Flaming Pablum

Erase Your E-Waste

I believe I bought my first iMac back in the balmy, carefree days of 1998 or so. Clinton was still in the White House, kids were playing "Tomb Raider," "Seinfeld" had only recently gone off the air and maddeningly tinny "Drum n' Bass" music was all the rage. I remember when I first walked into the shop to purchase one. This was the second generation of iMacs, and the gimmick at the time was that they came in different colors. "Can I have a purple one?" I asked. "You mean grape, of course," corrected the woman behind the counter. "Fine, may I have a grape one?" I countered. She frowned. "We're out of the grape, unless you'd like to wait seven weeks." At this stage of the proceedings, the color of the machine didn't really matter to me. It could have been plaid for all I cared. "How about orange?" I offered. "You mean tangerine," she sniffed. After a few more Abbott-&-Costello-styled exchanges of this sort, I hauled a massively heavy, pukey-orange-colored iMac up Broadway and swiftly found myself hitchhiking onto the information superhighway from the comfort of my own apartment.

Twelve years later, I'm on my third iMac. Designed obsolescence seemingly being the watchword of all Apple products, after I'd upgraded each machine as much as I could have, I dutifully ponied up the cash for the newer model. I'm hoping the one I currently use lasts a bit longer than its predecessors, but who can say? I'll cross that perilous chasm when I get to it. In the interim, because I'm either a packrat, lazy or just inexcusably sentimental, I haven't thrown away any of my iMacs. The afore-cited tangerine machine resides in a big box in a storage space in the West Village, and its successor (the model with the round base and flat screen that was attached by a perilously flimsy metal stem) is currently gathering a fine patina of dust in my front hall closet. But come this April, all that's going to change, thanks to The 4th Bin.

The 4th Bin is an eco-conscious organization that seeks to curtail the exhaustive amount of "e-waste" that New York City produces on a dizzying level. Put simply, if you sign up by April 22nd , the 4th Bin team will come to your home or office and cart away any of your electronic crap. That's right. Say goodbye to your old cell phones, TV's, printers, monitors, toner cartridges, keyboards, cables and CPUs. They'll show up and make it all go bye-bye. And they're not like the Death Bear (who takes your ex's stuff and keeps it forever "in the Death Bear cave"), they actually reuse, recycle and process your e-stuff in an environmentally sound fashion. What's not to like? Everyone wins.

Click here to find out more.

Chelsea Hotel Hijinks

July 1995. My friend Rob took a brief leave of absence from his life in Costa Mesa in Orange County, Ca (or "behind the Orange Curtain," as he used to say) to log some time here back here in his former hometown of NYC. With a friend or two in tow, Rob decided it'd be interesting to forgo the usual route of crashing on my then-couch in Yorkeville on the Upper East Side and instead booked a room in the Chelsea Hotel, the same fabled Manhattan institution that played to host to everyone from Quentin Crisp, Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas through Dee Dee Ramone, Jim Carroll and --- wait for it -- Sid Vicious. Given the storied coolness of the venue, Rob magnanimously then decided to host a little July 4th get-together in his room there. I was particularly excited about it, as while I'd certainly stood in its lobby once or twice, I'd never actually been upstairs or seen any of the rooms before. I was psyched to check it out.

I remember the evening as being fittingly rainy and gloomy. I don't recall the exact room number, but Rob's room looked almost exactly like the room captured in Alex Cox's arguably lamentable film, "Sid & Nancy." It looked out over 23rd street, to the right of the famous neon sign. It was a bit grotty, but still quite cool. At the time, they were selling official Chelsea Hotel t-shirts in the lobby, and were displaying them on a headless mannequin. "Oh, that's really cute," said my friend Sara, pointing at a giant-sized water bug on the sleeve of the t-shirt. Sara assumed the bug was fake and a campy part of the t-shirt design. I countered that it wasn't. We spent the evening drinking many beers, listening to environs-appropriate tunes and giggling like a gaggle of fanboys. When we repaired downstairs to go buy some more beer, I was able to win the argument with Sara by calling her attention to the fact that the water bug had moved on. Suffice to say, Sara decided against buying a t-shirt.

One year later, Rob returned to the Chelsea, rented the very same room and had another soiree, this one to surreptitiously celebrate his newly-minted marriage, but that's another story. Again, we spent hours wandering the hotel's halls and stairwells, admiring the the artwork that hung in virtually every free space.

Time passed. Life sped up. Rob moved back to New York for a while, then onto New London in Connecticut. I, in turn, moved downtown, got married and then moved again, although in the same neighborhood. Fourteen years after that last festive evening in the Chelsea Hotel, Rob came back to NYC last weekend and, again, booked a room at the hotel. He was in town with our mutual friend Adam who was performing at an evening of stand-up comedy at the Axis Theater in heart of the Village. Afterward, we again repaired back to the Chelsea Hotel (albeit to a different room, this time) to knock back a few drinks and catch up. Endearingly, the place looked pretty much the same as we'd remembered it. I took the liberty of snapping just a couple of shots. If you ever have to the opportunity to wander its halls, I highly recommend it. The place has an atmosphere like no other.

Oh, you can still buy t-shirts in the lobby. The water bug is still optional.

Word on the Street

Missing in Action

 Just a couple of days ago, I posted yet another entry about Antony Gormley's enigmatic sculpture installation, "Event Horizon," currently unfolding over on Madison Square. At first, I was entirely captivated by the concept, and I loved how it was furtively spreading like some mysterious guerilla-styled phenomenon with the slight air of menace. Of course, I would later learn that it was all part of some big, city-funded project (just like those stupid Gates in Central Park a few years back), and that diluted my enthusiasm a bit. I suppose I'm being entirely unrealistic to think that this sort of stunt could have been pulled off without the consent and financial assistance of the city, but I really wanted it to remain enigmatic and unexplained. Unfortunately, that's not the case. At their website, not only is the whole thing explained (complete with a fun-ruining map that points out exactly where all the figures are), but there's also an online shop, where one can buy "Official Event Horizon apparel ." Once again, commerce and art prove inseparable.

  The whole project, though, initially reminded me of the work of another artist, albeit one of an entirely different aesthetic. Self-styled insurrectionist Peter Missing left his own cryptic mark on Manhattan several years back with his amorphous band, Missing Foundation. I've written about them here before, actually (and you can hear some of MF's music in this entry I penned for The New York Nobody Sings here). In any case, back in the early 90's, I was similarly captivated by Missing's cryptic graffiti campaign and his notorious reputation for inciting confusion and hysteria (in today's world, he'd doubtlessly be branded a "terrorist"). After being adopted by/becoming synonymous with the squatter's rights movement, inciting the odd riot and being entertainingly branded a Satanic cult by an imaginative television reporter, Missing Foundation's "career" as "recording artists" almost became incidental. It was hard enough finding their releases anyway.

Missing de-camped NYC for Berlin sometime in the 90's, although MF's signature upturned cocktail glass recently started making a revival on the walls of the East Village. I still have my copies of Ignore the White Culture and Demise (although I've still never gotten hold of their arguable meisterwerk, "1933"). In any case, today I fielded a note from a label called Humanity Records, informing me of a new box set of Peter Missing's work. Beyond the fact that "box sets" used to seem reserved for the likes of more respectable and revered acts like Eric Clapton, Abba and Queen, I can't get my head around how antithetical to the fabled, anarchic Missing Foundation mythos it all seems. Once again, at the Humanity Records homepage, you can now buy an impressive array of – wait for it – official Missing Foundation apparel. Maybe this sounds disingenuous from a guy who recently spent entirely too much bandwidth harping on about the pristine sanctity of band t-shirts, but Missing Foundation never seemed like just another band. The notion of Missing Foundation merchandise seems entirely contrary to their very nature, but perhaps I'm just buying the hype.

If you spend any time listening to what Missing has to say these days (witness these mystique-immolating interviews from as recently as 2008), it's pretty clear that the man's not exactly a stranger to changing his tune (both literally and figuratively). He now preaches an agenda about the power of art and "love, love, love." Hard to believe it's the same guy that struck horror in the hearts of the landed gentry all those years ago. Anyway, the guy's gotta make a living, I guess. At least now maybe I can get a copy of "1933".

Rest in Peace, Jim Marshall

I just happened to spot on Tim B's blog that noted rock photographer extraordinaire, Jim Marshall just passed away at the age of 74. Bizarrely, I had the honor of meeting the man in 2008. My friend Tim Raycroft worked on an amazing documentary about Johnny Cash's seminal performance at Folsom Prison, called -- wait for it -- "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison." It's awesome. Seek it out. In any case, they held a screening for same during the CMJ festival here in NYC, and Tim invited me along. We met beforehand at bar in my neighborhood. I walked in and who should be sitting next to Tim was Jim Marshall. Jim was very generous in adding lots of colorful context to the project. Being a slavish rock geek, I immediately fell to my knees in the Wayne Cambell "I'm not worthy" stance. Marshall had a bit of a well-earned reputation as being a complete wild man, but he couldn't have been more gracious, illuminating and utterly hilarious throughout the rest of the evening. His work speaks for itself. May he rest in peace.

More Dubious Assertions About Music & T-shirts

So, last week, I posted a blustery little entry about how Ke$ha's sporting of an apparent vintage Void shirt (and her inexplicable list of surprisingly eclectic "influences" on MySpace) ruined my admittedly-easily-ruined day. This, in turn, led my friend, learned musicologist, fellow-writer and estimable Punk Heavy Metal Karaoke bass player, Rob K, to eloquently tear me a new one on Facebook for being arrogant, judgmental and "conservative" (ouch!) I would like to point out, though, that it seems that Rob may have been initially reacting to my insertion of a purposefully over-the-top blurb I posted seven years ago on the ILM discussion boards about Shania Twain wearing a Ramones t-shirt. I'd included that snippet as a means of precisely demonstrating how excitably elitist I'm capable of being about these things. Evidently, Rob more than agreed and the end results weren't pretty.

Like I unsuccessfully tried to say, I'm not happy about being judgmental about these things (nor do I think these things need to be taken so dreadfully seriously), but they do stir me in a certain direction (as they likewise stir Rob, albeit in a different direction). I don't believe I'm as narrow as Rob painted me to be (hey, you maybe have missed the post, but I actually like Lady Gaga). And while, yes, a lot – if not most -- of the music I write about here dates back a couple decades, I don't think that makes me a "cultural cop" ruled by "imperious, trapped-in-amber, doctrinaire-to-the-dead-end attitudes about the once 'underground' music [I] identified with in [my] youth" (Rob doesn't mince words). Who knows? Maybe he's absolutely right. That all said, irrespective of whether or not I'm living in the past and regardless of whether or not droves of people like it, buy it and are influenced by it, I continue to think Shania Twain's (and, even more so, Ke$ha's) music is abjectly insipid, so I chose my words accordingly. Don't agree with my opinion? That's totally fine. Stop reading, then, and start your own equally meaningless blog.

Anyway, blah blah blah….I'm not trying to re-drudge it all up. I just noticed today that evidently I'm not the only one who's getting uppity about these things, as this blog entry points out Lady Gaga's allusions to GISM & Doom, Kristen Stewart's Minor Threat t-shirt and, yes, Ke$ha's now-belabored Void t-shirt which – evidently -- can similarly be yours (be you a fan of vintage D.C. hardcore or just another poseur) for the princely sum of $75 -- for a t-shirt !!! Oh, and for you Ke$haplogists out there, here's a shot of her wearing another shirt produced by that same company, arguably proving that it ain't really about Void at all...as suspected.

Just as revolting was the recent discovery that Urban Outfitters is now selling t-shirts with vintage Iron Maiden designs on them as -- wait for it -- 'classic rock boyfriend tees' (thanks & much fervent goat-throwing to my pal Jeanne Fury for pointing this one out). Listen, I'll admit it – I've a very old and very silly person who desperately clings to the vanishing vestiges of my ill-spent youth, slavishly prone to brow-beating innocent bystanders for allegedly appropriating things that I still hold sacred, but seriously – I'd like to think I didn't get mercilessly ridiculed throughout my high school years for being the hapless heavy metal dork that I was just so some hateful waif could parade around with Eddie's fanged visage adorning her fashionably malnourished torso. In a nutshell, if you're not a fan of the band then you shouldn't be wearing their goddamn shirt.

Moreover, isn't there something kinda tragic and offensive about Urban Outfitters marketing these things? It smacks of, "since you don't have a cool boyfriend of your own, here's a helping hand!" Also, the suggestion that only boys like metal strikes me as pointedly wrong-headed. I know a couple of metalhead girls who'd happily punch someone in the mouth for the implication that they're only sporting the colors because their " boyfriends like it, tee hee!" Now, am I contradicting myself regarding my earlier points? No, because I sincerely don't believe that Shania gives a crap about the Ramones or, once again, that Ke$ha is a genuine fan of Void.

But, y'know, I've certainly been wrong before. Just ask Rob.

Installation or Infestation?

Remember when I said that I wasn't going to write bout Antony Gormley's Event Horizon project anymore? Well, yeah – that was a lie. You must remember, though, that I walk through the installation every day, so it's unavoidable. It seems Gormley was awfully busy over the last few days, as when I entered Madison Square, I spotted four or five new figures – notably a couple on the Municipal Life building, one perched atop the northern corner of the Flatiron building and one standing street-level, right in the center of the traffic island at 23rd street. I also finally spotted the lone figure on the northeast corner of the Empire State Building. Now I suppose it's only a matter of time before someone spots that one and assumes it’s a jumper.

Even after I've crossed 34th street, though, it seems I'm still conditioned to scanning the skyline for more of them. I'm sure I'll get bored of it eventually, but I right now, I still think it's quite fun. I'm worried about the one on street-level, though. I'll be surprised if he's not messed with in some way before the end of the project.

On the walk home, I spotted a couple of others, including another street-level one on the eastern entrance to Madison Square park. They're also now advertising the installation (including an address to an official website), which -- honestly -- takes a bit of the fun out of it for me. I'd prefer if the whole thing remained mysterious and unexplained.

Click on these to enlarge.

The March of the Purple Reich

Just as Hitler marched into Poland back in 1939 without so much as a "pardon me," it seems that the nefarious purple flag of NYU is now poised to drape menacingly over the rest of Greenwich Village (y'know … the parts they don't already own). And it's not just my neck of the woods (the Washington Square neighborhood, i.e. the very crotch of the University). They're coming for you too, Brooklyn. Check out this piece from yesterday's Times for the frankly disquieting details of the University's plan to expand its physical plant by 40 freakin' percent.

Reheated But Still Raw

I own copies of both the Bowie mix and the Iggy mix and you know what? I still much prefer Funhouse. That all said, Raw Power by the Stooges (or, more pedantically, Iggy & the Stooges, as it was billed at the time) remains a crucial must-have. All the purple prose you've heard about it is correct. Of course, it contains the obvious go-to classics like "Search & Destroy" (covered by everyone from The Dictators to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and beyond) and "Gimme Danger," but the LP is steeped in other crackling classic like the manic "Shake Appeal" and my personal favorite, "Penetration."

Actually, I believe I gave my pre-remastering copy (i.e. the David Bowie mix) to my nephew, Whalen, a number of years back, but given the fact that he's now an unapologetic fan of stuff like Dave Mathews and Phish these days, he probably uses it as a coaster. In any case, I now make do with the 1997 version (remastered by Ig himself). I noticed, however, (via a post on the tirelessly-informed site of Tim "Karate Boogaloo" Broun, Stupefaction) that there's now a "deluxe version" of Raw Power (which you can only obtain via this link). Sorry, but I'm not falling for it. As much as I'd sooner take a bullet than part with any of my Stooges music by choice, I've been burned by them before.

Anyway, enjoy this...

Sunday Morning Balloonacy

Exactly one year ago today, when my little daughter, Charlotte, turned 5, I thought it would be a fun idea to fill the apartment with balloons for when her little friends came over to celebrate. So, that morning, I strolled on over to Village Paper on Greenwich Avenue and ordered a couple dozen pink balloons. The guy behind the counter immediately went to work with the helium tank and within moments, I was walking back up 9th street with a massive bunch of balloons. Charlotte's big brown eyes sparkled with excitement when I walked in the door with them and she spent the rest of the afternoon hopping with joy. Mission accomplished.

Sadly, the Village Paper store burned down in a freakish fire last month. It's a tragic story. The place was the pride and joy of one Sun Wong, a father of three who literally watched his dreams go up in smoke with the demise of the store. The corner shop is now just a boarded-up, gutted shell. In the last couple of weeks, my wife and I started making plans for Charlotte's sixth birthday. I suddenly wondered how I was going to get hold of more balloons.

A tip from sweaty goth at the frankly ludicrous Gothic Renaissance costume outlet on 4th Avenue pointed me in the direction of the promisingly named "Party City" on West 14th street. Yesterday afternoon, I popped in and sure enough, they sold a vast array of colorful helium balloons. I figured I'd just pop in this morning when they opened, buy a bunch and that would be that.

So today, while my wife iced a few cupcakes and the kids ran around maniacally, I walked back over to Party City. Once inside, I was dispassionately informed by a dead-eyed Puerto Rican girl with rainbow-colored fingernails that they weren't taking any new balloon orders today and that all the balloons on display were already spoken for and sold. I started to panic. "When will you have more available?" I asked, even though she'd already turned away. Another girl behind the counter told me to "try 17th Street between 7th & 8th."

Unsurprisingly, I left in a huff, but it was really my own fault. I shouldn't have assumed that it was going to be that easy. Not knowing what else to do, I started to hotfoot it over to 17th Street, although I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for. Another Party City outlet? Whatever, I had to land this plane. The notion of disappointed Charlotte quickened my pace.

Glancing down at my watch, I noticed that the morning was getting away from me, and I still had other errands to accomplish before the festivities were planned. I hurried across 7th Avenue, looking up and down 17th street for an awning or a clown or something that said "get your balloons here." Sure enough, peaking out of the basement level of an grotty-looking brownstone, I spotted a slightly beat-up sign that read "Balloons to Go." I darted down the stairs and into an office festooned with balloons and pictures of rather pre-Raphaelite-looking bellydancers. I then breathlessly asked a woman behind the desk if she could see her way clear to selling me a dozen pink balloons. "No problem," she said and went right to work. "You're timing is perfect," she continued, "we normally do this by appointment only." It turns out this place also supplies gorilla suits, singing strippers and the afore-cited bellydancers, but none of them really seemed appropriate for Charlotte's party. I paid up and hit the bricks.

Eighteen dollars later, I was braving the surprisingly balloon-hostile streets once again, clutching onto my prized bunch for dear life in the face of sudden gusts of wind and the odd, piercing tree branch. Incidentally, it's damn tough to look all cool and punk rock when you're strolling through the West Village with a dozen pink balloons, but I didn't give a damn. I turned east on Greenwhich Avenue and ended up walking right past the former facade of Village Paper (where I stopped for the pic at the top of this post and a moment of respectful reflection). When I walked in my front door with the spoils of my efforts, Charlotte & Oliver burst into little cheers as if on cue. Once again, mission accomplished.

If you live downtown and are planning a party, tell Party City to get stuffed and go to Balloons to Go! Tell'em Flaming Pablum sent'cha.