the-same-as-yesterday.

Stuyvesant Square Park at dusk, with its dog walkers, film students and bored high schoolers is lit far brighter than the rows of desks and offices bathed in cold florescence.

I breathe deeper and think deeper when outside of my daily routine; when faced with the myriad facets of New York. I've traced the metropolitan veins and arteries, my feet picking up the city's heartbeat from the streets and avenues. As this city lives, so too have I felt alive. Peeking past the sheen of brand new skyscrapers and midwestern transplants like myself I catch glimpses of brownstones and dirty brick storefronts seeing an organism both very young and very, very old.

Though the High Line is developed, though Times Square is squeaky-clean; though every neighborhood has been the setting and/or backdrop for countless books, plays, TV shows and films New York still retains the potential for every moment spent here to be wholly original. It's this promise of impetuous possibility that drives so many to move here and prevents so many from moving away.

New York is noisy. It's exhausting. It's, at times, claustrophobic. The rent is astronomical. But though the cost of being here may be high, the experience of living here is priceless.

In Defense of Fans of Bland

2010-04-21T13:31:00.000-04:00

When I woke up Tuesday morning I heard a voice. At first I couldn't place it; it was a voice I hadn't heard in years. It fought with my blaring alarm clock for my attention, and when my flailing hand finally hit the snooze it came through clearly. Sitting up in my empty bedroom I heard the smooth tones or Rob Thomas in my head as he sang, "she said I don't know if I've ever been good enough..."

The lines bounced around my brain while I cooked breakfast, showered and commuted to work until, unable to hold back any longer, I spent a large part of the morning time-traveling back to high school. Matchbox 20 wasn't a band I loved, but it was a band that made a few songs that I loved. I navigated my spreadsheets and e-mails that morning to the tune of Push, 3am, and If You're Gone and marveled that ten years later I still knew a lot of the words. Not only that, I found myself still liking the songs despite not liking the band anymore and despite knowing that if they came out now I would more likely than not dismiss them. Listening to the tunes again, though, I was unable to disassociate the songs from what I felt when I first enjoyed them.

I wonder now how some of the bands that shaped my late adolescence would fare with critical, curmudgeonly, 27 year-old me had I never heard them in the first place. This Brooklynite doesn't feel the same longing for escape and frustration with his surroundings that made Less Than Jake's "History of a Boring Town" - and the rest of Hello Rockview for that matter - so essential to the Ohio-rooted 17 year-old I was. I can't say whether the angst-filled earnestness that made The Get Up Kids' Something to Write Home About so compelling in 1997 would strike the same chords now without being played on decade old strings.

How much are our feelings for the bands that we love tied to who we were when we first heard them? More importantly, does this make our taste suspect - a product of our situation and environment more than our ear? Or does it just make our relationship with music that much more beautiful and personal?

As someone who's never wanted to level judgment at someone for liking (what I think is) a terrible band I'd have to say the latter. When it comes to music feeling is king. While originality, skill and emotion can often feed into that if a crap song comes along at the right time in someone's life then that song will be playing in their heads for the rest of their life. And while blogs like this can always try to ensure people happen upon songs like "For Me This is Heaven", if it ends up being "I Want it That Way" who is anybody to really judge?

Bands can be picked apart and musicians can be critiqued, but when it comes to fans sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants. Most people will call that a "guilty pleasure" but I say that when it comes to music no pleasure should be guilty. I'll blast my stereo to Arcade Fire and Kelly Clarkson with equal pride because who cares what anybody else thinks of it? When it comes to music cool is bullshit, approval means nothing and Rob Thomas is invited to my iTunes any time I feel like it.

Third Annual Record Store Day This Saturday, April 17

2010-04-16T13:43:00.000-04:00

In 2008, after the first record store day, I wrote a piece on the continual value of record stores with regard to music. As a meeting place, a communal resource and a stockpile of very old, very analog sensory perceptions these storefronts remain a vital part of musical culture.

Record Store Day began as a way to celebrate and revitalize the rich tradition of the music repository, the brick-and-mortar, the mom-and-pop. I've gone out and spent far too much on both previous Record Store Days and I happily anticipate a repeat this year.

I think you should, too.

Check out the Record Store Day Web site for participating locations. Several shops are hosting in-store performances by nationally known acts so check ahead to see if any can't-miss happenings are happening nearby. There will also be several RSD-exclusive released including a Bon Iver/Peter Gabriel split 7" where they cover each other's songs.

To commemorate the event Carrie Brownstein - formerly of Sleater-Kinney, currently one of the best music writers around - published a little questionnaire on her NPR blog Monitor Mix. Follow the link for her answers, read below for mine.

Q: What was the first independent record store that shaped, inspired or merely catered to your musical tastes? (If you've never set foot inside an indie record store, I urge you to head to one on Saturday and see what you've been missing!)

A: Chris' Warped Records, formerly located on Madison Ave in Lakewood, Ohio. For 20 years this was THE store in Cleveland. It traded in punk, hardcore and ska, hosted in-store shows and sold tickets to shows at local clubs. It was one of the linchpins of the Cleveland scene, but sadly is no more.

Q: What was the first album that changed your life?

A: Metallica's Ride the Lightning was the first album I loved and Blink182's Damnit was the first album to get me to love something that wasn't metal. Less Than Jake's Hello Rockview, though, was probably the first album that really hit home. The themes of dissatisfaction and anxiety over the future came around at just the right time, just when I needed them.

Q: What is one of the most prized albums or singles in your collection?

A: In February of 2003 I bought my first issue of Punk Planet magazine - mostly because of the name - and the cover story was a three part interview with the members Jawbreaker. I'd never heard the band before but based on reading the article, and the description of the band's influence, I was very interested in giving them a listen. One month later I was visiting New York for the first time and my sister took me to Generation Records in Greenwich Village where I found, among other things, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. It instantly became one of my favorite albums and remains so to this day.

More Like Bore-Square

2010-04-13T09:13:00.000-04:00

This is not a knock on everyone I know who uses this service. I encourage them to continue if they are so compelled.

But I fucking hate Foursquare.

It's not that I don't like social media, I do. I've Myspaced, I've Facebooked. I've even Friendstered. I half-heartedly digi-schmooze on LinkedIn, I feel the pulse of the online world with Twitter and I've been blogging since blogging didn't mean anything more than spewing 19 year-old turn-of-the-millennium angst all over Livejournal and Xanga.

This also goes beyond the fact that I find geolocation kind of creepy to the point where I won't even let Twitter broadcast the location of my Tweets.

Something about Foursquare just feels wrong. One of the greatest facets of the social Web is its ability to connect disparate people living in an age that feels increasingly disconnected. Our albums have been reduced to lists of titles in iTunes, our books have been relegated to 7-1/2" x 5" prisons of e-ink and just when we think we, too, might be swallowed, lost and pulled under by the ethereal waves of the binary tide these sites allow us to create chains of commonality and pull ourselves back to somewhat analog ground. Though we can't hear, we talk; though we can't feel, we touch. In that service, however, this service is both far too much and far too little.

Foursquare is one-dimensional in the way everyone feared Twitter would be - and indeed often forces Twitter and Facebook to their least creative denominators. It shouts for attention without giving anything back. It's nice that you're at the beach. Tell me: How's the view? Tell me: Is the water warm? Tell me: What does the cool breeze feel like coming off the water? Tell me anything other than the mere fact that you're there. While other platforms require an action or an investment from its members this one requires only that they show up. In a network television world of social media Foursquare would be the Jersey Shore.

The most annoying, frustrating, heartbreaking, coldly mechanical thing about Foursquare, though, is the core idea that users earn points for going about their lives. In the universe this technology creates the payoff for new finding new locations and making new discoveries is another step toward a meaningless achievement trophy instead of these experiences being their own reward. Breadth of life reduced to a collection of merit badges. Stopping to smell the roses only after updating "Hey! I'm at the rose garden!"

This idea that the quirks and flourishes of our everyday should be so marginally quantified is foreign to me and I have a horrible aversion to the notion that shopping and eating and drinking and walking and sunning and swimming and living in the moment should be stripped down, sterilized and scored.

Maybe all this makes me sound like the old guy screaming at the kids to get off his lawn, and maybe - at the ripe old age of 27 - that's who I am. So I guess it's time for me to close the laptop, crack open a book, lay needle to wax and not bother caring if nobody knows about it.

Press Play on Hey Marseilles - To Travels and Trunks

2010-04-11T17:25:00.000-04:00

While festivals like Lollapalooza, Bonaroo and Coachella get a lot of hype year after year for their huge line-ups of headlining talent it's the weeklong events of CMJ and SXSW that routinely capture my imagination. While the big, sprawling weekend extravaganzas offer the opportunity to see scores of huge names on one bill the small-club marathons in New York and Austin allow extremely talented, criminally overlooked acts to make a leap to the national stage. CMJ 2007 yielded one such gem in the form of a solo act armed with an acoustic guitar and a set of cracked, heartbreaking pipes. This intriguing find was none other than Bon Iver, who of course went on to explode in the indie world, even capturing the attention of Peter Gabriel.

I haven't been similarly blown away by anything at these two festivals in the two and a half years since, until SXSW 2010 yielded the Seattle folk orchestrations of Hey Marseilles. The band's full-length To Travels and Trunks - written in 2008 to be re-released this June - blew me away from the first listen of the first track.

The arrangements on the album are amazing, navigating the space between simple folk rhythms and sophisticated orchestral flourishes. Constant, steady guitar riffs press steadily onward as various strings and horns flit in and out of their path. As a violin fades, a trumpet takes its place in a series of crescendos filled out by booming percussion. It's an album of grand constructions that nevertheless gets all the little things right.

The record is a chronicle of wanderlust; an ode to exploration and braving uncharted experiences. To the tune of hand claps and light, ambitious strings the irrepressible "Rio" reads like an instruction manual on how to jump headfirst into possible disaster for the mere chance at unforgettable adventure. The band sings, "I will go where the days left to breathe are not gone; are still long. I am traveling on." For those taking the leap the marching drumbeats and triumphant guitars of "Hold the Morning" promise, "We will sing to the thunder. Clap as the earth shakes."

Inherent in any hunger for newness, of course, is a restlessness with the status quo. The soft guitar picking of "Cannonballs" lays down a soft launching pad to explore this stir-crazy anxiety. "These days are not fast. Times will not last, so they say, but I'm having trouble believing." The message repeats in the waltz-like rise and fall of "From a Terrace" which calls out, "Routine is rapidly pounding her post, can't you stay in the moment that needs you the most?"

There is no fear of consequence on this record; rather an idea that failure and loss are but steps on the way to something greater. "You Will Do for Now" states in a voice full of realized mistakes and insecurity that no matter how bad today is there is always tomorrow and, "Regret won't keep the sun from the sea."

Throughout the record Hey Marseilles strives to show off the stunning elegance of intrepid risk-taking, whether it be the heady thrill of success or the poignant melancholy of failure. This is no more apparent than in album stand-out "Calabasas". In past years both the Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem have used a technique that involved repeating musical phrases but adding to them with each repetition. Each time through instruments and layers of complexity piled on resulting in an incredibly multi-textured and evocative sound. "Rebellion (Lies)" uses this affect to create a grand sense of drama and exuberance while "All My Friends" channels a tremendous sense of isolated longing. "Calabasas" uses this to draw scenes of gentle, stunning beauty.

It begins with a recurring guitar riff supporting simple lines like, "Take what you need from the words I leave from the windowsill in blue concrete." Soon enough a gentle violin comes in bowing a gentle melody and the pair are quickly joined by a booming bass drum. Backing vocals, keyboards, a cello and an accordion all in turn slide in to fill out the sound underneath a lead vocal delivering the same few lines over and over again. Elements slowly fade out and fade back in creating a gentle ebb and flow that builds into a minute and a half long strikingly graceful instrumental interlude. The intensity picks up to crashing cymbals and the vocals cut back in leading a grandiose crescendo to a moving, intense climax and a coda that finishes back with the simple guitar that opened the piece. It's an arresting, picturesque love song that conjures more meaning with five lines than a lot of bands do in an entire album.

The song is a grand gesture, an exclamation point in the middle of the record and an early entrant for song of the year.

With To Travels and Trunks Hey Marseilles have crafted an earnest, absolutely gorgeous album that displays not only skilled songwriting but also heartfelt lyricism. While the vocals sometimes skew too tender they are generally compelling and when paired with the record's fantastic musicianship result in some of the most moving pieces of music in recent memory. The album is a must-listen, and for any lucky enough to be in the tour path the band is a must-see.

Happy Belated to Me

2010-04-07T22:41:00.001-04:00

In my adult life I have generally not bothered to celebrate my birthday. I've only thrown parties twice, never tell anyone in advance and in recent years have taken to removing my birth date from all of my social networks when it approaches. When I turned 23 I left town.

This year, however, I decided to throw a little something together. That little something ended up growing into a four-day extravaganza that spanned three boroughs and highlighted some of the truly great things that make living in New York meaningful.

Day 1: Friday, March 5
The only day I actually planned wasn't actually my birthday. I'd decided to try and rally people at a bar in the city immediately after work because I was skeptical that too many office friends would make the trek to Alphabet City on a Saturday. As it was I didn't expect many to take the cold 15 minute walk from Union Square to Royale but I was pleasantly surprised. Trickling in a few at a time, we ended up with a very sizable group - between office and non-office friends - that turned out to enjoy the cheap, strong drinks and one of the best burgers on the East Side.

The Royale burger - and yes, you can get a Royale With Cheese - is cooked perfectly to order with delightfully flavored beef topped with fresh vegetables. There are no gourmet toppings or mix-ins. It's just a simple, fantastically cooked meal. Royale also get bonus points for great, toned down ambiance and a good jukebox.

As the crowd dwindled to the serious drinkers we relocated to Smith Street in Cobble Hill (Brooklyn) in search of a bar, drunkenly finishing the night at Boat.

Day 2: Saturday, March 6
My plans for my actual birthday were originally "recover from hangover" but the hangover never hit and I got a call to head back down to Smith for some bars in the sun as the weekend had inexplicably brought warm weather with it. After my 15 minute trip on the G train I learned we'd be setting out on foot, covering some miles, on the way to "Red Hook". I use quotes because, as far as I'm concerned, any neighborhood in New York that is not serviced by a subway might as well read "here there be monsters" on the map. This also applies to "the Bronx".

The destination in "Red Hook" was the Brooklyn Ice House which is now one of my favorite bars in the borough. Run down seats, old wooden tables, an excellent beer selection, cheap beer-and-shot deals and some of seriously excellent bar food. The Ice House was made for me. The pulled pork was tender and tasty, though the barbecue sauce was disappointing. The full menu features corn dogs, wings, burgers, chili-cheese dogs and ribs, each of which I'm going to have to taste before the summer is over.

After the bar, and because I'd apparently not eaten enough, I walked down a block to stop in at a place I'd seen on the way in: Red Hook Lobster Pound. The space was pretty bare-bones but featured a pretty bad-ass live lobster tank and a dangerously decadent lobster roll. The roll was sweet and smooth, made with some of the freshest lobster I've ever had slathered with approximately one whole stick of butter and served on a toasted roll that was also buttered. As the sun set and the itis set in I ventured home.

Day 3: Sunday, March 7
Sunday was actually planned out ahead of time. Months prior I'd made plans with a friend to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland 3D (since I'm a bit of a Tim Burton nut... more on this later) and then get some Korean fried chicken. Naturally.

The movie was entertaining - and I thought the 3D work was generally very good - though every time I go to a Regal Cinema I wonder when they made a medium popcorn into a Gigantor Popcorn. I also wonder when they stopped making employees wear ties and purple vests (like I had to.)

I'd had Korean fried chicken at Bon Chon in Manhattan before, but had never ventured out to Unidentified Flying Chicken in Queens. After a quick(ish) trip on the 7 we were on the way to UFC to meet up with my sister.

For the uninitiated, Korean fried chicken is also known as the crispiest fried chicken you will ever eat. UFC was just as good as Bon Chon with juicy, succulent meat, crispy skin and a side of sweet, sweet daikon. There were thoughts of stopping at a Filipino bakery in Woodside on the way back to the train by my arteries threatened revolt at the thought and I headed home.

Day 4: Monday, March 8
When laying out my birthday I'd known all along that I wanted to give myself a three day weekend. I was originally going to take off the 5th but decided I might want to show up for work when trying to get coworkers to show up for after-work drinks. Instead I took Monday off and (since I'm a Burton nut, as mentioned earlier) bought tickets to see the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.

The exhibit itself was small, insanely popular, and consistently sold out. Even in the middle of the day on a Monday the crowds were unbelievable, but the trek to midtown and the lines of gawkers were totally worth it. The room of movie props and concept drawings from his various Hollywood successes was interesting but the real draw were the pages and pages of previously unreleased artwork that lined the walls. Some seemed like character sketches for unrealized screenplays, some were obviously doodles on a random newspaper page but all of them were wonderfully imaginative.

Upon exiting MoMA, since the weather was still fantastic, I engaged in one of my favorite New York activities. I donned my big blue headphones and walked aimlessly through the streets. A trip in the sunshine through the streets of New York at a time when everybody is supposed to be at work is one of the single best experiences a city-dweller can have. The chance to walk through the myriad neighborhoods, each with their own unique flavor and personality is one of the city's greatest draws and while everything I did over my birthday weekend was great, it was this factor that really made the weekend wonderful.

From the quickly fading dinginess of Alphabet City to the quickly gentrifying Cobble Hill. From the mysterious "Red Hook" - the neighborhood whose isolation largely protects it from the suburbanization of western Brooklyn - to the wonderfully Asian areas of Queens. From the scrubbed-clean fronts of midtown, back to my apartment in Bed-Stuy where I actually ended the weekend in proper fashion: sunset drinks at the bar around the corner.

There's clearly more to New York than can ever be encapsulated in one blog. It has an immense capacity to cater to every taste and sate any craving. It's a city that's tremendously old but that manages to keep its populace young at heart. New York is a place that can turn up something new every time it's searched, though on the morning of March 9th, 2010 I certainly found something very familiar.

That hangover I misplaced on the 6th.

New Legislation Would Be a Few More Nails in Radio's Coffin

2010-04-05T20:52:00.000-04:00

NPR recently reported that President Obama supports legislation that would charge AM and FM radio stations royalties to labels and artists, presumably in place of terrestrial radio paying ASCAP fees.

On the surface this seems like a pretty innocuous move - supported by struggling artists like Tony Bennett, Cheryl Crow and "Money is a drug and MCs are on it" will.i.am - but really it looks to me like just another way the majors are trying to exert control over the musical marketplace and squeeze the last few cents out of their business model before it shrivels up and dies. The royalty rate hikes in 2007 nearly crippled Internet radio and this system would do the same to terrestrial indie stations.

Radio stations that play anything other than Top 40, classic rock or country tend to be locally owned businesses that aren't exactly raking in the cash. New fees on top of operating expenses and the tightening ad budgets of this economy will force most of these stations to run in the red or go under. Sure Crow and the Black Eyed Peas love this move. Their music gets played on Clear Channel stations all over the country, and with these kinds of laws Clear Channel will be one of the few companies able to pay the increased royalties.

But what kind of landscape does this leave us with? The same six songs on every channel played on loop every hour?

Artists deserve to get paid for their work. This is a fact. But moves like this are akin to artists poisoning the well that they drink from. How many small bands thrive on airplay? How often are record sales driven by a first listen on the radio or on a Web site? When up-and-coming bands would kill for the kind of listenership a medium-sized radio station - even in 2010 - commands, how does it make sense to claim that the radio stations are the only ones benefiting?

Musicians and radio stations - both online and terrestrial - should have a symbiotic relationship. When one thrives, both thrive. By increasing royalty fees on what is in essence radio stations advertising their product, the major labels - who not even ten years ago were found guilty of paying stations in exchange for increased radio airplay - are killing an essential source of musical distribution.

Is this the brave new world the online frontier promised young musicians? Not too long ago writers were tripping over themselves to declare the playing field level since now any artist with a guitar and a Myspace account could be discovered and make it big. Now OKGo, a band made famous by YouTube, isn't even allowed to embed their own music videos on their own Web site.

Make no mistake. The major labels would prefer it if customers bought music based on nothing but traditional advertising campaigns and album art. No advanced listens, no peer reviews, no refunds, no returns.

I Didn't Really Sound Like That, Did I?

2010-04-04T17:11:00.003-04:00

Every year I sadomasochistically go back and review my old Livejournal entries from roughly 2001-2004. Generally it's pretty jarring to see such drastic swings between elation and depression, such poor writing (including things that I HATE these days like WRITING IN ALL CAPS and shortening yr words 4 no reason) and such comical taste in music.

Reflecting on the recurring themes, however - freaking out about love, freaking out about the future, freaking out about a lack of self-confidence - I realized that while my expression and perspective on these things may have changed my concern about them really hasn't. I still worry, on and off, about each of those things and while I'm less likely to spout off like a whiny five year-old about them I'm just as likely to spend far too much time thinking about them. Behind the horrific teenage poetry lies a person that is not far removed from myself.

I've grown past a lot of the frustration and angst surrounding the failings of my personality but, in large part, I have not actually grown past the failings themselves.

While those past entries are certainly embarrassing to the point that I hope nobody ever reads them again they're a pretty useful tool for self-examination. Looking back at 19-21 year old me I see that his fears are my fears and his hopes are my hopes. His dependence on his friends for identity is mine as well and I have to say we're both lucky to have such good friends to depend on. Some of the comments left for past-me were fairly prophetic - including my eventual move to New York.

While I'll never be using the rudimentary show reviews as clips they present a picture of where I was and how far I've come, both in taste and in writing.

I don't miss most of the days described in those entries, but I can't fault the passion that kid felt for something, anything to change. As cringe-inducing as some of the entries were, some others brought an aw-shucks smile to my face.

My last real day in Davis and Marge's goodbye comment. The first OSU snow day in 30 years. The Warped Tour where Mike first ran into Kate (and later Gewl). My 21st birthday. Kathleen and Edith asking me to run for office in PSA. The night Myk and Ryan first met. Mitch and Tasha's wedding.

All the sweet moments where a lost kid seemed to be found, however fleeting. Cheers to those, and more like them to come.

Current mood: pensive
Current music: the sound of silence

Shhh, Don't Tell Anyone

2010-04-04T13:49:00.001-04:00

I've lived in New York for three and a half years now, two of those years spent in the still heavily Italian Williamsburg. Over the past ~38 months I've had plenty of opportunities to fall in love with the thin New York slice of pizza and believe me I've fallen hard. From the overflowing behemoth slices at Anna Maria's to a simple, clean cheese slice from Stromboli's I have no shortage of wonderful pizzerias to frequent.

Thus, it's to my unending shame that I admit: I eat a lot of Papa John's pizza. In the corner of my kitchen stands a tower of boxes from that bastion of Midwestern chain pizza and if it weren't for my penchant for recycling that tower would be four times as tall. In Ohio I ate Papa John's now and again and always thought it was a pleasant pie, though hardly my favorite. In New York it's still hardly my favorite but there's no pizza that I've eaten - here, in one of the best pizza cities in the country - more than good old PJ's.

It all started when Papa John's took a dominant place in my hang-over food rotation. Meatball subs gave way to General Tso's Chicken gave way to pepperoni pizza. The crust and cheese aren't bland but are generally inoffensive and the sauce and pepperoni add nice savory flavor the compliments the large amount of that hangover panacea: grease.

Eventually, though, the Papa followed me from hung-over haze to stone-cold sobriety. Perhaps it was the online ordering system allowing me to put an order on credit without talking to a real person. Perhaps it was the slew of cheap coupon deals Papa John's continually pumps out. Perhaps they put crack in the sauce. Whatever the reason, whatever the method John snuck his pizza into my psyche with no signs of letting go.

YouTube Tuesday: PS22

2010-03-30T09:16:00.000-04:00

This New York Public School has become an Internet sensation. There really is nothing like a children's chorus rendition of a pop song to tug at the heartstrings and the way these kids throw themselves into these songs with such earnestness is quite moving.

I first heard their sweet tones in their cover of Phoenix's Lisztomania which provides a more sweeping and grand take than the high energy original. The looks on the kids' faces as they sing is transformative. Watching their slick moves during Lady Gaga's Just Dance never fails to bring a smile to my face and watching this grainy rendition of Aretha Franklin's Respect always drops my jaw.

Picking a favorite of them all isn't easy, but in the end it comes down to two:

Part of the popularity of these videos is probably due to the novelty of watching children sing these radio songs. But on top of that these young performers add a sense of wonder and innocence to everything they sing. There's an inspired and inspiring purity in these arrangements that's infinitely compelling.

Hat's off to the PS22 chorus and to their amazing choir leader for tapping something magical in these kids and for sharing it with all of us.

Check out the chorus' YouTube channel for more videos.

With Congratulations MGMT Makes Strides in Distribution of Music, If Not in Music Itself

2010-03-22T20:55:00.000-04:00

These days whenever an album leaks it's usually amid concerns of an impending lawsuit from the RIAA or a DMCA take-down notice. The modern (major label) music industry hasn't been all that accepting of new media in recent years, evidenced by EMI curtailing the distribution of music videos online or the label's repeated litigation against Dangermouse. It comes as a pleasant surprise, then, that when MGMT - signed to Columbia/Sony - found out the new album leaked the band decided to stream the entire thing.

The statement on the Web site reads:

Hey everybody, the album leaked, and we wanted you to be able to hear it from us. We wanted to offer it as a free download but that didn't make sense to anyone but us.

While it may not be surprising that a young band "gets" internet distribution of music, this represents quite a step forward at the very least. The phrase "that didn't make sense to anyone but us" implies that the band actually took this idea to its label and that the label agreed, at least to the idea of the free stream. For a major to agree to free streaming of an album before the official release date is a very promising baby step towards a realization of how promising online channels can be.

Radiohead and NIN had to release their albums on their own to experiment with online marketing and though indie labels have been testing these waters for years the majors haven't shown very many signs of budging. With EMI, one of the slowest to adapt to the new digital marketplace, mortgaging its back catalog its about time the other labels looked to harness the internet's potential instead of trying to close Pandora's Box.

The album itself is mostly unremarkable. Most of the tracks are mid-tempo and aimless, without any real energy or drive. The majority of the album plays like really good background music that sounds nice but doesn't have much behind its pleasant, shiny exterior. The two exceptions are fourth track - and album standout - "Flash Delirium" and the record's finishing title track. The former begins with quite a hip electronic intro before kicking into the dance-friendly hard beats that made the band famous. The song has the heartfelt exuberance that made "Kids" one of the best songs of 2007. "Congratulations" backs off from the aloof affect that possesses much of the rest of the record. The warm acoustic guitar is soft and inviting and the spare arrangements of the track provide a touching end to an album that otherwise keeps the listener at arms length.

Though the end product may not have been stellar, Congratulations represents a brighter future for the music industry. If the Big Four (soon to be Big Three?) can build on this they might just survive this new millennium after all.

On the Way Home This Car Hears My Confessions

2010-02-23T12:51:00.003-05:00

Since moving to New York I've found a lot of favorite things about the city. Free museum nights, free summer concerts, 4am bars and a pervading sense that a person is only as old as they let themselves feel. Near the top of the list is the erratic, nerve-wracking, frustrating, convenient and indispensable New York public transportation system.

For $2.25 I can travel from Coney Island to the Bronx Zoo; from the Hudson River to the Atlantic Ocean. On any given Friday night I can see one of the best modern art collections in the world at MoMA in Manhattan, catch an outdoor show at the Prospect Park bandshell in Park Slope, crawl into one of my favorite dive bars in Williamsburg, and be in bed without having to worry about traffic, falling asleep at the wheel or a DUI. I don't have to be alert during my morning commute and can begin to veg-out during my evening commute. Hydroplaning, warming an engine, defrosting and scraping a windshield and black ice are issues my past self had to deal with but that my current self can blithely ignore.

For all of the construction, delays and hours spent waiting for infrequent late-night trains the subway is undoubtedly my lifeline to New York City without which I'd probably spend most non-work hours holed up in my apartment playing video games and drinking whiskey (which isn't to say I don't sometimes do that anyway.)

As a child of the midwest, however, that grew up with wide streets allowing cars to drive at or over the speed limit (except in Lynndale!) in a city sprawled out enough to warrant a long drive just to get to a friend's house I can't deny there is a certain experience that only private transportation can confer.

I look back through rose-colored glasses and remember a certain serenity in my morning and evening commutes. The individualism that existed on even the most packed freeways as people traveled en masse, but were still encapsulated in their own little four- and two-doored worlds. I remember driving through a sleeping city surrendering its roads to me and my compatriots coming back from late-night jobs, shows and poker games. I remember the freeway between cities at midday, the sun hitting fields for miles around with only road ahead and behind. I remember road trips to Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin with friends packing into cars packing into caravans four or five deep with only one of us in the whole group really knowing the way.

Above all else I remember the music.

In New York, subways are communal property. Hundreds of people trying to exist in their own bubble despite being plopped in a space with dozens of complete strangers. Music is piped through headphones for one set of ears only and any deviation from this norm is generally met with annoyance at the offender, concern for their hearing or some spare change in their hat.

In a car, though, the space belongs entirely to the driver. In my first car, a 1993 Nissan Sentra that turned on a dime and eventually leaked from the roof, mixtapes littered every imaginable compartment and the car stereo later gave way to a walkman hooked up to miniature speakers once the volume knob stopped responding. In my second car, a 1999 Toyota Corolla whose only real blemish upon being sold in 2006 was a small cigarette burn on the backseat, the car lighter's singular function was to power my Discman - later my iPod - with no apology or pity for any poor soul who didn't have their own lighter on them. I might forget my book bag, my grocery list, my parking pass or my laundry detergent but my tape converter - that lifeline between my discman/iPod and my car - was never left behind. I perfected the art of the one-handed, eyes-on-the-road CD change, knowing exactly where in the CD wallet I wanted to go for what album and knowing by feel which buttons on the player were play, stop, forward and anti-skip.

There are moments in my life that I know never would have taken place had I grown up in New York. Mike and I in high school screaming along to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and freaking out an elderly couple driving next to us. Maynard joining us to rock out to a guitar solo on Goldfinger's "Anxiety". Mitch and I memorizing every word to Blink-182's Dude Ranch and trading off vocals in an Arby's drive-thru like we were Mark Hoppus and Tom Delonge. Sohail, in college, telling me while driving with the windows down and blasting DJ Scooter into the late summer afternoon that, "Now you're really Asian, man." Coasting through Hocking Hills during Amie's birthday 21st birthday camping trip with Something About Airplanes's lilting melodies providing the perfect accompaniment to the rolling countryside. The 6 (minus 2) in a car driving from Akron to Cleveland before most of us moved away singing in earnest as "Existentialism on Prom Night" came up on shuffle, and in that moment swearing that we were infinite.

I miss listening to cold, harsh, winter music while watching winter pass by outside. I miss listening to a gentle rhythm while hanging my arm out the window, letting it ride waves of air. I miss driving music. I miss sitting in parking lots surrounded by CD shrinkwrap and poring over liner notes because I can't wait until I get home. I miss not worrying about volume, bumping into people or annoying a train full of strangers.

More than anything else, though, I miss shutting the door, rolling up the window and singing along as if no one were listening.

Vampire Weekend Tops Billboard and I Say... Meh

2010-01-20T21:52:00.000-05:00

Apparently Vampire Weekend's sophomore effort, Contra, has charted at the top of the Billboard 200. When I first heard this news I tried to muster some indignation but really, I can't bring myself to care. I've been aware of VW for almost three years and have been indifferently shrugging my shoulders about the group for two of them.

My issue with Vampire Weekend was never that I disliked the band. It was that so many people thought they were the next great thing, and I couldn't get together enough feeling to care either way. They make some nice, fun little pop tunes, sure. There's a place for that. But I thought most if not all of the hype surrounding them was incredibly overblown.

Clearly my dire prognostications from March 2008 did not come to pass, and VW has survived the blogosphere's comical backlash and spared themselves the fate of Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah. While that's good for them, that doesn't really change my opinion. They still make nice little forgettable pop tunes that are easy to listen to - which is good for them since the Flaming Lips have made quite a career of that - but I still don't see the big deal.

I can't really say my opinions tend to follow the charts, though. Looking at the best-selling albums of the year in the U.S. I own a grand total of one from the past 20 years.

I suppose it's good for "indie-rock" (a term that was only descriptive for a few years last decade) that an independent release has hit the top of the Billboard charts. It's a sign of the times that you don't necessarily need the marketing arm of a major to chart. You just need a thousand over-eager bloggers jumping too quickly to anoint the next king of the hill. Easy, right?

Gorillaz Return With a Macabre Blast from the Past

2010-01-20T21:24:00.000-05:00

It shouldn't be news anymore that the Gorillaz are finally returning with a new album, one Plastic Beach. The first single, "Stylo", moves like a Tim Burton review of the last 30 years of music. A recurring disco riff plays underneath a dark 80s synth-pop beat. Shit gets real at 3:17 when none other than Mos Def drops some lines hard.

The album is due out on March 8th and the full tracklist follows:

01 "Orchestral Intro" (featuring Sinfonia ViVA)
02 "Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach" (feat. Snoop Dogg & Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)
03 "White Flag" (feat. Kano, Bashy & The National Orchestra For Arabic Music)
04 "Rhinestone Eyes"
05 "Stylo" (feat. Bobby Womack & Mos Def)
06 "Superfast Jellyfish" (feat. Gruff Rhys & De La Soul)
07 "Empire Ants" (feat. Little Dragon)
08 "Glitter Freeze" (feat. Mark E Smith)
09 "Some Kind Of Nature" (feat. Lou Reed)
10 "On Melancholy Hill"
11 "Broken"
12 "Sweepstakes" (feat. Mos Def & Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)
13 "Plastic Beach" (feat. Mick Jones & Paul Simonon)
14 "To Binge" (feat. Little Dragon)
15 "Cloud Of Unknowing" (feat. Bobby Womack and Sinfonia ViVA)
16 "Pirate Jet"

Flotation Walls: If You Haven't Heard Them, You Haven't Heard Anything Yet

2010-01-20T15:36:00.000-05:00

I have seen a lot of live music. I've ventured to sprawling outdoor festivals and tiny basement home shows. Huge arenas, smoky bars and places with enough exposed wiring to warrant serious concerns about fire safety. This usually involves wading through waves of mediocrity in the hope that, while sifting through grains of underwhelming talent and skewed vision, at least one bright gem will emerge.

For most music fans this search for the Good Show, at one time or another during our lives, becomes an obsession. We stalk our favorite bands hoping to hear our favorite songs given new dynamic life; the audiophiles that bothered to show up before the headliner standing in expectant judgment of the openers. We spend evenings at small clubs daring unknowns to impress us, to give us a reason to have another beer or stay past our friends' set.

Signs of a Bad Show usually make themselves known early and often with unready groups showing little direction and little sense of their own aesthetic. Whether tentatively tip-toeing through their songs or wildly flailing about without a clue how the different parts of their music should interact - a syndrome that occurs in more than a few headliners of national tours - these sour notes make the eventual discovery of a Good Show all the sweeter.

On January 16th at the Bushwick Music Studios the brilliantly anarchic Eskalators played a very good show. They didn't play with precision, but with an earnest exuberance that was at once invigorating, infectious and insanely addictive. The band was the spirit of ska blended with the irrepressible euphoria of Tilly and the Wall and the unpretentious fervor of Matt and Kim. Their 15 players dolled up in homemade costumes freewheeled through the set with one thing keeping them from being the far and away best band of the night: they happened to play with a group that was a force of nature.

Flotation Walls took the stage in a room of people that had never heard them play a note but before the end of their first song they had the entire audience eagerly hanging on their every chord progression. The Walls were displaying their acoustic arrangement on this tour and their simple set up of acoustic guitar, vibraphone, violin, stand-up base and floor tom still managed to create gigantic, dramatically shifting soundscapes. Before the end of their first song, "Sperm and Egg", every eye was turned to them and every ear was tuned to them. As the show progressed rapt listeners stomped along, memorized and sang back choruses, and joined the band as they ended the set - to the foreboding "Worms" - in a collective, cacophonous chant.

In that tiny club for those 45 minutes the four Walls were not only the center of attention, but the center of a community that they created, that was born of the expression of their art and that lived in each singalong and each raucous cheer.

Their sound, both live and recorded, is robust, deep and, for lack of a better word, complete. The bass and drums lay out a solid foundation and a huge, cavernous architecture which is filled in by myriad disparate yet complementary melodies played on any mix of guitar, violin, vibraphone and accordion. And while the instrumentations are truly wonderful they aren't even the best part; the group's vocal harmonies are the element that no other band even approaches in quality.

It's quite amazing how four (sometimes five) people on the road can simulate the 25+ people that played on their debut, Nature, but the live arrangements are equally compelling, exhibiting a dichotomy between pinpoint precision and unbridled release. It's this dual nature (ha) that truly sets the band apart, making them equally intellectually and emotionally compelling. Every booming percussive melody is met by a dynamic, fleetfooted response; every showcase of technical mastery is offset by a furious, dissonant crash. Moments of soft, contemplative beauty turn instantly into menacing, eviscerating, and sometimes even celebratory eruptions of sound.

In their last year of touring Flotation Walls have refined their vision, as evidenced by their fantastic Flophouse Session in Boston. Their unified voice is commanding and clear; completely defined and fully realized. Rest assured that any search for the fabled Great Show will begin and end any place the Walls are playing and anyone even close to the band's tour path would do well to plant themselves firmly on the route.

Music as an industry and as an organism revolves around a lot of different people. Artists, certainly, but also promoters, club owners, critics (and would-be critics), and myriad others. Before we did anything else, however, we started out as fans. And it's bands like Flotation Walls that made us fans in the first place.

YouTube Tuesdays: Naj Me Tender

2010-01-19T19:55:00.000-05:00

Clicking around YouTube, it's become apparent to me that it's a "thing" on YouTube for cute girls to cover Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" on ukulele. While I'll occasionally take a dim view on Internet memes I'm glad this one turned up because it led me to YouTube's NajMeTender.

The Singaporean singer has been a YouTube user for about a year and a half recording covers (and a couple of originals) on ukulele and melodica, and singing her own harmonies. Her sound editing is actually quite good and the songs come out (mostly) seamless with the occasional lapse in lipsynching - that is, lipsynching to herself during little dance interludes. Her voice is lilting in the range of Ingrid Michaelson with most of her videos possessing an endearing, adorable quirkiness.

How can anyone not like a cute Asian girl covering The Cure:

Sungha Jung and his Amazing Guitar Licks

2009-11-19T13:34:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure where I've been for the past two years but Korean preteen Sungha Jung has been on YouTube showing off some of the most wicked guitar work I've ever seen.

Clearly a guitar prodigy, Jung has made quite a reputation for himself playing striking arrangements of pop hits playing both the rhythm and the melody through his one guitar - even if the song was originally meant for two guitars and a singer.

It's truly hard to pick a favorite as each piece is not only ridiculously skillfully played, but also very thoughtfully arranged. His steady "California Dreamin'", his re-imagining of "No Woman No Cry" from 2007 and his perfect reproduction of "The Boxer" from 2008 have been among my favorites. His latest video, an amazingly intricate picking of "Isn't She Lovely" immediately rose to the near top of the list however my favorite video still has to be his 2007 video of "All Along the Watchtower". Enjoy:

Farewell Myspace Music, We Knew Thee... Kind Of

2009-11-13T20:22:00.000-05:00

According to TechCrunch the free streaming service Myspace Music will soon be heading for a pay model.

I'll be honest here, before I read this story I'd never even heard of Myspace Music and had no idea what it was. I hadn't touched my Myspace profile in years. It seems that the service is little more than a year old and, at least at first, sported some very ambitious ideas. It was to be a cross between imeem and the iTunes music store in that people could make playlists and stream any number of major label music tracks and while users could pay per download to purchase the songs the lion's share of revenue was to come from advertising. The problem lay in the fact that Myspace Music is bleeding money in the form of royalties to the major music labels and its ad revenue, due to the fact that nobody uses Myspace anymore, is not sufficient to keep the service afloat. It's hard to believe that a paid subscription model will save the offshoot as having to pay for something doesn't seem like it would attract a userbase that is already fleeing.

On the bright side, this probably won't affect the streaming on normal Myspace profiles, contrary to Prefix's misreading of the situation. Any band that wants to put their own music on the site will still be able to do so, and people will be able to listen to it for free. Really, this is the only thing that makes Myspace worthwhile at all.

Wyclef Jean Returns to the Streets

2009-11-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

In a recent interview on Prefix 'Clef expounds on how his new album, From the Hut, to the Projects, to the Mansions will return to his roots:

It comes from the era when I was coming up, and the mixtape was how music got out there. From the Hut, to the Projects, to the Mansions is recorded in that style. It’s beat driven with pure spitting over it.

Interestingly enough, part of the inspiration for the back-to-rapping feel of the record was a fan approaching him on the street and being disappointed he wasn't will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas - ironically another musician who has gotten away from songs that are, well, good.

The first video from the record, "Streets Pronounce Me Dead", highlights the central theme of the album: 'Clef resurrecting the style from his earlier music after "the streets" claim he's grown too far from where he started. The song is very reminiscent of Lupe Fiasco's The Cool with spare, steady beats over a husky, coarse, straightforward delivery. Check it:

Chamillionaire Strikes Back at Haters

2009-11-11T18:57:00.000-05:00

Though it remains to be seen who is actually worse off after listening to the song - the haters or the innocent bystanders that had the misfortune of listening to it. The video itself is interesting enough, with little pop-ups highlighting the spoils of his career, showing off his "bling" and letting everyone know how "balla" he is.

The song, however, is crap. You have to be pretty cheeky to sample Tom Petty at all, let alone his most notable work, "Free Fallin". I mean, seriously, this is one of the most beloved songs in American rock music. If you're going to drop a beat onto it, it'd better be good. Chamillionaire, however, brings weak sauce and the lyrics he spits over top aren't much better, all corn and cheese. Ironically I guess this post makes me a hater, and as such this song was meant for me. So take a listen as Chamillionaire tells me good morning and smiles his way to the bank.

Lists and More Lists

2009-09-24T13:20:00.004-04:00

Thanks to yum! I've spent a good part of the day reading food lists. Not just any food lists, however.

Apparently last year the food blog Very Good Taste posted ~~it's~~ its (in the possessive and not contracted sense) Omnivore's Hundred, or list of 100 foods every omnivore should have before he/she dies. This has apparently been a hit meme for quite a while though I'd never heard of it (so, really, it can't have been...)

Kathy over at Happy. Healthy. Life. responded with her Vegan Hundred. My results for both follow, with the stuff I've had bolded.

Omnivore's Hundred

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Vegan 100

1. Molasses
2. Cactus/Nopales
3. Scrambled Tofu
4. Grilled Portobella Caps
5. Fresh Ground Horseradish
6. Sweet Potato Biscuits
7. Arepa
8. Vegan Cole Slaw
9. Ginger Carrot Soup
10. Fiddlehead Ferns
11. Roasted Elephant Garlic
12. Umeboshi Plum
13. Almond Butter Toast
14. Aloe Vera
15. H and H Bagel NYC
16. Slow Roasted Butternut Squash
17. White truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Freshly ground wasabi
20. Coconut Milk Ice Cream (not store bought)
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Orchard fresh pressed apple cider
23. Organic California Mango (in season Sept-Oct only)
24. Quinoa
25. Papaya Smoothie
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet (habanero) pepper (just a bite!...hot!)
27. Goji Berry Tea
28. Fennel
29. Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie
30. Radishes and Vegan Buttery Spread
31. Starfruit
32. Oven fresh Sourdough bread
33. Sangria made with premium fruit and juices
34. Sauerkraut
35. Acai Smoothie
36. Blue Foot Mushrooms
37. Vegan Cupcake from Babycakes nyc
38. Sweet Potatoes and Tempeh combo
39. Falafel
40. Spelt Crust Pizza
41. Salt and Pepper Oyster Mushrooms
42. Jicama Slaw
43. Pumpkin Edamame Ginger Dumplings
44. Hemp Milk
45. Rose Champagne
46. Fuyu
47. Raw Avocado-Coconut Soup
48. Tofu Pesto Sandwich
49. Apple-Lemon-Ginger-Cayenne fresh-pressed juice...with Extra Ginger
50. Grilled Seitan
51. Prickly pear
52. Fresh Pressed Almond Milk
53. Concord Grapes off the vine
54. Ramps
55. Coconut Water fresh from a young coconut
56. Organic Arugula
57. Vidalia Onion
58. Sampler of organic produce from Diamond Organics
59. Honeycrisp Apple
60. Poi
61. Vegan Campfire-toasted Smores
62. Grape seed Oil
63. Farm fresh-picked Peach
64. Freshly-made pita bread with freshly-made hummus
65. Chestnut Snack Packs
66. Fresh Guava
67. Mint Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
68. Raw Mallomar from One Lucky Duck, NYC
69. Fried plantains
70. Mache
71. Golden Beets
72. Barrel-Fresh Pickles
73. Liquid Smoke
74. Meyer Lemon
75. Veggie Paella
76. Vegan Lasagna (raw optional)
77. Kombucha
78. Homemade Soy Milk
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Lychee Bellini
81. Tempeh Bacon
82. Sprouted Grain Bread
83. Lemon Pepper Tempeh
84. Vanilla Bean
85. Watercress
86. Carrot you pulled out of the ground yourself
87. Vegan In-Season Fruit Pie
88. Flowers
89. Corn Chowder
90. High Quality Vegan Raw Chocolate
91. Yellow fuzz-free Kiwi
92. White Flesh Grapefruit
93. harissa
94. Coconut Oil
95. Jackfruit
96. Homemade Risotto
97. Spirulina
98. Seedless 'Pixie' Tangerine
99. Gourmet Sorbet, not store bought
100. Fresh Plucked English Peas

That's 47% of the omnivore's list and 17% of the vegan list.

I should note that I don't think the vegan list really mirrored the spirit of the original. Yes I do realize (believe me) that "fresh ground" and "in-season" make a difference in taste, however the VGT list didn't say "never frozen kobe beef raised in Japan" or "sourkraut made by a German immigrant grandmother". I think every burger lover should have a grass-fed burger cooked medium on a flat top, but I don't think I need to be that specific for every omnivore. I do think VGT cheated a bit too, with the liquor. That could be on a list all its own (plus not every omnivore needs to have a Jello shot before they die...)

Don't Let the Door Hit You...

2009-09-24T12:34:00.003-04:00

I've been a fan of Lily Allen. I enjoyed her first album, Alright, Still and thought her second album, It's Not Me, It's You showed some serious growth and sported some pretty wicked songs. I won't get to enjoy a third installment, though, since she's apparently quit music. The reason? Online file sharing.

Now Allen has said she won’t renew her contract with EMI, because “the days of me making money from recording music have been and gone as far as I'm concerned.” All posts on Allen’s blog have mysteriously disappeared in the wake of this statement, so it’s unclear what her next move will be.

Now, I'm in the midst of reading Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life filled with stories of some of the most celebrated underground bands from that time period barely scraping by while creating some seriously timeless and influential tunes. Juxtaposing this sacrifice for the sake of art with Allen's unwillingness to continue making music because she doesn't think she's making enough money from record sales (while touring in her luxurious tour bus and getting paid for songs in commercials) is pretty damn infuriating.

You know what, Ms. Allen? Your entire career only exists because of the internet. If the droves on Myspace hadn't supported your songs your first album wouldn't have happened. (This is a true story. EMI wanted Allen to fill a record with songs written by professional pop songwriters, but she posted the tracks for Alright, Still on her Myspace page and they were so warmly received that the company decided to run with them.) Saying this same internet community is stealing from you while simply engaging in the same thing that got you famous in the first place is hypocrisy. If you aren't making enough money from record sales I suggest you consult the major label record contract you signed which probably gives you a pitifully small portion of album sales to make up for the money EMI has spent marketing you.

Since the advent of recorded music and record contracts, artists have always made the lions share of their money on the road through tours and merch. I'm not saying you don't deserve to be paid for your music - of course you do - but blaming online file sharing for the failures of the major label music industry to adapt to a changing environment is ludicrous. I don't know how often I need to make this point, but one download does not equal one sale lost. People download stuff all the time just because it's available whether they like it or not. Any downloader's hard drive is likely filled with music that, if they had to pay for it, they wouldn't have it at all. And if you think that they shouldn't have it if they're not willing to pay, that's understandable... but thinking they've taken money from you is just false.

Getting to the real crux of my problem with this outburst, though, Lily Allen was unheard of six years ago. She signed a record deal, toured the world, played in front of packed audiences, made the music that she wanted to make and generally did more - and made more - than a lot of landmark and/or Hall of Fame acts ever did and yet is still griping about her paycheck.

Music doesn't need your attitude, Ms. Allen. And as fun as your songs were, it doesn't really need your music either.

Tax on Pop a Good Idea. I'll Do One Better.

2009-09-17T11:33:00.002-04:00

The NY Times ran a story today about a proposed tax on "sugary beverages" including pop and sweet juices. The articles states, "a tax of a penny an ounce on sugary beverages would raise $14.9 billion in its first year, which could be spent on health care initiatives." As a person that believe that

a) Americans ingest too much pop anyway,
b) American pop is horrible for you and
c) it doesn't really taste that good

I'm pretty firmly in the camp that thinks this tax is a Good Idea. I probably drink a can of pop every two or three months, though if you count mixers in alcoholic drinks that number probably decreases to a can every month or so, give or take a week. This is down from a high school diet in which I practically lived on Mountain Dew and Pepsi so I can attest that once these drinks are cut out it's pretty easy to keep them out - granted I enjoy drinking water and like the taste of liquor straight up or on the rocks. I also think that it's ridiculous that it's not hard to find cases where soft drinks are cheaper than cheap bottled water.

I do think, though, that if Congress wants to go around taxing unhealthy amounts of sugar that it would be awesome if they went whole hog and taxed all products containing high fructose corn syrup(HFCS). This synthetic byproduct of America's ridiculous corn subsidy has invaded pretty much every supermarket ingredient label and is pretty much horrible for you in every way. Taxing it would provide a short term boost in revenue and also have the long term benefit of companies (hopefully) moving towards natural sugar in its products. I'm personally tired of scanning a label and seeing various multi-syllabic manifestations of chemically processed corn. If we're going to affect behavior through taxes to encourage good health let's do something that will make a difference across the board.

West Indian-American Day Carnival/Parade: Culinarily Speaking

2009-09-07T15:28:00.002-04:00

For most of my life Labor Day weekend, and Labor Day in particular, have meant a big backyard, charcoal smoke in my face, and the last day of official grilling season. From this day forward, however, my Labor Days for the duration of my stay in New York will likely involve trekking up and down Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn enjoying the West Indian-American Day Parade. It's the longest parade in New York and all told is about five miles of vibrant colors, dancing, bbq and fantastic jerk chicken. The entire length of the parade is flanked on both sides with stalls selling food, shirts, kitsch, and pina coladas in hollowed out pineapples. I forgot my camera so there won't be any pictures.

My eating adventure began boldly with some fantastic jerk chicken with rice and peas. The chicken was cooked perfectly with the tender meat almost falling off the bone. The skin had the perfect amount of char and the jerk rub completely saturated every part of the chicken. The extra sauce poured over added sweetness and a bit more spice - when added to the spice of the rub this gave the chicken the perfect amount of heat without overpowering the flavor. I'm incredibly glad I passed by several stalls before settling on this because this was probably the best jerk chicken I've ever had.

Roasted sweet corn was next (after some spirited parade-watching) and, discerningly, I picked the stall with the half-burnt corn. The sweetness still popped and, since I am a fan of slightly burnt food from a grill, the burn added a delicious smokiness. From the first bite I was instantly reminded that grilled sweet corn is, for me, the defining taste of summertime.

On the way out, after my sister bought her own jerk chicken and rice, I stopped at a cart selling mangoes. These weren't ordinary mangoes, however. These mangoes were dashed with salt, sprinkled with lemon juice and finished with hot pepper sauce. As a Filipino I like to think I know my mangoes and I'd go as far as saying they are by far my favorite fruit. The savory and spicy flavors added mingled perfectly with the sweetness of the mango creating a refreshing and comforting blend.

All in all, it's been one delicious day. Additional thoughts on the parade to come.

North Carolina Prefers Strip Mines to Wind Turbines

2009-08-11T13:08:00.002-04:00

This week the North Carolina senate voted to ban mountaintop wind turbines by a shocking margin of 42 to 1. From the article:

The bill would amend a 1983 “ridge law” to allow only turbines that are 100 feet or smaller to be placed on ridgelines above 3,000 feet. This effectively bars industrial-sized turbines — which can reach several hundred feet in height — from the windy mountaintops.

The executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association stated that the ban didn't reveal that the state was against sustainable energy, but rather was an issue "about do people want to look at wind turbines in the mountains of North Carolina.”

Excuse me? The state the still hasn't been able to pass a ban on mountaintop removal coal mining (despite being the second largest customer of MTR coal in the country) is complaining that wind turbines don't look nice? Do gouged mountaintops, rubble-filled valleys, and coal-dust infused rivers look any better? More likely the coal lobby bought several votes in the senate to forestall installation of the cleanest energy source we've yet come across.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. I get that tourists come to NC to take in the sights of the beautiful North Carolina mountains and the state might be worried on losing out on those dollars, but a) I tend to think wind turbines look pretty majestic, b) the state might want to look at the dollars it spends on MTR coal before it starts banning wind, and c) I would think fans of the environment would support efforts made to sustain it instead of destroy it.

While it's true that offshore wind is still a viable option in North Carolina that fact does not offset the reality that this bill, if passed in the house and signed by the governor, will eliminate 2/3 of the onshore wind power available to the state. Not only is this a loss of a tremendous source of clean power, but it's also a loss of jobs and money for the state.

How disappointing.

Locavoracity: Morning at Night

2009-07-27T19:46:00.003-04:00

Seeing as I didn't pick up any meat at the market today, and seeing as it's been a long time since I've gone shopping for food in general, I was stuck thinking the whole trip back on what I'd actually be eating tonight.

Since the only protein I picked up was the half-carton of eggs I decided to have breakfast for dinner. While most of this meal was made from the market I did allow myself to use whatever I already had in my pantry/cupboard/refrigerator.

Local ingredients:

1 tomato

1 potato

half an onion

1 egg

Non-local ingredients:

salt

ground pepper

vegetable oil

dried basil

2 pepperoncinis

I really could have gone for some fresh basil at the market but a) I'm going to be almost exclusively eating out this weekend due to a friend's bachelor party celebration and I figured much of it would go to waste and b) I didn't see it until I was already paying. I got the pepperoncinis last week when I was craving some shitty pizza and ordered Papa John's.

My meal ended up looking like this (I'm not much for presentation):

First I boiled a potato a bit to soften it up and then cut it into chunks and fried them with half an onion, salt and pepper, and some dried basil to finish. Then I diced about 3/4 of a tomato, a couple slices of onion and the pepperoncinis, and pulsed them in a food processor to make a salsa, slicing the last quarter of the tomato to eat fresh. The egg I simply fried over-easy.

The tomatoes were incredibly juicy and sweet in both slices and salsa and, though I didn't expect much from them compared to their Idaho-born brethren I usually eat, even the potatoes just tasted more... like potatoes. The flavors in the vegetables were much richer than their grocery store look-alikes. The egg – which I didn't even season – might have been the best fried egg I've ever eaten. In the pan the white didn't run as much as an egg normally does when I crack it, and firmed up quickly and evenly. Even when eaten in a bite with the salsa and the potatoes the "egg flavor" still managed to shine. I seriously don't think I want to buy grocery eggs ever again.

I knew to expect a difference in quality but the upgrade in quality was (and is) quite shocking to me since this was really quite a simple meal.

Can't wait to see what I come up with tomorrow.

Locavoracity: Beginnings

2009-07-27T19:28:00.003-04:00

At the beginning of what is a seemingly an ongoing ode to Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma I previous blogged about how the book was making me re-evaluate how I looked at food and where it came from. I began to contemplate eating more local food, outside of the industrial food chain. Today I decided to put my money and mouth where my blog was and after work I stopped at the Union Square Green Market to pick up some dinner. Working about a block away from Union Square Park this was hardly my first foray to the market, but previous trips usually revolved around a muffin for breakfast or a fococcia for lunch. This time I was out shopping for kitchen staples.

Browsing through several of the many produce stands, I was quite taken by how large and, well, natural everything looked. I got some promising looking onions and some tasty, deep red tomatoes. Some white potatoes soon followed and as I was walking by another stall I was snagged by some carrots perfectly sized for snacking or roasting. I was a scared off from the mushrooms (shiitake, umbrella, button, etc...) by the price, but thinking about it now one pound is a LOT of mushrooms and I probably could have gotten several without breaking the bank.

Next to this stall I spotted some free-range chicken eggs, and though I passed on the grass-fed ground beef I'll probably be back for some of that on Wednesday.

Sadly, I didn't find any whole chickens as my original plan was to roast a chicken with vegetables and eat for the week.

Total cost of this trip was around $15 netting me these goods:

I'll continue to blog as I add to my local-fueled cupboard and as I turn these foodstuffs into meals.

Following Up on the Dilemma (Spoiler Alert)

2009-07-25T10:52:00.003-04:00

As previously blogged I've been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma recently, finishing the book on the subway last night. It will take me a while to unpack everything present therein, but right now I'll just say the book finished just as good as it began.

For those that are unfamiliar with the work, the basic narrative arc of the book revolves around Michael Pollan, the book's author, cooking four meals from four different food chains: industrial, industrial organic, pastoral organic and hunter/gatherer. This is not just about the cooking, however, as Pollan investigates the full length of each chain of food from its beginnings all the way to the table - in the case of industrial, from the factory farms and Iowa corn fields to a McDonalds value meal.

I've been feeling a pull toward the locavoricious for a while now, and let's just say this book has been a large Jungle-esque push in that direction. Since the Union Square green market is about five minutes from my office I really have no excuse and actually plan to hit that up in the next couple of days (if not today.) It'll also be neat to start eating a bit more seasonally.

Pollan doesn't restrict his musings to the sustainability of eating, however, and at several times through the course of his work he reflects on the state of food in human society in general. Particularly striking to me were the passages in the fourth section about the degradation of the American eating experience because of a lack of a real food tradition. Pollan posits that since America has been an amalgam of various different cultures since its inception it has never had a chance to really create a food culture that it strictly "American", and this has left us open to businesses (fast/processed food companies) and fad diet books (for the love of god, people, carbs are good for you!) to create them for us. This is to our detriment, Pollan writes, because these food mores that other cultures have grown over the course of centuries are part of what keeps them healthy.

Lime, for instance, when sprinkled over beans helps to release more of the beans' natural nutrients which is why so much Mexican food begins with that simple garnish. Additionally, fermented soy (soy sauce) reacts with simple carbohydrates (rice) to maximize the nutritional benefits from both ingredients. Perhaps most striking is the French ability to drink red wine, infuse their food with butter and heavy cream, and still be healthier than Americans - a fact much attributed to the French habits of not snacking and letting meals stretch out for 1-2 hours. Pollan writes:

In the absence of any lasting consensus about what and how and where and when to eat, the omnivore's dilemma has returned to America with an almost atavistic force. This situation suits the food industry just fine, of course. The more anxious we are about eating, the more vulnerable we are to the seductions of the marketer and the expert's advice.

Leading from this he illustrates the (in my mind tragic) degradation of the family dinner:

A vice president of marketing at General Mills once painted for me a picture of the state of the American family dinner, courtesy of video cameras that the company's consulting anthropologists paid families to let them install in the ceiling above the kitchen and dining room tables. Mom, perhaps feeling sentimental about the dinners of her childhood, still prepares a dish and a salad that she usually winds up eating by herself. Meanwhile, the kids, and Dad, too, if he's around, each fix something different for themselves, because Dad's on a low-carb diet, the teenager's become a vegetarian, and the eight-ear-old is on a strict ration of pizza that the shrink says it's best to indulge (lest she develop eating disorders later in life).

As someone who ate dinner with his whole family practically every night, I find this shocking. Even as a 16 year-old with a job that often required me to eat out on my break, I usually was home at least four days a week for a meal in which we all shared. The commonality of a meal is a topic Pollan discusses several times in the book, describing it (accurately in my opinion) as one of the greatest functions of a meal - filling not only the nutritional but also the social needs of the human animal.

Keep an eye out in subsequent posts, but I'm beginning to have an idea for monthly or bi-weekly rotating "family dinners" in which a select group (and only this group, for the sake of not having the group balloon into unmanageable numbers) of family/friends would take turns hosting meals. This wouldn't be a pot luck, per se, as at these you often get overlapping courses (too many proteins, not enough sides, etc) and due to the number of entrees generally often also eat more than recommended - being uncomfortably full is actually bad for your metabolism. This is still (clearly) a rough idea, but it would also give the hosts an opportunity to express themselves through food for a night and, hey, group dinners are always fun.

D.C. (and Brooklyn) for the Record

2009-07-19T20:23:00.004-04:00

July has so far been an incredibly record-filled month. To recount in reverse chronological order, this past weekend I went to D.C. to visit a couple friends and, as we always do when we hang out, we hit a bunch of record shops. Four stores were on the bill within five blocks of each other in a sort of power triangle in Dupont/Adam's Morgan: Som Records, Red Onion, Crooked Beat, and Smash Records.

All very good stores with very different moods. Som was underground in a very literal sense as you had to walk down some stairs to get in, and once there we were greeted by possibly the smallest space we'd visit all day. A listen station - which I always like to see at used records stores, but which aren't always present - was set up at the front, 45s were decoratively pinned up on the red-painted walls and not a CD was to be found in the whole place. As Evan and Adam rooted through, pulling out various albums I thought I was going to manage to get out of there without buying anything, though I was sorely tempted to pick up a copy of the first Marginal Man record. Asian fronted 80s D.C. hardcore was not alluring enough, however. As the two of them were cashing out I thumbed through one last crate... and came across two irresistible finds in The Queen is Dead and Blood on the Tracks. For $16 total I couldn't pass them up and so I left the Som a few dollars lighter, but a couple awesome records heavier.

After dropping our loot of at the car we walked over - after a brief stop for beer and a snack - to Red Onion. A better lit place, Red Onion also had shelves of used books lining the walls. Not on the search for literature, the three of us dove into the stacks with Evan finding, among other things, an incredibly clean-looking copy of the fantastic It Takes a Nation.... Trying to really limit myself, I ended up passing on a brand new copy of Give Up but was halted when I found a new copy of the remastered (ugh, I know) Rites of Spring (aka End on End).

I actually managed to get out of Crooked Beat without buying anything as the store seemed expensive to me though the selection was decent. It's a good store, but probably my least favorite of the four we visited.

Smash Records was actually a kind of strange place. It was very much going for a punk/metal vibe and seemed, at first, like a sort of independently owned Hot Topic - a vibe reinforced by the clothes for sale including bullet casing belts and Doc Martens. The selection and pricing were good though, and it was probably the most rock-oriented store we'd been to. It featured a dedicated metal section though classic stuff was still represented as well. I didn't think I would buy much/anything as this was the final store, and yet I couldn't leave without picking up One Beat, Power, Corruption & Lies and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

Going back a couple of weeks to when the Flotation Walls were in town my friend Ryan and I hit up a record store in Brooklyn (and I selfishly won't be getting any more specific than that.) The store had no name, was down a flight of stairs in a basement, and was run by one of the nicest guys I'd ever met running a record store. The handwritten sign by the stairs indicated the store specialized in jazz, soul, funk and disco and my Johnny Mathis, The Miracles, Benny Goodman, Gladys Knight, and James Brown/Africa Bambaataa purchases backed that up. It's seriously a fantastic store, and has put my bank account balance in serious jeopardy just by existing.

It's been a fairly record-filled week and I'll probably have to let my wallet recover a bit before digging again.

How Green is Your Travel?

2009-07-16T21:45:00.003-04:00

Ever wondered just how much carbon you're saving by carpooling? Or if train travel is really that efficient compared to air? Well wonder no more, as the good folks over at Low Impact Living have written a detailed breakdown of an ingenius little Web site called Trip Footprint.

With this little tool you can calculate the carbon cost of long distance travel comparing trains, cars, hybrid cars, and planes (to various airports.) You can even adjust the calculation by how many people are traveling in your party.

This is a pretty neat toy, though I do have some problems with their calculations. Without looking directly at the site's math, it seems that (for rail travel) they aren't prorating correctly. It looks like a simple factor of multiplying a base carbon rate by the number of travelers and this neglects the weight of the train itself, which is constant no matter how many passengers are on board. Further, even if your traveling party is five - the highest number you can select on the site - the amount of carbon used in train travel will depend on how many other people are on the train (which is probably more than five). Air travel on this calculator seems to have the same pitfall.

In all, this is a neat idea that might give a visual representation of the efficiency of various modes of travel... or it might mean absolutely nothing.

Deep Thoughts During the Commute?

2009-07-15T13:32:00.003-04:00

I was just linked to a pretty hilariously apt xkcd comic:

Now generally this is not true of me as my thoughts during my commute are usually something like "uuughhhhaeeeaagh". Lately, however, my pre- and post-work ruminations have taken a decidedly more intellectual turn as I've been reading Michael Pollan's excellent Omnivore's Dilemma.

Pollan brings up a lot of incredibly interesting issues as he delves into American agribusiness and eating habits. At about a third of the way through I'm already starting to rethink my buying patterns and have been introduced to some pretty startling realities about the American farming industry. I've known for a while the Monsanto has been exercising undue power in Congress to get legal support for its genetically modified crops, but never had an inkling how wasteful and destructive my meals could be. I've been trying to cut down on beef ever since I found out that factory farmed beef was the single most inefficient meat known to man, with each cow yearly eating enough food to feed a family of four. But now knowing that the way we farm our vast swaths of cornfields in the plains states (whose produce appears in pretty much every bit of processed food we eat, by the way) is actually rendering the soil infertile and poisoning our river water (while at the same time utilizing ridiculous amounts of petroleum per pound of food compared to more natural farming methods) has me investigating ingredient labels and eschewing things with artificial sweeteners.

I'm not even halfway through the book and I'm two steps away from joining a food co-op.

So, to make a long story short....

Flotation Walls in NYC (last week)

2009-07-14T22:18:00.005-04:00

Several years ago at Ohio State I was fortunate to befriend one Ryan Stolte-Sawa. Aside from meeting a great person and making a great friend, this was incredibly beneficial as she is currently a multi-instrumentalist in the Columbus four-piece Flotation Walls. When the Walls rolled through New York (and through my apartment) on their east coast tour I was able to catch both their acoustic set at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg and their regular, electrified, set at the Lit Lounge in the East Village, and let me tell you I was quite impressed. I was already a fan of their record, Nature, but really had no idea how much larger and fuller their live show could possibly be.

The acoustic show possessed a sort of austere grandeur projecting a far larger presence than should have been possible in such a small space with no amplification. They brought an elegance and refinement in addition to the warmth and familiarity that usually comes with live acoustic music. "Sperm and Egg", "Worms" and "Kids Look at the Waves" as well as a couple of my favorites from the album in "Body", and "Willis the Fireman".

After the fantastic set at Pete's on Sunday the 5th I had my doubts that the Lit show on the 7th would impress (further) but I was certainly wrong. Plugged in, the band's sound is enormous, dramatic and, well, electric and I have to admit I looked on with no small amount of fraternal pride as Ryan switched back and forth between keys/synth, violin and guitar. The Walls played the same set they did at Pete's which made for an interesting contrast with the patrons of each show saying the one they saw must have been completely superior to the other - the bartender at Pete's went so far as to suggest the band completely drop the electric set, though he'd never heard it.

For your enjoyment, watch some iPhone footage of "Body" at Pete's

and "Worms" at Lit

I highly recommend this band, not because I have a friend in it but because it is exceptionally good. The group is full of highly skilled players executing terrific arrangements with energy and flair. All of them are also good people and I imagine there are few better bands to have crashing on your floor for a few days.

More tracks available on the band's Myspace. These four will be touring throughout the summer and into the fall so be sure to check them out if they are anywhere near you (all both of you that read this blog).

EMI Continues to Solidify its Irrelevant Dinosaur Status

2009-06-13T09:17:00.005-04:00

In 2004, amid a sea of mediocre mash-ups, one Danger Mouse released what is likely the best effort in the genre: The Grey Album. Mixing the audio track of Jay Z's Black Album with audio clips from the Beatles' White Album, the DJ reinvented what the mash-up could be while crafting one of the best records of the decade. EMI, owner of the rights to the aforementioned Beatles songs, quickly saw the creativity and money-making potential of the project and immediately sent a cease-and-desist to Danger Mouse, halting (legal) distribution of the album. The record went on to become one of the most critically acclaimed of 2004 despite the label's attempts to squelch it, which makes one wonder how much money EMI could have made by signing DM and selling the record themselves.

Five years later EMI has apparently still not learned its lesson. Partnered with Sparklehorse and David Lynch, Danger Mouse's new project, Dark Night of the Soul, is getting pretty much the same treatment from the label. Joined by indie luminaries from the Flaming Lips, the Shins, the Strokes and others, DM built another slickly and craftily produced album that will never see the shelves of a store. Due to fear of legal reprisal the album is not currently being distributed, however the book of 100+ photographs that David Lynch prepared for the project is still being sold. Included in the package is a blank CD-R with the message:

For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.’

Clearly EMI doesn't understand that it is impossible to halt the spread of this music in the internet age. The tracks used here aren't even as recognizable as those pulled for the Grey Album - there is no chance that this would infringe on the sale of any EMI record. These continued suits only serve to reveal the label's current executives as the petulant, ignorant, backwards-looking fossils they are.

Beer Goggles Are No Longer the Correct Prescription

2009-05-22T15:18:00.001-04:00

On August 18th 2006 I moved from Columbus, Ohio to Brooklyn, New York. My first New York apartment was on the edge of the hip neighborhood of Williamsburg, sandwiched between ever-increasing numbers of young transplanted hipsters and Puerto Rican, Dominican and Italian locals. 3, his fiancé and I immediately made point of checking out as many local bars as we could to find “our place” and a week into our stay in the neighborhood we found it in one Bushwick Country Club.

What wasn’t to love? A divey bar that was dark and homey featuring a 2-4-1 happy hour from 5-8 - a deal that wasn’t as ubiquitous at the time as it is now and boasting one of the best all-round bartending staffs I’d ever encountered. Phillip was our first bartender, the nerdy but uber personable big man with whom we’d discuss Heroes back when it was good (circa right when it was starting) and Watchmen (long before it was a Major Motion Picture). He made us feel right at home and soon enough even made us “members” allowing us to get the specialty house cocktail for a dollar off and to drink free on hour birthdays. Heather – whose musical taste I always found the best of all the BCC bartenders – quickly became a favorite as well because of her disarming and quirky friendliness and her ability to somehow pay attention to everybody at the bar at once. Thomas, he of the Free Pulled Pork Sundays, Megan and Ryan filled out a stable of bartenders with home we were all familiar and with whom we’ve all spent countless hours and dollars.

As bad as it sounds, in those early days the BCC was my home away from home. Hating my job at Barnes and Noble I spent at least three nights a week four blocks from my house bellied up to the bar, chatting and drinking more than I should have.
It came as quite a shock the other day when I discovered that the place has started to feel like just another bar. It’s certainly still a good bar, but while Heather is still my bartender, BCC is no longer my bar.

It’s hard to put a finger on what’s changed. The jukebox is still perennially “out of order”. The lights are still low. The booze is still cheap. The grill in the back is still open to anyone with raw food and a desire to cook. The novelty miniature golf course still sits largely unused in the back. In the end I think the biggest thing that’s changed is me.

My job is steadier and pays more (though still not nearly enough). I hang out with more people in more places than just this watering hole that I no longer live close to. And really the BCC is a bar for drinkers at a time when I don’t want to drink as much anymore.

Is there such a difference between 23 and 26 that this place should seem so different to me, so less comfortable? That I should feel more at home at Second Chance up the block with the thirty-somethings that lived in the neighborhood before it was cool?

That case race last week really served to put in startling focus various parts of my life (the stupidly overdrinking parts) that I’m not terribly interested in anymore. I guess it’s time to find a new vice. Good thing I live in New York.

Speaking of Ridiculous

2009-05-17T10:32:00.004-04:00

As the Cleveland Cavaliers finished off Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs by pounding the Detroit Pistons in dominating fashion at home one question kept bouncing through my head: "Did I really just agree to a case race against Kenny and his roommates?"

While I'd heard the term in passing during my college days I'd never actually had the urge to see if my friends and I could pound down an entire 30-rack of beer faster than another group of friends. Nonetheless here I was at 26 half drunkenly agreeing to rope my friends into this binge-drinking spectacular.

1 and 3 from The Oddcast agreed to join me, squaring off against Kenny (one of the most prolific drinkers I know) and his two roommates. Trepidation built as the the race neared and on the day-of we decided to eat a large meal at the BW3 in the Atlantic Center. 12 wings and a large basket of wedges later, I had my food cushion and was feeling as good as could be expected when facing a ridiculous amount of beer drank for absolutely no reason at all.

Disaster nearly struck when one of Kenny's roommates bailed though they picked up an alternate (who, not knowing he was going to be called in had just finished a sixer of beer at home) and we started off. 1 and I pounded our first beers just to set the tone though he quickly began to outpace me, finishing 3 beers in about 15 minutes. This forced Kenny's roommate Tilton to drink faster than he perhaps wanted to (getting him drunk faster and possibly limiting the final number of beers he drank) and also put us into an early lead that we would not relinquish for several hours.

These heroics were much needed as 3 and I were definitely feeling the meal we just ate. Stomachs full to bursting we were both plodding along as quickly as we could which, at that point of the evening, was not very fast. Around my third beer I actually began to feel nauseous and was probably the slowest drinker in the room. As the night wore on and dinner digested, however, team dynamics began to shift. 1's drinking began to slow to a normal human pace while 3 and I picked up. The meal which had earlier threatened to betray me became my greatest ally, allowing me to drink more than I normally would have been able to.

In the final hour I really picked it up draining Coors Lights with a quickness I never would have imagined, especially since I don't really like that beer. Reaching into the case for my final beer I saw there were only two left, but that we had lost our lead and the opposing case was already empty. Not knowing how much beer the other two had left and preparing for the worst I dove into the penultimate beer as quickly as I could. 3 had noted the tally as well, though, and finished his can to go for our final beer. 1 finished his. I finished mine. Tilton and Kenny's cans were empty (I think). It was down to 3 and their alternate, Jason. They stayed evenly matched at first, and the in a Herculean effort like a late-game Michael Jordan 3 took a deep breath and slammed the last quarter-can home. The final count:

1: 7 beers
3: 9 beers
me: 14 beers

Built like a gold-medal relay team we had our lead-off runner in 1 setting an uncatchable pace, a steady volume guy in me that kept us in the game, and 3 the lights-out finisher who blew them away in the home stretch.

All in all a fantastic performance of ridiculously pointless drinking.

New York and etc.

2009-05-15T20:29:00.003-04:00

Crossing Broadway on 19th this evening, deep in M. Ward's Hold Time I looked up and saw a woman absolutely eat it. It was one of the most spectacular face-first falls I've ever seen in my life. From ten feet away I hurried forward to see if she was OK, only to realize that three other random New York pedestrians had already stopped to help her up and inquire if she was OK. They lingered as she gingerly tested her ankle and stayed with her as I passed by, secure in the knowledge that she would be taken care of. People sometimes say New Yorkers are mean. I say you can always count on them to give their help when it's required... though possibly not a moment before.

In other news, work is ridiculously busy. Staying late has never been my thing but it's becoming all too frequent and honestly I don't get paid enough for all that. Finding a job in recession seems like a daunting task but more and more it also seems like a necessary one. Next week looks to be at least two more days of staying late since I'm not working the full week because...

6, one of my oldest friends, is getting married next Saturday. I've had several friends get married but no one I've known since I was ten years old. I imagine it will be kind of a surreal weekend and I'm not sure I've really fully absorbed it. I guess this is growing up, eh?

Though in some situations I still feel like a 13 year old kid.

The Right-Wing Hits Just Keep on Coming

2009-04-29T22:19:00.004-04:00

Last month I blogged about Rush Limbaugh having the real power in the Republican party when RNC chair Michael Steele went toe-to-toe with the radio host and backed down with his tail between his legs. At the time I found this occurrence to be completely shocking and bewildering, but I hadn't yet learned the full, depressing, somewhat comical truth: Rush doesn't actually give a shit about the GOP. I'd suspected for some time that the drivel spilling from Limbaugh's mouth was hyperbole meant solely to attract listeners and controversy but I'd thought that deep down he actually cared about being able to make his core ideals reality.

This illusion was shattered today when Limbaugh, reacting to Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter's party-switch to the Democrats rejoiced at his departure and told Specter to take McCain with him. He said it would be a good idea to "weed out people who aren't really Republican". That's a great idea, Rush. At a time when only roughly 20% of people identify as Republican you want to thin out the ranks some more? You want to have fewer seats in Congress? Fewer governors, state representatives and city councilmen? When the nation is trending moderate to liberal you want to alienate anyone not on the far right fringe?

As a political strategy this is suicidal but as a ratings booster this line of thought it pure gold. The fewer Republicans there are in government, the more governmental actions there will be that can be attributed to Democrats. As more legislation is enacted with a (D) next to the sponsors' names, the more Rush gets to complain about so-called "liberal policies" that are leading the country to ruin. Huge payday for Rush, not so huge payday for actual conservatives that used to think the GOP stood for them.

Limbaugh is hardly alone in this. Blowhards Neil Boortz, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck are all barking up the same money tree and the biggest joke of them all is that their viewers/readers think these people actually believe anything they are saying. Reagan's Big Tent Republicanism of the 80s is long since gone as those furthest on the right continue to exile anyone straying too close to the middle.

You know, as I read through my history books in school I used to wonder what it would have been like to watch the Federalists or the Whigs fade into irrelevance. Now I know. It feels sad and funny all at the same time.

On the Bright Side in NYC

2009-04-27T19:53:00.002-04:00

Two posts in one day? Whose blog is this?!?

So I don't end the day on a note of horrific bigotry, I'll recount this past weekend which was probably one of the best I've had in a while. It's really a microcosm of why New York is a great city to live in. After work on Friday I met up with 1, his cousin RBG, and several of her friends on the steps of Union Square. The 5pm sun was shining brightly, reminding why I used to eat lunch frequently on these steps years ago when I first moved here and interned at the old FSG office.

We sat and talked for a while before heading out to Food Swings for dinner. I'm neither vegan nor vegetarian though I do appreciate food of all stripes, flavors and animal protein levels. The drumsticks were quite good (as reported by several Citysearch reviewers before the site's redesign made it horrible) once I stopped expecting the consistency of chicken... the flavor was quite nice and deep-fried is deep-fried. I had a bit of 1's cheese-"steak" as well and it was also very tasty. I've been thinking a lot lately about sustainable eating and while this doesn't necessitate a switch to a strict vegetarian/organic it's gotten me watching what I buy and exploring culinary options outside of the wintry meat/carb paradigm I've been in for the last few months. Hopefully there's room somewhere in my budget for more Union Square green market purchases and other local alternatives.

From there it was back to the city for some first-year film/photo projects at the International Center of Photography. It was about 50/50 entertaining/run-of-the-mill-art-film which is a pretty good ratio. The free drinks afterward were an added bonus, though the real bonus came in Long Island City after the show. Hanging out, drinking beer on the roof during an open studio whilst staring out at the night-time Manhattan skyline is a great way to spend an evening. Especially when hanging out with cool new people.

Got a late start Saturday and my 10am run with 3 and K turned into a grueling 80 degree 12:30pm run which ended early due to me drunkenly jumping off of a ledge the night before and messing up my calves. This led to a substandard run (~2 miles) but that mattered little when lazily hanging out in 3K's place. After that it was meeting up with Karls Barkley for $3 all-you-can-eat BBQ at Sweet Revenge and a back yard BBQ after that in Fort Greene before finally making it leg-achingly home.

Sunday was beer, chips and home-made salsa in Prospect Park for a couple of hours with N, then up to Woodside for some so-so Ube Coolers at Jollibee Queens with RBG. The night was still young, however, so we took a trip into the city for some Shake Shack and a walk around the Natural History Museum.

A great night.

Why Are Conservative Talking Heads Allowed to be Racist?

2009-04-27T19:07:00.002-04:00

One of the many stories circulating around the blogosphere today involves Neil Boortz and Michael Savage (you can probably already see where this is going) engaging in some mindblowingly racist speculation about the recent outbreak of swine flu. Boortz theorizes that since Mexico doesn't have a Center for Disease Control, what better way for terrorists to infect the U.S. than to infect Mexicans? Oh, I don't know, Neil... maybe they can infect Americans? Maybe this latest potential medical emergency isn't a platform for your xenophobic rants against brown people?

This reminds me of a comment thread I was on in which somebody speculated that Muslims immigrating into the U.S. were actually terrorists with the hidden agenda of slowly taking over through breeding a lot.

Is there conservative uproar over this hate-mongering? Or is this tripe just standard noise flooding a media channel including Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh? Certainly sounds right in line with (now former) Georgia councilman John Dowdy advocating playing an online game in which you shoot at pregnant Mexican women.

Dreeeeaam. Dream, dream, dream.

2009-04-09T18:12:00.003-04:00

Two nights ago I had a pair of trippy dreams. In the first I dreamed that I was friends with a woman who was putting on a special dinner. She didn't know what to serve so I recommendeded a soul food restaurant, which was run by Florence from the Jeffersons. Not Marla Gibbs the actress, Florence the character. My friend (who wasn't actually a person I know in real life) liked the food and as thanks invited me to the dinner. Turns out the guest of honor was Martin Luther King Jr. He walked in sporting a grey three-piece suit and sat next to me as we began chatting. As we talked he reached into his pocket, pulled out the largest calculator I've ever seen and explained that it calculated statistics tables and it helped him bet on basketball.

At this point I woke up because I was incredibly thirsty. I drank some water, fell asleep and immediately was transported to an indoor track. I was running and running and when I finally stopped I ran into my sister who told me that Nike had just filmed a commercial while I was running. I found someone involved and looked at an early take of the commercial which was basically just me running. I sat down on some bleachers and looked around, seeing somehow that there was a bar on the other side of the room. Spotting my friend Ashley there drinking with some friends I decided to try and make my way over. I couldn't, however, because one of my high school gym teachers was running a basketball camp on the court between me and the bar and in order to cross I would have had to run through all the drills. As I prepared to do the dribble-around-cones drill my alarm when off and I woke up.

What the fuck does all that mean?

Blast from the Video Game Past

2009-04-05T14:01:00.005-04:00

Things have gotten fairly busy in recent weeks curtailing my blogging somewhat. I've accumulated a rather large stack of subjects I want to blog about, and now that I have some time that stack will... remain exactly the same size. Thanks to NumberThree over at fringeofacity a new topic has shot right to the top of the list: Favorite Old School Nintendo Game. Picking up that original Nintendo Entertainment System in Kindergarten (bundled with Mario 1 and Duck Hunt) was a turning point in my life putting me on track to log countless hours on various systems since. Of the games I loved in those head 8-bit days these ten were the most beloved.

10. RBI Baseball

9. Tecmo NBA Basketball

Double Dribble

8. Gradius

Raiden Trad

7. Excite Bike

6. Jackal

riding around in the Turtle Van

5. Super Mario Bros.

4. Base Wars

3. Contra

2. TMNT2

1. Super Mario Bros. 3

Seeing the Signs of Music Nostalgia

2009-03-06T16:03:00.004-05:00

I was reflecting, this morning, on the VH1 "I Love the (insert decade)" shows - based on a British series - that gained prominence in 2002-2003 with the release of"I Love the 80s". The miniseries' were widely popular, dedicating an hour to each year of the decade and waxing nostalgic about the foibles of those heady times. The show was so popular, in fact, that it spawned editions for other recent decades. "I Love the 70s" was almost equally beloved, however it was generally agreed upon that the string of shows jumped the shark when it tried to look back fondly in "I Love the 90s".

At that point the 90s were only roughly 4 years past and not enough time had passed to truly build up some rose colored glasses about the lamer aspects of the decade.

This got me thinking, though, about the phenomenon of "80s Night". Around the early 00s I began to notice clubs advertising - usually on some mid-week night or a Sunday - drink specials and a DJ set list comprised solely of songs no younger than 20 years old. The synth-heavy, hook-laden, hairspray-solidified grooves of 80s pop had returned and legions of 20-somethings packed dance floors to boogie down to the sounds of Ah-Ha, Flock of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, etc... While those that had originally busted a move to these swaying, robotic tunes were likely working late at the office or tucking in children, a new generation rediscovered the tunes that had served as the background for their young lives.

As my train of thought barreled forward I pondered how long it would be before I'd walk down a street only to be serenaded by the sweet sounds of Ace of Base or Jodeci seeping out of a crowded dance club. Are we three or four years away from once again trying to decipher the lyrics to "Blue" and contemplating the narcissism of "Mr. Vain"?

I feel like I should be terrified at the concept. And yet it sounds disturbingly fun...

It's Official: A Radio Talk Show Host Runs the Republican Party

2009-03-03T22:08:00.004-05:00

Earlier this week newly elected head of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele, when confronted with the statement that Rush Limbaugh was the de-facto leader of the Republican Party, asserted that Limbaugh's attitudes were "incendiary" and "ugly". The very next day Steele stated that he called Limbaugh to apologize after the radio personality excoriated Steele on his show.

A radio talking head upbraided the head of the Republican National Committee and the RNC chair backed down. Would Howard Dean have backed down if Al Franken had pitched a fit about some statement or other? Or would he say "You know what, Al, I was a U.S. governor and am currently orchestrating a strategy to re-take the Congress in the next two years, so run along and spout off into your microphone while I do some actual work"?

This has been a long time coming. Over the years more and more conservatives have been moving into the Limbaugh wing of the House That Ron Built and conservative policy makers have been fine allowing this to happen - even encouraging it as long as they were able to gain votes from it. The loose confederation of social and economic conservatives has been chased socially right-ward for so long by the Limbaugh attack dog - fed and fattened by Republicans in Congress and the White House - that the Red State Powers That Be no longer have control of them. The dog is out of control and pulling its former masters on its leash. That lawmakers are answering to a hate-spewing microphone-jockey who has never had to deal with the realities of politics for a day in his life should be frightening for all conservative politicians, but if they remain true to form - as Steele has - they will not raise a voice to change the situation because it might cost them votes.

This reminds me of the scene in The Matrix: Revolution when Neo is speaking to the machines and says, "The program, Smith, has grown beyond your control." Sadly for the Republican party, there does not appear to be a conservative "chosen one" to bail them out of this one.

Yet Another End of an Era

2009-03-02T10:10:00.002-05:00

As some may already know, I've gotten into podcasting in recent weeks. I've never been into talk radio, so aside from a few (quickly forgotten) subscriptions in the early days of 'casting I haven't really followed the medium.

That's obviously changed and now I follow several including This American Life and The Geekspeak Radio Podcast. My favorite podcast, though, has to be Trivia War which is a shame because, as revealed on their forums and in their latest episode, the show will only be airing two more episodes before going on indefinite hiatus.

Trivia War is a quiz show taking on a different TV show/movie every week, occasionally hosting guests from other 'casts. It was funny, interesting, and the personalities were all super engaging. This weekly podcast will be sorely missed, though since I only got into it very recently I still have several shows to catch up on.

Boo =(

Get Us As Far As Far Can Be, Get Us Away From Tonight

2009-02-26T18:49:00.000-05:00

So part of President Obama's (God, I love typing that) stimulus package involves investing in high-speed rail connecting the different parts of the country. I have to say, I couldn't be happier. Rail travel comes with significant benefits and investment in the infrastructure of an American rail system is long overdue.

Over short to medium distances, rail systems outperform cars in both speed and environmental friendliness. Regional systems - pictured below - would increase tourism and commerce for all involved cities and would give people an avenue for cheap, fast travel.

Investment now will pay serious dividends as jet fuel and gasoline once again rise in price (peak oil ensures this occurrence) and as people slowly adjust to rail travel.

I know that Americans tend to tie cars to the idea of freedom and independence, and I'm not advocating for the elimination of the automobile. I am, however, looking forward to the day when I won't have to drive 6 hours to get anywhere - and this comes from a person who used to love driving but now wonders how he could live without the New York subway.

Post Racial America in Print

2009-02-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

As some might have read everywhere else on the internet on Wednesday, the New York Post - which is a complete rag - ran the following cartoon:

For some context Gawker.com once labeled the cartoonist, Sean Delonas, the "Picasso of Prejudice" and has compiled a list of ten previous cartoons Genius McRacist has come up with.

I don't know on what planet this B.S. is OK. These kinds of incidents, and the non-apology apologies that invariably follow them, are probably what spurred new Attorney General Eric holder to say that America is either a nation of cowards, or in serious denial when discussing matters of race.

Coexistence only works when people actually care about what people different from themselves are thinking/feeling/believing. Please take note of that, New York Post. And any other person that doesn't see the problem with that scribble above.

It's not a Doll. It's an Action Figure.

2009-02-16T19:58:00.000-05:00

Thanks to an incredibly opportune two degrees of separation, I was able to get into the New York Toy Fair today. The event - which will stretch through Wednesday - was open only to media and toy vendors and featured booths of every kind imaginable: think of it as the E3 of toys.

All manners of my childhood geekery were revitalized from Star Wars to Street Fighter 2. G.I. Joe to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Even the X-Men showed up in force.

While Samus Aran and Ryu Hayabusa were among the most impressive, Barack Obama was perhaps the most entertaining.

The love of my childhood life, Legos, were also well represented - though mostly behind ten-foot walls that I couldn't get past.

Some of my favorites from the day follow (mostly having to do with Watchmen or Final Fantasy VII):

Check me out on Flickr for more pics from the show. Sorry for the quality on some of these, they were taken with my phone.

A Year to Say I Do (apparently)

2009-02-15T23:37:00.000-05:00

This year is shaping up to be a year of friends getting married for me. I'm in (at least) two weddings this year (one in May, another in October) with another one tentative. The Marriage Year started off officially, however, this past Saturday when a friend of mine, Jessica Chesnutt, married her long time girlfriend, Natalie Sauro. The two were among several Brides.com contest winners who were awarded a ceremony atop the Empire State building, and were actually the first same-sex couple to get married at the landmark. Though I wasn't able to attend the ceremony I was able to stream a video of it, and it was quite beautiful.

Jessie is one of my favorite people I've met since moving to New York (a little over two years ago) and Natalie is such a great person; I really wish I hung out with her more. I wish the two the best of luck and (once again, probably for the millionth time) congratulate both of them.

It infuriates me that some draconic-minded voters/legislators have seen fit to withhold civil rights from couples such as Jessie and Natalie for the base reason of selective, bigoted interpretation of religion. If these two do not deserve the full protection afforded to married couples under the law, then nobody does. If their love isn't enough to pass some archaic, short-sighted, closed-minded "values" test then nobody's is. As it stands, the two will be taking a day trip to Connecticut to get married (thankfully they don't have to travel far to find a state that isn't trying to create an underclass of citizens) and since New York recognizes out-of-state marriages (as mandated by this thing called The Constitution) they'll receive state marriage benefits, but will sadly not receive federal recognition. In case there's any confusion, its been estimated that marriage carries up to 1400 legal and economic benefits if, you know, you're part of a couple with no more than one penis and no more than one vagina.

I really didn't mean for this to become a rant for equality and equal protection under the law, so I'll just leave it at that.

Jessie and Natalie: you two are fantastic. I'm glad to have met you and it will be a privilege to get to know you better as you two continue your lives together.

Like a Show in Your Living Room. That You Pay For.

2009-02-11T15:29:00.000-05:00

So I occasionally do some music writing for online magazine NewYorkCool.com. Last week I was sent off to review the Postal Service-ish Alaska in Winter, so at the appointed time I left my cozy apartment and made the snowy trek from Bed Stuy to Williamsburg. The venue, Monkeytown, was harder to find than I thought it would be, but it was also far cooler than I thought it would be. Walking in it seemed completely dead, and really it seemed like I was in the wrong place. It was a nice looking restaurant, dimly lit with candles at each table, and no stage or band in sight. When I asked where the show was a server motioned me to a door in the corner of the room, and upon arrival there I was asked if I had a reservation.

A reservation?!?

Thoroughly confused I explained that I was on the list to review the show and after a bit more confusion I was instructed to go to through the door at the end of the hall. The hall itself was ridiculously brightly lit with gaudy red-orange paint on the walls. The contrast from the subdued front area was striking and the colors were so loud my ears started ringing a little. Cautiously stepping up to the far door (with the crazy hallway and the absolutely dead restaurant fresh in my mind) I stepped through to an incredibly intriguing performance space, and the question about the reservation immediately made sense.

The room was roughly the size of a living room (I'm terribly bad at understanding room measurements) with ceilings twice as high. Audio equipment was set up in the center while a weird video was playing on projector screens hanging from each wall. Couches and chairs were set up lining each wall with tables in front, and 50 (the apparent capacity of the room) hipsters sat drinking and eating dinner - apparently the full dinner menu was open to them.

While Alaska in Winter was kind of an odd choice (it was just him and a laptop and the video he wanted to play) I'm pretty in love with the venue. It seems like the same basic idea of the Living Room in the LES without the traditional stage-in-back/audience-staring-forward dynamic. The couches were also a nice touch. The projectors actually do add an interesting dimension as both AIW and the opener (so bad I don't even want to type the name) both brought along creations timed to go with the music.

It'd be a great place to see some acoustic guitar.

Justice for Jason Vassell

2009-02-10T13:25:00.000-05:00

As I've written and linked to in just about every online presence I have, a year ago a student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, was attacked in his dorm. Around 3am Jason Vassell - a black man - was in his dorm room with a friend - a white woman - when John Bowes and Jonathan Bosse came up to his window and began harassing them. The drunk pair began shouting "nigger" into the room and challenging Vassell to a fight. When he denied, they broke the glass on his window, though could not enter.

Vassell called a friend of his - and let's be honest, if two drunk guys start shouting racist things at me and try to break into my room I'm calling a friend too - and when he went to let his friend the two men forced their way in as well, again shouting racist epithets. The friend tried to calm everyone down, while Vassell brandished a pocket knife and asked the two to leave. As Vassell backpedaled toward the inner security door Bowes struck Vassell in the face, breaking his nose. During the fight that ensued Vassell also received a concussion while Bowes and Bosse sustained minor stab wounds.

In the "investigation" that followed, four witnesses - the friend that was in the room, the friend that came over to help, a neighbor who was awakened by the taunts from outside the window, and a random bystander in the lobby - backed up Vassell's story. Lobby security camera footage also seemed to corroborate his version of events. The police investigator in charge, one Lieutenant Thrasher, treated Vassell as the guilty party from the beginning, however, calling him a "donkey" and a "drug dealer". While he remained skeptical of Vassell's words, he approached Bowes and Bosse friendly and jokingly.

Vassell has since been charged with two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon and faces 20-30 years in prison. Bowes was charged with four misdemeanors (resulting in a maximum of four years in jail) and Bosse has yet to be charged with anything.

This is a miscarriage of justice, and racist "enforcement" of the law.

I'm glad that Obama was elected President, but to all the people I read proclaiming America "finally over racism" and entering "a post-racial world" please wake up. That a majority of Americans saw fit to elect a black man to the highest office doesn't change the fact that a part of the minority that did not are racist. My vote can't change someone else's prejudice.

We still have a LOT of work to do regarding race in America. This is just one example of that.

Rock Stars Had Awkward First Crushes Too

2009-02-07T16:57:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of the season, emusic.com has asked several indie rockers to relate the stories of their very first crushes. Perhaps also in the spirit of the season many of the stories are sweet, cute, heart-wrenching, cringe-inducing snapshots of young love. Divided into categories of celebrity crushes, unrequited crushes, crushed crushes, camp crushes, (the ever-elusive) mutual feelings crushes, "punk" crushes, and tragic crushes the article is quite a good read and even the bitterest endings produce nostalgic smiles.

Personally, I was afflicted with my first crush in third grade. Her name was Jasmine. The fact that my sister's name is Jazmine caused no small crisis in my young mind as I pondered for days whether or not it was weird to like a girl with a similar name as my sister. In the end no amount of name-related sibling similarity mattered and my heart won out.

To my frustration, Jasmine (notice the 's' spelling) seemed to be constantly flanked by two of her friends and I - daunted by the task of approaching her by herself - could never work up the courage to try and break through the friend interference. I wrote at least two notes revealing my feelings to slip into her locker, however neither ever left mine. A friend of mine actually knew her fairly well as they were both on the jump-rope team (yes, my elementary school had a jump rope team) but I never even talked to him about how I felt about her. I did, however, take up jump roping. And staring after her every time she walked by.

This went on for two years.

During the entire ordeal I don't think she even noticed me more than a handful of times and the total amount of our (short, five word) conversations can probably be counted on one hand. Then, after fifth grade I moved to a new school system and never saw her again.

Eight Year Old Me Wins

2009-02-03T18:45:00.000-05:00

When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man... my childish things were still awesome.

To explain, much like 99% of boys born in the 80s my formative years were spent acquiring random, interconnecting, multicolored blocks and constructing robots, space ships, and guns - though my shining achievement was possibly the Super Nintendo mock-up. Or maybe The Wing.

While that may seem somewhat nerdy to the uninitiated it was a great outlet for imagination and creativity. It was also the centerpiece for one of the greatest four-way friendships of the last 20 years, but I digress.

I still have fond memories of early morning, mid-afternoons and late nights making (to my mind) sleekly designed wholes from those myriad disparate parts and I still have a fascination with projects that creatively utilize my old childhood tools (sometimes to epic proportions).

And I also currently live in New York City.

Moral of the story? Legos are awesome.

End of an Era

2009-02-03T13:47:00.000-05:00

New York City is a place of constant bustle. A rushing torrent, pushing ever-forward yet swirling around stalwart constants from past ages. Though seemingly timeless, none of these markers of New-York-That-Was can last forever. Just as Guiliani excised the prostitutes from midtown and hipsters overtook the LES and Williamsburg (and soon to be Astoria, Clinton Hill and Mott Haven), this past Sunday time and age claimed Joe Ades, fixture of the Union Square Greenmarket.

For years every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday Ades could be seen and heard on the northeast corner of Union Square - just outside of the bounds of the market for lack of a permit - selling "the only vegetable peeler you'll ever need to buy." He was the side-walk pitchman from a bygone era the quality of which New York may never see again. Burning hot or freezing cold, Ades staked out his spot near the market (and at a few other spots around the city including near Radio City Music Hall) suited up with thermos at his side. His sales pitches were like sidewalk shows, gathering crowds that would make subway break-dancers jealous. He'd spend a day shredding carrots to pieces (in mere seconds!), his scraggly beard and disheveled hair belying the Upper East Side apartment he called home.

Ades was a husband four times, father to a daughter and two sons, and grandfather to three girls. More than that, though, he seemed family to New York City - a beloved uncle whose captivating presence was at once fancifully whimsical and comfortably reassuring.

We were lucky to have you, Mr. Ades. You will be missed.