WARNING: Portions of this entry were obtained under extreme duress (rush hour on the 'A'). Comments heretofore written may not represent the author's feelings under other environmental conditions.
I hate cars, particularly in big cities. I loathe trolling block-upon-block, scanning for a parking space. I despise the high insurance rates. I abhor (c'mon thesaurus!) all the hours wasted in traffic jams where I've been reduced to the 8 millionth repeat of some pop song or the lay-thinking of nearly every talkshow host. And, I don't like to drive. This might be a High crime against the soul of Americana, not to mention the implications for familial betrayal. My brother is a huge, Ford man. He could spend all day/every day, driving around in his truck and he'd be in bliss (this boy was born to be a cop). In addition, he and my dad are performance motorcycle (a.k.a. Crotch Rocket) enthusiasts. While I download music videos and the occasional porn video, my brother streams vids of guys doing wheelies or peeling out for a quarter mile straight... and probably downloads the occasional porn video. My brother burns his motorcycle vids on a CD then rushes to my dad's house. With the focus of a Kennedy-assassination theorist, they examine the speedometer and odometer that the video has carefully included in daredevil performance. Then, he and my father debate the theoretically-credible limits of consumer-level crotch rockets as I strain to remember the last time I'd performed a proper oil change on my car.
I blame my dad for my un-American affliction. I do this because 1) it's fun and exceptionally easy to blame your parents and 2 ) he was an Army soldier that got the clan stationed in Germany for the bulk of my high school years. Sure, I got to see amazing works of art, exposed myself to the resonant rhythms of rich, ancient cultures and, as an adolescent perk, watched European women sunbathe naked. But what of my love of cars? What about being raised as a good enthusiast of chrome wheels and torque ratios? Huh? Huh?! Huh, motherfucker?!!! How could my father ruthlessly subject me to a world of easy, clean, public transportation when he knew that I would be returning to a country that lives and breathes cars? I mean, the whole frigging country is built to virtually require the ownership of a car (except for urban swatches of the Northeast). In Germany, if I wanted to meet a friend at the movies, I jumped on a train, bus or streetcar. I never learned that valuable sense of isolation that American kids in the suburbs felt or the burning shame of begging Mom for a ride or, later, the keys to the family car. When I moved to New York City, eagerly sold my car. After years of insurance payments, car repairs and the mind-numbing stream of endless hours along America's butt-ugly freeway system, I was ready to cut the cord. With that said, I wish I had a car. I don't want it to get around in the city. I want it to Escape. The crush of humanity is getting to me and I need Out. It's the beginning of summer and all of us New Yorkers are sick to death of one another. After huddling in our caves, our cave-like, work cubicles, and finally our hurling, subterranean, sardine cans, we strain at the first sign of warmth and sunlight. Nowhere does our derision for our fellow man issue forth with such a viscous burning as during rush 'hour'.
Rush 'hour' is an inherently hostile act. Nobody wants to do it. It isn't a picnic to do the morning commute, but we're all usually still a little too tired to make much of a stink about it. It's not like anybody's just burning up to get to work as Early as possible anyway. If you're on my train at 8:20 or later and you're heading anywhere below 59th Street, you know that you're probably not going to make to work by 9am anyway so you'd might as well stake out a seat and hit your snooze button until 59th Street.
Going Home, however, is when the need for Escape gains it's keen edge and the Commute becomes a physical imperative. Not only do you have to go where you're going, but you Have to be there Now. For all of you already living in the Unaffordable neighborhoods below 100th Street or the hip (and also unaffordable) neighborhoods just across the East River in Brooklyn and you would like to argue otherwise - go Fuck yourselves because you don't know what the Hell you are talking about (please review disclaimer above). This is Deathrace 2005 and Losing is only a missed subway train away. Human roadblocks choke the staircases in a passive-aggressive attempt to Foil everyone who really cares about getting home. The MTA has lazily, yet somehow purposefully, fucked up somewhere downtown again. Instead of getting the 'A' train that you so righteously deserve, you are dealt a steady stream of body blows in the form of 'B' and 'D' trains. Some undeserving, trashy smarm darts ahead as the arriving train has barely begun to regurgitate it's growling, SUV-babystroller-toting excuse for humanity. The smarm darts into a vacated seat even though you know that they'll be getting off two stops later where you will be out of position to snag it and you need that spot because it's gonna be another 45 minutes away from home and you're about ready to lose your shit and pummel the fuck out of that self-righteous, oblivious ass-monkey who Has to spread his legs That wide and take up 2 seats because his balls are Just That Damned Big!(again, please review disclaimer above)
Friday, May 27, 2005
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
I am so Totally over Her
I know. I suck. Logically, it goes against my most-fundamental beliefs as an artist. But there I am, doing it virtually every Monday. ***Big Breath Here*** I read the Top 10 List of Box Office performers from the weekend.
There! I said it. I finally admitted it. That's the first step towards recovery, you know. I'm practically cured. I don't need those numbers. I was able to kick smoking, movie collecting, and fast food. Surely I can... quit... if I wanted to...
In my defense - I don't, in any way, believe that these statistics reflect the quality of a particular film. I would never ascribe to the hideous belief of many Americans that a high-score at the box office means that a movie is any better or worse than any other. I do it because I am always waiting for Big Failure of the Enemy. When a crap-ass movie like XXX: State of the Union opens with a multi-million dollar campaign push, I'm just begging for it to fail. It's like watching NASCAR. You don't want the entire race to fail, but there's a part of you that can't wait for a really good wipeout.
This year has made for a very satisfying track of the box office. Ticket costs are up, advertisements in theaters are pissing people off, mainstream movies are flooding the multiplexes and revenue is DOWN. Even the obnoxious success of the Star Wars prequel has not succeeded in reviving the box office. And now, they're hoping that The Longest Yard and Madagasgar are going to save things over the Memorial Day weekend?! Oh yeah! This is gonna be good. This is the year that Hollywood goes down! I can't wait until -
...
I'm doing it again. I'm skidding off the road and into the realm of stupid. I have become one of those friends who keep saying, "I'm totally over her. God, it's such a relief to be free of her. Really! If she hadn't broke up with me, I'd have done it first. So what did you see her doing? Really? Well I don't care. Why the fuck should I care? I'm totally over her."
Bad breakups die hard and this one really has to die. Like, now.
There! I said it. I finally admitted it. That's the first step towards recovery, you know. I'm practically cured. I don't need those numbers. I was able to kick smoking, movie collecting, and fast food. Surely I can... quit... if I wanted to...
In my defense - I don't, in any way, believe that these statistics reflect the quality of a particular film. I would never ascribe to the hideous belief of many Americans that a high-score at the box office means that a movie is any better or worse than any other. I do it because I am always waiting for Big Failure of the Enemy. When a crap-ass movie like XXX: State of the Union opens with a multi-million dollar campaign push, I'm just begging for it to fail. It's like watching NASCAR. You don't want the entire race to fail, but there's a part of you that can't wait for a really good wipeout.
This year has made for a very satisfying track of the box office. Ticket costs are up, advertisements in theaters are pissing people off, mainstream movies are flooding the multiplexes and revenue is DOWN. Even the obnoxious success of the Star Wars prequel has not succeeded in reviving the box office. And now, they're hoping that The Longest Yard and Madagasgar are going to save things over the Memorial Day weekend?! Oh yeah! This is gonna be good. This is the year that Hollywood goes down! I can't wait until -
...
I'm doing it again. I'm skidding off the road and into the realm of stupid. I have become one of those friends who keep saying, "I'm totally over her. God, it's such a relief to be free of her. Really! If she hadn't broke up with me, I'd have done it first. So what did you see her doing? Really? Well I don't care. Why the fuck should I care? I'm totally over her."
Bad breakups die hard and this one really has to die. Like, now.
the Envy of a nomad
I watched Easy Riders Raging Bulls yesterday. It's a documentary vaguely based upon a book of the same title. I'd read the book 7 years ago and it was a watershed moment for me. It gave a context to the lives and careers of my favorite filmmakers. I'd never been able to reconcile how the same man who made The Conversation and Apocalypse Now could become the hired hand for such clichéd fare as Jack and The Rainmaker. With the exception of Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader, all my heroes of American cinema had either died or apparently lost their minds. Although the book gets mired in all the fantastical gossip, it does an exceptional job of framing an era from the mid-1960's fall of old Hollywood through the rise of the Blockbuster in the late 1970's. The book is (shocker, here) far better than the film. The book was despised by Nicholson, Hopper and Spielberg as total fiction (which I'm sure is true for some of the tales). Yet, it's easy to dodge the truth when everything has to be gleaned from one or two steps away. When somebody casts such a wide net of dismissal at a book with a many corroborated truths, it's hard to know what's fiction and what might be hitting too close to home.
Still, the film is a good watch. John Milius's waves a cigar and tries to do his best emulation of General Patton. Richard Dreyfuss delivers the most entertaining recounts of Lucas and Spielberg's directorial style. There's a fleeting glance of Marcia Lucas in the editing room and a great moment where you can watch Cybill Shepherd negotiate a minefield of disclosure as she attempts to articulate her blossoming affair with Peter Bogdanovich while filming The Last Picture Show. The bonus material on the second DVD is, in many ways, more entertaining than the film. There's a great piece on George Lucas and how his lifetime of marketing meetings has resulted in prequels that contain far too many meetings. I loved the title of the Spielberg chapter - The Innocent Savant.
The material hit me very differently this time around. I used to idolize filmmakers of that era and felt betrayed when they seemingly gave up on their art. This time around, I realized what an awkward, privileged lot they were. Like The Ramones on the East Side of NY in the mid 1970's or Bill Gates buying up the first version of DOS for $50,000 at the beginning of the 1980's, these were people who found themselves standing in a giant blind spot of an industry and were smart enough to take advantage. That didn't make them bad people (well, maybe Gates). Their successes don't point to the inadeqacies of the rest of us. They are a fortunate few who happened to have their surfboards pointing in the right direction when a tsunami wave hit... and it didn't hurt that they knew how to surf.
Still, I find myself hopelessly in envy of the community in Hollywood of the late 60's/early 70's. They had found their community - their tribe, as my playwriting teacher called it. The surest path to success, my teacher argued, was to find people who responded to your experiences and fed your creativity. If you're Lucas, Spielberg and Milius standing in a beach house in Malibu, collaborating and competing to make the B-movies of your dreams, then you've found your tribe. If you're Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, sick of the Hollywood system you've known and ready to do something you want to see, like Easy Rider, then you've found it too. If you have a favorite bar, full of regulars that ask for your writings or can show you perspectives you'd never otherwise see, then you're probably drinking with your tribe.
This is my heroin. I am always trying to return to the euphoria of inspiration and self-discovery through the people around me. There haven't been many in my life and they've been spaced maddeningly-far apart, but I clutch to those memories with white knuckles. People whose faces lit at my appearance, then inspired, engaged and challenged me to give more than I imagined possible. These moments were not just about me, however. We all felt that we were working on something larger than ourselves. My last year of film school as 18 people worked on everyone else's films, sleeping in editing rooms, and never offering a 'no' - always a 'yes, and...'. A year as barfly to a Midwestern college bar filled with writers, actors, directors and two fantastic pinball machines. Two weeks at a screenwriting workshop in Croatia where flutists and violinists of a music school drank, sang and inspired a motley crew of aspiring filmmakers.
Communities can never last, though. By their very nature, they inspire people to action, then consequences and aftermath. Some ascend, others abandon or die. America thrives on the notion of individuality and I love that, but often it breeds a go-it-alone attitude. Portraits of artists often suggest that they exist in some Vacuum of Genius where they alone create. Time and again, I re-learn that the Piss-and-Shitters that I've placed on pedestals are the same sort of inconsistent, insecure flawed people as I.
Now, I just need to find My tribe of flawed people.
Still, the film is a good watch. John Milius's waves a cigar and tries to do his best emulation of General Patton. Richard Dreyfuss delivers the most entertaining recounts of Lucas and Spielberg's directorial style. There's a fleeting glance of Marcia Lucas in the editing room and a great moment where you can watch Cybill Shepherd negotiate a minefield of disclosure as she attempts to articulate her blossoming affair with Peter Bogdanovich while filming The Last Picture Show. The bonus material on the second DVD is, in many ways, more entertaining than the film. There's a great piece on George Lucas and how his lifetime of marketing meetings has resulted in prequels that contain far too many meetings. I loved the title of the Spielberg chapter - The Innocent Savant.
The material hit me very differently this time around. I used to idolize filmmakers of that era and felt betrayed when they seemingly gave up on their art. This time around, I realized what an awkward, privileged lot they were. Like The Ramones on the East Side of NY in the mid 1970's or Bill Gates buying up the first version of DOS for $50,000 at the beginning of the 1980's, these were people who found themselves standing in a giant blind spot of an industry and were smart enough to take advantage. That didn't make them bad people (well, maybe Gates). Their successes don't point to the inadeqacies of the rest of us. They are a fortunate few who happened to have their surfboards pointing in the right direction when a tsunami wave hit... and it didn't hurt that they knew how to surf.
Still, I find myself hopelessly in envy of the community in Hollywood of the late 60's/early 70's. They had found their community - their tribe, as my playwriting teacher called it. The surest path to success, my teacher argued, was to find people who responded to your experiences and fed your creativity. If you're Lucas, Spielberg and Milius standing in a beach house in Malibu, collaborating and competing to make the B-movies of your dreams, then you've found your tribe. If you're Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, sick of the Hollywood system you've known and ready to do something you want to see, like Easy Rider, then you've found it too. If you have a favorite bar, full of regulars that ask for your writings or can show you perspectives you'd never otherwise see, then you're probably drinking with your tribe.
This is my heroin. I am always trying to return to the euphoria of inspiration and self-discovery through the people around me. There haven't been many in my life and they've been spaced maddeningly-far apart, but I clutch to those memories with white knuckles. People whose faces lit at my appearance, then inspired, engaged and challenged me to give more than I imagined possible. These moments were not just about me, however. We all felt that we were working on something larger than ourselves. My last year of film school as 18 people worked on everyone else's films, sleeping in editing rooms, and never offering a 'no' - always a 'yes, and...'. A year as barfly to a Midwestern college bar filled with writers, actors, directors and two fantastic pinball machines. Two weeks at a screenwriting workshop in Croatia where flutists and violinists of a music school drank, sang and inspired a motley crew of aspiring filmmakers.
Communities can never last, though. By their very nature, they inspire people to action, then consequences and aftermath. Some ascend, others abandon or die. America thrives on the notion of individuality and I love that, but often it breeds a go-it-alone attitude. Portraits of artists often suggest that they exist in some Vacuum of Genius where they alone create. Time and again, I re-learn that the Piss-and-Shitters that I've placed on pedestals are the same sort of inconsistent, insecure flawed people as I.
Now, I just need to find My tribe of flawed people.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Hold the Fuckin' Phone - It's Kasabian Time!
Sometimes, it's obvious. A band lays into their opening song and you can see 'IT' - stage presence, hooks and a tightness that only happens when the beat, the bass, the guitar and the voice are all On. The. Beat. If I'm still smiling by the third song, I know that I've found The Real Deal. They are a rare species but if you're really listening and engaged, you can hear it. Modest Mouse have it. The Kills have it. The Libertines had it. The Pixies have it. Uncle Tupelo had it. There are plenty of kick-ass American bands but it seems like the British bands have seemed especially-tight. They have a coiled energy that drives up and through the music. It makes your insides want to growl a primal response. I've been on a really hot streak with Brit bands and last night, I tried a little Kasabian action. I hadn't seen Kasabian or even remembered hearing their stuff on the KEXP surfing I'd enjoyed in my employed days, but I was getting good word-of-mouth -the same kind that'd pointed to me to The Libertines and The Kills. So, when I saw that they were playing at my Beloved Bowery Ballroom, I had to go. The evening featured two bands that were missing at least 1 or more of the 'IT' attributes and one band that deserved the title of The Real Deal.
Kat and I arrived at 8pm and met Steve - our drinking buddy from the infamous Whadoosay fiasco of Webster Hall. All three of us cringed at the pair of cartoon-shaped buses that loomed in front of the Bowery Ballroom. It looked like a giant colostomy bag for any Rock N' Roll Ego that couldn't fit into the hall this night. We flashed our I.D.'s, strapped on our neon-pink, drinking tags then shuffled down the stairs and into the bar. Kat and Steve were hot to secure a table in the Bowery's balcony. This generally goes against my fundamental beliefs in live music. The whole point is the presence of a band. Although Kat is normally with me on this philosophy, she had made the baffling decision to wear heels. Steve, as usual, was eager to remain outside any potential Sphere of Action... so, I relented. We planted ourselves in the balcony, just behind the velvet rope - the best part of the balcony for music execs.
The first band up was an impossibly-thin cluster of shaggy boys called The Rock N' Roll Soldiers. They're a throwback to the long-haired, anorexic groups of the 1970's that always look like they wanted to make everybody rawk yet tragically less-inspiring in their music. The bass player did his best tree impersonation from the right-hand corner of the stage while the lead singer and his RNR Soldier-in-arms guitarist worked a fashion show of various rock n' roll poses of the past. The guitarist chose a tai chi approach, slowly arching his back to accent his high-E-bending prowess or fanning his guitar next in sweeping arcs or rockdom. The lead singer decided upon a bolder, Drunken Master style as he kicked and spun his way against the microphone stand, his fellow guitarist and the drum kit. Every 3 minutes, a roadie would dash onstage to re-set the drum-mics then accept the appreciable nod from the offending rocker. A few songs had the singer crumbling to his knees as the Spirit of Rock N' Roll took hold. I have never seen a lead singer try so hard to rock and audience like this poor man did on this evening. Stage Presence? Check. Hooks? Did I mention that he really WANTED to rock out? Tightness? ... let's just move on then, shall we?
Mad Action had second dibs. I can't put my finger on why I didn't particularly care one way or another about whether I heard one song or another. They had a great Smashing Pumpkin style of crunchy guitar riffs, and they sounded tight, but every song sounded much like another. This is a band that has all the right elements, but they haven't quite 'found themselves' yet. Either that, or they just don't have what it takes to push them to the next level. The hooks are what make a band different from anybody else and what makes one song sound distinctively different from another. For example, let's take Aerosmith. Actually, you can have the modern version of Aerosmith as far as I am concerned, so let's stuck to the era that they were good. "Toys in the Attic", "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" - three fantastic songs from the same album by the same band. All three are VERY Aerosmith in their sound, but the opening riffs, the tone and the style are distinctly different. Mad Action's set? Well, by the third song, I knew that it was time for me to take a pee break and grab another beer. Stage Presence? I remember big hair and wide-legged stances... and I think they played music. Hooks? I like to drink Stella Artois Tightness? Check.
At the end of the last song from Mad Action, a 30-something woman from a neighboring table leapt from her seat, tore a Kasabian poster off the wall, then rushed to a tall, gangly fellow, standing at the back of the balcony. Steve leaned over to me and told me that gangly was one of the leads from Kasabian. The flush woman returned with her signed poster and, seeing that I had witnessed her rock-fan coup, leaned over to me and told me that it was her son who was a big Kasabian fan but couldn't get into the show because he was only 14. I quickly learned that she and her husband were from New Jersey, went to loads of concerts, especially Maxwell's in New Jersey, and were proficient in Indie-Music Speak. I can hold my own in music talks, but I don't have the singular focus to get into all the niggling details of obscure indie-band politics. Steve, however, was born for such work. Soon, he and the woman had bonded over concert war stories and an in-depth critique of New Order's hideous new album cover. The husband and wife were really cool and just the sort of people I always imagined running into at all these gigs, yet never found until now.
Finally, the lights dimmed and the Kasabian hit the stage. They have quite a lighting scheme set up for their show, a strange sight in a venue as intimate as the Bowery Ballroom. The Snow Patrol tried to set up a fancy set of lights behind themselves onstage and ended up blinding the whole audience in the process. On this night, the swirling and dancing spots were well-used. The lead singer, Tom Meighan, bounced around onstage and really laid into the songs. Sergio Pizzorno, the lead guitarist, was comfortable and energetic - the perfect contrast to Tom. In true Brit rock style, they were tight as a steel drum, ripping through their one-album catalog in rapid succession. They come off as a tougher version of Oasis when they're playing but I have never heard so many thank yous from a band since The Snow Patrol breezed through a few months ago. It's always nice to see a band that still acts a little humble even when they've gotta know that they rock. And the audience... this was NOT a typical Bowery audience on this night - it was mostly Fish N' Chips. Brit audiences are ten-times better than the standard NYC crowd. I went to a Kills concert a year ago and was one of only 3 people bouncing to the music. On this night, nearly the whole floor-level crowd was into it. That always makes for a better performance. By the end of the first song, I knew that I wasn't getting another beer. By the end of their encore climax "Club Foot", I knew - they were The Real Deal. Stage Presence? Great lighting, humble band, high energy... check. Hooks? Oh, yeah. Check. Tightness? In two weeks, you'd have a diamond.
Go see them.
P.S. As a follow-up note, I've been checking out their website and I've noticed that there's a little discussion going on as to whether there are pre-recorded backup vocals for 1 or two of their songs. I didn't notice anything at the show, but I wasn't front-and-center, either. It'd be disappointing to find out that it's true, but I have to admit that they do some pretty complicated electronics-based stuff on their tracks so they've probably got to run a little filler during the set. Tom and Serge were really tearing through their songs, though, so I can't imagine that there's anything going on that doesn't have to go on to re-create the studio album. A bit of a blemish, but they're definitely worth seeing.
Kat and I arrived at 8pm and met Steve - our drinking buddy from the infamous Whadoosay fiasco of Webster Hall. All three of us cringed at the pair of cartoon-shaped buses that loomed in front of the Bowery Ballroom. It looked like a giant colostomy bag for any Rock N' Roll Ego that couldn't fit into the hall this night. We flashed our I.D.'s, strapped on our neon-pink, drinking tags then shuffled down the stairs and into the bar. Kat and Steve were hot to secure a table in the Bowery's balcony. This generally goes against my fundamental beliefs in live music. The whole point is the presence of a band. Although Kat is normally with me on this philosophy, she had made the baffling decision to wear heels. Steve, as usual, was eager to remain outside any potential Sphere of Action... so, I relented. We planted ourselves in the balcony, just behind the velvet rope - the best part of the balcony for music execs.
The first band up was an impossibly-thin cluster of shaggy boys called The Rock N' Roll Soldiers. They're a throwback to the long-haired, anorexic groups of the 1970's that always look like they wanted to make everybody rawk yet tragically less-inspiring in their music. The bass player did his best tree impersonation from the right-hand corner of the stage while the lead singer and his RNR Soldier-in-arms guitarist worked a fashion show of various rock n' roll poses of the past. The guitarist chose a tai chi approach, slowly arching his back to accent his high-E-bending prowess or fanning his guitar next in sweeping arcs or rockdom. The lead singer decided upon a bolder, Drunken Master style as he kicked and spun his way against the microphone stand, his fellow guitarist and the drum kit. Every 3 minutes, a roadie would dash onstage to re-set the drum-mics then accept the appreciable nod from the offending rocker. A few songs had the singer crumbling to his knees as the Spirit of Rock N' Roll took hold. I have never seen a lead singer try so hard to rock and audience like this poor man did on this evening. Stage Presence? Check. Hooks? Did I mention that he really WANTED to rock out? Tightness? ... let's just move on then, shall we?
Mad Action had second dibs. I can't put my finger on why I didn't particularly care one way or another about whether I heard one song or another. They had a great Smashing Pumpkin style of crunchy guitar riffs, and they sounded tight, but every song sounded much like another. This is a band that has all the right elements, but they haven't quite 'found themselves' yet. Either that, or they just don't have what it takes to push them to the next level. The hooks are what make a band different from anybody else and what makes one song sound distinctively different from another. For example, let's take Aerosmith. Actually, you can have the modern version of Aerosmith as far as I am concerned, so let's stuck to the era that they were good. "Toys in the Attic", "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" - three fantastic songs from the same album by the same band. All three are VERY Aerosmith in their sound, but the opening riffs, the tone and the style are distinctly different. Mad Action's set? Well, by the third song, I knew that it was time for me to take a pee break and grab another beer. Stage Presence? I remember big hair and wide-legged stances... and I think they played music. Hooks? I like to drink Stella Artois Tightness? Check.
At the end of the last song from Mad Action, a 30-something woman from a neighboring table leapt from her seat, tore a Kasabian poster off the wall, then rushed to a tall, gangly fellow, standing at the back of the balcony. Steve leaned over to me and told me that gangly was one of the leads from Kasabian. The flush woman returned with her signed poster and, seeing that I had witnessed her rock-fan coup, leaned over to me and told me that it was her son who was a big Kasabian fan but couldn't get into the show because he was only 14. I quickly learned that she and her husband were from New Jersey, went to loads of concerts, especially Maxwell's in New Jersey, and were proficient in Indie-Music Speak. I can hold my own in music talks, but I don't have the singular focus to get into all the niggling details of obscure indie-band politics. Steve, however, was born for such work. Soon, he and the woman had bonded over concert war stories and an in-depth critique of New Order's hideous new album cover. The husband and wife were really cool and just the sort of people I always imagined running into at all these gigs, yet never found until now.
Finally, the lights dimmed and the Kasabian hit the stage. They have quite a lighting scheme set up for their show, a strange sight in a venue as intimate as the Bowery Ballroom. The Snow Patrol tried to set up a fancy set of lights behind themselves onstage and ended up blinding the whole audience in the process. On this night, the swirling and dancing spots were well-used. The lead singer, Tom Meighan, bounced around onstage and really laid into the songs. Sergio Pizzorno, the lead guitarist, was comfortable and energetic - the perfect contrast to Tom. In true Brit rock style, they were tight as a steel drum, ripping through their one-album catalog in rapid succession. They come off as a tougher version of Oasis when they're playing but I have never heard so many thank yous from a band since The Snow Patrol breezed through a few months ago. It's always nice to see a band that still acts a little humble even when they've gotta know that they rock. And the audience... this was NOT a typical Bowery audience on this night - it was mostly Fish N' Chips. Brit audiences are ten-times better than the standard NYC crowd. I went to a Kills concert a year ago and was one of only 3 people bouncing to the music. On this night, nearly the whole floor-level crowd was into it. That always makes for a better performance. By the end of the first song, I knew that I wasn't getting another beer. By the end of their encore climax "Club Foot", I knew - they were The Real Deal. Stage Presence? Great lighting, humble band, high energy... check. Hooks? Oh, yeah. Check. Tightness? In two weeks, you'd have a diamond.
Go see them.
P.S. As a follow-up note, I've been checking out their website and I've noticed that there's a little discussion going on as to whether there are pre-recorded backup vocals for 1 or two of their songs. I didn't notice anything at the show, but I wasn't front-and-center, either. It'd be disappointing to find out that it's true, but I have to admit that they do some pretty complicated electronics-based stuff on their tracks so they've probably got to run a little filler during the set. Tom and Serge were really tearing through their songs, though, so I can't imagine that there's anything going on that doesn't have to go on to re-create the studio album. A bit of a blemish, but they're definitely worth seeing.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Dusting off a few words
Reading is tailor-made for the Manhattan lifestyle. I spend at least an hour and a half on the subway every day. Over the years, I’ve developed two ways to fill that time hole - poetry and reading. The last few years have found me reading at pace unlike any I've enjoyed. I am so voracious for reading material, I'm actually going back to my bookshelf and reading all those books I was supposed to have read in college. A couple weeks ago, I finished the third Rabbit book by John Updike - Rabbit is Rich. I always reach a point when I’m reading Updike, 50 pages or so, when I become convinced that I am going to be bored to death and should just stop reading. By the end, though, I’m begging for more. Updike has a completely unassuming way of writing. His text is so non-stylized, it feels bland, at first. But it’s So Fucking True. His gaze settles upon details with such a deadly accuracy, it’s unnerving. Rabbit is frustratingly non-heroic, even ineffectual, but when he comes through you want to throw a party for him. He reminds me way to much of myself (bastard).
Early last week, I finally sat my ass down and read a couple Robert Louis Stevenson short stories - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Merry Men. Although Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has become a fixture in western vocabulary and has been emulated in numerous pieces of fiction, including the fantastic Fight Club, I still found myself pulled through the narrative. It reminds me of Dracula and Frankenstein, where a supernatural concept is used as a construct to examine the primal instincts of man. Stevenson keeps the action and discoveries so in-the-moment, it’s easy to forget that you already know the outcome.
The Merry Men started as a bored follow-up. I was stuck on the subway after finishing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and read it because it was in the only book I was holding and I was still stuck at the Canal Street Station on the way home from a TriBeCa volunteer gig. Holy shit, man. The Merry Men kicks ass. I wrote a stage adaptation of Stevenson's Kidnapped back when I was in college. I discovered that Stevenson is a fantastic writer and has some of the most powerful imagery I've ever known in a writer. When one tries to adapt the story to a visual medium, however, it becomes frustratingly-apparent that his images are not only deceptively complex, they would cost a fortune to render onstage or onscreen. There is a particularly fantastic moment towards the end of The Merry Men where the protagonist stands at a seaside precipice and witnesses the strobing instant of impact as a sailing ship is driven against the rocks by a seething tempest. Damn... good stuff.
Early this week, I pulled out a Kurt Vonnegut novel I’d bought 8 years ago for 50¢ and never bothered to read. It’s called Bluebeard and if I had read it within the first 3 years of purchase, I would have liked it but easily forgotten it. Living with a painter for the last 5 years, however, has granted me a little perspective on the Abstract Expressionist movement of the mid-20th Century, not to mention the personal crises I’m undergoing with my craft. Vonnegut is one of those novelists that I’ve never actively sought out, but never fails to surprise me. Cat’s Eye was a serious mind-fuck for me the first time I read it and was, in fact, the impetus for my Bluebeard purchase. It’s strange - somehow it feels like I was waiting to grow up a little before I allowed myself to read Bluebeard… and I didn’t know what the hell it was about until I read it.
Right now, I’m half way through Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key. I’ve always been a sucker for hardboiled detective novels. I’ve read The Thin Man and number of Raymond Chandler books. I was initially piqued by this genre via my long, love affair with film noir classics like Detour, The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Killers. Of course, I subsequently found the books to be far more fun. In fact, I used to keep a collection of quotations from these books. I’m pulling my quote pages out right now and I’m enjoying quite a few of them, including:
“Lead is his meat.”
“Grab a cloud.”
“Dangle, sister.”
“Go climb your thumb.”
(and my all-time favorite) “This ain’t my idea of a spot for a lead party. Drift!”
I’ve vowed to finish Updike’s Rabbit series, read Miller’s Tropic of Cancer/Tropic of Capricorn, climb the mountain of Joyce’s Ulysses, then try my hand at contemporary fiction. They’re still writing these days, right (joking – I’m joking!)? I’m anxious to try out some Irvine Welsh (The Beach, maybe) and Naomi Klein’s No Logo (not a fiction book, but hey…).
If anybody has any off-the-wall recommendations, I’m all ears.
Monday, May 02, 2005
The Bermuda Triangle of Manhattan (thru May 1st)
I can't remember names for-shit. I recognize faces. I can usually remember where/when/how I met them, but not the name. I also have a terrible habit of swapping first and last names when I’m talking about art,sports, film or music with people. I’ll keep saying Reggie Jackson when I’m meaning Reggie White or, out loud I will be in the midst of a baffling (to others) diatribe about Buddy Guy while I can clearly see that I'm pontificating about Buddy Holly... in my mind’s eye. The thing that really pisses me off about my memory, however, is my habit of repeating stupid mistakes that I’ve already learned the hard way. Let’s take, for example, ohhhh I don’t know… how about the film industry? After receiving my film degree at Undergrad USA, I moved to Los Angeles with screenplays under my arm, a wealth of film knowledge in my brain and a dream in my heart that I'd be the next Martin Scorsese, David Lynch or (at least) Steven Spielberg. For the next 2½ years, I learned what sort of culturally-rich Synergy bubbles forth when you combine drug-heightened egos, millions of dollars of dispensable wealth and the façade that Studio Executives are conducting ‘business’. The subsequent depression induced by this lesson required a year of rural seclusion (involving far too much alcohol and pinball), $25,000 of grad school (shiny new degree, same result), years of girlfriend therapy and a move to New York City before I could feel a little better about human nature. So, now I’m 8 years removed from my South Cali Exodus... which is just about long enough for my selective memory to kick in. Having forgotten how much I loathe the big-studio industry, I obliviously sauntered down the darkened alley of the TriBeCa Film Festival and signed up as a volunteer.
It must have seemed a good idea at the time. Perhaps I thought that I’d meet a few film lovers like myself (always in my quest for community), see some artsy films that were too edgy or foreign to find distribution, and, maybe, slip into a cool, festival party with an open bar. The TriBeCa Film Festival started in 2002 and has quickly become a plausible mid-Spring excuse for distribution reps to visit New York in between their vacations to Park City, Colorado (Sundance) and Cannes, France. My introductory meeting for the eager volunteers involved a cute, frazzled coordinator who read a hand-out to us which threatened instant expulsion from The Cool Club if we were to shove our scripts in any celebrity’s face or stalk anybody. A week later, I received a re-worded Riot Act in a tiny hotel ‘suite’ (labeled VOLUNTEER PLANET in a typical display of hyperbole), which I had to sign. In addition to granting the staff to flog me and remove my badge for any violation of said Act, I also handed away all my rights to talk about any part of my life that might bear witness to the habits of Robert DeNiro/Corporate Sponsors/the Business while exercising the Privilege of volunteering at this Ostentatious Display of Fame. Of course, I had ZERO chance of learning anything juicy about anything while breaking down sponsor ads and standing outside shindigs with a cameraman's bag, but it must have been comforting to know that They could act the fool in front of the help and not worry that it'd come back to bite them.
Already, I could feel the familiar, unsavory taste in my mouth. I was handed my ‘uniform’- a black T-shirt with a shoe store advertisement larger than the festival logo. I also received a super-cheapie “backpack” that I could fill with Lower Manhattan shopping ads, LUNA Nutrition Bars for Women (only 1, please) and Sucralose-flavored, sugar-free Altoids®. I’m not saying that I was expecting a TriBeCa Film Festival Gucci bag or a bottle of Absolut, but considering the fact that 2,000 volunteers were putting thousands of man hours into a festival that generated $65,000,000 for Lower Manhattan last year (according to Access Hollywood), I’d think that they could offer a better deal than a free glass of wine at a restaurant so expensive, I couldn't afford a side salad.
For those of you who don't know Manhattan, TriBeCa stands for 'Triangle Below Canal" Street. At one time, it might have vaguely resembled a triangle, but real estate salesman have slowly expanded the neighborhood boundaries until now it's more of an inverted trapezoid. Roughly speaking, TriBeCa's borders are: North - Canal Street, East - Church Street (flexible), West - West End Highway and South - Vesey St (WTC area). It was warehouse district until fairly recently. TriBeCa is now a cloistered community of aged celebrities, galleries and middle-aged men in black leather jackets. There’s still a bit of old-city feel stuck between the cracks of the cobblestone streets and it's nice to walk down streets called 'Debrosses' instead of 'East 57th'. As I sat in one of the volunteer offices, I could still smell a faint odor of oiled machinery and textiles. I find myself getting really sad and nostalgic when I spend too much time in these spaces. It feels like there's some residue from all the life and kinetic energy that filled those spaces and now it's just bouncing against the drywall and computers that occupy them now.
I don’t want to linger too much on my experiences at the festival. My experiences were, for the most part, dull and far less interesting than any other kind of volunteering I would have found in the City. Of course, not everyone sucked. There were a number of really cool people who’d done short films and New York City-based films. They are, easily, the most important contributors to the festival, though they were considered to be along the periphery of the festival's focus. The only real community I got to know lived amongst the volunteers and staff. The bond was mostly of the sort you’d find in a hostage situation or amongst those who just love to talk about Who they Saw. I’d also forgotten that people who work events rarely get to enjoy them. I didn’t get to see a single movie. I did, however, meet 3 wonderful people at the festival, got into my open-bar party and met enough jackasses to provide me another 8-year reminder of why I despise the Hollywood Scene. At one point, I was witness to a red-carpet premiere that underscored what an Ostentatious Display of Nothing the whole machine really is. I have never been much for celebrity and the few people I’ve wanted to meet in my life have been under whelming experiences. One thing I have retained since my L.A. days is that if you want to kill your idols, just meet them. Trust me, they’re people – eating, sleeping and shitting like the rest of us.
Now, if I can just retain the other lessons...
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