Flaming Pablum

A Night Out with Rush

I mentioned this particular anecdote way back on this ancient post, but since people are still banging on about Baby Yoda, Megxit and Oscar snubs over on social media, I reckon it's fair to throw one more post about Rush into the mix, although, truthfully, this tale only fleetingly involves the late, great Neil Peart.

Early in my post-collegiate years, after decamping from a payless internship at SPIN, I landed a gig as a copy assistant at LIFE In Time of War, a new weekly magazine from TIME/LIFE that was ostensibly going to last for as long as the first Gulf War. As it happened, the war in question was comparatively brief, so the gig only lasted for four issues. I believe part-timers like myself were churlishly heard to remark “Give War a Chance!” upon the news that our jobs were about to dry up.

In any case, along the way, I befriended a fellow copy-department gal named Lesley, who shared a similar outlook on the absurdity of proceedings. As a surreal bonus, Lesley was somewhat inexplicably good friends with Rush, a band I’d slavishly devoted large swathes of my teenage years admiring. When they came to Madison Square Garden on the Roll the Bones tour in December of 1991, Lesley gamely asked if (a) I wanted to go to the show and (b) would I be into going backstage and OUT TO GODDAMN DINNER WITH THE BAND AFTERWARDS! I responded quite zealously in the affirmative.

While the purist jury is somewhat split on the Roll The Bones-era (the title track does somewhat infamously feature some “rapping” to somewhat tepid effect), they were still a force to be reckoned with, and our seats were stupendous. Any remaining doubt as to Lesley’s claims about her friendship with the band were immediately decimated when we ducked backstage afterwards and spotted guitarist Alex Lifeson in the hall. “Drexel,” he exclaimed – evidently Lesley’s nickname, “you made it! Come on back!”

We were then ushered through a busy, backstage labyrinth, and directly into the band’s private dressing room, allowed – if memory serves – to cut in front of one Connie Hamzy, otherwise known as “Sweet, Sweet Connie,” the famous groupie immortalized in Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band.”

Once the door shut behind us, though, it was not surprising that Connie was still waiting. Planets apart from the world of renowned backstage debauchery inhabited by Led Zeppelin, Motley Crue, Van Halen and their ilk, the vibe was positively genteel within the inner Rush sanctum. Geddy Lee was affable and soft-spoken, offering me a beer and immediately handing me a Pushead-designed tour shirt (I still have it). Alex Lifeson was chatty and gracious. And Neil Peart? The legendary drum god was literally sitting in the lotus position on the couch, paging through a dog-eared, paperback copy of a work by Friedrich Nietzche. He gave our party a smiling nod, but did not get up or engage. He only rose when a new group of folks entered behind us, featuring a wheelchair-bound fan. Neil immediately got up for this special visitor and gave him his full attention. It’s not that he didn’t care about Lesley and incidental me, but evidently these types scenarios never sat well with the man. He was not fond of the accoutrements of fame, and shied away from inconsequential pleasantries. While soaking in the whole scene, I watched Neil chat with the fan for a while and sign a few items for him, only to quietly duck out and vanish with a wave to his bandmates.

Geddy, Alex and some other folks, however, were all ready to eat. The next thing I know, we’re in a giant facility under the Garden waiting for a limo. Up pulls a massive car, and Lesley and I climb in with Geddy.

I cannot honestly attest to how I behaved myself, as it’s all a bit of blur this many years later, but Lesley described me as being “adorably gobsmacked,” which sounds about right. I do remember asking Geddy what he thought about Guns N’ Roses liberally helping themselves to the central riff of “Xanadu” for the comparatively simpler main guitar line for “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” I was a bit astonished to hear him respond that he’d never knowingly heard the G’NR tune in question, but segued into an anecdote about spending some time with hair-metal screecher Sebastian Bach, and noting that the former Skid Row singer seemed to have a difficult time keeping his genitals in his pants.

We pulled up to a long-since-vanished eatery in SoHo called Nick & Eddie’s on Spring Street, and I somehow managed to ruffle the feathers of the limo driver by opening my own door (as opposed to letting him get out and open it for me). We filed into the joint and were seated at a long table reserved in the back room. I was amazed at how …. well, normal it all was.

I was treated to a lavish meal and mostly listened to Alex and Geddy discuss comparatively banal shit with Lesley and the other folks. I chimed in when it seemed appropriate, but was still fairly starstruck, despite the fact that both guys were going out of their way to downplay the surrounding circus. By the end of the meal, I think I whipped out my wallet to help throw down, with Geddy shooing me away with a kindly giggle. The tab was picked up by Rush.

Within another few minutes, it was all over. I profusely thanked them and Lesley, and the Rush gents got back in their waiting stretch and drove off to whatever hotel and that was that.

I never saw the band perform again, alas. Today, Lesley and I are still friends, despite both having left the auspices of TIME/LIFE decades ago. The space that was Nick & Eddie’s is now a shitty bar called SoHo Room. Madison Square Garden is still there.

This having been the early 90’s, I sadly have no photographs to share of the event, although the concert part can indeed be found on in YouTube. I still have both my backstage laminate and the t-shirt, although the latter has since been poached by my kids.

Rest In Peace, Neil Peart. 

 

Exile on Shakedown Street, or How I Learned To Lighten Up & Appreciate The Grateful Dead

Just days after posting answers to this annual survey, it occurred to me that I do indeed have an answer for that first question. In terms of something I did in 2019 that I'd never done before, I can say that I bought an album by the Grateful Dead. But first, let's backtrack a little... 

Late in 2019, I was tasked, at my office, with putting together a going-away/tribute video for Joe, a beloved colleague from my company’s legal department. While splicing together testimonials from various folks, I asked his manager what sort of music Joe liked, as I wanted to score the finished product with a song or two that might resonate with him. “He’s a big Deadhead,” came the response. “Maybe use ‘Truckin’?” Given the length of the finished video, I ended up using both that song and “Franklin’s Tower” from Blues For Allah. This experience sparked the following reappraisal.

To put it very mildly, I was absolutely never a fan of the Grateful Dead.

I addressed a bit of all this on this old post, but having been weaned on the music of the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel as a young kid, and a little later on, bands like Kiss, Boston, Queen and Pink Floyd, when I first started becoming fully cognizant of all the music that rock radio had to offer, I started taking an interest in the seemingly morbid iconography of this curious band called the Grateful Dead. My two older step-cousins, Bruce and Peter, had been huge fans. Given my youthful predilections with the macabre, I had certain preconceptions about what they were going to sound like. That said, when my young ears finally heard them, I was immediately disappointed. Sleepy, edgeless and utterly bereft of any semblance of urgency, energy or anger, the music of the Grateful Dead seemed entirely insipid to me. No thanks, I guess.

But, even then, I was surrounded by their zealous acolytes. A great friend of mine since pre-kindergarten days, Chico (not his real name) – whose tastes basically mirrored my own, for many years – one day up and renounced our until-then mutual affinity for noisy-guitar bands like Iron Maiden, The Clash, The Mob, Flipper and Dead Kennedys in favor of all things Grateful Dead. We’d gone through all of grade school together and both ended up at the same high school, but Chico split after sophomore year for another school – only to drop out of there and become a full-time “Deadhead,” … growing his hair out and busking in Central Park, festooned in tie-dyes and the accompanying scruffy beard. It was almost like he joined a cult.

The dismay I felt about Chico's trajectory notwithstanding, Deadheads always seemed like a perfectly pleasant bunch. Much like the punk-rocker kids who went whole-hog and sported big, fuckoff mohawks, I respected their fervent commitment to their chosen subculture, even if I didn’t share that particular affinity. I’ve also never been a particular fan of smoking weed, in any meaningful capacity, which also might factor into the equation. It struck me that nine out of every ten Grateful Dead fans were mellow stoners. That was just never my scene.

Personally speaking, my nervous, twitchy and pointedly argumentative personality didn’t really lend itself to the relaxed, rootsy songs of Messrs. Garcia, Weir, Lesh et al. My pulse quickened to the doomy, stentorian heft of Black Sabbath, the breakneck sprint of the Ramones, the funereal cynicism of the Sisters of Mercy, the coldly alien sheen of Gary Numan, the bug-eyed clang of Devo and the pugnaciously point-blank assertiveness of Black Flag*. “Casey Jones” was aboslutely never going to give me what I needed.

Mercifully, it wasn’t just me, though. Upon being gifted an LP of the band’s 1977 opus, Terrapin Station, for his birthday, my friend Brad – a crucial figure, like afore-cited Chico before him, in indoctrinating me from the vestiges of punk fandom into the more disciplined ranks of splenetic hardcore – took the record into the plush Suffolk County backyard of the house his mother was renting for the summer and proceeded to shoot new holes in it with an air rifle. Still not satisfied, Brad then inserted a couple of fire crackers into those fresh holes. A final flourish was to toss the record – still in its barely-intact sleeve – on the grill for a few moments of charring, before slipping the battered, burned and beleaguered LP back into his collection, … almost as a warning. While inarguably an over-the-top display, this gesture summed up how my friends and I felt about the band. The Grateful Dead? Not for us, thanks.

But as cartoony as Brad’s overstated desacration of that record was, my years at college only reinforced the sentiment.

At Denison University in the verdant wilds of Central Ohio, I encountered a wholly different variety of Deadhead – one that eschewed ratty Volkswagon Vans for shiny BMWs. Seemingly, for the average Denison student, unwaivering appreciation for the Grateful Dead was practically mandatory. It was deathly difficult (pardon the pun) to walk from one end of the picture-postcard campus to the other without hearing Jerry Garcia’s inimitable guitar come noodling out of any number of dorm windows, usually bereft of any discernible melody. Similarly, it was nigh on impossible to make it through a weekend without hearing tireless airings of goddamn “Uncle John's Band.”

I, of course, was having none of it. My initial indifference to the music of the Grateful Dead gradually flowered into the blossom of hatred from the music of the Grateful Dead. I started to find it profoundly depressing that so much of what I considered to be such a fertile era of music – this being the mid-80’s – was being blithely ignored by folks simply content to listen to so much yawnsome crapola from the 60’s and 70’s. As if on cue, the Dead released a studio LP smack in the middle of my Denison tenure – that being 1987’s In the Dark – which resulted in newly inescapable airings of the single, “Touch of Grey.” One evening as I manned my late-night shift at the college radio station, WDUB 91.1 FM in Granville, our station manager called in to request it. I neglected to play the single, sounding off over a hot microphone about its abject dearth of any conceivable merits and opting instead to play Big Black’s blunt-force cover of Cheap Trick’s “He’s a Whore.” Stunts like this did not do me any favors.

Undeterred, I even co-wrote an editorial with my friend Jay in the school newspaper (we were both on staff as the “fine arts editors” – it was an easy feat). While Jay wrote an emphatic entreaty for Denison’s student body to investigate and embrace newer bands – specifically his favorites in The Replacements – I drew an accompanying illustration of a stamp-out sign over the Dead’s Steal Your Face logo, augmented with the legend, BURY THE DEAD!. Again, shit like this did not curry me any favors in certain circles.

In hindsight, my vitriolic disdain was probably more a reaction to the fair-weather, tobacco-chewing, lacrosse-playing Deadheads who’d crank seemingly only the same four or five songs by the band out of their frat houses at all hours. These were not the deeper-dive Deadheads that feverishly collected and traded tapes and could cite the pithy nuances between the band’s performance of “Box of Rain” at a 1987 San Francisco show and a performance of the very same song at a 1986 Denver stop. For the majority of the alleged Deadheads at Denison, it was really just more like fandom via uniform. 

Speaking of frat houses, Denison had what could only be described as a robust Greek scene, at the time. Never my sort of thing to begin with, I only tenuously participated in “rush” at the beginning of my freshman year, and not with any great amount of enthusiasm. Oddly, the only house that seemed to express any interest in having me as a member was a place called Fiji. I soon learned, however, that this was ostensibly only because I was evidently a “legacy.” Beyond that, Fiji was largely renowned as the “Grateful Dead frat" – largely comprised of genuine fans of same (again, the tape-trading variety). I couldn’t really wrap my head around the notion of adhering myself to a house solely because a family member I’d never met had done the same, much less immersing myself in a hive of Deadheads, where “Friend of the Devil” played in maddeningly endless rotations. As it happens, however, I was unceremoniously put on academic probation after my first semester, so any and all dalliances with any fraternities went immediately out the window while I belatedly acclimated myself to the rigors of collegiate academia I’d been blithely ignoring for the first couple of months. I got my grades back up, preserved my status as a Denison student and by that time, didn’t give one single damn about divesting from the whole Greek thing. I never looked back.

Arguably as a further result, I continued to associate and intertwine the music of the Dead with that which I pointedly renounced. 

Towards the end of my four years at college, though, my circle of friends had refreshingly broadened to include several figures who were as deeply enamored of the music of the Dead as I was of, say, Killing Joke. During my senior year, I lived in an off-campus house with five other such folks. Since they all gamely tolerated my endless, high-octane spins of Jane's Addiction, Ministry, New Model Army, the Screaming Blue Messiahs and the like, I tried to demonstrate similar restraint when they insisted on playing "Fire on the Mountain" and "Sugar Magnolia" for the bajillionth time. Somehow, we made it work.

Once I graduated in 1989, though, my dealings with the Dead dropped practically right off the map. Back home in New York City, I could easily go for months and months at a time without a single invocation of their name, let alone their music.

Then, of course, in 1995, poor ol' Jerry Garcia died. Countless friends of mine from college and beyond were profoundly bummed out. Conversely, I remember seeing a show that same week at the Continental, just off St. Marks Place, and the bass player of a high-volume, punky band I liked was sporting a homemade "I KILLED JERRY GARCIA" shirt. I mean, I got it ... but it felt a little needlessly tasteless. We're better than that, I thought. 

Time passed. My red-hot aversion to the Dead may have faded just a bit, but much like my long-standing disdain for Patti Smith, my status as a dyed-in-the-wool detractor was hard to shake. I still winced and sighed with melodramatic resignation when the listing strains of "Ripple" came bleating out of someone's speakers at one social event or another.  But, honestly, my tribal shtick had gotten old. Ideally, once you've crossed certain life events off your list, your allegiance to whichever youthful subculture you adhered yourself to decades earlier should probably matter less and less. No one wants to hear your war stories or watch you get all red in the face about how tough it was being a Circle Jerks fan in a world seemingly ruled by Deadheads.  After a while, my pronounced penchant for verbosely knocking the Grateful Dead -- music genuinely held sacred by more than just a few people I respected, admired and loved -- wasn't just boring, it was rude.

At the very least, I started to have much more respect for the reverence and dedication my Deadhead friends had for their favorite band. As steeped in their fandom for the Dead as my allegiance to, once again, Killing Joke – especially in a changing pop-cultural landscape where live, guitar-based rock was suffering from diminishing support – these folks were way more similar to me than I’d ever originally considered. While this didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to sit down and subject myself to the band’s allegedly legendary 46-minute rendition of “Playing In The Band” from a 1974 show in Seattle, I started refraining from pugnaciously lipping off and coughing up a wad of phlegm at the thought. Ideally, my days of coming across like an irritable jackass to my Dead-inclined friends were over.

I want to think that olive branch was acknowledged. After years of sneering at their record collections, I want to believe friends of mine like John T., Chris R., Ken B., Jeff C., Mac B., Gee G. and even my ever-forgiving brother-in-law Scott S. noticed my newly tolerant demeanor when “Captain Trips” was invoked. Whether it was the broadening of my tastes, a new propensity for considering perspectives other than my own or just the ….er…. mellowing age and experience provides, I was no longer to be considered an exile on Shakedown Street.

And then came the Joe video.

As mentioned, I was informed by the head of the legal department that Joe, despite looking like a clean-cut, scholarly lawyer, was formerly a long-haired hacky-sacker and fervent acolyte of the Grateful Dead. Dutifully, I had the afore-cited “Truckin’” edited into the finished video, momentarily tempted to slip in The Pop-O-Pies’ irreverent rendition to see how many people were paying attention. But being that the video extended beyond the five minutes and nine seconds of that hallowed Dead chestnut, I needed to find another track to fill it out.

As such, I slipped on my headphones and, over the course of one December afternoon, found myself re-visiting the more celebrated selections of The Grateful Dead. In the process of doing so, I was struck by how genuinely familiar so many of those songs sounded. I was instantly transported to countless days and nights on Denison’s campus, sneaking into fraternity parties I wasn’t invited to, playing frisbee on the wide quadrangles of east quad, drinking beers on an off-campus roof while watching housemates of mine set fire to an old couch (long story), hanging out in likely spaces like the school newspaper’s office or the college radio station, staying up and late and talking heroic amounts of bullshit – first and foremost, this music reminded me of good times and people I love and miss.

For the video, I ended up settling on the afore-cited “Franklin’s Tower.” Sometime shortly afterwards, I found myself picking up a copy of the 2003 compilation, The Very Best of Grateful Dead. Yes, I’m fully aware that best-of’s (let alone Very-best-of’s…. translation: “Edited Highlights For Passive Dilettantes”) are for “housewives and little girls” (blame The Kids in the Hall), but being that it contained most of the tracks I was looking for, it fit the bill.

Later that afternoon, as I was ripping the disc to my shortly-to-vanish iTunes (another weepy post in itself), my daughter looked up from her iPhone. “Daddy, what are we listening to?,” asked Charlotte from her perch on the couch. Weaned as a toddler on her father’s favorite music – I used to rock baby Charlotte to sleep via acapella renditions of “The Good Son” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – she’s used to hearing me play a certain variety of music around the house, even if she doesn’t always enjoy my taste. “Oh, this is just a band I used to completely hate called The Grateful Dead,” I responded.  Charlotte looked back down at her phone. “Well, I think you should go back to hating them immediately.”

Charlotte needn’t worry. It’s far too late in the day for me to turn into a bona fide Deadhead, nor am I really interested in becoming one. But in terms of expanding my horizons, growing up and reconsidering a few firmly-held “convictions” (see this post for more of those), I no longer consider The Grateful Dead an unwelcome entity.

..but I STILL FUCKING HATE "Touch of Gray."  

*Somewhat ironically, certain members of Black Flag have copped to being fans of the Grateful Dead. 

2019 is Dead

Well, it's that time of year again. Sure, we have two whole days left, but for all intents and purposes, 2019 is over. As such, let's go ahead and dust off this old thing. Away we go...

What did you do in 2019 that you'd never done before?

I’m really wracking my brain, but I’m not coming up with anything.

Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Nope, as discussed here, I gave up my umpteenth attempt at a Dry January in 2019 after only ten days, citing any number of arguably ridiculous and weak-willed rationalizations for doing so, and here we are again. This year, however, there is a new variable.

Shortly after this past Thanksgiving, I scheduled a long-overdue appointment with my primary care physician. I’d been neglecting to take care of certain things, investigating a few others and I’d been recently perplexed by the way in which my left foot was seemingly no longer feeling the way it used to. There was no pain involved, but it seemed to fill my shoe in way that felt simply … different. I can only describe it as being akin to the sensation wherein your sock is sort of bunched-up, and you feel an excess of crowding at the toe. Of course, I immediately assumed I had gout, given my affinity for beer. Or, more correctly, given my foundation in Catholic guilt, I immediately felt I deserved gout. In any case, preoccupied with this assumption, I figured it was prudent to go have it checked out.

As it turned out, I do not have gout. I’m told that if I did indeed have gout, I’d bloody well know it, as the pain involved is said to rival similarly acute maladies like Kidney Stones (which I have experienced). This all said, my doctor couldn’t really explain my weird foot/toe problem, which was a bit frustrating.

On the plus side, I got a reasonably clean bill of health — no egregious deviations from normal in most capacities. On the minus side, he did suggest my blood pressure was a bit high, going on to suggest that a sharp curtailing of alcohol would invariably do me some good. So, while not quite “doctor’s orders,” I am taking that to heart, so to speak, and endeavoring to once again swear off the suds until I go back and see my medicine man for a follow-up visit in …. dear lord …. late February.

Mind you … it’s not January YET!

Watch this space.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not just yet, but one of my sisters-in-law is preggers and due in February.

Did anyone close to you die?

Mercifully, no one in my immediate family left us this year, although the mother of a dear friend of mine did, which was and remains quite upsetting.

What countries did you visit?

As documented here, the we spent a glorious five or six days in Paris this year, which I highly recommend.

What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?

A different president.

What date from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory?

Don’t know that there was a single, isolated date of significance, but last week, just a day before Christmas, we learned that our son was accepted, “early decision,” at the high school of his choice. We are very proud.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

While I’m exceptionally proud of what my children have accomplished, I don’t think I particularly excelled in any specific capacity in 2019. I'm just trying to adopt, adapt and improve, as they say.

What was your biggest failure?

Too many options to choose from.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

No illnesses that I’m immediately aware of, but I did manage to lacerate my own tongue once or twice (as detailed here).

What was the best thing you bought?

Probably the flight tickets to Paris back in early October. Beyond that, I bought my son a guitar for Christmas, which he’d asked for upon returning from summer camp. I’m all for it. We’ll see how it goes. Watch this space.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

Once again, I’d cite my children. While, yes, both now in their teenaged years — and all the things that said age entails — they both take their schoolwork very seriously and routinely earn high marks on their respective report cards. Admittedly, there is now much more eye-rolling and attitudinal pushback than ever before, but I cannot complain, and remain very proud of both of them.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Pretty much the entirety of the Republican party and everyone who still slavishly supports the Trump Administration, regardless of the growing glacier of damning evidence of its unprecedented corruption.

What did you get really, really excited about?

I got to see Killing Joke three more goddamn times, this year, which was quite unexpected, given the lengths I had to go to to see their 40th Anniversary tour in 2018.

Where did most of your money go?

Renovating the kids’ room, the Paris trip and the looming reality of paying two tuitions for my budding high schoolers.

What song will always remind you of 2019?

I hate to say it, but if there is a single song that reminds of 2019, it’s invariably one by someone like Lizzo. There were several songs I was fired up about this year (see list here), but I can’t name one that singularly screams “2019” to me.

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

I wonder if I suffer from a bit of that seasonal melancholy, as I’m somewhat inexplicably blue quite often, these days. By the same token, that might also have something to do with how speedily my children are growing and how old I’m feeling.

Thinner or fatter?

I have it on sound authority that I have actually lost weight, although I couldn’t even begin to tell you how or why that is the case.

Richer or poorer?

Trying to live and work in Manhattan while simultaneously trying to feed, clothe and educate two children leaves one feeling always poorer.

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Earning. Paying closer attention to certain things.

What do you wish you'd done less of?

Drinking beer on my couch. Shirking various responsibilities. Procrastinating. Sounding off unsolicitedly about stupid shit. 

How did you spend Christmas?

Out at my Mom’s place in Quogue.

Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

No clue.

Did you fall in love in 2019?

Already very much in love.

How many one night stands in this last year?

Zero. I remain happily married.

What was your favorite TV program?

I quite enjoyed “Succession,” I must say.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

There’s a certain accusation persistently thrown around by Trump and his slackjawed supporters that Liberal Democrats are driven by a judgement-impairing hatred for Trump. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi famously cited her own Catholic upbringing upon snapping at a reporter for suggesting same, claiming that her faith prevents her from harboring any hatred for anyone. That’s lovely and all, but being that I don’t hold any public office, and, despite also being raised a Catholic like Speaker Pelosi, am largely unencumbered by feelings of obligation to any religious dogma, I feel absolutely ZERO regrets about firmly stating that I genuinely HATE Donald Trump and his supporters with every fibre of my being. I’m not shy about it. I’m not ashamed about it. I think it’s healthy and, frankly, natural to express it. I won’t pretend otherwise.

What was the best book you read?

While I enjoyed “More Fun in The New World” by Tom DeSavia & John Doe and had higher hopes for Debbie Harry’s memoir, “Face It,” I have to say the book I probably got the biggest kick out of reading this year was my re-visitation of “The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories” by H.P. Lovecraft while dropping Oliver off at camp in location-specific Vermont this summer.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Last year was a banner year in that I discovered the one-two punch of rock majesty in the form of Daughters and IDLES. 2019 didn’t bring as much fruit in that department, although I was quite enthused about the band John (shit name notwithstanding) and was happy to acquaint myself with 2013-era Nine Inch Nails, who I’d unwittingly slept on.

What did you want and get?

The long overdue impeachment of Trump.

What did you want and not get?

The long overdue dismantling of Trump’s Administration, his ouster from office, his indictment, his conviction and his imprisonment.

What were your favorite films of this year?

As someone who has always harbored a fascination for the story of the Manson Family, I have to say that I was quite into Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 52, and spent it strolling the lovely byways of the Marais in Paris with my family. Again, highly recommended.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

For Robert Mueller to have more effectively and emphatically done his job.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019?

Somewhere between “Is this inappropriate for a man my age?” and “Would one of the Stranglers have worn this?"

What kept you sane?

The necessity to provide for my family.

What celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

None really spring to mind, I have to say.

What political issue stirred you the most?

Where does one begin?

Who did you miss?

Ric Ocasek, Daniel Johnston, Ranking Roger, Keith Flint, Steven Jameson, Vaughan Oliver and, most of all, Mark Hollis.

Who was the best new person you met?

Some new colleagues at work.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019

I don’t know if he made the phrase up, but a writer named Richard Carlson published a book in 1997 called “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff … And It’s All Small Stuff.” That’s pithy and clever and generically reassuring and all, but it’s also a load of bullshit. I’m not suggesting that you should frantically preoccupy yourself with all manner of daily minutia to the point of distraction, but I don’t think it’s at all prudent to tune out and skip the required reading in favor of the Cliff’s Notes either. By all means, keep life in perspective and prioritize accordingly, but pay fucking attention to the details, because therein is where you’re probably getting fucked or about to unwittingly fuck yourself. At two pivotal points in 2019, there were instances when had I just been paying a wee bit more attention, I might have saved myself a substantial boatload of trouble. In both cases, things worked themselves out, but in neither instance were those outcomes guaranteed. Before you hit send, re-read that e-mail. Keep your bankbooks in order. Don’t just take their word for it. Study your monthly statements. Follow up and follow through. Send prompt thank-you cards. And as the Ice Cube once sagely rapped, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Song lyric that sums up 2019

It’s February
The world is wearing shorts
The world is wearing its heart on its sleeve
There’s bad news to report
But the president can’t read

- “The President Can’t Read” by Amy Rigby

Merry Christmas, Everyone

Have a happy one...

“Assembled into something, into something, into something…”

Musically speaking, I was pretty checked out in 2013. Though inarguably one of my greatest, lifelong passions, my thirst for cool new sounds had to be relegated to the way backseat while my immediate family grappled with a frenetic spate of deaths, illnesses and misfortune. All in all, it was a brutal year. We all have them, sooner or later.

As such, I invariably missed out on a lot of stuff that would have otherwise commanded my attention. While I’d always been a fan of Nine Inch Nails, even seeing one of their very first shows in New York City at a somewhat cheeseball club called Sonic’s in Chelsea in 1989, I had stopped paying attention to Trent Reznor’s doings by the time 2013’s Hesitation Marks rolled around. As a result, I missed out on the era of the band captured below.

I stumbled on this video quite recently, and was blown away to learn that the bass player to Trent’s right is none other than Pino Palladino (above), a truly storied performer who has played for everyone from Herbie Hancock and Eric Clapton to De La Soul and Peter Gabriel. Boasting a distinctive, fretless sound (not unlike Jaco Pastorius), Palladino’s signature tone is arguably best captured on “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)” by blue-eyed British soul boy, Paul Young. I’m assuming Trent drafted the great man based on his work for the similarly inclined Gary Numan. In any case, he really brings some oomph to the proceedings.

I am seven years late to the table, but I think this is fucking amazing. Crank it.

2019: My Year in Pictures

I usually wait until the week after Christmas to post this unwieldy thing, but then figured ... why wait?

As has been laboriously documented in the past, I take a lot of goddamn photographs. Some might say too many. If you already follow me on Instagram, you've invariably already sped by most of these while looking for pictures of other people's food or pictures of your exes or whatever it is you are covertly searching for.

Regardless, do please try to enjoy.

I also changed it to My Year in Pictures, as The Year... just seems a bit pretentious and overarching ... even for me. 

These are just some of my favorites.

Where The Music Leaves

Some of you might remember a curious entry I posted here back in April of this year wherein I chronicled the long, undisturbed residency of a certain compact disc on the shelves of a Westhampton Beach pharmacy out on the East End of Long Island. By my fuzzy math, there had been a copy of Ministry’s 1995 opus, Filth Pig waiting to be discovered and purchased from that shelf on Main Street’s Rite Aid since about 1998.

As mentioned in that older post, the store in question went through several makeovers and corporate permutations, but that copy of Filth Pig kept sitting there. In October of 1998 — when I met the woman who would become my wife — that copy of Filth Pig was sitting on that shelf. Peggy and I, having married in 2001, celebrated our eighteenth wedding anniversary this past July. When we did so, that copy of Filth Pig was still sitting on that shelf. It has been sitting on that shelf for as long as we’ve been married. While it sat there, we’ve had two children that have grown into their teens. All this time — no one has thought to purchase it.

Since posting that entry back in April, I’ve continued to give that Rite Aid my reluctant patronage. For whatever reason, whenever we’re out there visiting my mother, we invariably have to repair to that Rite Aid to procure any number of sundry items — from band aids to deodorant, suntan lotion through shampoo. If we’re out that way, it’s a given that at some point or another, we’ll be visiting that Rite Aid.

And, as such, whenever we did, I would usually check in on Filth Pig.

Now, having spotted the disc still siting there several times over this past summer, I didn’t think to take a picture of it every time I was there, but I checked in on it in the beginning, the middle and the end of the summer. And every time I did that, it was still there.

We left my mother’s place in neighboring Quogue at the summer’s end on Labor Day 2019. We always plan on coming down in the Autumn, as it’s lovely out there, but life gets in the way. As it turned out, we did not make it back until this past Thanksgiving Weekend.

Sure enough, with my son nursing a small wound sustained at an “Escape The Room” attraction at a birthday party last week (a whole saga unto itself), I was dispatched to Westhampton’s Rite Aid on Thanksgiving morning to procure him a new finger splint.

When I got there, I was nonplussed to discover that the Rite Aid signage was down, replaced by some decidedly makeshifty Walgreens banners. I feared the worst.

While, yes, still a soullessly corporate and antiseptic pharmaceutical chain of no great distinction, this new iteration of the space came with re-imagined aisles of brand new stock. I found a finger splint for Oliver and proceeded down the aisle formerly reserved for greeting cards, device-chargers, batteries and laughably anachronistic media like DVDs and compact discs. This was the aisle wherein that lonely copy of Filth Pig was seemingly permanently sequestered. In this newly designed section, however, all I encountered was cloyingly zealous Christmas decorations.

I circumnavigated the store, thinking they may have just absorbed Rite Aid’s old stock and repositioned it somewhere else. But after three sorties around the place — much to the bemusement of the new store’s staff -- it was relatively clear that this venture no longer stocked such goods.

For whatever stupid reason, I was sort of counting on that copy of Filth Pig to always be there.

But, obviously, life had other plans.

You Are Not What You Own: Age, Music & Technology in the New Millennium

While a valid argument could be made that I spend my time actively looking for things to get pissed off about (hey, this blog ain’t gonna write itself), I did stumble upon two articles, recently that particularly got my oft-gotten goat.

This first was this report about a documentary in the works about vinyl-collecting music-heads who are opting to sell their records. Says director Danielle Beverly, “It’s not really about how cool records are or the resurgence of vinyl, it’s really about people who are letting go of the things that once defined them."

Now, personally speaking, while I am intrigued by the concept of the film, I feel like Beverly is making some sweeping generalizations about about record collectors. As far as I’m concerned, while I would concede that I am somewhat “defined” (although I do not like this word) by my devotion to my favorite music and slavishly sentimental about my LPs, compact discs and, yes, even cassettes, I do not feel they are an integral part of my identity. The notion of parting with them makes sense on a purely practical level — given the amount of premium real estate they occupy in my home, space that could be arguably better utilized — but the thought of getting rid of them, to me, seems tantamount to throwing away personal photographs. Practically each one is imbued with some particular association or significance beyond simply being an artifact that delivers specific music.

I guess my grievance with Beverly’s point is that these peoples’ lives aren’t necessarily dominated by their physical collections. It’s not like their love of the music contained therein is going to go away when they part with the LPs. It’s just not that black and white, I don’t think. If I had to dispense of my physical collection of music (a scenario that would probably make my wife very happy), I don’t believe the opinions, likes, dislikes and sensibilities that actually define my identity would change. 

Now, again, I haven’t seen the film, so I’m obviously being prejudicial in my assessment. Watch this space.

This other story, however, just completely burnt my toast.

Titled “I use an iPod. Why Should I Be Ashamed?”, this piece — penned by one Robert Shrimsely — recounts the evidently traumatic travails of being “tech-shamed” by colleagues aghast by the author’s insistence on still using an iPod Classic, being that it so brazenly defies the current ubiquity of streaming and suggests some sort of bourgeois adherence to — god forbid — actually owning music, as opposed to merely renting it. To which I say — FUCK YOU!

I still use a goddamn 160 GB iPod Classic, and I have another on standby for when the long-cherished and well-loved one I’m currently enjoying inevitably dies. Do you *honestly* believe I give one single rolling rat fuck about what some dinky millennial or zoomer thinks about my anachronistic tech? Come try to take it from me, and you can expect profanity and pugilism. I'll stream when I'm in the cold, cold fucking ground.

To put it mildly, I vehemently resent the notion that I am to be expected to renounce a life spent lovingly curating my preferred music in long-vanished shrines to less-celebrated aesthetics that, in most instances, endearingly eschewed the tastes and validation of the mainstream (hand me a copy of a Thriller on CD, and you’ve given me a fucking coaster). While my collection does not “define me,” I harbor no regrets about amassing it, let alone supporting the independent shops, artists and record labels that put it out. Oh, it’s unseemly to still own music, is it? Go fuck yourself. As mentioned in my thoughts about the documentary, I can understand the impetus to part with one’s physical collection if it is impeding some other important part of one’s life or if by selling it off, one could facilitate some other necessary activity, but if the reason you choose to ditch or dump or pawn your music is simply to be in step with the times, you are a fucking lemming. “Resistance to new and life-changing devices is the path to atrophy,” Shrimsley asserts towards the end of the piece. Shut up, Robert, and think for yourself. 

You want me to abandon my iPod and join a service to re-enjoy some — but not all — of my music and be reliant on WiFi and a monthly charge? Fuck that and yourself, while you’re at it.

To borrow a line from The Wedding Present, if the world doesn’t understand, then the world has GOT TO LEARN.

I realize this is an unpopular and needlessly thorny opinion on the matter. What’s YOUR take? How do you listen to your music, and do you believe it defines you? 

Discuss. 

Chowing Down in Chinatown

Chinatown. Invoke its name, and your head is immediately filled with images of winding, narrow streets bustling with activity. To stroll through its storied byways is to encounter countless sights, sounds, scents, flavors and options that are as enticing as they are intimidating. A city within a city, Chinatown makes me feel like a total tourist rube, even as a lifelong, native New Yorker.

Sure, I know a few arguably obvious spots for an evening out in Chinatown. As mentioned elsewhere here, I’ve dined on the dim sum in the magisterial expanse of Jing Fong on Elizabeth Street, I’ve sampled the fare at Wo Hop on Mott Street, although I probably only knew the latter because of the ubiquity of its dragoon-festooned t-shirt, a former sartorial staple of downtown Manhattan hipsters. I remember myself and a group of fellow dads from my kids’ elementary school having dinner at some great place on Bayard Street (name long-since forgotten), although I believe our original mission — one we failed — was to find the eatery Andy Warhol was once photographed in. I do recall repairing to a speakeasy on fabled Doyers Street called Apotheke afterwards. But these pointers and the criteria that informed them are still pretty threadbare. In terms of authoritatively knowing what Chinatown has to offer — and not solely in terms of cuisine — I am fairly clueless. As a side note, the location of the Warhol-preferred spot was later revealed here.

My wife actually hipped me to another great dim sum place, that being Dim Sum A-Go-Go on East Broadway. It may not look fancy or authentic, but its fare is amazing …. and cheap to boot. We’ve taken the kids there a couple of times, and its always a hit for all parties concerned.

But Chinatown still remains largely opaque to me, like a code I’m constantly trying to crack. While I’m more able to find my way around it these days — and not just the well-traveled strips of Bayard, Pell & Mott — it still feels fairly impenetrable.

Seeking out places like Downtown Music Gallery, a few years back, better acquainted me to the topography, however marginally. Obviously not a place to eat or drink, DMG is a hidden-beneath-the-street bunker on far-flung Monroe Street that specializes in uproariously esoteric music. Said music was leant even further mystique by way of the long journey through the streets east of East Broadway in order to acquire it. 

Then there's Mission Chinese on the other end of East Broadway. Eating here — while amazing — always feels like cheating, being that it’s not originally a local NYC concern. But Mission Chinese -- nor Downtown Music Gallery, for that matter --- really seem to belong where they are. They are not of Chinatown. I’ve always wanted to discover a great, authentic, long-established restaurant in Chinatown, but didn’t even begin to credibly know how to find it.

Stumped by the ever-perplexing quandary of what to get me for Christmas (any bits of music I want I usually go out and get myself, and I don't really want/need much else), the wife discovered a great company called Foods of New York, a group that's been conducting culinary tours of various likely neighborhoods for two decades. Now, before you protest, let me stop you right there --- YES, the idea of a food-tour of Chinatown sounds like an UPROARIOUSLY touristy thing to do, and if it's one thing New Yorkers absolutely loathe -- be they native or naturalized -- it's doing anything that may be construed as touristy. I get it. But, as I mentioned a few graphs up, I will be the very first person to concede that in terms of navigating the intricacies of Chinatown, I might as well be from friggin' Ohio. I needed help. Foods of New York were offering it. What's not to like?

Well, without giving too much away, Peg and I took the tour quite recently and it was a total revelation. For a start, our tour guide Raheem, who has being doing this sort of thing since 2007, could not have been cooler, more enthusiastic or more informed. Not only was he entirely versed the finer points of the cuisine that we were sampling from several different locations on the map, but his knack for bits of compelling historical trivia was striking. I feel somewhat remiss, I am sad to say, for having passed on a bit of incorrect trivia onto him, wrongly asserting that the album cover of the Ramones' Halfway to Sanity was shot in a doorway adjacent to one of the restaurants we visited, that being Peking Duck House on Mott Street. Turns out the cover shot of Halfway was actually taken a few hundred steps to the southeast. Ah well.  

In any case, during the three or four hours of the tour, we tasted some amazing food, learned of at least three or four absolutely must-visit-again spots and got a few great pointers for new places to knock back a few drinks. What can I say, I really, really enjoyed it and highly recommend it. 

Find them here. Tell them Flaming Pablum sent you. 

Lost in “New Rock City”

Nostalgia, once again, is a weird thing. For every period or era or, in musical parlance, “scene” that one person laments, there are individuals from before and after that particular passage of time who harbor entirely different affinities and associations. Witness the ongoing dialogue in the comments in some of my posts about NYHC, as one example. Everyone has their own period, their own perceptions of same, obviously, and their own attachments.

I was certainly around for the boom of new New York City bands that manifested around the turn of the millennium and just afterwards, with acts like The Strokes, Interpol, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture and genuinely liked a bunch of them (well, not so much The Rapture), but it was clearly no longer my class, so to speak. I was still carrying torches for earlier acts like Skeleton Key, Pussy Galore, Surgery, Barkmarket, Prong, Helmet and, yes indeed, Cop Shoot Cop. One alumnus of the latter -- Tod [A], of course --  formed Firewater, which almost bridged the chasm of those eras, going so far as sharing members with comparative upstarts like Gogol Bordello, but Firewater don’t often get a namecheck when discussing that next generation. I’m biased, of course, but I think that’s an oversight.

I’ve written about my issues with the whole “Meet Me In the Bathroom” generation of bands before, most windily here and also here. If you click on that first post, you’ll notice I appended a post-script to clarify that I didn’t mean to sound so grumpily prejudicial about Lizzie Goodman’s magisterial book on that era, but rather that I’d hoped for acknolwedgement of the continuum of great New York bands – which was actually kinda stupid, as that would have made poor Ms. Goodman’s already-quite-lengthy book much lengthier. What I need to do, simply, is acknowledge what I asserted in the first paragraph here – everyone is entitled to their own period, their own perceptions of same and their own attachements.

All this weighty preamble is to highlight the video below, which I stumbled upon on Vimeo. The clip was uploaded eight years ago, but seems to date back further than that (2004, maybe?). Dubbed "New Rock City,” this thirty-minute documentary attempts to capture the post-millennial/neo-post-punk (how’s that for a complicated descriptor?) generation by profiling bands like the afore-cited Gogol Bordello, FischerSpooner, Le Tigre, Blonde Redhead and some others, augmented by ruminations by rock journos like Sarah “Ultragrrl” Lewitinn and Joe Levy, two fellow (sorta) former SPIN alumni.

I think the thing that struck me about this film, however, is how the city and scene depicted therein already seem so long ago. That may have more to do with my own advancing age and perspective on things, but in the same way I look at books about New York's hardcore scene of the early-to-mid 80's and think “how is this even the same city?”, I get a comparable vibe from this. I am also reminded of “Goodnight Brooklyn” The Story of Death by Audio,” a compelling documentary that essentially told the story of an even more recent dyng scene that makes “New Rock City” look like friggin’ “The Decline of Western Civilization.”

Time passes. Things change. Scenes come and go and get replaced by new ones you won’t be privy to -- let alone endorse or understand -- because you basically get old and in the way.

I guess that’s just the way it is.

In any case, enjoy “New Rock City.”