Flaming Pablum

Epitaph in Crimson: Life Without Greg Lake

2016’s thirst for carnage takes another. We lost Greg Lake on Wednesday to cancer, silencing the original voice of the mighty King Crimson.

In a slavishly overwritten post from almost a decade ago, I summed up my adoration for Crimson’s signature opus, that being “21st Century Schizoid Man” from the stately 1969 debut, In the Court of the Crimson King (pictured above, modelled by my little boy Oliver earlier this year in Academy Records on 18th Street). While that psychoproggy proto-metal riff-blitzkrieg was indeed my way in to all things King Crimson, that whole album is just a magnificent artifact from start to finish. Shifting from mammoth slabs of skull-expanding sound to flights of mellotron-fueled whimsy, Greg Lake’s sonorous vocals provide an order to the maelstrom of sonic flourishes. I was never as wowed by his work with Emerson, Lake & Palmer in later years, but for that first Crimson album alone, Greg Lake is a goddamn titan.

After reading of the great man’s passing this morning at home, I listened to the entirety of In the Court.. in my headphones on my trek to work this morning, bellowing along with the Tolkienesque verses and portentous chorus of the sprawling title track as I strode down the narrow canyon of Cortlandt Alley, with my invocations of the purple piper and the fire-witch echoing off the pavement.

As I mentioned in the obit I penned for the job, while Lake is largely just associated with prog rock, his influence spans beyond that subgenre. “Schizoid” has been covered by everyone from Unrest to Voivod and was even sampled by Kanye West. Lake’s days in ELP arguably made him the personification of everything Punk Rock sought to destroy (although I’d sooner suggest it was his orchestral-filigree-obsessed bandmate, the recently late Keith Emerson, that was guiltier of that charge), but if you can’t hear the untethered rock fury in “21st Century Schizoid Man” (Black Sabbath and Killing Joke were certainly listening), you’re just not paying close enough attention.

Damn you, 2016.

Man Out of TIME

There’s been a truly ridiculous amount of hue and cry over social media today in response to the unveiling of TIME Magazine’s “Person of the Year” issue for 2016 which -- as should come to absolutely no surprise to any sentient being -- went to Donald Trump.

Now, having worked at the TIME Magazine news desk for 12 years, I’m obviously a bit biased, but even though I haven't worked there in eleven years, the idiotic annual debate still gets my dander up.

Repeat after me, won’t you?

TIME MAGAZINE'S 'PERSON OF THE YEAR' TITLE IS *NOT* AN AWARD! IT IS NOT AN ACCOLADE FOR HAVING DONE THE MOST GOOD!

Ostensibly, it is meant to go to the individual who has had the most profound effect on the year in question -- for good or ill (both Hitler and Stalin were Men of the Year). I'm not suggesting TIME has always made the right choice, but it's NOT a trophy.

For those of you saying TIME “sold out” by making TRUMP their pick, I say DO YOUR HOMEWORK! They’re merely fulfilling their stated objective. Trump owned 2016, for better or for worse. Who could argue with that?

TIME did sell out, however, in 2001 when they failed to make Osama Bin Laden their Person of the Year (they gave it to Giuliani, as you probably remember).

Moreover, for those who still see it as an endorsement, LOOK AT THE PICTURE OF HIM ABOVE! Look at the subhead (President of the DIVIDED States…). He’s positioned with his back to the camera and is shrouded in shadow. He looks like a fucking Harry Potter villain, for crying out loud. IT IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT!

Now, will Trump himself or his nation of acolytes recognize these nuances? Probably not, but that’s not the point. Trump sees everything as his trophy.

I would like to think, however, that the below flourish was intentional….(although it’s not the first time they’ve done that).

 

TriBeCa Then

There's a lot going on in the world, and there's a lot going on my world. Between the daily idiocy of the impending Trump presidency and the hoopla of the holidays and a busy patch on my own plate (work demands, family, and the book project), I don't have as much time to devote to the blog these weeks. But, I was struck by a sight on my way to work this morning, and thought I'd exhume some old photos to put up here.

My commute to work takes me right through the heart of TriBeCa every day. I've spoken about it here a few times, but when I first started visiting this neighborhood in the late 80s, it was a markedly different scene. The East Village was cool and SoHo was arty, but TriBeCa was just ... desolate. It completely captured my imagination. 

These days? It's hard to reconcile that it's the same neighborhood. 

Here are some shots I took in the mid-to-late 90s of various TriBeCa locations. Some look the same. Some don't. Enjoy....

 

Call Off the Christmas Dogs...

Okay, barring any truly unexpected developments, I declare that this is the very last entry I'll ever post on the Christmas figurines on Fifth Avenue at Madison Square.

Despite recently noticing their absence, I'm happy to report that ... just in time for the holiday in question .. the Christmas Caroling figurines are back in the Porclenosa window.

Or at least they were last night....(second floor, center).

Dirty Talk

I was involved in a discussion the other day about stupid and/or offensive band names and I invoked my constant need to follow-up any citation of the band Pussy Galore with the sheepish and not-at-all convincing argument that the band selected the name as it is the moniker of buxom Honor Blackman’s fabled character in the hallowed James Bond film, “Goldfinger.” That’s true -– Pussy Galore was a Bond girl, but even a passive perusal of the songs and aesthetic of Pussy Galore the band handily suggests that they chose the name to be willfully, giddily and proudly offensive. Mission accomplished. I had a similar problem with the name of Athens, GA’s Nashville Pussy, themselves named after a prurient remark made by Ted Nugent on his live album, Double Live Gonzo. Like their forebears in Pussy Galore, Nashville Pussy have zero qualms with the name and its connotations, none of which are especially nuanced.

Sorry, but I just hate the word “pussy.” I mean, I understand why people use it, but I just find it kinda stupid, juvenile and depressing, it ultimately being a term relegated to the lowest of possible denominators. I also hate that it's used as a misogynist pejorative to describe someone alleged of being weak, timid, shy and sickly. I have nothing against the notion of “talking dirty,” but comparable to my feelings about the overuse of the word “fuck” (a term I use myself quite a bit, despite efforts to curtail same), “pussy” just strikes me as an incalculably base word that objectifies and demeans. Maybe I’m old fashioned or prudish or too “politically correct,” but I just wish we could elevate the conversation a bit when sexual matters are invoked, … and throwing words like “pussy” around doesn’t really do that, to my mind.

Not that the word has ever gone out of fashion, but it got a major bump back into the zeitgeist when Donald Trump was caught on tape using it, prefaced with the exclamation “Grab’em by the…” After months of scandalous comments and deeds that all failed to do the candidate any damage whatsoever, this particular sound-byte seemed like the torpedo that was finally going to pierce the side of his campaign.

While I was hopeful and gunning for it to do so, I was also sort of bummed that it was a sexual matter that was poised to scuttle his ship, when -– honestly -– there had been so many other things prior to that which rendered him unfit (from mocking the disabled, through his comments about Mexicans to his myriad conflicts of interest, etc. etc.) While entirely indefensible and – again – stupid, juvenile, depressing and – let’s not forget -- predatory -- I resented that, in our very-arguably enlightened, cerebral and technologically advanced age, the fates of nations still rose and fell on the doings of men incapable of controlling their penises. But, of course, even the proof that Trump was a self-confessed serial groper did nothing to dissuade the electorate. Thanks, America -- YOU KNOW BEST!

So, anyway, yeah, I’d love to walk the conversation back upstairs and relegate the “locker room talk” back to whatever fictional locker room it spilled out of. I’d love to hear new terms to describe sexual organs that are maybe a little more imaginative and less derogatory. I’d love the conversation to evolve.

That all said, when I spotted the image below on Facebook this afternoon, I did laugh out loud.

Hearing Holocaust

It’s been quite a long while since I posted anything here about Tinnitus. Honestly, I believe I just ran out of things to say about it. For all intents and purposes, it’s never going away. Nothing I’ve tried -– from whey supplements through any number of homeopathic “remedies” –- ever worked. I just acclimated. I’m fortunate that I was able to. My particular case isn’t that bad, but I’ve spoken to some individuals who aren’t as lucky. They grapple with perpetual frustration, headaches and depression as a result. It’s no joke.

In any case, my high school pal Lela recently reached out to me as she was tasked with penning a piece on the subject for a science periodical. I gave her my sob story, but also put her in touch with my friend Paul Wallfisch, a musician with a sterling resume from playing with some of my favorite bands, notably Firewater and the very loud SWANS, as well as his own band, Botanica. That article came out this week, you can check it out here.

You’ll notice I invoked an early 90’s show from the New Ritz on West 54th Street when I witnessed My Bloody Valentine (pictured above) unleash their infamous “holocaust” during a performance of “You Made Me Realize.” It sounds like the stuff of fanciful legend – not unlike the accounts of early SWANS gigs being so loud that they induced vomiting in the audience. I can’t say if that’s true, but the My Bloody Valentine shows were indeed the real deal. I saw them again at Roseland a few years back, and the all-engulfing sound was indeed loud enough to make your soul wince. I remember seeing unsuspecting and arguably “passive” fans being carried out of there with tears streaming down their faces.

Time to dust this off again: This doesn’t even begin to encompass how loud it was, but it should give you a taste…

I was prepared that time (I’d brought heavy-duty earplugs for that Roseland show), but I do genuinely believe the first exposure at the Ritz played a large role in the Tinnitus that blossomed in 1999.

But when it appeared for good, it wasn’t in the wake of a loud show the night before. I can’t say what the final straw was, but the cumulative damage reached a point wherein I just woke up with it one morning, … and, over seventeen years and counting, it’s never gone away.

Protect your hearing, kids.