Chronically hip (and in denial)

goddamn, do I miss this blog!

2006-06-02T00:19:00.000-04:00

Too bad nobody ever really read it.

...I hate you all. But really, I love you. I really really love you. Even if most of you did miss some of my fine-ish moments. stupid readership! why don't you care?!

fer serious, this was kind of entertaining while it lasted. harumph.

....And today my voice is going

2006-01-29T09:41:00.000-05:00

So I was rolling down Delancey st. in a shopping cart with my legs dangling off of the side... wearing sheep print PJs... waving a disembodied mannequin leg in the air.
And that was the surreal conclusion to yesterday's bizarre adventure.

Six hours prior I was standing in the back of a pitch-dark Uhaul truck with nine other crazy motherfuckers and two stolen shopping carts, getting high on the gas fumes. Screaming "woohoo".
And that was the surreal beginning to yesterday's bizarre adventure.

Imagine the looks of bewilderment on pedestrians' faces when ten people stumbled out of a CARGO TRUCK onto the sidewalk in front of fort greene park with two pimped-out shopping carts. The occasion: the idiotarod ('06). The configuration: each team to a shopping cart, five ~~persons~~ idiots to a team. The requirements: steal your own damn shopping cart. Find a way to tether yourself and your teammates to it. (*Themed costumes and the practice of sabotage encouraged.)

(And now, in chronological order, the story of yesterday's bizarre adventure.)
The original plan was actually to haul the shopping cart into the subway station and onto the subway (nothing that every john and jane hobo don't do on a daily basis) but we aborted that plan the minute we learned one of my teammate's neighbors had assembled a team of his own and rented a cargo vehicle to transport team and cart to the starting line in fort greene. We raided their Uhaul. And so, it came to be that the ten of us, along with our (elaborately embellished) stolen shopping carts, rode as CARGO in a Uhaul truck to the starting line, our cell phones and camera flashes being the only available sources of light. EXHILERATING. You have not LIVED until you've done this! Because:
1 - windowless motor vehicle
2 - SEATLESS motor vehicle. This means four walls, boxiness, bare-bones. We were riding in what was essentially a box. A box. HAHA!
3 - total darkness!!
4 - bumpiness
5 - fumes
It was enough to make me squeal in delight.

The others seemed to think of it as some perilous journey into the Unknown, and I very nearly called them all prisses. Instead I woohoo'ed myself to death, like a mob of frat boys on spring break. (No, not one, but an entire MOB of frat boys.)

So the task at hand was to get from Ft. Greene Park to Manhattan Park. Can we say... TAILGATING PARTY ON THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE?? woot! In the process: hit up The Delancey, down a drink as quickly as possible (& stagger across the finish line buzzed). Valuable information gathered: the width of the manhattan bridge walkway will accomodate two shopping carts. So now I know. And now you know.

Some carts were abandoned at the finish line, we thought it a marvellous idea to jump in. Various people pushed various other people up and down the slopes, occasionally ramming into each other with (playful) intention. ...Then we thought it a marvellous idea to leave in the shopping cart.

Minutes prior to my boarding the shopping cart. Impromptu party at the finish line. Seen here, the girl I was to end up rolling through the LES with (who knew two grown people could fit into a shopping cart?), and the guy who was to end up pushing us. Later on, he also donned a cape that someone abandoned in a cart, and somehow obtained matching shorts that he put on over his pants. Other post-race artifacts acquired along the way (right outside manhattan park, in fact) include the lower body of a mannequin.... which we, with great difficulty, stripped the jeans off of and dismembered further. (And to each, an amputated mannequin leg!) The girl shown above called several of her friends on her cell phone to say, "hi. how are you? I thought you might like to know I am rolling down delancey street in a shopping cart with my friend -- both of us -- holding mannequin legs, and my boyfriend is pushing us." (Had I brought my own cell phone, I would most certainly have done the same. In fact I may have called you.) What a spectacle we had to have been; all who bore witness either deliberately pretended not to notice or looked on in bemusement.
Some little kids heckled us.

I was loitering on a corner in the east village outside a pizzeria (STILL in pajamas, mind you. that's all I had on me/with me!) with my fellow shopping cart passenger and mannequin leg-proprietor after one of the wheels on the cart broke en route to ave. B and 11th... giggling and staggering as if I were high or drunk or something or another even though I was neither. Several passersby looked at us curiously and prompted us for explanations during the time that we stood there. One of them was accompanied by a british friend, and looked vaguely familiar. I said, "is your name Sarah?"
...And that's how I met ultragrrrl.
(after which I said -- sorry, screamed -- "OH SHIT, THAT WAS ULTRAGRRRL" to my companions while she continued on her merry way down the street. Still easily within earshot.)

And it was all fun and games until I realized I had to get back to brooklyn in sleepwear. Ultimately, it came down to me trekking to Union Sq. (to catch the subway) from alphabet city in a sheep-print pajama set, the very picture of ridicule. Fortunately my state of whiskey-induced intoxication dulled my capacity to care at all.

In all my enthusiasm, I screamed all the livelong day until my throat was raw and my voice was hoarse by day's end; nevertheless, my inner child was verrrry satisfied.

extraneous visuals/articles of interest

(more where that came from)

LET US BEMOAN THE CONGLOMERATION OF.. uh, real estate news.

2005-12-04T16:15:00.000-05:00

CURBED FRANCHISED.

In other news: curbed map mysteriously vanishes.
OH, sweet curbed map -- where have you gone?

dancing like we can't hear the beat and we don't give a fuck

2005-12-01T22:38:00.000-05:00

Every event that the (former members of the now disbanded) Sexy Magazines host draws in several pairs of exhibitionist scenesters making out publicly. In the past, the group of regulars included semi-notable persons such as a member of beloved local band The Shapes, but only last night were you able to spot Anton Newcombe making out with his lady friend in the middle of a packed room.... only at Shindig, baby.

Things you do at Shindig:

lose your headphones

double-take at the person standing next to you watching saints & lovers play, upon realizing it's anton newcombe.

try to carry a conversation with some hip foreign guys with exotic accents, whom you've so expertly and perceptively identified as being from... somewhere in europe

gain respect from scenesters because they are too drunk to tell that you're ugly or notice that your hair is appallingly uncool.

have moronic drunken conversations with everyone there that you don't know, and then wander silently away from them

dance like mad on the ~~bathroom~~ porta potty line (where you presume no one is watching)

in a drunken stupor, run into 50 people you know

...only to be abandoned by all of them while you're in line for the ~~bathroom~~ porta potty (again.)

miss your headphones all the way home

regret everything you said to everyone the next day

There's something left to be said about the tragic disbanding of The Sexy Magazines, a comprehensive analysis to be made of their gradual deterioration, and lengthy discussion about the inferiority of the "ex-y Magazines" to The Sexy Magazines, but that long, detailed dissertation will come in time. Sit tight.

The "ex-y Magazines'" performance put such a damper on my night, that in my drunken reverie I swear I almost sauntered up to Franco and dramatically demanded "whyyy?" But I didn't. I got to see the drunk, lecherous, debauched sides of some people I've only known in their natural (sober) state. Yeah, it's always better when everyone's inebriated.
....see you at the next one? (December 14, bitches).

2005-11-19T20:08:00.000-05:00

Oh My Rockness added Soft to their band list.
I repeat: OH MY ROCKNESS ADDED SOFT TO THEIR BAND LIST. Long time coming.

This past tuesday I imposed on their secret show at Knitting, a lone interloper in a room occupied by about 5 others -- possibly 6, all of them close personal friends of the band. It should be noted that I haven't seen them play in months (seven? I think?), so imagine my astonishment when I bore witness to the tremendous progress they made in that time. (So it seems after all that the critics and the blurb-writers with nothing but kind words to say in recent months hadn't just been neglecting to mention their minor flaws like I'd naturally assumed.) Who dares criticize the singer's vocal aptitude or accuse him of being a setback to the band now? And who dares accuse them of being "sloppy" performers (which is what they used to be, despite their enormous potential and obvious talent)? The band members are very much in sync with each other -- much more than they've ever been, and noticeably more comfortable on stage than they've ever been. Love that bassist! I think at this point I like him best, more than John the dancey singer, more than Sam the awkward drink-spiller. They were all very much at ease, and while they've always been the sort of band to experiment with their live performances in regards to vibe and stage swagger, they were fuckin' ON that night. I suppose this is the new and improved Soft, and I suppose their accelerated progress can be accounted for by all the rehearsals and determination and the dedication they've all dutifully invested in the band. The week prior, I ran into John at a show; it was about 10pm when he took off, said he was due for band practice. That's dedication.

I'm just going to keep on "dropping" in on their secret shows, because I browse venue calendars like that. Uh huh.
They play another secret show at Scenic towards the end of this month, I plan on crashing that one as well.

once more, with stage presence

2005-11-12T23:31:00.000-05:00

Eye-opening experience last Thursday: The Like at Pianos. I walked in skeptical and left converted.

For a very long time I was ambivalent about The Like. It had been irritating me lately that they'd been garnering so much of what I falsely perceived as undeserved attention. In my very uninformed opinion, I had written them off as an "album band", the kind whose records are moderately listenable but whose live performances are punishing experiences that you would rather not subject yourself to enduring. I saw them in September last year, it was an unfortunate arrangement, for their company on the tour was Sahara Hotnights... and the stark contrast between the two bands' personalities only emphasized the tepid mediocrity of The Like's remarkably tepid and mediocre live performance. I was extremely put off by their collective persona: they were all rather demure, dressed like woodnymphs, and the drummer didn't wear shoes on stage. Characterized by a total lack of enthusiasm, they were received by an appropriately unenthusiastic audience, from whom they were able to elicit little more than a few smirks. Midway through the show, Z looked out into the audience and said meekly, "wow, thanks for coming out to see us... we really appreciate it," as if she expected her self-loathing charm to endear us to her. And it did, for a moment.... until she started singing again.
Sahara Hotnights (dynamic performers that they are) blew them off the stage.

And now, now this mediocre band that failed to impress me at all one year ago was being touted as prodigious new talent. And on Thursday I saw for myself that there was merit behind all the words of praise. Within the span of a year, they appear to have developed... character and stage presence, exhibiting a level of professionalism and overall maturity I never estimated they'd be capable of... I guess I underestimated them. Clearly the band has discovered musical refinement and Z has, to the gain of the world, discovered her lower register. So, the girl had the potential to be an outstanding vocalist after all.... who knew?

One year ago they were a cutesy, girly band. I regarded them as an underdeveloped, amateurish, premature effort at creating music. I decided it was just a lucky coincidence that they always translated well in recording. This year, they have evolved into a real band, with a singer who's no longer afraid to make optimal use of her killer contralto. (By god, they even learned to play their instruments with an acceptable amount of skill... most shockingly of all.) The newer tracks, a little more structurally sophisticated, are not "moderately listenable" but infectiously catchy. I guess being picked up by Geffen had something to do with their getting their act together, because somehow, their evolution doesn't seem organic. Either way, I applaud them. Never has a band from LA been so warmly embraced by the cut-throat NYC music scene, never has any band born of hollywood's "lightweight" indie pop scene been so beloved within the circles of New York's most self-important music nazis. I had this notion for so long that if they were ever to gain recognition outside of SoCal, the same fate -- that is, descension into shameful infamy -- that befell their friends and contemporaries (if not predecessors, by a couple years) Rooney, Maroon 5, and Phantom Planet would befall them. But it happens that their path to indie rock fame is less convoluted than I would have imagined, much more similar to the respectible route Rilo Kiley took (and unlike Rilo Kiley, they didn't have to deal with the awful stigma of association with saddle creek!), and despite having been ambivalent toward them for so long, I am surprisingly proud of them. They drew in a sizeable crowd; we had a handful of local scene celebrities walking among us that night: Vincent from Soft, all the Surefire boys, Sam from The Fine Lines, ALBERT HAMMOND JR, Franco from The Sexy Magazines, and one of the guys from Vietnam (don't ask me which one, they all look the same). I gawked shamelessly at Albert when he walked in. But so did everyone else.

It was just my good fortune that they shared a bill that night with Two If By Sea, a touring band from Baltimore. I saw them a while back for the first time at Sin-é, and if there was one band that night that I would most confidently have assumed were local to NYC, it would have been them. Their sound, their attitude, their overall appearance, everything about them suggested New York band. (With respect to similarities in musical sensibilities and a number of other factors, I associate them most closely with Interpol -- maybe that's why I think so?)

Individually, they struck me as Bedford avenue types, the kind you run into at parties where Miss Modernage is DJing, the kind you see biking across the bridge on fancy brakeless bianchis, the kind you avoid eye contact with on the L train by burying your face in some pretentious book that you aren't actually reading. They seemed so distinctively and quintessentially New York City that I pretty much convinced myself they looked familiar to me. (I almost asked the singer if he also played guitar in this band I saw earlier that week... no joke.) I took one look at the band and started wondering if I'd ever seen them around town before, run into one of them at Sound Fix, perhaps a Greenpoint rooftop party...

They played an all-around solid set this time but there was no one present save for a guy from The High Dials, me, and several other peculiar individuals who remained from earlier in the night. And they still played like it was nobody's business. Again.

They've got some good material. Indulge your curiosity:
Million To One
Mont Blank
Report From Damage Control

It's friday I'm in love....

2005-11-12T20:09:00.000-05:00

I arrived in Hoboken last night carrying a rose that was handed to me on the PATH train by a stranger with a bouquet.

I left Hoboken last night in MyTVs' van.

Say what?
Yeah. So there I was walking down Washington st. carrying a single long-stemmed white rose, being stared and "awww"ed at by passersby. ....oh yeah, and the dude who'd handed it to me on the PATH was walking alongside me. I'm sure anyone else would have been charmed; I was, to the contrary, irritated and for eleven blocks (Hoboken blocks. Freakin' LONG-ASS hoboken blocks!) I struggled to conceal my annoyance.

By the end of the night, the lecherous local band MyTVs (you know them from all the logo stickers plastered on lamp posts and bathroom mirrors everywhere) had made friends with me at Maxwell's and I hitched a ride back to the city on their van. Which got me wondering... why don't I ride in the back of vehicles with no seats more often?

To be honest, I look forward to the commute home from Maxwell's, particularly at those ungodly hours of the day... I love the PATH train, the route back to the train station, waiting for it, being on it. (Yes. I have an unexplicable fondness for the new jersey transit system, okay?) But when MyTVs offers you a lift back into the city, even at the sacrifice of the lovely 2am trip on the PATH, how do you decline that offer? Why, they only had to say, "it has no seats", and I was gone. SO IN. Being cargo in a van with five drunk crazy potheads sure beats being a passenger on the PATH any day, lovely though the PATH train and its passengers may be.
Yeah, MyTVs are a fun band. That enjoys decorating the city with their logo stickers.

Rather bizarre end to an otherwise flavorless week. But more bizarre things have happened, I suppose.

Monday you can hold your head...

2005-11-08T23:24:00.000-05:00

It was only Monday, and the week was already stale.

I went to see a band called Big City Rock last night. The original plan was to drop in on the "secret" Big City Rock show taking place at small, intimate super-charming Maxwell's in super-charming Hoboken on a Friday.
But I skipped it.
Instead I ended up paying $30 that following Monday to stand in a room full of scary people who showed up for some band called Institute that apparently Gavin Rossdale plays in.
I am a grand idiot.

uh huh.

I haven't felt this out of place since the last time I saw Phantom Planet, and at least their fans are only scary in a nymphomaniac fangirl kind of way. And of course it goes without saying that the Gavin Rossdale side project frightened me, so I was out of Irving Plaza by 10:30 fleeing back to Union Square with every intention of taking the subway home. But when I realized that everyone on the platform was either going home from work or leaving home for the LES, I went back up the stairs and sat in the square for half an hour listening to my iPod until it got too cold to remain sedentary outside any longer. (Being a bona fide creature of the night, I am never content to head home any sooner than the rest of the city has long retired to bed and even the LES has become a ghost town.) Nothin' like being displaced in the city at 10:30 on a Monday night..... sprawled on a bench in union square that I'm sure Al the cross-eyed hobo would have shoo-ed me off of by 12...
Lame night.

I return.

2005-11-06T08:01:00.000-05:00

This blog has effectively been resurrected.

tonight, I missed...

2005-09-21T23:28:00.000-04:00

The Cloud Room, Radio 4, Group Sounds, Craig Wedren, Pela, Domino, and Au Revoir Simone at Southpaw.... and didn't realize it until I checked ohmyrockness a minute ago. I died.

You see, I've been a little under the weather lately. Which is why I've withdrawn and fallen behind (as much as my lifestyle will allow). And why I need a hiatus. Speaking of which, I should get back to being AWOL.

oh no! somewhere there's a vision-impaired hipster running around with no glasses!

2005-09-21T12:52:00.000-04:00

We briefly interrupt this hiatus to bring you the story of a barhopper who lost their weezer glasses friday night. (Versace eyewear... how eurotrash of you, hipster barhopper. Although, I am afraid, I'm guilty of associating with someone who wears Prada weezer glasses.) This is tragic, you understand, for somewhere in Manhattan there is a hipster with poor vision who's missing their Versace frames.

CLEARLY an effort by the Powers That Be to level the imbalance in the universe resulting directly from the foolish counterculture style phenomenon that is the wearing of black square-framed glasses as a fashion accessory by trendwhores who needn't any vision correction.
I've just insulted nearly every vision-impaired person within my network of friends and associates. My work here is done.

Carry on!

Away at sell-out bootcamp. Ta ta!

2005-09-18T19:39:00.000-04:00

I'm taking a hiatus. I'm sorry. Maintenance of weblog resumes when owner feels less livid and overwhelmed.

Now start betting on when I will return/if I will ever return at all.

2005-09-12T22:14:00.000-04:00

So, The Diggs' final residency show (plugged below) on Friday was by far the standout of the four (er, the three that I was fortunate enough to be at). Gotta give it to them for putting together one hell of a bill. I missed Dirty Perfect, but walked in in time to catch Heads Up Display... and fell almost instantly in love with them -- not because I've had adventures traipsing around the LES with one of the band members, but because they feed off of my weakness for good powerpop. (honestly, I've had enough of The Plus Ones. Haven't we all?)

I had the opportunity to see the newly reborn COMA, who evidently decided they no longer wanted to be COMA, so they underwent a name change procedure and stood on stage before us Friday night as "Unlove". They totally pulled a Prince on us.
Funny, two weeks ago they were still COMA. I guess since then they've, uh, experienced an "awakening" and decided a re-christening was in order.
< / lame joke>
Still fronted by a singer with a haircut like a pixie and a voice like a banshee (not the tone-deaf kind), this band is too surreal. Surreal enough to be called COMA still, yes (but Unlove is fine too I suppose).

Friday night drew in a good turnout for The Diggs -- not record-breaking, but good. I slunk outside to take a call about a minute before they were due to take the stage and when I returned, I had to plow through the small drove of fans that had collected in the hallway, all lined up at the door to see The Diggs tear it up.
Now, you know I'm a sucker for good lyrics. And The Diggs, if I've never touched on this before, have a way of incorporating into their lyrics poignant expressions of the most universal human sentiments. After "you make me wanna die", (courtesy of the only band able to wear the abstract monosyllabic band name effectively into the 21st century) I was skeptical that I could be similarly impressed by any song again, regardless of lyrical brilliance. But with lines like "your blood is in my veins", The Diggs win. Their management team fears it is Tim's knack for lyricism that will attract an unwanted demographic and bring about the band's downfall. But see, "I Wanna Be Adored" never produced anything of a reaction within the angst-ridden teen community (maybe in Europe though?), so I'm optimistic. (After all, you don't get a whole lot of typical prozac poster-child types singing it through the streets, do you?)
This band's live performances get better every time I see them. Although to my dismay, the drummer didn't break anything this time. I know, I was disappointed too.
I am shamelessly stuck on them. Not a bad band to be fixated on, you know.
...even if 2/3 of them do live off ~~the beaten hipster path~~ the Curbed map. (the other one lives near me, in uberhip ~~musicianville~~ Brooklyn.)

But that last band, they were really my fortunate discovery of the night. Though not as well received as The Diggs (to say the least), they were something remarkable. Damn shame that the place pretty much cleared out by the time Two If By Sea were set up. Few of us stayed around (a tragedy) despite being encouraged to do so by Tim himself, but all who did were blown away. The unanimous opinion -- at least, among the remainder of the substantial crowd that accumulated during The Diggs' performance -- seemed to be that they were much, much too good to be playing to ten people (thirteen tops). Vocals like The Killers in their cheekiest of moments + Faint-esque magnetism + keyboards like Big City Rock. Yum. Mindnumbingly catchy stuff. It's a pity they belong to Baltimore, they need to come back to us. Like, soon.
One of these days they will break out (in a big way. I'm talkin' Bloc Party proportions). So love them while you can still afford not to hate them.

just a couple of interesting pictures from the past few days

2005-09-08T12:17:00.000-04:00

Adam and Kimya on stage together. (I know.)

Mark the cobrasnake finally dragged his ass to Shindig.
In short-shorts.

The Cobrasnake and Last Night's Party cross paths.
(I hear productshopnyc was there too, but he and I coincide plenty as it is. And yet, I still don't know what he looks like.)

If you'd like to know my whereabouts on Friday, The Diggs are wrapping up their Sin-e residency tomorrow. Yes, they are playing at 11 this time. Line-up goes like this:

12am Two if by Sea
11pm The Diggs
10pm Unlove (the band formerly known as COMA)
9pm Heads Up Display
8pm Dirty Perfect

All worth checking out, so come early and stay late.

So live my life for me while I'm away, will you? Thanks.

2005-08-22T22:13:00.000-04:00

The unforseen ~~trip to~~ obligation to be in Boston seems to have produced some unfavorable schedule conflicts. Yes, I will be on mandatory leave to Boston tomorrow, where I am to be detained for several days. It's less of a vacation than it is a.. "hostage situation", as I've described to several people. I'll try not to sulk too hard. Although being in a town where nobody thinks I'm a nutjob seems a good opportunity to clear my head. Plus, I get a chance to enjoy the finer things in life: roadside fast food restaurants, spontaneity, hours of driving, hanging out on hotel lobby furniture... who doesn't appreciate a car trip?
I'm gone for Tuesday, Wednesday, and (most of?) Thursday. Thought I'd tend to my last order of business and leave you all with a request: attend my pre-empted engagements for me.

Tues.
Sufjan Stevens @ Bowery (given you were lucky enough to secure a ticket.. I just sold mine on CL.)

Wed.
Hula @ Tonic

Thurs.
The Diggs @ Sin-e

Especially that last one -- if for no other reason, because Autodrone is also on the bill and because it doesn't conflict with another DCFC show. (pshhhh. DCFC. mumblemumble groangroan.) They played a couple of songs I didn't recognize at last week's show: "You Don’t Listen to Music" and "Everyone’s Starting Over" -- they may be new, but I'm not sure. In any case, you haven't heard The Diggs until you've heard The Diggs on Sin-e's sound system. If you missed the one last week, they played with a band called Beat Radio -- who sounded like they could easily have been one of the early Matador bands -- and The Octagon, beloved within the elite inner circle of this city's bloggeratti, but I didn't care for them too much. (Sidenote, they look like a bizarre offshoot of The Fame, which I found amusing.) I left two or three songs in. Whoops.

Back on Friday -- maybe Thursday night... we'll see. Until then, miss me.

2005-08-16T22:17:00.000-04:00

So this is what you're going to do on Thursday:

Rumor has it they will debut new songs.

Other bands scheduled to perform are as follows:
Thurs. 8/18 Beat Radio, The Octagon
Thurs. 8/25 Autodrone, COMA
Thurs. 9/1
Fri. 9/9 Joy Zipper

I'll keep you posted. WATCH THIS SPACE.

2005-08-06T12:13:00.000-04:00

Say.. is it just me or has Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah been blowing up these past few months? I don't remember them being this big earlier in the year.... Have you been watching? Watch, my dears, be witness to the wonders of acclaim and publicity. As with the great Rilo Kiley phenomenon, Jenyk anticipated it. And as with Rilo Kiley, they're moving at a frantic pace. I, being a former Rilo Kiley devotee, should know.

Their September Bowery Ballroom show is sold out. Tickets to their September Warsaw show are selling at $13.50. (Not even Soft is gaining momentum this rapidly!) Let it be a preview (warning?) of things to come. I've seen them only a handful of times, but if I had forseen this at all, I would have made it a priority not to miss a single show. Long gone are the days of CYHSY at Pianos and Maxwell's... Best catch them on their fall tour even if it means $13.50 at the Warsaw. After all, the next time they play in New York, they could very likely grace the Roseland stage. And you'd probably rather not be stuck fuming about $30 tickets... while you're sitting on the entrance line outside Roseland at 4pm waiting for doors.... next to some 15-year-old girls... with big lame holes in the knees of their Mudd jeans... who've written and doodled on the rubber toe caps of their shoes... from places called huntington, westchester, and scarsdale... girls who turn to you and ask you such things as "so what are you, do you go to high school?"
The demographic of their fanbase may shift, their ticket prices may increase exponentially. They might take on diva-esque demeanors. Your devotion might waver.
...Just seems like the natural progression.

You could also catch them for free this upcoming Wednesday at South Street Seaport. I probably will.

2005-08-05T20:30:00.000-04:00

Hey, you know what's funny? I just figured this out.. the photographer who took my picture at Siren (and then was seen photographing Ambulance Ltd. on the beach) was Dustin fuckin' Pittman. THE Dustin Pittman.

But you know what's even funnier? Actually, I'm not going to say. If you ask me though, I might tell you... (I like gettting e-mail, anyway.)

If you thought the iPod sock was absurd, get a load of this.

2005-07-30T17:47:00.000-04:00

zee best friend says: "If you buy that case you're going to need imaginary friends. 'So, where's the iWife?'"

Apparently the people at Speck decided the original silicon carrying case didn't donate enough additional bulk to your iPod, so they added arms and legs. I guess they also decided we could benefit from an extra dose of inanity in our lives (and that we have a dispensable excess of cash and unlimited pocketspace). This mutant version of the iPod carrying case is selling for nearly twice the value of the one without arms and legs.
zee best friend says: "Ah, the price of limbs."

So let me get this straight... for $15 more, I can turn my iPod into a cumbersome, unwieldy and irregularly-shaped bendy toy. Yeah..... who else thinks this is an injustice of the world?

Note, also: the iGuy has a derriere...!!
Nope. They were so not kidding with this one. I'm horrified.
Then again, we should probably just be glad they didn't affectionately name the mini version of the iGuy the "iChild".

Ironically, they put heavy emphasis on the "functionality" of the thing.... So, I stand corrected. I guess the limbs can and do serve a purpose. (But let me ask you this -- what purpose in hell does the ass serve?) It's actually very convenient. Like, you know, the next time I'm talking to someone on the phone and I need to put the receiver down for whatever reason, I can dig my iPod out of my pocket and position iGuy's fabulous POSEABLE ARMS such that it -- I'm sorry, he -- doubles as a super-nifty, uh... phone holder. Because it would just kill me to put it on the table.
(Also, I suddenly feel inclined to go out and buy myself a dangly star keychain just to hang it from iGuy's limbs when I do invest in one. And make no mistake, it is quite the investment, for an iPod carrying case.)
more gems from my quotable best friend: "I guess my iPod case is an amputee."
(I guess it is...)

Sad thing is, many of you are going to run out and buy it. Because, really, what you need -- what we all need is an iPod case that looks like fuckin' GUMBY.

Other ridiculous trends in soupin' up the old iPod:
Big bass headphones. They, too, defeat the whole purpose of the iPod's attribute of, you know, portability and everything.

But Natalie Portman wears them to listen to The Shins in (sort-of) independent films, so they're cool.

2005-07-27T17:49:00.000-04:00

Surefire drummer mystery unraveled. The guy who's been playing drums for Surefire lately is indeed an official member of the band. His name is Andy.
And he really isn't that much of an enigma.

In other news: the torrid summer is draining my will to live.

My friend Clara, meanwhile, has been on a cruise in the Alaskan waters. Damn you, Clara, damn you to hell. (which would be here...)

band line-up change mystery further complicated.

2005-07-26T16:57:00.000-04:00

There have been some conflicting rumors and general confusion surrounding Surefire's drummer situation. (Where the hell is Justin? Why has someone with an alleged hand injury been incapacitated for several months? Why won't anyone shed some light on this, and furthermore, why does the band avoid acknowledging his absence?) Recently there has been more compelling evidence to suggest that the guy "filling in" is permanently in the band. It comes to us in the form of... the flyer for the Vicious anniversary show that took place a week ago.

There's a certain infatuation Surefire has with being translated into illustration; each show is an opportunity to be illustrated and they see to it that full advantage is always taken. If I were any less familiar with them, I might have had them pegged as a narcissistic band. Below, exhibit 1 -- a testament to the amount of effort and strain that goes into the design of their elaborate show flyers and promotional art. Also, our "evidence". Pictorial renderings are sometimes hard to interpret, so the nature of this article of "evidence" is more complicating than it is telling. In this particular rendering, I had trouble placing the band members. There'd been lengthy disputing among the company of myself and myself in assigning identities to each of the persons shown.

examine: exhibit 1.

Without a second glance, you wouldn't have noticed the irregularity. So what's suspicious and peculiar? Well, first let's identify the band members. To the far right, Jacob. Second from the right is Ben. (I think we can all agree on those two.) Third from the right... Nick? I remain uncertain, but I say that's Nick. However, take a look at the one to the far left. Who is that? Blame it on disparities in the artist's visual representation, but that likeness to the far left sure doesn't look like Justin to me. (The other three seem to have been pretty accurately depicted.) To the converse, he very closely resembles the temporary drummer. That is the likeness of a bona fide enigma. He is nameless to most of us, known only as "the new drummer". The next time I see them (I think I'm banking on tomorrow at Southpaw), I shall incite him to speak; then he will be an enigma to me no more. (Perhaps he can even offer me some clarification on the situation.)

I'd established earlier that the band treated Justin's absence like a negligible temporary change in the band's line-up, too miniscule to mention. The other three have strategically avoided mentioning the "current" drummer's name, possibly to emphasize his status as, supposedly, temporary substitute. I really hadn't begun to see a reason to suspect anything until the guy subbing in had been drawn into the band art in place of Justin. (above) Last I asked, Ben had personally "confirmed" to me that Justin would indeed return, but I've grown suspicious of his word. This band, after all, is by nature reserved and secretive. I suppose it adds to the collective mystique they exude, as a band.
Damn mystique.

2005-07-23T22:02:00.000-04:00

After about a week of laying low (and missing two huge shows while I was at it), I ventured out to the LES last night to see brooklyn band The Diggs, wondering how a band that was so celebrated a fixture in the local scene could have passed under my watch for so long. I discovered them under some odd and random circumstances, but it was serendipity, for here was a band that offered originality. You'll want to think "brit-pop" upon initially hearing their material but there aren't distinctly British elements prevalent in it. Present in some of their songs is the suggestion of shoegaze, though absent are many of the quintessential components of the sound we know as "shoegaze", so it isn't quite that. (Still, anglophiles tend to LOVE The Diggs.) They've established enough of a musical identity of their own to constitute being described as "innovative" rather than being likened to five other bands.

But I'm reluctant to decide on my opinion of any band until I've heard their recordings and seen their live performance, so I took it upon myself to go see The Diggs at Cake Shop last night. Before me were all the indications that this band was on the rise: a loyal core fan base skirting the stage (uh, the performance area, rather; this was Cake Shop) a photographer darting around photographing them with (what appeared to be?) an SLR, employees at the club seeming just about smitten by the end of their set. They play short sets, but they do not disappoint.

Take it from me, if you like their sound, make a point of catching them live. (If you need more motivation, you should be pleased to know that they're also really nice guys.) Sin-e loves them enough to book them for a four-week residency next month, that should be reason enough for you to drop in on any one if not all of the shows. (Honestly, what else have you got planned on Thursday nights?)

Cruel laughs at the expense of a bad musician with cancer. I slay myself!

2005-07-22T10:00:00.000-04:00

Did you hear? The singer from Something Corporate was diagnosed with leukemia.

Huh. Go figure. ....Maybe he can write a sad, sad song about it. And then of course, an even sadder song about his girlfriend leaving him after he loses his hair from all the chemotherapy.
(Come on, what else is he gonna do while he's held immobile in a hospital bed pontificating melodramatically about the awful, awful fate that has befallen him?)

Okay, that was low.

However, I don't care.

I apologize personally for this interruption of the regular social commentary-based content with crap about my life.

2005-07-21T16:38:00.000-04:00

I'm about to do something horribly irresponsible and unprofessional as a blogger, and gush about my day.

I was at a professional photo shoot today, something I agreed to do -- on an impulse -- for the experience alone, and it was the single coolest thing ever. I should never be in front of a camera, I make an indecisive, difficult subject -- typical of me. (Come on, consider my personality.) But I got to be awkward, wander around the studio, meet an accomplished photographer, ogle his gorgeous... assistant? Apprentice? Intern?
Yeah. It was awesome.

I passed Chocolate Bar as I walking back to the subway and stopped by for an iced chocolate. It was the most godawful thing I've ever tasted. If you're ever in there, don't get that. You've been warned.
I'm sorry, I have no friends, hence no one to call and gush to.
< /gush>

Post with substance coming soon. Stay tuned. (God, this blog is going to hell.)

Sunburned again. DAMN!

2005-07-16T21:57:00.000-04:00

I return. I return from Hipster Fest 2005. (Sunburned but alive.)
About five different people snapped pictures of me, the first of whom I'm convinced was part of the Siren staff, and the last of whom was a photographer from New York magazine. Each time I tried resisting, and each time I gave in.
There are pictures of me floating around. THAT'S UNSETTLING.

I kept a log of all the thoughts that occured to me, and all the sightings of note:
12:31pm - food-serving establishments filled to capacity with some of New York's most flamboyant and pretentious indie rockers. Discouraged, I turn away because the damn hipsters are making me nervous. Currently standing in front of the wonderwheel, down a secluded street, where I feel at ease. Planning on heading to the boardwalk.... provided I ever find it.

1:09pm - back on W. 10th street in front of the mainstage. person slaps sticker on me. (without ever explaining what kind of cause it represents) Most of the other people milling around the area have had the same sticker haphazardly slapped on them as well.

1:10pm - victory! I find the boardwalk. I am also studying my sticker. So inviting is the excess space on it that I decide to write "blogger on duty" on mine. (Maybe with the hope that it will give me some sense of entitlement to whip out a notebook at random and scribble things on it every time a thought occurs to me? Maybe as a proclamation to all those who are watching me write compulsively in a notebook at irregular intervals that the notebook is instrumental to my self-motivated documentation of the event?) Who wouldn't have succumbed to the temptation of vandalizing it? Obviously since it was already on me, I had to attempt the feat of writing it upside-down. Backwards, I can do with no difficulty. Upside-down I can't do in any timely sort of fashion. I figure this must be what writing is like for severe dyslexics.

1:15pm - ambulance ltd. has been cavorting on the beach right in front of me, but I've been too busy writing upside-down letters on myself that I've neglected to notice. No, seriously, they are right fucking in front of me, I lift my eyes up and there they are centered in my field of vision. Admittedly, I am tempted to run far far away and secretly photograph them, at a distance (possibly from an angle too), without their consent or knowledge. (Instead I just watch them.) Slowly I notice that they are being photographed, that this is an actual photo shoot and they are posing.

3:00pm - I SPY SUREFIRE! Ben and Jacob Surefire (singer and bassist, respectively) seen on the boardwalk. I fumble for my camera but they disappear into the horde of fans heading for the mainstage area before I am able to turn my shitty camera on. I curse under my breath.
(editor's note: Clara, it's too bad you don't read this, you'd probably get a kick out of all this talk of Ambulance Ltd. and Surefire.)

3:01pm - Discouraged, I sit down on a bench and check in for my first Top of the Hour Sunburn Check. Results? Not sunburned.

3:30pm - I spot one of the photographers from lastnightsparty.com. I figure a top-ranked scenester like him would welcome the occasion of being photographed by a total stranger who recognizes him, so I try to chase him around the boardwalk, to no avail. (editor's note: Let it be known I've watched this guy mack on a girl he was returning from some party with on the G train. I've watched a top-ranked NYC scenester mack on a girl once. Heh. That's funny.) I mean, come on, I'd like to have something to show for at least one of these Noteable Persons Sightings I claim to be having. But it seems like whenever he isn't engaged in some conversation with somebody he knows, he's briskly pacing the boardwalk.
That guy walks awfully fast.

4:00pm - top of the hour sunburn check: still not sunburned yet.

4:19pm - I just let people from New York magazine photograph me. FUUUUUCK.

Admittedly, as the day wore on my tolerance for the heat, the sun, the isolation, the alienation, wore threadbare. But the worst, the absolute worst was my sense of isolation, which had so magnfied itself in intensity by 4 o'clock that I began to wish I'd sought out somebody to go with. Had this been winter I probably could have dealt with it. But the heat, oh the heat, the heat makes me grumpy and severely impairs my ability to think clearly. I spent much of the late afternoon loafing around on the boardwalk (where at least the ocean breezes made it bearable) wishing somebody would talk to me. Everyone was with their friends. That pissed me off. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't have minded, but like I said, Summeritis loves company, and I'd contracted the worst case of chronic Summeritis there ever was. My voice was probably hoarse from disuse. Save for some protestations upon being asked to be the subject of photographs, and three orders for soda at the boardwalk concession stands, I'd hardly said anything at all. Feverish (I really was feeling feverish by this point, I felt the onset of a sunburn despite all my top-of-the-hour documentation, and my skin was emitting heat), I sought refuge from the sun and ducked under the corner of an awning of one of them concession stand things (awning? I don't quite remember what it was) on the boardwalk.

and for your viewing pleasure, two stray photographs that I could not find a way to incorporate into the tale of Siren Festival as I had experienced it.

What a promotion strategy! Other bands -- take a tip from them. Your fleets of fifteen-year-old converse-wearing street team girls just don't cut it anymore. (did they ever?)

It's such a departure from everything else that was going on that day, from the tired old promo strategies everybody else had been using. It was subtle, it was clever, it was genius. He (he? it's hard to tell, the person's in costume) invokes wonder and curiosity by merely being there. He does not bombard you with a flyer, he compells you to take one. The others, they slapped big obnoxious stickers on unsuspecting people (as a result, many were walking around with stickers on their back pockets and shoulders), shoved things in your face when you weren't paying enough attention to realize you should have been avoiding them as you walked by, pressed handfuls of 1" buttons in your hands. And this, in contrast, is so discreet. So effective and so discreet. The guy doesn't even move from where he's standing, but he lures you to investigate.
A hearty "cheers" to the person in the disturbing 'guise, and to the band too.

Not that it isn't nice to have things shoved in your face. I scored two CDs and a Shout Out Louds sticker. Awesome. When you've been there long enough, you'll reach a certain point at which you are decidedly sweaty and haggard enough to take whatever you're handed, no questions asked. Flyer? Thanks. Sticker? Thanks. Flyer advertising a show I won't want to go to? Thanks. Big hairy tarantula? Thanks. Odds are, if you'd handed me a big hairy tarantula after hour 5 of the excruciatingly long day, I probably wouldn't have noticed until it crawled out of my bag an hour later or until it had bitten me and I was dying.

So aside from the highlights of the afternoon, it was pretty much a complete waste. I'm so going again next year. I so did not learn my lesson.

Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg.

2005-07-13T19:22:00.000-04:00

Thank you for passing the law prohibiting smoking indoors. (What a novel idea.) So that our entitlement to do as we please in public places is impeded upon. So that when I'm walking through the LES on a Saturday night (I specify Saturday night because never is LES more congested) clusters of chainsmokers who've congregated outside Pianos, 12 inch, Cake Shop, whichever hipster enclave they've come out of, decked out in certifiably "cool" but ugly as fuck glasses, shoes, and ill-fitting clothes smoking their Parliament cigarettes can survey my hair color critically as I pass by and say to each other at perfectly audible normal speaking volume while I am within earshot, "that is so not cool."

The air quality in clubs doesn't bother me, I'm more concerned with the quality of the people who occupy those clubs, because once they spill out onto the street for their cigarette breaks, I'm essentially subjecting myself to mockery by merely walking down those streets. It's like an extravagant and ostentatious showcase of each establishment's hipster clientele; each parades its trendy patrons, all fair-faced, perfect of feature, their cigarettes balanced on their fingertips, and the groups of smokers rotate about every 5-10 minutes. The sidewalks of the LES are polluted with bohemian barflies and delinquents, debauchees and art students... people I'm sure fancy themselves this city's hipster elite if for no other reason because they can stand outside of 12 inch looking pretty, arms crossed, Parliament ~~accessory~~ cigarette in hand, jeering at passersby who don't quite measure up to their standards of hipness (but who, nevertheless, have much sharper aesthetic senses).

So my hair is the color of windex, what's it to you? My jeans still hang nicelier and the hems fall to my shoes more gracefully and the lines of my clothes are straighter. Your clothes are hip and ugly, mine are contemporary and aesthetically pleasing. BEAT THAT, BITCHES!

Thank you again Mayor Bloomberg.

2005-07-13T18:47:00.000-04:00

You wanna know a surefire way to make a drugstore salesclerk think you're not crazy? Waltz in at 11pm and buy a singular item. They'll totally not stare at you in bemusement.

I was experiencing a duct tape shortage in the middle of making myself a duct tape wallet one night, so I postponed construction on my project to run out for another roll. And I guess the cashier felt entitled to stare at me like I was insane. What, lady? It's not like I'm walkin' in at 11pm with a condom emergency. It's a roll of duct tape. Sometimes people have duct tape needs, you know! It is indeed multi-purpose, and its many uses aren't limited to kinky bondage and kidnapper paraphernalia. (Yeah. I got my ex in my trunk on my way to a dark alley, and he's regaining consciousness, okay?)

2005-07-10T09:51:00.000-04:00

Every time I go to Kevin Devine shows I stand slouched over and look guilty. Paranoid and guilty.

I'll not permit myself to pan the room, but caution will tempt me to look over my shoulder. So my eyes just sort of dart around anxiously and I'll have the general appearance of being in prepared-to-dive-spontaneously-behind-a-table mode.

I saw him play a while ago at the end of last month, got chatted up by someone who turned out to be Kevin's good friend. By the end of the show he'd pretty much introduced me to everyone present who was a friend of Kevin Devine, and Kevin Devine himself. Needless to say, by the end of the show everyone was aware that I was the girl he was serenading. He insisted I call him, all but beseeched me to call him, really, cornered me into a position where it would be unspeakable and irresponsible for me not to call him. I didn't call him.

So. Who wants to ghost-write my blog? eh? eh? Take me up on my offer and there could be some money in it for you...

2005-06-30T21:55:00.000-04:00

I'm so sorry. My brain has been on vacation. Responsible blog maintenance to resume shortly.

I'm such a negligent parent.

Siren Festival: bringing hipsters together in the very, very last car of the F train since 2001.

2005-06-18T19:41:00.000-04:00

There comes a time of every year when Greenpoint hipsters are put in the least enviable and most disadvantaged positions of all us Brooklynites.

Siren Festival.

Oh, what we all wouldn't give for a two-hour subway ride to the opposite end of brooklyn. On two of the least reliable (debatably the two least reliable) train lines of all the ever-so-inefficiently operating subway system. (Our beloved MTA!) Oh, yeah -- they have it bad. Our cousins from the far, far, far north must endure close to two hours of what is very literally cross-borough transit. The poor suckers have to journey from the northernmost border of Brooklyn to the southernmost. Most of them are doing it by G and F train. And yes.. indeed this is the most efficient way of getting there, sparing you of the most different transfers. To those who must face this grueling commute.. Have fun on that G train for me, yes?

Chaos shall ensue on the G and F trains... especially the F train, for after picking up all the G train transferees of Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Fort Greene (the north, less north, and not quite north portions of Brooklyn, respectively), it must also accomodate F train patrons from all of South Brooklyn -- Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, DUMBO brooklyn, Park Slope, maybe even Redhook.... in addition to the slightly inferior Manhattan subspecies of hipster (encompassing NYU students, a goodly-sized group in itself) coming in from all the places downtown where hipster concentrations are highest. The great mass migration to Coney Island -- I'm sure it will promise to be a spectacle. Fleets of indie rockers from all the flourishing artist communities of Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan converging by the time that F train has snaked its way underground to Windsor Terrace and Kensington..... I'm hell-bent on staying in the last car of the F train if at all possible, I'm curious to see which stop the train is pulling out of when the end car reaches capacity, because it is always, it seems, the most desireable.
I've noticed a curious phenomenon on Manhattan-bound F trains Saturday nights, when there is an overabundance of hipsters on the subways. They are always condensed in the last car -- the whole lot of them, from every stop, like they consciously elect to pile into the last car of the train until all the seats are occupied, whereupon any additional passengers who pile on regardless must simply be content to stand. Elsewhere on the train, people are sparsely and evenly distributed, with no noticeable irregularities in either the first or second-to-last cars, or in any in between, should you walk the length of the train and examine the dispersal patterns of the passengers. Eventually the evaporating standing room will reduce itself to a couple of gaps here and there, and yet still, droves of hipsters collect on the ends of platforms and persist to choose that last car over any of the more comfortable and less densely populated ones which offer accomodations like.... available seats. Ample breathing room. Personal space. For some reason I cannot possibly fathom, they insist on lodging themselves in that tail car of the F train amidst the gaggle of beings of similar mindsets to their own, that assembled there before them...... Unbelievable! Such odd behavior, even considering the peculiar ways of the subculture group in question. After some speculation, I concluded that they may have been making a collective effort to arrange a situation simulating the feel of being on a brooklyn-bound L train during PM rush hour.

And that's only Saturday night into Manhattan.
This mass migration's going to be fucking insane. Two-hundred CLers crammed into one subway car -- ohhh, I can just smell the missed connections.
"You were the girl with the short black layered hair and asymmetrical bangs... and disproportionately large sunglasses, and vintage polkadot dress, and pointy flats.

Aw crap, this is futile!"

Potentially popular migratory routes of the NYC indie rocker on July 16
the general route
the N brooklyn route
the JMZ brooklyn route
the general manhattan route
the NYU student route

congested stations (this is a prediction):
Q/L - Union Sq.
F - 2nd. ave (LES/alphabet city)
F/M - Delancey (LES)
G - Metropolitan (Williamsburg)
G/F - Bergen, Carroll, Smith (South Brooklyn)
M/R - Union St. (Park Slope)
F - 7th ave. (Park Slope)
Q - 7th ave. (Park Slope)
I've taken it upon myself to highlight on a subway map all the stations where, logically, traffic should be heaviest. It takes into account two factors: which subway stations are ordinarily areas of high hipster concentration, and which will serve as crossroads for one train line to unload its Siren-designated commuters for redirection to another train line. (Transfer hotspots)
Anyway, this is just a theory. Whether or not it pans out remains to be seen. July 16, everyone... Save the date.
----------------------------------

At this point, the siren '05 site is still looking pretty bare. But get a load of that FAQ, huh? It's a riot.

I feel like I should assume the responsibility of clarifying something, off the bat -- so that when you're 1hour+ late, you won't be wondering why the village voice lied to you, in addition to griping about being forsaken with the forbidden-bike rule... Their 45 minutes claim is terribly misleading. The duration of "an average subway ride" from Manhattan to Coney Island is closer to a good two hours than 45 minutes. Fuck, it takes 45 minutes by F to get from Park Slope to Coney Island alone. Your best bet is probably the Q (take advantage if you have access to it), but even traveling from Union Sq. to Coney Island by Q is likely to consume about an hour and change. So don't count on that 45 minutes promise. Spare yourself the agony.
Really. It will reduce the general irritability quotient and in effect, lessen the possibility for friction and likelihood of conflict among a demographic of people so notoriously prone to assholery. Because bear in mind, this is by a wide margin the biggest annual congregation of bohemian assholes in all of New York, taking place in the dead of the sweltering summer. (oooohhh. harmonious!)
Well, god bless the good people over at the village voice for conceiving this idea. (who's the bitterest hipster-in-denial in the blogosphere?)

Also, see:
3. What should I bring with me?
Sunscreen, water, hat, cell phones to meet up with your friends, umbrellas (if necessary), and your positive attitude!

Positive attitudes. Because hipsters are known for their.... positive attitudes? Particularly when they're bikeless, sunburned, dissatisfied with the deplorable G and F train service, and fuming about the truancy of bike racks? Well, go figure!
Hell, I'd be plenty belligerent and irate just from having ridden the G train down to the last stop for the F all the way down to Coney Island. Of course. We all know how friendly and benign disgruntled assholes are reputed to be. How could we ever accuse them of being anything but the notoriously positive, life-affirming beings we know them to be? With their pleasant demeanors, regard for others, policies of compliance, their unparalleled altruism? Sure they'll bring their positive attitudes!

How precociously optimistic of you, Siren Festival FAQ.
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You didn't hear it from me, but.... Ambulance Ltd. is tentatively scheduled to perform at Siren this year. Oh wait, they've posted it on their website.. eh, nevermind then. The Siren folks haven't announced (let alone confirmed) it yet, but they will in due time (Ok, I'm going to call it now. I say they'll post the final line-up two days before it takes place. I'll put money on it.... You?). They sure are lagging behind this year, though, with the updates and press releases, aren't they? Hey, Siren staff -- stop being so damn negligent. Yet even in all their inactivity, haste, and disorganization they managed to recruit Spoon. Gotta give 'em credit for that.

The Dears... Brendan Benson... Spoon.. notice a pattern? Yes, it should be a brit-pop dominated Siren this year. I'm sure there is much rejoicing within circles of anglophiles all over new york city.

oy. paying direly tonight.

2005-06-08T22:44:00.000-04:00

Today I endured my punishment for a liberty I took, two weeks past, against the will of some superiors I'm expected to answer to. Oh well. My punishment was well worth my crime.

I took it with a grumble and a sigh. I failed to fulfill some obligations, and well, being the responsible person I am, I fell back in line and dutifully performed all tasks necessary to redeem myself. Administered by life and the authority figures in my life, my consequence was a bothersome requirement to attend an event consuming much of my night. It's not in my nature to bother, under ordinary circumstances (for it is, to the converse, in my nature to object), but this was a much anticipated, fussed-over event I missed. And it caught up with me. Regardless.. I don't care. Anything to be, for a night, the fan Addison overindulged. (Well, to be Addison's only fan, and in effect, to be adored by default.) This was strangely reminiscent of the night succeeding the one that got me here; I sat through a Jazz band's interminable performance in the very back, surveying the performers critically and exuding an air of overall unpleasantness and negativity.

At the particular moment, I sit in the back of an auditorium sweating like a frozen water bottle and suffocating. The air in here seriously needs to circulate. It is unclear what state of consciousness I'm in, but I think, I think that I'm dangerously close to passing out. Hard to say, though. I'm far too irritated to be half-asleep. I'm far too ill-at-ease to fall back into any level of calm permitting drowsiness. It is far too uncomfortable and unbearably hot to care. I'm scribbling dilligently on a piece of paper on my lap -- to the delight and approval of my vigilant superior, I'm sure. (This message is being transmitted to blogspot via telepathy. In case you were wondering.) That's right... if the act of being present and simply ~~sitting here~~ being held captive against my will for two hours here in this oxygen-deficient zone wasn't punishment enough, I was given a dirty burdensome assignment.... OH, to be a subordinate!
I'm missing Finian McKean and Kevin Devine for this. So you see what I'm sacrificing. But Finian McKean intimidates me and Kevin Devine seems shallow. I'll take Addison over both of them any day. Besides, I had some sort of idea of what lay ahead of me while I was scheming in preparation for the 25th. My reality was clear -- in freeing up 5/25, I'd have to give up 6/8. And I'm pleased to say I'm pleased with my decision.

I didn't ever make it clear what I did, did I? Well if it would put your mind at peace to know, it involved letter forgery and one clever elaborate lie made possible by circumstances working in my favor and things falling into place in such a way that was ideal for me and my particular predicament, by some unlikely coincidence. I mean it, this was an incredible set-up of, like, supernatural stars-aligning proportions. (Thank you circumstances, thank you!) Because surely, they would not have accepted my real excuse -- "sorry, I can't be present, I have to see a band tonight.." So, I wriggled out of this obligation I had by means of a convincing lie and a forged note backing it. (Letter forgery -- fuck yeah, I got it down!)
Well, to be fair, since the suckers accepted my elaborate lie and accompanying fake note (they didn't know that though of course), this doesn't necessarily qualify as "punishment" in its concept and principle, but as some generous second chance, or opportunity for redemption. Nevertheless, this whole experience is punishment to me.

2005-06-05T09:57:00.000-04:00

Anticipation had me suspended in a giddy sort of mood all week. "I get to go to Maxwell's to see Surefire! SQUEEE!"

I hadn't seen them in well over three months and when they took the stage, I noticed some immediate differences. For one thing, they had somehow managed to lug a HAMMOND ORGAN on stage. It required, I was to find out later on, three people to get it off the stage.
Also, Jacob's hair was shorter.... and -- oh gee, Justin sure did look different. I... couldn't quite place it.. was his hair darker? straighter? ah yes, he seemed a bit taller. I realize it's been a while since I'd last seen them, but damn, how long could I have been gone?! In any case, he sure did look different! Sort of like.... someone who wasn't Justin. hmmmmm.
So yeah, Justin was totally MIA last night, but the drummer who filled in was a spectacle to see. Surefire had barely gotten through a fourth of their set when my attention was diverted away from the guitarists in front and directed toward the drummer behind them, who'd been twirling his drumsticks like nobody's fuckin' business, and whom I was focused on the entire time. His mastery of the drumstick spinning thing (as well as the throwing-in-the-air thing) was uncanny. He's TOTALLY got it down. So for the remainder of the band's set, I had my eyes fixated on him, entranced, watching him twirl his drumsticks and throw them in the air at every available opportunity. Never been the sort to pay much attention to drummers, but I was enamored with him, his style was just too dynamic not to notice. (Aw helllll yeah, throw those drumsticks in the air!) INTENSE.
I don't believe I've ever concentrated so much of my attention on the rhythm section of a band. DAMN, that guy can play the drums.
Sidenote - I suspect, also, that I recognized him as an audience member at the benefit show at NYU back in February where ten bands played 30 minute sets each. Hasn't been confirmed though.

You should've seen the band haul Nick's organ off the stage and drag it to the back. Three people, it took THREE people, with difficulty. I stared at them and snickered privately. I just sort of watched, and turned away, and laughed at them. I hadn't realized Surefire had acquired a cargo truck since the last time I'd seen them, but they must have, because surely no smaller or less powerful vehicle could possibly accomodate ~~such an instrument~~ that thing.

Quite a bit of a departure from Nick's usual keyboard.
Well, one thing's for sure, that ain't no keyboard.

This worries me. Does it worry anyone else?

2005-05-29T18:10:00.000-04:00

"Why am I getting 'Friend Requests' from people I don't know?"

I hope to hell I am not the only person put off by this, the world's most inane FAQ question.
We all know it peeves me tremendously that it is so perturbing for some people to be solicited on myspace by anybody they don't "know"; essentially it defeats the purpose of myspace. Regardless, if you prefer not to be solicited for e-friendship by strange internet folk, I suppose I can try to respect that (RESPECT, not understand, mind you). But to be honestly and sincerely confounded by the, um, PUBLIC nature of the internet and of myspace, well that just indicates sub-par intelligence levels. To be fair, I do realize that the majority of folks posing this question are new to myspace, but really, is that any excuse? It doesn't take a proficient myspacer to know why there are unanticipated friend requests popping up in their damn friend request box, just any ordinary PERSON with a sense of logic present in their thought process, however minimal. Perturbing, my dear? Far, FAR more perturbing is that the question has been asked so frequently that Tom saw fit to include it in the myspace FAQ. And still more perturbing is YOUR STUPIDITY.

But the bulk of the shock value in the absurdity of the question can be attributed to the way it is angled. Tom does not know all. He can offer you guidance in the even that your account is hacked, he can provide technical support, but he is not privvy to the secret thoughts and SINISTER ulterior motives of these dubious characters requesting you as a friend, which in essence, is what you are expecting him to tell you. It is neither a question of the technical variety nor one requesting assistance in making all sorts of profile adjustments. Rather, it belongs under the category of "Tom, why is Becky mad at me? Tom, how does the world work? Tom, how do I convince my wife not to leave me? Tom, what is the meaning of life?"
Oh, I know! I'll ask Tom! I'll send him a message demanding an explanation as to how one would account for these interlopers who appear to have infiltrated this private, top-secret, super-exclusive information network -- accessible only by people within my personal circle of friends and me -- known as the internet. TOMMMM! WHY THE FUCK ARE PEOPLE I HAVE NO PERSONAL AFFILIATION WITH REQUESTING ME AS A FRIEND?!
Tom will know. Tom is the all-knowing magic 8 ball.

I think the real concern underlying the matter is:
Tom... why don't I have any common sense? (That, I'm afraid, Tom cannot help you with.)
Hey, Tom, I have a suggestion. Let's make that FAQ question #19 under Miscellaneous. No, it'll be great. The link will open a page that says "Because, my dear, you are a myspacer."

Hey, listen. Your profile? It serves a PURPOSE. And that purpose is not to inform someone you had a lengthy discussion about Kurt Vonnegut over lunch with two hours ago that you love Kurt Vonnegut. Or to tell someone you correspond with regularly and went to a Decemberists show with a week ago that you like the Decemberists.
I'll leave it to you to figure out what the purpose is; it's simple enough.

HO-LY SHIT, life decided to be good to me for a night!

2005-05-27T21:36:00.000-04:00

So I went after all. But I walked in about 15 minutes into their set. (FUCK!) This time, Addison played on a STAGE, at a place with a decent SOUND SYSTEM. Granted, it was CBGB's, the only remaining Notorious Asshole Club in new york, but fuck, it's going to be shut down in a couple of months anyway; might as well take advantage of every opportunity to be outsnarked by the employees that comes my way.

I spoke to the band again after the show, and my, they are a friendly bunch. Never before in my life had anyone been glad to see me. Hell, I'm not even greeted like that by my FRIENDS, much less bands. (Well, I have once been thanked for coming to a certain show, redundantly -- about five times in a single minute -- by an unnamed singer of a certain unnamed band I love, but somehow I got the feeling he only did it because he had nothing to say to me and felt obligated to intiate some sort of verbal exchange with me because I had been a devoted fan for about as long as they'd been a band and he saw it impolite to ignore me.) It's flattering; it's nice that this band cares about their fans. And if that hadn't already filled my gratification quota for the rest of my life, I was invited by the film major who's documenting Addison on tour to sit behind the merch table, where I spent the next two hours or so. Go, me. After a while they all just sort of scattered in different directions, and for a bit I sat there uncertain of what to do, feeling awkward. Oh well.. I still got to feel kinda important.

They were only still around because the damn club wouldn't pay them unless they stayed all the way through the last band's set. So they were essentially held captive. I guess CBGB's doesn't treat their bands too well either..... I was in the most advantaged position; I had my natural free will to leave as I pleased but was permitted to stay if I chose. Ah, the luxury of option. I elected to stay and be a burden on them until a little after ten.

I think they spent most of their visit to new york looking for a place to stay. This band was unhappily displaced in an unfamiliar city where they have NO fan base. Well if I thought my living arrangement was miserable... these guys are sleepin' in a fucking van close to every night and they had a huge fucking dilemma. They kept asking people to point them toward cheap trashy motels to stay the night. GOD, I was dying! If I lived alone they could totally stay at my apartment for as long as they needed. That'd be AWESOME. Ah, if only, if only!

I guess new york wasn't too kind to them. I understand that they were warmly received and showered in hospitality in some of the towns they made stops in, but new york is just kinda shitty when you don't have too many friends living there. I don't suppose they're too eager to return to NYC, like, EVER, but on the off chance that they do in the next couple of months, there would be much rejoicing on my part.

To think I almost missed that for the sake of adherence to my petty little principles. Aw hell, I'll sacrifice my principles for a band I love enough any day.
After Wednesday night, I made tentative plans to go see them on Thursday, but remained largely undecided for most of yesterday morning. Inevitably, my uncertainty resolved itself into a decision. Ah, the ultimate dilemma: being torn between your fanatic unwavering devotion to a band and your unrelenting disdain for the club they're playing. What to do, what to do... As the day wore on, it became ever the more definite that I would cave despite my violent opposition to the thought of ever entering CBGB's again, until at last I made an impromptu decision to go. After all, I guess I could put my integrity on hold for a night. Surely I could stand to betray my principles for a night. (hey, why not? If I did it for Locksley....) If they're only here for two nights, I sure as hell ain't gonna miss one of them even if it means I'll have to go to ::shudder:: CBGB's again.
So I spent the afternoon scrambling to get my affairs in order. Given all the things I did to clear Wednesday night, what was going to stop me from clearing Thursday? I had to rearrange things last-minute, make adjustments to my schedule, push things out of the way, excuse myself out of obligations with imaginative elaborate lies..... and damn right, IT WAS WELL WORTH IT.
Boy, what an experience, what a consecutive two days, what a week. What measures I take for the sake of my beloved bands. (I'd totally do it all over again, too; no regrets.) Clearing the two dates was like planning out some grand bank heist scheme; it involved missing other shows, re-scheduling my week, re-scheduling the remainder of it again spontaneously the following day, calling people up and saying, "gee, so sorry this is on such short notice, but my sister's graduating that night."
Gee, so glad nobody I associate with knows me well enough to know I don't have a sister. Suckers totally fell for it. ha. haha.
For bands, life can wait. For bands, I can postpone/wriggle out of my responsibilities. For bands, I'm willing to stop my world. (Especially local LA bands that have begun touring the east coast only recently and don't spend as much time here as I would like)
Hellllls yeah, I've got my priorities in (some twisted form of) order! Bands come first, life comes later. Always. Because damn it, do I love my music and my shows. Should I ever be stricken with some debilitating disease or immobilized at the hopsital in the middle of undergoing, like, knee surgery or something, I'd get up and be like, "hold, doctor, I gotta go to a show, be back in a couple o' hours."

Addison at what will be referred to affectionately as the hole in the ground underneath the Knitting Factory

2005-05-25T22:49:00.000-04:00

The Old Office was everything it promised to be.

In my brief exchange of myspace messages with Josh from Addison, I likened it to a dungeon -- a comparison based solely on the general nature of the shows that take place there, for it is where the bands deemed unfit to play the mainspace stage are "banished". I meant it in a figurative way, but OH, little did I know how right I was on several levels. Secretively tucked away in a corner of the basement, it is in fact, quite literally the Knitting Factory's DUNGEON. It's a basement with a bar in the back, that's what it is. It looks like a basement, it feels like a basement, hell, it even serves actual storage purposes. It has no stage, but is ever so plushly equipped with a... platform (if it can even be considered that) simulating to some small degree the illusion of a stage, like the kind that can be found at establishments intended to serve primarily as bars but double as performance spaces (Siberia, Lakeside, Pete's Candy Store, to name a few). It's just this big, level protrusion from the floor, elevated three inches (if even that) above the rest of... floor.... And the sound system is awful.

The band played to some members of their touring crew, two of their girlfriends, and..... me. (There were also some boisterous drunkards present at aforementioned bar in the back, who'd either stumbled in obliviously or had arrived unfashionably early for the bands that were scheduled to play later on in the night, screaming lewd requests at them that would most accurately be categorized as sexual harrassment. And I must say, they seemed to have enjoyed being sexually harrassed.)
By god, I must have been the only fan in the place. I tried to sing along, but I wasn't familiar with all the songs they played. (I still totally had it down word for word though.) And then -- oh, get this -- and then I whipped out my camera and tried to photograph them. Just one solitary fan clicking away with her malfunctioning camera loaded with dying batteries. Luckily, this lasted only about a song and a half before my batteries died completely.

They begged the drunkards (and me) to take pity on them and buy their EP, asked if anybody would offer them a place to spend the night, bonded with some of the drunkards. Here was this band, playing to practically nobody in a fucking subterranean converted STORAGE SPACE, saying "hey, can we stay with one of you?" I did buy an EP, though not as an act of charity, for I had been waiting several long months for them to swing by NYC so that I might be able to get my hands on that EP. I spoke to Josh and Matt for a bit before going off on my merry way. They may have pesruaded me to succumb and go to the CBGB's show tomorrow night after all since a show on the upcoming Saturday, I was told, is not likely to happen.... That's just excellent, now I'm plagued by indecision. It'll take a lot of effort and persuasion to work out my schedule conflicts, but I might be able to pull it off. We'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow, I'll sleep on it.

Some ghetto-ass concert experience that was. I wouldn't've traded it for anything, though.

So. there goes the daylight!

2005-05-22T23:46:00.000-04:00

I've been sitting in the dark for nine days. The lightbulb in my bedroom went out nine days ago and I haven't bothered to change it. It began a while ago when the first of the two lightbulbs went out. For months I neglected to change it and simply adjusted to living in the poorly-lit environment I'd created. It was dim, but bearable. And now, now I am just encompassed in complete and total darkness.
Eh. It's just light. I can stand to live without it. I'm adaptive enough, I'll adjust. (And when my bedroom deteriorates from neglect, I can always move. And when I die of lethargy, well... well, then I'll have died of lethargy.)

The blue glow from my monitor, I've learned, is an insufficient light source. Somebody please break into my apartment and change ~~my fucking light bulb~~ both my fucking lightbulbs while I am asleep (or when I am awake, whichever you prefer) or I will sit in the dark forever.

Ohhh, I love Manhattan snobs. They're so funny.

2005-05-18T23:29:00.000-04:00

I've known a few. We've all known a few. Silly, ignorant, condescending creatures, they are. Below are some of their defining attributes. (I mean manhattan snobs, to clarify, not manhattan residents)
They:
- are under the impression that all trains going into brooklyn cross the Williamsburg bridge -- even the L train, which doesn't go over a bridge.....
- are unfamiliar with the workings of the subway system
- have some misconception contrived from nowhere that the eastern-most border of manhattan is a 45-minute epic subterranean journey away from the nearest point in brooklyn. apparently the east river is ten miles wide or something.
- cannot fathom how one would possibly choose to live in Brooklyn.
- always speak in terms of "when you move to manhattan"
- have no concept of north and south -- and even if, perchance, they do, they don't know to apply it to Brooklyn.
- seem to believe that they pay more rent than you. shhyeah, bitch. not unless you live in Soho, the UES, or 1995.
- evidently think of Brooklyn as a narrow horizontal strip (perpendicular to manhattan) such that all that exists in the borough is to some degree or another aligned with the route of and easily accessible by the L train.
- seem to be living with the false notion that geographically, there is some linear relationship between all the brooklyn neighborhoods and that the further into the borough one travels, in this straight line known as the route of the L, the less desireable the neighborhood.
ah, if only brooklyn's geography and neighborhood hierarchy were that simple, you silly, silly manhattan snob. if only!

I very kindly drew up a visual interpretation, this nifty diagram here!

(editor's note: map geographically inaccurate & not intended for navigation purposes.)
the manhattan snob's idea of brooklyn:
Desireability of neighborhood directly proportionate to hipness and proximity to manhattan from one single direction.

I've also been unfortunate enough to have known a few who probably visualize it as seen in this representation:

Yeah, this one is um..... a little less elaborate.

oh, that reminds me

2005-05-15T22:44:00.000-04:00

All this talk of Adam Green brings to mind yesterday's happenings. I haven't seen Kimya Dawson play since that Knitting Factory show way back in early December, but I went last night, and oh dear, The Pharmacy opened -- if I hadn't learned my lesson the first time.....

I've only known The Pharmacy in terms of "the godawful opening band from the Moldy Peaches reunion show at The Hook in October, that I heckled during the breaks between songs with the guy sitting next to me on the bleachers." (Then later on we heckled some more outside while we waited for Kimya and Adam after the show.)
Lucky me, I walked in in the middle of their set and for about twenty minutes my ears bled. But, to my delight, they played "Dance With Me" (!!!!!!!!!) at the end of their set, which REDEEMED ALL. Hate to say it, but they played a hell of a rendition of that song, vocals not withstanding.

I had to drag my ass to Williamsburg for the 200th time in the last three months, this time to S. 1st. Now we all know kimya isn't big on playing "proper" shows at establishments designated for providing musical acts with proper stages and sound systems (real clubs), so it came as no surprise to me that I ended up at an "experiential art space" just paces away from Kent and the Western "bank" of the East River. I think within five minutes of walking in, I was already close to suffocating on the cigarette smoke in there, I felt like I was in Maxwell's, only Maxwell's isn't CRAPPY. My initial reaction was, "oh gee. how astoundingly clever and ironic to name this place the Glass House Gallery when no part of it is made of glass! a windowless brick & cement building named the Glass House Gallery. teehee! Clever, CLEVER."

Adam Green, where has your love gone

2005-05-14T10:19:00.000-04:00

4.25.05: NEWS ITEM HERE.
So, unless this "Greenpoint, NY" happens to be a little rural farming county somewhere upstate, I'm going to be VERY angry.

Adam, my dear, do your loyalties stray? What is this?
That boy is South Brooklyn royalty; he is our representative to the indie rock community, and even now that he spends most of his days in Germany, he is an honorary South Brooklynite.
Now what irked me initially was that the webmaster emphasized the Greenpoint part, very clearly with intention, by calling it "Greenpoint, NY"..... speaks for itself, doesn't it? Obviously the people over at Adam Green Co. determined that Adam's decision to shoot the video in Greenpoint (of all places) was not only mention-worthy, but worthy of an unabashedly boastful declaration. How else would one explain how such heavy importance is put on "Greenpoint" that it needs to be succeeded by ", NY" for FURTHER REITERATION of its enormous significance? Like it deserves to be acknowledged as a separate geographical entity unto itself, that it must be referred to, with all due respect, as Greenpoint, NY? It couldn't merely have said "Brooklyn", or, if the webmaster absolutely must, "Greenpoint, Brooklyn"? Really, Adam Green Co.?
And, you see, what the webmaster neglected to say was:
After Adam finished the filming on his new video, he headed on over to Enid's for a bite, where he camouflaged easily into the congregation of Enid's patrons that had gathered there like they do on any given day, indescernible from every other skinny, mussy-haired, blazer'ed indie rocker in the place.

This is not so simple a matter as Adam Green shooting his video in Greenpoint, no, this is Adam Green committing treason, in essence. On a large scale, this is about the enmity between Brooklyn's two major artist colonies, separated by Fort Greene and connected by the G train. These are serious matters of F train vs. L train, of Smith st vs. Bedford ave, of Banania Cafe vs. Enid's. Now we all know many South Brooklynites look upon North Brooklynites with disdain -- their deplorable living conditions, their obscure little socialist establishments, their, um ambitious "artistic" endeavors. And in this rivalry, Greenpoint/Williamsburg has steadily maintained their status as victor, because even while South Brooklyn encompasses more neighborhoods, North Brooklyn occupies more space and its bohemian population is generally more concentrated. There is a greater sense of unity and community as the threat of gentrification that developers and developments bring loom dauntingly near. Oh, but that's exactly it: that is a defining attribute of the Carroll Gardens/Redhook/Boerum Hill/Park Slope/DUMBO beatnik, dissident, urban bohemian, what have you. They see themselves as less of a whole or network and more of a republic. Not to say that there's any scarcity of neighborhood pride within those respective artist enclave communities, it's just... that they're less militant about it. Adam, oh Adam, one time ambassador to South Brooklyn, HOW COULD YOU? If not Adam, somebody oughtta show South Brooklyn some love!

Now, neighborhoodies -- that's one institution that's doin' things right. I walked into their Brooklyn store a couple weeks ago, the Boerum Hill branch, and immediately several clocks arranged in a vertical column captured my interest; each was labeled with its own plaque. They lure you to examine them closer, and you approach curiously, expecting to find London, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, etc; instead you get Redhook, Park Slope, Dumbo, Fort Greene, and either one or two of the following: Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Clinton Hill, and.... possibly Caroll Gardens, but I think I distinctly remember acknowledging its absence on the Time Zone Clock wall. (And no, obviously there are no time differences between clocks.) Located at the very back of the store, opposite the door, the plaques above their respective clocks draw you deep into the store to the back wall and tempt you to read them. Very clever. Props to them for conceiving that idea. But the first thing you notice, after marveling extensively at the brilliance of the idea, is the void on that back wall. They chose their neighborhoods with care and consideration, and the absence of any clock representing either of the North Brooklyn neighborhoods was no accident -- rather, it was a gesture of disrespect and ill will. You looked at that column of clocks and you just knew they had deliberately excluded Williamsburg and Greenpoint. But really, would you have expected anything less of them? This was neighborhoodies, after all! And I was delighted. I was nothing short of elated to see that North Brooklyn love had no place in the good Neighborhoodies community. If you've followed Neighborhoodies and its growth and expansion as a company for as long as I have, you know that they have at no point in their history ever acknowledged Greenpoint, and they CERTAINLY have never acknowledged Williamsburg. It's against their nature. They have just gone along ignoring the two neighborhoods like nothing north of Fort Greene or Clinton Hill is even worth recognizing. (And blessed we are for this; thank you Neighborhoodies.) They have deliberately avoided the inclusion on their website of people pictured wearing anything that reads "Williamsburg" or "Greenpoint" across the front. No, indeed there is no north brooklyn love to be found over at Neighborhoodies. And understandably there isn't. Just think how ludicrous it would be to put "williamsburg" on any article of clothing. That... would be dangerous territory to be wandering into. You'd be hanged within but two minutes of stepping outside, regardless of where you live.

Huge kudos to Neighborhoodies for setting up their staging area/HQ in DUMBO... their preference of DUMBO over any of Brooklyn's other industrial districts reflects directly on where their geographic loyalties lie and their feelings toward the giant mutant unified artist super-community that is Greenpoint/Williamsburg. And how 'bout the decision to put the Brooklyn store in Boerum Hill, huh? We all know that neighborhoodies is selective as hell about location so it comes as no surprise to me. You broadbandless bitches gotta haul your asses down to Atlantic ave. for your neighborhoodies fix, or order online and wait for your crap to be delivered..... ha, they're punishing you.
Neighborhoodies: representin' South Brooklyn, baby.
(Unlike Adam Green.)

It was just one of those nights....

2005-05-14T00:26:00.000-04:00

Completely missed Locksley at CBGB. Why the hell do they like that place so much anyway? Goddamn it. Shithole needs to CLOSE. I want that smug ~~little~~ colossal awning taken down and I want the place gutted. I think I just might hate it more than Northsix. What a fucking DUMP, what a staff, what a holier-than-thou attitude..... Some clubs just gotta learn to master the art of DYING. (and being converted into homeless shelters)

Now I was faced with a dilemma earlier today: Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah at Maxwell's, or Locksley at CBGB? Locksley at CBGB won out, because, while I'm a casual fan of CYHASY and would love any excuse to go to Hoboken and Maxwell's again, I like Locksley more. And after the Locksley at CBGB show that (at least for me) never was, I was left to wander. Had I any clue WHEN CYHASY were going on, I might have GONE. But alas -- oh, I assumed it was too late in the night for that too. IT WASN'T, I realized when I returned to my ~~dungeon~~ living quarters at... five to midnight(?!) and checked the maxwell's site. If I'd headed there upon leaving CBGB, I would have arrived on time with at least a solid half hour to spare.

When in doubt, ALWAYS GO TO MAXWELL'S.
Not CBGB.
(just make sure you have the extra $3 to spare to take you to Hoboken via PATH.)

aim conversation excerpts

2005-05-03T19:13:00.000-04:00

her: i tried to be really nice. i think i was too nice.
her: she's so whiney
her: if i dont...baby her...
her: with my wording of things
her: "blah blah blah. hurt!!!!"
me: HAHA
her: "blah blah blah kathleen blah blah blah blah hard life you dont understand!!'
her: i feel more like her mother than her friend
me: that is hilarious
me: no seriously

skip down a couple lines and we arrive here:

her: so i need to see her
her: because I WANT MY DAMN BOOKS
her: i wanted to start studying when i got the scores back
her: but nooo she cant tear herself away from him long enough to give me my shit back!@
her: stab stab stab
her: hes a bastard
her: shes an idiot
her: they're both dumb
her: the end
me: AHAHAHAHA

And I got no place but home to go, got ben folds on my radio right now...

2005-04-28T22:53:00.000-04:00

oooohhh. This was written way back in late November. I recovered it in a notepad document compilation of all the failed attempts at proper entries and rough undeveloped/underdeveloped thoughts that I never took the liberty of expanding on, that I've accumulated, and thought.. you know what? This is a little premature (not to mention an atrocity of grammatically awkward half-thoughts) but is almost worthy of online publication. It's kind of a moderately interesting read, if you have the patience for these kinds of things. Enjoy!

One night,
....I freaked out. Exiting the subway station, I surrendered to my inclination to channel all feelings of frustration, indignation, and void that that night produced into a disruptive eruption of vocal fury. It was the dead of night, and I was traipsing around out in the public place of all public places -- the street -- as if intoxicated with some foreign substance (I wasn't), "singing" in an ambiguous off-key slur as loud as the volume capacity of my voice would permit. I was exhibiting the effects of delirium-induced inebriation. I was unrestricted, to do whatever it was that suited my fancy, by the constraints of my natural obligations to regulate my own behavior along the guidelines of what under ordinary circumstances would be generally considered socially acceptable behavior... (These were not ordinary circumstances, you see. I WILL HAVE A MINOR BREAK DOWN WHENEVER I DAMN WELL PLEASE, THANK YOU! And if it happens to come at 3am while I'm wandering the streets purposelessly, then so be it.) I freed myself from this loathsome responsibility (to be reasonably civil and kept in check at all times), made a conscious decision that for the next half hour -- or however long it was my vocal cords could stand to endure the abuse I subjected it to that night -- that restraint and the universal laws of harmonious co-existence with others in a civilized society would not apply to me. I was uninhibited, I was RAMPANT. And it was empowering. It was LIBERATING!
If you're a light sleeper living anywhere along the route between the 7th ave. F station and my living quarters, I probably woke you with my piteous wailing. Oh, don't worry, it was a good song. I should've seen me. I was probably quite a spectacle. I lose my composure frequently, but any observable differences in disposition are subtle... I never really LOSE MY COMPOSURE -- at least, not quite the way I did that night.

There was no one around on the subway, save for a few peculiar late night stragglers, but no one interesting. Oh, the familiar feeling of isolation. I hadn't spoken to a soul that entire night -- at least, I hadn't engaged in any substantially stimulating conversation with a soul that entire night. Which was unfortunate. Because there were few times in my life when I had been in greater need of a confidant. I had an appealing notion in my mind of wasting away this late hour in the company of anything with a pulse, in some restaurant eating greasy comfort food and fuming across the table about my grievances concerning everything in my life that's going wrong (everything in my life). There was a secret unspoken plea in my mind: Speak to me. Come on. Someone. Restore my unconditional optimism and boundless undying faith in the natural bond of indiscriminate camaraderie existing between people -- strangers -- and in loneliness's affinity for company.
DAMN IT, I wanted to SPEAK to someone -- on the same frequency and level of intellectual sophistication -- willing to LISTEN and, perhaps, REPSOND intelligently. (Oh, I have a shrink. But she is of little assistance to me.) ANYBODY. I had volumes to say, and no one to say it to, so what would you have proposed I had done in the name of retaining my sanity? I felt so helpless to adjust any aspect of my life to my benefit. At the time I was feeling particularly like hope failed me. I was mentally isolated (physically isolated too, I'm sure, but that's not important) and ill-at-ease, reluctant to go home to seek refuge in sleep. Sleep would not remedy any of my psychological ailments, bring any peace to my mind, or offer promise of any beacon of hope. I know it's in my nature to be sedate, but then I.... finally found all my courage to let it all go. (Coincidentally, this is a lyrical reference, yes, but disregard, because it's insignificant to the story)

I swear to you, I'm not resilient, not in the least. I'm probably the least resilient person you know. I'd be disgracing resilience if I dared call myself that. I'm just placid and... not easy of emoting. Whatever amount of composure there is in my disposition, well, there is more psychological unrest and distress that I keep to the confines of my unspoken thoughts. I'm a lot less stoic than I'll ever let you in on.

Once, several years back, my guidance counselor at school (guidance counselors have a way of finding out everything. They meddle. They worry. They call members of your immediate family.) said to me, in reference to the supposed "grief" I was caused, by my sister's death (she was four and I, a preteen), "You conceal it well."
I didn't have anything to conceal. At least, nothing for which my sister's death was to blame. I was unphased by it. That is not to say I was well and dandy, only that this infinite dissatisfaction I had with my life originated in other sources. Her conclusion was accurate, even if the premise by way of which she arrived at this deduction was off. "You conceal it well." I knew I did. I know I do. I show no detectable signs of emotional wear, but I feel... like I could die. Consistently.

By god, nothing out of the ordinary had even happened to have offended me so and invoked such feelings of hopelessness, during the course of the previous couple of hours -- but I felt like the world had forsaken me, like it had been forsaking me all along, and I had only pretended to have come to terms with myself and that my apparent nonchalance was a fallacy. But it was. (I don't know about the being forsaken by the world thing, though.) I only diligently worked at (and was successful in) keeping my mouth shut, tolerating it, and trying to be pleasant, before then... I was displeased with my life, its course of direction, its utter lack of direction. I do admit my reaction was just a smidgen dramatic, especially considering I wasn't really reacting to anything in particular at all.. Oh, how little it takes to make or break you! (props if you know which book this quote was lifted directly out of... because I don't even know.) I certainly didn't "conceal it" very well that night. But no matter; no one bore witness to it anyway, it was as if it had never happened at all -- it was only of any significance (enormous significance, at this) to me. I am only of any significance to me. Hell, I could've went on playing banshee long into the waning night hours until reassuring darkness yielded to garish morning daylight at dawn or my voice gave out, whichever came first, and still have made no profounder impact on the world, the course of history, on anyone, than perhaps disturbing some neighbor of mine's sleep to the extremity of stirring. So what was the reasoning behind it? Behind doing things that never happened, or at least in essence may as well have never happened? (Man, why can't it ever be like this when I'm committing murder or arsen?) A moment lapsed wherein there was no element of rationality present in my thought process. I guess that's why they call it freaking out. I just pranced about between the sidewalk and the middle of the street, despairing over hardly anything and screaming "I wanna be someone to believe, to believe, to believe...."
By this point in the night, my mind was elsewhere, so numbed by desparation that I hardly felt the biting cold. I felt it in my lungs every time I took in breaths of air, though. Resistant to the idea of going home (still), I sat on sidewalk until I felt the threat of daylight's presence lingering dauntingly near -- although not yet visible, it loomed ahead of me, just behind the horizon. So I scampered home to hide from the garish daylight, thinking, "hmm. maybe if I go to sleep my problems will dissolve and tomorrow will be alright. here's hoping!"

Well. Now there's one thing I can scratch off my list of things to do before I die: singing songs about self-loathing and hopelessness in the middle of the street, at the surrounding buildings and sky at ungodly hours of the day on a spontaneous whim. What an achievement. I should get a gold star. Or two. (Or one of those scented stickers with a cartoon grape and "grape going!" on them that you get in first grade for every time you draw a tree or a cat or a zoo in your notebook.) I feel so fuckin' accomplished.

(Hey... mad props -- perhaps even a gold star -- if you know which song this is, that I've made so many in-passing references to in the last hundred paragraphs but have neglected to name.)

2005-04-25T21:11:00.000-04:00

Now, who the hell is Jonathan Foer? Don't you know Steve Buscemi has been living in Park Slope for what I believe to be years? Well, I'm not sure he lives there anymore, but you used to be able to see him dragging his kids along the street, and you'd see him, quietly acknowledge him to yourself, and know. Other local "celebrities" include a guy on The Sopranos, and uh.... the Blues Clues guy, now an indie wunderkind and protégé to the Flaming Lips.

buy our uncomfortable footwear and you will be endowed with the ability to toss tennis rackets into the air with the same defiant barbarity as we.

2005-03-22T19:51:00.000-05:00

So it appears that converse, long recognized a sacred anti-core institution, has been airing a new tv commercial featuring a bunch of dissidents playing tennis poorly and defiantly throwing their rackets all over the court. Why? Well nobody is sure of the provocation of this peculiar behavior, but by way of inference and extensive speculation, I have theorized that it is perhaps a display of frustration toward their fundamental ineptitude to play tennis properly because they are coordinationally challenged. "coordinationally challenged"...... well, if there is such a condition, they have it. Or, maybe those silly flat-soled canvas shoes of theirs (the cursed product being advertised) produce excruciating foot pain, and in turn induce general irritability. Or, perhaps it's a bizarre unlisted side effect of their prozac, or zoloft or what have you.

A word of advice to converse: fire your fucking marketing strategist.

I sometimes am still able to feel alright.

2005-03-08T23:25:00.000-05:00

In what little time I've been socially active, I've managed to transition from happy-go-lucky to sociopathic. Way to go, girl!

What a trigger-happy, self-loathing soul I've become, at once wallowing in self-deprecation and tiring of the grim contemplations about my dismal existence that monopolize my mind.
It was a lapse of judgment, to step out into the world where other human beings are interactive, and not merely zoo exhibitions existing for my whimsy and observation, as I used to understand it: one fateful lapse of judgment that resulted in a million more; it was the fatal error in judgment, the ultimate error in judgment, the warning and preview of things to come that I didn't know to heed back then. oh, look what you have done, bitch.

Following my long overdue reconnection with 3-D world (an absolute adversity, I assure you) while I was involuntarily undergoing psychological realignment, I've emerged a considerably broodier being than before, than I ever remember being before. I'm a little more disenchanted (I've got a little more reason to be), a little bit of a wreckage. Wandering unsuspectingly into lives and places I don't quite belong, into realms where I perhaps may not be wanted. Falling into the abyss of drug and liquor-induced oblivions (without having to personally dabble in drug or alcohol abuse), I've become an enthusiastic advocator of the night-life lifestyle of the mildly blasphemous variety. The adaptive, easy-going creature I am, I let life take me where it may at no sacrifice of my core principles. But deeper and deeper still do I delve into a world of hedonism and slight depravity, wherein even I am engaging in acts of moderate debauchery here and there, and suddenly, without any concept or awareness of how it came to be, surrendering so much of my carefully preserved integrity (and by integrity I do mean integrity; take it at face value and don't misinterpret it as any sort of euphemism or look for any implications that aren't there) and playing the part of a bona fide sinner. Not a grade A debauchee, mind you, only a sinner. How far I managed to have strayed from myself in such a short time and how far my self-opinion has fallen. I should never have stepped out of the safe shade of reclusion.

now where's that reconnection with my inner self, eh?

i'm not dead. despite what the absence of my presence on the internet might suggest.

2005-03-05T22:58:00.000-05:00

I went to one of the seediest dive bars in Hell's Kitchen to see the sexy magazines last night, bent on rocking the fuck out. Because no band ever needs another wussy self-conscious fan standing in the front with her arms crossed reluctant to thrash and dance at the risk of looking stupid, easily mistaken for an unimpressed hipster. And because any live act as energetic as that should be rocked the fuck out to. I only risk making an ass of myself for a select few bands, and damn it, they should be one of them because live performances of their caliber demand thrashing. They were never able to elicit any sort of a response from me, and if any band could get a reaction out of me, it only makes sense that it would be them. Damn it, was I that inhibited, that I couldn't find it in me to show some ENTHUSIASM, all the times I've seen them? So I ventured as far north as 40th street (haven't done that in a while) yesterday with my valiant intentions of rocking the fuck out. But then I.... found a diversion.... earlier on in the night and was therefore preoccupied during much of the show. uhhhh.. whoops. next time, though, next time. I will attempt enthusiasm. Yes. (an ambitious feat!)

2005-02-13T12:06:00.000-05:00

Mark the cobrasnake (formerly the polaroidscene guy) cavorts with John Reineck:
| one | two |

Good stuff, good stuff.

spiteful banter with oneself.

2005-02-04T17:37:00.000-05:00

I swear I'm unfathomably compassionate in my own bizarre way, but there's one type of people in this world with whom my sympathy will never lie. They only become apparent to you after you've dabbled in local music scenes long enough. They're in a position of privilege, equipped with the advantages bestowed upon them by random luck, to sail comfortably through life. There's an edge, an obvious advantage they have over everyone -- oh, to be young and good-looking. Of course people of cultural status flock to them, THEY'RE YOUNG AND GOOD-LOOKING! They traipse around in the fucking dead of winter scantily clad, befriend anyone of any importance, but... why aren't they ever able to be anyone of importance? Because their assets include and are limited to: 1) being good-looking
and 2) being obsessed with sensuality and sexuality
Their friendships have no substance. All anyone will ever appreciate them for is their sex appeal.

They're all the same. They all fit the prototype exactly: Meet Shannon. She's 19. To be her friend, you must meet the following requirements -- a) you must be male, and b) you must be in a band. (Inquire within for applications.) Unless you're a boy in a band, she wants no business with you. Everyone who associates with her has been evaluated for eligibility through a screening process involving and limited to verifination of gender and profession..... save for those few female friends and dear concert companions she has selected with such discriminating care -- they, too, are pretty, skinny bitches who like to talk about bands and they, too, thrive on the charisma and star power of notable characters in the scene.
She is a real life Penny Lane, under the disguise of a collegiate intellectual who is decent and above pursuing musicians.

She knows the people, she's well connected, she consistently dresses provocatively. She knows, I think, in her heart of hearts, that all she'll ever be is a worthless, attention-starved jezebel entrusting the purpose of her wasted life entirely to the hope that her sexuality alone will validate her obsolete existence.
Well.. they shouldn't exist. What will they ever contribute to our world or society? What will they ever have to offer but risque pictures of themselves for perverts and internet porn freaks to jack off to? Face it, exhibitionist bitches: you're OBSOLETE. (author's note: twilight zone allusion, take note.)
I hope to hell that if her wretched unredeemable soul (I use the term "soul" loosely) is ever reincarnated, it will be in the body of a grotesquely disfigured cripple with a thyroid condition and a face like a picasso.

Exalted to a Godly -- even admirable -- position by Cameron Crowe's pet film, these superficial beings have become so desireable and idolized. But they are merely superficial beings, who know nothing beyond their moderately hedonistic lifestyles.

I am just a lowly fan. I go to the shows. I give them my money. I appreciate.
And them, they are essentially just groupies. Yet, still, they're the ones who are regularly guest-listed, who are invited to stay and chat long after the show ends and the fans leave...... But WHAT'S THE DECIDING FACTOR? I torment myself day in and day out about this "deciding factor". Oh... that's right -- they're young, good-looking, persistent, and audacious (heavy emphasis on good-looking). And I am but one of those four things -- the one that matters the least.
They may be modern-day Penny Lanes, but they will never understand what it's like to "love a band so much it hurts....."
Decent people just never win in this world -- no no, it is the exhibitionist bitches starving for validation who do.

And OH, the things they do in the name of validation. Not that there's ever anything wrong with wanting validation, but the people they seek it from, and the way they go about it -- must they? They cozy up to the musicians, they become friendly with bands they don't even have the decency to pretend to like.
They try to pass themselves off as contemporaries of the musicians -- scholarly intellectuals far above groupiedom and wise beyond their teen years. You'd think they'd be more discreet about it though, wouldn't you? The far-too-kind and far-too-trustful believe them all too eagerly. Blink twice and you'll have deceived yourself into giving them the benefit of the doubt, like I have for so long. But -- could it be? Maybe Ms. Deep and Insightful is just an undercover slut. Fancying herself quirky and idiosyncratic, she could easily have come straight out of this summer's/last summer's/the summer before that's feel-good flop starring Hugh Grant as the bland suit-type and "up 'n coming" actress passing on by briefly before abruptly falling straight back into obscurity as the spontaneous, "free-spirited" barely-legal whose made it her life's mission to "change his life", evidently by being as irrational, flaky, and difficult as possible, supposedly to teach him some profound lesson about life and possibly "love".
Ah, she is the stuff of mediocre chick flicks! (as if there were any other kind) Born into a formulaic romantic comedy (as if there were any other kind), her life plays out like a script. Now maybe if she were to stumble into the wizard of oz someday, she could ask the wizard for a soul to go with her body so that maybe her insight could be genuine and her person, authentic (for once).

Yeah, this all goes along with the war I'm waging against nymphomaniacs.

disclaimer: oh, by the way...... If this in any way feels like it is directed personally toward you, BOY, do you have a guilty conscience! Good luck trying to live with that for the rest of your life, you paranoid egomaniac.

2005-01-27T23:03:00.000-05:00

I saw two indie rocker-looking urbanites on 9th street near 6th ave. exchange glances while passing each other on the street this afternoon. It kinda made me giggle, but it also kinda made me sick. The moment had a movie-like whimsy about it. I couldn't contain my laughter. I always find this comical element in strangers leering shamelessly at each other.
I love being an onlooker to shameless ogling.

Deny the existence of Park Slope hipsters how you wish, but they exist. Oh, yes, they most certainly do. You wouldn't know it unless you lived there, though, or in any of the contiguous/nearby areas like Redhook and Carroll Gardens. They're your neighbors, you spot them on F train platforms/in F train cars, making occasional pilgrimages to the territory of their more outlandish siblings of the north via the G line, heading to the local hipster establishments, doing their laundry on hungover sunday mornings (and sometimes maybe catch them eyeing each other at street intersections). They're allllright. Not too intimidating, relatively easy to co-exist with, and on rare occasions, you may be lucky enough to bear witness to their slip-ups, when they fall briefly from their high mighty pedestals of self-involvement, apathy, and unconcerned condition on the account of an intriguing stranger who catches their fancy -- a spectacle indeed.

2005-01-26T22:39:00.000-05:00

It's an epidemic. Hipsteritis: will manifest into an alternate personality in the weak-minded, if left untreated for a prolonged period.

I watch people around me (and some people in the public eye as well) undergo their sad transformations, and I scoff in their general direction. But what do I have to say for myself?

I used to be all,
"Establish a strong sense of self. Be really fucking elitist about it. And try not to let yourself be too heavily influenced by the passing fads. It's good to be up on the passing fads -- but audience participation? Unnecessary. Understanding it doesn't have to mean letting it interfere with your lifestyle decisions and thought process. Or consent to let it dictate your fashion choices."

But hey, what good did it do me? I had a strong sense of self (well, maybe not strong enough, because even I eventually succumbed), a firmly established identity, who the fuck were you? Before you lost yourself? When you were human? who were you? Which begs the question: who the fuck was I? Oh, I know who I was. I was damn proud of who I was. That didn't suffice; I failed to overcome the lure of being a "type", stubborn opposition and obstinant resistance only carried me so far. Apprehensive, I approached with caution and mistrust. What do you know, I still got bitten! I fought it for a considerably long time, didn't I though? Kind've prolonged the transition...... Anywho, that means nothing now. Can't wait 'til this is all over so I can be myself without feeling inadequate. I thought I was perfect the way I was.

Weak-minded individuals.... that includes you, and you, and you, and..... yes, me too. Noteable musicians also in this boat: Carrick Moore Gerety and all six ex-members/remaining members of Phantom Planet. I'm in good company, aren't I?
But seriously, they should know better. They're the musicians, they ought to know they need to stand firm. They are advantaged. They have the power to influence; instead they are merely being influenced. Oh, how much easier it would be if I were a musician.

Tight jeans on guys are overrated, I still dig the Gap modely bootcut style of a few years back. And hoodies that fit properly. And no, while I still refuse to wear retro skirts and ugly pointy shoes these days, and still think oversized garments are great, I probably used to look a lot better myself. Actually, I know I did. But I got suckered in and have become very much a lost cause. My apologies to humanity and all the free world.
How much admiration I would ~~gain~~ regain for myself if I were to return to my normal self. But I can't know that this is going on and not be part of it. When this is over though, oh when this is over..... I will surely rejoice (and mourn) that this terrible trend has finally relinquished its hold on me..

You are an atrocity of unwise fashion choices. But so am I. So am I. I guess I don't transcend fad after all. I am no longer entitled to scoff or scrutinize or examine. I miss being superior. I miss the entitlement. I miss being able to think of them as my subordinates. I miss all the power I convinced myself I had, and whatever else it was I knew I had over them.

Still in denial.. Still have delusions of self-awareness. No, I'm not a hipster. No, I'm not an indie snob. I don't wander about with a vagrant mind, latching onto every promising new cultural and musical movement that comes along, and -- what's that you say? Me, pretentious -- ? Why of course not! Still in denial, still in denial.... gotta respect that.
As for my shoes, the ones I wear exclusively and love so dearly... In my defense, I got these because they resembled those awesomely Gen X-ey looking old school airwalks more closely than anything else I could find... not because they are a hipster status symbol of the highest order. To be honest with you, I wasn't aware of it at that point.
Haven't any excuse for the keyclip though.

In its early stages of development, it was the anti-subculture for the mild, none too threatening or outlandish. But the garb has become outlandish. The attitude has become pretentious. It's not original anymore.
Time to leave.

2005-01-26T08:32:00.000-05:00

#3 of consecutive tuesday Damnwell shows at Lakeside Lounge went well; the volume of people present in the audience had gone down from the previous week, so there was ample standing room.... I arrived on time this week, having planned on actually.. SEEING the band. But that wasn't a problem, I managed a spot in the front right by the corner. They sounded amazing, as usual, and the singer's lyric/tab sheets kept falling in the middle of their sets, as usual. Good stuff, good stuff. (I'm going all the way out to Maxwell's in NJ to see them again on Saturday with local band extraordinaire, SUREFIRE!)

But the thing was, I was stuck next to this annoying guy who kept whipping out a sharpener and sharpening a pencil. (He was sketching the band -- and not very well.) I'm pretty sure he got pencil shavings all over the floor. And that would have been fine in any other event than that he started speaking to me -- and he did!

I wrapped my scarf around my neck like so:

to facilitate a quick efficient strangulation (as quick and efficient as strangulations go, anyway..)
I ignored his advances and tried to be as unresponsive as possible by limiting the variety of my replies exclusively to monotone perfunctory "uh-huh"s, but he kept on rambling and slaving over his miserable "art". And then I tried to find a point at which to sever our absurd, one-sided conversation (I was not speaking, unless you consider a series of "yeah"s and nods "speaking") with the "I have a boyfriend" lie, but in the darkness of the bar, I couldn't seem to locate the right place to strategically slip it in.
At one point I think he said, "So what are you into?"
"Huh?"
"what's your style...? Or are you just chinese?"
And I thought, oh dear, and two more sets of verbal exchanges later, I said, "I've gotta be going." The whole thing was just kind of entertaining. I got a good laugh out of it.

Sorry, no impromptu suicide, heh.

2005-01-24T09:01:00.000-05:00

My best friend noticed an influx of 'strictly platonic' personal ads on craig's list concerning organized snowball fights in various parts of the city, and it prompted her to write this:

to all you hipsters who want to play in the snow...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: anon-56723391@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-01-22, 11:23PM EST

So, you're a transplant to NYC. Probably from some hokey town in the midwest. Or maybe upstate. Perhaps Suffern? Oh, you're sufferin' alright. Been wondering when you had a chance to get old. It seems like just yesterday when you were new to the city, fresh faced and full of gosh darn good ideals. Going up to people on the subway platform and explaining, while yes, you know you need to take the G train to get to this "Lorimer Place" you don't know whether to take it uptown or downtown, and won't you please stop laughing? But alas. It's four, five years, later, and now it's you who's having a laugh at the expense of that clueless kid, you old, bitter bastard. But now it's snowing, and you see this lovely blizzard as a chance to recapture your youth. Yeah, because despite numberous claims to the other wise, your earliest memories are not of realizing your own superiority, or that of Apple products but of...actual emotions. Could it be? You weren't BORN apathetic? So go, play in the snow, my little hipster. Build a snow man (or at least try). Make ice cream with a little vanilla extract and virgin snow. Smile, and not just sneer. Enjoy the storm while you can and when all is said and done, just be sure to ask yourself why an intervention from Mother Nature was necessary to try to make you happy. For once.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

56723391

she's great, isn't she?

Honey I'm doin' alright......

2005-01-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

I'm on a steady physical/psychological/intellectual decline and am helpless to save myself. At this rate, I'll hardly be able to live through the first half of my 30s. Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? I'm not even sure I'll last through my 20s. My life will eventually come to a point where suicide will be the only remaining noble option.

screw bread and cake! eat a powerbook!

2005-01-04T20:04:00.000-05:00

a discussion about hipsters.
speaker (me): "They're too poor to afford food."
other speaker (her): "They can eat a powerbook."

yum! appley.

Well. Screw your hip factor -- I still favor Windows over Mac. Even though they might not be a status symbol in certain circles of urban bohemians..... or quite as enticing when you're hungry. Besides... hearsay is that they leave behind an aftertaste most commonly described as "unreliable".
Well. with that I take leave of you, because I'm famished, with intentions to venture outside in search of food..... unless... anyone got an Apple product they'd be willing to part with?

2004-12-26T17:34:00.000-05:00

So I hear Jason Schwartzman is to star opposite Kirsten Dunst in an adaptation of Marie-Antoinette. The IMDB reports it is tentatively scheduled for release in '06. I'm excited -- for I long for the day that I can write in my blog, "wow, Kirsten! way to bed the best friend! ...and the other best friend!" By then she will have had her way with three of them. ("them" being the little social circle of the original members of phantom planet & co.)
Kirsten Dunst. Now there's a winner. But hey, these're the kind of people New Jersey breeds.. (You didn't actually think I could bring up Kirsten Dunst without including a quip about New Jersey, now, did you?)

for clarification: Kirsten and Alex Greenwald were a couple at one point in time, and then shortly afterwards, she moved on to his best friend of sorts Jake Gyllenhaal, and she will ~~presumably~~ inevitably become involved with Jason Schwartzman, Alex's other best friend of sorts.

EDIT: oh, by the way. Merry belated Christmas. Was yours as miserable as mine?

2004-12-19T13:41:00.000-05:00

Don't brood, it's unbecoming.
I have a certain terribly unbecoming ~~habit of~~ inalienable trait: stuttering and making a spectacular ass of myself! I assure you, I do frequently make a spectacular ass of myself. And then I will, almost instinctively, foolishly vow never to speak again, hole up in my living quarters for several days standing firmly by my vow, and eventually wander outside into the world again after the feelings of intense self-loathing and embarassment (to an extent) have diminished or gone stale. I'll cross paths with people and gradually grate away their patience, entirely unaware that I have lost their respect the very day I thought I earned it at all. But that's what my redeeming qualities are for, silly! Fret not -- my sharp wit, winning charm, and irresistable magneticism compensate entirely, and then some! Oh wait, that may present a problem, seeing as I don't have any redeeming qualities -- only fatal flaws. I don't have any intellectual assets. That must be why I sit around and wonder why I don't have friends (and occasionally read books I hate which I commit acts of brutality against). If I weren't so critical of spirituality/the belief in a higher authority, I'd say some peculiar young deity were deriving pleasure from the irony of consistently rehashing one of the great self-evident truths of life to those who know it well -- the great self-evident truth being that at the end of the day, you have only yourself to rely on. Other people are fickle and can't be trusted. It doesn't bother me a bit. But I hope it bothers everyone else.

The more I get to know you, the more I grow to hate you. Remember when I noted that my relationship with people could be best described with the original (perceived) cleverism "The more I get to know you, the more I grow to hate you"? Well as it turns out, the feeling is mutual. Social interaction is like a game show. The overall effect I get from it is: Thirty seconds to prove you're worthy of this person's respect. Quickly. Chop chop! And before you know it, your thirty seconds are up, and you have failed. to prove. anything. and the peevish game show host is glaring at you with those taunting "chop chop!" eyes, because in The Life Game, there is absolutely no room for error.

You read me like a book. I hate that.
I've got people nagging me about my hair. NO, I will not change it, NO, I will not wear it up -- ughh, let me BE. I'm really touchy about my hair. We all have our neuroses, (perhaps I, more than you) and I think you should respect my wishes not to comply with your inane demands. And I refuse offer you any explanations or reasons or make any effort to convince you -- obviously I object for a reason, so drop it because your persistence will not wear away at my resistance. Don't push me; I don't respond well to being cornered!
And then I've got people challenging my refusal to have my picture taken. I'll..... probably evade you until I find some opportunity to sneak out the window in the bathroom. But you'll unwittingly have caused me enough psychological turmoil and internal conflict to last several days. I hope you're happy.

My life is funny. I should write a novella. But I won't. Because.... with my writing skills? God help us.

books I hate. + my barbaric acts of book-abuse

2004-12-18T02:10:00.000-05:00

I hate Hemingway. I was reading The Old Man and the Sea yesterday, and I hurled the book against the wall with a vehement cry of "I hate this book!" My book was a yellowing, malodorous library copy (I don't suppose that's Hemingway's fault, though), making the temptation all the more irresistable. Hemingway is a chauvinist, I announced to myself decidedly. Possibly a misogynist as well, but I haven't read enough of his literary works as of late to be authorized to formulate any legitimate conclusion on that...

I hate Miss Lonelyhearts (Nathaniel West) more. Yes, yes, I'm sure there is a message to be communicated, and yes, I'm sure there's profound symbolic significance in everything, but I just cannot look past the vulgarities through which this supposed deep philosophical message I'm supposed to grasp is being presented to me. This writer gives us this unsympathetic, sadistic, disagreeable character with a penchant for violence and expects us to accept him as a Christ figure? I mean, I understand the anti-hero concept, but isn't this a (long) stretch? I hated it so much, I avoided it for about a day or two before resuming reading, because I found it hard to stomache in one sitting. It deals too much with religion and depravity and sexuality. I did assume the responsibility of finishing it, though, if only for myself, for the sake of leaving nothing unfinished. It was effective in moving me only to hurl the book at the wall and groan in disgust.
I am constantly at odds with myself, bitter, and helpless to modify my current situation and so I compensate by throwing literature against the wall.

What is up with me and my tireless quest for successful self-improvement?

2004-12-13T02:10:00.000-05:00

This weeks brilliant ("brilliant") idea: PERIODICALS! In an ambitious effort to sharpen my mind, which is in dire need of sharpening, I've subscribed to half a dozen magazines with intentions of taking up feverish magazine-reading. I've also made a point of subscribing to the sunday New York Times in addition to my magazine overkill project.

Any recommendations for good satire zines? Not the onion, it's pretty mediocre. Come on, I'm serious. Comment one and all.

yeah, because we can all afford to pay our own rent.

2004-12-12T14:11:00.000-05:00

That's right! Help the needy! Donate to the buy-Alex-new-jeans-that-he-can-destroy-and-reassemble-using-electrical-tape fund!

Alex says: "Buy our new dvd! Help pay my rent!" (he doesn't actually say this)
I can't say it comes as any shock to me, though. I never expected Alex to be above shameless self-promotion. Still. That is so low of you, Alex. Nonetheless... I will make a donation. I will succumb to the temptation to buy it, if only for the footage of 17-year-old Phantom Planet boys. But to put it midly, I am just a trifle put off by the reasoning behind this.
They can make a profit out of just about anything though, can't they?

Case in point: Negatives and Negatives 2. Their first b-sides CD, Negatives, was exclusive to fanclub members. Hence, you had to join the paid fanclub in order to obtain it. Not only do they expect you to invest in byproducts of their work -- oh, no! That's a sacred privilege granted only to fanclub members, who pay the annual $20 membership fee -- they require you to commit to the fanclub to do so. Oh, but the Negatives 2 compilation CD is available to everyone! So gracious of them to offer it to non-fanclub members, isn't it? ISN'T IT?
They do this in the name of capital, of course. They want to make it available to the percentage of fans who are not in and do not intend on joining the increasingly-exclusive paid fan club, because whoever handles their finances has realized, wisely, that more people would buy it if paid fanclub membership was not forced upon them in the transaction process. Rake in the profits!

Say what, Alex? You want it to be heard by a wider audience? Oh, well since that's what the band claims, that's what must be so.... right? BULLSHIT!
"Oh! Look this way! A compilation of songs we never cared for enough to complete and put on any of the albums. BUY IT, please!" And foolishly, we buy it. And I, I nobly maintain my position at first, and refuse to purchase it -- based on principle alone -- but eventually I do cave in! However, the lure of Negatives 2 is null and ineffective on me, (fortunately) because I hate their new material anyway. So I've been spared. See? This is why pirating music is justified. Come on! Let's pirate our "unethical" asses off! WHO'S WITH ME? (::tumbleweed::)

But yeah, I'll probably contribute to their pool of royalties, and buy the dvd. Begrudgingly, no less. Wait... no, I don't even know how to work my dvd player -- oh, but nevermind, I can watch it on my computer. (thoughts written aloud. disregard.) But Negatives 2? Fuck that. I need new jeans to destroy. Alex can just go on using his electrical tape for all I care. Besides. He doesn't do it right. Big obvious holes suck. Carrick's (Moore Gerety) jeans are better.

I used to like this band so much. Now I find myself agreeing with less... and less... and less... and less... and less of what they do.

2004-12-09T18:49:00.000-05:00

Soft is playing two shows in LA this month, so go see them if you live there because they are EXCELLENT. I mean like.. EXCELLENT.
< /plug >

Man, do they have CONNECTIONS in the LA scene. So don't be surprised if you see pictures of them on Jacques's photography site afterwards.

2004-12-07T01:35:00.000-05:00

I hold myself in lower regards than I ever have, just for filling out this survey and calculating my score. With it comes major loss of self-respect points. A devastating loss of 32 self-respect points, to be exact.

how scene are you? 32
**0-24 - poser! get out or be forced out.
**25-44 - beginner. attend more shows, buy more records, you'll be fine.
**45-74 - scenester. you've been around awhile and you know what's up, good job.
**75 - or more - GOD! i bow to thee with your knowledge of everything hardcore

1. studded belt - 2 points: 0

2. dyed black hair - 2 points: 0

3. thick rimed glasses - 2 points: 0

4. tight shirts/pants - 2 points each: 2

5. gaudy belt buckle - 2 points each: 0

6. clothing bought from a thrift store - 2 points each: 4

7. having hair with bangs longer than the rest - 2 points: 0

8. trucker hats - 2 points: 0

9. messenger bag - 3 points: 0

10. livejournal/myspazz/friendster account - 2 points each: 4

11. saucony/new balance/converse shoes - 2 points per pair: 0

12. mountian climbing key thingy - 2 points: 2

13. X'd up mosh gloves - 10 points: 0

14. scarf - 2 points: 0

15. refering to bands as acronym - 2 points: 2

16. vegan diet - 5 points: 0

17. vegitarian diet - 4 points : 0

18. food not bombs participation - 5 points: 0

19. straight edge - 5 points: 0

20. aspiring photographer - 3 points: 0

21. using adj from the late 80's
early 90's (i.e. rad, gnarly, rockin', etc.) 1 point for each: 0

22. pins/buttons 1/2 point each: 0

23. plugs/body piercings - 2 points each: 0

24. vinyl collection - 10 points: 0

25. moldy peaches fan - 10 points: 10

26. liking metal seriously - deduct 5 points: 0

27. liking metalcore - 5 points: 0

28. reading books over 300 pages long - 3 points: 3

29. riding a bike - 5 points: 0

30. participating in "the mosh" - 5 points: 5

31. tea aficianado - 5 points: 0

32. writing poetry - 5 points: 0

33. attended 50 shows or more in a year - 2 points: 0

34. attending hell fest - 5 points: 0

35. being in a band - 5 points: 0

36. working at an indy record store/health food store - 5 points: 0

37. clapping durring midpaced part of a song - 0 points: 0

Here's what is wrong with this survey, and its direction of bias: the poor, misguided fool(s) who wrote this is under the impression that everyone's ultimate goal in life is to be "scene", and that if we aren't "scene" enough, we are wrong and ought to strive harder to be. (Also, the person neglects to mention siren festival and coachella.)

Additionally, the person(s):
- uses the word "poser". I disapprove. alternateen vernacular has no place in pseudo-intellectual society..... nor in my vocabulary.
- has evidently received misinformation that scenesterdom is to be looked kindly on
- is unaware that there is any anti-scenester sentiment present on the internet on which this survey is circulating
- is under the misconception that "awhile" is a word.
- ridiculously misspells the words vegetarian ("vegitarian"), aficionado ("aficianado"), and indie ("indy").

Well, congratulations, you've taken scenesterdom to absurd new heights! Until now, it has (as a subculture) been relatively subtle about its pretension, but wow! Nevermind being discreet or denying the pretentious undertones found in the values and fundamental beliefs scenester culture holds dear. No, go right on ahead and admit it like there is absolutely nothing wrong with it! When did scenesters begin embracing, rather than rejecting, pretension? Since the very moment they evolved into a breed of their own? ..... It's hard to make a distinction.

Okay, so now that that is out in the open, I ask that you kindly withhold your judgements of me based on my "scene points" (about 1/3 of them came from "moldy peaches fan" anyway) and instead, focus on all the things I didn't receive any "points" for to accurately determine where I am really located on the map of indie rock culture. That is to say, if the center and capital of all things "scene" is here, then I am way the hell

-------------------------------------------------> over here.

Lay off the pot, dear.

2004-12-05T20:53:00.000-05:00

Look! My monstrous mutant pupil is devouring my iris!

I went to the ophthalmologist this morning. I'm happy to report that she's a little more competent than my physician. She put all kinds of drops in my eyes that stung like a bitch (while I squirmed) and prodded at my eyeballs, and then instructed me to sit in the waiting room for twenty minutes, all in preparation for examining my eyes. So I sat obediently in the waiting room in excruciating pain, waiting for the drops to take effect, and resisting the urge to gouge my eyes out. When I left, I noticed an increased sensitivity to light, so I wore sunglasses around all afternoon. When I took them off for a moment, I learned that what the drops did was dilate my pupils. My pupil looked like it was trying to swallow my entire eyeball. (Keep in mind that this was several hours after the ophthalmologist appointment, after the effects wore off a bit.) I looked like I was hopped up on something.

shut up, people with glasses. I'd never had a dilated pupil exam prior to today, okay?

2004-11-29T20:11:00.000-05:00

jenyk.com calls Soft an "amazing new band". Jasper Coolidge, of all people, thinks they are an "amazing new band". That is prestigious.

my one ray of sunlight.

2004-11-21T20:47:00.000-05:00

This is long over-due, I meant to post it days ago, I believe on.. Monday or Tuesday:

Last thursday, I was wandering in the Gramercy area when asked for my e-mail address by someone seeking subjects for his photographs. I gather he was a fashion photographer, or something of the sort. I warned him I was horribly unphotogenic, but persuaded myself, hesitantly, to entertain the idea of discussing matters of my unphotogenicness over coffee some afternoon. Another person to evade, another situation to be dealt with, what a downer.... Funny how getting yourself into these entanglements takes mere seconds and no effort, (I got caught in this particular entanglement by walking down the fucking street) but getting yourself out of them requires engagement in much more time-consuming (and possibly bothersome) activities, like having coffee with someone on their insistence, as an offer of appeasement. at least I averted confrontation though, huh?

So, my life has been in the doldrums for weeks now, I've been complaining that I never have anything to do anymore (all bands seem to have stopped touring in October and I seem to have temporarily lost interest in the local scene), nor anyone to do them with. I have just about retreated back into figurative social reclusion, and it's draining me of what little zeal for life was even mine to begin with. All reasons for living escape me at the present time. I have become delirious with boredom. Isolation was perfectly fine until I discovered good company. Oh, don't get me wrong -- I'm still considerably withdrawn unless sought out, and still carry the curse that is the ability to be among multitudes while, no less, being completely alone. Your solitary nature (assuming it is in your nature to be solitary) is something no amount of social interaction and gratification will ever strip you of, the only thing it will really be successful in eroding away is your numb, complacent attitude toward isolation. As it has done mine.

I ambled on to Soft's website at the beginning of the week, though, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had a show scheduled at Sin-é. I swear, upon receiving notification, I'd squealed gleefully. I hadn't woohoo'ed like I would have done ordinarily -- no. I squealed. I squealed. Let it be a testament to the degree of elation I was feeling. It was one of those "Look! Life has beamed me a ray of sunlight through the abyss of bleakness and void that is the psychological bottomless pit I appear to have fallen into!" -- moments. Their second public show in New York, and they've made it to Sin-é. Niiiiice. Sin-é is one of those clubs bands have to work their way up to, and it's always a prestigious thing to play there, a bench mark in a fledgling band's career if you will.. and they've already gotten there. That's amazing. I love them to pieces. -enthuse-

I have two shows to go to on the 26th, consecutively (but two hours apart). Inevitably, there will be a gap in the middle, time I will utilise productively. That is to say, time I will put to good use wandering around feeling (appropriately) displaced. I don't care. I'm going to both shows, it's gonna be great, and I am stoked!

By the way, that little graphic I drew.. I'm not sure what I intended it to be. A bottle of vitamins? I think my initial objective was to end up with something like a soda can, but I failed miserably at crafting anything remotely resembling the pop-top soda can opening. So I drew a lid on instead. So let's just say it's (figurative isolation in the form of) an inexplicable little jar containing some substance hazardous enough to your health in large doses to necessitate a fine-print label warning you against excessive consumption. Okay? Yeah..