On a Quest for Glory, Riches and the Punk Rock Way

Mezzanine Tickets

2015-10-27T17:49:00.000-04:00

I’ve been a Mets fan all of my life. Admittedly at points more vehemently than others, like when I took to wearing a bright orange Mets cap from about 99 to 2002. Lately the NBA has it’s talons into me pretty deeply and tonight being the first game of both the NBA season and the World Series, it’s a little like Christmas morning.

Back in the 80’s when we would go out to Shea for games, we would opt for the cheapest tickets possible since I was in single digits and accompanied by teenagers without jobs. For those of you who have never went or plain forgot about Shea, it had 4 sections. Field Level, followed by Lodge, followed by Mezzanine and lastly the Upper Deck. On this one summer night in question a family friend had received free Mezzanine tickets from work but had no interest in baseball so he handed them over to me and care taking uncle. Our enthusiasm was through the roof. MEZZANINE tickets! Even better BOX MEZZANINE TICKETS FOR FREE! Without question these were going to be the best seats we ever had. Like I said we were used to the Upper Deck but the cheapest of the cheap were in the last rows of the Upper Deck where nose bleeds were present and the open back of the stadium caused the wind to whip you in back during night games.

Before we head off to the N to the 7 grandma slips me a $20 for concessions to make the game even more memorable. Like any 9 or 10 year old growing up in the city I trusted no one and stuck that bad boy right into my sock, pick pockets be damned! We got off at Willets Point and while we were still in the station there was shady guy pointing and laughing as we walked passed him. Both of us look back and saw the guy pointing at a $20 on the ground. My uncle ushered us away from the guy all the while upping his guard.

As we walk around the stadium to get to the proper gate we get approached by a middle aged man probably in his 50’s who starts the conversation with, “Do you boys want some free tickets?” Shady. “Thanks but we are good.” My uncle responds. The man is more insistent, which was kind of strange but I’m sure a 16 year old and a 9 year old seem like easy marks. “My son and his wife couldn’t make it down from Connecticut, and I’d like to see the little guy(meaning me) enjoy the game. I’m here with my mom,” the man said pointing to white haired woman standing 15 feet away. “Here just take them, you don’t have to go in with us or anything.” We reluctantly agree figuring what’s the worst thing that happens? The tickets are fake and we have our real unbelievably great Mezzanine tickets. We speed away from the man tickets in hand and take a look at them. Field Level, Box. Clearly this is some type of scam that we can’t wrap our heads around and don’t have much time to figure it out since we are walking to the gate.

The gate attendant looks at the Field Level tickets and sends us right through. They have to be duplicates or something. We get to the usher who looks at the tickets and starts leading us down some steps. Then some more steps. Then some more steps. Then to where there are no steps. Field level box 2 seats 3 &4.

Let me do some more explaining. You have the playing area where the players are, and for all intents and purposes the players live in the dugouts. The owners’ box is box 1 and that’s directly next to the dugout. In the order of succession, box 2 is directly next to the owners’ box and seats 3 & 4 are the second row.

Within 10 minutes the middle aged man and his mother come by and sit in seats 1 and 2. This was not a scam. This was the second greatest bit of luck in the history of Shea Stadium. I was speechless. I don’t think I even mustered a thank you, or if I did it wasn’t cognizant of it. My saucer eyes couldn’t fathom what they were seeing and what they were seeing was Dave Magadan like 15 feet away. Close enough that if you screamed hey Magadan, he would turn around and say, “what?” that’s if you screamed. (I did).

After the 6^th or 7^th inning the man and his mom left so we quickly bounced to move up to the first row. You could look over the steel piping, look down and see dirt. Very different from the view in the Upper Deck where if you looked down you saw spilled beer, peanuts, and despair. I have a very clear recollection of hanging out over the box and looking into the dugout only to be immediately yelled at by security and from there on out I didn’t move a muscle for the remainder of the game.

There’s another little wrinkle to this story that I’ll never be able to confirm or deny. My high school was on the Queens College campus and as a senior you were able to take college classes for free. I signed up for Political Science 101. The professor, whose name I’ve long forgotten, would talk about himself from time to time throughout the semester. He lived in Connecticut. He was in his 60’s. He was a Mets fan. He had worked for the Dinkins campaign and was pretty high up in the administration. All of these pieces clicked into place but like that 9 year old I was too overwhelmed at the possibility of what can be true to even ask him and ruin what could be.

Let’s Go Mets!

NYC Coffee

2014-11-18T07:33:00.002-05:00

With the prospect of not living in NYC for a bit I’m trying to hit up as many things that I love and I’m reminded about the little things that make new york, new york. At 6:30 this morning I was looking for a bank of America and on my walk I past a few man in the cans but no BoA. I was reminded of a conversation that I had back in the day when I was working at a company where basically everyone was from a different part of the country. On my walk to that job I would stop off at a man in the can and grab a coffee. It was a strictly business transaction with minimal chit chat but after a few weeks our comfort level was such that if I didn’t have a bill small enough for him to break he’d cover me until the next day. The conversation with my then coworkers was about how terrible the can coffee was comparatively to their precious Starbucks. If you are basing it solely on taste, they’re probably right. If you factor in price and that the man in the can is working for himself, trying to scrape by and appreciates every sale, it’s far more of a toss up. Not to say that Starbucks isn’t convenient but there’s something to the early hours that these people endure to get ready for the day.

Back in 2008 we had played a show in Brooklyn which an open bar. From there we ventured to Manhattan where someone’s friend was bartending. We ended up closing the place. After walking to Union Square and I had the bright idea to walk the 8 miles back to Astoria instead of jumping on the N train. Bear with me I’m going somewhere with this. My beer soaked logic was grounded in my strong consideration for running for City Council and on some level I thought it would be poetic to see the city come alive. Honestly, it was. It was wonderful to see the ground work laid out for all the things we take for granted. Seeing the newspaper delivery guys rolling up at 5 am. Seeing people in power suits drag themselves into the office at 5:30. The biggest one was seeing the coffee cart guys setting up at 4am because it takes a good half hour or so for their coffee to brew, so they have to be ready to fuel the newspaper delivery people, the power suits and the drunken idiots walking home.

Drugs and murder

2014-10-30T18:22:00.002-04:00

I wrote a little thing about encountering drugs behind the mini school where I grew up back in the 80’s which triggered some long forgotten memories of the neighborhood and what it was like.

I grew up on the block of the mini school and we’d find some vials behind it when going after a foul ball or if the football took a weird bounce after an incomplete pass. Vials and used condoms weren’t exactly prevalent but they were definitely there. The elementary school that the mini school was a part of was one block away and significantly bigger. It took up a small city block with the right half more as park space and the left half as the actual school building. The right half had a full basketball court with what we called the pyramid behind the furthest hoop. The pyramid was a cylindrical concrete structure that had steps cut into it every 18” or so. It could have been more than 6’ tall at its flat peak. Behind the pyramid was a handball wall, which has nothing do with anything relating to the story but more for you to get a sense of space. A good 20’ before the hoop closest to the street was the chicken pit. The chicken pit was strange even to us kids back then. It felt out of the gladiator days. A three or four foot drop into sand with concrete walls all around. It was what you’d expect to find in camps where the kids fight each other to the death. It was strange because if you were small enough to be intrigued by playing in the sand there was no way for you to get in or out. Unlike today the playground equipment of the olden days NYC factored more with what could be done affordably and less with safety in mind. So there was no ladder or any other way in or out of the chicken pit outside of jumping in and climbing out. What I would imagine was installed for safety was some railing outside of the chicken pit so no one would walk right into the hole.

Keep in mind that this elementary school only went up to 3^rd or 4^th grade so we are dealing with kids ranging from 5 to 8 or 9. We’d hardly use the chicken pit as kids. The sand was dirty and really after your initial use the novelty would wear off and it would be largely ignored outside of a marker for foot races which was tantamount in the hierarchy of 7 and 8 year olds jockeying for status. Anyway, I remember one morning making my way to the main school building and seeing a small crowd of kids by the pit and seeing the yellow and black police tape all around the railing. There were a couple of syringes down in the sand and come to think of it something worse must have gone down since the caution tape was put up but the evidence was still there. I remember thinking that it was a cool thing, mainly because it was out of the ordinary but it didn’t have any impact on our days outside of the chicken pit being shut down either by an order or de facto since no one wanted to go down there.

The scarier thing that had happened one morning on my way to the main building so I couldn’t have been more than 8 involved the pyramid. I don’t remember if I saw it or if my brain put together a mental picture. School started around 8 so we would have to get there by 7:45 to line up and get ready to go into the building. Getting to school early was another weird source of cache between the kids. On some level it had to do with hanging out and being kids, meaning busting on each other, saying things we believed were true but with only the limited understanding that kids have. I would always try to get to school as early as possible in an effort to be cool but living a block away and having responsible adults around me wouldn’t really let that happen. On this one day we were walking to the main building and see a large amount of people, police cars and tape all by the pyramid. Apparently only an hour or so before hand someone was shot, (if memory serves over a drug deal gone bad but I’m not sure) and spread out crucifix style with their head on the top of the pyramid and their arms and legs on the steps. Looking back on it with adult perspective, I don’t remember the teachers mentioning it or being visibly shaken by it. I definitely remember that school wasn’t cancelled or any other deviation from the norm.

I’m trying to reconcile whether it was because New York was tougher back in the day or if we’ve become more understanding of how trauma effects people these days. It’s strange to think about either incident, the syringes or the body, causing a massive uproar by everyone these days. Maybe it had to do with more of an immigrant population, maybe because so many people were doing drugs and getting killed in new york back then that it wasn’t seen as such a big deal. I don’t know but do I know we’ve most certainly changed as a society.

Work and shit

2014-10-30T15:38:00.002-04:00

Being unemployed has caused a lot of my conversations and thoughts lately to be about work and working. Whether or not work is inherent to being human or if it’s been an advent of society in an effort for people with the means to not have to work. On a far more base level, I got into a conversation about when we each started working and my knee jerk answer has always been that I started working at 16 setting up an archive file room for an environmental company. That’s not completely accurate though. Thinking back on it a little bit more I remembered that I had done some entry-level office work for a few days at 13 or 14 but even before that I was a super of sorts. At 12 or so the building we were living in was sold and the new owner didn’t feel like making the trip over twice a week to pick up the garbage cans so he offered me something like $20 a week. On top of picking up garbage cans I had sweep out the four floors and keep the front of the connected building swept and clean. The building also had a backyard, which wasn’t so much a back yard as it was concrete blocks and a wild overgrown assortment of weeds. They might not have all been weeds but being a city kid I have no idea what the difference is between weeds and non-weeds. Now what’s relevant to the story isn’t the back yard but rather how you got to the back yard.

I’ll do my best to describe the building. If you were facing the entrance-way you’d see two stone steps which led to a double door to a foyer where the mail boxes were. To the left of the entrance way was an iron gate that rounded to the doorway. To the right there were the same iron gates except that at the end there was a swinging gate, which lead down to a tunnel, which brought you to a shared space with the connected building next door and then up five or six steps which then led to the backyard.

To go off topic for a minute, we lived on the first floor and right by those 5 or 6 steps, which led to the backyard was the small window of our bathroom. The apartment was a two bedroom laid out in a straight line. As you walked in you’d be in a hallway with the bathroom greeting you. If you headed left you’d hit the kitchen and then my room, which faced the backyard. If you headed right you’d hit the living room and then through a set of French doors my mom’s room, which faced the street. The bathroom had only a small window and up until this one night we would keep it open to vent out the steam that would build up after using the shower. The shower wasn’t very big and my mom would put the hair products on the shelf directly in front of the window. From the ground the window had to be a good 6 feet high. Well, one night we were all woken up to a series of tapping. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. I don’t remember if I woke up from the tapping or from my mom screaming but in either case the situation became clear. Someone had jumped and hung off the ledge of the bathroom window and while holding themselves up they started to move the various shampoo and conditions bottles away from the 24” window in an effort to climb in. Thankfully mom’s screaming scared or startled them enough to jump down and run away.

I think you get a sense of how secluded the area back there was. To get back to the work part of the story, I’m sweeping up outside and making my way to the tunnel to finish up and earn that sweet $20 and then I smell it and see it. I don’t remember if there was a no pets policy in the building or if people just didn’t have pets and at the same time the neighborhood didn’t really have dogs around. I make my way down the stairs and there it is, shit. Human shit. How my 12 year old mind was so convinced that it was human I’m not sure. Maybe because of the lack of dogs, maybe the size, I’m not sure. I am sure that I was horrified and disgusted that someone could do that. I might have stopped being the super in training after that incident because I was so horrified. Now this memory came flooding back during this conversation and my adult brain definitely saw it very differently than my kid brain. I relived a small portion of the disgust but then my thoughts were of what kind o situation that person must have been in. Were they homeless? Were they on drugs? Was this alley a godsend? A place of hidden from the street where they could have some privacy as they tended to a base need in a time of need.

Drugs were around the neighborhood. We used to play in a parking lot, which was in front of a small annex of classrooms for the elementary school a block away. The school and the lot was called “the mini-school.” The back of the mini-school was a little scarier since it was darker and there was significantly less space than there was in the front area. I remember finding small vials and condoms when a ball would inevitably make its way around to the back and the older kids would make me go and get it. I like to think I was a street savvy kid but I’m pretty sure I was still fairly ignorant about these things. Even if I had a base level understanding that they fell into the categories of drugs and sex, I definitely didn’t have a handle on the logistics or details of them. On some level all of these things probably factored into my knee jerk reaction of thinking the shit was a person’s, but now I’m thinking of the neighborhood as a whole and how during the 80’s and early 90’s where else would do you do things but not out in the streets in the most secluded of areas.

The state of professional sports aka how the NBA is poised to be the most popular league in the US.

2014-09-14T16:31:00.003-04:00

The NFL is king and has been king for probably a solid decade if not two. Like every king before and every king to come, their reign will come to an end. The key factors in bringing down the NFL’s dominance are: concussions, domestic abuse, drug abuse and hypocrisy.

I’ll start with concussions because they are they are the longest lasting and will have the longest effect on the league. From the current and former players the effects are devastating. The long term health effects from dementia to crippling nervous system aliments are only starting to pile up. Think back to your childhood and the size and speed of the game and the players. Lawrence Taylor looked big but not big enough to look like his uniform was going to burst at the seams. You look at the line men and line backers today and they all look massive. The game has also gotten faster and with offenses taking a page out of Chip Kelly and the Packers’ playbooks and trying to run more plays and running them faster. Coupling these two things you get a perfect storm of more opportunities of contact and that contact is being perpetrated by larger and faster men. Newton’s Second Law of Physics tells us that mass times acceleration equals force. This increased force will only pile on even more injuries and likely head injuries.

The domestic abuses cases and violence towards children have been all over the news this week and very justifiably so. Football is a violent sport. Like anything that you do over and over and over again, your body and mind get used to it. It becomes second nature to and almost instinctual to behave that way. I’m not a reporter and I don’t have any sources but from what I’ve seen and read, it seems to make sense that players are using performance-enhancing drugs. It seems obvious when you look at the recovery times from the injuries and how in other sports it’s months and in the NFL it’s weeks. My point here is that these drugs have to have some effect on your emotions and your reactions. Connecting the dots, hitting people over and over again professionally, taking HGH which effects your neurological state, will lead to hitting people off the field.

I’m going to lump the drug abuse with the hypocrisy together because I will never understand how you can get a suspension for the entire season for marijuana when it’s legal in various forms throughout the country, while punching your fiancé will get you two games. HGH which caused baseball’s black eye a decade ago, has just been added to NFL’s drug policy. Just now. Let me repeat, JUST NOW! How does this happen? Actually it’s easy how it happens. The league is more concerned about making money than it’s players. Bigger, stronger, faster players make the games more interesting and sell more jerseys, sell more advertising and keeps the owners happy. Concussions have to be been under reported because of the pride of putting yourself second to the good of the team. Players have repeatedly played through concussions and had been encouraged to do so. I’m all about giving maximum effort, the importance of team and something bigger than yourself, that’s what sports are all about, but at the same time you have to protect yourself for the rest of your life. The average career length of an NFL player is 3 years. I think about how debilitating it must be to only get three years professionally. You’ve worked your entire life to get only 3 years of earning power and then to have health problems for the rest of your life.

You can see that the NFL has problems. The biggest one is the future. I wouldn’t let my imaginary kids play football at this point. Maybe pee wee leagues but that’s mainly because the contact is minimal and more adorable than violent. If parents agree with me and don’t let their kids play it’s going to be a thinner talent pool to draw from. Thinner pools mean lower quality in the product. Thinking further ahead if kids aren’t playing the sport and the sport a lower quality, it means that the popularity should diminish. As much as people like to saying they are doing nothing, there’s no such thing. Time is a zero sum game. If you aren’t watching football you’ll be doing something else, if you are a sports fan than more likely than not you’ll watch another sport, which leads me to the NBA.

The biggest story of the NBA off season was LeBron James returning to the Cavaliers. Arguably the league’s biggest villain redeems himself in a magnanimous fashion, flipping the story and reclaiming public opinion (on a side note that adds to LeBron’s popularity and good will is going back to the 23 and not making people buy new jerseys). He’s back to being the most liked athlete and playing his best basketball, which is important because there’s something to being the best that resonates with America. As much as we root for an underdog, we like being the favorite. We like rooting for the big names, the marketable faces. Think about those names. The guys you instantly recognize by only their first or their last name. LeBron, KD, Kobe, Melo, Blake, Curry, Kyrie, Rose, Dwight, the list goes on. I can’t think of that many players in any other sport. Speaking of faces, not having to wear helmets make the NBA and MLB players more recognizable.

Thinking about long term health, you see players in the NBA playing into their late 30’s. Outside of baseball I think basketball has the longest average career length. On top of long careers, the quality of life after playing is more normal.

Technology has permeated into every aspect of our lives and we are able to share whatever is interesting or important to us instantaneously with that highlights are key to the future. Getting vineable, youtubeable highlights will lock in fans. It’s all about immediate gratification and getting likes for sharing. With so much scoring in the NBA versus the other sports the likelihood of highlights increase. We are offensively focused when it comes to highlights.

The NFL has come under fire this week for how badly they handled the controversies of the past few months. On the flip side the NBA was lauded for the lifetime ban of Donald Sterling after horribly racist comments came to light. Similarly some questionable comments that have come out of the Atlanta Hawks front office this week and the culture of league is to report any missteps and deal with them. The NFL policy seems to be cover things up and hope no one finds out.

I have barely touched on baseball as the contender to the NFL’s crown and the reason for that is we have evolved or devolved to a state of shorter attention spans. Baseball is too long, too stodgy, too boring to regain it’s position as America’s pastime.

You can see that the NFL has short term and long term problems. The NBA with it’s stars, fast pace, highlights and friendliness towards technology is in prime position to succeed the NFL as the most popular league in the US.

Pappou

2014-04-13T11:30:00.002-04:00

There are a lot of reasons why I admired my grandfather but most of them are summed up in this one anecdote. The way I heard the story was that my mom and grandparents had made their way to the United States via Greece then Germany and ended up in New York City. My grandfather had scraped together enough money to open a fruit cart by working odd jobs. He set up shop in Central Park skirting the permitting laws that apply to street vendors. Mind you this was the late 60’s early 70’s and Central Park was far sketchier than it is today. Thinking about it now this might have been before the police department had an internal affairs department but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The days were long and there wasn’t such a thing as an off day when you’re bringing in most of the money for a family of four. The best way to describe his command of the English language is basic. He, like me with Greek, was far more adept at understanding people than he was at speaking; which is helpful but still incredibly difficult when you think of his daily interactions with his English only speaking customers. Doing what you have to do to survive and take care of those who you love is a big thing, no matter the insecurities that you feel and insults that you are subjected to because of a language barrier. I am purely speculating how the customers treated him but what I’m not speculating on is the cops.

Since he was operating without a permit the cops would come around and harass him. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I understand that it’s a police officer’s responsibility to enforce the laws and make sure everyone follows them. I get that and I agree that this lets society operate in the best manner for everyone. What isn’t part of the cops’ job description is soliciting and taking bribes along with threatening deportation. They would come around and ask for weekly bribes so they could overlook his lack of a proper street vendor permit. He did what any reasonable person would do when you have mouths to feed, you pay the bribe and keep your head down. Now we’re getting to crux of what really stands out to me. So they wouldn’t look incompetent or biased, I guess, the cops on top of asking for bribes would also issue violations with regularity. Keep in mind the margins on fruit is very slim.

My grandfather would collect all the tickets that he received and put them in the suitcase that he used to emigrate here. He’d bind the bundles of unpaid tickets with rubber bands because there would be so many of them that they’d become unmanageable. He stored them under his bed as a nightly reminder and a challenge.

The routine went on, weekly bribes and violations. It got to the point that the suitcase was full. I often think about him collecting all those tickets and how much they must have weighed on him. The unfairness of it all. Working brutal hours, struggling to communicate with uppity Manhattanites, paying off corrupt cops, eeking by to have a mountain of debt hanging over your head while trying to do what’s right for your family. Comparison to today’s record keeping, it would have been easier to throw the violations away and completely ignore them until one fateful day that you might have to deal with the authorities. Since everything was done by hand there would have been a chance that records might have gotten lost or overlooked, and that day might have never come. But he wasn’t willing to take that chance especially when it might mean having to forcefully leave the States.

He vowed to pay off every single one of the tickets no matter how long it took. Slowly the cart did better and better and it turned into a store. After years of running the store, the suitcase was once again as empty as it was when it was first slipped under the bed.

Pixar

2014-02-15T10:21:00.000-05:00

Last year I flew in to play SF Sketchfest and I was going to stay with some friends in Berkeley. The night before I flew out I looked at the Bart map to figure out how I was going to get from the airport out to Berkeley when I saw that Emeryville was smack dab in the middle of the two. I called Pixar and they told me that they don't offer open tours. I sighed and reluctantly accepted my fate.

After I told them about my disappointment my friends took me to a diner (owned by Mike Dirnt of Green Day) which was right across the street from the Pixar HQ. Seeing the gate was pretty cool and you could see the ball and the lamp but the coolest thing was the giant seagulls perched around the building. Seeing those seagulls made me change my plans and wake up early the next day because if nothing else I'd get a sweet shot of them.

I had heard about the store that was only open to employees and had shirts that weren't available for sale anywhere else. On the Bart I formulated a plan to go to the security gate and ask the guard if he knew of any employees who might be cool enough to do me the favor of buying any shirt from the store for me. I sprung my plan into action and the security guard very nicely told me that since it was a little after 10 am, most of the cool people had already come in and anyone coming in now would most likely be an executive who may or may not have security on autodial. I stood by the gate peeking into the next few cars that came up and I felt like an infamous NYC street window washer waiting to pounce on someone who didn't want to be bothered. So I quickly gave up and convinced myself that the trip was still worth it since I'd get better pictures of all the cool stuff in the daylight.

I was a little disappointed as I walked around the campus since I was expecting more cool, easter eggs around the building but the seagulls seemed to be it. I got a little past half way around the campus when I passed two guys smoking. After about 10 steps past them something clicked. People don't stand and smoke outside of buildings unless they work there. I stopped on a dime and pulled a 180. I started the conversation by saying, "Hey guys can I ask you a weird question?" They said, "sure." "If I give you money will go into the company store and buy me a shirt?" They started asking me where I was from and why I was in the Bay area. It turned out that one of the guys had taught right by where I live and lived not too far from where I grew up and went to high school. They very politely said that they'd do it but they'd like to finish their cigarettes. I said absolutely, please take your time and handed them a $20 and a business card, hoping that the card would humanize me a bit more, and continued to walk the rest of the campus.

After an excruciating 10 minutes of walking and waiting I doubled back to the smoking spot feeling a little disappointed by the lack of more easter eggs. My heart sank as I saw the two guys who looked like they hadn't budged an inch since I left. Not wanting to feel like I was hurrying them along since they were doing me a massive favor I slowed down my pace until I made out something in one of the guy's hands. I picked up the pace and was greeted with the sentence, "Oh hey man, bad news, the company store doesn't open until 11." It was about 10:30. "But you can have my shirt that they gave everyone who worked on the sets for Brave, there are only 12 or 13 in the world." There are a handful of times at best that I've been speechless in my life. "Oh and here's your money too." I ineffectively tried to convince them to keep the $20 and to use it for lunch but they insisted. "it took Bravery (the capital B is an editor's choice) for you to go up to strangers and ask for something." That day even further cemented my unbridled love of Pixar.

Here are some pictures, http://i.imgur.com/36UsA63

47

2013-05-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

Hey,

I know we are basically strangers right now but in the brief interactions we’ve had over the last few years mixed with our history, I feel like I have to tell you something that’s been bothering me. I think you are fucking up. If not, then at the minimum you are shooting yourself in the foot. Take all of this with a grain of salt if you’d like. I’m telling you this because I used to do the exact same thing. You have a superior complex but mixed with a tremendous amount of self-doubt and because of that doubt you are pushing the people around you away, even your close friends. Like I said we are basically strangers but that outside perspective lets people see things that you can’t when you are in it.

Here’s where it’s going to sound pretentious mixed with at least a dash of pompous, it’s a matter of growing up and figuring things out, for instance none of this matters, but more importantly how to put other people before you. When you talk to people, you are listening but only as a means as a jumping off point to talk about yourself. Take the time to really listen, engage and ask the other person questions that makes them think their position through thoroughly. It’s not a duplicitous but it’s a way to get people to like you instead of wanting to get out of the conversation by opening the car door and rolling on the gravel road just to not have to hear another word.

It takes time and practice but you are smart enough to be able to do it without breaking a sweat. I understand that it’s all a defense mechanism and a way to feel comfortable in uncomfortable situations but most people don’t give it a lot of thought and knee jerk to thinking you are being arrogant and pompous.

I think you are also wrapped up in the expectations that you had for yourself and when those things didn’t happen your disappointment manifested itself into a mild depression which kicks us back to the overcompensating when dealing with people, which begins the cycle all over again.

Maybe you’re better than this, maybe you’re not. I don’t know. Like I said we are basically strangers but I do know that the only way to find out is by trying.

I wish you well and I do think you’ll come out of this rut and be happier for it. I’d say you deserve it but that’s not true. The mindset of “deserving” is what is getting you into trouble. Once you accept that everyone is a person and no one is better but rather different, you can hopefully see everyone on equal footing and from there respecting their voice and what they say.

Let’s go with “Best Regards,”

Jon

Hotel Astoria- The Bathroom

2013-03-02T13:29:00.002-05:00

Shortly after college I moved into a three bedroom apartment with one of my closest friends. We had been in bands together for years and having done some touring and having friends who toured in their bands, it was really important to me to have the space for friends to crash with us. Early on with decked out the spare bedroom with a futon and made it into a bedroom/recording studio covered in music and movie posters.

Besides our mutual love of music we had bonded in our formative years over Star Wars. Over the years we each individually amassed a bunch of Star Wars merchandise from figures to posters to magazines to plates. It still pains me that I didn’t come up with the idea first but the conversation went something like this”

“Yo, we should theme one of the rooms. A Star Wars theme.” He said.

“Umm.” I said.

“Let’s make the bathroom the Star Wars Bathroom. Think about it, after this apartment we’ll either be living on our own or with girlfriends and at that point your not going to have a Star Wars themed room. This is probably our only chance to do it, and wouldn’t life feel less complete without a Star Wars themed room?” he said.

I couldn’t argue with the logic. It was flawless and rock solid. Another thing about the bathroom was that all the tile, the tub and the toilet where this worn out 1960’s pink, so covering it up as much as possible would be a happy byproduct of this stupid endeavor. We began dressing up the bathroom by putting some figures around the sink and some movie posters. I scoured ebay for some towels and a shower curtain, both Episode 1 related but what could you do, beggars and choosers. After a few hours of two people working in a cramped 30 square foot space we considered the job completed for now. There were still stacks of magazines and other things we could do but our energy level was spent.

Over the next year we had quite a few people stay with us, most for a day or two and others for months. Towards the beginning of 2005 or the end of 2004 a friend of ours who had become quite popular because of a Star Wars themed song had moved back to New York and needed a place to stay for a bit. We happily obliged. Because of his rising fame, open love of Star Wars and the impending release of Star Wars Episode III in May, oh and his even more famous friends, he was to be their guest at a special advance screening of Episode III at Skywalker Ranch. I don’t think I’ve ever been as jealous of anything quite as much as I was of that. Both my roommate and I secretly & desperately hoped that by some divine intervention they would call him and say that he could bring a friend or two. Heartbreakingly, that didn’t happen.

Our temporary roommate left early Friday morning and gave us a call around 11pm our time after he had a private tour of the grounds and had been checked into his bungalow. He regaled us with the greatness/ unbelievableness of it all and we took our jealous energy and put it to work. We worked for the next four hours throwing the Star Wars Bathroom into hyperdrive. We plastered the walls with pictures and posters. We taped figures to walls in elaborate space battles using the vertical walls as their horizontal floors so they would fill the space. The Pièce de résistance came when I noticed that the bathroom had two light switches. The one operated the lights and the second operated the fan and the electrical outlet above the medicine chest. The box we had on the floor of the stuff to be added to the bathroom I noticed a tape copy of the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack. In the recording studio I had a pair of junky computer speakers and I knew I had seen an old Walkman somewhere in the apartment. After tracking down the Walkman and making sure it worked, I got to wiring and taping. By plugging in the speakers into the outlet and hiding them in the medicine chest along with the Walkman, which was set to constantly loop, the moment you flipped both light switches you would be bombarded by light and the sound of the soundtrack. Hiding the speakers and the Walkman really took the bathroom to the next level. I’d bet the Skywalker Ranch didn’t have such high-tech bathrooms.

The unexpected upside of having the soundtrack playing in the bathroom was that it made mundane tasks feel monumental. Showering to the Imperial March woke you up more so than any cup of coffee ever could. The uncertainty of what song would be on next when you entered could determine your day, would it be something uplifting or since Empire is the darkest of the original three, would it bring you down.

Our temporary roommate came back having stolen tampons from Skywalker Ranch to add a feminine needs section to the bathroom. Shortly after he returned he was interviewed by Time Out New York who came to our place and naturally because of his association with his Star Wars song, they did their photo shoot in the bathroom. We mounted the picture over where he was sitting (the toilet obviously) to create a super meta visual of you looking at the space you were currently peeing, at least for the gentlemen who frequented the bathroom.

I moved out of that apartment in the summer of 2009 and the new roommates insisted that the run of the bathroom come to an end, mainly because it was filthy. It most certainly was filthy. Taking down or moving board games, action figures, playsets and whatever else to clean was a daunting and time consuming task that no one volunteered for. So the memorabilia came down revealing the faded pink tiles once again.

Cars and Driving

2013-01-27T15:32:00.000-05:00

I guess by New York City standards I got my driver’s license on the early side at 19 but by the rest of the country’s standards I’d bet that’s on the late side. At the time I was living on Long Island and dealing with public transportation was eating up too much of my time. I was lucky enough to get a deal on a 1990 Toyota Corolla from my mom’s friend. The problem was that I got the car before I had my license and the car sat in the driveway for a while.

The first time I took the car out by myself ended up being a harrowing experience. A friend’s parents were going on vacation so in an effort to make my life easier and cut out traveling from Long Island to Manhattan and back every night, I decided to crash at his place for the week. I packed my bags and loaded up the car.

Growing up in the city we didn’t really have access to cars and most of our going out was limited to walking or taking the subway. Adding a car to the mix meant the world had become our oyster.

I started down Glen Cove Road, a normal two lane road with stop lights. Every second knowing that I was getting closer to my first real fear, the Long Island Expressway. The LIE features tractor trailers flying by three lanes at 60 and 70 miles an hour at all points in time. Poorly operating a sedan that feels like a tinker toy, leads to panic attacks in better men. After fifteen minutes I found myself in the belly of the beast. I hugged the right lane like a stuffed animal. That day I was the most consciousness driver in the history of mankind, you need to merge, merge away, you need to pass, I’m slowing down to a crawl. I make it to Astoria and to the safety of familiarity and luxury items like stop signs and traffic lights.

I dropped off my stuff and we discussed what we should do with our new found freedom. In past summers we would house sit for this friend’s sister and brother in law, in Forest Hills. We fell in love with a few spots in the neighborhood but none more than UJay’s dinner right off of Austin Street. Fast fact, the Triple Bypass cover for “Memories We Never Had” was shot at UJay’s. So it became painstakingly apparent where our first local roadtrip would take us. We piled into the car and headed towards the boulevard of death, Queens Boulevard. Actually at that point I don’t think Queens Boulevard, the yet to be shot Vinnie Chase movie, had been deemed the boulevard of death. That probably came a few summers later when two or three pedestrians were killed within a month of each other.

The drive up Queens Boulevard was scary but manageable. Stop lights can be your friend when you have 12 lanes of traffic and concrete dividers. What I learned more than anything that day is that the hardest part of driving isn’t controlling the car, it’s paying attention to all the signs. We made it to Austin Street without incident but we couldn’t find a parking spot. We circled Queens Boulevard and Austin Street, each time extending the circle and making our way down side streets. Most of the residential areas in Queens don’t have parking restrictions outside of street cleaning which usually happens in the mornings. We ended up on a very nice, quiet street about three blocks from Austin. We bounced out of the car with a spring in our step. Everything was working out for us. We headed to UJay’s and a couple of bacon cheeseburgers deluxes later we walked Austin Street stopping at the Disney Store and Gamestop to waste some time and do some shopping. All in all it was a pretty perfect evening. Friends, food, and freedom.

We walked back to the car and with just my luck, I see a car double parked next to the Corolla. What are the chances that of all the cars on the street, this guy decides to box me in. Just great. As I walk up to the driver’s side door I see a note glued to the window. It says: “You have illegally parked on a private street. There is a Boot on your car. Call this number to get it removed.” The panic I felt on the LIE seemed trivial to this, to this world shattering fear. I pulled out my gray Motorola flip phone, which was the pinnacle of technology in 1999, and dialed the number. The door on the double parked car next to mine opens up and a large man slides out.

“Oh good, I was hoping it would be you guys. You are my last boot of the night.” He said.

“Umm okay, cool man. How do we get this thing off?” I asked sounding like a frightened 4 year old when in actuality I was a terrified 19 year old.

“Oh, easy, I have the key.” He said. “But you have to pay me $250.”

“What? How much?” I ask as I see my checking account now settling comfortably in the red.

“Is there anything you can do?” I asked hoping that through my trembling voice the guy understood that I meant, hey would you take a bribe for less than $250? That didn’t come through as he replied.

“I can wait here until you go to an ATM and get the $250.”

I considered driving off with the boot on the car but the Simpsons taught me that it would be a bad idea.

We returned and paid the man. Eight seconds later the boot was off and we got into the car, me visibly shaken.

Back down Queens Boulevard we went. I don’t think I breathed the entire way. I couldn’t find the turn for Steinway Street to get across Astoria. We turned down 39^th and 37^th, going down one way streets the wrong way in an effort to make this living nightmare come to end. Finally I decided, fuck it, I’ll go underneath the L and take 31^st street.

As we drove down heading towards 31^st street, I realized that I was in big trouble. There was a concrete divider that wouldn’t let me make the right. What it would let me do is go straight over the 59^th street bridge and into Manhattan. The two things that most drivers around here fear are driving on highways and driving in Manhattan. My heart sounded like a death metal kick drum. I was in a full fledged panic. Deep breathes, I thought, deep breathes. We pulled into the isle of Manhattan and I made three lefts and one right as quickly as humanly possible. It was the world’s shortest foray into Manhattan.

We got over the bridge and were able to make the turn on 31^st and cross over to Astoria. I’ve never been more excited to park a car than I was on that day. We parked outside of his house and I went inside and openly wept.

New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

2013-01-12T12:07:00.001-05:00

I live next to a store on Thompson Street that epitomizes everything that’s right about New York, but at the same time I hate it. The Little Lebowski is a store that specializes in all things related to the Big Lebowski. The fact that it exists is what I love about New York City. An owner operated shop with an extreme focus, nestled on a quiet, unassuming block, that most people would never walk by or go in if they did. Stores like it bring the character, the enthusiasm and cool factor to the greatest city in the world. I love that a store with such a specific clientele, people who love the Big Lebowski, can stay in business for as long as it has. Also on Thompson there were two rival chess shops across the street from each other. I say were because one of them (the one I liked less) recently closed and even though it was the one I liked less, it was a very sad day for the neighborhood. I would take pride in saying, “it’s the block with all the chess shops,” when trying to describe where I live to people. The surviving chess shop stay open 24 hours just in case you get a craving to castle in the middle of the night. My economic guess is that stores like these couldn’t survive in most major cities let alone in more rural areas. This what’s right with NYC. Cool local businesses can make it no matter how niche they are. The stumble upon aspect of walking down a street you’ve never been on and finding something that you never thought could exist but it does and it’s right in front of you.

The first morning after Sandy hit I walked around downtown to see how severe the damage was. I was surprised how intact everything was for the most part, at least what was above ground. I didn’t expect to find anything open since the mass transit system had been shut down effectively making Manhattan a sweet, sweet, isolated dream, devoid of tourists and making “I Am Legend” a reality or at least a reality without those creatures. After a few hours of walking around I realized that I had planned poorly and hadn’t brought any water with me, ordinarily this situation is remedied by walking 15 feet in any direction and walking into a convenience store, bodega, Starbucks, street vendor, bookstore, Best Buy etc., etc. ad nauseam. On this day it meant another 2 to 3 miles of walking back to my place. I turned off of Battery Park and found a pocket of blocks that had power. There was a mom and pop convenience store that was open with cases of water. I started a conversation with them because one, there was nothing else to do, two, to see if all the power had come back, and three how they got there. They drove into the city at 6 am because this store was the livelihood of multiple generations of their family and since it was only about a block and a half away from the river they were terrified (to the point of not being able to sleep) as to what the ramifications for their family would be depending on the extent of the damage. Thankfully for them there was nothing amiss with their store and they had power. When I walked in I expected to pay upwards of $3 for a bottle of water given the market conditions, they were the only game in about a 40 block radius that was operational, staffed and with inventory; yet I paid $.75 for a bottle.

I walked out of there with a few thoughts. The first being reminded how people for the overwhelming majority are genuinely good, in particularly in a time of crisis. The second being how small businesses like this one have been squeezed out of the city due to landlords upping the rents and preferring to keep spaces vacant for the tax write off than rent them at reasonable rates to help the city bounce back economically and spur it culturally. The third thing was how the chain stores have taken over and have stripped New York City of the charm of finding eccentrically themed or eccentrically owned and operated shops. The other downside of the chains is that in a true crisis their employees will happily (and very justifiably) sit in the comfort of their own homes instead of not sleeping and rushing to their workplace as early as possible just to know one way or another as to how their lives will be affected going forward.

These reasons are just a few as to why, New York I love you but you are bringing me down.

Rich vs. Poor

2013-01-08T00:56:00.002-05:00

Don’t let the title fool you this isn’t a class war rage. It’s more of an understanding how people grow up in different areas with different resources and as much as I’d like to think that we can over come these financial and therefore cultural differences, I’m not so sure.

Our story begins with me meeting someone through a mutual friend, who had just moved to town. She had come to New York via Paris but was originally from a wealthy suburb of San Francisco. She was smart, accomplished, well traveled, well educated and easy on the eyes. She had me after she finished the sentence, “I was a journalist for a Parisian newspaper but there’s something about New York City.” Oh and one more thing about this girl, for all intents and purposes she was engaged. Engaged in that way when people have been in a relationship for a long time and the next step should have happened by now but it hasn’t so let’s just get engaged even though we both know it’s a huge mistake. You know, that kind. In any case, I don’t meet women like this often. Actually, I never meet women like this. For a long time I started thinking that women like this didn’t exist, so finding one in the wild, even if she was engaged, was quite the reassuring prospect. The world was filled with hope again. I made a promise to myself that if she ever becomes single I would ask her out immediately for a few reasons. The first being to get out of my comfort zone of only thinking about talking to women of that caliber. The second being that I was positive that there would be a line of dudes who were also going to be vying for her attention and lastly, rebound relationships usually have at least a pretty good run before they end in a dismal pile of tears, booze and harassment.

So let’s fast forward through the months of her living with her fiancé and move right to the part where she leaves him. This story is so old that I Myspaced this girl when I found out about her moving to Upper West Side. That’s right, I said Myspaced. For some unbeknownst reason see agreed to go out with me. I often think it was because she either felt like she owed our mutual friend, or there was a strong sense of pity in my general direction, or she figured let’s get this over with. Having come out of a long relationship she was very upfront about not being interested in being in one any time soon, which I completely understood and respected. I was so excited to spend time with her that I would have happily paid for anything and everything date related, even if it meant three and a half hours of her verbally and physically berating and abusing me. I would have taken out a loan to make that happen. Happily.

We agreed to go for coffee at a place that she loved in Paris that also had a location not too far from where she was crashing. Crashing isn’t exactly the right word here but I’m blanking on what would be. The reason crashing isn’t appropriate is because people don’t crash at apartments with full time doorman who have seen enough to know that I’m not the quality of person to be allowed entrance in the lobby let alone the multimillion dollar apartments. Staying also doesn’t quite work either.

For my own therapy, looking back I should have noticed the chink in the armor when we went to La Pain Quidien for coffee. An upscale chain coffee place for a fake date? I’m not sure about that move. There are far too many coffee places in New York with charm and character that I would have chosen before La Pain Quidien. I know I was so overcome with joy at the prospect of sitting down with this woman that at the time I wouldn’t have minded if we were in an old man bar surrounded by people projectile vomiting onto the floor and walls, but I digress.

The anecdote that has stayed with me these five or six years which is sort of the point of this article? Entry? Post? Whatever this thing is, is this. We were both removed from college by only a few years and she was going to go back for a master’s, so it was natural to discuss those rather formative years. She regaled me with a tale of walking into her suitemate’s room while the radio was playing and asked who was on the radio.

The roommate replied, “Santana.” Mind you this would have been around 1999 or 2000 when “Smooth” was released and took over every radio station.

She replies in an overtly sarcastic tone with, “Who Carlos Santana?” One of those goofy, adoy, tones. A tone so deliberate that it’s used only in absolute certainty.

The suitemate replies, “Yeah, Carlos Santana.” I image she had a quizzical look on her face during and after her reply.

You see, dear reader, the girl sitting across from me drinking her tea and nibbling on her croissant had lived next door from one Carlos Santana. You must be thinking well, Carlos Santana must be a fairly common name and this girl just has a strange sense of humor, which would be two very reasonable thoughts and you shouldn’t feel badly about the fact that you are 100% incorrect. The truth is that she not only lived next to a Carlos Santana for her entire life up until she had gone away to college that year, but that she lived next to THE Carlos Santana. That’s right, THE Carlos Santana. Having no idea what he did for a living, despite, I may add, that he took her backstage to the Grammy’s a few years before that.

Like I said earlier, I’ve thought about this story a lot over the years. I don’t have a satisfactory answer as to why she felt the need to share it. My best guess is that I was very into music at the time and she thought it might be a cute story that I would appreciate. Or it could very well be her way of showing how not cool she was by being so ignorant about her surroundings and what popular culture society expects us to know. I’m not sure if it’s even either of those things. The one thing that I did know immediately after hearing the story was how out of my league this girl was. Not only out of my league but how we came from different worlds. Worlds not separate by physical distance, nor economy but what rather what that money can do and give a person. Whether the story was supposed to be cute and telling about her personality or something unrelated, it won’t change where we come from. In that instant it became very clear to me that there wouldn’t be a Hollywood ending in the cards for us. The two worlds we came from were entirely too different.

That last line has depressed me as I typed it, so I’m going to pull a 180. Come to think of it, I have no idea what old Mr. Fitzgerald our neighbor did for a living. I’m pretty sure he didn’t play Woodstock but I might be wrong about that.

Diddy

2013-01-01T16:06:00.002-05:00

I almost don’t want to write about this because it was written about so much before hand, during and afterwards. I figured I’d write about it for a few reasons. One we were talking about it last night, two for posterity, and three the band’s perspective wasn’t really covered.

I’ve played bass or guitar in the house band for the Chris Gethard Show from the beginning of the show’s run. At one point Chris got the idea to try to land a celebrity by using twitter. His first choice was Al Roker but after the former weatherman turned him down, Chris went bigger. Diddy became the target and Chris went after him like a big game hunter. The hashtag #diddygethard was all over the place and after a year of trying to lock down a date it came down January 14^th, 2011.

Now the band was going through some problems because of people moving or quitting and finding people to play with us each month was proving harder than you’d think. For all intents and purposes the band was James’s band and we were along for the ride. In July 2010 James took a terrific job in Canada and we continued with out him basically reshuffling and having Kelly sing and play drums. With James leaving, I took it upon myself to take over and start dealing with everything. After the August show, Kelly couldn’t do the show anymore so we were out both a singer and a drummer. We cobbled together line-ups for the next few shows by calling in some favors and getting creative. Once we got the word the Diddy seemed to be a realty, we discussed what we should do and decided to keep small by only adding another drummer who could sing a bit so we called Mikey.

Diddy obviously has forayed into so many different businesses and different lines of business but he’s known for getting his start in the music business. We were a bunch of punk rockers whose subgenre is constantly criticized for being full of people who can’t play their instruments and it’s basically looked down upon. With all of that in mind, I didn’t want us to sound good, I wanted us to sound as professional as possible, for my pride but also for validation for all of us musicians and everyone involved with the show. I always loved playing the show but crowds were never really into us. It felt like they politely tolerated us when we played and I understand where they were coming from. They were there for a comedy show, not a rock show.

To complicate matters for everyone involved with the show, we were getting ready to do a two week cross country tour and with that we didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse for the Diddy show. We had one practice with Mikey to learn 4 songs, which isn’t too tough to do but given that half of them were hip hop and not our usual style and the given the high stakes of the circumstance. If we fucked up to kick off the show it would be bad news for everyone. It would make us look bad, but the show look bad, and Chris look bad while the entire music and comedy worlds had their eyes focused on us. So yes the stakes were high.

We intro’d Gethard with Pray for Rain by the Ergs and then when Diddy came out we switched to Bad Boy for Life. It was 15 of the most stressful seconds of my life but we were tight. I felt satisfied and relieved. Then as the raucous applause started to dip Diddy says something that I’ll never forget. “Give it up for the band! They are playing their asses off tonight!”

Roger Daltrey’s Bag

2012-12-14T15:34:00.000-05:00

Several years back I took a job in the music industry. Since I was a teenager I wanted to work in the music industry. The coolness of working with talented people, whom I respected, in a fast paced environment that would be changing week to week depending on who was charting was incredibly appealing. The charge of seeing new releases and in someway affecting the daily lives of millions of people was right up my alley. This job wasn’t that.

With great shame, I think I lasted 9 months. Nine slave like months. The hours were long, the pay was short and amount to do was insurmountable. Looking back on it with some great perspective, it probably wasn’t as bad as I’m making it seem but while you were in it, it was hellish. Most days were no less than 10 hours without a chance to stop and eat. The management was so disjointed that whatever was deemed as the only course of action to follow on one particular week was thrown out the next week only to be re-implemented the week after. Financial austerity was constantly preached when it came to salaries and all expenses until on a whim the owner would blow 25k on worthless ads.

Most of what I worked on was leading up to a singular week-long event where the wealthy would pay extraordinary amounts of money to play music and interact with musical celebrities of various degrees. Some of these celebrities made in 45 minutes what the office staff made all year.

When I came in for my first interview I noticed the office was covered in gear, posters, displays, and give aways from the most recent week-long event. My eye was drawn to a pile of three identical duffle bags with the coolest design. A little bit of background on Marshall Amplifiers, they are considered the standard when it comes to loud, rock music and they come in two pieces, the cabinet and the head. These duffle bags where made to look like Marshall heads. You could carry them like you would carry a head, they were similarly sized and they just looked cool.

After I started working there a few weeks after my interview, the bags were still there. I was told that two of them were for participants and that we needed to mail the bags to them. The third one was for Roger Daltrey who (no pun intended) had been one of the celebrity musicians at the last event. Now Roger Daltrey lives in England and the cost of shipping a gift bag full of freeby give aways was nearly $300, to which the owner baulked and told us to leave it there until Roger was back in New York and he would simply hand him the bag.

Months went by without Roger Daltrey coming to New York. Months went by with the bag sitting there taunting me with its intrinsic awesomeness. Months went by of me working 10, 11, 12 hour days for what ended up being slightly above minimum wage when you factored out all the hours. The owner of the company was devoutly religious. He was Hasidic and the reason it’s important is because of Shabbos. Prior to working there I had never heard of Shabbos. From my understanding of it, Friday sun downish to Saturday sundownish, you can’t do anything considered work. So every Friday the boss would leave the office early and the rest of us would continue working roughly until 5, clocking out for a rare 8 hour day.

Well one Friday right before taking off for Shabbos the boss tasked me with an incredibly, long, time consuming, tedious task that he wanted emailed to him so he could look at it as soon as he was allowed to by God. One by one I saw my co-workers leave the office, off to enjoy a happy hour somewhere. Hour by hour I saw the sun set over Manhattan. I finished the project, emailed it, closed my laptop, and said fuck it. Fuck it, today is the day that I steal Roger Daltrey’s gift bag. Now I oppose stealing and think it shouldn’t be done under any circumstances, but given the mocking that the bag would do to me on a daily basis and given the opportunity to be able to say that I stole Roger Daltrey’s gift bag, how was I going to live with myself if I didn’t steal the bag? I grabbed the bag like a Marshall head, closed the lights, locked the door and smiled all the way out of the building.

Years later I was hanging out with some co-workers from that place and over drinks I let cat out of the bag and told them the story, to which they responded, “oh we knew you took it but we all stole stuff like crazy from that place, amplifiers, digital recorders, you name it. “

I still have the bag and I still get compliments on it every time I take it out in public.

The Pyramid/Opening

2012-11-14T11:13:00.002-05:00

I’ve played in bands since I was 14 or 15 and I don’t think any of us had any delusions of grander in the sense that we really believed that we’d be huge rock stars. That being said, I was definitely of the mindset of what I’d imagine a baseball prospect goes through. There are steps you have to take to advance to the next stage or level.

On labor day of 1995, we had recorded a demo tape in a professional studio, (remember tapes?) of something like 7 songs in 8 hours and excited played it for all of our friends and family. For some sense of perspective, in punk rock a session of 7 songs should take somewhere between three and four times as long. Figure a few hours to get sounds, about 8 hours to get basic tracks done, a few hours for overdubbing mistakes and extra guitars, between 4 and 8 hours for vocals, a few more hours for axillary percussion and keyboards and about an hour and a half to mix each song. Now that’s a middle of the road estimate. Obviously 7 songs can be done in 8 hours and 7 songs can take an entire month if you have the time and money. The point being here is that doing 7 songs in 8 hours when you are 15 and have been a band for about a year or so means the recording is going to straight up suck. My test for how good a recording is how long does it take to notice things that bother you about it. A few months is a sign of a pretty good recording. A month isn’t bad. In the case of these songs it was the drive home.

There was a bbq brewing when I got home and I immediately popped the tape in for everyone to hear. One of my uncle’s friends who was there, unbeknownst to me had just started a music management company with a partner and she told me that we have potential and that she’d manage us. Looking back it’s all pretty ridiculous but at the time when most of our ideas about how the music industry works came from tv and movies, it seemed par for the course. Obviously after you record for the first time you get a management deal. We knew we weren’t great but being insulated from other bands and having incredibly supportive friends, we thought we were pretty good.

After a couple of meetings with our new managers and some orders of diner French Fries, they were eager to book us at some places outside of Queens. The first and come to think of it, only show they got us was at a pretty divey bar in the Lower East Side called the Pyramid. The beauty of booking us at the Pyramid was that it was 18+ for entry and it was a weeknight so none of our “fans” (read friends) could come. The highlight at the time for us, and the impetus for me writing this, was that we weren’t opening the show. We were playing second out of four or five bands. Now this might seem like a small or insignificant event but in entertainment there’s a hierarchy. The later you are on, the bigger you are. Playing second was yet another step towards our goal of getting bigger and more popular as a band. I love looking back on it and seeing how skewed the little things in our lives are when you are removed from them on a day-to-day basis. The band that opened for us, Bottom, was a group of thirty something year old guys who were legitimately good. They could play circles around us and seemed like they just enjoyed playing music. I think back to what those guys thought of us while they stood there with some of our parents, our manager and the sound guy watching us play what my cloudy memory says was a good set. Were they thinking, what is this shit and why did we open for these teenagers? Or were they thinking, good for these kids getting into music and feeling elated for playing in Manhattan and not opening?

I got more involved in music and went to more and more shows but I never saw Bottom’s name again. Similarly after months of phone calls and messages, we got back in touch with our manager who famously said, “Oh, we don’t do those things anymore.”

Fencing

2012-10-27T19:32:00.002-04:00

I was on the NYU fencing team during the first semester of my freshman year. It’s one of those things, at least to me that sounds impressive when in reality it wasn’t at all. I walked onto the team and I don’t know if there was a mandate to let any one join if they wanted or if I was barely acceptable enough to make it on my merits. I had gotten into fencing a few years before that in high school, where I was a starter on the varsity team, a team that went on to win the city championship in my senior year. I was either the worst or second worst starter on that team but due to my high self-confidence and recent medal, I figured I would try out. A few guys from the high school team the year before (and the year after) ended up with scholarships and when they came back to visit they warned how very different the landscape was. It shifted from the team-oriented environment that we all embraced to a very individual event. For the layman, fencing had three different types of weapons and each has different areas on the body where points can be scored and first person to 5 wins. There are only two fencers on the strip at a time. The total number of bouts won determines the winner of the overall match. So it’s an interesting mix of individual and team. Enough exposition.

I remember finding out about the team after they had already started practicing. I made a terrifying phone call to the coach, Steve at his day job, a civil war antique store in New Jersey. Former Olympian, coach of a division 1 fencing team, owns and runs a civil war antique shop; you can’t script life. He told me to come down on Tuesday and the normal practice schedule was Tuesdays, Thursdays at 6:30- 9 and on Saturdays at 9am for practice. I showed up full of smiles and nervous energy expecting to find a familiar positive atmosphere like what my last team had been. I couldn’t have been more off base. Looking back on it now, it what I’d imagine training for the Olympics is like. The three coaches ran us through the most intense workouts I had ever been a part of. They were broken up into stretching, running, calisthenics and finally fencing. Thankfully after each section there was a 2-3 minute water break. I would spend the entire time with my mouth around the spigot and breathing heavily through my nose. When we got to my first fencing portion the coach for foil took me to the equipment room and handed me some gear. There are different types of handles on the foils and in high school I had always used a French grip but he had handed me a pistol grip. I asked for a French grip and was curtly told in a Russian accent, no French only pistol. I was off to a wonderful start!

The actual fencing practice was round robin tournament style where you’d fence about 6 bouts throughout the rest of practice. I don’t remember exactly how did my first time but I think I ended up winning a few bouts but definitely losing more than I had won. Those couple of wins justified me being there at I least I thought so. They didn’t tell me to not come back, which I took as a positive.

I was in a serious amount of pain from being so out of shape after the first practice. After the second practice, walking on stairs in any direction was not a possibility. After the first Saturday practice, the third practice overall, I took the E train from West 4^th to 42^nd Street to catch the 7 train to get to Flushing. If you aren’t familiar with the walk from the E to the 7 at 42^nd, there are/were a series of ramps with an incline deemed not safe for wheelchairs. There’s a gradient that’s not that steep but steep enough to make you wonder how much fun it would be to on rollerblades. Anyway, after that 3^rd practice of the week I started walking down the first ramp and quickly had the realization that the muscles in my legs had betrayed me and refused to follow any more orders. Gravity had grabbed me and was pushing quickly down the ramp towards the wall where you would turn and descend another ramp. There a flat area to make this turn around approximately 6 feet from the end of the ramp. At each and every one of the 8 landings I was able to come to stop about a foot from the wall. I was completely convinced that I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself and end up with a broken nose from slamming into any of the walls.

The coaches would work individually with the fencers during practices. I was never quite sure what the criteria was for being selected. The team captain, I think was named Glen, I found out wasn’t chosen out of merit but because the guy who had the same seniority had gotten into a fist fight at the last tournament. I kept my head down, showed up to all the practices and worked as hard as I could. After about a month or so I had become pretty good and was consistently finishing between 4-2 and 6-0 during the round robin portion of practice. Coach Steve had announced that there would be two events in the next few weeks. The first was an out of state tournament and the second was a public practice to get alumni to come and see the team in an effort to raise some money.

In one of my first disappointments on the team I was told that I would be going to the tournament only to be cut because of budgetary reasons a few days beforehand. Not so much of a disappointment but more of an eye opening experience, was the open practice. Apparently the people that were recruited for the team and received scholarships weren’t expected to show up to the normal practices and instead were to use that time to keep their grades up. They were given a free ride, housing, and tutors. I remember being incredibly bitter about all of it because I was up at 5:30 every morning, traveling at least an hour and a half each way (closer to 3 hours on practice nights) to and from school, working 5 hours a day, keeping my grades up and not receiving the time of day from the coaches. So when the open practice came around, I was pumped. I had a chip on my shoulder and I had something to prove. I was doing well against the rest of the team so this was my moment. I went up against a few of the regulars before being called to fence, Alex (his name might not have been Alex). Alex was a freshman like me but he was one of the team’s stars. He had the privilege of the full ride and he had never come to a single practice.

I came out with a quick attack, which he parried and hit me for a point. 1-0. Ok, I thought, stay aggressive. I went back at him toying with his foil a little before going in. 2-0. Ok, ok, time to dial it back and play a little defense. I laid back waiting to see what he’d do. 3-0. Defense has never been my strong suit, back to offense as I explode forward. 4-0. Fencing masks are made of a metallic mesh that you can see through. I’m pretty sure I saw Alex yawn during our exchange before he scored the fourth point. At that point I was cooked. I charged again and it was 5-0. These guys didn’t have to come to practice because they were so far out of our league that it would be a waste of their time. I never found out if they had their own practice time or if they had worked with the coaches individually.

After going to one match at Yale, never getting any attention from the coaches and getting offered a promotion at work, I quit the fencing team with about a month to go in the season. I remember feeling like I was wasting my time but looking back at all the time that I’ve wasted since then it’s something that I regret.

Sneakers

2012-10-26T17:02:00.002-04:00

Lately, I’ve been on a big sneaker kick, big enough to corrupt and/or taint my morals. My newfound interest in footwear has sparked a lot of questions from friends and loved ones. How much did this pair cost? Did you really wait in line for those? Why? The first two answers are a lot and yes respectively but the third is more complicated and I’ve been giving it plenty of thought.

A few years back after I quit my full time job to start my own company I was working from home most days and with that I needed background noise while I was working. I plowed through the sitcoms and comedies in my collection until I hit upon on the few Pixar movies I had. I watched all of them in succession, all the special features, and the commentaries. During the early run of Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2, I was at the theater opening day and buying the DVDs the first day of release but at some point before Monsters Inc. I either lost interest or something changed. This thing that I was truly passionate about fell by the waste side. Which got me thinking about things that defined us as individuals and how &why those things change or disappear from our lives.

Growing up in Astoria, on the weekends and most certainly during the summers we’d walk up to Steinway Street starting from 30^th Avenue we’d hit ever sneaker store until Broadway. There were five or six different shops, some were Army & Navy stores, other dedicated shoe stores. Looking back on it now, they were all mom & pop shops. In this weekly pilgrimage we’d ogle ever pair of new Nikes and Reeboks. Keep in mind this was in the late 80’s to ear 90’s; and with no way of getting any information about release dates or even models, you had to continually go to each and every shop to see what was out. Sneakers were making huge strides (sorry for the terrible pun) at that point with Michael Jordan and even Run DMC drawing fans to brands.

Nike was definitely the true brand of choice for our neighborhood. I can’t pin point the day but I can definitely pin point the year and more importantly the shoe that started me on this path. It was 1988 and it was the first pair of Air Max 1s in red. Others share my belief in the wow factor of this particular show, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1111890347/max100-the-book-project I don’t know if it was the shape, the use of red and grey or a combination of everything but I was floored. If I remember correctly a pair cost between $80-$90, which given the time was a significant amount of money, somewhere around $170 in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation. I think our monthly rent on a two bedroom apartment in Astoria was about $500-$600 a month for some better perspective on how expensive they were. I begged and begged for a pair and ended up getting a pair for my birthday. I distinctly remember my mom’s unhappiness about the price when she gave them to me and recited an anecdote about overhearing another mother telling a son that the $35 pair was too expensive and to put them back. The thing that both of these moms didn’t get was that sneakers weren’t just shoes. They were everything. Everything! Sneakers were to the street as suits were to Wall Street. With the burgeoning ad dollars and cultural significance, what you were wearing had a direct correlation with your coolness. The latest pair of sneakers garnered immediate attention from friends and even strangers. The peer pressure and jealously lead to the “game” of stepping on someone’s new shoes in an effort to dirty them up. Given the low to middle class neighborhood that we grew up in, that pair had to last you a year, so getting the latest and greatest was imperative or you’d left behind. Another aspect of it was that certain shoes’ desirability were enhanced not by those who were marketing them but the people who would wear them around the neighborhood.

I think when we all reach a certain point, we spend our disposable income on the things that we wanted so desperately as kids but couldn’t afford at the time. Reliving our childhoods one pair at a time, least in my case.

Crazy I&S Professors

2012-10-24T17:09:00.001-04:00

I had to take 3 semesters of a hybrid philosophy/humanities class in college called “Individual in Society” or something like that since we all referred to it as I&S. For whatever reason I&S seemed to attract the quirky professors. There were two incidents that I’ll never forget the level of awkwardness. They were moments where you could feel the air getting sucked out of the room in an instant.

The first two semesters of I&S I had was with Professor Shippey, I must have the spelling wrong since he’s not coming up on any google searches. Professor Shippey looked like if Mr. Roberts was a philosophy professor. Button down shirt covered by a v-neck sweater, khaki pants, sensible shoes, coke bottle glasses, salt & pepper hair that went a little bit of everywhere and a propensity for keeping the chalk between both hands and shaking it. If memory serves, he was a good professor who was diligent, kept things on track and stuck to the syllabus, except for this one time.

It was the second semester and I distinctly remember that we were talking about Plato’s idea forms and how there are certain forms for everything. The professor was stuck on the notion of the forms for trees and dogs. He was hammering the point home over and over again listing different types of dogs and trees, and how they shared some unique thing that tied them to their respective category. I think these classes lasted an hour and fifteen minutes and we were about an hour in. For some reason that to this day makes my head hurt, Professor Shippey doesn’t even go on a tangent as much as he stops the lecture to tell an anecdote about graduating college and back packing through Europe in the late 70’s early 80’s. Mind you this class was in the spring of 1999 so he was probably in his early to mid 40’s. I had always wanted to back pack through Europe after college or maybe because I was a highly conscientious student, I was actively listening to his story. I remember wondering how he was going to relate it back to Plato as he started. He started by laying out his route, France then heading East through Belgium and Holland on his way to Germany and then finally Italy. He quickly guided us past the exposition of the first few countries and really the story began in Germany. It was most likely the early 80’s and the Cold War was in full swing. I’m not sure how travel between West and East Germany was for Americans but he said that he went over to East Germany for a bit where he met a woman and quickly fell in love. He was so smitten that he gave up on going to Italy and spent the rest of his time with her. I think they ended up getting married such that she could leave the country but it’s been a while and some of the details have been muddled over time. Professor Shippey’s visa expires and he has to return home. They write each other constantly with some of her letters never making through or they make it through redacted. He goes through channel after channel trying to get her over to the US but the bureaucracy on the East Germany side is either holds things up or outwardly dismisses them. This process of letter writing, bureaucratic undermining and trips to East Germany goes on for years; years of frustration, years of love, years of holding on to hope. After all these years, she begins to waiver. She doesn’t waiver with another man, but rather She waivers in her belief that her government will ever let her leave. She decided to take matters into her own hands and escape the country in the most direct way possible, the Berlin Wall. She decides to climb over the Berlin Wall under the cover of darkness only to be gunned down by the guards. There might have been a long pause here in his story or very possibly the moment that it took for Professor Shippey to take a breathe felt like an eternity for every single person in the room. Then without missing a beat, he starts shaking the chalk and goes right back into Plato’s forms. It feels like no one has taken breathe in the last two minutes. The air is stale and our eyes darted from the clock to each other for any hint as to how to react to this heart wrenching, out of place love story. I remember thinking not to stare at the clock but at the same time making eye contact with the professor was out of the question. The ten remaining minutes were dead silent from the student side. Professor Shippey continued with his lesson without tying anything from the anecdote back into it, nor did his flow or cadence change. If you had walked into that classroom as soon as his story finished, you’d have no idea that anything was different from when you left to go the bathroom. The eternity that was those last ten minutes ended and everyone in the class had the wherewithal to not say a word about what just happened as we crossed the threshold. We all took the stairs down trying to wrap our minds around it and how to react.

My third and final semester in I&S was with Professor Tenywa, who I learned today died almost ten years ago in his native Uganda which puts a damper on this story. At the very first class Professor Tenywa with his ear-to-ear grin informs us of his basic tenant, punctuality is key and lateness to his class or on assignments will not be tolerated. Professor Tenywa liked suits and tweed jackets and he was always smiling this enormous smile. There was a string of bad weather in NYC the first few weeks of class and on our very next class the professor was late. He explained and apologized for his lateness by informing us that he was an adjunct and was working at another college directly beforehand. I remember having a hard time reconciling his personnel lateness with his policy concerning our lateness but I didn’t give it much thought since every once in a while we are all late. On the third class day the professor is late again but this time there is no explanation and he sticks by how important it is that we the students be on time all the while showing off his pearly whites. On the fourth day of classes the professor is late again, this time later than before. There’s an unwritten college rule that if the professor doesn’t show up after fifteen minutes then class is cancelled, it’s the fifteen minute rule. Now on this fourth day of class the troops are getting restless at the hypocrisy and at the thought of a cancelled class. We were at or about the twelve minute mark when he walks through the door smiling. The room deflated. After class there was a sentiment rallied by a few students that we should report his perennial lateness. To my knowledge it never came to that. On the fifth day of classes, he was late again. Now the class had basically had it. It should be noted that Professor Tenywa was a nice man but he wasn’t what you’d call friendly, he was more authoritative which didn’t sit well with some. Five minutes went by and the murmurs of the fifteen minute rule started. Seven minutes went by and people started planning on how to handle the situation. Ten minutes went by and the class is divided between walking out early and waiting until the full fifteen. Twelve minutes went by and the conversation had degraded into whether or not to leave a note. At the fifteen minute mark the class has reached its fever pitch and a student walks up to the board to write that the class has left since he was more than 15 minutes late. As the chalk hit the blackboard Professor Tenywa walks through the door with his ear-to-ear. The class looks around for its vocal leaders of dissent against the hypocrisy to say their piece. Just then Professor Tenywa says, “I’m sorry for my lateness. My wife died.” He paused as everyone in the room felt like the worst person on the planet. Here we were an angry mob ready to tear into this man and we were all very quickly put in our place by human understanding. “Next class is cancelled as well since I have her wake. Thank you.” Then he walked out with that same smile but this time you knew he was faking.

The Last Super Star Band

2012-10-17T14:52:00.001-04:00

The hugely popular rock ‘n roll bands throughout the history of rock ‘n roll have had one commonality, the budgets of major labels. The marketing push exercised by the major labels allowed for bands to break through into the public consciousness and become mainstays in pop culture. Broadband and the mp3 shifted the way people bought and didn’t buy music. The revenue lost by the major labels lead to drastic cuts in staff and budgets. A casualty that wasn’t immediately visible and may never be revived is the concept of the super star band. A super star band is one whose songs and logo are instantly recognizable by a cross section of society’s demographics, for a significant duration of time. Just to clarify, I mean the band that the soccer moms, the drunk guy at the bar, the music nerd and probably even the little kid can and will sing along to.

The diminished marketing budgets of the late 90’s and early 2000’s force us to search in the early and mid 90’s for the last super star band. These budgets are the key ingredient to the formula because without the posters, radio play, TV and billboard ads; the casual music listener doesn’t have access or the incidental contact with the band to enter their consciousness. The hardcore music fan covers your costs. The casual listener makes your profit. With the communications prowess and the relative cheapness of promotion of the internet the argument could made that it will hamper a breeding ground even bigger bands. The downfall to this argument is that without the budget to place ads on numerous sites for a significant duration, the band will get lost in the mire and languish in internet popularity and not the mainstream success that I’m alluding to.

Before we focus on the early and mid 90’s it makes sense to add the other half of our Venn diagram. The second part is a band who lasted through a majority of 2000’s with similar or even greater popularity. The rationale behind the second half is that longevity is key to for any band’s long term success. Mind you it’s not an absolute when you factor in the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix whose respective careers are the Sandy Koufax hall of fame argument, where dominance over a short period is most important than duration. In this specific case longevity matters because of the glacier like landscape change the music industry has seen. Which brings to the candidates. Pearl Jam, Green Day, Creed, DMB, Nickelback, and Radiohead. All of these groups started in at some point in the 90’s are still going today and along the way sold a ton of records.

Here are the estimated album sales of each of the candidates, Pearl Jam’s sales are about 60; Green Day about 65 million; Creed 30 million; Dave Matthews Band 50 million; Nickelback 30 million and radiohead 30 million. These numbers have come from my math and various sources, who may or may not be verifiable. The idea isn’t to get caught up in the numbers but rather to get a clearer picture of who should be included and who should be excluded. Looking at those numbers, the three top rock acts would be the Dave Mathew Band, Pearl Jam, and Green Day.

The Dave Matthews Band is interesting when you focus on their long term success, the only band besides the Eagles to have 6 #1 albums on the Billboard charts and to do it 21 years apart. DMB has embraced dealing directly with fans when it came to ticketing through the Warehouse Fan Association. My major issue with DMB is they are on the outside of a fine line of what I think most people would consider rock or rock ‘n roll. I think about it this way. In 20 years will the classic rock stations on FM or XM play the David Mathews Band? I’d guess no and with that I’m going to rule them out.

Pearl Jam is also interesting example because of their progression from the early 90’s to today. Since trying to eschew Ticketmaster they have seemingly opposed the corporate structure and focused on more running things in their own way. They have seen their career change from moving away from arena shows to slightly smaller venues and along the way being voted the best American Rock Band. I think a fair comparison, given their diehard fans, is the Grateful Dead. I believe this comparison, although fair to a degree, hurts Pearl Jam in the sense that the Grateful Dead never had the big hits. On top of in the tiers of most famous rock bands I’d argue that the Grateful Dead are seen as more of a second tier band vs. the likes of The Beatles, Led Zepplin, The Rolling Stones, The Who, or Jimi Hendrix.

Green Day is the most compelling example because although they started in 1987 they didn’t get any true national traction until 1994 with “Dookie.” The band’s popularity dipped from the end of the 90’s through about 2003 only to see it reach new heights from then on culminating in the stage musical version of “American Idiot.” More often than not because of mainly the musical, Green Day gets most associated with The Who. Like our other two finalists, Green Day has also done things in their own way by either co-releasing or re-releasing their music on their own label.

I hadn’t considered the point of these bands side stepping the establishment when I first was thinking about this article but the more I see that it’s a staple, the more I realize how important it is. There’s obviously a symbiosis from working with a major label, even well into an artist’s career but there must be intrinsically off about the system that three of the most successful bands of the last 20 years have tried do some part (tickets or releases) on their own.

Clearly a case can be made for either but since I’m looking for the “last”, I’m going to have to invoke some technicality. Yes, Green Day got started in 1987 and Pearl Jam got started in 1990; but Pearl Jam’s popularity in the mainstream started in 90-91 while Green Day didn’t get tremendously popular until 1994. By judge’s decision, the “Last Super Star Band” is Green Day.

Peyton Manning for President!

2012-10-16T13:55:00.001-04:00

Entertainers have always enjoyed success in politics. Reagan was President, Schwarzenegger was Governor, Tom Petty will be Mayor at least according to “The Postman.” Sports figures haven’t done quite as well. There have been some Mayors or Governors like Dave Bing, Kevin Johnson and some Congressmen like Jack Kemp (Republican VP nominee in 1996), Steve Largent, Jon Runyan, Heath Shuler. Not to mention some Senators like Jim Bunning and Bill Bradley who was probably the most successful and after 18 years in the Senate, he was unsuccessful in winning the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. But aren’t athletes judged by winning the big one? In this case the Presidency.

This got me thinking. Is there any athlete competing right now that has a shot at being President of the United States of America after they retire?

To even be considered in the potential pool they’d need three things: visibility, likability and a track record of success. Here are the candidates that I came up with: Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Derek Jeter, Lebron James, Alex Rodriguez, Michael Phelps, and Peyton Manning,

Right off the bat you can throw out Tiger Woods, Lebron James and Alex Rodriguez because of their likability. I’m not saying they aren’t likable to some or even a majority, but there are enough people out there who’s opinions are already tainted to the point that would make these three unelectable. Similarly, Tom Brady is out. For every woman that I’ve met who loves Tom, I’ve met one who has brought up that he left his pregnant girlfriend for a supermodel.

That leaves us with Derek Jeter, Michael Phelps and Peyton Manning. These three have fewer flaws. Phelps is probably out because of the marijuana thing but he’s also the youngest so there’s a lot of time left for him to overcome that, especially if marijuana ever becomes legal in the States. Jeter and Manning are basically identical when it comes to individual successes (Jeter has more rings, Manning has more records), and likability. We are left with visibility. Jeter has only played for the Yankees which I’d argue does have tremendous benefits when it comes to global visibility but also has the downside of not being seen in more domestic markets. That leaves only Peyton.

Peyton Manning has one of the highest Q ratings of any athlete, as at least as a few years ago. So he’s visible and likable. His on-field successes are noted but even more so he comes from a successful family with his father (NFL quarterback) and his brother (NFL quarterback and two time Super Bowl MVP). On top of all this his career has taken him around the country, from Louisiana to Tennessee, to Indianapolis to Denver. When you factor in the charity work that the entire Manning family does and how highly regarded Eli is in the greater New York area, you see that Peyton easily hits several important areas in the Electoral College. It’s very feasible that he could carry the South, the Mid West, the Mountain Region and parts of the North East (Massachusetts is probably out). I’m not arguing that Peyton could take off the helmet and waltz into the Oval office but after a few terms as a Congressman or Senator, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was walking into the White House for at least 4 years.

A response to Irving Azoff

2012-10-16T12:38:00.002-04:00

In a recent interview with Judd Apatow, one of the world’s most successful, and most influential artist managers, Mr. Irving Azoff (also the President of Live Nation) has said that “it’s way more difficult now” to make it in the music industry versus how it was in the 60’s and 70’s. To the degree that I believe he is talking about, he’s right, but by and large I disagree. The age of the huge rock band who is easily identifiable by everyone is currently dead. Mr. Azoff says, “basically then versus now, you'd have one hit record and you could come to Los Angeles and sell out three days at the Staples Center - then it was the Forum, but now it would be Staples Center. One you can't get a hit but if you do get a hit, you get to open up for somebody at a club.” The aspect that I think he’s neglecting in all of this is that the music industry isn’t in the same state that it was during the golden age. It’s more in line with what the industry was before the golden age, which was singles over albums. If you had a successful single back in the 50’s and early 60’s, you weren’t necessarily headlining the Forum. Probably, you were opening for someone at a club or a midsized venue. The world, thanks to shorter attention spans and the internet, has moved back to a one hit wonder mentality. Just because you are the biggest thing right now doesn’t mean you have any longevity. Maybe I’m wrong but will anyone remember Rebecca Black or Psy in ten years, without a Wikipedia page?

I would argue that right now it’s easier to make a living in the music industry than ever before, but it’s harder to make a killing. In his defense, I think Mr. Azoff is focused on the “killing” part because if you look at the number of laptop acts, it’s impossible to make the case that it’s harder on the whole to be successful these days. With sites like bandcamp, iTunes, CDBaby, artists are able to get the same “shelf space” that back in day were only available to major labels. Targeted promotion has become much easier with fans being able to opt in by “liking” on Facebook or following on Twitter. A small artist can put up a single on bandcamp for free, see who is downloading it, from where and plan dates accordingly. On top of that they can mitigate if not remove the middlemen along the way, saving significant percentages. Since most of these artists are dealing with smaller (if any) budgets, the dollar here and the dollar there genuinely add up to a sum that can sustain a livelihood.

Another interesting point that Mr. Azoff makes is about the effect of network television and how it has become the musical star maker with shows like The Voice, American Idol, etc. It’s a very fair point but all of these shows focus on singing ability and not on songwriting or collaborative performance. That being said there are enough success stories like Kelly Clarksen or Daughtry who have made nice sums of money. Let’s not forget about William Hung who also made a name for himself through network television. I think the logic is skewed. I think Mr. Azoff is suggesting that if you win one of these shows, you should be the biggest star on the planet, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. The argument should be, are people more willing to spend money on you based on your winning this competition.

The other aspect that I think gets muddled is that I’m guessing Mr. Azoff is talking about bands when he’s referring to the golden age. These shows are about individuals and not bands. Big rock bands don’t really exist anymore. I personally feel it’s a mix of several factors, such as: taste makers, talent/longevity, and advertising. The tastemakers of the world like pitchfork and the blogosphere put a premium on being independent and part of the underground. The coolness factor of being from Brooklyn and not getting radio play was a big part of the appeal. Let’s be honest, 13-28 years are the ones buying music and going to shows. If they are being told that things on the radio aren’t cool, they aren’t going to buy or attend. On the talent/longevity portion, I’m not saying to become great it’s easier to be a rapper or DJ than to be a band but you do need more people to be in the same ballpark as you at more or less the same time. An individual who practices writing and rapping will have an easier time than if only one band member is working harder than the rest. Also, as a DJ or rapper, you are the songwriter. If the band member who is working the hardest isn’t the songwriter, the band can only go so far. The music industry has advertised in the same ways for decades, radio, posters and some print ads. In a digital world where being seen as independent wins you cool points, these means just won’t work. With that it becomes difficult to cultivate a mainstream fan base, especially when you consider that a band can do almost as well (if not better when you factor in the middlemen) on an indie label than on a major. The casual music listener doesn’t care about what label the artist is on. The hardcore listener does and major = bad, indie=good. A band like Surfer Blood jumps to a major and leaves people scratching their heads while 20 years ago that leap would be the norm.

How does the trend of singles and no bands change? Simple. The model changes. Majors are still built around singles. They’ve always been about singles and they hid that through selling CDs for $18 when there would only be one good track on the record. Profits are going to drop off when people are able to pay $.99 for that one track instead of $18 for the album or $7 for the CD single (remember those?). Make the model an album model. Complete, well thought out and well crafted albums. One of my favorite records of last year was “David Comes To Life” by Fucked Up. It’s a bit of a rock opera in the sense that it has a narrative that’s carried throughout but more importantly every track is good. If bands start making full lengths that are great throughout, in time they’ll sell out the Forum or the Staples Center. The last huge album that was solid all the way through on a major was American Idiot and that sold over 6 million domestically and 14 million globally, oh and it became a Broadway too.

Mr. Azoff talks about the fan’s perspective and how it’s more closely to them as compared to a sports team. As with any music business article, here’s my mention of the iPod. Judd Apatow jokes in the interview that Steve Jobs killed music, in actuality, I’d argue that he saved it. The iPod has opened up people’s music collections and broadened horizons. Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, music separated rather than brought together. There were the rock cliques with their subgenres of punk, metal, alternative and there were the hip hop cliques with their respective subgenres. My point in all of this is that back then I’d agree with Mr. Azoff that people held onto whatever their music preference was tightly and flew it as a badge of honor. Then the iPod came along and everyone started mixing and matching a little bit. I think you’d be hard pressed these days to find anyone’s music collection that isn’t in slightest bit varied. It becomes difficult to wave that flag as vehemently when you’ve been exposed to other things and like them as well.

In summation, times have changed, it’s easier now to make a living as an artist than ever before, bands are dead unless they produce quality full lengths, the iPod saved music, and consumers have become more eclectic.

The Mayor of Santorini

2012-10-09T13:52:00.002-04:00

We boarded a prop plane in Crete and landed in the tiny airport of Santorini. We left the plane headed into the airport to grab our bags. There was small hitch. The airport was locked. It was 3pm on a Friday and the airport was locked. That’s how small Santorini is. There’s one guy with the keys to the airport and basically you have to wait for him to finish his cigarette or coffee before you can get inside. After getting our bags and we exited to the taxi stand.

We were flying blind with no itinerary, lodges, or idea as where to go or what to do with our three days in Santorini. In my experience this is the best way to travel. It opens up the possibility for adventure to a greater degree and tends to not disappoint comparatively speaking to having everything planned well in advance.

I’ve found that anytime you don’t have a plan as to where to stay and you exit a major transportation hub, there will always be people looking to earn a commission by directing you to hotels with vacancies. Santorini was no exception. We saw three cabbies outside of their cabs. Two of which were leaning against the cabs smoking but the third was far more hyperactive. I put him in his 40’s because of his salt and pepper hair, thick glasses and slight paunch. Upon seeing us he stopped on a dime and pounced on our bags. He was the third cab in line and so I suggested we take the first since that would be equitable but the first two cab drivers didn’t seem to care and seemed thrilled to get rid of the guy. He wrestled the bags out of our hands, threw them in the trunk and locked it so there could be no further discussion.

We got into the cab and he asked us where we were going. We responded with wherever there are available hotels. Right on cue, he knew of the best place, no wait, the perfect place. Feeling adventurous we said we’d take a look. Now Santorini is a crescent island broken up into three districts, it takes about a half hour to get from side to the other and this place was one the opposite side of where everything else was. Being from New York City I’m not only used to dealing with crazy cab drivers, it’s the default. The hyperactive cabbie wouldn’t stop talking or firing off question after question, without letting us get a word in edge wise. He was rambling jumping from topic to topic with no discernable course on the conversation. Luckily there’s only one main road in Santorini so we didn’t have to worry about that course. At one point he mentions that he’s the mayor of Santorini and that everyone calls him the mayor. We all have nicknames and this guy seemed crazy enough that he’d insist on people calling him the mayor. I didn’t give it a second thought but instead focused on the probability that we’d end up dead either because he wasn’t looking at the road or by the very nature of the flophouse we were inevitably heading towards.

We pulled up to a regular three or four story house with a little shop on the first floor, so far so good. The place wasn’t great but by no means in bad shape. The mayor jumps out of the cab and rushes to the door to get the woman who runs the place’s attention. He rushes her to show us around and keeps pushing that this is the best place on the island that’s available. He must really need this commission I figured. For ease sake we take the small room on the second floor and he’s all smiles. He asks us when our next flight is and insists that he’ll take us back to the airport. This man hustles.

We spent the next few days exploring the island’s views and food. Since most of the touristy things were on the opposite side of the island we had the option of calling a cab or taking the bus to get there. We opted for the bus but when we would get back to hotel we’d inevitably see the cabbie there. We started to piece some things together. He wasn’t working for a commission, the hotel was his and the woman working it was his wife. Can’t knock the hustle. I mean good for this guy, he’s bouncing around like a high bounce ball fired from a canon to ensure that he can maintain his cab and his hotel.

On our last night before our morning flight the cabbie reminds us that he’ll take us to the airport and for us not to call anyone else. His wife the rest of his family have been very kind to us over our stay and we wouldn’t think of calling a different cab.

Morning comes and we head downstairs with about 45 minutes before our flight. The cabbie is nowhere to be found. We ask his wife who placates us by saying he’ll be here any minute. Remember that the airport isn’t exactly JFK and they get at best two planes in an hour’s time, with that missing a flight could potentially mean spending another day in Santorini if not two. After fifteen minutes he shows up and apologizes citing another emergency for the mayor. I politely laugh it off while calculating the time from the hotel to airport minus the time until our flight.

We are cruising along at his normal reckless pace when he slams on the breaks. Tires screech. Dust erupts all around us. He flies out of the door complaining about people having no respect and how he has to do everything. The dust beings to settle and I see him carrying a large piece of metal that looks like it’s the engine of a small motorcycle. He’s now covered in oil and he throws the chunk of metal into the trunk. He races back to the driver’s seat and off we go again at breakneck speeds. I’m thoroughly confused. We are in a serious rush and this guy is stopping on a whim to pick up scrap metal. If we miss our flight there’s going to be hell to pay. He starts talking about how all the tourists and the locals litter, how much it costs to pick up the garbage, and how as the mayor he has to do everything to save anything they can from the budget. I politely laugh as he shoots me a quizzical look. Then it hits me. Yes this guy is eccentric but he’s not a bullshitter. He’s the actual Mayor of Santorini! My personal cab driver is the Mayor of Santorini! I’ve been staying in the Mayor of Santorini’s house! After the amazement leaves my face I lean back into the vinyl seat and relax. Our flight won’t leave until the Mayor says it’s OK.

Bobby The Gorilla

2012-10-02T17:55:00.001-04:00

The summer after our college graduation I went backpacking through Europe with my three closest friends. It was a run of seeing the major cities, museums, and landmarks. It was basically a non-stop culture fest. After about 11 days of straight up culture, we agreed for some lower brow entertainment on the day. There were would still be plenty of time to enjoy architecture in Prague, Opera in Vienna, and the Renaissance in Italy, but today it was Berlin Zoo time.

The Berlin Zoo, at least the Berlin Zoo in 2002, was not a modern zoo. By that I mean, for the most part there was no effort put into recreating the natural habitats of the animals. It was just concrete and bars. You could get within 3 feet of the lions’ cage and if your arms were long enough physically put them in a cage with multiple lions. The lions were also inside of the building, so when they roared the entire building felt like it was going to come down. A massive burst of sound coming at you like a flood in a tunnel in an action movie, but instead of running away from it you head straight in. My memory may be playing tricks on me but the aquarium is also attached to the zoo and similarly the tanks are all flat, old glass, which felt like it could and would crack with tap or a flash induced charge by even a tiny fish.

We made our way outside to the more modern part of the zoo. The habitats were a little more natural but still not like most zoos where there are points that the animals aren’t visible. We followed the signs to what seemed to be the main attraction, the gorillas. There was a massive large statue of the zoo’s most famous gorilla, Bobby. Bobby had died a while back but there was either a descendant of his or another gorilla that was also named Bobby as the new star. The four of us walked up towards the railing shoulder to shoulder as Chris says,

“Hi Bobby!”

Like strafing fire from a pillbox we are under attack! Shit. Piles of shit. Gorilla handfuls of shit are being whipped at us like fastballs out of a batting cage pitching machine. The four us leap and dodge roll in various directions. It’s become every man for himself and survival is the only thing that matters. I looked to my left and I see Chris who greeted Bobby so sweetly, in a slow motion scream to the heavens. He had been hit and nothing was ever going to be the same again. Passed Chris there was a Grandmother pushing her grandson in a stroller. She ducked and covered until the fecal assault let up. As soon as it was safe she gave the gorilla what he deserved, a 70 year old middle finger.

Our battalion regrouped and decided that our honor needed defending. Chris’ Green Lantern shirt was now a Brown Lantern shirt and that simply wouldn’t stand. If the old lady could stand up to this bully, four 22 year olds most certainly could… or at least to whatever degree wouldn’t get us in any trouble since none of us spoke German and the idea of a German jail as Americans on the day that America was playing Germany in the World Cup made a Turkish prison seem like a luxury spa. We spread out and resorted to the antics of third graders playing dodge ball. Waving our arms, jumping around and most importantly, name calling. That’s right, yelling names at a gorilla in not only not its native tongue, but not even a language that it hears with regularity.

Bobby’s surprise attack was his only successful move of the afternoon. After that, victory was certainly ours.

Subway Stories

2012-10-01T16:45:00.001-04:00

As a New Yorker the two main ways you get around are by walking and taking the subway. Anything you do over and over again will eventually lead you into some strange circumstances. There’s one story that leaps to the forefront of my mind.

I was heading home on an uptown train on a weekday night after having a met up with a few friends for a drink or two. It couldn’t have been later than 8:30 or 9pm. I got on the N train at 34^th street to a fairly empty car. As I walked in and sat down in one of then few available seats on the long bench in the middle of the car. The train pulled up to Times Square and quite a few people exited, but there was a far greater influx of people getting in. I tried to slide over and grab the seat next to the arm pole in the middle of the bench but as I was sliding someone swooped in and took that seat. I stopped myself in mid slide and was sandwiched by two people who just boarded. The train filled up completely to the point that it looked like a rush hour train. The train slowly starts exiting the station as a smell of ham wafted through my breathing zone. I turned my head to left to see a 50 something Indian gentleman in a pair of glasses that you’d expect on an engineer, a trimmed but still unkempt mustache, a light brown jacket that felt like the spiritual successor of a Members Only jacket and a striped, white button shirt with a breast pocket that was far from new. The man had just burped again releasing more ham stench. The train slows down in between stations, coming to almost a dead halt.

I turn my head so I’m looking straight away again and wonder what this guy had to eat. I hear another burp from my left and I turn in time to see a small amount of vomit make its way out of his lips and onto his white shirt and beige jacket. The best part is he is completely oblivious. I quickly realized that this guy is bombed out of his skull, doesn’t drink often, and I’m wedged against him with no hope of getting out of the situation since the train car is jam packed and the train is going 1/50^th of its top speed. I avert my eyes in hopes of “if I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.” I look straight again and notice the lady who is pressed up again me shifting her weight to my right. We lock eyes in and both start to giggle, appreciating this very New York moment. Through these glances we have a non-verbal conversation saying things to each other like: can you believe what just happened? What are we going to do? It’s amazing that he doesn’t realize what he’s done! This is going to be a fantastic story! Why can’t this train go any faster!

The sound of our giggles hit the man’s ear drums and he starts looking over at us, which caused us to look back at him and attempt to hold in our laughter even more so. In the midst of all these back and forth glances, something green/pink catches the eye of the man and he pieces together that he’s just thrown up a little on himself. The embarrassment sets in as he tries to wipe off the mess. The train picks up speed. Then it hits my nose again. More ham. The second wave of vomit comes and the man does his best to contain it. He did a pretty good job of it considering the circumstances. The train pulls up to 49^th street. The man now fully red in the face, I’m guessing more from embarrassment than from booze, pushes his way through the crowd and on to the platform. The woman and I let loose our contained laughter, not at the guy but more at the situation. She gets off at the next station and we never exchange a word, but we most certainly exchanged an unforgettable subway story.

Wackiness in Waco

2012-09-28T20:11:00.001-04:00

I took the summer of 2003 to design, design makes it sound way more snooty and highfalutin than it really was, and work a light show for one of my favorite bands, Dirt Bike Annie. They had just released their second album and had asked me to come up with a light show for their record release party. The light show went over pretty well and more importantly they had liked it, so there was I in a white, extended van for 7 seven weeks. There was a worth while story to tell on a daily basis but for some reason this one has been on my mind more recently.

An early stop, that the band was excited for was in Waco, Texas. We were playing a birthday show that a friend/fan of the band’s named Andrew had put together for his girlfriend at the time’s (Melanie) birthday. It was an all day affair and for a punk show, no expense was spared. Andrew had booked all of Melanie’s favorite local bands, obviously Dirt Bike Annie and her favorite band The Bobbyteens. The Bobbyteens live in San Francisco. To fly a band out, cover their hotels and meals for a one off show with no cover is equivalent to taking all of your money out of the bank and lighting it on fire. The fire idea might serve you better actually.

I met Andrew who was the nicest, sweetest guy you could dream of. He radiated happiness that day over everything coming together so perfectly. The bands were all there. There was a ton of food, with the grills being helmed by his mom and his brothers. There were cases upon cases of beer. The weather was idyllic. There were hundreds of people there celebrating his girlfriend. Melanie seemed on cloud nine. The entire day was going along perfectly. Andrew’s family was also celebrating one of his brothers coming home from prison.

The venue was a clubhouse of sorts in the middle of a park in Waco. It must have been used in a similar manner to that of an Elk Lodge, for meetings or small conventions. It was far enough removed from any other building that you didn’t have to worry about noise, which made it perfect for music. There were 6-8 local bands who were scheduled to play before Dirt Bike Annie and then it was one more local band followed by The Bobbyteens. We got to spend some time with the Bobbyteens, who some of us were a little star struck by, as the music got started. We spent the next several hours drinking Lone Star, eating hot dogs, enjoying the company and the weather. By DIY tour standards you really can’t ask for anything more.

The Dirt Bike Annie set was one of the best of tour. The entire clubhouse was packed and crowd was going nuts. Easily two hundred and fifty people became incredibly sweaty and shouted for encore after encore. If the day had ended after their last song, Waco wouldn’t have been anywhere nearly as memorable.

We started breaking down the gear and the lights so the next band could get on. At this point it was probably 8pm and people had shown up to the party around 1pm. Which means they had been comfortably drinking for easily 6-7 hours. As the next band started setting up, there was a large commotion outside. Apparently someone had hit someone else over the head with a beer bottle. That first someone was Andrew’s brother who had just been released from prison. The cops were immediately called. Andrew’s mother was in tears and she kept repeating that she knew that his brother would ruin Andrew’s big day. In retrospect, that’s a lot more heartbreaking than I realized it to be at time. In my defense, we were all busy trying to figure out what to do about the show. It had turned into a full on crisis zone. The local band didn’t get to play so the Bobbyteens could play. We swamped out gear and got them set up as quickly as humanly possible. Everything seemed like it was going to work out; well, except for the guy who got hit in the head and for Andrew’s brother.

The Bobbyteens hit the stage and started their set. Their songs aren’t very long, maybe a minute and half to a two and a half minutes. They got through three songs before the cops pulled up with multiple cruisers. The cops quickly arrested the brother and told everyone that they had to leave. Everyone and everything had to be outside of the venue in the next twenty minutes because after 20 minutes they were locking up and anything left inside would be kept as evidence. There was a mad dash of bodies making out the door. We were like a slow salmon trying to make it upstream carrying amplifiers and drums through the horde of Wacoians, Wacoers?

After the dust settled, Andrew and Melanie decided that the show must go on and it was moved to her apartment. About ten or so die hard fans piled into cars as we all caravanned it over to Melanie’s place; remember it’s 2003 and GPS wasn’t prevalent. DBA set up all of their equipment and the Bobbyteens took the stage, by stage I mean moved the coffee table to the side of the room and began playing. I don’t remember how long the set was but I do remember thinking how something so incredible can come from something so horrible. Here was a room full of people all embracing this completely spontaneous moment, that no one could have dreamed would be the nightcap to their day; and at the same time here was a band that was flown in to play in front of hundreds of people to end their night playing to 12-15 people in an apartment building. It was truly beautiful.

I’ve run into Andrew several times since then. He and Melanie broke up shortly after her birthday show, which I always felt was sad. I never got his take on how the whole day played out or what happened to his brother. I know he was excited about how the show was salvaged and that those who stuck it out got to experience a once in a lifetime thing, but I was always curious if he could, would have changed how it went?