There Went The Neighborhood

A couple of weeks ago there was a very stern sounding knock on our apartment door in the middle of a weekday. I happened to be working from home that day. I answered the door and it was a guy who announced himself as a police officer. He was in plain clothes and he showed me his badge just like an episode of Law & Order. For reasons still unknown he was looking for one of our neighbors, one of the PhD kids who share the next apartment down the hall. It was pretty boring encounter, since I had no information about his "perp," hadn't seen him for a while and didn't know if he was around at all. Even when I do see any of the guys who live there they don't even say hi in the hallway much less tell me their names, they are all pretty anti-neighbor-social so I'm not even sure which one the cop was talking about.

But it did take me back. The only other time I had a cop show up at my door as an adult was at a building I lived in next to the back side of Freeway Park in Seattle. It had happened when I was a kid, but we really don't want to get into the stories of cops showing up to break up fights between my mother and step dad. Nobody here deserves to be forced to take a trip to that part of my head.

In 1998 I lived a building called the Jensonia at 1214 8th Avenue. The Jensonia is a great old 7-story building from the 1920s that survived the creation of the freeway (I-5) between downtown and First Hill in the mid-60s by a matter of about 200 feet. This blow to the neighborhood of First Hill in the 1960s was partially made up for by the creation of the wonderful Freeway Park, which covered a portion of the freeway along this stretch in the 1970s. Anybody who has ever been there knows what a fantastic urban park it is, with waterfalls and walking paths. A nice respite in the middle of the urban surrounding of downtown Seattle. Small, but a much better thing than an open freeway cut.

But this community gem couldn't make up for one part of the bad urban planning of cutting a highway through a city core. The 8th Avenue viaduct. 8th Avenue ran to the bottom of the northwest side of the hill on its way toward Pike St. The way they decided to continue the road to the other side of the freeway was to build a viaduct that begins at the top of the hill on the corner of Seneca St, over a block-long section of the old 8th Avenue, crossing the new I-5 to eventually meet Pike St and then continues as a regular road from there. The Jensonia sits on the bottom of that old section of 8th.

So about 20-30 feet from the front of the building sits a road viaduct that is level with about the 2nd and 3rd floors. Freeway Park made the block quiet, the viaduct made it dark, dingy, a little scary and also served as another economic barrier in addition to the interstate.

Can we say ghetto in the making?

Yes it bordered the park, but you had to walk up about the equivalent of two or three flights of stairs to get to it. At ground level you were looking at the walls of the park. And you were under a bridge.

The Jensonia later also survived the expansion of Virginia Mason Medical Center, which opened a new research building right up against the back (east) side of it in 1999. But by this time where it lived was basically a back alley instead of a neighborhood.

I moved in to apartment 405 in the summer of 1998.


To be continued...


Next - The Neighbors

Records Were Made To Be

I bought a new record the other day. Really. An actual new vinyl record.

Let me qualify that a little bit. I did not buy a brand new album on vinyl or a record that was pressed this year. I bought an album from 1996. But I got it still in its factory seal and I was the first person to put a needle down on the grooves.

It's been a while since I've bought a new record. Most of the vinyl purchases I've made over the last decade or more have been random finds of used records in various stages of wear and tear. One of the best times I had finding records was a few years ago when I was stopping at antique stores with my wife several years ago, before we got married, on our way through Vermont after I had dragged her to a Wilco show in Burlington.

I tell ya, nothing makes you stop and say "Oh shit, I'm an adult now" like actually going antiquing. Or even using the word "antiquing". It was the price to pay for making her travel hundreds of miles to see a band that I had probably seen just a few days earlier anyway.

While my fiance was looking at furniture pieces at one place I stumbled on a great collection of records. I ended up getting some great albums like Elton John's Madman Across The Water, the first Split Enz album (with a really cool design carved right on the black vinyl), Fleetwood Mac Rumors, a live Warren Zevon, a Jefferson Airplane collection and Lenny Bruce at Carnegie Hall (a triple record!!!).

And picking up some great used treasures is great. But I had forgotten what it was like to get a new record.

I wanted for a long time to get a copy of Robyn Hitchcock's Mossy Liquor, a companion piece to his album Moss Elixir from 1996, one of my top three Robyn albums. He released the limited edition, vinyl only Mossy Liquor with six demo versions of songs from the album (one sung in Swedish) and six other songs unavailable anywhere else. I of course had the regular album on CD because, well , it came out in 1996. But I never got the limited edition vinyl at the time because I was probably broke or whatever other reason. I thought I had missed my chance to get it years ago but I did a quick search on Amazon just to see if any of the secondary sellers had a used copy, and much to my surprise I found a new one.

I probably hadn't opened a new record since I was like seventeen or eighteen, and that would have been a twelve-inch single. The last vinyl album I bought was probably The Unforgettable Fire when I was fifteen.

Man, what a rush. I love getting new CDs and all, opening the case and looking at the booklet and studying the art will make me all giddy when I pick up a new album. But I had forgotten how cool the tactical sensation is when opening a record. A CD has it, but not quite as much. An iPod download obviously doesn't have even a smidgen of that.

Ripping open the record and looking at the big artwork, touching the edge of the vinyl, looking at the shiny grooves that carries your music, giving it a sniff (yes I smelled it). Man, there is not too much better than that. The whole package just brings so much to the music listening experience.

I'm not the Luddite that I'm sometimes accused of being. I mean, I only found this record I've been wanting to find for years because of the Internet. The means by which I collect my live bootlegs (I'm well over 200 shows now), BitTorrent, is probably the most advanced file sharing program that exist today. Hell, I wouldn't even have a live show collection without it. The only live show traders I ever met before the Internet trading started was the Dead Heads in college, and that didn't do me any damn good. So thank god for the Internet helping me become a bootleg geek. And I'm not even saying that I'm going to go back to vinyl, which would be impossible anyway. CDs are a great way to listen to music. Fantastic sound, you get artwork, albeit smaller than it used to be with records, and it is portable.

But getting a new record reminded me of just how precious the whole experience of listening to music is to me. It's why I can't get an iPod. Not having anything to open or the lack of having a cover to look at the first time you sit and listen to an album just doesn't appeal to me. That's without even taking in to account the fact that listening to your music on an iPod makes it sound like you are listening to it on an AM radio. Music is just too important to treat like that. It really is the worst thing to happen to music since the cassette player.

It might have something to do with why records are making something of a comeback. I read the other day that there are more records pressed today than ten years ago. And the sound quality is even better than ever, with 180 gram technology (if you can use that word for vinyl) being all the rage. They also make listening so much more of an active instead of a passive experience.

My main music listening is still going to be in CD form but I think I'll make more of an effort to pick up a special album here and there on vinyl.

Gotta go. Time to flip to side two.

As Luck Would Have It

A bunch of couples are getting married today, in record numbers I've read, because of the date. These people seem to think that getting married on 07-07-07 will somehow be good luck for their marriage.

And my friends wonder why it seems like people annoy me so much.

I've written about this topic before, but superstition absolutely annoys the crap out of me. I wonder what kind of brain dead backward-ass country fucks actually think that getting married on the date with all the sevens in it will somehow be good for the future of their marriage. Someone needs to buy these people a clue. What day you get married will have absolutely no impact on if you have a good marriage or not. It is an arbitrary number, made up by man to keep track of time. There is no luck involved, good or bad. That's also why the world didn't end on January 1st 2000 (or 2001 for you sticklers for when the millennium really started).

This is just another reminder of how much I hate superstition, and that includes religion of course.

Not that it takes a Christian trailer trash to believe in such similar nonsense. Many of my theatre brethren have their own dumb-tastic beliefs. I make it a point to say "Macbeth" whenever I'm in a theater just to fuck with their heads, and to point out that it has no bearing on how the show will go that night.

I feel so alone in the world sometimes. When will common sense instead of belief in the supernatural be the basis of our decision making?

The media has loved running stories about the people getting married today. But what I'd like to see, and this will never happen, is a story on all of them in ten years.

I will bet a thousand dollars that the divorce rate among the lucky 7s will be exactly the same as people who got married any other day.

I've got some advise for you ladies. That philandering boyfriend of yours does not become a faithful husband because you marry him on a lucky day. No matter how much you tell yourself that.

I Know What You Are...

I'm sure you've all noticed all the arguments going on in the 24-hour news channel world about the pardon (yes I know it's not that officially, but effectively it is exactly that) that our smirker-in-chief gave to Scooter Libby. For some reason the modern media think that if they bring on one Democratic operative and one Republican operative to scream at each other for 3-1/2 minutes, that somehow resembles good journalism.

But it's what we've got right now. At least Kieth Olbermann brings on a Constitutional scholar to bash the president solo instead of having a counter argument from someone who calls him or her self a "scholar" or "fellow" from some right wing "think tank" like the Hoover Institution or the Cato Institute.

But have you seen the only argument these morons have been able to make? Someone points out that this is a horrible use of Presidential power, goes against the rule of law, a conflict of interest, cronyism at its worst, etc. One can go on and on about what is wrong with what just happened. And how does the pre-programmed right-wing talking head respond? It always starts with, "Well, Bill Clinton..."

What the hell does Bill Clinton have to do with any of this? Absolutely nothing, that's what. These people so know that they can't defend this action in any meaningful way that the only thing they can come up with is "Clinton did it too."

Republicans are such children. They actually are using the excuse that Bill Clinton did some bad things so whatever Bush does is A-OK.

"Georgie, you just stabbed Timmy in the throat with a switchblade!"
"It's OK, last year Billy pulled Suzy's hair."

Look, I'm not going to defend Clinton's ridiculous pardons at the end of his final term. Giving a pardon to a tax-evader who is a big donor or one to your own brother is not defensible. And all of the Democratic talking heads out there should stop defending them.

But it is a pointless argument that the Repubs are making. An earlier infraction by someone else does not make your idiocy acceptable. No wife in the world would accept the excuse that "it's OK because Bill did it" when she catches her husband with his dick in someone else. I'm sure some have tried.

I think the response to that excuse from the right should be the tried and true one your parents gave you when you attempted to pull that crap on them.

"If Bill jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge..."

Neighborhood Pigeon Watch

Living in New York City, which I happen to love, along with all of the really cool things you also see some really fucked up stuff sometimes. Getting almost run over by a cab or seeing some douche-bag drop trash on the ground when he's less than three feet away from a trash can can make you question why you live here. But then you spend a weekend walking around Central Park, going to one of the thousands of great museums, going to see a band at one of the great music clubs and going to all of those things without having to get behind the wheel of an evil car makes up for all of the downside of living in Gotham.

But I saw something last weekend that was really messed up.

My wife's mom and aunt were in town and on Saturday we went to the Baker Street Pub on 1st Ave and 63rd St for brunch. We were sitting at a table in the front by the window and I saw a SUV pull up and double park on the northeast corner.

A guy got out of the drivers side and walked out to the edge of the sidewalk on the 63rd Street side and threw what looked like seeds on to the sidewalk and was whistling at the pigeons up on the ledge of the building, pretty much right above us.

Now this guy just didn't strike me as a bird lover just feeding some pigeons because he likes them. Who the hell pulls up on a random corner just to jump out and feed pigeons?

And it was obvious the pigeons got a bad vibe from this guy too. They flew over to the side of the street where he was throwing the food but they didn't land on the ground. They hung out on other ledges and the phone booth above him. They didn't actually fly down to the sidewalk until he walked back to the SUV.

This is a very different response than the one the pigeons have to the old woman who I see feeding them by the exit ramp from the Queensboro Bridge on 62nd Street. They flock to her before she even gets the food out. They know she loves them.

The pigeons knew something was wrong with this guy. He walked back to his greenhouse gas pollution machine and hung out there. The pigeons finally came down and started pecking at the food on the sidewalk.

Then the guy walked back over toward the birds really quietly carrying a cartoonishly huge net like the Children Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He then made a big swoop straight down on them from the top. I almost jumped out of my chair. What the fuck was that?!

Luckily he missed them all. The pigeons were too smart for the ass hole. He jumped back into his vehicle after only one attempt and sped off. We saw the reason a few seconds later, he had seen a cop car coming.

For the life of me I can't figure out why someone is trying to catch wild pigeons. I don't imagine that caught birds make good homing pigeons, so what the hell is this guy trying to do? I suppose it's possible that there is a culture out there that eats pigeon, and god knows we are represented by every world culture possible here in New York.

But that was just fucked up. I know there are people who don't like pigeons and I've never really understood that. They don't do anything to hurt anybody. I just don't get the hate.

You want to catch and kill a public nuisance why not go after the ass holes who feel the need to drive a car in New York?


I am really glad I didn't get up and go to try to stop the guy as my instinct made me want to do. My wife belongs to a group called the Pigeon People and she got an email notice from them on the very same day warning about a pigeon trapper spotted recently. Their description of the guy seemed to match what we saw and then it went on to say who they thought the guy was, based on what information source I don't know, and had a name for him. And they also said he had a record that included manslaughter and assaulting someone with a box cutter.

So yeah, glad I didn't challenge that guy.

But be careful little pigeons. A bad man in the city is after you.

For any of you that live in New York, if you see this guy in action try to get a license plate number and a photo if you can. Then send it to the Pigeon People.

This ass wipe needs to be taken out. Or have his eyes poked out by a flock of birds.

UR My BFF & A GR8 Dad. LY & H2CUS. YR Son.

I got an instant message from my cell phone company the other day. It was an important announcement to tell me that all text massages on Father's Day will be free. Because, you know, nothing shows your father how much you love him like an impersonal note on his cell phone on Father's Day.

I guess this is really doing a service for the modern family. Now you can send Dad a Father's Day message without having to think about it in advance and without blowing the 41 cents it takes to send a card. And now your friendly cell phone provider has made it possible to do it while also avoiding the expense of the dime it usually takes to send a text.

Thanks T-Mobile! Bringing families together. How lucky we are to live in such a technologically advanced age. We can maintain our relationships with our parents without ever having to see them again!



For those of you wondering - Yes, I did have to Google search to find text message abbreviations to be able to title today's post.

Shores Of Jersey

OK, so once again I'm really sorry I haven't written anything at all in almost two weeks. I've been working out in beautiful, cosmopolitan Newark, New Jersey for a long stretch this month. Once I get home from working all day, after an hour-and-a-half one way commute, I'm just too beat to get my brain to think of anything interesting. I know, when have I let the lack of anything interesting to write about stop me before?

Anyway, I'm still in the middle of a long work week, but I thought I'd say hi.

In the meantime, check out this brand new, hot off the editing machine video from the Dresden Dolls. It's for the song Shores of California off of Yes, Virginia... and I find it weirdly interesting. For some reason they decided to parody the old California Girls video from David Lee Roth. It's an odd choice, but Amanda Palmer acting all freaky pretty much works in anything.

Five more days until I'll be seeing them at Radio City Music Hall with Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry and Erasure...

I've got to get going. Time for the long, ugly ride to Jersey. Garden State my ass.

Pairings

If you've ever been to a wine tasting you know that they also include a lot of advice about "pairings" with food. They tell you what kind of wine to drink with whatever food you are eating, which for some reason is usually the type of meat. I guess there is an assumption that vegetarians don't drink wine.

They even do this with beer now. With the increase in popularity of micro brews I've seen beer tastings advertised that includes how to pair your beer to the appropriate food. I imagine that a hefeweizen would go with bratwurst.

But really, who needs to know what food to pair with alcohol? I think a much better education would be what booze to match with your emotional state or occasion. That's much more useful to people than what kind of wine to have with a porterhouse. And it addresses more directly why people drink.

I have a few of my own suggestions. Feel free to add your own.

Let's start with a positive emotion. Extreme happiness. For this, the suggested pairing is Cosmopolitans. If you see any pictures of me from the weekend I got married, I don't think you'll see me not holding a Cosmo.

For anxiety? No better match than Jägermeister. Calms the nerves real nice. Throw in an Ativan for an extra strength nerve calming.

Now for a specific anxiety instead of just general, you may need to change that up. For anxiety that comes from a fear of flying a special mix may be needed. This is when you pull out the big guns of an Ativan and two pre-flight vodka cranberry juices. Follow this with two in-flight vodka-crans and you'll be right as rain. For flights over 4 hours, add an additional vodka-cran every hour.

What about family reunions? If yours is anything like mine, a bunch of backward-ass country fucks, you'll need lots and lots of Screwdrivers. And probably some marijuana. And if you can get your hands on any opiates...

And depression. Is there really any other better use for alcohol than depression? But there are different drinks for different depressing occasions.

If you are in your early twenties and your college girlfriend dumps you, go with a twelve pack of Keystone Light and a bottle of tequila.

If you are a Cubs fan and you just saw your team come two outs away from going to the World Series only to blow it, just keep drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon until you pass out. If the Cubs win the World Series, well, pretty much the same applies.

Didn't get that job you wanted? There are a couple of ways to go. If you missed out on a white collar executive position, go with twelve year-old scotch. You deserve it.

Get turned down for that crappy blue collar factory job? Budweiser is your friend.

If you are an artistic type and you didn't get that big part or story published, punish yourself with some Rumple Minze.

Now if you did get any of the above jobs and you want to celebrate, go with a Guinness or a Boddingtons. Unless you're the executive guy, then just upgrade to the 30 year-old scotch.

If your insane mother comes to visit for a weekend, you'll need three bottle of Pinot Noir.

Under 40 birthday? Sangria.

Over 40 birthday? Vodka.

And for a celebration I'm planning on having later this year, when the Yankees miss the playoffs and finish in (or close to) last place? Break out the Miller High Life baby!!! Celebrate the demise of the Evil Empire with The Champagne of Beers.

Those are just a few suggestions. Feel free to let me know yours.

And remember the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "To Alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

Sometimes You Want To Go...

Will return to the topic of on-line "community" a little later. Today, a little levity.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was ordering a pizza the other day and, as usual, the guy on the phone where we order our pizza from knew what I wanted before I finished. We order from the same place about once a week and we always get the same thing, large pie with fresh basil on the whole thing and black olives on half. The guy who runs the place always finishes my sentence for me after I say "Large pie with fresh basil..."

He'll say "Basil whole thing and black olives on half. Hey how ya doin' buddy," in classic New York pizza guy accent. We have a little bit of banter and he wishes me good weekend, having called me "buddy" several times. And I love it. The guy is so nice to me and it is such a difference from Boston. And in Boston the blue collar folk would call you "pal" or "guy," which both just come across as more terse than friendly.

So the other day when I got off from ordering and kind of said out loud how much I liked that, my wife said, "Of course you do. You like being recognized at places. You've liked that since you were a teenager hanging out at Denny's."

She really nailed it on the head. I really do. I love being a regular. I always have, just like she said. And she was right, it did start back at Denny's in Chicago's northwest suburbs, on the corner of Rand and Dundee Roads.

Now of course Denny's is not the hippest place in the world to hang out. But as a teen in white, middle-class suburbia there were not a lot of options. The redneck jocks with pick-up trucks already had the Burger King parking lot. Us New Wave kids had the local teen dance club (called Photon) and Denny's.

Pretty much every Waver kid from the general Arlington Heights, Palatine, Barrington, Rolling Meadows area hung out there on weekends, and every night during the summer. I hung out there so much that the hostess and most of the waitresses knew my name. It also helped that my friends and I actually tipped pretty well for teenagers. They pretty much let us hang out there as long as we wanted. We could spend hours at the back corner table drinking coffee and they were OK with it. I think the people who worked the night shift there liked the social outcasts like us. I never saw them be that friendly to a preppy or jock type that walked in. I was such a regular there that one night I pulled up as another group of people were walking in and it looked especially crowded. I thought we would have to wait for our table, but when we walked in the hostess (Gloria if I remember her name correctly) said, "Denny (as I spelled my name then) your table is all set for you," and we went back and sat down. She made the people who walked in first wait, because she had seen us pull up in the parking lot.

So of course I love it there. The Waver hangout Denny's was a little teenage oasis in the arid desert of white suburbia. But I had to leave that all behind when college started.

But I have had a regular place to hang out where people knew me just about every place I've lived since then. Of course, after the Denny's the rest of the places are bars.

Once at college I didn't really hang out at the college bars. I was one of those guys that hung out at the townie bars. They had much more character than the college bars. Not that I was the only student at them, but there were a lot less of us that liked the low-key bars over the meat-market frat bars. So much nicer to be able to have some food and beer in actual pint glasses instead of plastic cups at the Jackson Street Pub rather than listen to annoying Bon Jovi Music and giggling sorority bimbos ordering "sex on the beach" at the Gin Mill.

After I moved to Seattle I started hanging out at a jazz bar downstairs from the theatre I was working at where a lot of us from upstairs had ongoing tabs. That was the greatest thing ever. No matter how broke I was I could get a beer and a burger. The phrase "put it on my tab" is one of the coolest things to be able to say.

I think I still owe them money.

I had other place in town where I hung out and bartenders knew my name, and would give me lots of free beers.

After I moved back to Chicago I found another place because of working at a theatre. A bar across the street from the Steppenwolf and next door to the place I was working, The Royal George, was brand new while I was working there. So a bunch of us from my show were the very first regular customers they had. Sometimes the only customers they had. I had my very last cigarette in that bar, sitting there alone with the manager working the bar and nobody else in the place. It was the kind of place that knew me so well that I would have my beer sitting in front of me by the time my butt hit the bar stool.

Of course I didn't really get this in Boston, because people there just suck so much, including, and maybe especially bartenders. Except for a short time that I was eating lunch during a temp job at the bar at South Station, and the woman behind the bar there got to know me. And I haven't found my place in New York yet because we don't get to eat out all that much, and when we do it is always someplace different, and I don't get the chance to hang out in bars like I used to.

I guess that's why I like it so much that the pizza guy knows my order.

I don't know, does this make me needy? An attention whore?

Anybody else just love being a regular? What's your favorite place?

I know at least one of my readers (initials TBO) is as big a fan of the concept of being a regular as much as me.

What about the rest of you?

Oh, and I know the title of this post is pretty lame, but I couldn't think of another pop culture reference that related to this topic.

Mr. Mayer And The Fluffy Circle

I suppose it was a good thing to give it a try. But in the end there just wasn't anything interesting/fulfilling about it, despite its lofty aspirations.

So I've quit the Roundtable.

Not that I think too many of the members were sad to see me go. And that was really the problem.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not whining or anything about it not working out. I really don't care all that much. It's just somewhat annoying when something is not what it is presented to be. The whole idea, as it is sold by the guy who started it, who calls himself RW, was that you could write about any topic you want on your turn and that people would join in on the conversation by leaving comments. The inspiration, supposedly, came from the whole concept of the old Algonquin Roundtable of Dorothy Parker fame.

Sounds great, right?

Well it could be, but it's not. I had several weeks before it was my turn to lead the discussion so I had plenty of time to share my thoughts on the other members' topics and they had plenty of time to see my kind of twisted sense of humor and my general way of making arguments. They also had plenty of time to see my usual blog writings and know what kind of things to expect from me. Remember, "any topic you want" was supposed to be the rule.

Look, I know I'm the guy who walks into a party where people may be having a conversation about the latest episode of American Idol and I quickly turn the whole thing into a discussion of the corporate control of the media and entertainment with the underlying purpose to feed the Military Industrial Complex and that I can do it with long run-on sentences. It's what makes me so charming. More importantly, it's what I do. You can't ask me to join the conversation and then bitch about what I talk about. Don't invite a hippy to your party if you don't like the smell of patchouli (seriously, that's why I never have hippies over).

So after enduring weeks of fluffy Roundtable conversations along the lines of "guilty pleasures" and "who would play you in a movie of your life" I finally got my chance to lead the discussion. I've got no problems with those types of conversations, and I was more than amused to participate in them. I just like to be able to discuss more serious topics sometimes. Besides, I thought the Algonquin Roundtable was the inspiration and not the 10th grade cafeteria. And I figured it would be cool to have a little bit deeper of a debate for my topic. I decided to talk about the whole idea of selling out and how far people will go for their own financial gain even if it hurts and oppresses others. And of course gave it a provocative title, Whoring. I thought people would dig it.

Well, yes and no. The debate became lively and entertaining I thought. It even got fairly heated at times. It was great. Aside from the snarky comments from RW. There is one thing I figured out about him in the time I was there. You know that friend who thinks he's funny but isn't even close to it? We all know somebody like that. He's that guy.

But then the very next Roundtable was led by RW, who went off on this weird ramble about "shutting up" and "who cares about your opinion" that was basically a thinly veiled dig at my post. Then a couple of days later he posted a rant at our info site going off on political posts and that Roundtable isn't about that and it gets too vicious and blah blah blah. The best part was that he said he wasn't trying to "control anybody's freedom of expression" but then said to keep Roundtable politics free and "if that isn't possible, just go away." When challenged he wouldn't admit that it was aimed at me, that he was just generally putting it out there because he just thought about it or whatever. He is also under the weird impression that Dennis Miller is a comedian.

If I wanted to deal with that much passive-aggressiveness I could have stayed in Seattle.

He, and a couple of others there, seem to have a misconception about what the Algonquin Roundtable was about. No topics were taboo there and things often got heated and very political. Jeez, why do you think it had been referred to, by one of its participants, as the "vicious" circle? Many of the people at this virtual Roundtable seem to think that all they did back then was talk about their favorite cocktails and what kind of animal they'd like to be. Dorothy Parker was not the Paris Hilton of her day for cryin' out loud.

So I stuck with it a little longer even though I offered RW the chance to tell me he wanted me to go. His passive-aggressive nature wouldn't even let him do it when invited.

But after my post on the appropriateness of hate the writing was on the wall. The very first comment was from a Roundtable member saying they didn't like to talk about politics and religion (though that wasn't the main point of the post) and many others didn't even join in the conversation. RW's link to my post in his blog was a one sentence dismissive and derisive comments. Again, digging at me in the most passive-aggressive way he could come up with as he wouldn't even come into the discussion and challenge me head on. Aggressive is fine. But that passive version is mind numbingly stupid. Got something to say to me? Fucking say it you pussy.

So I left. It really was pointless anyway. If you write something that provokes people to write comments in your blog, that's great. You know you've done something to stir the intellectual musings of some random person out there. But this forced conversation thing is exactly that, forced. And in those kind of settings it is rare for anyone to have anything interesting to say. Kind of like high school and family reunions.

-----------------------------------------------------

I'm working on trying to turn this into a larger comment/discussion on the whole idea of the online "community" and if it really exist or is valid. But this got to be long enough for one post and I still need to simmer it for a little longer and gather my thoughts to see what I want to say/ask.

Pretty Hate Machine

Well it's my turn to lead the Roundtable discussion once again. I think in honor of the passing of Jerry Falwell today's topic should be hate.

When I found out that Falwell died yesterday I was giddy. It was like a colon cancer had been cut out of the world, albeit much later than it should have been as the disease of bigotry and intolerance has spread to so many other vital organs, most notably the White House. I expressed out loud to several people how happy I was he was gone and that I was glad to learn that he died alone and I hoped it hurt and he was scared. Pretty much all the same stuff I wrote in yesterday's post.

Many people greeted my statement with the same twisted chuckle I had. There are others who are aghast at saying something so mean about someone who just died, even if he was a total douche bag.

Others will say that you shouldn't celebrate the death of someone. But a lot of these same people are the ones who would cheer the killing of Osama bin Laden. A dead religious fanatic is a dead religious fanatic, and it's a good thing either way. I don't support killing people, not even the death penalty for criminals, but I don't have any problem with celebrating the death of an evil person.

I got into an argument one time with some namby-pamby Christian type who told me that hate was always a bad emotion and I should love more. I told him that was bullshit. Hate is a human emotion like any other and it can be positive or negative. I gave him one easy example.

I hate war.

Nothing wrong with that kind of hate. And if you think it's wrong to hate war, well you got problems and your name is probably Dick Cheney.

Sure, lots of hate can be bad. The hatred that Hitler and the Nazis had for the Jews was terrible. The hate that caused the lynchings of countless black Americans by the KKK or their supporters over the years is revolting. The hatred of homosexuals by religious conservatives has led to the current spewing of nonsense by politicians like Mitt Romney and our idiot president that gay people are a threat to traditional marriage, which has in turn led to a rise in violence against gays and lesbians around the country. That hate has also led to the likes of people like Fred Phelps blaming the victims of those violent crimes for what has happened to them. He's the guy who led protesters at Matthew Shepard's funeral holding up signs like "God Hates Fags."

But hate can be used for good. Morris Dees hates racism and intolerance. He turned that hate into the Southern Poverty Law Center that works to fight against bigotry in all its forms. That hate has led to a major weakening of the Klan and other neo-Nazi groups.

I know that some of you are thinking, "But Deni, isn't the kind of venom you're spewing about people like Jerry Falwell just as bad as the hate they spread for women and gays?"

No, it's not. If you can't see the difference I just feel sorry for you. Think of it as this example. Hitler hating the Jews? Bad. Hating Hitler? Good.

So I'm OK with the hate that I have. I hate bigots. I hate gay bashers. I hate child molesters. I hate rapists. And I hate people like Jerry Falwell and those who follow them.

So the Roundtable questions this week are these. How do you feel about hate? Who do you hate? Even if you haven't said it out loud, isn't there someone who has died and your first thought about them was "good riddance?"

Be honest now.

Let me have your thoughts.

Good Night And Good Riddance

What a beautiful day in New York City today. Sunny and warm with a high over 80, a nice breeze in the air and the wonderful news that the scum sucking maggot Jerry Falwell finally did the world a favor and left it.

For years we have been subjected to this vile man and his hateful message of intolerance. We had to listen to him question the integrity and honesty of Martin Luther King Jr. and speak out in favor of segregation. We had to listen to him demonize women and their fight for equality. We had to hear him spread his most vile hate toward homosexuals and proclaim that AIDS was their punishment from God. And then we had to listen to him blame pretty much everybody but his type of Christian for the events of September 11, 2001.

He left none of us blameless in that last one. Liberals, feminists, abortionists, homosexuals, secularists, the ACLU and The People For The American Way were all to blame for crashing jets in to the World Trade Center is his diseased little mind.

And he was always wrong about everything. Wrong about segregation and MLK. Wrong about the rights of women to be treated as equals. Wrong about the reasons for the terrorists attacks on New York. Always wrong about every view he ever espoused about homosexuality, often comparing to pedophilia and bestiality.

Or the laughable claim that it was destroying "traditional" marriage.

He stood against everything that was good in the world. The progress of our country may have been set back an entire generation because of his bullshit.

He was a lying, misogynistic, racist, gay bashing hate monger. The world is better place with him no longer in it. It should have happened years sooner.

I take great pleasure in knowing he died alone. I hope it was painful. I hope he was scared.

------------------------------------------------------
For a better (and more entertaining) blurb about his death than what I just wrote check out DeathWatch 2007.

A great story from Salon's archives about how the immoral asshole paid people to make false claims about Bill Clinton (you know the ones, Vincent Foster's "murder" and Bill's drug smuggling ring, among others) can be found here.

Campus Progress has a good short bio on the bigot.

Brain Freeze

My good friend The Beige One is hosting this week's Roundtable, which means we are only one week away from it being my turn again. Shit, whatever will I wear?

Well, while I ponder that go ahead and check out what Beigey is talking about this week. He wants to know what you do to shut your brain off at the end of a long day/week/month of being busy and stressed out. Besides drugs of course. That's not very interesting or original.

So head on over to Missive From The Beige and join the banter about good brain drain activities.

Fetal Position

Ah, Mother's Day. A time to celebrate your mother and all the wonderful things she's done for you. A chance to thank her for always being there for you and for her unconditional love and support.

What utter bullshit.

It's just another in a long line of holidays made up by Hallmark and the flower industry to sell their wares. This one is right up there with Valentine's Day, Administrative Professionals Day (the new politically correct Secretaries Day), Father's Day, Sweetheart's Day (because the flower sellers needed yet another day they could charge ten times the normal price for roses), Bosses Day, Grandparent's Day and Easter.

Damn I hate these nuisance holidays. Oh I know what you're thinking, that it's good to honor your mother and show her some love and.....zzzzzzzzzzz....

Oh puhlease! You know, if you love your mother and all, think she's the bee's knees, is your best friend, biggest supporter, the gosh-darnedest greatest mother ever do you really need a day on the calendar to remember to tell her? And should the rest of us have to be pressured into dealing with it even if we don't really feel that way about our mother?

And what the fuck? Aren't mothers always telling us that motherhood is its own reward? They should be taking us out to dinner.

I suppose I might feel differently if I liked my mother. Probably not though. I still think Valentine's Day is fucking idiotic and I love my wife a lot.

I liked this a ton better when I didn't have to deal with it. That was basically my twenties. I moved to the west coast and never sent my mother a card or gift on Mother's Day. Come to think of it, I don't think I did for her birthday either. This made my life a lot easier. See, when you have a mother as bat shit crazy as mine, life is better when she's mad and not speaking to you. The happiest times of my life in my twenties were when she never called. Eventually she would always start bothering me again because she would realize that the silent treatment didn't work at all. She always has this image in her head that when she feels she's wronged she can stop calling me until I call to beg her forgiveness. Like I said, bat shit crazy.

But these are not these times anymore. Now that I'm married my wife doesn't want me doing this because she figures that my mother might blame her. That's actually a pretty reasonable belief seeing how my mother has acted toward her other children's spouses on occasion. So we send things on the pointless holidays now.

And she calls too damn much. To tell me I never call.

Most people can get that clue.

Look, I know there are those of you out there that think your mother is great and love giving her gifts on Mother's Day. I'm happy for you. I really am. But some of us had a childhood that less resembled a Norman Rockwell painting and more a bad ABC After School Special. Our house was a den of violence growing up. Our bitter, angry mother whacked us around, which of course socialized us to conflict resolving by the same method. My brother, sister and I were always beating the crap out of each other when Mom wasn't.

So forgive me the whole idea of "honoring Mom" leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Besides, do you know how hard it is to find a card that says, "Thanks for the broom across the back for the time I accidentally spilled dirt out of the dust pan on to the garage floor Mom," without a special order?

Or, "If it weren't for you Mom, I wouldn't have gotten to spend all that fun time in therapy. So thanks!"

And, "Mom, with you I got the best of both worlds. Physical and emotional abuse."

And she is coming.

She arrives late Thursday night to stay with us this weekend. She's leaving early Sunday, but still. I have to deal with actual Mother's Day in my face this year and have to actually do stuff with her for the weekend. Which will mean going to The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway because that is something that we can do that will require no talking. I wanted to go to something like Inherit The Wind or the just opened Radio Golf, August Wilson's final play in his ten play cycle, but my mother doesn't like to go to any theatre or see any movie that requires her brain to function. So The Drowsy Chaperone it is.

And I get to do joyful things like have to hang out with my obnoxious mother who likes to do embarrassing things in public in places like Sardi's and the Empire State Building. As an added bonus, she's a Born Again Christian now. Oh joy.

The best part is that I will regress back to my moody, pensive, angry 17-year old self. And that will be so much fun for my wife!

I think I'll be buying a bottle of red wine tomorrow.

Prophecy

Hey. Sorry I have been in touch for a while. How a doin'? Me? I'm good. Busy as all get out. Been working out in Newark everyday for the last week and a half. That's why I haven't called lately, the three hour round trip commute on top of a whole day of work has been stealing all my time. No, that's no excuse I know, I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, I'm just checking in to say "what's up". So what's up?

Don't have much today.

But I do have a great thing to share. You all know I am obsessed with downloading live shows on the internet (if you don't know, see here) and I got a great one the other day from the Bard of Barking, Billy Bragg.

In an intro to one of his songs he said this:

I don't know if you in Philadelphia have ever heard of Rupert Murdoch, maybe you have maybe you haven't. I'll give you a quick biographical description of this chap.

He was born in Australia supposedly. And he bought lots and lots of media things in Australia. Built up an empire and that gave him the right to have his own Prime Minister. So having done that, he came to England, bought lots of media, and that gave him the right to have his own Prime Minister.

And now he's coming to America. He's bought the New York Post, The Village Voice, he's about to buy six TV channels so he can have his own station, as big as CBS and the others. And once he's got that, he'll be able to have his own President.

I warn you now, this man is coming. And in his wake there plenty of other people with quite similar ideas.

In England, not only does he have The London Times, he also has a newspaper called The Sun. Which is not unlike your Sun, much of the stories are in fact made up. They do kind of like, "Two-Headed Girl Found in Brixton" and things like that. And stuff like, "The Recession is Over," and you know, "We Have Turned the Corner."

-------

This is a song about Rupert Murdoch and his friends. How they bend the news when they say we've turned the corner. They mean we turned the corner into their direction.

This is called "It Says Here."


---Billy Bragg, Philadelphia, PA - May 8, 1985

Man, all the way back in 1985. Billy tries to warn us. He really tried. If only we had listened...

It says here that the Unions will never learn
It says here that the economy is on the upturn
And it says here we should be proud
That we are free
And our free press reflects our democracy

Those braying voices on the right of the House
Are echoed down the Street of Shame
Where politics mix with bingo and tits
In a strictly money and numbers game

Where they offer you a feature
On stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for sex offenders

It says here that this year's prince is born
It says here do you ever wish
That you were better informed
And it says here that we can only stop the rot
With a large dose of Law and Order
And a touch of the short sharp shock

If this does not reflect your view you should understand
That those who own the papers also own this land
And they'd rather you believe
In Coronation Street capers
In the war of circulation, it sells newspapers
Could it be an infringement
Of the freedom of the press
To print pictures of women in states of undress

When you wake up to the fact
That your paper is Tory
Just remember, there are two sides to every story


from Brewing Up With Billy Bragg

A Day In The Life

I know it has been a little to long between posts, but I'm just uninspired. But I feel like I have to write something since my friend Joe has told me that I need to post more often as it is, and I might get another email from my brother-in-law telling me to get off my ass and post something more often than once a week.

But do we really want to force it? Do a little surfing around the blogosphere sometime. 98% of blogs are boring shit about people's boring lives. Why some people think that writing about their parent-teacher conferences at their kids' school or their tip to the dentist is interesting to anyone besides them I'll never know.

But hey, if you want quantity over quality (not that you get either here) I can play that game. So I'll tell you about my mundane day yesterday.

I puttered around the apartment in the morning, drinking coffee. The last of my Mexican blend from Whole Food, so I made a mental note to get more coffee. My beautiful wife came home briefly in the mid-morning to grab something to have for lunch since she wouldn't be able to get out later. That was nice, but it made me leave later than I wanted to run some errands.

I took off for the subway to run downtown. I grabbed a 5 train from 59th/Lexington to Union Square. I had two things I needed to accomplish there. First, my Sony CD Walkman has been slowly dying for the last several weeks. The buttons don't work all the time and I have had to whack it a bunch of times before I can get it to play. It finally got to the point yesterday that it wouldn't cooperate even after multiple smacks.

Being without my portable music is like being without legs, so this has to be remedied immediately. I went to the Virgin Megastore to check out their selection. Guess what? They have no selection. What the fuck? They sell CDs but not portable CD players. Tons of fucking iPods and mp3 (or as I like to call them, shit files) players, but no portable CD players. So I run over to the Circuit City to see what they've got.

Now normally, having my headphones on in these kind of stores is crucial because their employees are always trying to help you and I hate that. I just want to look at shit and pick out what I want on my own and if I have any questions I'll call you dammit. But my player is crapped out so I had to just leave my headphones on and pretend I was listening to something. In this situation it was really useful because when you go to a store to get a CD Walkman these days some ass hole ties to get you to buy an iPod instead. And I wasn't really in the mood to explain to some snot nose with his pants waist around his knees that iPods are for novice, uninformed, casual music listeners and that I'm not one of those so please kindly fuck off.

Anyway, they had like two to choose from there ans they both sucked. I ran over to the Staples across the Square for something else I needed.

Last week I got one of those Case Logic wallets that has pages and pages of sleeves to hold non-cased CDs. I've been needing a way to store my live show bootlegs. At this point I've been putting them in single two-sided sleeves and leaving them just kind of stacked around the apartment. This is not my lovely wife's preferred way for me to store them. Or mine, I can never find what the hell I'm looking for. So I got one that holds 208 discs. Anything bigger than that was too bulky and I figure when I needed to expand I would get another instead of having one that holds over 300 because those are just too huge. And I figured this one would be good for a while.

Wrong. I didn't even come close to fitting all my bootlegs in that one.

I needed another so I went to the same place I got the last one since I wanted the same exact thing.

One thing I hate about the big stores like Staples lately is that they camp an employee out by the door to say hello to people. This always weirds me out. Even though I'm 36 years old I still feel like I'm being watched like a teenager in a record store when this happens. The person at the door says "Hi there, how are you today," but I know what they really mean is "I've got my eye on you, so don't even think about stealing anything you stupid hippy."

I walked into the Staples and I couldn't figure out what was going on. The whole place was switched around and nothing was where it was the last time I was there. And then when I finally found the media storage stuff, horror of horrors, they didn't have my 208-disc holder.

"Dammit, I'm running 0-for-2" I thought.

Then it hit me that I was at the wrong Staples. I had bought it at the one over in Chelsea not the one in Union Square. And that one is right across 6th Avenue from a Best Buy, which would have made it a much better place to go than Union Square. Crap.

Now it's too late for me to go up to Chelsea because I've got to get to the Lower East Side. I catch the subway down to 2nd and Houston and buy a couple of tickets at The Mercury Lounge for next month's Southern Culture On The Skids show that my buddy Joe and I will be attending. I like to buy tickets at the box office whenever possible to avoid service charges.

Now it's almost 1:30 and I have to get back to the Upper East Side for a training session for a standardized patient case (I wrote about this line of work I'm in before) I'm playing next month at Cornell Medical School. I catch a M15 bus up 1st Avenue.

Despite New York City being the center of good public transportation in America, the east side of Manhattan is woefully under-served by the subway, which is why I'm on a slow moving bus heading north on 1st Avenue. On the plus side they come about every 30 seconds during the day, but on the down side you are stuck in the same traffic as all of the ass holes who think driving in New York is a good idea. On top of that, since I didn't get a new CD player I had to listen to people talk on their cell phones on the bus. Another thing, among the hundreds, that's better about the subway is that cell phones don't work under ground.

I get done with Cornell at 4:00 and I'm still annoyed that I only got one of three things done that I wanted to get done, though I am really happy that I got the Southern Culture tickets. But I'm the kind of person that gets really obsessed with, well, everything so I just can't accept that I don't have my CD player or my disc storage thingy yet.

Once again I'm on the subway towards downtown. I hit the Staples and Best Buy in Chelsea and have the stuff I need in no time, which makes me even more annoyed with myself for my earlier bad decision to hit Union Square instead. But at least I've got my new music player and music storage case so I'm happy. And I make it home in time to greet my honey when she comes home from work.

So that was my day.

See, that's the kind of mundane nonsense that I could give you everyday if I wanted to make sure I was posting often enough. It would be OK if my life was more interesting, but it's not. Don't get me wrong, after we go to Southeast Asia in November I'll have a bunch of interesting journal type entries to add.

But do you really want me to keep a daily diary like all of those bored housewives with blogs out there?

Change Like Bobby Brady

In this week's Roundtable, Suzanne is looking for a change. She's itching to change something about her life but she doesn't quite know what.

To help her out, she wants to know what you would like to change about your life.

How this helps her with her need to change something I'm not sure. But go ahead on over to Perfecting The Fine Art Of Procrastination and tell her anyway. She's dying to know.

Oh, and I promise to do a post this week. Really, I promise. I've just been uninspired this week.

Evan Kremin Live On Stage!

Time once again to reach into the old comment bag and see what people have been saying to me since the last time I did this a few months back.

Today I'll just do one. I got this comment last month on my post about Evan Kremin from last October, from some guy who calls himself Richie M.

I've been to a few Emergenza nights and seen Evan Kremin perform. Out of dozens of bands to compete, his band keeps making it to the next level. I'm not saying the whole room loves him universally, but a lot of people seem to think he's doing something right.

But his music is beside the point. Think it through for a minute: This guy writes his songs, rehearses his band, probably pays them for non-paying gigs, and then sticks his neck out performing in NEW YORK FREAKIN' CITY, the toughest crowd on the planet. He's creating something and, whether you care for it or not, he has the nads to get out there and try like hell to sell it over. What do you do? Is this blog about the sum of it?

Worst of all, when someone searches his name on Google, as I did, the first hit to come up is your blog. Think about what that does to a potential fanbase, let alone to the guy himself.

Listen to your friends and your conscience (which you reveal), and at least take his name off your blog. Offer him the same anonymity you grant yourself. Call him "EK" or something.

I don't see what roasting him does for you. You seem like a fairly witty guy -- decide whether to use your brain for good or not.

OK, let's assume that Evan Kremin himself did not write this, despite my inclinations to the contrary. We'll go ahead and assume it is just one of his friends or family members, which is his fan base.

Yes, Richie, if that is your real name, the crowd at the Emergenza nights (i.e. battle of the bands) does seem to be into him. But have you noticed that after the show he walks up to just about every person in the room that was cheering for him and seems to know their names and gives them a hug? Being able to fill a bar with your friends so that you can win a meaningless band competition doesn't make you any good. It makes you pathetic, and his friends aren't doing him any favors by encouraging him like that either. A real friend would pull him to the side one day and explain to him that he sucks and that mullets haven't been hip since 1986.

And like I pointed out in the original post, Evan's got an ego the size of Montana and people like him deserve everything they get and more. I also said that I considered not bashing the guy in my blog that day but after seeing his myspace page he became more than fair game. He describes himself on that page as having "sex appeal," being a "gifted singer-songwriter" and even calls himself a "golden boy." He also claims that they are one of the "Top 5 bands city wide!" Seriously. He should call it his masturbation page instead.

If he was really one of the 5 biggest bands in the city of New York, why can't he get a gig any other place than the one where he is the sound guy? One thing I learned from spending so much time in the clubs in Seattle, the sound guy's band always sucks. That's why they only play the club where he works and usually on a Sunday night.

I still can't think of anybody I've seen in a while that deserves to made fun of more than this twit. He is a legend in his own mind and no one else's. That's why I used the Christopher Guest analogy in my original post.

And his music is the most god-awful shit you've ever heard.

As far as what I get out of "roasting" him, did you see my blog's under title? That should make everything pretty clear.

And I'm not hiding under any sort of cloak of anonymity as you claim. That is my real name in my profile and my real city location. So I don't get your point there.

As someone who once had a fledgling theatre career I've had my work reviewed many times, in real publications too, not just some random guy's blog. And some of it was bad. One show I did in Boston a couple of years ago earned me a serious dressing-down from a local paper. So what? For starters, I got what I deserved on that one. The show plain sucked. Second, that's what happens when you put your art out there. Some people are going to hate it. A big chunk of the time it is deserved.

So what did I do when bashed like that? Well, nothing. I certainly didn't get one of my friends to write the author to bitch (wink wink, Richie). I even saved that review.

But tell me, Evan's friend, what are the rules for using anonymity? What if I loved his music? Then it would be OK to use his name?

Sorry, you don't get it both ways. If you want the good stuff to have your name, you have to take the bad. Roger Ebert doesn't bash on the latest Lindsay Lohan vehicle and refer to her only as LH during the review. That would be stupid.

By the way, I think that warning people about Kremin's music before they find themselves in a club exposed to it is doing good. A public service if you will. I know I wish someone would have warned me about it before I walked in that night.

Though that's not really true. I was really happy for the blog fodder. I've been thinking about going to a club to see him again so I can drink some beers, have a few laughs and get more material. It really is like seeing a Christopher Guest movie come to life. Or the fun of watching a really bad TV show or movie á la Saved By The Bell or Grease 2.

And oh, yes I did know that when you typed in his name to Google that my blog was the first thing that came up about Evan Kremin. I was pretty proud of that. I even emailed my friends to point that out. It made me giggle because I figured he was the kind of guy that Googled his name a couple of times a month in a vain attempt to find some actual reviews of his work.

Well he finally got one didn't he? If I'm the only guy that's written anything about one of his gigs, what does that tell you about his music?

Exactly.

But alas, have lost my top spot on Google for "Evan Kremin." It appears he clicked his myspace page enough times to put that on top and some listings for his upcoming gigs, at the previously mentioned place where he's the sound guy, coming after that.

I've fallen to about fifth or so now.

Hopefully with today's post title I can take back the top spot.

So thanks for reminding me Richie.

Backward And Forward

There are basically three kinds of people in the world. Those who live in the past, those that live in the future and those who are always in the moment. Then there's me. I seem to be a hybrid of the two that I'd rather not be. I'm either lamenting the days gone by or planning for my next big move even if it might be years away.

Add in a little obsessive-compulsiveness, mix well, and you've pretty much got me.

We all have that friend that lives in the moment, right? Drives you crazy doesn't it? Sure it does. We're jealous as hell. I've tried, I've really tried. I look at my good friend Ray and I just can't believe how in the moment he can be sometimes. Like to the second. This is why he can be so hard to get a hold of and takes too long to return calls. He's just too busy doing what he's doing at the moment. It can be infuriating and admirable all at once. I've always tried to be more like that, but not very successfully.

I'm always wishing for things to be like they were in the past in one form or another. I loved college and still think it was one of the best times of my life. I miss living in Seattle like crazy and I'm always wondering why I left. Though the whole timing of leaving Seattle was kind of perfect. I lived there in the 90s when I was in my twenties, and I left right after the 90s ended and I turned 30. Makes for a nice back story about myself when I meet new people.

I'm sure that if you asked people who knew me when I was in college or in Seattle they would not tell you that I was a guy who seemed totally content and happy with where he was. They would probably tell you that I was always bitching about wanting to go somewhere else. Though I'm not sure.

Of course I'm not always looking back. I seem to always be looking for my next move. Those who remember all of my writing while I was living Boston know that for three years I was jonesing to get the hell out of there. Heck, I was even told my wife that if she took a job at the Mayo Clinic that I would be OK with that, even though it is in the middle of Nowhere Minnesota. So my obsession with getting out of Boston was just because no sane person want to stay there.

But now I live in New York. This is one of the greatest cities in the world and I totally love living here. But I still can't help but start looking at what our next move will be. And I'm already trying to influence the decision. I've been talking the town up lately, kind of just laying the thought in her head as a primer for a future date.

My wife's job basically dictates where we live, being the one with the real career and all. Since she has basically said she doesn't think she'd be able to get a doctor job in another country, I've had to, regretfully, make myself give up on my dream of living outside of America.

But since we know her job here is not a permanent one it means that we will be considering another move in a few years. Of course I'm already obsessing about it.

We have a very limited list of cities we are willing to live in. In the States anyway. Add Europe to the equation and it would be a lot longer, but I'm working with our realistic options.

For some reason I've become really enamored with the idea of Portland Oregon being our next city. I don't really know why, except that I always like moving to cities that I've never lived. I really love exploring new towns. I've been to Portland a few times and I just love it there. Great music scene, good weather, nice people, close to mountains and outdoor stuff, micro brews and, something very important to me, one of the only real good public transportation systems west of the Mississippi. Plus, since we're probably going to breed at some point, it would be a great place to raise a kid.

And it seems that Portland keeps coming up in things I read lately, including the travel section of last Sunday's New York Times and my last issue of Trains magazine. And one of my favorite songs in the last couple of years is Portland Oregon by Loretta Lynn with Jack White. So it's like a sign, if I actually believed in that nonsense.

I've been planting the idea in my wife's head as much as I can lately, trying to put in early influence for when she has to start looking for a job again. I've even looked up transit maps online to see what neighborhoods we would be looking at based on which ones the light rail lines go through. Though that probably has as much to do with my map and transit geekiness as it does my planning the future. I've spent hours looking at maps of the London Underground, Paris Metro, Metro Roma, Metro Madrid, even the St. Louis and Denver light rail lines. I don't expect to end up living in any of those places.

Don't get me wrong, if given the chance I would go to London or Rome in a heartbeat. It just ain't gonna happen.

So I'm resigned to ponder where we'll end up next, and hope that maybe it could be as cool as someplace like Portland.

But damn, I'm going to living in New York, a place where I've always wanted to live, for at least a couple more years. Why can't I just enjoy it and stop planning my next move?

...Aim, Fire!

I'm a little late in posting the link to this week's Roundtable, and it is being hosted by my good friend Joe. So even though the conversation started yesterday, go check out Hairshirt and see what has gotten Joe worked up into a tizzy this week and add your thoughts.

The question he's asking is who would you like to see shot out of a cannon and into a brick wall?

That's my kind of survey.

Jesus Can Kiss My Ass

How's that for a provocative title? I figured I'd go with a religious theme today in honor of Easter, which for some reason people felt the need to keep reminding me last week that it was yesterday. Like I cared.

At some point last week Joe asked me if my wife and I wanted to come over on Friday and color Easter eggs. He told me I could draw anti-Christian messages on them if I wanted, which was a really sweet thing to say. We wanted to go, because we just like hanging out with Joe and Megan for any reason. They are not really religious people themselves, but they get really into the holidays. Joe has what I consider an unnatural relationship with Christmas that just don't get. He lives for it. He's fairly normal in most other ways. I think maybe his parents put egg nog in his bottle as a baby or maybe he got hit on the head by a star falling off the top of the family tree while unwrapping his Pong machine.

We ended up not going only because Joe and I have successful, career-driven wives who were wiped out at the end of their week, not because of my usual aversion to anything to do with Christian holidays.

But the whole thing did raise a question for the wife and me. We are thinking about having a kid at some point in the near-ish future and we have to kind of deal with the whole holiday issue at some point.

As two people who are either atheist or agnostic, however you want to define it, do we celebrate these holidays as a cultural or seasonal thing? Do we do all of the stuff that people do at the holidays because it is fun for kids and just ignore the religious aspect? I know a lot of people that do this. Hell, Christmas is barely a religious holiday at all anymore so what's the big deal.

Well my gut reaction answer to these questions is "fuck no." I don't think we should celebrate Christmas, Easter or any other holiday with its origins in religion with our kid. I know that the Easter Bunny and Santa can be all cute and fun for kids and everything and that most people are of the opinion that it is good for kids to have these magical things.

But that's how the indoctrination begins.

Super religious dingle-berries like to bitch and moan that things like the holiday mascots are taking the religion out of what are supposed to be Christian celebrations. But I don't think anything could be farther from the truth. Giving the kids cute and fuzzy things is how they draw you in and begin the propaganda and brain washing. I remember Easter as a kid being a fun holiday where you hunt for eggs and get a bunch of candy, like a spring Halloween. But at some point when I got older there was somebody there to start telling me the "true story" behind Easter and what it was really about. The next thing you know I've got some ass-hole filling my head with Jesus dying for my sins and other such nonsensical bullshit.

Same goes with Christmas. I'm not sure when it happens but at some point during childhood Santa suddenly turns into Jesus, who doesn't bring you a goddamn thing, and I'm suppose to make the holiday about him instead of me getting a lot of great toys that I'll play with for a week and a half and then put away until the next garage sale. The world's biggest bait and switch.

These are not things I want to see happen to my future child. And if I celebrate these holidays with him or her, even in a secular way, there are others out there who take it as an invitation to teach your child the "true meaning of (insert Christian holiday here)."

Just this week my born again Jesus freak mother bought little plush toy Easter bunnies for my sister's kids, who are being raised without religion (my sister being the other sane person in my family).

Know what was printed on the front of the cute and fuzzy bunnies?

"Jesus loves me."

And this isn't the only type of person (grandmothers) that pulls shit like this. It's a lot like how this last Christmas we got a super religious form letter/Christmas card from my brother and his wife that had phrases like "praise His name" and "celebrate His name" so many times I lost count. And why the hell is Jesus always get His pronouns capitalized anyway? The rules of the English language don't apply to Jesus?

These are the kind of people that are going to constantly be barraging my child with their fairy tales to try to draw them in to their lair.

And why do people think this is OK? I've said it before, and I'll say it again, would people do this to a Jewish friend? Do they think it's OK to send them a "Jesus loves me" toy or a letter that praises His name? Most people would say that in no way is that OK, and it is even offensive. But for some reason these whacked-out Christians think it's fine to do it to the atheists/secularists/agnostics of the world. They have some sort of delusional idea that we are looking for someone to show us the "answer" or something.

Well guess what? We're not, so leave us the hell alone. And that includes my future child.

Screw Easter, screw Christmas and screw Jesus.

I know that sounds harsh. But you have to actually say things that hardcore and offensive to them to get them to stop the madness. For a long time after my mother went cuckoo for Jesus, and also discovered email, she was constantly forwarding me religious propaganda in the form of heartfelt (usually fake) stories and inspiring messages about faith. No matter how much I explained to her that I didn't believe in religion she continued to send them to me.

So one day I hit reply and wrote "Fuck your god."

I've never gotten another religious email from my mother.

I'm working on a reply to this year's Jesus propaganda letter from my sister-in-law that we will get in December. I already know how I'm going to sign it, and all other letters to people who send me religious messages.

In Satan's name,

Deni

Back To The 70s Future

This week's Roundtable is being hosted by Stephen at Serenade In Green. And he sure is pissed about how wrong everybody in the 60s, 70s and 80s was about what life would be like in the 2000s. He's really annoyed that we don't have our hovercrafts, houses on the moon or robocops. I suspect that what he's really annoyed by is not having the holodeck porn.

Personally, I can't wait until 2015 when, according to Robert Zemeckis, the fashion craze for men will be wearing two neckties at once side by side. Tres Chic!

Document The Passion (Music Geek Night part 2)

A great show. One of my favorite singer-songwriters. A band in fine form. Meeting and chatting it up with a fellow obsessive music geek. A great bartender working the front bar. Talking to Amanda Palmer before the show. All in all a nice night out at the Knitting Factory.

After the set I went back out to the front bar, got another beer and sat there talking to the bartender for a while. Eventually the band was out in the crowd that was left talking to fans and signing various things. I made my way over and spoke with Scott McCaughey for a while. As I alluded to in Friday's post, I used to work with a guy who is Scott's best friend since high school and I've talked with him a few times before. I also know a couple of other people in Seattle that I figured he knew as well (like a buddy of mine who books shows there) so I kind of talked to him about that for a while. I'm not really an autograph hound or anything, but since he was there I grabbed a copy of the new Minus 5 CD from the merch table and had him sign it for me. He was standing there with a Sharpie in his hands so why not? It was cheaper to get the disc there than at the record store anyway.

I ended up close to Robyn Hitchcock at some point and made a few comments to him as well. Now, I've been in this situation before having seen him so many times and in small venues where you can hang out for a while after the show to meet the band. It never really turns out that well with Robyn. There are a few reasons for this. A lot of the time I've had a couple too many beers by the time the show's over and just kind of say something stupid or maybe unintelligible. Also, there's not really all that much to say to one of your favorite musicians besides "I love your music man," or "great show," and I'm sure he already hears that a hundred times a night. I certainly don't want to start asking him about the meaning of his songs because most songwriters hate that. Plus, he's pretty damn eccentric, so half the time you can't tell at all if he appreciates the comments or if he's a huge dick.

I'm not into the hero worship aspect of it like some people seem to be. I just like to talk to musicians about their music and music in general. That doesn't always work too well with legendary people like Robyn, but can be a really cool thing with smaller and up and coming acts. I think that's why it was so easy to talk to Amanda Palmer about her career and kind of discover what stuff she's into, tell her how I've turned other people on to her music and to talk about mutual love of other acts like Robyn. Or the time I sat at the bar at TT The Bear's Place in Cambridge, MA talking to Tracee Miller from Blanche, while the Ditty Bops played their opening set, about topics ranging from the Carter Family to the kind of fans they attract. Truly an interesting person. Had a great conversation after the show with her husband Dan, the leader of Blanche, about things like his musical style, working on the Loretta Lynn album and being in the Johnny Cash movie, among other things.

With Robyn that night I believe my conversation went something like this.

"Robyn, I wanted to say thank you for playing The Ghost Ship at the request show in November at Maxwell's."
"Did I play that?"
"You did, and I was the person who requested it."
"Oh, OK."

And that was about it.

I was pretty much getting ready to take off when I noticed Peter Buck was actually hanging out without being bothered by a ton of people. I've been in this situation before, where I've been in a small club and seen Peter Buck hanging out and it would be really easy to walk up and talk to him. But I've never done it. With him being the actual bona fide major rock star in the room you really feel like he gets bothered by fans more than enough times in his life. But this time I decided to walk over.

You may remember my story from a couple of weeks ago about how the album Document saved my life. Well I decided to tell Peter Buck this story, without being as long-winded as I was in the blog posting (I hope), just to let him know what his music did for me. You don't get this opportunity with too many artists and I decided not to let it go again. I wasn't sure if he would think I was a total dweeb or not. I even said at the end of it, "I don't want to sound like the total dweeb fan and creep you out or anything, but I just wanted to let you know what that album did for me my senior year of high school."

He was very cool and seemed pretty genuinely flattered by what I said. After commenting how young I was, because I was a senior in high school when Document came out, he said, "No that's not dweeby at all, that's very cool. I really appreciate that."

We talked for a little while more and he mentioned that he had albums that were the same for him (specifically Patty Smith) and we talked about living in Seattle and growing up in Georgia, two things we have in common. And some point he told me, and I'm still not sure how this came up, that he was getting divorced. I told him I was sorry and he kind of shrugged his shoulder and said something along the lines of, "Yeah well, what are you gonna do?"

I bounced on out of there before I allowed myself to order another beer and made my way to the subway, happy to have been able tell someone what their music did for me and what bleak times it helped me through.

And even happier that he didn't seem to think I was a total loser for doing so.

And my extreme, obsessive music dorkiness gets rewarded once again.

The Underneath (Music Geek Night part 1)

Time yet again for a post (actually two) about an amazing night at a Robyn Hitchcock show for little ol' me. Now, you know I usually try to not let my blog become one of those boring "here's what I did today" diary type blogs, because I really can't stand those. People might not dig what I write, but at least it's not going to be because it is nothing more than just a daily accounting of my daily life. If I'm going to be hated I want it to be for being a shitty writer, not a boring one.

My thought and ideas, sure. But not just recaps of my day I hope. Unless your name is Anne Frank nobody is interested in your diary.

Well sometimes I just can't help it after I've had such a fun night out. It seems to usually involve going out to a show by one of my favorite musicians. Like here, here and here. Most of you who might read this blog on any type of regular basis pretty much know that I'm a major music geek and that my favorite things are Robyn Hitchcock, Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy and that REM holds an important and special place in my life and that my favorite new band to pop up in the last five years is The Dresden Dolls.

Knowing that, you'll see why Tuesday night was so damn cool for me.

So I head down to the Knitting Factory in Tribeca, rushing out the door because the show is listed at 8:00 and I wanted to see at least a little of the opener and at the time I left it meant I wouldn't get there until about 8:30. Turns out I rushed for no reason though. Seems that The Knitting Factory, without specifying it, puts on their listings and tickets the door opening time and not the show start time like everybody else. So I'm at the venue at 8:30 thinking that Robyn would be going on about 9:00 or 9:15 and find out that it won't be until 10:15. So that sucked. I also find out that because I did will call for my ticket I don't actually get a ticket stub to add to my collection, just a stamp on my hand. Kind of hard to put that in my ticket box.

I grab a Boddingtons at the bar and head into the band space to check it out since I haven't been there before. Good space in general. Nice and small, the way I like my music venues. But also really warm already and it is not even close to being full yet. I chat up with a couple of guys hanging out there for a while before the opener starts. When Johanna Kunin took the stage I watched for a while but her music was a little too mellow for the room temperature. So I took a walk to the outer bar and kind of hung out by the entrance. I started talking to a guy named Phil who was trying to unload an extra ticket he had, which is why he was hanging out by the door.

By this time Peter Buck had been walking around hanging out for a while looking like just any regular concert-going guy at a bar, just like he had at the show in November at Maxwell's, with no air of a guy who plays lead guitar for one of the biggest bands in the world and was just inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

So I'm talking to this guy Phil about music, he's a middle-aged music geek from Jersey and we hit it off really easily. I know I've said it before, but the great thing about not living in Boston anymore is that this kind of thing is actually possible in, well, everyplace else in the world pretty much. People in clubs will actually talk to each other and make friendly conversation. But I digress.

While I'm chatting with Phil I notice a black dude walk in with the wildest head of hair I've seen for a while. It's not really an afro because it's too straight. It's more like a black guy with a Robert Smith 'do, which was just great. He walked in with a woman that looked familiar and she told him to find the guest list and he walked toward the box office and I told him I thought it might be at the will call table (I was wrong). He started to scream toward his friend that he found out where the list was but she had walked back outside.

"Oh, she's going to go smoke, I have to wait for her," he said to me.
I said, "She looks a lot like Amanda Palmer."
"That is Amanda Palmer."
"Really, the Amanda Palmer."
"Yeah."
"No Shit?"

Amanda Palmer is the leader of The Dresden Dolls.

So when she came back in I started talking to her for a while and told her how much I love her music and that I saw her perform live several times while I was living in Boston and other such complimentary things. I was starting to tell her that the only thing I liked about living in Boston was discovering her music while I was there (that's where The Dresden Dolls are from) and I said, "I really hated living in Boston, but..."

She cut me off with, "I know doesn't it suck?"

I was so happy to find out that she hates it there too. A great musician, songwriter and a kindred spirit as well. We talked for a little while longer, about her upcoming tour this summer with Cindy Lauper, Erasure and Debbie Harry and that my wife and I would be seeing it at Radio City. I also told her that I had been out there turning people on to her music as much as I could, that my wife would be bummed that she decided not to come tonight because she was a big fan too, and we had a nice little conversation about our shared love of Robyn Hitchcock. That was the reason we were both there after all. Except I wasn't on the guest list.

She went to go get her ticket, gave me the warmest handshake and told me she would try to catch me again later.

In the meantime, Robyn walked past on his way in to the venue (Amanda pointed it out to me in a genuine fan-geek style, she was just as giddy as anybody in the place) as did Scott McCaughey (he remembered me as Gary's friend he met last time) and Phil had sold his extra ticket so we went and got a beer together. He didn't know who The Dresden Dolls were, so I told him why I was so psyched to meet her and tried to describe their music to him. That's hard to do.

Phil and I made our way back in to the performance space and it was packed to the gills and hot. We stood toward the back for the show. It's a small place and I'm tall, so why try to work in to the thick crowd and the heat?

The show was great of course. I've done enough gushing over Robyn shows in the past so I don't need to give a review here. I will say that the highlights for me were finally getting a live performance of Belltown Ramble (brings back Seattle memories), a great acoustic version of Balloon Man, an incredible cover of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd's See Emily Play and the best rockin' version of The Underneath I've ever heard.

I was in heaven. I would be even more so after the show.

To be continued...

I'm Sorry, Were You Talking?

OK, so sorry I haven't posted yet this week, I've been working out in Newark and while that sounds close to New York and is accessible by PATH train, it still takes a really long time to get there and back. So I know I'm late in posting the link to this weeks Roundtable, forgive me Sereena, but better late than never.

Anyhoo, Sereena is taking on the topic this week of what makes what you have to say so important. And why the hell should we listen? Well.....why?

Go over to Metaphor Voodoo and let Sereena X know why you should be listened to. But be warned, she'll take no long-winded rants. You get cut off at 50 words.

And check back in the late afternoon and I'll hopefully have a new proper post up. It will be yet another exciting adventure of me at a Robyn Hitchcock show on Tuesday night. And there will be surprise guest appearances...

Not Punching Me Would Be A Start

Atul over at Things I've Noticed is hosting this week's Roundtable and he's talking about respect. Not the kick-ass Otis Redding song, but actual respect. I think I've heard of that. Not sure what it feels like, but it sounds like a familiar concept.

Anyway, Atul is wondering who you respect. Well, he's more interested, I think, in the type of person you respect, not in any actual specific name. So you don't have to admit to your love and admiration of Ann Coulter. Because, you know, that would just be embarrassing for both of us.

So go on over and let Atul know what traits you like in people.

Put Another Twenty In The Jukebox

Do you know how you can absolutely love and hate something all at the same time? I imagine it is what heroin addicts feel toward their smack. I know for sure it's how I felt about cigarettes before I finally got that demon off my back. It's also how a lot of people feel about their parents.

I have a new one on my list. The modern jukebox.

I loved in back in the 80s and 90s when jukeboxes in bars went to the kind that had whole CDs instead of just singles. It was a great way to be able to hear your favorite song off of an album even if it wasn't the "hit" from it. So most would have, say, REM's Green and U2's Joshua Tree because Stand and With Or Without You were hits, but one could choose to play World Leader Pretend and One Tree Hill instead. It was a great time for jukebox history. Sure, they were a little more expensive but it was worth a little more for the choice. And it wasn't that much more, you could still get something like 20 songs or more for five bucks.

But there's a new sheriff in town, so to speak, in the world of bar music. I speak, of course, about the internet-connected jukebox.

I have seen them in the last few bars that I've hung out at here in Manhattan, from dives like Rudy's in Hell's Kitchen to nicer bars like Crossroads on the Upper West Side. They are clearly taking over. And I'm conflicted. I love it so much and I hate it so much.

First of all, as a music lover how could you not love that you can find a ton of songs to choose from when you are hanging in a bar? Especially when you are someone who listens to stuff other than what gets played on the radio (does radio still exist?). Being able to subject my fellow bar patrons to Billy Bragg singing "I've got a socialism of the heart" just makes me really happy. Looking around to see who digs it and who just doesn't get it is a great way to silently judge people.

And sometimes you are just in the mood to tap your feet to California Stars while you are having a cocktail, and when one of those machines is in the bar you're hanging at you know you can whenever you want.

But there are oh so many downsides.

The big thing is that it gets expensive. Now five bucks will get you 13 credits, which doesn't sound too awful on the surface. But there is a catch. A single credit will get you one play of a song that is loaded on the machine itself. And it looks at first like they have a lot of CDs to choose from, even if it might be more mainstream, ordinary stuff. But on closer look your choices are much more limited. When you choose an album you find out that only a couple (sometimes only one) songs are available, and often the one you wanted is not among them. The answer of course is to go to the on-line section of the juke and search for that song. But guess what? The searchable songs cost two credits each to hear.

Ah, there's the rub. Dammit, you have your heart set on a song and then you find out it's double the price. You really want to hear it though, so you say "fuck it" and order it up. Next thing you know, every song you want to hear is something you have to pay double for and your five dollars has turned into a paltry seven songs. That really cuts into the beer money.

And even with the searchable database of over 100,000 songs that they advertise on the machine, you can still (at last check a while back) only find a grand total of one Robyn Hitchcock song, Jewels For Sophia. And absolutely no Dresden Dolls songs.

So even a jukebox hooked up to the web of the wide world still suffers from musical ignorance.

There is also the downside that, in a mirror of the way I like to spread the musical genius of the artist I'm into, there can always be that guy in the bar who is trying to relive the glory days of when he was captain of his 80s high school football team and loading the machine with the likes of Every Rose Has Its Thorn and You Don't Know What You Got (Till Its Gone). Not only that, but he is also choosing the "play now" feature, which moves your song to the front of the queue for yet another credit. That is really damn annoying. Even more annoying when he gets all emotional and stands up to air the guitar solos that he finds "deep".

Of course the worst thing about these new machines is that the bars themselves tend to take a character hit. A lot of what gave a bar its personality was the jukebox. Every bar was different according to what the owner put in his jukebox. Each place had its own distinct personality based partially, some places even mostly, on the jukebox. It's one of the many things that make local bars better places to hang out than a TGI Fridays or a Bennigan's. We lose that one, what's next?

I was hanging out at my old college a couple of weeks ago and stopped at one of my old haunting grounds called the Jackson Street Pub. They still have their CD jukebox and it's still cheap. And they apparently haven't changed it since I graduated, so I guess its character would be "Deni's college years" of the early to mid-90s. This may or may not be what you'd like in a bar, but it was great for me. It was a big Nirvana, REM, Pearl Jam and No Rain night at the Pub. And Freebird. It was so much fun.

And I wouldn't have picked a lot of those songs if my choices were less limited. That kind of delicious time warp that happens to certain bars will become less and less common.

So I really hate the new jukes.

But that doesn't stop me from throwing too much money in them when I'm around one.

Shut It

RW wants to know why you don't just shut your damn pie hole. Seriously, why don't you? You just seem to be full of opinions.

Head on over to Chasing Vincenzo and let him know why you think you have something important to say. You can tell him it's because you're my friend. That's a great reason.