And just like that, another year has gone by.
It's hard to believe that I've been posting stuff here on this silly blog for 14 consecutive years. I've laboriously asserted this before, but it still feels like each post could be my last one. One of these days, that'll be the case. Not quite yet, though, I don't think. I still have some stuff to share, I believe.
Thanks for hanging in there with me.
Disappointment: When the sleepaway camp you’ve sent your child to sends out its weekly wrap-up cache of literally six-hundred-&-seventy-nine (679) photographs, and your boy shows up … kinda … in only one (1) of them.
As recently mentioned, we’d fielded a first note from Oliver -– sequestered up in Vermont for four weeks of summer camp -– that had evidently been penned three days after we’d dropped him off. The tone of that note suggested that our son was grappling with a dash of homesickness, which was not unexpected given that this experience marks his first-ever substantial amount of time away from home. Some fleeting images, however, of our boy mixing and mingling with his fellow campers from their first full week buoyed our confidence that he probably wasn’t entirely miserable. This was supported by a note from his group leader that suggested Oliver had been branching out, making new friends outside of his cabin and making the best of it. That's what we wanted to hear. But, not to be too cynical, of course he was going to say that.
Back here at home, the entire family has kept firing off postcards to our youngest, hopefully providing him some love and support from afar. But we’ve all been quietly hoping that he’s just been getting on with things and is now too engaged with proceedings to be in any dire need of any cheering up.
After four days out at my mom’s place in Quogue, we came home hoping to have received a second letter from the boy -- ideally one rife with contentment -- but the mailbox was bare. Similarly, when the camp updated its photo page (as they allegedly do every Monday), we were greeted with an unwieldy avalanche of images of grinning, beatific boys in the throes of a host of summertime activities -– but only spotted our Oliver once, … and, really, only sorta kinda.
Zooming into a photo of five kids, Oliver appears as below, his face obscured. We have no clue if he’s smiling, having fun or any real context of the picture whatsoever. Now, it’s not like I’m calling in a forensics expert to pore over the graphic minutia of this image like a snippet of the Zapruder film, but I’m not going to lie. It was kind of a bummer.
Again, when my surly, reluctant butt was sent off to summer camp in 1980, there was no e-mail. No websites. No easily shared photographic evidence of my experience, let alone documentation of my survival. I was dropped off, sent a few postcards and then picked up several weeks later. Everyone survived more or less without incident. End of story.
Tomorrow marks the official midpoint of Oliver’s time away. In the grand scheme of things, these four weeks are but a tiny blip, but -- as you can probably surmise – I’m quite looking forward to having him back.
A little while back, I prefaced a post with a somewhat ominous allusion to being in the midst of a midlife crisis. As I mentioned in that preamble, it’s not the ridiculous scenario wherein I go buy myself a black leather jacket, get a tattoo and start skateboarding to broadcast that I still have my “edge.” For a start, I could never skateboard properly (as documented here), I’m far too wishy-washy to ever commit to a permanent tattoo and I already owned a cool black leather jacket. When I slip on the latter, however, it prompts snorts and giggles from my 15 year old, so that’s out, clearly.
For me, the crisis — I realize this is a strong word, but I’m at a loss of what else to call it — was brought about by two things. Firstly, there was the looming reality of my 13-year-old son departing for four weeks of summer camp for the first time (as discussed here and here). It wasn’t simply that I was worried about missing him or him being homesick — two things that have indeed taken place, although both manageably so — but rather that I was concerned with having to relinquish a certain degree of control and entrust a crucial responsibility onto people I do not know. As previously alluded, my son Oliver is on a strict regimen of meds that need to be properly and punctually administered. I’m used to doing that. Leaving that up to someone else to handle was something that cemented my brow in the fully furrowed position.
Here in early July, Oliver is now just short of halfway into his stay at camp. We've received one hastily penned missive from him at the end of his first week, which he composed while using the back of a frisbee for a writing surface. What we were able to decipher from that suggested he was feeling a little melancholy about the endeavor, but what doing his best. Since then, we’ve heard more recently from his group leader, and the picture was a good deal rosier. Oliver has purportedly branched out and his making the most of his experience. And much to my relief, he has been fully diligent about the meds. So far, so good.
The other thing that’s been really throwing me off my game, so to speak, is a bit more troubling. After suspecting something was up for some time now, I recently reached out to an essentially estranged former best friend of mine over email. I cannot say how or why we’d come to this impasse, but I reached a point, one evening a few weeks back, wherein I felt the air needed to be cleared, as I simply couldn’t remember anything I’d said or done or failed to say or do that might have put him off. As a result of whatever that was, this fairly pivotal figure in my life since childhood and I had basically fallen completely out of touch. I needed to know why.
Now, I fully realize that email is not the ideal medium wherein to hash out big issues like this. Subtle, conversational nuances are lost. Narratives can be misinterpreted. Cues can be missed. This all said, it seemed like the most direct means of getting the ball rolling.
As of this posting, the exchange in question is still basically unfurling. The good news is that he was happy and amenable to discussing this problem. The not-as-good news is that evidently he’d been under the impression for a very long period of time that I’d been rebuffing him. I assured him that there was never anything he’d said or done that would have prompted me to do that, and was frankly astonished that I’d been giving him that impression.
He was traveling at the time of this exchange, so we agreed to table the discussion until his return. I have high hopes that we’ll be able to get back on the good foot, so to speak, but again feel awful that so much time has gone by with us both feeling this encroaching distance, but neither of us acted on it. I hope to fully restore our friendship. Stay tuned on that front.
In any case, this scenario has been really messing with my head, especially the revelation that my friend had allegedly been under the misapprehension that I was the one giving off the cold shoulder. Do I invoke that vibe? At the risk of courting melodrama, for a figure so deeply involved in so many of my sensibility-defining experiences over the course of several decades to get such an unintentional impression has made me question a lot about myself. For someone you really think you know so well to suddenly misunderstand something … and then seemingly be more or less resigned to do nothing about it — I mean, what do I do with that?
Like I said, I’m trying to rescue the situation, but it left me feeling somewhat insecure about my relationships with other people. I was suddenly concerned that I was alienating all my old friends. I mean, what’s wrong with me if I can’t seem to keep in touch and in good standing with one of my best friends of all time?
As if on cue, I had three, seemingly random occurrences with other friends that more or less realigned me. My friend from high school, Rob B., unsolicitedly sent me the new Wonder Stuff live box set, prompted solely by the notion, I’m guessing, that we’d been discussing it, and I’d said something like “yeah, I’d love to have it, but probably won’t get it.” While a sprawling, multi-disc collection of punky pop from an aging British indie band might seem fairly banal, this gift could not have been more well timed, and I will cherish it for reasons well beyond the merits of the band in question.
Secondly, out of the proverbial blue, I fielded a text from my friend Sam in Portland, Oregon. Sam and I first met when we were both interning at SPIN in 1989. He’d moved to the West Coast some years ago and renounced Facebook, so we’d sadly fallen out of regular contact. Evidently, Sam had recently been rediscovering the joys of a band we both used to love called Pop Will Eat Itself — somewhat coincidentally from the same scene and era as The Wonder Stuff — and it made him think of me, so he reached out to see what was up and how my family is. Good friends do that.
Lastly, just this morning, my oldest-ever friend Keith sent me a photo via text. He lives in Colorado, now, but he and I have the sort of friendship wherein he’ll show up in New York at a moment’s notice — it’s almost ALWAYS just a moment’s notice — and we pick up RIGHT back where we’d left off. In any event, ever since we were little children, Keith and I were both obsessed with drawing. Our mothers would throw a couple of pads and a box of crayons on the floor like meat at a pair of wild dogs, and Keith and I would spend hours furiously scribbling monsters and superheroes and all sorts of ridiculous shit. This carried on well into our college years. We’d write back and forth to each other — remember when people did that? — and draw all over the letters and envelopes in much the same ridiculous manner we did when we were both 8 or 9 years old.
Today, apropos of nothing at all, Keith cut out a selection of images I’d illustrated letters to him with and send them to me, which pretty much stabs me right in the heart. I love my friends.
I am determined to restore proceedings with that other former friend, and be the best friend I can be to the ones I still have.
Reach out to the people you care about now and let them know how much they mean to you. Life is far too short to do otherwise.
I have nothing to compare it to, really, but if -– like myself -– you are the parent of a child who has never spent a long time away from home before, when they do go off to sleepaway camp, it can be a strange experience.
Sequestered up in the verdant wilds of Vermont, my 13-year-old son, Oliver, is at camp for four weeks (you may remember I discussed it in greater length on this post). We dropped him off just a little under a week ago and ripped the band-aid off pretty quickly, so to speak. We figured that if we hung around too long, drawing out our goodbyes, none of the concerned parties would benefit. So, really, after making sure all was in order, we said our goodbyes, hopped back in the car and drove off into the rainy Vermont afternoon, leaving our boy in the company of his fellow campers. While we knew that was the smart way to do it, it still felt weird and sad.
After we’d climbed into the car and were driving off campus, we noticed that all the boys had been gathered together on the main field – despite the rain – and were already engaging in group activities and getting to know each other. That was a good sign. To the camp’s credit, later that same day, they e-mailed all the parents a huge team-photo. We, of course, scrupulously studied the pic and found Oliver, easy to pick out in his yellow North Face rainslicker. Mercifully, he was smiling.
Ever since then, the pictures have been slower in arriving, but we do thrill to each cameo our son makes. Apart from an emergency situation, we cannot call or text Oliver, nor can he call or text us – an otherwise constant means of staying in contact one might take for granted, in 2019. At this stage, beyond the pictures that periodically appear, all we can assume is that no news is good news. I’ve already fired off a couple of postcards to him, but have yet to hear back. I just hope that means he’s busy and having fun.
I’m just heartened that in the pics I do have of him, he looks like he’s okay and having a good time.
While rumors of its impending demise have been circulating since as far back as 2007, I’m sad to relay, in case you hadn’t heard, that Manitoba’s at 99 Avenue B has closed for good. That's me, above, in the rear of same circa 2011.
I’ve written about both the celebrated bar and the man behind it -– erstwhile Dictators frontman and NYC Punk Rock luminary Richard Blum, more commonly known as Handsome Dick Manitoba -– several times here. Having established himself as a polarizing figure, of sorts, since his early days with the nascent Dictators, it was sort of expected that Richard could be a gruff and/or argumentative presence not unlike, say, the late Bleecker Bob. In my very limited personal experience with the man, however, I have to say that Richard was always an approachable and affable guy -– so long as you didn’t veer too deeply into any political discussions.
In terms of the bar, while it’s always courted a bit of conflict (first from upstairs neighbors who’d moved in unaware that they’d be residing over a boisterous local hang-out), it has more recently had a much harder time of it in the wake of some of Richard’s legal troubles stemming from truly unfortunate allegations of spousal assault, a crime he was arrested for in 2018. From that point on, things became difficult for both the man and the establishment that bore his moniker.
Over the years, bars like Manitoba’s have become scarcer in the East Village. As the neighborhood’s overall sensibility has been somewhat forcibly shifted from a historic bohemian enclave to, well, a comparatively soulless hotbed of avaricious real estate opportunity and exclusive nightlife destination, the particular aesthetic bars like Manitoba’s catered to isn’t quite enough to compete in the 2019 iteration of the environs (despite the best, heroic efforts of Jesse Malin). Put simply, the punkers are being largely displaced by the brunchers.
I’d been hearing the recent rumors of Manitoba’s troubles for a few days, but my comrade EV Grieve finally confirmed it yesterday. Read the official details here.
While my nights out in the East Village took a fairly sharp downturn once I started having kids, I was always thankful that places like Manitoba’s were still going, especially as similarly inclined establishments had been vanishing left, right and center (personally, I think I miss the Lakeside Lounge the most). Now, hot on the heels of the recently shuttered Sidewalk Café, Manitoba’s joins the ranks of former places with history, identity and inimitable character to have a beer, hang out, meet with friends, hear great music and share stories.
I will miss it greatly.
Pour one out. This, meanwhile, was the Dictators...
About four years ago, I posted an audacious little entry here rather grandiosely called The Flaming Pablum Grub Guide. Despite that promising title, all it really amounted to was a tidy list of six restaurants I happened, at the time, to like. Hardly a “guide” of any credible semblance.
At the tail end of that post, I appended the line “more to come,” as if to suggest that my culinary recommendations were swiftly to become a regular fixture on this blog, rubbing shoulders with lamentations about closed record shops, meaningless asides about old post-punk singles, slavishly overwritten eulogies to recently deceased musicians of a certain stripe and/or complaints about our current president. Had I any idea, in 2015, who the latter was going to turn out to be, I may have been too nauseous to conceive of writing anything about food. But, I digress.
Indeed, despite the “more to come” warning, apart from a couple of fleeting mentions of the closings of various eateries, I didn’t post many entries that were strictly meal-related. By and large, writing about food just isn’t my métier, so to speak.
This all said, in the last couple of months, some specifically favorite restaurants of mine have simply just up and ceased to exist. The first to go, of these, was my family’s preferred Chinese restaurant (also mentioned in my previous Grub Guide), that being the excellent Lychee House on East 55th between Lexington and Third Avenues. I have absolutely zero idea why it shut its doors, but it’s evidently gone for good. For this cruel affront, I question the existence of a benevolent deity.
More recently, after yet another frankly mediocre order from Jin on Third Avenue between 10th and 11th, the teenaged Pablumites and I decided to revert to our old trusty standby, Irving Place’s Hunan Cottage (or, as my kids used to call it, Hunan College). While never the stuff of greatness, the Cottage/College (or Huniversity, as I would sometimes call it) got several key dishes right, notably their fried pork dumplings. Imagine our collective potty-mouthed incredulousness, then, upon learning that -– like Lychee House way uptown -– Hunan Cottage had mysteriously closed up shop. And now, for that matter, shitty Jin has a "For Rent" sign in its window.
What was this? The work of fucking Thanos? Why are all our favorite spots vanishing?
Way back in 2007, I prefaced my first lengthy post about since-closed record shops with a rumination about the shuttering of restaurants. Steeped in melancholy, it read as follows:
For some reason, I always find the closing of a restaurant to be particularly heartbreaking (more so than, say, the closing of a shoe store or cell phone emporium). Restaurants require -- to misappropriate a line from Winston Churchill -- blood, sweat and tears. They demand someone with heart, vision and a desire to not only meet a need but excel beyond that need (nobody strives to open a merely adequate restaurant). And there's something about the offering of food that makes it extra personal. Someone carefully planned the menu and imagined the fare and took pains to present it in a palatable way. When those endeavors collapse, I just find it kinda tragic. There's a restaurant down West 10th street, for example, that just closed. I walked by it earlier this week with my wife. Only a couple of short months ago, we'd dined there with friends, celebrating the christening of my son. The food wasn't exceptionally bad, but it wasn't much to sing about either. Still, we ate and laughed and had many drinks and had a splendid time within its walls. It's now just an empty room that someone's dream once briefly occupied.
As histrionic as that sounds, I continue to feel that way when a beloved eatery goes out of business.
With that all in mind, I decided to update my flimsily executed Grub Guide and imbue it with more specifics. Those with an only passively keen eye for detail might notice I’ve qualified these with the descriptor “Favorite” as opposed to “Best.” No votes were tallied. I am not claiming this to be in any way authoritative. These are only my personal preferences. Just because I’m partial to the way one restaurant prepares a certain dish doesn’t mean I think that particular iteration of said dish is its supreme realization. As the saying goes, results may vary. You may not agree with my choices. You’re free to make your own Grub Guide.
In the interest of being comprehensive, I’ve broken this up into categories. Invariably, I will leave something out. This is not meant as a slight to whichever cuisine I’ve omitted. It only means I’ve forgotten to include a selection representing that particular culinary discipline. I am human.
So, let’s get to it, shall we?
Favorite Mexican
Mariachi’s
156 Chambers Street.
The original Mariachi’s was a block or so to the east on West Broadway (replete with a touching outdoor mural of its former neighbors, the Twin Towers). When its block was slated to be razed to accommodate a new condo, Mariachi’s moved to its more recent perch on Chambers Street between West B’way and Greenwich. It’s not that its fare is the best of its kind (I’m sure friends from the Southwest would balk at even the mere suggestion), but it’s consistently solid, hearty food. I frequently go for the quesadillas and am never not happy and/or sated by the results. Unfussy, quick, cheap and satisfying.
Honorable Mention: The fish tacos at Dorado on 28 East 12th Street are mighty fine, although not as outstanding as the fish tacos at El Vez (259 Vesey), which are fucking muy bien. My other local Mexican, El Cantinero (86 University Place), is also always respectable. They also have a nice outdoor deck in the warmer months, and a somewhat hilarious Mexican disco on the second floor, if you’re ever in that particular mood.
Favorite Chinese
Mission Chinese Food
171 East Broadway
As weepily explained in the preamble to this post, both my very favorite Chinese restaurant and my local standby Chinese restaurant have all just shuttered, which pisses me right off. There are, of course, hundreds -- if not thousands -- of great Chinese eateries scattered across Manhattan alone, but I’ve now lost my go-to’s. As such, I’m citing the somewhat insufferably trendy Mission Chinese Restaurant on way-the-Hell-near-nothing East Broadway. If you can tolerate the hipster aesthetic/cache, the food is indeed damn good. Even comparatively unadventurous dishes like Beef with Broccoli blew a new part in my hair. That said, it’s way remote, and I don’t believe they deliver.
Favorite Sushi
Japonica
90 University Place
This is actually the same place I cited last time around, but hey ... it's a fave. In all honesty, my sushi palette isn't so adventurous or sophisticated enough to know exceptional sushi from simply good sushi, but I'm also prone to sticking fairly close to familiar fare (no blowfish sashimi for me, thanks). Japonica's been our neighborhood go-to for eons. I'd love it if they were a little bit cheaper, but I'm happy to support the place. Moreover, sushi that is too cheap is best avoided.
Honorable mention: I do like the bento box lunch specials at Tokyo Bay (183 Duane Street -- below) in TriBeCa.
Favorite Korean
Dons Bogam
17 East 32nd St
What I credibly know about Korean cuisine couldn't cover one side of a piece of loose leaf. That said, I know good Korean BBQ when I have it, and this is the place to get it. It's crowded (like everything on East 32nd Street), but when you do manage to sit down, they do all the work for you. I've been to too many Korean BBQ joints that let you -- the idiotic patron -- cook the meat yourself, and while that's fun and all, it can frequently come with digestive ramifications. That's not the case at Dons Bogam. It's all good stuff, but I wish the portion sizes were bigger.
Honorable mention: Nam Pang on East 12th off University is not bad at all for Korean sandwiches/finger food.
Favorite Cuban
Sophie's Cuban Cuisine
76 Fulton Street
Much like Korean food, what I know about Cuban cuisine isn't much. I was brought to Sophie's by two colleagues, and while it assuredly doesn't look like much, the food is delicious. I've only had the sandwiches, but if they're anything to go by, the rest of their fare is well worth checking out.
Favorite Indian
Haveli Banjara
100 Second Avenue
This is a tenuous one. Time was when I had several favorite Indian restaurants. This was back when East 6th Street was frequently rumored to house one huge, block-long Indian kitchen that fed the numerous eateries that lined its sidewalks. Back then, my criteria for patronizing an Indian establishment were iffy. If they boasted an uproariously garish amount of fire-code-thwarting Christmas lights? That was a plus. If they'd pinned a photograph of Iron Maiden to their front window (as if to suggest that the lads in question had dined there)? I was in. If a sitar player sat in their window with a Casio keyboard with a rubber band wrapped around a single key (y'know...to provide the right drone)? That meant it was good enough for me.
Later on, the wife and I became besotted with a Nouvelle Indian restaurant on University Place called Cafe Spice. We were regulars there to the extent that we tried to set up their manager, the dashing and slightly mysterious Sandeep, with a friend of ours. Sadly, that endeavor never got off the ground, although we did get a lot of free naan and tallboys of Taj Mahal for our efforts.
Sadly, Cafe Spice closed, but was replaced with Jackson Diner, a Manhattan offshoot of the revered Indian restaurant of the same name over in Jackson Heights, Queens. While not quite as stylish as Cafe Spice, Jackson Diner's food was unimpeachable. Regrettably, they, too, closed up shop a few years back, and the space they once occupied is now a Vegan venture called Nix.
As such, we started patronizing Haveli, which has a long history on Second Avenue, just south of East 6th. More recently, though, we believe Haveli has fallen on some hard times. At one point, it gave notice that it was going to close, only to merge operations with another restaurant. In the wake of that, however, they've had some trouble, I gather. On two recent occasions, orders we placed with them via Seamless went astray. This all said, I ordered from them in the last few weeks (by phone, this time) and their Kati rolls and Butter Chicken remain excellent.
We were enthused by the newish Babu Ji on East 13th between University Place and Fifth, for a while. The food was good, and the atmosphere was colorful. I especially enjoyed their "help yourself" beer chiller (and verily helped myself). That said, the maitre'd was uproariously rude to my wife one evening not too long back that I simply couldn't believe it. Suffice to say, we took our business elsewhere and have no plans to return.
We recently spotted a new place on East 18th Street that looks promising, called Gupshup. It looks like it should be pretty good, but Eater gave it sort of a black eye.
Favorite Brunch
Elephant & Castle
68 Greenwich Street
For the past several years, "brunch" has become a dirty word in New York City. No longer a simple culinary descriptor involving Eggs Benedict and maybe a festive Bloody Mary, the term is now synonymous with hordes of monied drunks seeking to extend their Saturday-night imbibing into a next-day Wake & Bake. Across town, various restaurants accommodate this weekly variant of beardless Santa-Connery by offering "bottomless brunches" (meaning, I imagine, that the booze keeps flowing, not that anyone's going sans pants, although that does seem to happen, too). The once-revered tranquility of Sunday morning, in certain neighborhoods, has been replaced by rampant, broad-daylight douchebaggery. It's a plague.
So, yeah, when I say brunch, I'm referring to its more conventional definition. For my money, my best brunches have all been had at Elephant & Castle, an age-old Greenwich Village mainstay that's about the size of a storage shed. Despite their spacial limitations -- charitably described as "cozy" -- Elephant & Castle make a helluva brunch. My personal favorite dish, like you care, is their purée spinach with poached eggs, melted English cheddar and potato pancakes. Simply put, it's fucking exquisite. I could eat that dish every goddamn day and never tire of it.
Their other fare is also fantastic, so seek it out, do.
Honorable Mention: Veselka on the East 9th Street and Second Avenue has long been a beloved East Village institution. Where once I'd repair to its comfy confines in the dead of night after an evening of copious beering -- it being a 24-hour establishment -- to wolf down pierogis. These days, I'm usually there with my kids ... and the pierogis are still the big attraction, for us, although their many brunch variations are all totally delicious. It does get crowded and touristy, these days. Still, it fucking rocks.
Favorite Ramen
Ramen Takumi
1 University Place
Time was when the only ramen I knew were those cheap-o bags of Nissan top ramen you'd buy in lieu of spending huge amounts of money you didn't have on food. Somewhat ironically, the ramen dishes on offer at lovely Ramen Takumi right in our neighborhood are damn tasty, but one might be hard pressed to characterize the eatery as particularly cheap. That said, their big bowls of noodle-based concoctions are always delightful, as are their gyoza appetizers. You have to rub shoulders with a lot of cloyingly youthful NYU types, but hey ... it IS University Place.
--
Okay, that ought to be enough for now. I know what you're thinking, though: "Wait! What about favorite burger? What's your favorite steakhouse? What about Italian food? What's your preferred Middle Eastern place?"
Rest assured, these and other variations will be addressed in the next installment of the Flaming Pablum Grub Guide.
Until then, tip your waiters and bon appetit!
For a few years now, filmmaker Drew Stone has been continually adding to his excellent video series regarding all things NYHC, The New York Hardcore Chronicles. In between shooting amazing projects like the full-length film of the same name and 2017’s epic “Who The Fuck IS That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago,” Stone has sought out alumni of the NYHC scene and the surrounding punk rock community to paricipate in his great, ongoing 10 Questions series.
You might remember me highlighting the one he did with Flaming Pablum favorite RB Korbet of Even Worse back in 2016, but he’s also put luminaries like Davey Gunner of Kraut, Jessie Malin of Heart Attack/DGeneration, John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, Jimmy G of Murphy’s Law, Bobby Hambel of Biohazard, Vinnie Stigma and Roger Miret from Agnostic Front, Yana Chupenko of P.M.S./Wench, the late Todd Youth of Warzone/Murphy’s Law/Agnostic Front/etc., Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags and literally SO MANY OTHERS from practically every conceivable era of the genre (however one cares to personally define it) in front of the mic to weigh in. If you’re a fan/student/acolyte of this scene, this music and its accompanying culture, this series is absolultely required viewing. Find them all here.
More often than not, despite the gruff exteriors and burly reputations of some of these characters, most of the ensuing anecdotes and reminicences are nothing but warm, good natured and practically familial. I was really happy to see Drew run his 10 Questions by none other than beloved NY1 reporter and longtime Punk rocker Roger Clark this week. I’m sure he’s already trying to rope in a bunch more participants, but I’d love Drew to corner Jack Natz (Cop Shoot Cop/Undead/Virus), Bobby Steele (Misfits/Undead), Doug Holland (Kraut/Cro-Mags), Stephan Ielpi (False Prophets), Tim Chunks (Token Entry), George Tabb (Letch Patrol/Iron Prostate/Furious George), Fran Power (Ultra Violence/Clix) and more, but I realize some of these are more likely than others.
As someone who skirted the periphery of NYHC (I went to several shows and was a devout fan of certain bands, but I would feel deeply remiss calling myself a bona fide member of the scence), I cannot claim to be as versed or as deeply ensconced as any of the participants of the 10 Questions series, but because I simply cannot resist a good survey, I decided to answer Drew Stone’s usual 10 Questions (and cheat by adding an eleventh).
First Hardcore Show You Ever Saw
The first hardcore show I was lucky enough to witness would have been in either `84 or `85 at the Ritz on East 11th Street, and it was an amazing line-up of my then-favorites, The Circle Jerks sharing a bill with the incomparable D.O.A., Redd Kross and Toxic Reasons. It was absolute fucking mayhem, and I loved every nanosecond of it.
Club You Miss Most From Back in The Day
There’s a lot to choose from, here, obviously. Most of the series participants cite A7, but that was slightly before my time. CBGB was, of course, the epicenter of so much (and not just hardcore), and its loss continues to sting, but if I’m being entirely honest, I have to say the run of shows I caught at the old Ritz on East 11th Street (i.e. before it moved to 54th Street, before Webster Hall) fires my imagination the most. This all said, I also dearly miss The Marquee on West 21st, Wetlands Preserve in TriBeca, and Tramps in Chelsea, just to name three more.
Funniest Guy in the Hardcore Scene
The usual response here is Vinnie Stigma or Jimmy G. And, yes, while both of those guys are indeed hilarious, I cannot say I actually know either of them. With that in mind, I’m going to say Dean Rispler (Murphy’s Law/Dictators/Brought-Low/Hot Corn Girls/Swilson). I didn’t meet Dean until about 1990 or so (he was dating a friend of mine), but he’s a tirelessly big-hearted, inclusive, knowledgable gent who is always hilarious.
Favorite Slamdancer in the Pit (Past or Present)
Again, the usual responses here are characters like Minus, Rat Bones and various other almost mythilogical luminaries from NYHC’s storied past. While I cannot claim to have any meaningful encounters with those cats, I would cite two separate friends of mine to single out for this category – namely my former classmate Matt Harrington, who managed to start up a cheekily emphatic circle pit at an Urban Blight show, of all things, via the sheer force of his enthusiasm. My second choice would be my longtime comrade Rob D., who’d perfected a sort of gangly, loose-limbed skank with flailing limbs akimbo that was so distincive, he was once written-up for it in a review of a Claw Hammer/Laughing Hyenas double-bill at Los Angeles’ Troubadour. The piece spent more time talking about Rob’s moves than the actual bands’ performances.
Show You Wish You Saw Back in The Day
There are too many to cite, here, but off the top of my head, there was an amazing line-up at the club that was usually referred to as The Roxy on way West 18th Street that featured a lethal line-up of the Cirlce Jerks, Bad Brains, Leeway and an early iteration of Vernon Reid’s Living Colour that would have been amazing. I also quite wish I’d caught the original line-up of Kraut back in their heyday. I saw them reunite and open for GBH in the early 90’s, but never caught them at their prime.
Greatest Show You Saw in Your “Golden Age” of Hardcore
This is also a toughie. Beyond that first Circle Jerks/D.O.A. gig, a few chaotic Butthole Surfers shows – if they count as hardcore --- and a high-octane double-bill of FEAR and The Dwarves, I’d have to say the greatest was seeing the Bad Brains on the Quickness tour at the New Ritz on 54th Street. It’s a cliché, but I’d just never seen anything like it. H.R. hadn’t lost his mind, yet, so was still firing on all cylinders. Also, and this seems to get overlooked a lot, despite the hysteria their music inspired (literally the whole entire floor of the venue was one giant pit), the look of sheer, unfettered joy on Dr. Know’s face while he played was remarkable. I’ve never seen anyone come close to that.
Brooklyn or Queens
I’m a born’n’bred, dyed-in-the-wool Manhattan snob, but more of my favorite bands of that era came from Queens, if I’m being honest.
Best Pizza in New York
Funny, I’m actually working on another sprawling food-related post at the moment. Look for that soon, but, in the interim, while most of my old favorite pizzarias are long gone (much like my favorite record stores), I’m still a big fan of Lombardi’s on Spring Street, although it’s gotten way too touristy for my taste. John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street is also very nice. In terms of just grabbing a quick slice, though, my favorite spots for that are all gone. Also, friends don’t let friends buy $1 pizza. It’s an unforgivable affront to New York’s culinary heritage.
Top 3 Hardcore Drummers
I’m going to upset convention and say Johnny Feedback from Kraut, Lucky Lehrer of the Circle Jerks and John Wright of NoMeansNo.
Message to the Youth
Stop listening to bullshit, mush-mouthed pop/R&B/ersatz hip-hop and invest in the real deal.
Is Hardcore Dead?
In terms of “my” era, hardcore isn’t dead, hardcore is dad, now that we’ve all grown up, gotten married and procreated. In all honesty, I once wrote a profile of Redd Kross for CREEM magazine back in 1992, citing that first show I’d seen wherein they opened for D.O.A. and the Circle Jerks in `84/`85. At the time, I described how they’d renounced their punkier origins in favor of a more pseudo-metallic power-pop style that confused and upset most of the hardcore kids in attendance, concluding the passage by suggesting Redd Kross had the last laugh when “hardcore died” soon afterwards.
That was just myopic on my part, of course. While many of the bands I’d cared about had either flamed out or changed direction (I remember CH3, as one example, turning into a sort of “cowpunk” band in 1984 with the Airborne ep), there were entire generations of bands inspired by those original bands who sprang up in their wake, many of which I wouldn’t discover until years after the fact.
So, no ... Hardcore is nowhere near dead.
I am simply not ready for it.
In about three weeks, we’re going to drop off our youngest, Oliver, at a sleepaway camp in Vermont. Our son will spend the following four weeks at said camp, presumably engaging in predictable summer camp activities. While he’s spent a few overnights away from home at friends’ places, this will be Oliver’s first time truly away from home for a relatively extended period of time. Once again, … I am not ready for it.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, none of this was my idea. My wife envisioned this summer as a broadening experience for our little boy. I’m all for that, of course, and do genuinely believe it will be a positive experience for him, but I remain trepidatious about the whole thing. Beyond the fact that he’s never been away from home for that long, at the risk of sounding coy, Oliver is on a strict regimen of meds for a specific condition. Now, the camp in question is a well-established and revered institution, and it’s in their own best interest to make sure that our son stays on that regimen while in their care, but – in my case – having to relinquish that particular level of parental oversight is not going to be easy. Oliver himself is very responsible about his meds, as well, but I’m just going to have to take a leap of faith and let go. I’m not so good at that, generally.
Beyond that concern, though, Oliver should and will, for all intents and purpose, be perfectly fine. Unlike his father, he’s a resilient and open-minded kid, usually very happy to muck in and gamely try his hand at new things. When my wife signed him up for an after-school rugby program, earlier this year, I was – again – incredulous and reluctant. “Have you seen rugby?,” I gasped upon learning that news. “It’s like fuckin’ ‘Braveheart’!” Much to my relief and astonishment, not only did he willingly participate, he actually enjoyed it – and without any incident or injury.
Moreover, I should probably stop referring to him as a “little boy,” here, as Oliver is now 13 years old, which is coincidentally the very same age I was when my parents first sent me away to sleepaway camp at the dawn of the 1980’s. While I was only at that camp – Great Oaks in the wilds of Maine – for a little under a month, my myriad memories of the place are mostly all positive. Mostly.
Beyond taking part in traditional camp activities like swimming, canoeing, hiking, archery and friggin’ riflery (something few camps offer as blithely today, I’d imagine), I made a clutch of new friends, learned a pile of new swear words in different languages (thanks to the camp’s pointedly international flavor) and developed an appreciation for so much great new music. It was at Great Oaks that I first heard It’s Alive by The Ramones, Q: Are We Not Men? by Devo, Give’Em Enough Rope by The Clash and Joe’s Garage by Frank Zappa. That aspect alone was a complete life-changer, for me.
I say “mostly all positive,” however, as there is one memory of my experience there that still bugs me. I invoked it here not too long back, but it involved a water safety/swimming exercise, of a sort. Myself and the other campers were huddled on a dock that extended onto the black, ice cold waters of the otherwise invitingly named Saturday Pond. Our task was to dive into the water, swim to the bottom and grasp a bit of sand or dirt. When we swam back up and broke the surface, we were to extend our hand up and display said dirt, demonstrating that we'd successfully made it to the bottom. When my turn came, I jumped into that dark, forbidding water, but couldn't seem to successfully propel myself downward. I flailed and fought the disorientation, but I couldn't -- or wouldn't -- make it to the floor of that pond. I gave up too soon and broke the surface with a dramatic gasp, my hands uncontaminated by sand or dirt. "That's going to be a problem, Mr. Smith," said our incongruously portly counselor. A perfect cinematic ending to that summer would have found me triumphantly grabbing double-fistfuls of muck from the bottom of Saturday Pond and vaulting them skyward on the last day, but that never happened. I felt ashamed by that failure. 39 years later, I still feel that way.
That all notwithstanding, though, if I’m being honest, while I was invariably not down with the plan to send me to Great Oaks in the first place, I don’t remember really being homesick when I was there. I just kinda got on with it. Being that Oliver has a remarkably better outlook on life than his old man did at that age, I’m imagining that he’ll be just fine.
The real, unavoidable truth of matter, though, is that even though it’s for a comparatively short span of weeks, I’m invariably going to miss him more than I can express with words.
I remain completely unprepared for that.
Stress can manifest itself in numerous ways. Some people lose their ability to sleep, or concentrate. Some develop a nervous tick. Some break out in hives. Some overeat. Some overdrink. Maybe some people get uncontrollably flatulent or incontinent. Me? Evidently, when under stress, I bite myself.
Over the course of my entire almost-fifty-two-goddamn years, I have routinely subjected the tender interiors of my mouth to the merciless wrath of my own anxious choppers. If I had a dollar for every speech-inhibiting mouth wound I’ve inflicted upon myself over the decades, I’d probably have enough to buy myself a brand new, impervious, artificial tongue. That would come in damn handy, considering the mess I’ve made of my current tongue.
As documented in comparatively ancient posts like this one and this one, this painful habit of mine has stretched well into my adult years. It’s been a fairly frenetic season at work, of late, and we’re still juggling multiple house and child-rearing challenges on the home front, so I am fairly stressed out, at the moment. I guess it was just a matter of time before I did it again.
While I have absolutely zero recollection of doing it, I evidently saw fit to sink my teeth into my tongue this past Monday (in my sleep, maybe?), prompting me to start this week with a gruesome, swollen gash on the tip of my tongue that curbed my ability to clearly speak, among myriad other activities. I’d post a picture, but it’s fairly repulsive. You're welcome.
In any case, ever since then, my life has been taken over by it. Beyond not being able to speak with any semblance of coherence and/or dignity, the searing sting conjured by this comparatively tiny gash has severely curtailed my ability to eat anything without palpably shuddering with pain. I’ve tried topical treatments like Orajel and Kanka, but given the location of the laceration and the activity it routinely sees, nothing seems to work. I am in fucking Hell.
I’m regularly immersing it in Listerine and …. well … beer, in the evenings, but all else seems to cause it irritation. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I treated myself to a Mango Lassi at an Indian joint near my office, yesterday, and the creamy, cooling South Asian confection actually did provide a bit of respite, however brief.
All other advice, tips, warnings or recommendations are welcome. Otherwise, please come kill me.
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