Flaming Pablum

Back to School: A Playlist

Surreally enough, my daughter is now a senior in high school. This means that our lives are currently ruled by the looming prospect of college. Our downtime is largely spent discussing the finer points of the application process, unspooling that tangled ball of red tape that is financial aid and visiting as many college campuses on my daughter’s list of “Likelies,” “Targets” and “Reaches” that we can get to. To say that this is an intimidating process is a herculean understatement.

This coming weekend, the four of us (we’re bringing Charlotte’s little brother Oliver along, as he’ll be in this same position before we know it) to go visit my alma mater, Denison University out in Central Ohio. We made the plan some months ago after the school reached out to my daughter about her fencing. In a strange coincidence, the weekend we planned to visit also turned out to be my reunion weekend. Being that I was already going to be there, how could I NOT go to that? It was turning out to be quite a point on my calendar to look forward to.

But, as fate would have it, much like the Devo show I was all excited about last night, my reunion ended up getting cancelled over COVID-19 concerns.

We’re still going, of course. Actually, the more I think about it, it’s probably for the best. We can now focus on my daughter’s visit and keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak. I’ll still get to wander around the campus and probably freak out.

In any case, while I don’t normally use Spotify, for the purposes of beefing up this post, I made a needlessly sprawling playlist of the music I concerned myself with during my four years at Denison as a gormless, chicken-chested college dork. Enjoy.

Jerked Back N’ Forth: Devo at Radio City Gets Nixed

The road to get to this one was long and fraught, but the outcome could have probably been predicted.

Upon first learning that DEVO were returning to Radio City Music Hall for the first time in 40 (!!!) years, I immediately purchased tickets. You have to remember, this was in, what, May? At the time, hopes and expectations were skyrocketing. People here in New York City were getting their second vaccination shots. A long, miserable winter under the dark cloud of COVID-19 seemed to be abating. People were making plans again. Things were opening up.

From the get-go, however, this event seemed star-crossed. Regular readers might remember a bizzarre episode in June wherein a package mysteriously showed up for me at the address of my former apartment on East 12th Street, … a place I hadn’t lived for about twenty years. When I went over to retrieve the enigmatic package, it ended up being my Devo tickets. Ticketmaster had sent them to the only address they had for me on file. It was only by sheer luck that the guy who took the apartment after me had the good will and consideration to hold onto my phone number. Those tickets could very easily have gone completely astray.

When I got home, my wife obliviously threw the FedEx envelope containing those tickets down the garbage shoot, thinking it was just an empty mailer I’d absent-mindedly left on my bureau. Upon learning that, while I descended into a foamy-mouth depression/rage spiral, my intrepid son Oliver went splelunking in our building’s trash compactor and actually RETRIEVED THE TICKETS!

The fates were playing with me.

As we soldiered on through the summer, however, a bigger problem was brewing. Despite the few highs and many lows of everything that had transpired since March of 2020 – the harrowing death toll, the upending of our normal routines, the crippling inefficacy and duplicitous bullshit of the Trump Administration’s mishandling of the crisis, the promsie of medical science delivering effective vaccines, the inevitable arrival of a more-transmitable mutation of the virus dubbed the Delta Variant – it suddenly became apparent that a staggering number of Americans were skeptical and/or reluctant to get vaccinated, opting instead to espouse conspiracy theories and even champion frankly ludicrous alternatives like horse dewormer to flaunt what they’re now calling “medical tyranny.”

Long story short: Because too many Americans are simply too fucking stupid, COVID-19 is still very much here. As they saying goes, this is why we can’t have nice things.

That means that contrary to our hopes and expectations from back in the Spring, we are very much NOT out of the woods, as yet. As a result, folks responsible for staging and producing events, concerts, festivals and the like are now all questioning whether to go ahead as planned.

DEVO posted this morning – the day before the scheduled performance -- on their Instagram account the following missive:

NYC! We are very sorry to announce that due to circumstances beyond our control and the current state of the world due to Covid 19, we had to postpone our upcoming show at Radio City Music Hall this Tuesday.

We will be announcing a new NYC date for 2022 very shortly. Stay tuned.

Refunds are available from point of purchase and we look forward to seeing you again in NYC soon.

The comments started flowing immediately. Pulling the plug on the event the day before seems like an especially harsh blow, especially for folks who were traveling here, but it’s more than likely that the said decision was made by the global entertainment promoter, Live Nation, and not the band (who have been regularly touting the upcoming date). Some embittered spuds went so far as to suggest that the real reason was low ticket sales, but that doesn’t quite add up. Were that the case, the event would probably have been re-designated to a smaller venue as opposed to being postponed entirely.

Personally speaking, I am pretty goddamned disappointed. As invoked numerous times here, Devo’s 1981 show at Radio City Music Hall was my first-ever concert and verily a life-changing and trajectory-informing experience. The thought of seeing them again in that amazing room was genuinely thrilling for me.

But, … I get it. I’m not happy about it, but because we collectively are too fucking slackjawed to get our shit together, it’s not safe or prudent to hold this event right now. So be it. If ever it becomes safe again, … I’ll be ready.

Get vaxxed or get fucked.

Word on The Street

Truth bomb on St. Marks Place...

TWENTY Years Later: Coda

Even before social media, I always took a laborious shitload of photographs. On September 11th, like pretty much everyone else, I grabbed my camera (a comparatively big, bulky thing) when shit started to happen and started snapping. But when I got the ensuing photos back, I didn't really know what to do with them. I didn't really feel like putting them in my unwieldy library of photo albums (remember those?) and I didn't really want to look at them. To my mind, they didn't really reveal anything new about the narrative. I put them in an envelope and have since lost them in the amorphous pile of ephemera that is my home. But even if I knew where they were, I don't think I'd share them here, for pretty much the very same reasons. All they amount to is some ridiculous proof that I saw the events unfurl firsthand, for whatever pittance that's worth.

But in the same way I prefer to celebrate departed loved ones on the days of their birth than on the anniversaries of their passing, I generally tend to prefer to remember New York's cityscape prior to that event. rather than during or afterwards. I snapped the picture above from somewhere on West Broadway in 1999, and I've always loved it. The bird was just a happy accident. The picture below, meanwhile, was snapped somewhere on MacDougal Street in 1998... again with birds unwittingly captured.

TWENTY Years Later

As previously observed mutiple times here around this time of year, I never quite understand why certain anniversaires take on more meaning than others. I’m not sure why the 20th anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001 should be any more significant than the 19th or the 14th or the 6th, other than to underscore that we like to group years in tidy sets of ten.

The sentiments I’ve expressed about the specifics of that day remain unchanged. I still remember it all pretty vividly. I don’t need to visit a museum or view a documentary to bring it all back. I’m relatively certain anyone who was in Manhattan (and/or Washington D.C. and Shanksville, PA) that day feels the same.

This all said, when viewed through the prism of the pandemic, as I noted last year, the legacy of September 11th seems a bit muted. As far as tragedies go, while COVID-19 lacks the spectacle of September 11th, its death-toll dwarfs Al Qaeda’s best efforts by leaps and bounds (not that it’s a competition). Moreover, given the tumult currently unfurling in the wake of the U.S. forces’ departure from Afghanistan, the notion that said country may soon revert to just as much of a safe haven for those who’d seek to harm us as it was in September of 2001 is a pretty bitter pill. But lest this get into Biden-bashing, let’s remember that it was George W. Bush who put us there, only later to deceptively use September 11th as a rationale for invading Iraq. It was on Obama’s watch that we finally got Osama Bin Laden. As for Trump, let’s remember that he released 5,000 Taliban prisoners and wanted to invite their leaders to Camp David, so don’t even go there.

Back here in New York, while my recollections of September 11th and its aftermath are, once again, fairly indelible, it no longer feels like it happened yesterday. I was a newlywed on September 11th, and we’d only been home from our honeymoon for two days by that fateful morning. We moved apartments – albeit only three blocks away – in 2002. My first child was born in 2004, followed by a second in 2006, and my life took on a whole different trajectory. I’ve held five different jobs since September of 2001. Life was markedly different than it is today on both a personal level and on a grander scale. It’s a different era.

I cannot help wondering, however, if anything has been learned.

Word On The Street

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The End of Summer Survey 2021

Ahoy from the unstable eye of Tropical Storm Henri (formerly Hurricane Henri) out here in Quogue, on the south shore of what Public Enemy used to call “Strong Island.” For the past several days, we’ve been bracing for the arrival of this weather event, but now that it’s finally here, it’s sort of mercifully anticlimactic, … or thus far, I should say. We haven’t gotten any heavy winds, yet, but the torrential downpours have been pretty steady since very early this morning. We’ll see what the rest of the day brings.

In the interim, being that my family is basically packing up and heading back to the city for good, later this week, I’m inclined to suggest that Summer 2021 … a heady cocktail of hope, expectation, cynicism and disappointment, is basically over. As such, I’m exhuming the annual summer survey, … like it matters. Here we go...

Defining Moment of Summer 2021:

While there were plenty of news events from the past couple of months that could act as pivotal moments to sum up the season — from our nationwide failure to contain the advance of the Delta Variant to the inevitably botched withdrawal from Afghanistan — I’m going to scale this question down to a personal level. For us, we spent much of June, July and August traipsing around the Eastern Seaboard, from Upstate New York to Vermont to Massachusetts to Connecticut to Maine and back again, depositing and fetching one child from summer camp and touring prospective college campuses with the other. On one particular evening in the sleepy town of Westport, New York on the shores of Lake Champlain, I both broke a tooth eating shrimp cocktail (no small feat) and, on the creeky front porch of a dilapidated inn we were inexplicably staying at, heard a roughshod husband-&-wife acoustic folk duo launch unexpectedly into a melody-free rendition of “Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs” by The Cramps. I’d say that bizarre evening pretty much encapsulated Summer 2021, for me.

Best Purchase of Summer 2021:

I actually don’t recall buying that much of anything, this past summer, but I did snag a truly crucial beer-can-chicken stand from True Value in Westhampton that did a magisterial job of keeping our poultry dutifully erect during the indirect grilling portion of the preparation. I was quite pleased with that.

Best Book You Read of Summer 2021:

I really lucked out, this year, as with only one minor exception (a memoir I neglected to finish by a certain noted photographer that I’m sure I’ll go back to), everything I read was pretty compelling. I started off with “Fallopian Rhapsody: The Story of the Lunachicks” by Jeanne Fury, then dove right into the stately “Substance: Inside New Order” by the mighty Peter Hook and then into the suitably grisly “Chaos: Charles Manson, The CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties” by Tom O’Neill. All were entirely excellent. Right now, I’m almost a third into “The History of Bones,” the long-awaited memoir by musician/actor/painter/perennial cool cat (and sometimes Flaming Pablum reader and commenter) John Lurie, and it’s totally engaging, thus far.

Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2021:

I have yet to re-enter any movie theaters, but I did see a clutch of new films — mostly documentaries — over the past couple of months. I, of course, watched “Roadrunner,” the doc about Anthony Bourdain. While quite compelling, it was inevitably crazy depressing. I realize there was a big stink about some A.I.-enhancement of Bourdain’s voice, but I was more put off by the editorial slant in the final third of the film regarding the man’s fraught relationship with Asia Argento. I would recommend it, but that aspect kind of put me off, a bit, as it not-so-subtly sought to assign a convenient villain to story far too complex for such a tidy conclusion, … in my opinion.

I neglected to watch “Val,” the documentary about notedly eccentric actor Val Kilmer as, upon watching the trailer, it, too, seemed irretrievably depressing. The Music Box doc on “Woodstock `99” was also both wildly engaging and wholly dispiriting, so much so that I had to cleanse myself with “We Are Twisted Fucking Sister,” a great film from 2014 about … well, take a guess … that was way better than it had any right to be.

But probably the best thing I saw all summer was earlier this week, when my friend Rob C and I were invited to a private screening of “The War is Never Over,” Beth B’s long-in-the-works documentary about the inimitable Lydia Lunch. Shown in the incongruously plush penthouse apartment of a cinema-benefactor I shall not name, it was a somewhat striking dichotomy to watch Lydia’s unflinchingly visceral story play out in front of this select audience of cloyingly young invitees mostly comprised of aspiring-film types who had zero idea who Lydia Lunch is. The film, of course, pulls few punches, so it was fun catching a few attendees visibly recoiling at certain points. If you’re a fan of the great lady, you need to see it. Lydia herself actually showed up at the end for a Q&A. I got to ask a few questions of her, which was fun. In typical form, she minced no words and got worked up a few times in her own signature manner. I’d have loved to get a picture with her, but I didn’t want to hassle her like a fawning fanboy. My friend Rob, meanwhile, came face to face with her at one point in the kitchen after the film, and somehow managed to get both a hug and a polite kiss from her. Cheeky bastard.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2021:

Somewhere in Maine, my wife found me a pair of socks with depictions of ducks and the legend “FUCK OFF” all over them. Priceless.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2021:

I was genuinely pretty sad to learn of the passing of ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill. I don’t care if you’re a punk or a metalhead or a hip-hopper or a rudeboy or a Deadhead or whatever — if you can’t appreciate the singular majesty of ZZ Top, you’re a fucking dolt.

Song That Best Sums Up Summer 2021:

As mentioned back on this post, I listened to a whole slew of different stuff over the course of the summer. I don’t know that I can cite a single tune, however, that ties it all up for me. For whatever reason, here at the cottage, my wife had a habit of playing a whole bunch of Neil Young whenever we were routinely over-imbibing on the back deck. She likes the mellower stuff like “Harvest Moon” and “After the Gold Rush,” whereas I much prefer the angrier fare like “Southern Man” and “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black),” the latter usually finding her scrambling for the remote.

Happiest Memory of Summer 2021:

While this summer certainly had its share of discouraging moments, I will say that it was, by and large, a happy season. We quite enjoyed our car trips around the wilds of New England. I had a great catch-up with my old friend Rob D. (not the same Rob as mentioned above) at a great outdoor bar in New London, CT on our way to collect Oliver from camp, which found me laughing out loud more than I’ve done in a long damn time.

Saddest Memory of Summer 2021:

Ah, why dwell on it?

Scariest Memory of Summer 2021:

I don’t know that I felt any genuine fear over this summer, but the encroaching dread brought on by embarrassingly large swathes of the American populace continuing to stupidly ignore the recommendations of the medical community gives me concern for what the next few months might bring.

Word That Best Describes Summer 2021:

Almost.

Back Into The Bowels of Wetlands Preserve

All things considered, it’s somewhat surprising that in 16 plus years, I’ve only devoted one or two posts to Wetlands Preserve, the fabled TriBeCa rock club on Laight Street that’s now been gone for twenty years. While, yes, its primary focus was ostensibly on hippy-dippy jam bands and Grateful Dead cover ensembles, the booking policy at Wetlands was refreshingly catholic. Most of the shows I saw at Wetlands had nothing to do with anything even remotely hippieish, from ska bands like The Scofflaws, Mephiskapheles and Fishbone through to hardcore stalwarts like Murphy’s Law and Agnostic Front to British indie outfits like Mansun and Echobelly. More in keeping with the ethos of the club, I remember seeing The Machine (a studiously faithful Pink Floyd cover band) and Dread Zeppelin (an all-white reggae band that played Zeppelin covers with an Elvis impersonator as lead singer). Every night was something different.

Back on this post, I mentioned that documentary that pretty much fully encapsulates everything you’d probably need to know about Wetlands. It’s worth your time, should you be curious. As mentioned, the club closed in 2001, shortly afterward to become a pricey bedding emporium for a few years. That corner space on Laight Street has now been devoid of an occupant for quite some time.

If I’m not mistaken, the very final show I ever saw at Wetlands would have been post-punk supergroup The Damage Manual with Ari Up of the Slits opening. The very first show I ever saw at Wetlands, meanwhile, might have been a funky-punky band called The Royal Crescent Mob. During the course of that show, my friend Tim kept feeding me shots called “Prairie Fires” — lethal combinations of tequila and tobacco sauce. After two or three of those, I slapped an offered fourth out of Tim’s hand (which landed messily on the dance floor) and repaired to Wetlands’ downstairs men’s room with all speed, where I proceeded to make Wetlands a bit …er…wetter.

So, why am I mentioning any of this now? Well, because a NYHC-reverent gent named Uptown Al recently posted a video shot within the dank confines of that downstairs bathroom. It’s a side of the club you’re not likely to see anywhere else, at the very least.

Turn back the clock to 1999 for a quick visit to the men’s room of Wetlands Preserve.

Sounds In The Summertime

For the last month — and for the conceivable next month -- myself and my little family are sequestered back out at the so-called Lamb Cottage out here on Long Island, the same little house we sub-letted last summer, when the pandemic convinced our friends who normally rent it to stay put in their North Carolina home. As fate would have it, that same family demurred from coming up north this summer, too, so they graciously let us sublet it again for July and August, and it’s a true gift for us to be able to do it.

This all said, while this little cottage was a literal safe haven for us last year and an idyllic place for us to undeservedly sojourn this year, it does have its minor drawbacks.

Sandwiched on all sides by other properties, the cottage comes with two specific sets of neighbors — we call them Jersey House and Staten Island House — who each harbor penchants for, shall we say, sharply compromising the idyll.

Closest is Jersey House, a sprawling, fully-air conditioned suburban compound with a lavish backyard pool that is just over a fenced hedge from us. The residents of same are a family of five who keep a strange weekly schedule that flies in the face of the calendar’s conventions. They oddly disappear for days, out of synch with the weekday/weekend continuum. When they are here, however, their kids spend an inordinate amount of time in the pool. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. Had we our own pool, we’d probably do the same.

By the same token, the Jersey House kids conduct themselves in the pool in a manner that is best described as … well … feral. Now, don’t get me wrong — obviously, children frolicking in swimming pools is very literally the sound of summertime. When my own kids were little, they giggled their heads off whilst playing in my mother’s pool. But these kids are just … different. They are MANIC, and sound like they are in dire need of some weapons-grade dosages of Ritalin. They scream, rant, rage, moan and bellow in a manner that gives me concern, and I don’t even like these children. Never mind the fact that they irritate the bejesus out of us, I can’t fathom how their own parents stand it. There is no calm. There is no peace. When they play “Marco Polo,” — and they are ALWAYS PLAYING “MARCO POLO,” a strange, maddening constant, given the mind-numbing idiocy of the game — they scream as if their next meal singularly depends on winning.

Last year, we politely asked, on a few awkward occasions, if they could try to keep all the bug-eyed, vein-popping screaming to a minimum. By the end of that summer, we were brazenly yelling “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CALM THE HELL DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP” out our bedroom window (the one that faces their pool). Nothing ever changed.

Across the narrow driveway on the other side, meanwhile, is Staten Island House. That’s a whole `nother story.

A massive, multi-bedroomed stronghold with multiple cars coming and going and yet another sprawling backyard pool set-up, Staten Island House plays host to a horde of folks from, we assume, Staten Island, who dependably like to regularly juxtapose the otherwise sleepy tranquility of the surrounding environs (Jersey House notwithstanding) with their pronounced affinity for high-decibel partying. Again, situated as they are between a cluster of other houses, to say nothing of the police station just a block away, the residents of Staten Island House suffer from what my wife calls a dearth of “situational awareness.” I find that diagnosis a little charitable, sooner suggesting that they proudly exude a palpable case of “pugnacious situational indifference.” Routinely opting for rafter-shaking airings from the discographies of Billy Squier, Pat Benatar and Rupert Hine (man oh man, do they love “Escape [The Pina Colada Song]”) in a manner suggesting that 1981 never ended, the S.I. House practically dares me to come complain. Thus far, I have demurred from that option.

Last summer, there was a moment when I was working away at my laptop in the living room, when I heard a group of people walking up the cottage’s long, gravel driveway. I looked out the screen door to see a phalanx of angry-looking women in lycra activewear standing outside in a sort of attack formation. “Can I help you?,” I asked. The leader, a tough-talking lady brandishing a metal water bottle somewhat menacingly, spoke up. “Hey there, Paul, why did you call the cops on us last night?” “Well,” I calmly replied, “for a start, my name isn’t Paul, and we didn’t call the cops on anyone last night or ever. We’re not really ‘call-the-cops’ types, here.” She didn’t seem to buy it and went on to assert that they were just blowing off steam and having a party with some of their friends after a long work week (seemingly oblivious to the fact that the party in question happened on a Monday night). I re-iterated that we hadn’t called the police on them, which was true. Being that we’re ultimately only guests of our friends here, we don’t really feel its our place to alert the local constabulary of any noise disturbance (despite the fact that I’m dead sure the police station a block away could easily hear Staten Island House’s stentorian spins of “Love Is A Battlefield” the evening prior). Bear in mind, these ladies didn’t come down our driveway with a conciliatory bottle of wine to offer — just grimaces and lycra. They took off back down our driveway, and that was our last interaction. But the late-night arena-rock blocks have continued unabated.

Once again, we’re inclined to just grin and bear it, as the benefits of spending time here at the cottage vastly outweigh the drawbacks. If that means dealing with the bloodcurdling screams of Jersey House’s pool and the foundation-quaking renditions of “The Stroke” from Staten Island House, so be it.

Earlier this week, however, I had to repair back to the city. After the remains of a botched root canal in the back of my mouth finally saw fit to dislodge themselves from my skull two weeks back, I figured it was high time to go see my dentist again. I made an appointment for early Tuesday morning, and, in short order, I found myself back in our apartment in the city, late Monday night, without my wife and kids and bored.

Left to my own devices, I ended up drinking a tallboy (or two) of Asahi while re-watching “The New York Post-Punk Noise Series Vol. 1” DVD, which features — wait for it — Cop Shoot Cop performing live at Martin Bisi’s studio in 1993. Without my wife there to helpfully remind (read: scold) me about the perils of volume, I ended up particularly reveling in this vintage slice of clangy noise rock. Evidently, I was enjoying it with a little too much abandon, as halfway through a pointedly caustic rendition of “Shine On Elizabeth,” I heard an emphatic pounding on my front door.

Shaken and shocked to my senses, I muted the television and sprang to the door. I was greeted by Ben, my gentle giant of a downstairs neighbor who could easily collapse my pipe-cleaner-like ribcage with a single poke to my sternum. He’d been dispatched with all haste upstairs by his seething wife to ask me to turn it the Hell down, half-expecting to have encountered one of my teenaged kids as the culprit. Essentially, imagine hearing this coming through your ceiling at top volume. I apologized profusely and trotted out some half-assed excuse that held no water and made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Exceptionally good dude that he is, Ben graciously accepted my drivel, thanked me and split to go soothe the nerves of his hysterical spouse. I spent the rest of the evening on my tip-toes feeling like a first-class jackass.

I am a filthy hypocrite.

The takeaway, here, is whether you’re a city mouse or an ersatz country mouse, never lose touch with your situational awareness.

Flaming Pablum Turns Sweet 16

At this late stage of the proceedings, I’m at a loss as to what to say about the fact that I’ve now been updating this blog for sixteen years.

I mean, oh sure, I could dust off the old anecdote about how I started this blog just to piss off a friend and former colleague of mine who had just started his own. He abandoned his after a while, whereas I just …. kept going.

Of course, the concept of anybody blogging in 2021 seems arguably pretty ridiculous. I mean, were I the dutiful trend-follower, I’d be, at the very least, a vlogger/"influencer," by this point, with a YouTube channel and branding and merch all that, but that’s just not my scene. If anything, I am a “bad influencer,” and the closest thing to merch I have is a clutch of dumb stickers, and if you want any of those, you’ll have to walk around downtown Manhattan, find one that hasn’t yet been defaced and peel it off something. Have fun with that.

In any case, my continued gratitude to those of you who’ve actually bothered to read the blog and inexplicably keep coming back for more. And another big thank you to those who have gone that perilous extra mile and left a comment.

You keep readin’ and commentin’ and I’ll keep postin’.