5 Things You Don't Know About Me

I have been tagged by both Muse and JeR so I shall arise from the cave for a post:

1) For 3 years, I was a genetic engineering major. I had done well in school, but despised the arrogance and indifference of the science department. During Finals week of my Junior year, I was sitting in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology class wherein I reached an epiphany. As a blanket of Utter calm descended upon me, I knew with utter certainty that I was going to tank every final that week... and I did. After my last final on Thursday afternoon, I called my parents to tell them that I didn't want to be a genetic engineer. There was a long pause on the line then my mother said, "So what do you want to do." I had not put a single thought into that question, but without a moment's hesitation I answered, "I want to be a filmmaker." The rest is history... or something.

2) For 3 years, I lived in Alaska. One of my fondest memories of childhood was ice skating up and down city streets. Rather than plow the mounting feet of snow, the military base would steamroll it flat, then send gravel trucks to throw rocks over it. I would skate on the snow after the steamrollers had made the pass, beneath the orange streetlights and three months of darkness.

3) I went to the State Finals for Pinewood Derby racing. My Cub Scouts troop made all the kids buy this kit that involved a piece of pinewood, 4 wheels and nails for axles. The kids then cut piece of wood to make it aerodynamic, then added some weight (there is a maximum weight the car could be). Then, they raced these cars against one another by rolling them down a big wooden ramp. It was pretty frigging fun, actually, and I won all the way to the state finals where I tied the overall winner twice until he beat me on the tiebreaker.

4) I hit my dog in the face with a baseball bat. I cringe writing those words, even though it's been 20 years since the incident. We had a black lab who was proficient at drooling and fetching tennis balls. After 3 throws, the tennis ball would morph into a heinous ball of drool. Normally, I would wear a gardening glove but one day I got the brilliant idea of hitting them with a baseball bat instead. So, I hit a couple dingers off and we're all having a great time until the last time. As I tossed the ball in the air and unloaded with my little-league baseball bat, my dog decided that he could save a lot of running time by just catching the ball NOW. I clobbered him in the face with such force, I left a tooth indentation on my bat. For 5 minutes, he howled in pain and writhed on the ground.

One of the top-five worst moments of my life.

After a few minutes of utter misery, he got up, slowly lumbered to his water dish, slopped a drink of water then retreated to his doghouse. Despite my child instinct to flee the scene of my crime, I went and told my dad. He came out, examined our dog and miraculously, could find no evidence of the blow. The next day, I was back to throwing the tennis ball with the gardening glove. Damn, dogs are forgiving!

5) I volunteered for Bible Camp. Who knows how it happened. The details are fuzzy although that my be my subconscious protecting me from trauma. One summer, I couldn't find a job the Texas town where my parents lived, so my mom thought it would look good on my resume if I did some volunteer work. Now, I am not religious. I'm not even religious-adjacent. My Bible knowledge is limited to half-waking moments in church pews and coloring books with David slaying the mighty Goliath.

O.K., I might know a little more than that. At some point, I think that I could even recite all the books of the Old and New Testament. Those days, however, are long gone. Even back in college those were receding memories. However, one day I found myself at a Baptist(?) Bible Camp in southeastern Texas, wrangling 12 year old boys. I even had to sleep in a single-room cabin with 10 boys (that sentence is just wrong on so many levels). Looking back on this, I don't know how I did this, particularly with no alcohol. I do remember a lot of evenings of bad pizza and games of Spades with fellow-counselors.

Ran - horny teenagers need not apply

When I was in high school, my best friend, also named John, was a huge Akira Kurosawa enthusiast. The idea of sitting through 3-hour, black-and-white, samurai warrior epics could not have appealed to me less. John would tell me scenes from the movie and practically beg me to watch it, but there were Forces far greater than friendship working beneath the surface. I was in love/lust with Suzie, a cute Vietnamese-American chick whose obsession with sappy, 80's, teen movies was in direct contrast to my taste in movies. The sexual highlight of my high school years was when Suzie buried her face in my shoulder for 30 seconds as Glenn Close attacked Michael Douglas with a knife in Fatal Attraction. Sitting 3 hours in John's living room and watching anything without Suzie in the picture had no chance of happening. Of course, my passive-aggressive dating technique to become best friends with Suzie, then Hope for something to happen, wasn't a success. She left me for a college kid who drove a Porsche, butthat'sanotherstoryandIdon'twanttotalkaboutitrightnow!

...

Still, I couldn't blame her. She was cute as a button, it was high school and I was up to my eyeballs in self-deprecating longing.

Good thing I got THAT out of my system...

I CANNOT, however, forgive Suzie for her taste in movies. How I could willingly spend money to witness the vacuous train-wrecks called Johnny Be Good, Teen Wolf, and Short Circuit instead of bowing to John's enthusiastic rants and watched Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, or Throne of Blood is beyond me. Nothing speaks to the crippling stupidity of a hormonal teenager than this. Akira Kurosawa is now my favorite director of all time, but whenever I sit down to see one of his movies, I must give pause for the shame that my introduction to Kurosawa was delayed by over 6 years because of Suzie... and I didn't even any heavy petting.

Fortunately, video allows me to make up for my past mistakes. Last weekend, I sat down to re-visit one of the longer, and better, of Kurosawa's films- Ran. Ran is Kurosawa's fantastic, Nobu-theater inspired adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear. Instead of Lear having 3 daughters, Kurosawa presents us with three samurai sons. After 20 years of abysmal video transfers, Criterion has mercifully stepped in and restored Ran to all it's fantastic, colorific glory. Ran isn't my favorite of Kurosawa's films. I'm a big fan of his smaller stories, like Ikiru, Rashomon, Stray Dog and Dersu Uzala. Still, it's hard to not like watching a director at the top of his game and nobody can pull off a sweeping epic quite like Kurosawa. The film has an expressionistic sweep with bigger-than-life acting and fantastic composition. Like any great tragedy, it is a very long fall to the final comeuppance, but it's a hell of a ride along the way.

What I particularly love about this version is the audio commentary. Stephen Prince is a fantastic commentator and should be required viewing. I've heard his commentary on a couple other Criterion Collection releases and he does a fantastic job of flushing out some of the better details of Kurosawa's life, his philosophy and his technical style. Prince also does a tremendous job of flushing out the story and illuminating some of Kurosawa's brilliant details. You owe it to yourself to check this new copy out, even if you've seen it before. If you haven't... well, what were YOU doing in high school?

Neutral Milk Hotel gets a spin

I don't know if you will care but I WILL tell you that I have been listening to Neutral Milk Hotel's phenomenal album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea every day now for the last 3 weeks and that you Have to listen to it and love it because it's that Fucking good. If you're an indie geek, you already know the album and have just made some derisive comment about how it's about frigging time I noticed it because You listened to it when it First Came Out and You went to the concert and got a T-shirt to show how oh-so special you are even though only your boyfriend/girlfriend will ever see it because it's buried with all your other concert shirts in the closet (What? Me?? Defensive?!). As for the rest of Civilization, my enthusiasm probably won't matter but I can't keep It to myself. The fact is that this album isn't First-Listen. First-Listen music is usually fun, always catchy and sells itself 15 seconds into the first track, assuming that the artist hasn't made the always-regretful mistake of placing a dialogue track on the first track. This is the method by which many people (and, unfortunately, record execs) evaluate their music. If a song doesn't grab them P.D.Q., then nothing is going to change their mind about the artist, no matter how hard I push 'em.

I have had this album sitting on my iPod since last October, but it wasn't until March that I finally Got It. Whenever I felt like listening to something new, I would throw it on. But then, I'd get a few songs into it and I'd started to get irritated, and finally pissed off with the wailing and the dissonance. I'd have to throw switch to a Death Cab for Cutie or Iron & Wine song just to chill myself out. I couldn't concentrate on anything when I listened to it, but I kept at it, though. I kinda liked "The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1" so the music never entirely dipped under the radar. Then, a few weeks ago,... I heard the frustration and anger and longing in the dissonance and felt the energetic, emotional arc and it carried me and with that kind of buzz of a long, epic movie or an all-nighter with good friends. Suddenly, I found myself at the end of the album, exhausted and thrilled.

It was a hard nut to crack, though. I kept that album in my iPod for months instead of deleting it out on the first listen. When I was in college, I barely gave a song a second chance. If I liked it- good. If I didn't- fuck it. Why the big change? Well, two reasons: 1) I started listening to the right people instead of the Top 40 rotation on commercial radio, and 2) I had experience. Even with the good word from bloggers and friends, I wouldn't have held onto that album (or a lot of my favorite music) if I hadn't endured the trial by fire that was the Move of 1994.

If I had moved to Los Angeles with any sense of preparation, I would not be the indie music enthusiast I am today. Prior to 1994, my taste in music was, to say the least, abysmal. My collection of audio tapes was highlighted by the likes of Bell Biv DeVoe, Poison and Paul Simon. The bravest musical choice I had made in the previous three years was when I purchased the cassette single of "Smells Like Teen Spirit". My old friend, Eliot, introduced me to the power of live, indie music by dragging me to see bands like Uncle Tupelo and Yo La Tengo, but I always scuttled back to my Top 40. I loved seeing bands, but I just wasn't engaged enough in the scene to know what was worth hearing. I was in the last year of film school and sleeping in my editing room. Eliot made me a couple tapes, but I'd barely get through a couple songs before I'd toss back into my case and whip out my single of "Mistadobbalina" for one more spin. It just felt like too much Work to explore college radio or buy something different. Music was largely background noise, or melodramatic theme tracks to express a mood or feeling. I know. I suck. I'm a bad, bad friend.

In May, I graduated and, two weeks later, was on the Road from Illinois to the Hills of Hollywood. It was a couple hours into the 4 day journey when the enthusiastic buzz in my head had abated enough for me to notice that the car was silent. I reached for my cassette tape case and immediately had one of those sci-fi movie memory flashbacks where some screaming engine noise accompanies a reverse-time collage of driving backwards down the road, into my parents' driveway as I turn off the car, walk backwards to the house and freeze-frame on the image of my cassette case, sitting innocently on my the kitchen counter. "Fucking hell," I proclaimed to my dashboard. Four frigging days on the road and I had forgotten all my music. I scrounged in the glove compartment in a desperate bid to find my copy of Rhythm of the Saints when I discovered one of Eliot's tapes. One side had Surfer Rosa from the Pixies and the other was Nothing's Shocking by Jane's Addiction. For four days, I had to choose between either this tape or the radio and if you've ever driven through the mountains of Colorado or western Kansas, you know that the radio is no kind of option.

I liked The Pixies from the beginning. There was no doubt about that. They were catchy and fun. True, they were a little Stop-Go, but the contrast had already been buffered by my introduction to the pop-catchier style of Nirvana that curiously seemed to emulate some of the Pixies stuff (hmmm). Jane's Addiction, however, was another story. I couldn't stand the lead singer with his high-pitched, off-key wailing. The only song on that side that I could stand was "Summertime Rolls". It was in the middle of the tape and if I fast forwarded the tape and counted to 30, I could listen to that one song before fast forwarding to the end and flipping back to The Pixies.

For 2 days, this was my routine. Then, somewhere in middle of nowhere, I got bored of the routine and just let the other side play. First, "Jane Says" started to sound a little better to me. Then, "Mountain Song" didn't turn out to be so bad. Then, "Ted, Just Admit It" was worth a listen. Maybe it was the heat of that 200 mile stretch of Utah desert. Perhaps it was the fact that I hadn't spoken 5 words to another human being in days. Somewhere, along that long road to Cali, my mental mania rose just high enough to peek over the fence and get a really good look at the Jane's Addiction mania on the other side, and it Liked what it Saw. By the time I reached the Santa Monica, I was wailing with Perry from "Ocean Size", all the way through "Pigs in Zen". Jane's Addiction wasn't a band any more. It was My Band. I had ownership of that frigging album because I had worked at it and finally Got It.

Sometimes, a little work will do you good (damned you Dad for being Right!).

the blue birthday

Last Wednesday, I celebrated my 34th birthday. It was a mellow affair. We ate sushi and wine then, later in the evening, Kat presented me with a lemon-blueberry cake that was fantastic... and it got me to thinking about my blue, birthday cake. (cue hazy, flashback sequence)

It was an old war in my family.

"What color cake do you want," my mother would ask... but she knew what I wanted.

"Blue," came the swift reply.

"Ugh," she would groan in that cataclysmic way that drives a refuted child into madness. "I'm not making a blue cake."

"Why not?"

"It's unnatural," she answered. It was as if I'd asked a Southern Baptist minister what was wrong with being gay. "Nothing in nature is blue."

"The sky is blue."

"The sky isn't a thing," she would proclaim as if it made perfect sense.

Thus began The Exchange wherein I would offer evidence of all the blue things in the world and she would condemn them to some off-shade of purple or lavender. Inevitably, my single-digit experience would lose to Mom's debating skills and a chocolate or yellow box cake would arrive on the 7th, clad in yellow or green frosting. Sometimes, a blue candle or piece of rock-hard cake candy would be added to placate my wounded ego (or mock my frustration).

But then, my 11th birthday arrived and Mom decided that she'd had enough and it was time to Prove how hideous a blue cake would look. We were enjoying a front-yard birthday/barbecue bash with the neighbors. Mom emerged from the front door, cleared the bags of hot dog buns and potato chips from the picnic table and presented a brilliant, blue cake.

"There you are," she said as if she were absolving herself for having constructed a biological weapon.

I approached it like Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind as he cautiously ascended a hill at the side of the road and beheld Devil's Tower for the first time- wonder and awe. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Mom was right. Nothing in nature could quite achieve the hue of blue that stood before me in the guise of a confectionary spread. It was a swirly monolith of anti-matter that defied the label of ''food' and Dared us to eat it.

It was perfect.

The mad gleam in my eye told my mother instantly that she had lost. Rather than greet this pulsating mass of radioactive buttercream, I had fallen in love. Mom refused to cut the cake or even eat a slice. In fact, none of the adults had apparently saved enough room for dessert that day. So much the more for me.

After running family and neighbors ragged from a already-manic kid now hopped up on 'blue cake', sugar shock, I slept well that night, with a brilliant, blue tongue.

I was never again asked what color cake I wanted, but I was cool with that... I'd got mine.

vacation... or comeuppance?

Every so often I'll catch myself doing it and groan. Kat looks at me and says, "What?" I confess that It has happened agan and she knowingly pats me on the shoulder and says, "I know." I'd like to think of myself as this dynamic, distinct individual whose voyage through life has made him a completely New sort of human being, but Then I cross my arms while I'm talking to somebody or tug at the little soul-patch under my chin and I see... my dad. I don't find my father's mannerisms to be offensive - it's the Recognition that they are now On Me. I haven't seen my father on a regular basis in nearly 8 years but they've been bubbling out of me, as naturally as breathing or growing my hair. I'm dealing with it, however. 'Things like this happen,' I tell myself, 'so you've just gotta accept it and move on.'

But, then there's this:

Everyone in my family knows that I am The City Kid. I am the family member who never liked camping or living in the country or hunting for deer or reaping the benefits of Mother Earth (gardening). I wanted to go to the movies or hang out with the neighborhood kids or see a basketball game while my parents planned week-long excursions to remote corners of Alaska for salmon fishing and hiking. From Denali National Park in Alaska to the remote campgrounds along the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, I've been a personal food reservoir for mosquitoes and deerflies all across this country and abroad. It wasn't enough to camp in the Great Outdoors. Oh no. It had to be done in the Remote Great Outdoors. K.O.A. campgrounds were for wimps. Hot water? Electrical hookups? Flushing toilets? Hell, you'd might as well stay in a Day's Inn and eat at the Waffle House. As I lay in my sleeping bag with rocks jabbing in my back and the persistent itch of mosquito bites on my ass from my last outhouse Debacle, I fantasized of the day when I would be the Master of my Own Destiny, when I would never again be forced to endure another second of Camping Torture. So, when Kat and I found a few days in July when we could relax from the daily grind of Work, what did we do?

We went camping... and it was... fun.

You can run, but you cannot hide, my friend.

Living in big cities has made me appreciate the beauty of silence. All those things I thought to be a tedious, cruel punishment from my parents for a hyperactive demeanor have since been twisted into perverse notion of idyllic bliss. My fantasies have flipped like a hippie-turned-neocon. I daydream of the wind through the trees instead of car alarms. I contemplate canoeing down a meandering brook in place of the choking cluster-fuck of a subway at 8 in the morning.

What have I become? Dear GOD, What Have I Become?!

...need... decadent night... on the town... now!

Answers for ~JeR~

I'm normally not a big fan of these, but it's a good way to get to know some fellow-bloggers that I admire and vice-versa.

First, the rules:

Rules of the game:
1. Leave a comment saying "interview me"
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions.
3. You will update your blog with the questions and your answers.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to interview some else in same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed you ask them 5 questions.

All righty then. Let's get to it!

1. If you could choose one song as your personal theme song, which one would it be and why?
That's a hefty question to ask of a rock music fan. There are so many that represent who I was, but what represents me now?

Somehow, the first song that popped into my head was "Sunken Treasure" by Wilco. The words and chords have always rung true for me.

2. Who's your hero? (interpret this any way you want)
Hero... well, first it was Han Solo, then it was Indiana Jones, then I grew up. As inspiring as Obi Wan Kenobi was, negotiating the lava flows and kicking Anakin's ass, I'd have to say that it was my grandmother - my mom's mom. She was the wife of a farmer and survived the depression, took care of 7 children under hard conditions, lost 3 of them before she passed away, and never complained until the last couple years when she couldn't see (she loved to make quilts and knit). She had this unshakable view that beautiful and terrible things could and would happen in life and you dealt with it, then moved on. The amazing thing was that she wasn't callous or in-denial about it either. It was just that she didn't expect life to be fair or give her things simply because she wanted them and cared about them. She was the mold that made me coin the phrase 'a closet optimist'. She was rarely what I would call positive, but if she saw you started getting down on yourself, she'd sneak you a glimpse of hope that'd get you through.

And that frigging woman visited my family and me in every city the U.S. Army stuck us. In the late 70's she braved her first airplane ride to see us in Alaska and in her mid-80's, flew to Germany to visit us. She lived simply on Corn Flakes and green beans whenever she was at home then enjoyed the last laugh by leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars to her children that nobody knew she had.

3. What's your most embarrassing moment? (I know, cliche question, but the answers can be funny)
Oh, ~JeR~.... where should I begin?

Well, I don't know how funny it is, but the most embarrassed I've ever felt In The Moment would have to be the gala party that I attended a year and a half ago with my girlfriend.

Kat works at a not-for-profit organization that has a huge, fundraising gala at the Essex House along Central Park South. It was the first year that the organization was allowing significant-others to attend and Kat was excited because they had an open bar (always a great way to bribe me), a swanky, multi-course meal, and petit fours (tiny cakes and chocolates... Kat's into cute, little chocolatey things). I even performed the incredibly Un-Deckard act of purchasing a suit (my first) for this event. Kat was smitten by the sight of her stylin' boyfriend (I think it was the Cosmos talking) and we had a great evening... until the end.

I have always had a little problem with my feet. If I don't have good arch support, they can start to hurt. Back in 2003, we had a big blackout in NYC, Kat and I were in Queens, and it took 7 hours to walk home. My feet were hurting so bad, I couldn't walk for 2 days. A week before the big gala, I finally broke down and visited a podiatrist. The guy fitted me for a pair of arch supports and a prescription for anti-inflammatory medication.

When I popped my pills, between the open bar course and the dinner course, I had forgotten that one of the warnings that come with my medication was to not drink alcohol when I take the medication. After the dinner and speech-making, I stepped outside with Kat and her co-workers to enjoy my one-per-year cigarette habit.

Then, I woke up on the living room couch. I had NO idea how I got there. My suit was off and covered in puke. I smelled like puke. And Kat was furious - wait, I'm sorry, let me try that again. And Kat was FURIOUS. I had gotten sick on the subway, puked into the petit fours leftovers Kat had meticulously-saved from the gala. Through some miracle, Kat managed to guide me home (NOTE: I am 9 inches taller and 80 pounds heavier than her). She was sure that I had gotten drop-down drunk and was ready to kill me. I got sick at home. Sick in the tub. Then, after sitting up with me for a couple hours to make sure that I didn't pass out or perform some kind of Elvis Presley offing, she undressed me and dumped me on the couch. In retrospect, Kat said that if she'd known that I'd taken the medication, she would have immediately called an ambulance and had me taken to the hospital. I have never appreciated and loved anybody so much as the moment I realized how much Kat had withstood and done for me.

I had never felt so terrible in my life. I thought that I must have been guilty of drinking too much even though I didn't feel like I'd really drank very much. I have never been in a state where I couldn't remember things, much less 6 hours of my life. Midway through the day, I remembered the medication, looked up the warning on my medication sheet and realized exactly how stupid I was.

So, there it is.

4. If you had the opportunity to travel back in time to kill little baby Hitler, could / would / should you do it? (Hey, one weird question out of five ain't bad...)
No, I wouldn't. I've never ascribed to the idea that history could (or should) have gone another way. Even the most heinous acts in history are evolutionary steps for humanity. I don't believe in fate, but there is something about the momentum of a society. Hitler was terrible, but it was a symptom of something much larger. I wish that I point to a person or event and say "That is pure evil!" and remove the problem, but it's a game of Jenga - sometimes you can't know which piece will come out clean and which will bring the whole thing down.
5. What's your biggest guilty pleasure?
Tater tots and aspartame (Diet Crack - I mean, Coke). Time, space and logic warp whenever I get too close to these things. 'Enough' loses all meaning.

ahh, spring! time for Rail Rage

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)

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.

aging - American Style!

Growing older is not going the way I'd imagined. It's difficult to see that I am, in fact, a man approaching his mid-30's. My dad didn't look this way when he was in his mid-30's, did he? It's strange to observe that movies, music and historical events that you experienced have become historical. It's horrifying to watch contemporary culture try to sell this history back to you as nostalgia (also known as 'comfort food'). Apparently, my generation is supposed to have more disposable income than I currently possess. Many of the heroes of my youth have fallen from the lofty perch I built for them. They have dismissed, mocked, parodied or simply forgotten the sacred cows they had given to me. Was Chevy Chase ever funny? Was Dustin Hoffman of Meet the Fockers fame the same actor who challenged and inspired me in his portrayals of Lenny Bruce, Rizzo the Rat and Benjamin Braddock? What in Christ happened to George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert DeNiro? I can barely recognize anything I once loved about them. Bob Dylan shills for Victoria's secret while John Lydon continues to methodically destroy any ounce of credibility he once commanded among the punk culture.

I am a part of one of the most visually-documented generations in the history of mankind and it's disturbing to watch what is being edited and forgotten. It is bizarre to live during the Cold Warm the 70's gas crunch, disco, grunge, and the advent of cable television only to have politicians and fundamentalists reshape history in their image. I was STANDING 3 blocks from the World Trade Center when the first tower fell, but I can't tell you the number of Europeans and Midwesterners who try to tell me what it was like. With so much live coverage of the news and filmic approximations of life, it's easy to mistake your emotional experience with the experience itself. Maybe that's why I'm taking the devaluing of my music and film so personally. I want to believe that I have some ownership of those things because I felt something when I experienced them.

The older I get, the more I realize that there is no such as a thing as 'the good old days'. I sure-as-shit wish there were. The future is unknown and the present is rife with unexpected twists and turns. The past, however, is comforting because I've done it. I've completed it. I can look back on it and understand it better with each passing year. Eventually, I find myself feeling like it must have been better because I can finally GET IT. I can see the consequences as they rippled out from those haggard, impulsive choices. I find myself comforted by that wisdom and I want to be able to use it in-the-now. I want to know whether it's a good or bad thing that Americans don't read as much anymore or that we appear to be re-learning things taught in my lifetime or that we've become visual-oriented society or how downloading will affect my future as an artist. So that feeling becomes a yearning - for the past to be the present where the rules and outcomes have already been laid out.

A few years ago, a friend of mine came to visit me in the City. She and I had always been great fans of indie music but in the 4 years since I'd last seen her, I had gone off to grad school in a rural town and found myself immersed in the world of theater. After moving to NYC, I tried listening to the local radio stations, but I couldn't stand the remixes and bubblegum pap that they were churning out. I was living in the biggest city in America and it felt like there was nothing worth hearing. So, I bemoaned the Death of Rock and Roll to my friend. She patiently listened until she couldn't stand it any longer. She told me to shut up and start looking harder. She told me that there was better stuff out there than ever before. She pointed me to Seattle's KEXP http://www.kexp.org/ and left me to find out for myself how stupid I was sounding.

The rules of finding new music had changed but I hadn't. Rather than push myself to explore a little more, I chose the easier route - blame the changing world and wish for the good old days. Getting older is REALLY easy. All you have to do is sit around. The hardest thing about growing older is keeping an open mind to new things.

my Aerated head

Last night, I shaved my beard. This morning, I got my hair cut. My girlfriend did the honors. My shoulder-length locks are now resting on the top of the kitchen garbage. Looking at my mass of hair, clustered like the leavings of some springtime shedding, it feels as if I have been born anew. The leavings are so substantial, I feel like I should do something with it. If it was spring, I'd take it over to the park and leave it for the birds to make nests. I'm sure there's a chemo patient somewhere who'd kill for it, but then I'd have to put some effort into this lazy train of thought. I am now sporting a tapered, spiky sort of haircut that allows me to pull off both pseudo-mohawks and conservative looks with just a little gel. I've never been particularly attached to hairstyles... or at least that's what I tell myself. Mania allows me to follow an impulse and easily rationalize the moment.

It's tremendously liberating to shed one look and don another. I hope that this doesn't become the last time that I'll shed the hippie look. Admittedly, I am getting older and one never knows how many rounds of hair growth are left. It's never easy to go through that muddled stage wherein the hair is perpetually disheveled and the bangs are just long enough to get in the way yet too short for a ponytail. Then, there's the aging thing. My genetic history is a little sketchy with the whole balding gene. I have blood relatives on both sides who sport balding and furry scalps. In a sense, it's sad that balding is given negative stature. From the standpoint of evolutionary development, I'd think that it'd be desirable to have less hair. It makes a man that much further removed from primate origins who were entirely covered in hair. If I should one day discover that my genetics have vetoed my future hairstyle plans, then I doubt that I'll be terribly upset.

As for today, I could not be more happy with my lack of cranial foliage. I don't know what it is about haircuts that are so liberating for me. I'm like Jekyll and Hyde when it comes to hair. With short hair, I feel confident, jazzy and open to the onslaught of life's adventures. I also look about 5 years younger with short hair. I usually have short haircuts when I'm fed up with my life and want to make some changes. The last couple of times I cut my hair, I lost 65 lbs. and got a job supervising a summer theater. Long hair arises whenever I start getting into mythology, Tolkien, or hippie culture. I feel older, mature, expressionistic, laid back and comforted by longer hair. It gives me separation from the false, hipster sorts who troll concert venues and bars to be seen rather than to simply be. Sometimes, it's nice to feel older and, hopefully, a little wiser than the budding sort we worship in American culture. When I have a job, I start growing out my hair when I am fed up and feeling like a sell out. Unfortunately, long hair is a fantastic world to live behind when depression pays a visit. That veil of hair falls over the face and I am set apart from the world around me. I can sit in my private space and fondle my internal musings until they are polished from use.

Well, the veil has been clipped away and I'm looking out on the world, younger-looking, hipster-esqe, and no longer a viable rubbing post for our kittens. I've got a concert at the Bowery Ballroom tonight, my copy of Final Draft has been dusted off and fired up, and the wine is staying in the bottle. Baby steps to the desk...

a visual reference