Flaming Pablum

No More Time For Looking Back

The last time I posted the picture up top — an artful shot of the interior of Rocks in Your Head, a former, beloved record shop on Prince Street in SoHo, purloined from the wilds of Flickr, if memory serves — was January 2012, and it accompanied yet another entry of mine that weepily lamented the passage of time. Over the course of the last fifteen years, this blog has been largely defined by posts like that — sepia-toned homages to the Manhattan of my youth, a veritable lost continent peppered with places like Rocks In Your Head that were otherwise extinguished by gentrification, spiraling rents, shifting cultural sensibilities, the sickly convenience of new technology or a potently unwieldy combination of all of the above. This blog has frequently acted as one long fist-shake at the tirelessly amorphous topography of this urban environment, where sentimentality is for the weak and significance is perilously relative.

I wish I could recall the specific luminary in question, but I remember reading an interview with a certain woman— it was someone along the lines of Deborah Harry, Tina Weymouth or even Lydia Lunch — and the question was posed to her, “When did Downtown die?” I’m leaning towards it being Debbie Harry, but her immediate response was September 11th. If I recall correctly, she didn’t mean to suggest that the Downtown Manhattan of 2001 just prior to that event was as thriving and multifaceted a bohemian wonderland as it had been in the 70’s and 80’s, but rather that the seismic upheaval brought on by the horrific rigors of that fateful day firmly bookended the end of an era. The fanciful bubble had been popped in the most jarring of ways by the outside world, and there was never going to be any return to those days.

Whomever she was, she wasn’t wrong. While that transformation was already underway, New York City changed dramatically in the wake of 9/11, “bouncing back” in a trajectory that leaned very heavily in favor of monied exclusivity. In the past nineteen years, the city has gone onto become way more prohibitively costly, largely at the expense of all semblance of its former character, to say nothing of vast swathes of its former residents. Apologists will cite Heraclitis’ mantra that change is the only constant, but even a passive observer would concede that the metamorphosis of New York City since 2001 has been sharp, and vertically steep.

As the new city emerged — one feverishly pockmarked by chains and big box retailers and increasingly less by longstanding mom’n’pops — blogs like mine and far more scrupulous, focussed and studious ones like Jeremiah Moss’s Vanishing Downtown and EV Grieve (to name my favorite two) appeared to document the carnage. While my blog is inexorably entwined rather narrowly with my own personal experiences and recollections, those two — and others -- presented wider vistas as to the ensuing effects on whole neighborhoods. I may have been preoccupied with vanishing record stores, punk bars and live music venues, but they were scrutinizing the tolls taken on the city’s fragile cultural ecosystem writ large.

After a while, the more brazenly nostalgic aspects of these types of endeavors made them easier to diminish. Reverently sipping Gem Spa egg creams in our authentic CBGB t-shirts, we were just stubborn, aging die-hards pining for the fabled "bad old days" and failing to appreciate the amenities of the new iteration of New York City. Of course we don’t want the old site of Bleecker Bob’s to become a frozen yogurt emporium. Of course we don’t think 14th Street should become a new tech hub. Of course we are offended by the notion of a newly bespoke Chelsea Hotel. Of course the reimagining of Chumley’s as a chic, tony bistro pisses us off. Etc. Etc.

Then, as if someone hit the smart bomb button in a giant game of “Defender,” the pandemic arrived.

Age-old speakeasy bar? Fuck you, you’re closed. Newly minted nouvelle Indian bistro? Fuck you, you’re closed. Niche curio shop for left-of-center gift ideas? Fuck you, you’re closed. Neighborhood institution helmed by third generation of proud proprietors? Fuck you, you are closed.

Like September 11th before it, the historical impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has rendered such provincial concerns moot and mute in a manner no scale of gentrification could ever match. Sure, lots of places are still hanging on, but the rulebook has been torched and businesses of all stripes are frantically trying to innovate on the fly and improvise a tenuous way forward.

Here in the throes — again, notice I didn’t say wake? This isn’t over yet — of the COVID-19 era (or the Trumpandemic, as I was calling it), virtually every New Yorker is now a brazen nostalgist, albeit of a possibly shallower calibration. While I may continue to sigh wistfully while passing the former site of a comic-book shop from my distant childhood that is now a cell-phone emporium, your average mask-wearer on the street is now nostalgic for just seven months ago, when he or she could walk out of their pricey condo and get a friggin’ boba tea and a new vape pen without worrying about contracting a viably lethal respiratory infection. No one has time to look back. We must all collectively look forward and figure out a future.

As a result, my usual, old habit of floridly ruminating ad nauseam about the New York City of my particular yesteryear feels less relevant than ever — which is saying something. Because, honestly, who could really give a rolling rat fuck about a favorite lost dive-bar I used to get drunk in back in 1989 when approximately 150 bars and restaurants here have permanently closed since March 1, 2020?

But, you know what they say about old habits. They die hard.

Walking home from a quick visit to my temporarily dormant office yesterday afternoon, I passed by the former site of Rocks in Your Head on Prince street, the record shop pictured at the top of this post, which closed in 2006. In the wake of the departure of Rocks in Your Head, the basement-space in question played host to a real estate agency, a concern that set up a rabbit-warren of office cubicles where racks and racks of rarefied LPs used to be. Evidently, said agency also recently fell prey to the conditions of COVID-19, and the space is now entirely vacant. I could not help peering in and capturing the photo below from roughly the same vantage point as the photo above.

Throw your support behind you favorite aspects and local businesses of New York City old and new, and may we all get through this.

Poll Pandemica

I spotted this survey on social media, and decided to take a whack at it...

Do you regularly wear a mask when you’re out of the house?
Absolutely, although I didn’t *start* wearing a mask until the first week of April. Prior to that, the messaging was mixed, and things were still developing. First we were told not to bother, and that they wouldn’t make a difference. Then we were told to leave them for the medical professionals. That made sense. Then there was sort of a “smoke’em if ya got’em” directive, but by that point, masks were still hard to come by. By April, it seemed prudent. Been sporting one ever since.

How many times a day do you wash your hands now?
More times than can be quantified, but I still need to remind myself to do it.

What do you feel when you see someone out and about without a mask?
Incredulousness, followed by abject contempt.

Have you cheated at all? (be honest)
I have attended at least one small gathering indoors wherein people felt relaxed enough to go maskless, although social distancing was still largely observed.  This was months back, and no one contracted anything, as far as anyone knows. 

Do you know anyone who has been infected?
Yes, I know a few folks who suffered through it — and suffered is indeed the word, based on their testimonials. This was no cakewalk. 

Do you know anyone who has died as the result of COVID-19?
Not as yet, thank God.

Have you dined al-fresco at a restaurant as yet? How was it?
We have. Depends on where you go, really. Some eateries have really embraced the concept with aplomb and really make it work.

Have you gotten a haircut in the last six months?
I caved and had one at the end of July. I work a mask, as did the haircutter. I need another one already.

Have you been to a dentist in the last six months?
Nope, and I’m starting to suspect that I need to. Not sure how I feel about that.

What was the last big gathering in close quarters you attended?
I went to see a band at a fairly intimate venue in the East Village in February — the fittingly named End of Hope at Niagara’s.

New York City is planning to open up indoor restaurant dining (with conditions) by the end of the month. How do you feel about eating indoors at restaurants again?
The mandatory conditions don’t especially sound like they lend themselves to a lot of fun. I will wait and see.

If you’re a parent, in what capacity are your kids back in school, and how are you feeling about it?
They’re both on hybridized in-person/remote-learning plans. We are wary but cautiously optimistic. Of course, with one cough or sneeze, it could all collapse like a house of cards.

What activity are you missing the most?
I know I’m supposed to say “live music” or “bars” or “eating out with friends” or something like that, but honestly, just being able to walk around without wearing the mask seems awfully dreamy, at this point. That said, I do miss going to some of my favorite bars, restaurants and hearing live music. Can’t imagine when the latter will happen again.

Do you think a vaccine is imminent?
I hear a lot of reports from every perspective, but I am haunted by a question a friend of mine posited: “How’s that AIDS vaccine comin’?"

Do you believe in herd immunity? 
Not being a scientist, my beliefs one way or the other have no real veracity. I suppose I believe it could happen, but as I dimly understand it, it would require a vastly greater percentage of people to be infected (and, summarily, to die) before it could transpire. Doesn’t sound especially promising.

Do you trust Dr. Fauci?
More than the others.

Do you trust Dr. Birx?
She’s a Trump toadie, so no.

Do you trust Dr. Atlas?
Not at all.

Do you trust the media?
Having worked in the media for most of my professional career, I am obviously biased in its favor. But media is not a single entity. There are good bits and bad bits. I consume information from a reasonable selection of media, apart from outlets like Fox and Breitbart, which is all just laughably pro-Trump propaganda bullshit.

Do you trust Donald Trump?
BAHAHAHAHAhAHAHAHAHA. Surely, you jest. Fuck that guy and all who follow and support him. The blood is all on his hands. 

What are your expectations for the next few months?
Regrettably, more of same. There is no plan, thus there is no end in sight.

Nineteen Years Later

According to Wikipedia — for whatever that’s worth — during the September 11th attacks of 2001, 2,977 people died, 19 hijackers committed murder/suicide, and more than 6,000 others were injured. Here in New York, I don’t believe those numbers factor in the myriad fatalities that were the result of working and living in the immediate area consumed by the toxic, carcinogenic fumes.

It was a horrific day, carried out with unimaginable malice. In the aftermath, the nation fleetingly seemed to come together — putting aside our differences in the face of the jarring uncertainties of the new era we collectively found ourselves in. It didn’t last, of course, and shit quickly went off the rails in due course. But, for an all-too-brief moment there, there was at least a flicker of unity spurred on by the unspeakable.

Nineteen years later, 192,000 (as of today) Americans are dead as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a creeping plague that may lack the terrifying spectacle of 9/11, but the impact of which comes with a far greater cost. No, it’s not a grim competition, and the circumstances are entirely different, but here within the throes — notice I didn’t say in the wake of? — this new attack, there is absolutely ZERO semblance of any sense of unity among the American people of the variety inspired by September 11th.

And I don’t know that we’ll ever get it back.

The Pointless End of Summer 2020 Survey

I know I recently suggested I wasn't going to do one of these, as I didn't really feel it warranted discussion. But, at the moment, it's raining like mad out here in Quogue, and I am, in a word, bored. We're here for three more days before it's back again to the city for good and the kids start their hybridized in-person/virtual learning school year. 

If we collectively consider Labor Day to be the very end of the season, technically, we have about another 9 days before Summer 2020 is officially over. That said, as I mentioned not too long back, Summer 2020 felt like it was over — for me, anyway — upon the arrival of Isaias, which seemed to prematurely snuff out the verdant warmth brought on by June and July. Sure, the calendar still says August, but everything currently feels like it’s in a declining slope towards Autumn. Summer seems pretty much over.

Then again, Summer 2020 hasn’t been like any other summer. It almost seemed like an afterthought while we collectively grappled with the pandemic ... and everything it brought with it. With normal summer activities either sharply compromised or just flat-out cancelled, the usual associations of summertime seemed incidental and ultimately non-applicable. We went though the motions, but we kept reminding ourselves that this wasn’t your average summer. Next year — God friggin’ willing — will be different.

But, y’know, as bizarre and unsettled and muted as it may have been, … it was still summer, so I figured why not dust off the End of Summer Survey, last taken in 2019. I've also augmented it with a host of other stupid questions: 

Defining Moment of Summer 2020:
As mentioned way back in March, when the pandemic turned New York City upside down, my wife, kids and I took my mother up on her offer to let us use her house out on the Eastern End of Long Island, which made for a comparatively more expansive place to remote work and remote school, as opposed to our intimate Manhattan apartment. We stayed there through the end of May, until my mom came back from Florida. When she did, we had to clear out, and ended up basically subletting a cottage in normally rented by some friends of ours from North Carolina. While it was about as roomy as the abandoned bus in which they found the body of Christopher McCandless in Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild,” The Lamb Cottage, as it is called, more than met our needs for the summer in between periodic returns to the city.

A lot has happened in the three months we’ve been here, but if I had to slap a “defining moment” on any of it, I would say our initial mastering of a particular dish called Beer Can Chicken, wherein you coat a whole chicken with the rub of your choice, shove a half-consumed can of beer (we used Stella Artois) up its slimy posterior and then precariously perch it standing upright under a closed grill. This is not as simple as it sounds, but the end results were spectacular each time.

Best Purchase of Summer 2020:
I can’t say I did a lot of purchasing this summer, not least because for the most part, most shops were closed. Inspired by a then-impending interview with funk legend Bootsy Collins, I went on a big Parliament kick, which inspired me to buy a t-shirt with the cover art of Mothership Connection on it, which I probably wore more than any other garment, this summer. That’s about it.

Best Book You Read of Summer 2020:
I would say it’s a toss up between Trevor Ristow’s “Waiting For Another War,” which I wrote about here and here, and the memoir of Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz, “Remain in Love.” It's largely a fun, illuminating read, but like so many other rock memoirs, it has a way of poisoning preconceptions about favorite music. While he's obviously a tirelessly nice guy, the sour grapes Frantz feels about David Byrne (and, for that matter, Brian Eno) is unfortunate. I'm not suggesting he's not entitled to feel that way or that any of it is untrue, but there's a dirty laundry aspect to it that's a disservice to the band. I don't think I ever thought of Talking Heads as a perpetually harmonious family, but learning about how frequently weird, callous and inconsiderate Byrne was and how petty and petulant Eno was maybe wasn't something I needed to know. Still, it was an enjoyable read.

Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2020:
Well, obviously, no movie theaters were open this summer, but beyond that — I cannot say I watched too many whole films. I did recently watch “Gimme Danger,” Jim Jarmusch’s documentary about The Stooges, and thought that was pretty amazing.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2020:
For Father’s Day, my wife gave me some lovely new underwear. That sounds pretty tame, I realize, but they’re genuinely pretty nice.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2020:
Don’t really know where to start with this one. Very mercifully, no one in our family has contracted COVID-19, as yet, although we do know a few folks who had it. There are several local businesses in Manhattan that were forced to close their doors because of the pandemic, and those are all very sad. There’s so much loss going on in the world, at the moment, that it seems petty trying to quantify it all.

Song That Best Sums up Summer 2020:
I can’t say I’ve really latched onto any new music, in the past several months. Sure, I did get the new eponymous long player by Human Impact, which is the supergroup I mentioned (and didn’t go see live) back here that features former members of favorite bands of mine like SWANS, the Unsane and Cop Shoot Cop. As much as I dig that album — its ponderous bleakness fit the world’s circumstances just a little too well. My favorite track from the album is probably “Consequences."

Happiest Memory of Summer 2020:
This will invariably sound like a hokey cliché, but in as much as the pandemic has turned everyone's life upside down, it has afforded us the opportunity -- nay, mandated the requirement -- of spending an inordinate amount of time with our kids. Being that they're both teenagers now, under normal circumstances, they might have both been otherwise loath to spent so much time in our company. That has been our silver lining, during all of this. 

Saddest Memory of Summer 2020:
The state of the world, at the moment, has provided more than enough material for this. Where does one begin?

Scariest Memory of Summer 2020:
Watching some of the video of initial unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd was pretty jarring. 

Word That Best Describes Summer 2020:
Transformative.

BONUS QUESTIONS: 

Single greatest album of all time is …..
Funhouse by The Stooges

3 Books You Read This Year
- "Remain in Love" by Chris Frantz
- "Waiting For Another War" by Trevor Ristow
- "Girl to City" by Amy Rigby

What’s Your Favorite Rolling Stones album?
Today, I'm saying Emotional Rescue, and you can bite me.

3 Last Albums You Purchased:
- Human Impact by Human Impact
- Gymnopedies & Gnosseinnes by Erik Satie
- Live at Goose Lake by The Stooges (which has not arrived, as yet). 

Your favorite James Bond film was
Toughie, but I have a very stubborn affinity for "The Man with The Golden Gun."

3 songs you never want to hear again:
- "Santeria" by Sublime
- "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi
- "American Pie" by Don McLean.

3 albums you own that you wouldn’t want to leave on your coffee table when your in-laws were coming over:
- Scatology by Coil
- Dial 'M' For Motherfucker by Pussy Galore
- Freaks, F_____s, Drunks & Junkies by GG Allin

The most physical pain you have ever experienced:
Kidney stone in 2008.

First Record You Ever Bought With Your Own Money:
Dressed to Kill by Kiss

Notable Moment From This Summer:
I had to bury a dead bird that showed up in the back yard of the Lamb Cottage. It was missing its head.

Recommend three books:
- "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain
- "Downtown" by the recently late Pete Hammil
- "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris.

Beers on me. What’ll it be?
Almaza (great, albeit hard to find Lebanese beer)

First Concert You Went To:
Devo at Radio City Music Hall, Halloween 1981

Last Concert You Went To:
End of Hope at Niagara's on Avenue A, February 2020

Recline your seat-back on airplanes: Yes or No?
HELL, NO.

3 Favorite words
- Sepulchral
- Vespertine
- Defenestrate

Song That Will Remind You of Summer 2020:
"Bitch" by the Rolling Stones

David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar or Gary Cherone?
DLR without a moment's hesitation.

Recommend 3 TV shows:
- "Ozark"
- "Endeavor"
- "Mad Men" (we're currently re-watching ... it's as good as you remember it).

Last Movie You Saw in a Theatre & Where:
Michael Apted's "63 Up" at the Quad Cinema on West 13th.

My preferred way to listen to music is via:
Vinyl, Cassette, Compact Disc or iPod, but never streaming.

Worst date movie ever:
Toss-up between "Dead Ringers" (about twin psychotic, coke-crazed gynecologists) and/or "Last Tango in Paris" -- Fun fact: I saw both of these on dates. Neither ended well.

Your favorite member of Monty Python?
Michael Palin

3 quintessential summer songs:
- "Shout To the Top" by Style Council
- "Summer's Cauldron/Grass" by XTC
- "Listen" by Tears for Fears

3 Biggest Pet Peeves
- People who order a "cheese pizza."
- People who recline their seat-backs into my lap on public transport.
- The tenacious vernacular of "hate on." One does not require a surface on which to put that verb into action. One does not hate on, hate over, hate alongside or hate under. One just hates.

Fried or Scrambled:
- Fried. Sunny side up.

3 Things You Wish You Could Do:
- Cook with stylish proficiency
- Play guitar
- Credibly speak another language.

3 Things You Miss Right Now:
- Live music
- My friends
- The illusion of certainty.

August, Die She Must

Apologies for the slowdown in regular activity, here. Among other things, with the school year looming, there's lots to be prepared for at our end. The end of summer will usher in a new phase of all this. It remains to be seen how that will all go. 

Stay tuned. 

Designed Obsolescence Strikes Back: First World Problem for An Anti-Streaming Luddite

I am resistant to change.

I am reluctant to embrace the newfangled. Sure, that’s frequently symptomatic of advancing age, but I have pretty much always been this way. I was late to buy a CD player, having sworn allegiance, back in the day, to vinyl LPs. I was equally late to the table in procuring an iPod, but I eventually caved there, too.

That, however, was where I drew the line. Disinclined to hop on the streaming bandwagon, I decided I was perfectly content to still buy CD’s and rip their contents to my iTunes and go on like that. The music industry -- for a little while, at least -- was more or less willing to accommodate me until fairly recently, when iPods were discontinued and iTunes was no longer supported by Mac operating systems. I unwittingly updated my iMac some months back, and iTunes was systematically dismantled in an instant — prompting much consternation from yours truly. A little creative Googling, however, allowed to me figure out how to re-load and update music files for my long-suffering (but still tenuously functioning) iPod Classic (160 GB). There was a bit more maintenance involved, but it was feasible, so that’s how I was continuing.

Back out here on Long Island for the last gasp of Summer 2020, I grabbed my iPod this morning for my long AM walk, only to discover that it was perilously low on juice. I plugged it into a charger, but when I returned later to retrieve it, its contents had been WIPED CLEAN.

Now, I believe all I have to do is plug it back into my iMac — back in the city — to effectively “rebuild” its music library. But Apple’s subtle tortures are not lost on me. Apple does not want me to use this particular product anymore, and one day — it will probably win this stand-off.

What Isn’t and What Never Was

I made the arguable mistake of buying a t-shirt online for my son, not too long back. For whatever reason, he’s taken an interest in vexillology, which is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags. Don’t ask me how or why he’s gotten into this stuff, but hey — better vexillology than vaping, right? In any case, I spied this t-shirt with a cool flags-of-all-nations design on it, which seemed right up his alley, so I bought it for him. He loved it and now wears it all the time. Yay, Dad! 

The only problem, however, is now the social media algorithms have figured out that I like t-shirts. They already knew I liked bands. And because I paused at a knockoff XTC shirt on the same site I bought Oliver’s flag shirt on, I have been duly sussed out as a potential band-t-shirt customer. As such, whenever I’m whining about my sorry lot in life over on Facebook, I am besotted by ads and images of t-shirts to buy. Fair enough, I guess. I brought it on myself.

None of this is especially extraordinary, but one particular shirt keeps coming up, and it stirs my inner pedant no end. It looks like this…

Sure, Led Zeppelin were super-dupe keen on American blues, allegedly helping themselves rather liberally to whole songs by legendary bluesmen who, by comparison, never enjoyed the same variety of financial fruit from their creative labors as them Zepsters did. Led Zeppelin cannily adopted the swagger of the American blues, peppered their songs with lyrical allusions to Chicago, California, Honolulu and certainly made very emphatic whoopee with many a comely American girl during their legendarily decadent world tours. Whole books have been written about that … some involving fish.

But here's the thing -- Led Zeppelin were British. British to the BONE. The surviving members all live in England. They’re not an American band. They’ve never been an American band. They’ve always been British. 

Put simply, this shirt's design is vexillologically compromised. Like so many other things here in 2020, it's a goddamn lie.

Fifteen Years of Flaming Pablum

Under normal circumstances, I would probably make a much bigger deal about this, but in the grand scheme of things, who really cares?

In any case, today marks the 15th anniversary of this blog — which I originally started as a complete lark after a colleague started his own. His lasted a few years. A decade and a half later, I’m still doing mine. Seems like only months ago I noted the ten-year anniversary. Time is truly flying.

Anyway, I’m very grateful to all of you who read it. I don’t know where it’s headed, but why stop now?

Cheers.

Maybe You're a 'Normie,' Too

I should preface this post by saying that as middle-aged, heterosexual white male, I have never experienced true oppression or meaningful discrimination of any kind. I am ridiculously privileged, in this capacity. This post is not about that, and is comparatively trivial in the grand scheme of things. But, it's been on my mind, so here goes...

I’m old enough to remember — from first-hand experience, no less -- when words like “geek” and “nerd” were very much not the backhanded compliments they are today. They didn’t bother me that much, as a kid. I mean, I’d have been the very first to admit that I fit the descriptions of those widely-used pejoratives to a veritable tee. I hated sports, wasn’t popular, athletic or a looker, was socially awkward for many years and found solace in comic books, science fiction and “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.” Guilty as charged, your honor.

But when lobbed in my direction, those words were used with emphasis and purpose — to reduce, belittle and mockingly condemn as something other… something lesser. The words themselves didn’t bother me, but the intention behind them did.

Those on the receiving end of terms like those (and others … some more hurtful and less banal) frequently found a common kinship with each other. Personally speaking, I made some of my best friends from being similarly tarred with those epithets or from us both being the last two picked when teams were being assembled. Being pithily summed up with one demeaning descriptor or another made groupings by default simpler. Don’t believe me? Check out the seating arrangements in your nearest high school's lunch room. Birds of a feather do indeed flock together.

But it’s in high school, frequently, when these terms can be shed and replaced with more palatable, pop-culture-informed tribal signifiers. In the 80’s, while you may have wallowed in the ignominious ranks of the dweebs throughout grade school, maybe by high school you’d have transformed yourself into a punk or a hardcore kid or New Waver or a Deadhead or a goth or a metalhead or a b-boy or rudeboy or a skate rat or _________ (insert chosen subculture here) and reinvented yourself. You chose your own descriptor, and swore allegiance to it via whatever tonsorial/sartorial means were the order of that particular aesthetic.

I was a bit schizophrenic, in this capacity, as I harbored affinities for too many elements of disparate musical tribes. I bought albums by Ratt and Dead Kennedys, and got excited by both Devo and Iron Maiden. I went to see Hall & Oates in a Circle Jerks t-shirt. I couldn’t commit to any single tribe, and the respective uniforms -- while cool -- just felt silly to me. I loved the music and the accompanying subcultures, but didn’t radically change my hair or wardrobe. That didn’t seem necessary. I just became a music geek, for lack of a better title.

During freshman year of college, I similarly refrained from joining a fraternity. This, of course was helped by the fact I was on academic probation during “rush,” and needed to concentrate on my grades, but even beyond that — the notion of restricting my social activities to solely one group of “brothers” seemed laughably myopic to me, especially when each house dutifully adhered to their assigned stereotypes. As it worked out, I stayed an independent and practically had a friend in each house. I could come and go as I pleased and escaped the labeling.

Years and years later, I still don’t adhere to any single tribe. Moreover, when your reach a certain age, that shit shouldn’t matter. I have loads of friends who still consider themselves punks and goths and whathaveyou, but the march of time has a way of putting things in different perspective. Maybe your life was changed and enriched by finding your place as a ska-loving rudeboy, and that lifestyle got you through whatever hiccups, doldrums or trauma you were experiencing. Maybe you didn’t feel you fit in anywhere until you grew your hair out and started following the Grateful Dead around. But while you maybe immersed yourself into becoming a rudeboy or a Deadhead or a clove-smoking, beret-wearing bohemian, you weren’t born one. You chose to be one, and it came to identify you. But as Bowie once sagely sang, “hey, look out, you rock’n’rollers …pretty soon now, you’re gonna get older."

I don’t know why it’s taken me eight paragraphs to get to the real point here, but there’s a term I’ve been seeing bandied about, recently, by lots of folks, many of them dear friends of mine — and I’m just not cool with it. I don’t know when the word was first coined, but the pejorative “normie” seems to have asserted itself into the common vernacular of certain circles. Obviously, it’s a snippy truncation of “normal,” meaning — and I’m taking a leap, here — someone who dutifully conforms to popular convention, i.e. someone who voluntarily chooses to be, act and appear — WAIT FOR IT — “normal.”

Sorry, but fuck that.

To my mind, branding someone is a “normie” comes from the same place as labeling someone a “nerd.” While, no, it is in no way a slur comparable to terms used to denigrate individuals of differing color, gender or sexual orientation, it’s still a descriptor couched in exclusion.

By dismissing someone a “normie,” you’re as guilty and superficial as the proponents of the establishment you’re allegedly rebelling against. You’re making sweeping, prejudicial assumptions and reinforcing stereotypes. Whether you renounced convention because its adherents once similarly mocked you or because you found your place in a different subculture, you should know better. But if you’re calling someone who doesn’t dress like you or identify with your chosen aesthetic a “normie,” you’re no better.

Cut that shit out. 

Where We Are