It wasn't triggered by anything specific, just the nagging, seemingly obvious fact that I spend way more time on Facebook than I probably should. I think it’s less about the social-media phenomenon and more about my own anaemic will power. I seem to have a very hard time giving things up and/or slowing things down. As such, in much the same way I frequently endeavor to taper off my beer intake or cut down on my coffee consumption, I thought I’d try stepping away from Facebook for a while, and see how that goes. If this exercise is anything like my attempts to curtail my affinity those afore-cited vices, I’ll probably be back on Facebook by next week, but … we’ll see. I want to give it a shot.
I should point out, however, that I don’t feel guilty about my usage of the platform. At its best, Facebook is indeed a great way to stay in touch with further flung friends, keep apprised of certain social events, learn about breaking news, evangelize favorite music, gather insight from one’s peers on a host of different topics, etc. By the same token, it’s also a tremendously powerful and frequently pointless time-suck. At its most banal, it can be distraction. At its worst, it can be a needless irritant or even a day-ruiner, if you find yourself embroiled in one stupid spat or another over any number of idiotic subjects. For me, it’s invariably about some ridiculously pedantic fine point about a former member of some long-forgotten punk band or something equally trivial. I used to regularly cross swords with people about our boundlessly stupid and irresponsible president, but I believe I scared off any remaining Trump-supporters from my friends list long ago. Suffice to say, I feel absolutely zero regres about that.
I don’t know exactly what I plan on accomplishing by doing this, and fully plan to return to the platform at some presently indefinable point, but I feel it’s an exercise worth exploring.
Have you ever stepped away from Facebook or other comparable, life-engulfing social media platform? How’d that work for you?
Peggy and I got married in the summer of 2001. We returned to New York City from our honeymoon in Spain on Friday, September 7. The following Tuesday was …. well, you can figure it out.
Freshly married, eager to move forward with our plans and newly reminded of the fragility of human life, we promptly started looking to move out of my studio apartment. However cool and spacious it was, it just wasn’t an apartment necessarily conducive to having any babies, which was our priority, at the time.
In relatively short order, after looking at scores of uninspiring spaces, we somehow struck oil. Peggy happened to spot a promising listing in the very same neighborhood. By the tail end of 2002, we moved from a studio on East 12th to a “Junior Four” (read: a one-bedroom apartment with a dining room/study that could be re-purposed as a second bedroom) on East 9th. This was where we were going to start our family. As it’s turned out, we’ve been there ever since.
Once settled, we decided to get a sectional sofa. In retrospect, I cannot remember why. I think I was romanced by the one my cousins used to have at their old house up in the Berkshires. It just seemed comfier and homey. So, we went to shitty Crate & Barrell on Broadway and picked one up.
Details elude me as to why we chose a brown one, but that’s the color we got. I suppose it meshed with the other colors in the living room, but I’ll be damned if we were that thorough about it. The important thing was that it could accommodate several people quite comfortably. If necessity called for it, two people could sleep on it simultaneously.
In time, our plans to have children were realized, and our big brown couch was soon being climbed all over by Charlotte and, shortly afterwards, her little brother Oliver.
Guests came and went. Myriad meals were consumed on the couch. Parties were thrown on it. Countless drinks were spilled on it. A fortune in coins slid between its cracks. A graveyard of lost LEGO bricks vanished beneath its skirts. Various remotes went frequently astray beneath its cushions. But it served us well.
In time, its robust brown luster faded. In due course, the springs beneath the two most frequently sat-upon spots gave way. The “command center”/”driver’s seat” spot on the far end was soon re-dubbed “the Pit,” as whomever sat in it would sink, butt-first, towards the floor beneath.
When we could no longer tolerate it, Peggy started suggesting we bite the bullet and spring for a new couch. Because I ultimately loathe change, I was slow to get onboard, but even I was getting fed up.
The particulars of getting a new sectional sofa were far more complicated than we’d imagined, but living in a building without a service elevator meant that we had to choose a sectional of very specific measurements. I don’t remember that quandary when we bought the first one, but maybe we’d just gotten lucky.
It took us forever to find a suitable one. I honestly recused myself, after a while, about feeling the need to weigh in on its preferred design. As long as it fit and was comfortable, that would be fine by me. Colors really don’t matter to me.
We settled on one, paid for it and made arrangements for delivery. That will happen tomorrow. Today, our building’s super and handyman removed the old brown one.
On Oliver’s way home from school, he passed by the couch on the sidewalk and snapped the following shot, and I’m not gonna lie. I got kind of a lump in my throat about it.
Yes, it was an ugly, beat-up and suitably pooh-colored piece of shit, but this couch was really the epicenter of our home. There are videos of my kids as tiny tots crawling all over it. To see it dumped on the pavement really breaks my heart.
I was reminded of this song by the Lemonheads about feeling anguish over seemingly banal, inanimate objects.
The new couch arrives tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes. But I’ll always love the old couch.
Hey there, all. Well, as mentioned back on this post, I did indeed go to Nashville to see the fruition of a certain annual work event. While the walk-up to this week was fraught and stressful, the event itself went off more or less without a hitch, apart from a few eleventh-hour changes. But eleventh-hour changes are kind of to be expected, in these scenarios.
I’d share the details here, but they’re far from scintiliating. You’re welcome.
In any case, I managed to finish up proceedings in time to catch a couple of beers with my old comrade and fellow insufferable music geek Erik (you may rememberr him being invoked in this post), before I had to decamp to Nashville’s airport to catch my return flight to New York – a flight that was pushed back at least four times. This said, the booze & beer flows more readily, giddily and unrepentantly in Nashville’s airport to the extent that it makes a Saturday night in the East Village seem like an Amish prayer circle. This is not a complaint, and I took full advantage of same.
Being half in the bag wasn’t such a bad idea as, while I’m not sure if you’ve had the pleasure, flying on the anniversary of September 11th is still somewhat of a nervy prospect, even eighteen years later.
Speaking of September 11th, it’s hard to write anything about the events of that day without lapsing into predictability, hyperbole and cliché. The subject became a political football before the smoke had even cleared.
Eighteen years later, it’s proven to be the most transformative/disruptive historical event of our collective lifetime. What’s so surreal about that is that it’s become just that already — a part of history, despite the fact that those who witnessed it firsthand invariably remember the details of the day as if it happened earlier this week. I know I do. A whole generation of children has been reared into teen-hood in its wake, but I can still remember what t-shirt I was wearing on the day of.
Towards the end of last night's flight, while I was listening to the suitably eerie strains of “Neverland (full length version)” by ye olde Sisters of Mercy, I happened to glance outside at just the right moment from my window seat to catch the streaming towers of light from the memorial fountains of the World Trade Center reaching well into the dark heavens above my plane. To view this from the air is nigh on indescribable, and the resulting flight over the super-illuminated island of Manhattan was nothing short of breathtaking.
Oh, and actor and Esurance pitchman Dennis Quaid was on my flight, but we did not speak or interact at all.
There’s a widely circulated photograph from the early 90’s of Nick Cave and Henry Rollins sitting together, nervously eyeing a tiny toddler in the foreground. Someone posted this photo as a meme on an Instagram page I follow, this morning, and the procreation-phobic commentary followed soon after. Being the hopeless pedant that I am, I felt obligated to chime in and point out that the depicted child was Nick’s own, that being Luke Cave (who, strangely, is in his late twenties today, I believe), and that Nick’s perplexed expression in the photo was proably one he specifically played to the camera. That said, being the parent of a tiny toddler is a totally perplexing experience, so the expression may have been genuine.
In any case, in trying to back up my claim, I found this other photo of Cave and little Luke from the same era -- I believe taken by Peter Milne -- and posted accordingly. And while a lovely, beautifully composed shot, it again features an expression from Nick that suggests that he is grappling with forces beyond his control. This is, of course, only my projection. Nick may have just been dealing with a headache or vexed by his hair, but I prefer to believe that his expression says so much more. In this capacity, I find it an immensely powerful and moving image, one that perfectly captures this fleeting period of parenting.
My own children are now officially into their respective teenage years. To see them bound about our ever-shrinking apartment perpetually prompts a confluence of emotions. I am at-once melancholy, fiercely proud, enamored, heartbroken and worried all the time. And given my already-pronounced penchant for nostalgia (which you may have noticed, if you’ve spent any amount of time on this blog at all), I am continually made wistful by invocations of their littler years.
As if it were yesterday, I can vividly remember being able to pick my children up --- a feat that would doubtlessly require a swift trip to the chiropractor were I to attempt it today. I remember their weight against my shoulders as I tried to coax them to sleep in the evenings. I remember being jostled from my own sleep by them scrambling over me as if I was a rock-climbing wall. I remember striving to be hyper-attuned to whatever possible impediments they might encounter around our apartment and when out and about. I remember feeling regularly overwhelmed by both the enormity of the sense of responsibility I felt towards their continued well-being and the intangibly vast well of love they inspired within me. These latter sensations frequently prompted expressions like the one Nick sports below.
If you’re not a parent, you may have a hard time empathizing with all this, and that’s obviously perfectly okay. It’s not for everyone. It’s not meant to be.
As a tragic coda, in more recent years, Nick Cave lost a child, one of his teenaged twins from his current wife (not Luke’s mother). Cave documented his profound feelings of unimaginable grief in the 2016 album, Skeleton Tree.
As I’ve been alluding to over several posts, I depart this coming week for Nashville, Tennessee to attend a company-wide Town Hall event I’ve been orchestrating logistics and video coverage for. We now seem to do one of these everyyear. It’s a lot of goddamn work and, frankly, way more stressful than it should be, but I’ve managed to pull it off for the past two years. Here’s hoping this coming week’s event sustains that trend. Please wish me luck, in any case.
While it seems like an awfully fun town (even if you’re not inclined towards Country music), I never get to spend a great amount of time in Nashville. I arrive the day before the event, go right to our office on Music Row and work, go to the rehearsal, head back to the hotel, sleep, wake up, do the event and then check out and bolt back to New York. Nashville has a renowned live-music scene and purportedly some of the best BBQ to be found on the planet, but I haven’t been able to experience either, as yet, and this year looks to be no different, in that capacity. One of these visits, I’m sure I’ll get to know Nashville properly.
For me, though, the first word to still pop into my head after an invocation of Nashville is a very specific and robustly prurient one. I’ll explain, but first … some deeply tiresome and needlessly detailed context.
Popular music in the 1990s. Pose that to someone, and the first word you’ll probably hear is Grunge. While, true, Seattle’s more sludgily bedraggled take on punk rock did indeed break big in the 90’s via obvious bands like Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Tad, Pearl Jam and …. y’know …. that other “N” word, it wasn't the only thing happening. Suggesting that Grunge was the only major musical export of the decade in question is just lazy. In the very early 90’s, alongside Grunge came the British indie boom, with sub-sets like the so-called Shoegazer scene of bands like Lush, Ride, Chapterhouse and Curve and the sort-of post-Grebo crop of bands like The Wonder Stuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Kingmaker and the Senseless Things. This was followed shortly by the whole Manchester scene, finding the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Charlatans and James rising to prominence. Later on, of course, there was the Britpop boom, featuring bands like Blur, Suede, Echobelly, Gene and, of course, Oasis. Back here at home, Grunge seemed to pave the way for a vast new crop of sloppily-dubbed “alt.rock” bands of all stripes to suddenly get snapped up by major labels. When grunge started to arguably lose its flannel-swaddled charm, along came a brand new crop of more accessible pop-punk outfits, finding bands like Green Day, The Offspring and Rancid taking a formula honed by myriad forebears still wallowing in comparatively impoverished obscurity to both the top of the pop charts and verily the fucking bank. Outside of rock circles, of course there was hip-hop of all stripes — from the progressive and adventurous Native Tongue scene to the grittiest of hardcore gangsta rap, both later overshadowed by the schism between the East Coast’s Bad Boy label and the West Coast’s Death Row. Club music continued to evolve and the phenomenon of Trip-Hop fully blossomed via the triad of Massive Attack, Tricky and the seismically original debut album by Portishead, the blueprint for which later limply copied by countless pretenders who turned the sound into sonic wallpaper for cocktail lounges. Around this same time, many of my native New York’s noise-rock bands were in major percolation, finding Surgery, Helmet, Prong, Barkmarket and — yes, do indeed wait for it — Cop Shoot Cop hitting their respective strides. Regardless, by the end of the decade, the sickly plague of teen pop suddenly became the prevailing order of the day, finding Rolling Stone putting people like Britney Spears on their cover far more times than the magazine’s tenuous grasp on credibility should have ever allowed.
So, yeah, musically, there was a lot going on in the 90’s, and this isn’t even really the whole of it. I’m dead-sure I’ve omitted lots of stuff.
While all this was going on, I was pretty dutifully plugged in. For most the decade, I juggled full-time jobs at LIFE Magazine and then TIME Magazine with gigs as a freelance music journalist for outlets as far ranging as indie mags like The New York Review of Records and a magazine called Exit to music glossies like Creem and HuH! (a seemingly forgotten offshoot of RayGun Magazine) and then onto a delightful position as a weekly contributor to the “Goings On About Town” section of The New Yorker, for which I wrote blurbs about upcoming shows by bands the average reader of that magazine would invariably never consider attending.
But, even as I was deeply versed in all the subsets floridly cited above, I was also fortunate enough to still be fleetingly hip enough to be privy to a live-music circuit of an endearingly grotty, downmarket and proudly underground variety. Via a select coterie of comrades in the mid-to-late 90’s, I was regularly attending shows by bands like The Lunachicks,The Unband, The Prissteens, The PeeChees, The Candy Snatchers, The Lee Harvey Keitel Band, The Pleasure Fuckers, The Upper Crust and a particularly eye-&-ear-immolating (literally and figuratively) combo called Nashville Pussy.
Not actually from Nashville but named after a slavishly libidinous bit of idiotic stage banter by Ted Nugent on his Double Live Gonzo album (right before he lapses into the suitably obscene “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang”), Nashville Pussy was — and remains — a Georgia foursome who play a blistering, boogie-fueled blend of depraved, high-octane cowpunk that is as informed by KISS, AC/DC and Motorhead as it is by Blackfoot, Molly Hatchet and Skynyrd, but played with the ferocity of Black Flag. I realize that’s an awfully messy description, but they’re that kind of band.
Taking this bizarre aesthetic to a whole other level were Nashville Pussy’s secret weapons, the two-fisted punch of weapons-grade estrogen in the form of perpetually bikini-topped guitarist Ruyter Suys and towering Amazonian bassist Corey Parks, two ridiculously sexy — and ruthlessly adept -- players who flanked lead-singer/guitarist Blaine Cartright (himself a dead-ringer for neighbor Carl from “The Aqua Teen Hunger Force”). Where Ruyter was a perpetually head-banging and tantalizingly sweaty hybrid of Angus Young and an Alberto Vargas pin-up, Corey Parks stalked the stage at Darth Vader height and spat fucking fire in a manner that really did not suggest a scrupulous observation of venue fire codes. Parks left the band in 2000, a couple of years before the horrible Great White fire at Rhode Island niteclub, so I’m not sure Nashville Pussy still dabbles in this sort of reckless pyrotechnics to this day. But, at the time, it was really quite a spectacle.
I was lucky enough to see Nashville Pussy almost burn off my eyebrows off and singe my eardrums at least four or five times, usually at the Continental just off St. Marks. I did also see them at Tramp’s (possibly in a double-bill with The Hellacoptors, but I cannot recall). At that particular gig, I managed to take a couple of shots (this was before cell phones, so I braved the pit with my proper camera — no small feat, in retrospect). Some of those shots are above and below.
I adored both the Nashville Pussy live show and their first album, the somewhat predictably titled Let Them Eat Pussy — which is not exactly a great album to leave lying around on your coffee table when, say, your in-laws come visiting. Early versions of the record came with a bonus EP — titled, WAIT FOR IT, Eat More Pussy — of esoteric covers, featuring deep cuts by AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Mitch Ryder, The Flamin’ Groovies and The Saints, among others. Corey Parks split the band right before their second record, High as Hell, and her departure sort of sapped my enthusiasm a bit, and I didn’t really keep after them beyond that. I’m sure they still kick a man-sized platter of ass, but I wish Corey were still in the band’s ranks.
Despite being nominated for a Grammy Award (!!!) for Best Metal performance for the song below (the delightful “Fried Chicken & Coffee”), Nashville Pussy have never really broken big. Whether it’s their indelicate name or their proudly blunt espousal of sleaze, the band has remained underdogs of the underground, which is probably just how they like it. I have a weathered Nashville Pussy t-shirt, but stopped wearing it some time ago, as it started to appear a bit unseemly for a greying dad like m’self to be sporting such a legend across my chest. I’ll never part with their first album and EP, though. God bless’em.
So, yeah …. anyway…. whenever I hear the word Nasvhile….the next word in my head is always… well, Pussy.
Since, as mentioned, I'd suggest it's fair to say that Summer 2019 is officially over and done with, I thought I'd exhume this Summer Survey that I haven't done since 2016. Here goes...
Defining Moment of Summer 2019: I would say that the defining moment, for me, would be --- after months of fretting about the prospect of our son, Oliver, departing for his first time away at sleepaway camp for four weeks -- arriving back up at the camp and seeing him bounding out of his cabin looking happy, healthy and filled with tales to tell about how much he enjoyed his time there, completely exceeding our expectations about the endeavor. The whole experience ending up being all that we'd hoped for him, and more.
Best Purchase of Summer 2019: Overlooking stuff I procured for my kids, I'd say the most rewarding purchase would be the pair of ridiculously indulgent YETI 10 Oz Rambler Wine Tumblers I bought to celebrate the wife & I's eighteenth wedding anniversary. Nothing says "marital bliss" like needlessly expensive outdoor lifestyle products.
Best Book You Read of Summer 2019: It was initially a toss up between Wayne Hussey's memoir, "Salad Daze" and Joe Doe & Tom DeSavia's continuation of their oral-history-styled documentation about the trajectory of L.A. punk, "More Fun in The World" (which I'm currently finishing), but if I'm being honest, it was re-discovering H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories" (which I discussed here) that really brought me the most joy.
Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2019: I honestly cannot recall the last film I went to, as in sat down in a movie theater to watch. I saw plenty of decent movies in the past couple of months, but I did not have the experience of attending a movie in its intending setting. I mean, yeah, I guess I enjoyed "Avengers: Endgame," but I feel like that's the lamest of possible answers.
Best Gift You Received of Summer 2019: For Fathers Day, my son Oliver gave me a fetching red Forbidden Planet t-shirt that I was quite pleased with. Also, my friend Rob B. surprised me with a copy of the sprawling, live Wonder Stuff boxset, Upstaged, for no readily apparent reason other than that he'd heard me mention how curious I was about it. Damn nice of him.
Song That Best Sums Up Summer 2019: Honestly, while I'm inclined to cite the new single by IDLES, "Mercedes Marxist," which arrived back in June, I can't say it's the song that defined my summer. For whatever reason, my family found itself repeatedly playing the 1978 best-of by Paul McCartney & Wings, Wings Greatest with some inexplicable regularity, although no one else seems to enjoy "Live & Let Die" as much as I. Realistically, I think the song that is destined to always remind of this summer is one by a guy named Spencer Ludwig. As mentioned elsewhere, at my job, I am tasked with putting together a fiscal-year-end highlight video, scored by various pop hits of the day by my organization's affiliates. Spencer Ludwig's "Best Life" is factoring heavily into that video -- whether I like it or not -- and it has been an inescapable ear-worm. Here it is:
Happiest Memory of Summer 2019: After initiating a dialogue with an estranged best friend (which I spoke about here), he suggested reconvening with another since-inexplicably-distanced friend at a Murphy's Law gig on a boat. The evening in question was far and away the happiest I've been and the hardest I've laughed in a long, long time.
Saddest Memory of Summer 2019: This might sound pretty histrionic, but I found the failure of Robert Mueller's beleaguered testimony to congress to really move the dial in any meaningful capacity to be pretty damn tragic. To my mind, it was a blown opportunity to make a crucial course correction, and I kinda blame Mr. Mueller for that. You may beg to differ, but so be it.
Scariest Memory of Summer 2019: In early July, I showed up for jury duty and narrowly escaped being selected for placement on a case they'd informed me would take "at least three months," which would have fallen squarely in my busiest period at work. Suffice to say, I vehemently protested, but was called in to talk to a roomful of lawyers to explain my situation anyway. I was probably a little needlessly belligerent about it all, but managed to convince them I would very much not be an asset to either side of the dispute. I had no problems serving at the time, but this was a commitment that would have severely messed up my life.
The flip side, if you will, to the last post. I didn't manage to spend as much time out at my Mom's place out on Long Island, this summer, but when I did manage to on weekends, I took a snap or two. Summer goes too fast.
The calendar might tell you one thing, the almanac another and the weatherman a third, but as far as I'm concerned, summer's official point of departure is when school starts back up again. Being that both of my two head back to their respective classrooms this week, I'd suggest that it's fair to say that Summer 2019 is done and dusted. As such, herewith some of my favorite photographs I snapped during the past three months of life here in New York City. Enjoy and welcome Autumn.
Well, in keeping with what is becoming an annual tradition of disappointment, evidently, there’s an event happening this fucking evening that I’m also notgoing to be able to attend which registers on the big-fucking-bummer meter on a comparable scale.
Organized by my great comrade Brian Seaver to ring in his birthday, tonight, at Union Pool in Brooklyn, a supergroup, of a sort, are making their debut, featuring Jim Coleman and Phil Puleo from my beloved Cop Shoot Cop, along with Chris Spencer (ex Unsane) and Chris Pravdica of SWANS.
Not to be confused with EXCOP (which also featured ex-C$C guys and an ex-SWAN, but not necessarily the same ones ... it's a long story), HUMAN IMPACT (the new band) will probably leave a crater where Union Pool currently stands.
Because of very pressing work demands (I’m putting together a video presentation for the company-wide meeting in Nashville) and some family obligations, I simply cannot go tonight. Being an adult with responsibilities sucks, sometimes.
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