Dislocations

Abandoned Warehouse Graffiti

2013-06-19T04:27:00.002-07:00

Always fun walking around the mostly abandoned warehouses. Every few months new graffiti seems to appear. Graffiti is often both obvious and obscure – how many other forms of communication can say that about itself?

Some tags are familiar, others fresh to the eye. Something brave and obstinate in this the oldest form of street art. Why can’t art be both art and vandalism? Maybe more art should aspire to vandalize, at least challenge and provoke conformity. No real testament to Visigoths here. But as in centuries past, an individual break with the social order, the latest iteration of Kilroy was here.

I’m an individual, no matter how illegible or personally referential or ethereal, I am here. I exist. The urban landscape of old concrete, rotting bricks and cracked warehouse windows – the vestige of the industrial past not yet refurnished into condominiums and mix-used projects – a self-proclaimed artist – is there any kind, really? – scrawled a souvenir of a life, evidence some one was here and that some one was I and I needed proof even if that proof be briefly amusing strangers looking at old building while going from one neighborhood to another.

313 Gallery, Post-Hattery

2013-06-18T04:49:00.005-07:00

This eastern box turtle shell was part of a gallery within a gallery, curated by Bunny Pearlman that featured folk art and crafts and some found art pieces, like this shell. I love turtles and used to have a box turtle pet as a child I named Tank.

I’m jumping the gun on this blog with a pure turtle love digression, in memory of Tank, gone more than 40 years now.

The 313 3^rd Street branch of the Jersey City Art School opened two years ago as a workshop space and sometimes gallery. The opening was a fun event that I wrote about here.

The 2013 313 re-opening for this may have bee a little more staid when it than a couple of years ago, but there was more art to see. The big news is that the gallery portion has become more permanent. The 313 Gallery will now be open Saturday and Sunday. The gallery is the latest outgrowth from the Jersey City Art School, and word is that it may the first of a trio of spaces with art for sale on a regular basis. Artists have lived and worked here for years, and people visit to see the work and meet the artist at various events throughout the year, but an ongoing gallery with regular hours and art for sale that people will come to and purchase outside of an organized event, like the Studio Tour… well, regular gallery hours just like you find across the Hudson... that’s new and probably about time.

Construction for the gallery also include the addition of a massage therapy studio Evolve|Revolution Massage by Ceallaigh Pender (Pender also runs the school’s ceramic program) and the gallery opening also included the grand opening of this by appointment mini-spa.

The space is nicely repurposed, tall ceilings, painted walls of brick and cement. The artist work spaces are in the back, behind the back. Makes you wonder what used be here.

Millinery Manufacturing

But not at first.

A visit to the New Jersey Room, at the main branch of the Jersey City Free Public Library tells the tale, or pieces to the story at least.

Originally it was a stable, at least in 1887, the date of this city map. Yes, it is hard to tell, but look closely, using the pen as your pointer; This is a map of 313 Third Street way back then. See the X, according to the key, that designates a stable, for horses one assumes.

By 1893, a listing indicates it is now the location of a Samuel Wachtel Hat Company; In 1910 it is listed as New Jersey Hat Company. By 1926, it is Modern Hat Company and Modern it is a name that seems to have stuck, although with variations such as Modern Hatters, which appears in a local program for the Italian Village feast in 1979. It sometimes appears as A1_Modern Hat Company, the aA1 being a common device back then to get a company listed at the beginning of an alphabetical listing.

In 1956, the City map lists it as Felt Hat Facty (factory).

313 3^rd Street circa 1981, Modern Hatter still making hats in Jersey City. (Joseph Brooks photo. New Jersey Room, Jersey City Free Public Library).

Men used to wear hats all the time, until 1960, fashion historians say, with the election of John F, Kennedy, who famously did not wear a hat for his inauguration and was rarely seen with one. He wanted to project a youthful image and thought the hat made him look old or least a member of the old guard. As a result, hats fell out of favor – not that the wearing them entirely disappeared, there was always a market, but the 60s and 70s were tough times for hat manufacturers. The hat business started to come back after Indiana Jones brought back the wide-brim fedora and Urban Cowboy revitalized the Cowboy hat. Around the same time, the casual wear of the baseball cap became ubiquitous. Hats as a fashion item have returned in the 21^st century, but by then Modern Hatters of Jersey City had gone the way of the Brunswick Street Blacksmiths. Except for say Stetson, most hats are now made overseas.

But these Jersey City Milliners lasted a long time. Modern Hatters was still listed in a 2001 Jersey City Yellow Pages directory. More than 50 years under one company name. Modern Hatters must have made good headwear.

The cement walls, open space, industrial feel still exists in the building, giving the gallery a kind of steam-punk feel, a sense that art is the contemporary manifestation of urban productivity. But like I said, I was most taken with the gallery within the gallery by Bunny Pearlman, and her mix of found and folk art, as well as her small, wistful paintings. Hats were once made in this space, finding their way for sale across the country; now art from or at least reflective of rural America has made it way here for view and purchase.

Eve By Eva

2013-06-16T07:46:00.002-07:00

Eva Moll is an artist. Eve is her art.

Eva Moll has been in Manhattan a few months now. Her work is being shown in high–profile galleries, such as the Cloisters Gallery and the Fountain Art Fair at the Armory as well as art shows and related happenings on the other side of the Hudson. I recently encountered her and her work – Eve and Eva – at the Fish with Braids gallery, a rare New Jersey exhibition of Eve by Eva during what might be one of the final events at this location.

Eva Moll has green eyes and dark blonde hair and a boundless enthusiasm about art and ideas and the ideas her art conveys. She’s very pretty and fun to photograph. Her work combines illustrative influences in a pop art sensibility. It has a radiance, the lines and colors seem to undulate. She combines pop art motifs from diverse decades. What if Keith Haring led a munity on the Yellow Submarine (Peter Max was one of her teachers) when Warhol wasn’t looking.

As she explains it, while in grad school, MFA advisor advised her that she was not a graphic artists, she was a fine artist. She was not the artist who gets a desk at agency and comes up new logos. She embraced pop art in all its iterations. She even works in performance art, but it all seems to revolve the image of Eve – fun and famine – in the moment. Illustrations, graphic artistry, abstract splashes and spills – she seems to combine them freely, wildly – wither in form or content, no tangent is too tangential.

Eve is an alter ego.

Eve is an exaggerated version of the inner Eva.

Ultra-autobiographical -- the references are references to Eve’s perception of those references not actual references that can be specified – but that means much of the appreciation comes from us, not from knowing Eve… or Eva… besides, is this visual memoir by Eva or Eve? Maybe Eve is the memoir, and the art is just what Eve is doing in this memoir.

Eva’s mother was a dedicated gardener, she sadly passed away a few years ago, at age 58. Eva turned the sorrow into art, and the alter ego began to subsume the ego part and play with the alter. Eve… Garden of Eden… the illustrated Eve began appearing in gardens. She came to New York, where her urban garden pictures have gained some traction. Big Apple. What did the original Eve do in the Garden of Eden. She ate the apple. Apple imagery soon became incorporate to the Eve persona projected by Eva Moll artist. Eva’s Eve meeting and having a dialog with the biblical Eve, Western Civilization’s first earth mother.

In addition to the illustrative works, intermingling profiles with hearts and apple and garden motifs, there now are more abstract works, utilizing paint splashes and drips. This work is darker and sometimes seems in conflict with the more ebullient alter-ego Eve. Case-in-point is Eve Commits suicide, with paint drips on a nude, collaged with a pack of cigarettes – Eve, a tobacco branded marketed exclusively to women.

In spite of the darker echoes, Eve is vibrant and colorful. The work is fun, playing with our concepts of identity and persona. Eva Moll says the Eve character has even departed the canvas for performance art pieces in the flesh and blood world. Eve is an extension of her self but is the performance art an extension of the visual art or the other way around, I’m not sure. I guess we wait and see.

Eva Moll Website

The Inwood Lear: Unredeemed Neuroses

2013-06-16T06:04:00.000-07:00

Lear… Lear… Lear -- the rage of age, a man’s relentless yet fruitless protest against death’s inevitability… the need for love in a world seemingly absent of that emotion… in King Lear, we learn what we need in life is love, it’s what makes us the most human, it’s the only thing that lessens the burden of mortality, but we learn the lesson of love’s importance by the absence of love. We ponder the meaning of life by witnessing a man who “usurped his life.”

There are no mothers in Lear – motherhood is natural love, innate love, nourishing love – surely not the only love, but the most reliable love. The widowed father disinherits the daughter who truly loves him, then is betrayed by the daughters to whom he gives his kingdom. These daughters not only cuckold their husbands, but draw the nation into Civil war. A son betrays his brother and father, leading to a violent maiming of the father. Everyone dies unredeemed, yet proclaiming the need of redemption and acknowleding that the only way to redemption is the love that eludes nearly everyone caught up in this nightmare, Shakespeare’s most sustained phantasmagoria.

Lear makes us wonder if love truly exists, then proves its existence by its obvious absence. Lear is a gnarly immersion into nihilism from which we eventually emerge more able to resist nihilism’s inescapable lure.

As Harold Bloom (my guru in Bardalotry) says, the play is the most emotionally disturbing (Hamlet is the most intellectually disturbing) in Shakespeare’s oeuvre.

The Inwood Lear is a wonderful version of this play, briskly paced, entertaining and subtle. Lear lingered in my mind for days after seeing it.

King Lear is being produced by the Moose Hill Theatre Company as part of the 2013 InwoodShakespeare Festival.

Inwood is way up in Manhattan – it is north of the Cloisters! – and also the birthplace and home of the poet, rock singer and writer, the late, great Jim Carroll. A bucolic part of New York City, as hilly and charming as San Francisco, Inwood Park, infused with late spring natural splendor, was a perfect setting for some Shakespeare.

Lear is my favorite Shakespeare, although I sometimes think my favorite Shakespeare is the one I am reading or seeing now. Nonetheless, Lear holds a special place in my heart. I have a vivid recollection of seeing on Channel 13 (PBS) the James Earl Jones Shakespeare in the Park (Central) and being awestruck. I think it was well before high school, and although a reader, I hadn’t experienced much literature, unless you count H.G. Wells. In College, I had a great Shakespeare professor, and while I can’t exactly recall his Lear lecture besides that it was great, I do remember how he used some stage craft to underscore his point. He didn’t turn on the lights for the lecture. The class was in the afternoon, and it was fall and getting dark earlier and earlier. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the bearded scholar, slumping in the chair, ending the lecture, the plump Riverside Shakespeare in his lap, dense shadows painting the classroom black.

Bob C. Armstrong, an actor (and friend) from Jersey City – you may remember him from the famous Dislocation Time Piece – is playing the title role in the Inwood production of King Lear. One of the challenges of the play is that there is no reason to like Lear in the first three acts of the play, except for the devotion to him by Cordelia, the daughter he disinherits and the Earl of Gloucester. Lear only earns our sympathy with his plummet into madness. (Lear is sublimely counter-intuitive on every level!)

Armstrong makes the pedulum swing shift in the outward and innner Lear less jarring by leavening the entitled arrogance of the king with unhinged anxiety. His gesticulations – particularly when he learns how his two favored daughters are conspiring against him – reminded me of nebbish-era Woody Allen, curling his fingers, touching his face – signifying he cannot believe what he is hearing. His is a neurotic Lear, which makes the last two acts less stagey, the tragedy and overwhelming sorrow as the drama concludes, more credible. Much about Lear is about his descent into despair and madness and actors revel in this opportunity for bluster. But with tones of exasperation, and similar hand gestures, the Inwood Lear’s deterioration is more gradual, thus more understandable and convincing.

In act 4, reunited with the now blinded Gloucester, Lear looks into his eye sockets and says – “Thus thou squinny (squint) at me” – usually played with meanness – opening a series of exchanges about eyes, blind cupid, and life’s futility. Armstrong chooses to not cruely taunt the blindman about his affliction, instead he utters the squinny line with compassion. In-between outburst of madness, Lear isn’t mean, but caring, bypassing the see-sawing between forgivable and unforgivable intent. A neurotic Lear, but less schizophrenic. The compassionate line readings pay off with improved believability when he holds a dying Gloucester in his arms, as well as in the final scene with the dead Cordelia in his arms, not quite accepting the death, asking for “a looking glass, if that her breath will mist or stain the stone” – and pleading, “if this feather stirs. She lives. If it be so, it is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that I have ever felt.”

Those sorrows are not redeemed, but the fact Lear understands the need for redemption – and that he understands the redemption is the true love his daughter – Jodie Pfau, an elegant and earnest Cordelia – is sufficient satisfaction for the audience.

This Lear was less fractured. The despair of this father, who not only caused the death of the only daughter who truly loved him, but dies unredeemed, seemed a more consistent manifestation of the neurosis driving his odd behavior (splitting up his kingdom before he dies, then immediately regretting that move, etc) and the unfathomable motivations for that behavior.

I liked the consistency of the portrayal; it added nuance and subtlety where other actors usually rely on bombastic ranting. I flashed that maybe the play is actually stream of consciousness – everything is happening inside Lear’s head – and the voice of conscience in the king is The Fool –and the the same anxiety Lear expresses upon learning of the actual betrayal in the earlier scenes by his daughters are echoed in the ravings on the heath; both experiences of Lear are suddenly equivalent in terms of psychological trauma.

Shakespeare’s plays defy genre; not only do elements of comedy exist in the tragedies, but vice-versa. The outdoor productions always lend themselves to possessing a campfire sketch feel and the Inwood production was not immune to this infectious inclination. Rarely is Lear played with a near-antic level of energy, and the play benefitted. If you think about the plot points of the early acts – Lear inexplicably divides the kingdom, marries off Cordelia to the King of France, Gloucester’s illegitimate son writes fake letters that causes his father to falsey accuse his half-brother of treachery, etc., etc., so on and so forth – the action seems madcap and contrived, sort of back stories whose purpose is to get everybody to Dover so 80 percent of the cast can meet their doom. The comic aspects of the performance – in synch with Armstrong’s neurotic Lear – culminate in a slight of hand, magnifying the shock and awe of some scenes, like the plucking out of Gloucester’s – played as a loyal sad sack by Jay Samper –eyes. This pivotal scene was imbued with noirsh slapstick, with stage prop eyeballs being dangled with glee by Mitch Tebo, as the Duke of Cornwall. Marcia Leigh as Reagan was memorable, urging her husband as she grabs a sword by the hilt, removing it from its sheath, then, weilds the long blade to kill one of the attendants trying to stop the blinding of this old man (Give me thy sword! A Peasant Stands up thus!). This was a hot (in both meanings of that word) and vicious Reagan and the way she lustily intoned – after the violent blinding of Gloucester is completed -- the “Let him smell his way to Dover” line, reminded me of James Cain – The Postman Always Rings Twice (Rip Me!)

The two half brothers, Edmund (Warren Jackson) and Edgar (Robert J. Dyckman) also added to the comic overtones, with Edmund having a supercilious delivery to his lines even as he plays the roguish lady’s man, who is sleeping with both Reagan and Goneril – again adding to the farcical nature of Shakespeare, before the devastating tragedy takes hold. The mouth kisses the women give Edmund are both passionate and comic. When Edmund dies, with the “some good I mean to do despite of mine own nature,” the shedding of what seemed to be a comically evil and horny portrayal underscored what is a powerful moment of self-revelation, played superbly. Edgar almost tests the limits of the comic direction as Tom Bedlam, yet we see the compassion for his blinded father, a compassion of strange pathos, and suddenly its Edgar’s play at the end – well, he is one of the few still living – but he has been transformed, “We that are young shall never see so much nor live so long.” And while all grown up, sane and sober, there was a fear in this warning. We may not have fully forgotten the comic bits in the action that the Moose Hall players interlaced with the action to get us here, but wonder if we were laughing in the graveyard. Were we using a sort of gallows humor to deflect the suggested notion that our lives will now somehow not be as fully experienced, in spite of what should be the solace of knowing the horror has concluded.

Lear is based on a real English king, who reigned nine centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ – ancient Britan. Edgar, who succeeded Lear as king, legend has it, chased the wolves out of England. The more you dig into Shakespeare, the more truly weird he becomes. Dykman got all the ambiguities of this last line right, underscoring the culmination of poltical intrigue, familial betrayal and unrelenting disappointments.

Of course, what is Lear without the Fool, and this casting choice was clever, a marvelous turn by Samantha Bruce. Sheer brilliance having the Fool be a woman, dampening the oft-wild misogyny Lear is laden with, also adds to the humorous introduction of the Fool by subverting the coxcomb pun (male organ).

Dislocations readers may remember Michael Hagins from lastyear’s Othello and The Comedy of Errors, which he also directed. Here he was Oswald, Goneriel’s “Steward,” which he plays as a fop, amping the antic comedy with some delightful physical humor, tripping and rolling around in the grass, reminding me of some of the pratfalls and other memorable contortions Hagins displayed last year on the Jersey side. Oswald a small but pivotal role, gets beat up a lot and ordered around by Goneriel, a haughty interpretation by Kelly Jean Clair.

The few flaws of the evening had nothing to do with the play, just the planning and overall operation. There was a lack of adequate bathroom facilities – the park was large, but there were only some port-o-potties that looked (and smelled) like they hadn’t been cleaned or emptied since the Koch Administration.

Speaking of NYC flaws under the Bloomberg regime, the reason for the few pictures here in this post is that a Moose Hill flunky stopped me from taking pictures, you know, in a public place. Seriously, some rather dicky production guy asked me to stop “recording”. Nothing was said to the four young women on the blanket next to me aiming their smart phones at the actors all night. I guess because I held an actual camera, the Moose Hill Theatre Company official was technically in the right. It’s not so much that the Fascism Bloomberg has imposed city-wide across the Hudson is new, but what still shocks me is how many of the younger New Yorkers eagerly enlist in the civilian gestapo corps.

Aside from that disturbing removal of the freedom of the press and other constitutional rights, my only complaint is that the sound system kept malfunctioning. These stageless park presentations are always challenging to stage. In Jersey City park productions there is no amplification, which is a definite drawback, reducing subtlety as actors strain to be heard above the din of traffic. In Inwood, except for the whistles and steel wheels-on-steel-track rattle of the Metro North and Amtrak across the estuary – or the sound of picnicers in a nearby but different section of the park – there was relative quiet. Some of the actors were miked, but the sound system kept malfunctioning. During the scenes on the heath, a thunderstorm was heard on the sound system, which was cool, but the microphones on the actors were inconsistent. Voices kept dropping in and out of amplification, feedback burst throughout the performance, obscuring the dialog. Perhaps if the theater company stage hands were less concerned about a poor blogger trying to snap a decent, in-focus picture and more attentive to the audio system, instead of ranging from adequate to distraction, the sound system could have ranged from adequate to enhancement.

Hawk Gawking

2013-06-15T05:15:00.000-07:00

A small crowd had gathered, everyone’s head towards the top of the lamppost aligning the paths of Washing Square Park. Cellphones were held aloft, aiming at the lantern, on top of which was one of the famed Red Tailed Hawks that have made this part their home. Where they come from, why they stay, when exactly they appeared, no one knows. I like to think they are from a family line that has been on the isle of Manhatto since before even the Native Americans.

I had never seen the Hawks before. There are better pictures of and more information about them available elsewhere on the internet. What struck me about the crowd was their obvious awe and reference; the hawks inspired a sense of wonder, and quiet. They whispered to each other.

The bird seemed so proud, oblivious to the gawking, as if to say, I have long adapted to your presence here, and you will in no way interfere with my monitoring the park for prey. Such a beautiful bird, regal and strong. If a roman general saw a hawk on the way to battle he knew today would be a good day to fight, or die.

Hall of Saints

2013-06-05T12:33:00.002-07:00

The Hall of Saints at the Holy Face Monastery in Clifton New Jersey is an enclave within a sanctuary.

This is the closest thing I can find to a website.

I never heard of the Holy Face Monastery before last year, when I went there for a celebratory service, procession and picnic for “Madonna del Sacro Monte” – an event resulting from the rediscovery of a sacred statue that was once in Jersey City. I wrote about that last year – please click here – quite a fun blog, which was actually translated into Italian and published in magazine… on the other side.

During a lull in the festivities of the second annual feast, I wandered into the Hall of Saints, a wing of the main chapel on the campus. Holy Face Monastery is a kind of New Jersey version of the Cloisters. Back when America had factories, Clifton was a factory town, swatches of suburbs in between factories and major highways. Secluded and Serene, the Holy Face Monastery is an oasis of tree lined opportunities for spiritual contemplation. It is an unlikely island of quietude in the most unlikely of spots, industrial North Jersey.

But the sanctuary within this sanctuary is the Hall of Saints. Dozens of statues of images, familiar and new, of saints and icons, visualization of catechisms. Catholics believe in the communion of saints – a community of immortal souls here and on the other shore – and while they do not pray to the holy individuals represented in sculpture here, they pray for intercession, a mystical concept inherent in the communion of saints concept.

The Hall has a quiet, but the solemnity seemed subtle. There were places to kneel, candles were available. But it seemed as much chapel as museum gallery.

Religious Art – at least the catholic depiction of saints – fascinates. I love the details that draw you into the narrative of the personage. The cherubs at the Madonna’s feet signify The Assumption; the cloak with stars Our Lady of Guadalupe. References to world history abound here – sure, the lens it is seen through is biased, but at least it is history. My point there is a lot going on here, and I continue my argument that this art is as valid as any other and in many ways, involved with some levels other art can only imply. There is room for both, and both have similarities and differences, but in the catholic context, the details signify who is being represented, and thus the life and specific story of the Saint. The visage and the legend – the allegory of the life – become personally relevant to the believer beholding the statue.

I never saw such variety before, a real test of my long ago catechism classes. They all seemed new, at least very clean.

The quietness, the sense of eternity, of oneness and wonder, the Hall of Saints inspires that lingered long after I left the infinity within its confines.

Universal Rebel: Roots Reggae Rocks

2013-06-03T11:12:00.001-07:00

The generator was as loud as a chain saw with its own marshal amp.

The concrete, steel and glass of the tall buildings aligning Exchange Place plaza create an amphitheater effect, enhancing volume and adding echo to the audio at events held here, a favorite spot to end parades and other city-wide events.

Sunday was the JC Bike Ward Tour, where the ever-growing population of JC cyclists ride their bicycles to every ward (if this was New Orleans, wards would be called parishes) of our fair city, ending up here by the waterfront/financial district, where food and beverage vendors had encamped, alongside other community organizations. A stage had been set up by the Katya memorial.

The music was loud. Unfortunately, the generator running the amps was just as loud. At first I thought there was a construction crew nearby. The explanation was that Sandy – Sandy devastation is now the go to excuse for all civil dysfunction – had knocked out the publically available electricity down here at Exchange, thus the need for noisy generators.

I got there at the tail end of the event. A sunny Sunday – the predicted thunderstorms were apparently postponed. I settled in to catch some sets by the concluding acts. It’s a tough gig for musicians: outdoors, imperfect acoustics, lots of distractions and an inattentive audience, who are there for reasons other than your performance and busy jabbering with each other.

Early in the hot weather season, cabin fever still lingers and everyone is just happy to be out of their cramped apartments, heavy garments left in the closest, seeing people they haven’t seen for weeks, months. Better bike tour than last year. Did you read that article about rising bike thefts? I heard that there were 5,000 people who turned out to vote for Fulop, even though 75 percent of the voters didn’t vote at all? Between the conversation and the booming generator, who can hear a band?

Universal Rebel is a reggae fusion band – the fusion is mainly hip-hop, long-breath lyrics against beats but the beats are the familiar reggae rhythm. The result is a bona fide dub band, but not just a karaoke loop of that island beat, the drummer added some fierce frills, working off of and with the keyboard player, who energized the laid-back back beat with chord changes more suitable to hard rock or classic R&B that both sprang forth from and argued with the rock steady rhythm section.

Their first song had a nifty refrain about Babylon too long, the exuberant lead singer, leaping and pogoing, his thick dreadlock mien whipping around like a convulsive hydra as he gestured to the band and the crowd, proclaiming jah-love and blessedness. The optimism was infectious, proving there was still plenty of life in this stage. He was backed up by a voluptuous singer, a siren in summer clothes and with a haunting voice, soulfully underscoring the vocals at center stage.

After their opening number, something about too long in Babylon, a song was introduced by someone you “may have heard of” called Bob Marley. It was I Shot the Sheriff, but the arrangement was completely subversive turning the opening verse into an extended prologue before breaking out the familiar chorus. I am familiar with both the original and the Clapton hit; they deconstructed this number before bringing it back to what we all know, making it anew. It took a while before you recognized the song; the recognition when arriving was not one anticipated, a typical Wailer cover. Far from it. Here was a band doing something new with Reggae, not just imitating a club-med juke box.

The audience members who cared – I had now become one – found that making the effort – and effort was required – to ignore the relentless generator was rewarded. A series of lively reggae flavored originals following, the hip-hop lyrics stretching out the jams – overseer, chanting down Babylon, freedom, Jah – the familiar tropes but updated.

Reggae –and Rastafarian theology --- is always about liberation – freeing your body, freeing your mind, freeing your soul -- it’s Christian, but also ecstatic and mystical. This celebration of joy seemed as much a part of Universal Rebel’s mission as the politics of liberation.

One of the songs – Lookey Looks – decried the surveillance culture of our contemporary technology drenched society, yet against a Caribbean rhythm that your body could not resist. The breakdowns, the jams, the spaces between the lyrics, the dialog the drummer and keyboard were having with each other, added a welcomed, classic-R&B/Soul edge to the reggae.

Of course, this may seem like an innovation now – Reggae has long been mainstreamed – but when the genre was new and still dangerous, it was a Jamaican garage band interpretation of American Soul & R&B (Stax and Motown); Dub added poetry and protest, with Rastafarian ethos bringing a liberation theology steeped in identity politics and Christian mysticism, furthering this form of African American dance music, as it was reinterpreted by fellow musicians of the African Diaspora, whose historical memory also include the brutal subjugation of slavery. Universal Rebel made this potent mix new again. By returning to the roots (roots rock reggae) of the music, they seemed to suggest a new chapter in this genre was being written. Universal Rebel reminded us that rebellion is still necessary – and can still feel good.

The din of the generator echoed, vendors were eager to go home, volunteer staff were breaking down the canopies, but Universal Rebel rocked on. It was hard to ignore the interference, but it could be done and the effort was well rewarded.

Universal Rebel Website.

No Dial Tone/No Pay Phone

2013-05-31T08:10:00.001-07:00

Somebody in the pay phone business has a sense of humor. I guess if you are still in that business you need a sense of humor. The personnel who collect the change from the pay phones put the No Dial Tone stickers on the receiver to notify the maintenance crews who still fix pay phones what the problem is. Apparently they came to this open phone kiosk and the pay phone was already gone – some have been designated to be removed, others will stay for emergency use when a cellphone malfunctions or by those smart enough to have realized that our wireless culture is increasing conformity and aliens are using your smart phone to insert those voices you are hearing in your head.

I think these individual pay phones are a newer species of this old technology. The older open booths were being maintained because they still provide some easy to ignore street advertising. No advertising here.

The battery is dead in my cellphone and I have to call 9-11 and report a crime. There’s a pay phone shell at the corner – what! It’s gone! Only sarcasm remains. No dial tone and no phone is the same as no dial tone and a phone and probably preferable tot dial tone and no phone.

Live goes on in this neighborhood; the existence of a phone or not, a dial tone or not, matters not to everyone here, going about their business, living their life. But when you are here and you need a pay phone nothing else in life is as important as that dial tone.

Park Puppetry

2013-05-31T07:06:00.002-07:00

Didm’t the discovery that grandmother was a wolf make Little Red Riding Hood realize that the wolf ate Grandma, then the wolf chased Little Red Riding Hood and was killed by huntsmen? The new marionettes version has a genetically modified wolf escaping from a laboratory in search of cup cakes, and Little Red Riding Hood not noticing grandma is a wolf because she keeps checking her smart phone; grandma returns, a lesson is learned and the puppets dance in glee.

In the 21^st century, Grimm is not so grim. Fairy tales I guess are the opposite of comic super heroes; they don’t get darker with each re-boot. Little Red Riding Hood has been reinterpreted by child psychologists and the positive reinforcement police... Why not? The world is depressing enough; let’s keep that fact from the young. Why rub truth in a face as early as possible’ what is the harm with postponement. Why the rush to diminish happiness? Why encourage pre-adolescent nihilism, they’ll get enough cynicism when they become teenagers. Of course, it wasn’t so long ago that fairy tales were cruel, nasty and short, puppetry was punch and judy and you could buy nickel bags in Washington Square Park.

Summer jumped us with the sudden viciousness of a wolf pack. One day we were wondering weather or not to wear a sweat shirt under the jacket, the next we’re thinking of sipping ice cold lemonade and picking banjos on the porch while exposing our pallid knees and elbows to the sun. Events in city parks spring up and I caught some mobile puppetry in Washington Square. The story was Little Red Riding Hood. The story was pre-recorded and the puppets and their masters basically performed an elaborate pantomime to the track. The stage looked like animation, and the puppets seemed TV familiar, but also like marionettes, stiff and jerky, wooden yet life-like, like Pinocchio, in keeping with the puppetry tradition. It was old and new, reimagined yet a perfect balance of quaint and contemporary. And while really cute, I couldn’t help but imagine – Team America: The Broadway Musical!

It was fun, well thought out. The kids were engaged, entertain, especially the younger ones. Cities are family friendly, wasn’t always that way. The nights are made for lovers, but the days are made for everyone. In other parts of the park, there were guitars, somebody reciting a Shakespeare, a mime on unicycle juggling bowling pins and here, a gathering of children, toddlers, the stroller-bound, some pre-K trying to pretend they’re a little bored. Resistance to marionettes proved futile.

35th Annual Santa Cruzan and Flores de Mayo

2013-05-29T08:04:00.002-07:00

A splendid late-Spring day arrived to accompany the 35^th Annual Santa Cruzan and Flores De Mayo festival in Downtown. I’ve written about the historical background here, here, and here. Also for 35 years, the traditional Santa Cruzan novena was held. Every day for the nine days that preceded the festival, organizers, participants and parishioners gathered to pray for good weather for Santa Cruzan. Similar novenas are usually part of the pre-event process for all the local street fairs and celebrations hosted by one of the Jersey City Roman Catholic churches.

Scoff if you will, call it quaint if you must, but cold and rainy days – more like dreary November in your soul than the merry month of May of your senses – were the days before the Santa Cruzan festival, and by the Tuesday following, rain again returned. Climate change has disrupted our weather patterns, and yet for a single day the old May we all remember returned. An answer to prayers may be in the eye of the beholder, but there’s no denying a perfect weather.

Santa Cruzan was brought to the Philippines by the Spanish, and nearly four decades ago Filipino-Americans brought it to St. Mary’s parish in Jersey City. After the mass, a procession Up Erie Street, than back down Manila takes place. There’s also a street fair and entertainment. The procession includes a reliquary with a relic of the True Cross, ceremonial garb and a procession of more than a dozen incarnations of the Blessed Virgin Mother – Mother Mary as she is affectionately called – and is really a culmination of events and planning, of not just the novena, but selection of the parade leaders, the kings and queens, princes and princesses, the flower girls and garland boys (The Flores De Mayo portion of the parade), which takes place an elaborate party earlier in the month.

It’s a celebration of the month of May, the month of Mary. The color gowns – complex creations of taffeta, lace and satin – the customary barong – flowers and garland every where. Multiple generations of families and friends and the faithful – memories colliding, being formed or shared again, crossing and connecting different hemispheres and centuries. Let another Summer unfold. The party J.C. Filipinos through for our city every Memorial Day weekend – an authentic mix of the sacred and the secular – kicks off the street fair season. It’s hard to write something new every year. But it is also hard not to take pictures, not to note these well known patterns, to remark on the comfort of the familiar, these things that happen every year that make you glad to live where you do. An annual and festive renewal of shared bonds.

There was some a noticeable difference with this edition though. It seemed more crowded; there was actually more vendors than last year – about a half a block more, with more products specifically geared to the Filipino community. The Philippines Ambassador to the United States was also in attendance and part of the parade, Philippine TV sent an anchor and camera crew. I don’t recall these from previous years. Ten days or so prior, Jersey City elected a new mayor, who was at the Santa Cruzan wearing a barong. While Steve Fulop’s win was decisive, council seats were not and a run-off election is scheduled in June, so brochures and electioneering were part of this year’s parade, where previous years such activity was pretty much absent.

The bigger size, the increased international present, and the blatant political activity… I couldn’t escape the notion that the Philippine niche is more crucial than before. Maybe niches are more important in our polarized couture and segmented economy, where every inch is worth a mile. But the Pacific Rim is growing and this archipelago nation and its closely knit diaspora has grown with it, but as the profile of Santa Cruzan rises, the tradition of faith and fellowship from which it rises remains intact and genuine, and everybody who comes to Second Street for their unofficial start of summer was grateful.

Ray Manzerak: Our Forever 19 Organ

2013-05-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

I liked them more now than I did then.

I heard that all the time about The Doors back in my Punk Rock day. That’s what they said, the aging hippies, when The Doors would come up while talking music as they tried to relate to us young bloods with our shorter hair, blacker clothes and disdain for bell bottoms,. The Doors were common ground. The Doors were still constantly on the radio, as they would be for the following decades and still are today. The FM never played The Ramones.

But always that qualifier – I like them more now than I did then, an acknowledgement that the Doors didn’t quite fit in. The Doors were too weird, and too original, for the 1960s. Alongside their very pop, pop hits –Love Her, Madly – there were very weird, pagan freak outs like Peace Frog or Unknown Soldier or Crystal Ship. That organ, inviting yet eerie, unnerving, enticing, make you believe that the risk of danger was worthwhile. Morrison was a lunatic shaman, party animal poet. Manzerak was the party – a tribalistic, gut-bucket, acid-test. It took a while to realize how deep the Doors were, how there was so much more to them than their hits, yet unpacking even their most well known hits, dark desires are there to be discovered (key word: Madly).

Horses, Rocket to Russia, Marquee Moon… then the Brits… and for a while you just couldn’t listen to the Grateful Dead or The Band or Jefferson Airplane, much less that Progressive Crap (Yes, Pink Floyd), which I never went for anyway. Half the record collection that got you through junior high had become irrelevant. For a while though, The Doors kept getting more and more relevant. While never as counter-60s era counter culture as the Velvet Underground, Doors records could be as smoothly played right after Wave or Never Mind the Bullocks as they did after Volunteers or Live Dead.

There weren’t that many Punk records, so we had to go to their forefathers – the Velvets & Lou and The Doors. The Doors were our cross over to the tie-dyed grooviness, the only surviving strands of 60s Ethos that was still relevant to 70s Alienation. Plus, Morrison like Patti Smith or Leonard Cohen, was a bona fide poet.

When I went to France after College, I spend a memorable afternoon in Pere Lachaise Cemetery searching for the Jim Morrison grave (Gertrude Stein, Balzac, Zola and Oscar Wilde were also on the list). There was a bust (just like Balzac), which had eyeliner painted on it.

Lou was still around of course, doing great new stuff but always insistent on recycling his 60s songs (Rock & Roll Animal), but The Doors they were still popular, revived in fact, more popular than any of their contemporaries, ubiquitous as Sex Pistol Nihilism and Clash Class Resentment overcame the Symbolist Poetry of Horses. But the Doors were listened to. They were dug. Aside from some Reggae records, what else could you spin without ridicule – there weren’t that many punk records before the Reagan Era made the idea seem rather silly (until Nirvana – and Pearl Jam and Hole – saved us). Yet, even then, Ray Manzerak’s propulsive keyboards were still ubiquitous on the Rock& Roll wavelengths.

Ray Manzerak was the sound of the doors, that lush, trippy organ made it relevant to both the hippies and the punk. The draft is over, the war is over but the angst could still be felt by Watergate alienated youth. Break on Through. Try to listen to that song with fresh ears – a challenge for sure, it’s so over-exposed. The beginning is an almost disco bass line – The Doors famously had not bass player, those deep rhythm parts were issued forth by Manzerak. Your shoulders and hips shimmy and shake, it’s an infections beginning and you are moving and grooving and then you start to notice the lyrics are way off kilter – apocalyptical observations – night divides the day? – and then the up-tempo dance ditty explodes into a no-holes barred rave up – a license to be crazy – that other side, freedom, revelation, a undeniable feeling of living or maybe just ultimate pleasure or just ultimate truth.

The Doors were more popular in 1979 than they were in 1969 and in 1969 they were huge, lots of hits, gold records. They were by definition a highly commercial band. The death of their lead singer only made their music more timeless and poignant. The fact that there was something very morbid about their success never detracted from that success, only enhancing its longevity. Sure, there are always re-issues and rediscoveries, but they are always about Nostalgia. The Doors sounded fresher longer than other Rock band.

A few things to remember why Jim and the Doors had such a robust after-life.

Apocalypse Now. Everyone went to see this movie upon its release. This was the war that ruined our childhoods, the scenes were flashbacks to the news broadcasts that came on after our cartoons and caused fist fights on the lawn between fathers and older brothers. Apocalypse Now was a major event, dominated the movie news. The experience of seeing its first theater run was like having a dark family secret suddenly explained to you – this is why things were like the way they were – the cut I saw ends with the napalming of the jungle being called in, the illegal bombing of Cambodia, where Kurtz had the encampment of death and ruthlessness savagery and the music returned… This is The End – that frightening opus that wallowed in subconscious sexual impulses (kill Dad and have sex with Mom) returns, with Manzerak’s organ drawing us in, spooky, macabre but hypnotic, irresistible… decadence was the dance with death and not everyone lives to hear the end of the song.

But Apocalypse Now’s musical achievement – still a landmark first – is that the original recording is just a basis for a bigger, more complex whole. Coppolla recruited the Grateful Dead – actually Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart – to drastically augment The End, extending it into an entire movie score. The Doors were Los Angeles and The Grateful Dead San Francisco and they both made some of the best druggy music of the era and while The Doors were no more by the time Coppola’s feverish adaptation of Heart of Darkness explained America’s nightmare to Americans, the Grateful Dead were at the height of their improvisational and composition powers. Garcia and Hart not just jammed with a recording track, they created an entire film score – one of the best rock scores ever composed for film – by building on but never departing from those music themes Ray Manzerak composed with his organ. Today, you cannot hear The End without thinking … Shit, Saigon… and seeing the ceiling fan Martin Sheen watches through his drunken vision. Hart, a genius of percussion, gives the Manzerak themes the primal impact, connecting with Conrad’s original vision, that the savagery western civilization finds in the undeveloped world is just below the surface of our civilized world. Coppola made us see our shared savagery through the lens of war. Coppola augmented Conrad just like Garcia & Hart augmented Morrison & Manzerak, and just like they augmented the dichotomous combination of lamentation and celebration of humanity found in the original Blues forms

Besides have the same dark themes and aggressive rock as Punk, the other reason we welcomed The Doors is that we were young and the Doors are for the young. They are the sound of being 19 – and by the time you are 13 all you want to be is 19 and by the time you’re 21, the party is over and you basically try to be 19 for as long as you can. I loved The Doors when I was 19; they made little sense to by 30. I loved the Oliver Stone movie of The Doors, saw it twice in the theater and rented it a couple of times in the 90s. The film makes you want to wash down some blotter acid with whiskey, but I was never compelled to get the soundtrack or listen to the Doors. They get a lot of airplay, although mainly the hits but their sublime deep cuts like Hyacinthine House or Indian Summer remain overlooked, so its not like you are without the Doors when you come into earshot of Classic Rock rock radio. I never play The Doors, I can sing dozens of their song (want to take a shower?)

A buddy of mine says his 16 year old son has all the Doors albums, and I’m not surprised. I had them all too when I was a teenager and they, like now, like then, were in the past. I have no memory of Jim Morrison dying, or The Doors singles being hit when the band was still active. Yet, they are as much a part of my rite of passage soundtrack as those boomers who went down to induction office for their physical exam.

A lot of music, especially from the 60s, appeals to later generations, inspiring nostalgia for experiences they never had. The Doors appeal to later generations of 19 years old – the teenage insistence that We’re Not Just Kids Anymore – as they also insistent on freedom and the intensity of experience, expressed in a metaphors that seem like a code – break on through, light my fire, this is the end, Let’s cook all night in our Soul Kitchen. The Doors were of their time, but unlike say, The Jefferson Airplane, another blues-based, California band, the Doors were not just of their time, but for all time. The Doors are forever 19, in spite of topical circumstances. Morrison is a poet as much as any other lyricist, a lover of Dionysus like all teenagers, a bacchanal enthusiast when that sort of unabashed hedonism was still shocking and often outlawed. Blake, Nietzsche, Rimbaud – even Melville – Horse Latitudes is a wallow in spiritual doubt Ishmael could related with – are competently invoked in his lyrics. But growing up means an increased awareness of your own mortality and understanding how fragile it can be. I think that is why you enjoy the Doors at a certain age –where they are all you can listen to – and then by a certain age, as your 20s end, they are just completely irrelevant – although enjoyable when you do hear them. The Doors invoke nostalgia, not for the 60s, but for being 19 (come to think of it, because of the baby boom, during the 60s, America had more 19 year olds in one place than at any other time in history).

The Doors are not your first love, nor are they your last. They are just that band you absolutely love at that pivotal point between youth and adulthood and that subconscious dichotomy of holding on to the former while reaching for the latter.

Morrison gets the glory – Jim Lives was a popular T-shirt, as was the rumor he was still alive in Paris, the grave is empty– it was Manzerak who made the sound. Oh, Krieger and Densmore were fine musicians, but not as accomplished or distinctive. Manzerak is the best keyboard player of his generation.

Dylan – with Al Kooper – brought the organ sound to Rock& Roll – the only previous keyboard were really piano men like Jerry Lee or Little Richard – and for a while there, in the mid-60s, especially with a lot of the post-Beatles 60 invasion bands – the first phase of psychedelic folk rock – organ was central to the 65-66 sound, the year Morrison and Manzerak met and formed The Doors. And, the Doors were always radio friendly. They had hits. Light My Fire was such a big hit that Jose Feliciano did the same song – in nearly the same way – and had a same hit – but that was just the start – Touch Me Now, Hello, Strange Days, I love You, LA Woman, Riders on the Storm – at least one or two per album. The radio friendly organ, eerie but compelling, invoking pop, jazz, blues and classical themes in the always inviting, melodic riffs. There’s something all-encompassing about Manzerak’s keyboard, an amoeba absorbing the other instruments, the baritone vocal and the listener. It emanates and undulates; an energy field of sound, a lysergic calliope.

Radio changed but those Doors hits stayed. Until he died, whenever it rained, Scott Muni (a Rock & Roll FM mainstay known to anyone over 40 who grew up in the N.Y. area) would play Riders on the Storm. Every time it rained. There are millions of middle aged men and women who still hear Riders on the Storm (and Scottso’s baritone rasp) echoing in their memories every time drops appear on a windshield.

Here’s this other, weird (are there any other) Doors memory. A little more individualistic, however. Soft Parade, the title song of their full-fledged, psychedelic record, is this this bizarre, self-indulgent acid ditty (the soft parade has now begun), with sound effects and echo and the then cutting-edge studio sound technology. I didn’t really like it then, I’m not about to play it now. I was down the shore, the boardwalk – this was when I was a young teenager – the long row of games of chance, one of the wheels of fortune – put a quarter down, wheel spins, win a t-shirt. The long haired barker running this one game had Soft Parade blasting. He had the song memorized to an extent that he was able to perform a pantomime of the entire song. I can still see him singing every lyric, twiddling his fingers to the organ sound, moving his elbow with the grove then stopping with the song, pointing his finger for another audio insert. You used to see weird shit down the shore all the time back then.

Around the same as Punk gained momentum and The Doors proved they had staying power (there were some post-Jim Morrison Doors albums that went no where. I knew of no one who had them and have no memory of ever hearing them), American Prayer was released. Similar to what Garcia & Hart did to The End, the surviving members of The Doors augmented poetry Morrison recorded; it was a spoken word, rock music amalgamation. I was about 19 when it came out and I thought was the greatest work of art ever released (well, the best since Horses) and played it relentlessly until my college roommates were forced to agree. Manzerak’s organ, always the indisputable core of the sound, made the melding of old tapes and new music seamless. He made it sound like a Doors record, not a posthumous novelty record.

Around this time, Manzerak produced the first two X albums. If there’s one band that should have been bigger, it was X. It didn’t help that the record label – Slash (they also carried The Blasters) – was terrible at distribution – X was forced to sign to Warner Brothers because the band would tour and find out the local record stores couldn’t get Slash releases – but by then it was the 80s, Punk was way over (and Nirvana not yet even on the horizon). X – and the LA punk scene – followed the brits, which soon followed NYC (Patti, Ramones, Television) – but as the Pistols self immolated and the Clash went top 40, the very nihilistic LA punks – Fear – but X was something else, rockabilly twinges, modernistic poetry; Manzerak was a great producer, he found the rock and roll within the punk attitude. Amateur aesthetic was a popular trend in music (Teenage Jesus & The Jerks), but X had great musicians –Billy Zoom was an excellent guitarist and John Doe, a superb base player and mellow tenor vocalist -- and Manzerak brought out their musicianship, but always within the punk context. I wrote a record review in college and I still remember the line – Chuck Berry meets Charles Baudelaire – which still sounds good – a highlight of the record was Soul Kitchen, which Manzerak played some organ on.

Not only were The Doors the rare crossover between the Summer of Love and the Summer of Sam, but Manzerak was a midwife in bringing one of the most significant and musically talented American punk bands to emerge out of our collective consciousness. A punk band's punk band, at least X was more well known than some of the other Manzerak's projects

The Rolling Stones, the Animals, Cream, the Electric Flag, Jimi Hendrix, Quick Silver, even Led Zeppelin – The Doors were of this ilk –60s-era musicians who took the Blues and made it relevant to the youthful audiences of their time. Artists like the Howlin Wolf, sang about love and heart break and their own humanity and those 60s cats staked out a new terrorist of sexuality and rebellion, augmenting what the electric bluesmen of the 50 had created, which they in turn had expanded upon from the originals like Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton and Blind Lemmon Jefferson (who they expanded on are lost since they lived before music could be recorded). But, no one had the surrealism and audacity of The Doors. No one had Jim Morrison either, a distinctive baritone and gifted poet whose fame and drug abuse drove him crazy until he was killed by his own youth, romantic Paris succumbing to reality, yet freezing him forever young in sonic amber for ensuing generations to adopt then forget, depending on their age.

Morrison gets the glory, but Manzerak was really why the Doors are the most original of their 60s blues groups. The other bands are also guitar-based (okay, the Animals and Quick Silver may be exceptions) blues, just like the 50s electric blues guys; in fact, most of them, the Rolling Stones, are really Age of Aquarius renditions of Chess recordings. The Doors had that organ as the core, the guitar adding fill ins and rhythm accents – think about it – this keyboard/guitar balance is completely the opposite of Mick & Keith & Ian Stewart. The Doors had more ambiance than the other blues-based groups. They had Manzerak.

My favorite version of Who Do You Love (one the greatest songs ever) is by the Doors. I like it even more than Bo Diddley’s original. It’s on the double LP live album, Absolutely Live, which has Celebration of the Lizard (I am the Lizard King, I Can Do Anything), Morrison’s poetry at its most unhinged. Morrison infuses the already menacing lyric of Who Do You Love with a noirish psychedelic edge that questions sanity itself. Listen to how he stretches out down the alley an ice wagon screamed – you should’ve heard just what I seen. Morrison, like Dylan and a few others, realized that Rimbaud and Blake come from the same primal wellspring as the delta blues. The Doors Who Do You Love is the most original version, making all the other great versions by Ronnie Hawkins & The Band, George Thorogood, Dave Alvin, sound a bit like karaoke Bo Diddley. Aside from Morrison’s distinctive phrasing, the reason is Manzerak. The organ is the rhythm section and the lead. The Doors are like taking drugs, their music reacts through you on a cellular level, and they found a gut-bucket honesty that went right to the core of the human experience, something that the blues masters they idolized only hinted at.

The Back Door in Howlin’s Back Door Man clearly intends a guy who sneaks away after sleeping with another man’s woman, the Doors expands the sexual innuendo to include all the Penthouse Forum possibilities. He liberates the libido in a way even Howlin did not, although Howlin’s version inspires more empathy.

In Oliver Stone’s The Doors, when the band mates are saying goodbye to Jim, who is about to move to Paris, one of the characters says, you have to come back so we can do our blues albums. I still wish for an alternative universe where that album is a reality, a collection of blues songs (and early R&R, which are the same songs), with Morrison vocals and Manzerak translating the delta into the keyboard. Jim died too early for the Doors to do their Moondog Matinee. I heard a bootleg version of the Doors performing Mystery Train, a concert recording. Fascinating. Makes me wonder if all those radio hits that are now classic rock standards actually overshadowed the true energy of the group.

On an official, posthumous release of a live record – I got it on cassette – there’s a great rendition of Road House (Woke up this morning, got myself a beer), which is introduced by Morrison with “I want to get my kicks before this whole shithouse goes up in flames” – or is it smoke, I can’t find it right now and I’m not searching the internet – anyway, that ethos is probably why the Doors could remain beloved by Woodstock Nation and The Blank Generation, both of whom were the first of the generations to grow up knowing that global annihilation was possible. By the time of Gen X, annihilation threats were nothing new. Reagan teenagers could believe in no tomorrow that was not about them and their needs and their entitlements. Unlike my older sibs, we never did drills where we hid under our desks at school, but given what we knew of humanity, nuclear doom was just a matter of time. No Future Johnny Rotten reminded us; Jim reminded us to get laid and get high, to be alive, and to be free and live for now because the future is uncertain and the end is always near. Sure, you wind up dissolute, depressed and you soon realize there’s much more to life (and literature) than knowledge of the sensual and gratification of appetite. But those repercussion and that realization is down the road, not the forever now. When you’re 19 (or right before or right after you’re 19), there’s that moment when not to be reckless is to die, or to feel like death, to succumb to sorrow.

Living life any other way seems impossible. And the only ones appreciating that fact, the only ones sharing this Tao, are other 19 year olds. You’re horny as hell all the time, the repercussions of intoxication not as severe, and dictums like No One Here Gets Out Alive make sense like they will never again. The worst thing you can do to Nietzsche is read him after you turn 30 (what the hell were those Nazi’s thinking anyway?)

Ray Manzerak released a lot of music before he died the other day. He was always in Rolling Stone or on NPR with one project or another. Save for producing the X records, I can’t remember much less name a single non-Doors Manzerak project. That makes me sad but it’s the truth. Manzerak, the best keyboard player of his generation, probably knew he could play better in his 30s and 40s and 50s than he did in his 20s – God knows that Eric Clapton and lots of other musicians, especially in Jazz, proved that age enhances talent – yet, no one was there to listen. Manzerak could never compete with his younger self; forever young just like his deceased compadre. What a funny life it must have been – a great musician, made rich from music he made in his 20s, yet he could never get interested in his music again. Almost a half century of having to compete against your own youth; I’m sure the wealth reduced the frustration, but it must have seemed absurd at times. Manzerak was no stranger to being interviewed, he was always promoting his latest project, and he seemed like a very smart, well-rounded guy. He took it in stride.

David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Queen, Billy Idol, Psychedelic Furs, the Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Pearl Jam – to name just the obvious – all owe a debt to Jim… and to Ray (while they may not care about the blues, their music all features heavy keyboard). It’s music with a fullness of sound, which was probably the root cause of the appeal of the Doors.

It must have been frustrating, not only did he lose a friend too young, but to have the career abruptly end. They obviously had a lot more music to make together. American Prayer was brilliant, but it was just a pastiche of new material formed around found recitations and sadly pointed out what could have been if the lead singer and main lyricist could have kept his appetites, and ego, in check,

I think we are on the fourth generation now of teenagers being 19 to the sound of Ray Manzerak’s organ. The Doors – I loved them more then than I do now – but who can forget them, who can forget that organ playing, how all encompassing it seemed, how propulsive – who can forget being 19?

Rest in peace, Ray. Like organ playing was here, you're now in a place where you'll never grow old.

Starbucks Lovers: Katherine & Angel

2013-05-19T19:15:00.002-07:00

Sunday May 19^th at the Exchange Place Starbucks Angel proposed to Katherine and Katherine said yes.

Cold, rainy, and fog… quiet… late afternoon turning into evening. Stir It Up by Bob Marley kept repeating through the sound system speakers. The manager, who was pacing by the entrance, apologized to the few patrons drinking their beverages here on this dreary day, about the Reggae classic being played on a loop. A couple is going to get engaged here, he explained, and they want this to play in the background… the song ends, begins, ends, begins… time passes… finally a group of very well dressed young folk emerge out of the parking garage from across the cobble stone street.

They were Jehovah Witnesses, coming from the Stanley Theater, in Journal Square, where every Sunday the denomination congregates for services. Close to 20 of them, a very nice looking bunch, dressed in their Sunday Best, young. They’re wearing wonderful clothes and they’re all enthusiastic… everyone knows what Katherine is about to find out.

The group forms a long line at the register. May I take your order, says the young woman at the register, garbed in apron, cap on her head.

The song changes to Marry Me by Train (contemporary soft-rock, unfamiliar to me). Angel is a tall fellow, wearing a gray suit; Katherine turns around to face him as he gets down on one knee. She’s shocked, takes a few moments before she begins to understand. Their friends form a semi-circle around the couple, cameras and phones are aimed. He takes her hand and slips the ring on her finger.

She’s embarrassed… there’s a pause… in a tear-choked whisper, she says yes, then crouches down to hug her husband to be…. applause… cheers…. There are tears, mostly the girls, but some of the guys are wiping their eyes, even the cashiers and baristas are touched…

It was all planned of course – walking into Stir It Up, the proposal coming during Marry Me – Katherine is obsessed with Starbucks, which was why this proposal, here, today, was so unexpected. This was just supposed to be some Post-Stanley Theater coffee, just any other Sunday. Her friends selected the Exchange Place location, because it has the best view of the Hudson and NYC.

The rain and the fog obscured the splendor of Manhattan and the mighty river between us, but we joined the Jehovah Witnesses in witnessing Angel proposing and Katherine accepting. Love again anew, love again acknowledged, love again shared.

Donald Trump in Washington Square Park

2013-05-17T03:37:00.000-07:00

Well, there’s always a first time. Donald Trump. Had the camera out on sunny day walking through Washington Square Park, a great day to shoot pictures. I had to replace the disc shooter and the new one has a zoomier lens, so these shots were from a distance. Not bad. Trump though. Distasteful from any distance.

A crowd had gathered around – several yards from but still around – a smaller crowd clustered near the Washington Square Arches. Dollies, microphones, cameras – familiar filmmaking accruements to us all. You see a lot of small films, student films I reckon, probably not requiring a permit, in this park but I can’t recall a large crew, not a big time TV Reality TV Show.

I had the camera out. Is that Donald Trump. It’s him people murmur– I was not the only one taking pictures. Every phone has a damn camera in it. You can’t buy one without one. More people were taking pictures than not taking pictures. There was a small outbreak of Trump shots on New York area FB yesterday. Celebrity Apprentice. Well, I’ve heard of it. I’ve seen no more than five minutes. I avoid television but it’s impossible to avoid completely.

He was playing the harmonica. They were playing bluesy guitar – I didn’t see a guitar player so I assume it was pre-recorded – and Trump gyrated while blowing a few notes and the smaller crowd being filmed, part of the show, laughed and applauded. Then there was a long pause and then another Trump gyration. His harmonica playing was real. Sometimes I yell out Build a Set. Film crews are funny. They say war is a long stretches of tedium interrupted by flashes of intense violence. Film work resembles that structure. Getting all the mechanics right – from the equipment to the actors – then Action. Then it’s over. Sigh, relax. For that moment there’s the behind the camera (including crowd control) and there’s the in front of the camera, and after that moment, there’s just people there, waiting and doing, a team. Trump is always Trump, Trump is always the star and everyone treated him with deference. The existence of his celebrity has given them work, why wouldn’t they show deference. His celebrity enables ratings and advertising rates and that funds the show and their salaries and Trump makes the most and this system only works because people need something to watch on TV and Trump captures their eyeballs.

Taller in real life than I would have guessed. I had to read the Art of the Deal for an article I wrote early on, when that book was new. I was writing for a retail trade publication and ghost wrote a column for a wholesaler, or jobber, who would buy wholesale lots then resell them to retailers. The concept was his art of the deal. He was an interesting guy, Trump not so much. I find him arrogant, not exactly an original observation. The man came from money. His father was a real estate mogul in New York and his son was born into wealth, has no other apparent aspiration other than becoming wealthier and pretends he is a raised up by his own boot straps self-made man. He’s a self-made celebrity, that’s undeniable. The book was insipid, the story I wrote was almost a parody of the book and that’s about all I wanted to know about Trump. Trump had another agenda. From Marla Maples, the Iyvana Divorce, the garish development projects – he’s got one in J.C. don’t you know – the Howard Stern appearances (always funny) – you cannot escape this guy. I try not to pay attention. The media and consumers of media had the opposite attitude. And, here I am taking up pictures of him for the Blog.

Someone born with his advantages, why the arrogance. His self absorption is pathological. The spat he had with Obama – the birth certificate nonsense – had racial overtones that were blatant and Trump clearly relished. He has no regard for those less fortunate and never recognizes that the advantages he was born into. A multi-billionaire son of a multi-millionaire? What isn’t despicable about him? What is the appeal of this guy, why does he have more fans than Sharon Olds?

I’ll never know. I’m just thinking SEO. Donald Trump in Washington Square. Google Alert automatically alerted. More hits, more blog exposure. I was just testing the new lens, just taking pictures. I’m not encouraging our use me/use you society. Swear.

New Platform, New Pay Phone

2013-05-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

I’m calling from the platform. I’m using a pay phone. I’m about to get on the train, I hear it coming. Good Bye.

No new pay phones, you say. Guess you haven’t taken a N.J Transit Train lately, at least one that stops at one of their new platforms. Over the last few years, part of the shovel-ready stimulus spending I think, NJ Transit renovated several of their outlying stations in our Hinterlands. This phone was in Ridgewood, New Jersey and was even being used. There are still reasons to use a pay phone. Pre-renovation – which included construction of entirely new platforms – there was no pay phone on this platform before. Now the new platform has a new pay phone.

I wonder if the number of new pay phones in the United States number in the thousands, hundreds… dozens? Less? I even wonder about the word new. Is there a factory still making pay phones, or are they just refurbishing old ones? Those cast metal pay phone shells are built to last, survive all weather conditions. So many pay phones have removed. The transit system is one of the few sanctuaries left for this last century form of public communication, especially new ones and I wonder if the new ones are entirely new or are the old shells being recycled and refurbished.

I’m on the wrong platform. I’m waiting for the wrong train. I’m headed in the wrong direction. I need to call again, I’m going to be later… much later.

Olivia Grove

2013-05-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

The relationship between abstract and primitive art is well known but that doesn’t mean all the stories have already been told. Olivia Wilber (last seen here) had a rare appearance as an art vendor at Creative Grove. She admitted to being jet lagged, having just returned from a week long International Art Festival in South Africa. Luckily, participating in a mediation even that was part of the Friday Festivities enabled Olivia to cope with time-change distress.

The similarities between abstract and primitive were readily apparent. Olivia has gained fame as a video painter, creating paintings that are as much performance art and visual art. She projects video on to a surface, then paints that surface. A Video painting was alongside a piece of tribal-art inspired art, which was shaped like a Zulu shield but was actually a skateboard, she said.

She uses only natural pigments, which she purchases from a San Francisco Specialty Arts Store, which is why her colors are so lush and more evocative of primal feelings and urges that seem to resist verbalization.

Another abstract work, with a suggestive figure in white surrounded by moody, darker shades, was alongside the table. The background seemed to be an apartment, flowered wall paper, melting alongside tendrils that resembled veins or nerve strands. This more overtly emotional painting more clearly contained her twin abstract and primitive influences within one frame.

She was showing her “woodwork” at Creative Grove: all the paintings were on wood panels. Why wood? It’s not like her current phase is now wood, rather they were the easiest to display. She explained the paintings were heavy, thus more resistant to the wind, gusting off the Hudson, squeezed between buildings and often wreaking havoc at Plaza events.

Fine Art by Olvia

Bohn Towers

2013-05-11T05:26:00.005-07:00

The parts are equal to the sum of the whole... or is that the other way around. Robert Bohn works in collage and found art, and he’s assembled an accumulated collection of work that is both self-contained gallery and installation. Some of the pieces started on wood, others as something else than attached to the wood, which are panels (plywood) I think, the panels assembled into boxes, segmented into the three sizes, then stacked upon one another to form towers, two, two towers of art, haphazard amalgamations of objects, graffiti, and illustrations.

The towers acted like lint brushes in Bohn’s studio, accumulating completed projects – the oldest piece dates from 2007 . According to Bohn, the boxes helped organized the workspace. Geometry can be efficient, but that efficiency was not just organizational. Soon boxes were not way to remove clutter; they became art in and of themselves. Bohn started adding art – drawings and doodles, graffiti scrawls, spills and splotches of color – as well as things – a rake, magazine pictures, a friend’s shirt, a discarded chair and a plumber’s helper topping off the tower as a spire. “When I formed the boxes, they became easier to work on, I could go from panel to panel,” he said

The illustrations and various what not acted as connective tissue between the various pieces. Back to the pieces and the whole. By highlighting the similarities – the thematic links – between disparate pieces, the connective tissue became a distinct organism. It’s Alive! The boxes became their own art, without delegitimizing the individual pieces, and then the boxes became towers… and the towers came to Creative Grove as interactive sculpture.

I kept thinking of abandoning adolescent. Aside from the fact blocks making up the towers recall building blocks that children play with, there are lot of spooky images, disembodied and grotesque, forlorn houses. Intensely obscure autobiography is also present – an abstract painting on a pillow case that Bohn said was the one from his teenage bed – that I got an end to childhood vibe, a farewell to a phase of the artist’s life. There’s a lot on anxiety in the individual pieces, moody colors, a reality that twists and unnerves. Fear and apprehension is often suggested. We recognize the rake that is no longer the rake and we wonder why.

And yet, the entire piece, the towers, viewed as a whole, is fun. As a whole, what might have seemed unnerving may still be uncanny, but they no longer disturb. Horror show becomes fun house. The juxtapositions, the connections, intentional and unintentional, amuse, make you smile.

The odd wooden structures – they were hooked to sandbags so they remained impervious to wind –made this edition of Creative Grove distinct. The Bohn Art was the tallest structure at the plaza, higher than then the vendor tables, ending above even the tops of the canopies. Many of the people, going to and fro the PATH, passed the towers by. A lot paused though, lingered, mildly gawked, at the weird dichotomy between the part and the whole, the component and the cumulative. By collecting his work in this manner, the artist created a dialog with his own past. A farewell perhaps to a period of work, but the farewell had become as much of a distinct work as the work presented.

Bohn towers subvert assumptions we have about art. Yes, the collage, the combination of found art and illustrations – part and parcel of the calling of the collage artist – makes us question context and memory. Bohn is also commenting on presentation of art and our culture, what our debris tells us about culture. By manipulating cultural flotsam through illustration and personal memoir, Bohn has made an art that sums up the parts while simultaneously shattering the whole.

For More Robert Bohn see here.

Clear Reflection

2013-05-10T08:01:00.003-07:00

Jersey City isn’t just an isthmus twixt Manhattan and continental New Jersey and by extension, America, it, like the rest of New Jersey, is a below sea level (oh come on, topography police, stay with me here) swamp. Rainy couple of days left a nice puddle in of the few remaining grassy lots. Soggy, ready for another wave of dandelion blooms. Nothing but blue skies and sunshine now. And, captured within the dark waters of the puddle is our world, that very same sky and caution children crossing sign and pennants swaying in the soft spring breeze, new used cars for sale, like a photograph, clear as a mirror, although not real the resemblance to reality remains undeniable, until we delve beyond appearance.

Affixed Sculpture

2013-05-09T14:45:00.002-07:00

Saw this on second street, a new addition to Jersey City’s very clever and obscure street art exhibits, the ongoing project of anonymous conceptual, if expressionistic, street artists. I’m calling this affixed sculpture, because it is sculpture that is affixed, in this case to the street sign.

The upper piece is some primitive, logo/tattoo inspired deal, clever enough and reinforces my contention that Keith Haring may be the most influential 20^th American Artist. Beneath that painting on wood though is another wood sculpture that is a little less obscure

A robbery – a purse snatching (or hold up, some kind of robbery-based crime for sure) – is etched into the surface of the wood, a child’s doodle depicts (the victim’s eyes are X’s. Along the side of the wood is a faux zipper, the zipper tag being an actual one that doubles as a key chain, on which authentic house keys dangle.

Rainy morning. Saw some art. Then I thought about society and how our humanity often struggles against aspects of that society, just as other aspects of that society enable that same humanity to survive… purses which we carry items we think we need, keys to homes where we think we’re safe. Then the rain, then the unfolding of my day, same as yours.

Mystery Solved: The Four Men on White Eagle Hall

2013-05-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

The news of the White Eagle Hall transformation into a Performing Arts Center has excited the neighborhood as well as the region. I blogged about that announcement here and as promised, this follow-up blog features some of the history I’ve gathered on this extraordinary building.

More importantly, a mystery has been solved. Before we turn the page on this new chapter of the downtown Jersey City saga, let me first reveal the identities of the four busts adorning the building.
These men, at least their cement likenesses, have been looking out on Newark Avenue since 1910 and no records survive stating who they are, and nobody knows who they are.

Their identities were unknown… until now….

To truly grasp the significance of their identity, and how who they are turn this urban brick structure into a culturally unique building, some context is needed. To provide that context, let’s explore the scant information that is available.

For generations – most of the 20th century in fact – of Jersey City and Hudson County residents, White Eagle Hall was where large community gatherings were held, mainly school graduations and sporting events. Probably the best known occupant of the hall was Bob Hurley, head basketball coach for 30+ years for the Saint Anthony Friars. Hurley’s teams won 23 state championships, a national record. White Eagle Hall was the home court for these legendary teams, the wood panels and floor markings are still intact and rumor is, the last time the building was used before the present closure was for a 2006 basketball game that Hurley organized. White Eagle Hall was also renowned for its weekly bingo games, the sign for which still hangs on the façade.

But the roots of this building sprout from one of the transformative periods of American history. White Eagle Hall is emblematic of the early 20th century Polish community, one of the several European groups struggling to survive in the melting pot of the American dream.

Father Peter Boleslaus Kwiatowski built and named the hall. He was one of the important Polish-American leaders of the Ellis Island Era, the name given to the peak of European immigration to the United States, which ranges roughly from 1892, when the Ellis Island complex opened, to 1924, when laws restricting European immigration were first enacted.

In 1910 though, immigration was rapidly redefining the U.S. – “The peak year of European immigration was in 1907, when 1,285,349 persons entered the country. By 1910, 13.5 million immigrants were living in the United States” (according to Wikipedia). At the same time, the backlash against immigrants was also on the rise – the Klu Klux Klan, which had a revival as segregation laws became widespread south of the Mason Dixon Line following the Plessey ruling allowing Jim Crow, by the end of the 19th century had widened their hate and political reach. They had adapted nativist prejudices and anti-immigration politics into their terroristic activities. Chapters of the KKK had also sprung up in northern states, including New Jersey, fomenting bigotry in the region, traces of which can still be felt.

Immigrants were growing in population, but anti-immigrant – and anti-Catholic (down with Popery!) forces, a significant faction in the U.S. since colonial times, were also gaining new adherent. There were clashes between immigrants and native-borns, between city (were most immigrants, at least initially, lived) versus rural dwellers, as well as between the different groups of immigrants. If it wasn’t for generations of prejudice and apartheid laws against African Americans, as well as Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Mexican Americans – the newcomers from Eastern and Southern Europe (prior to the Ellis Island Era, most European immigrants were from Northern Europe) would be clearly on the bottom rung of the Economic ladder. The length of the distance separating these two lowest rungs historians (and descendants) still debate.

Father Kwiatowski, after being driven out of his native Poland by Russian occupiers, became the Johnny Appleseed of Polish Catholic churches in New Jersey, responsible for what seems to be half a dozen parishes in Hudson and Essex Counties. Father Kwiatowski was ordained in 1888, “he was stationed as curate in several Polish towns, and in 1890, when he was deemed sufficiently experienced to be given a pastorate, and he was banned by the Russian government…. Because of the power wielded by the Russian government in Poland, Father Kwiatowski was forced to flee to America, where he as befriended by Father Wladsawl Kukuoski, then Pastor of St. Anthony’s …” according to his obituary, Jersey Journal 4/14/1934.

Saint Anthony’s church – home of the I love Saint Anthony’s Festival – was founded in 1884 (although records show the church itself was completed in 1892, so the exact chronology is fuzzy) and is considered to be the oldest Polish Catholic church in the state of New Jersey.

From the Jersey Journal obituary: “[Kwiatowski] established polish churches in the surrounding territories among them Our Lady of Czestochowa on Sussex St., and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Bayonne, the largest Polish Catholic church in diocese of Newark….Father Kwiatwoski established Polish churches in Harrison and Paterson… he established other Polish Catholic churches in Elizabeth, Linden and Irvington.”

Along the way – in 1910 – he built the White Eagle Hall, before becoming pastor at Saint Anthony, where he was responsible for doubling the size of the church, establishing a grammar and high school, a convent and an “orphan’s asylum.”

I’m unclear as to the exact year – the Photostat of the article in the Jersey Room of the Main Branch of the Jersey City Public Library does not have a date – but on his birthday (he died at age 71 in 1934) – sometime before then but after 1910, Father Kwiatowski gave White Eagle Hall to Saint Anthony’s. “Poles of Jersey City to Have Building,” one of the sub-heads declares.

Apparently, Father Kwiotwaski “owned” White Eagle Hall, implying that he bought the original land and funded construction. Did he raise funds, or was he able to fund the project with his own wealth – in European aristocratic families, often the youngest son entered the clergy, where they held leadership positions, appointments often the result of their wealth and family connections. Russian occupiers would be very interested in breaking up any existing Polish power structures, such as aristocratic family networks or Roman Catholic dioceses (there was and is a schism between Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodox Catholicism).

After leaving his homeland, he devoted his life his flock, Polish Americans in New Jersey (especially Jersey City!). Along with his busy pastoral life, running multiple parishes, which sounds exhausting, he found time to also build a secular building.
Parishes back then not only had larger congregations, but ran schools and other institutions. Tens of thousands of poles, fleeing the Russians as well as poverty, were coming to New Jersey. The only social institution familiar to them was the Catholic Church. “Another thing he helped do was break up the clannishness which existed in the Parish… under his thirteen years’ rule his congregation has grown from a few hundred to more than 1,000…” says the Jersey Journal article on the doubling of the size of the church under his tenure.

Prior to ceding ownership of White Eagle Hall to Saint Anthony’s, the building seems to be the singular secular project of Father Kwiotwaski hectic and likely complicated life in the Garden State. During the height of the Ellis Island Era, in a Protestant-dominated nation not always so accommodating to the growing influx of foreign born Catholics – Father Kwiotwaski saw the need for a secular building to augment his evangelization efforts.

Now, why the building was eventually given to the church, whether this was always the plan or maybe since he was an administrator at the church already, consolidating management just made operational sense, I have not been able to ascertain. How successful, or profitable, White Eagle Hall was or had to be to remain independent, I do not know.

But the real question that nags me is how was a priest able to afford a building in the first place?

Who came up with the idea of the four men on the side of the building is likewise currently lost to the official account, although apparently this façade is the only grouping of these four Polish luminaries known to exist. I have seen no evidence to dispute that statement. The heads are most likely made of cement, by the looks of them, as opposed to having been carved out of stone, indicating that some form of cast was used. Are there other variations of these same likenesses somewhere that used the same original molds?
Bottom line: the heads are unique, the grouping of them to make a clever statement, is unique, which of course adds to the uniqueness of a secular building constructed by a refugee Priest.

Who else, besides Father Kwiotwaski, was involved with the planning of the building, I also have not been able to find out, and probably the motivations of his collaborators are where many answers reside.

My theory is that along with taking care of polish souls, Kwiotwaski saw the need to instill a sense of pride within his own immigrant community – who for lack of a better term, were ‘competing’ with other swelling immigrant populations, such as the Italians (whose Holy Rosary Church – the oldest Italian Parish in New Jersey – is located on the same block as Saint Anthony). In doing so, the good priest might have also realized that the community had to make this statement visible to the community at large, that the Polish immigrants had roots in the founding of the United States and their culture had a great deal to contribute to Western Civilization in general and American Culture specifically. Coinciding with the massive wave of Eastern European immigrants was the industrial revolution, which was quickly gaining momentum. Thousands of workers of polish descent had joined the ranks of factory and construction labor forces, settling in cities throughout the country to raise families. By 1910, this first generation of American-Poles had acquired enough economic wealth to support a public assembly hall that also enshrined Polish accomplishments.

Thus the significance who the four heads of Newark Avenue are.

But first, why White Eagle?

Well, the White Eagle has been the Polish symbol since the dark ages. The legend goes that in Pre-Christendom, Lech, Čech, and Rus, were the three brothers – Lech, Čech (or Czech), and Rus – who founded three Slavic nations: Lechia (Poland), Czechia (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia; thus modern Czech Republic), and Ruthenia (Rus', modern Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine). Lech decided to settle in Poland when he found a nest of White Eagles. Wikipedia: “When he looked at the bird, a ray of sunshine from the red setting sun fell on its wings, so they appeared tipped with gold, the rest of the eagle was pure white.” The oldest use of the White Eagle to distinguish Poles as a distinct Slavic people dates to 992 AE (again Wikipedia).

So, who are the White Eagle Hall of the Newark Avenue White Eagle Hall guys?

Worthy descendants of Lech: Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Casimir Pulaski, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Say what who now?

The skyway dude sounds familiar but who was he and who are them other guys.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski

In 1910, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, was a world-famous pianist and composer. He toured the United States extensively, had hit classical songs (sheet music) and was reportedly quite popular with the women. He gained massive amounts of wealth, even owned land in the U.S., including a vineyard where he was one of the first vintners of Zinfandel (the company apparently still exists) in America. Soon after the construction of White Eagle Hall, he became a politician, eventually becoming prime minister and foreign minister of Poland in 1919, and represented Poland the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Wiki: “He played an important role in meeting with President Woodrow Wilson and others in obtaining the explicit inclusion of independent Poland as point 13 in Wilson's peace terms, the Fourteen Points.” His career continued to bounce back and forth between music and politics, until his death in 1941 (where he was active in helping Polish refugees from the Nazi occupation). In 1910 then, his political career still lay ahead – but he was probably the most recognizable polish celebrity of the time.

Wiki: “There are streets and schools named after Paderewski in many major cities in Poland. There are also streets named after him in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York. In addition, the Academy of Music in Poznań is named after him. Paderewski has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, awarded in 1960.”

Casimir Pulaski

Casimir Pulaski – yes the skyway connecting Jersey City to Newark is named after him – was a a Polish nobleman, soldier and military commander who has been called "the father of American cavalry.” After unsuccessfully fighting against Russian domination, by 1775, he sought refuge in France, and was soon recruited by the Marquis de Lafayette and Benjamin Franklin (whom he met in spring 1777) for service in the American War of Independence. Franklin: "Count Pulaski of Poland, an officer famous throughout Europe for his bravery and conduct in defense of the liberties of his country against the three great invading powers of Russia, Austria and Prussia ... may be highly useful to our service”

Pulaski wrote to Washington, "I came here, where freedom is being defended, to serve it, and to live or die for it."

As a result, on September 15, 1777, Washington, on the orders of Congress, gave Pulaski a commission as Brigadier General of the American cavalry, essentially forming the first Calvary divisions of the United States. He was alongside Washington at Valley Forge and towards the end of the war, at the critical battle of Savannah, he commanded both the French and American Calvary, where he was mortally wounded, perhaps the first Pole to give his life for American Freedom, living up to the promise he made to the Father of our Country.

Andrzej Kościuszko

Andrzej Kościuszko – like his comrade Pulaski, Kosciuzko was a military leader in both Poland and during the American Revolution, where he served as a Colonel of the Continental Arm, and was a friend and admirer of Thomas Jefferson. A product of the enlightenment, Kosciuszko was committed to its ideals of freedom and inalienable rights. He was one of several foreign officers recruited by the French arms dealer Pierre Beaumarchais – he had set a shell corporation – Roderigue Hortalez & Co – through which he smuggled weapons recruited officers to train and lead the U.S. forces, who were essentially a group of civilian insurgents facing the highly trained British troops.

An Engineer, he was posted at Fort Ticonderoga where he recommended the construction of a battery overlooking the fort, but the recommendation was declined by the general and when the British attacked, it was via the route that Kosciouszko’s idea would have made impassable. The battle, known as in the Siege of Ticonderoga, had the continentals in retreat, where Kościuszko designed an engineer’s solution to delay the advancing British, using tactics such as chopping down trees, damming of streams, and destroying of all bridges and causeways, which disrupted the British supply lines and allowed the American forces to safely withdraw across the Hudson River. His superiors saw the wisdom of following the Polish Colonel’s suggestions, and Kosciouszko’s recommendations made the fort at Saratoga impregnable, resulting in a British surrender. He later fortified the fort at West Point, where some of his engineering designs are still on display at the military academy.

He was transferred to the southern theater of the war, where he designed fortifications and bridges, through the conclusion of the war. While waiting for his back pay – during his seven years of uninterrupted service to the American cause, he had never collected a single paycheck – he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. He soon returned to Poland, where he eventually joined the army as a general. Poland was adopting its own constitution, and the American Revolutionary war veteran argued that peasants and Jews should receive full citizenship status. He was disappointed that the adopted constitution retained the power of the monarchy. During the Russian Polish War of 1792 – many historians believe that part of the causes behind this war was the monarchs felt threatened by the new constitution granting rights to the populace – Kościuszko led several victorious battles, but the Polish king surrendered, a move Kościuszko opposed Kościuszko resigned his post and eventually left the country.

Kościuszko never abandoned the enlightenment ideals of freedom and human rights. He continually worked for Polish sovereignty, meeting with Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he disliked – he called him the "undertaker of the [French] Republic" and with Russia's Tsar Alexander I, who tried to convince Kościuszko to return to Poland and be part of a new, Russian-allied Polish state, where land was annexed by Russian and rights remained suppressed. Kościuszko dismissed this new occupation-in-all-but-name as a “joke.”

Kościuszko a visit the United States in 1798 to collect back pay, where he met with his good friend Thomas Jefferson, naming him the executor of will. Kościuszko left his property and money in America to be used to buy the freedom of black slaves, including Jefferson's, and to educate them for independent life and work. After Kościuszko's death in 1817, Jefferson, at age 77, pled an inability to act as executor. Virginia law did not allow such a bequest, and there were challenges to the will by Kościuszko's relatives. The author of the Declaration of Independence was staunchly pro-slavery, a political position sadly he thought more important than a promise to friend, a friend who was instrumental in winning the freedom for the nation Jefferson’s deceleration gave birth to.

About six months before his death. Kościuszko emancipated the serfs – the Eastern European equivalent of American Slaves -- in his remaining lands in Poland, but Tsar Alexander disallowed it.
A son of he aristocracy, Kościuszko an understood the implications of freedom. In the early 1800s, someone committed to equality regardless of class or race, regardless if it’s the Old World or New World, was someone who was in the minority, a radical then but truly, a visionary ahead of his time.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

They say that awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature is always a politic statement , in addition to being global recognition of literary accomplishment. Henryk Sienkiewicz became a Nobel Laureate in 1905 five years before his likens was enshrined on White Eagle Hall on Newark Avenue. He was also only the fifth winner of the then new award. One wonders if the Nobel committee was making some kind of statement against Russia, whose spent much of the preceding century (ies) occupying Poland for conquest. Both Tolstoy and Chekov were still alive, contemporaries with Sienkiewicz, and more widely known. Sienkiewicz was one of the most popular Polish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for his "outstanding merits as an epic writer."

Sienkiewicz mainly wrote historical novels, the most famous were set during the Rzeczpospolita (Polish Republic, or Commonwealth), roughly 1500-1700. In Poland, he is best known for his historical novels "With Fire and Sword", "The Deluge", and "Fire in the Steppe" (The Trilogy) set during the 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while internationally he is best known for Quo Vadis, set in Nero's Rome. Quo Vadis has been filmed several times – including an early silent feature, considered a lost film – but most notably the 1951 version, which starred Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr, featuring a notoriously wicked performance as a debauched Nero by Peter Ustinov.
In 1876 he went to the United States with Helena Modrzejewska, a famous actress of the era, staying some time in California. He wrote journalism and books about or inspired by his American sojourn and one wonders if these works might have sparked a desire to see the New World amongst his countrymen, tens of thousands of whom joined the waves of immigrants during the Ellis Island era.

Quo Vadis was his most well known novel, an international best seller when it appeared in 1895. It was translated into many languages, including Arabic and Japanese. The book was so well known that horses competing in Grand Prix de Paris were given names of the characters from the book. The novel was repeatedly adapted for the stage, including an opera.

He was celebrated during his life – he died only a few years after winning the Nobel – but during the turn of the century, called on his countrymen, both in Poland and in the United States, to help in efforts for disadvantaged children and for famine victims in Poland, activities he was very much promoting at the time of the White Eagle Hall construction.

In addition to the Polish pride aspect behind his White Eagle Hall enshrinement, the inclusion of a literary star of the era deflates a stereotype of blue collar workers, who made up the majority of Polish immigrants of 1910. Intellectual pursuits – enjoying a good book – is not absent from laborers, and I’d like to think Father Kwiatkowski decision to include the Nobel Laureate was both an encouragement to read his works and a reflection of what writers were popular (or should be popular) among his flock.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel, Sienkiewicz s emphasized his Polish pride and the hope for that his country – ravaged by centuries of oppressive invasions, and on the brink of a new century that would bring more of the brutal same for the next ninety years or so – would be allowed to determine its own fate.
Wiki: He accepted the honor as a proud son of Poland. "She (Poland) was pronounced dead - yet here is a proof that She lives on… She was pronounced defeated - and here is proof that She is victorious.”

Why should these four men adorn the façade of the White Eagle Hall circa 1910? According to historian Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D., News Editor, Polish American Historical Association, “Paderewski and Sienkiewicz represented the arts, that is they were artistic and spiritual leaders of Poland, well known in America and the most famous Polish artists at the time; while Kosciuszko and Pulaski were the heroes of the American Revolutionary War.”

These are the men watching Newark Avenue for more than a century, and for us open up American history – and our unique connection to Poland – in a way that only art can. While there are various monuments to Polish Americans throughout the country, the White Eagle Hall architectural commemoration is truly one of a kind.

Thank you Magda, whose help made this story possible. Jersey City is lucky to have this smart, well-read and beautiful daughter of Poland!

Wind in the Tulips

2013-05-01T04:02:00.001-07:00

Wind sings through the tulips, pointing them in a southern direction. The gusts came in from the north, heading towards the sea, taking away the final dregs of winter. Spring arrives late, but she is steady and insistent. Her bloom has vigor. These petals are not autumn leaves, they’re swaying but staying.

White Eagle Hall: A Building Between Dreams

2013-04-25T09:23:00.001-07:00

A JC-PAC? Not only does the acronym have a nice ring to it – say it fast – or slow: a Jersey City Performing Arts Center (actually a complex) – inspires the imagination.

White Eagle Hall, built in 1910 as a Parish Hall for Saint Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church, is on Newark Avenue and has been fallow for nearly a decade. For generations of immigrants, the building served Jersey City for decades, earning a rich, storied history.

I actually have some partial research for a postponed blog on this history, but I am saving that blog for later.

Today the present seems more pressing, and that present is the ambitious future of White Eagle Hall, as envisioned by developers, who want to give this building a comprehensive makeover. Their innovative plan was unveiled at a community meeting, held inside the building on Wednesday night.

The plan – the word proposed was being bandied about so it seemed unclear what components remain tentative and subject to zoning and other governmental approval – is for White Eagle Hall to become a Performing Arts Center complex, that will include a 400-seat theater(800 standing room); two restaurants, art gallery, lounge and administrative offices. The name –White Eagle Hall – will remain the same and the time frame is to complete and open sometime next year, although the actual month or if the opening will be the entire complex of come in phases, was not specified.

More than a hundred people attended the a reception hosted by Ben LoPiccolo Development Group, LLC, the main entity behind the restoration/transformation. Besides LoPiccolo, Ron Russell, partner/architect at LWDMR spoke about the restoration – which was described as keeping the“wrinkles & cracks”, in other words, making sure the façade and other historical details are kept intact. The renovation aspires to transform the inside of the hall into the separate spaces, but preserve the charm, integrity and feel of the this early 20^th century urban hall. Although the interior will be completely overhauled, other details will stay. For example the skylights and the ornate tin accents will remain, although instead of glass to the actual sky, they will now be self-illuminated. The iron railings of the mezzanine will also be restored to its bygone luster.

Olga Levina, who has been named, Co-Producer / Artistic Director of Jersey City Theater, Inc. – the entity that will run and handling bookings the PAC – gave an impassioned speech about the PAC, hoping that the new venue will be both “intimate and big,” and that it will bring a theater to Jersey City “that is ours.” She called on citizens, from artists to business people, to help in the new center. “We want to restore not just the building, but the sense of community,” embodied in the original White Eagle Hall.

Several audience questions revolved around art, such as will sculpture be allowed (it will). The building is adjacent to 4^thStreet, a nucleus of the downtown art scene and of course home of the annual 4^thStreet festival and LoPiccolo spoke of synergies between the PAC with the 4^thStreet organization and the events it organizes – in addition, ongoing art exhibitions being part of the mission of the restored White Eagle Hall. Exhibitions could include gallery space, as well as a lounge area, entrance, and even the two restaurants planned for in the design.

Not so crowd pleasing was the parking issue. Parking concerns dominated the Q&A. The hope is to somehow secure about 300 spaces for the PAC, but since there are no lots of this size within the immediate vicinity (and even the small lots nearby are scarce), these spaces will be made possible by cobbling together several parking options via agreements with nearby businesses, schools and churches for their lots as well as having shuttle busses from other lots in Downtown (and the PATH), to further alleviate parking space shortages. Parking was the most emotional issue of the evening, and no one seemed satisfied with the parking solutions offered – even by those who were offering them. The fact of course is there are no simple parking solutions. There are too many cars and too many people unwilling to use mass transit alternatives. Bad as Hoboken is the oft-heard lament among residents and when they moan these words it is because of the daily nightmare shared by citizens of the mile square that borders chill town, where you come home from work and drive for hours looking for a space, finding one blocks away from your apartment. The parking is inadequate in downtown Jersey City, and whether a PAC is built or not, the parking problem will only worsen anyway. One wonders how much of an issue parking was when White Eagle Hall was hosting high school basket ball games and graduation dinners. Even a combination of registering neighborhood cars, having more strict enforcement – towing and high fees – for cars by others found parked on the streets, more lot space and more incentives for event attendees to use mass transit – seemed likely unable to appease those raising the parking issue. No one voiced concern about traffic congestion. Parking solutions will NEVER hold a candle to the innate and unquenchable ability of New Jersey Drivers to whine about parking.

There was some concern that the PAC could evolve into a night club (second to parking as the fear voiced by the we’re getting as bad as Hoboken contingent). While LoPiccolo explained that a PAC is a completely different concept than a night club, and attracts a different audience, it is unclear how this difference was viewed by Jersey City laws and regulation, suggesting a range of other issues, such as cabaret license requirement and sound ordinance compliance, the resolution of which was left for the future.

Even the residents vocalizing parking and night club anxieties agreed the White Eagle Hall plan was “awesome”. Indeed, while the road from conception to completion is often less than direct and usually longer and more costly than anyone foresees, White Eagle Hall has been fallow for so long most people thought it was more rock formation than an actual piece of architecture that once fulfilled a community purpose. Owned by Saint Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church, and probably last utilized in 2006 (this is also unclear), it was sold by the church only last year, everyone assumed it would be transformed into another over-priced condo project, which has been the pattern (some might say plague) afflicting 21^st century Jersey City. But a home-grown PAC, with restaurants, that reflects the history but opens up a future at the same time, people attending this neighborhood reception (we all knew each other’s faces if not our names), collectively felt a sense of… well, awe. It was like somebody finally visualized something we all imagined but never admitted to be possible.

The idea of this dream now becoming reality was nothing less than exhilarating. The developers used the reception to personally inform the community, let them get used to and be on board for the idea. Resounding applause concluded the event, and in the applause echoed the sentiment that several in attendance had verbalized – “this is the best thing that has happened in this neighborhood since I’ve moved here.”

And best of all, one of the official announcements was that Madame Claude’s – our very groovy neighborhood (byob) French Restaurant– will be one of the two restaurants in the complex.

As the project progresses, more news (and maybe even more Dislocations), will appear. And, like I said, when I get around to completing the research, I’ll post some thoughts on the history of this place. But, regardless of all that, getting to see the inside of this building was the real treat of the evening. I have never been inside, and even though it was still in operation into the 00s, since the 80s, that operation was steadily curtailed.

The front of the building is four stories high, but the back portion only goes up three stories. It sort of slopes, although that slope is sudden, not gradual. The building is longer than it is high. It’s oddly shaped, squeezed into a an geometrically innovative block, alongside a school and a lock company. Next store is a large shack that seems to be a garage exclusively servicing motorcycles. There is no back entrance to speak off, just fire and emergency exists.

The reception was held in the main expanse, the floor had the wood and markings of a basketball court that it was often used as. There was no heat, so the space was drafty and dark, illuminated by lanterns and exposed light bulbs in fixtures energized by extension cords, ironically shedding light on the existing fluorescent fixtures, rusting and long without current. The architectural plans, conceptualizing the renovation, seemed like a metaphysical contrast to the age and disrepair of the current space surrounding the plans and those gathered.

The decay was beautiful in a you can’t keep a good space down kind of way. You could hear the memories of old hall, the generations of immigrants, who with their offspring who came here to manifest community. The echo of these distant lives seemed embedded in the shadows. The past was still present. Through the veneer of decay, you could see the floral impressions designed into the metal of the skylines and the ornate accents along the rail of the mezzanine walkway, cheerful details amid the peeling paint and exposed brick. Somebody pointed out the lack of visible water damage – “The roof has to be good.” The most apparent aspect of White Eagle Hall is that this building still has much life to offer.

For most of us, it was the first time we were ever in this building that has been part of our landscape. Soon it will be a different inside than it is now. What this building was known for, why it lasted more than century, and why it was not torn down, like most of the structures that existed at its birth, was still noticeable – albeit with some imagination –now. For one unique night, a building’s past and future coexisted. A building between dreams.

National Poetry Month: Newark Avenue, West

2013-04-23T13:02:00.001-07:00

April is National Poetry Month. The Jersey City Independent published a poem of mine for this project, Newark Avenue, West.

J&R Music: Record Store Day

2013-04-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

J&R Music, the last great record store in New York City, in the greater New York Area, and probably in the United States of America.

Last year, I heard that J&R was going to close, that 2012 would be the last year. I think I went down there and bought some CDS when I heard this, but turned out that rumor was not true, at least not yet.

Saturday was Record Store Day, which means nothing to me except that every year, fewer stores exist to celebrate their existence. Vinyl has becoming a big thing – not enough to improve music industry sales, but steadily increasing. It’s newly hip. I’m sorry. I’m not going back to Vinyl. The damn things warp, and for all its warmth, and for all the careful handling one implements, pops and crackles abound. Plus you can’t share.

I like CDs. I like compact and round. I love the crispness of the CD sound. Easier to store and dust, and while the disc and actually the coating on the disc can suffer damage, that gets less of an issue with the windows music player. The ole CD player is now mainly an NPR reception unit. Although it’s taken more than a year, I’ve copied every CD (I think about a 1,000) to the computer. As these things go, the speakers that came with The Dell sound great. Technos whine about the MP3 sound, I guess I either do not mind or do not hear the tinny. The last few years, I never even play the CDs straight out, I just copy and play the copies.

Clive Davis was on the Leonard Lopate show a few weeks ago, and when asked what he thinks of the vinyl revival, does he miss vinyl and he said yes, but I miss CDs too. Finally, somebody else speaks up for CDs. I’m old enough to have been through several formats, and of that generation who spent much of the 90s replacing my LP collection on CDs. In the 90s, I also discovered Jazz and rummaging through record stores (anyone remember Record Hunter in Chelsea) and finding Nat & Cannonball Adderly and John Coltrane masterpieces were always great music purchasing adventures.

Probably for about 20 years after I was a teenager and entered the working world, some piece of every pay check probably went to (depending on the decade) a LP, Cassette, or CD.

Remember Tower Records? Sam Goody? Discomat?, the Virgin Record Store (obnoxious and over priced), this was in addition to the smaller stores in and around the “village” Bleeker Bobs closed recently, here’s an oft linked tale of how they helped me get into Elvis, but Rebel Rockers continues to rock on. But forget that in addition to, while I enjoyed those smaller stores, I prefer the big box, especially as CDs proliferated. Smaller, ‘compact,’CDs meant more and J&R, unlike say Sam Goodies, would carry smaller, off-beat label releases. The attitude was archival. This makes the browsing experience informational, especially as my tastes began expanding to country music (vintage of course), adding new names to my personal musical lexicon. J&R was the only record store equal to Tower, but Tower was convenient so I went there most. I can remember when a new Dylan was released and everybody on line had the CD in hand – of course, this was for World Gone Wrong and everyone on line was somewhere around middle age, but still. Nowadays, the Friday before the Tuesday of a release, I go to Rebel Records (shh, you didn’t hear that here!).

I appreciate the specialty record stores, but I prefer love the rampant democracy of J&R. No bogus High Fidelity elitism. Just a lot of merchandise, a lot of titles. I love the idea that there are entire universes, like Classical or World music that I never know, just as there are probably fellow music lovers who know those departments and have no interest in Ralph Stanley or Hilary Kole.

Anyway, never apologize for your music. Music is the most subjective of all the arts, and as the digital revolution makes music less communal, it also increases the subjectivity so even references are getting harder to recognize (until you google that is). If I didn’t read Rolling Stone, I would be totally lost when it comes to new artists. I used to boast that I loved Hole, and while I still boast that, all them Grrrls are nearing menopause, which doesn’t make them any less Grrrls but digging Hole, L7 and the Lunachicks no longer gives me cred for solidarity with the youth, just the younger portion of the Middle Aged population. Punk is forever young in a way its perpetrators and proponents are unable to be. True for all musical genres, but for Punk that part of the joke was always on us.

So, what me come to J&R on record store day? Ladies of the Canyon.

A friend on FB mentioned this record in passing. Pre-Blue Joni is an acquired taste, and in the current era my preference is for that indisputable great jazz inflected trifecta of Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hjiera, and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughters At least that has been the focus of the CD replacement therapy regarding Joni, whom I’ve been a fan of since high school, which coincided with her hey day. Ladies is the best of the pre-Blue, heavily folked up Joni, I use to love this record, haven’t heard it in full in some 25 years – AT LEAST – and couldn’t get it out of my mind after the FB newsfeed aside.

So, I immediately went to J&R to purchase it. Well, not exactly. I first went to buy it online. I do download music, but I generally buy single songs – 99 cents on Amazon – rather than complete albums. One things I’ve done is bought a used CD -- I recently got an Aaron Neville CD – The Grand Tour – for 99 cents, plus $2.98 shipping. The download was like $11 and new was like $18, but I think it is out of print so those were new copies of the original release, if such definitions still apply in our digital reality. Used of course, copies as well as new, sounds the same download.

So, I tried the same with Ladies, with new being about $10, plus shipping; download $11, used was $4.79 plus shipping, which for some reason was $3.98.

Prices subject to change and misremembering.

So, with J&R, you can see if something is in stock, and Ladies was -- $5.99 (For some Record Store Day sale reason, it was marked down to $4.99 at the register).

See, you used to have to go to a store, either buy it or ask them to order it. But now we live in the internet world. I shopped around online and found the best price – in the non-virtual world, a brick-and-mortar store.

I was further enticed to buy more music, much of it on sale –Clouds by Joni Mitchell, The Best of the New Riders of the Purple Sage and a 2-CD The Gospel Collection by George Jones. Every CD was either $4.99 or $5.99, came to about $22 total – much better than 99 cents per song. When I shop online, I only buy the target product, impulse purchases as they are generally called, never enter into the equation. How can you survive additional inventory online? Why would you? Well, I suppose there are methods and programmer is probably dreaming up effective methods but I do not see how this combination of price and product and random chance can be replicated virtually.

Online vs. Brick & Mortar, they are two distinct experiences and when it comes to buying music, we are loosing something vital, a human dimension of capitalism, with the death of the record store. Maybe this issue is emerging for all our products, but with music the impact seems particularly dire because digitized makes online easier and physical stores superfluous. Some are surprised anyone is still paying for music at all. Aside from the current iteration of napster, streaming is the latest option and while I’ve dabbled some, the removal of some decision making and all ownership has no appeal for me.

What’s the better way to go? Going to the friggin store! Pilgrimages to J&R are always worth it, there’s a real nice park nearby and you get to skim the archive. That browsing is what is being lost – and because of the nature of consumer process, probably only applicable to record stores, book stores and I guess DVD stores. Maybe it harkens back to my youth, when you only had enough for record and had to decide between Red Octopus and Devil in Disguise. That’s no longer the situation and if there was a cheaper option to satiate my Ladies of the Canyon desire, I would have bought online.

So, for now everything coexists but the cost-effectiveness and convenience of online music purchasing are false assertions, at least not always true.

And lower cost, has not always been the case. I have eyed this George Jones Gospel collection before, and I seem to recall prices of $21.99, it is a two-disc set, and sort of a specialty item. That price was at J&R. The disc was in the Country Section – on the 2^nd Floor – and the prices there were pretty cheap, a lot of $5.99 discs. But I also noticed something else. There used to be dozens of discs for each artist, but now there was noticeable fewer – only one Roy Acuff CD of any kind, for instance. The country section is pretty comprehensive, old and new, bluegrass, on the far wall in the section is the folk music, which I didn’t look through.

I noticed the same trend in the Rock & Roll section on the 1^st floor – this covers the broadest range of artists and s where the Joni is located – that there were fewer, usual suspects were missing. I have all the Dylan, but of course I looked through Dylan. AT J&R, they will often have imports, and in Europe they put “best of Theme Time Radio,”CDs, which have no Dylan but are filled with weird cuts from his Satellite Radio Show (which may no longer exist), but I have some of those imported CDs and they’re great but they were no where in sight this Record Store Day .

I also noticed hardly any box sets of any kind, along the wall were always box sets of all sorts. Now, there was more Vinyl, new racks to accommodate the space this bulkier format requires. There are likely lots of factors encroaching on shelf space and what seemed to be the dwindling CD inventory. The previous depth has diminished. There are fewer CDs being manufactured; how economically feasible is to re-master old tapes and reissue a Blind Lemmon Jefferson series, a product whose audience was limited in the best of times. Sure, there’s Bruce Springsteen galore, everything on disc but the those other artists – there was only one Sleep LaBeef CD! – were not in the same abundance. I have to assume there are just not as many being produced and the lines are not being replenished.

But I also wonder if J&R is actually conducting a long term GOB (Going Out of Business) sale. Bring in the new releases, but the inventory depth, the old and reissued, are priced to move, but not entirely priced at a loss and they are just selling off the stock. It seems the CD sections of Barnes & Noble, which tend to be eclectic and filled with non-commercial items like Smithsonian Folkways, is doing the same thing. I never see the new old in B&N any more. The inventory is stale, I’ve seen it before, been the case for three years at least. At B&N, the NOOK is taking up more floor space, and the CD/DVD section keeps shrinking and within that section, the Blue-Ray DVDs are absorbing shelf-space, further encroaching on the music, which is frustrating since these are not new titles, just replications of the regular DVD releases.

Vinyl is acting in the same way as Blue Ray, a format replacement. Inventory attrition is not occurring with introductions of new material. The selection is shrinking on all fronts. There’s less to browse. At J&R, will the vinyl resurgence be sufficient to replace the CD loss? That is a business proposition we are seeing play out. But the fact is, there is less material being introduce and made available. Not just in the physical format, but also the downloadable format, which is an observation that cannot be substantiated here.

Maybe the rumors of the immanent closure of J&R were true, just the time frame was way off. They’re just selling off the warehouse stock. I can’t imagine vinyl ever becoming a major format option again, but a small but loyal following can do wonders in sustaining a business. The idea that there are people out there who having bought an original LP, replacing in cassette, then CD, then going out and buying the LP again, boggles the mind. I’m assuming they bypassed 8-track & DAT. People may prefer the store experience to the online experience, but even the record stores still able to attract enough customers to stay in business still need to get stock to inventory and that seems more of an issue. It seems inevitable that there soon will not be enough depth of inventory CD-wise, and in lieu of closure, the record store will revert to its original incarnation of a retailer of LPs and Singles, which made up the bulk of the Record Store Day promotional items for sale.

J&R owns the property and has a cluster of stores, selling all sorts of electronics and other merchandise. I’ve never been inside of some of the stores. While I generally buy Dell desktops, for accessories and software, J&R is my go-to store and has been since the 90s, which I reckon is true for most of Jersey City. In their home audio department, the scarcity is in CD players, an irony when you consider J&R Music is right next door. Why buy a multiple disc player and press the random setting when you can make your own playlist and the computer speakers are as good as any?

Paradoxes aplenty; trends conflict. The CD is dead, I remember reading recently, in article that said 2012 was the first year the long decline in profitability for the music industry was halted, and a small increase in sales was finally recorded. Buying and browsing music titles is a disappearing pleasure. In most places of the country, it has already disappeared and if it wasn’t for J&R, it would have disappeared here as well.

And the CDs I snagged during the recent pilgrimage? Incredible. The New Riders have recently regrouped and released two credible, wall of guitar, country-tinged folk rock. They do a great version of You Angel You, an overlooked Planet Waves gem. For some reason, I was unable to get t his as a download; If it did, it would have been 99 cents, so for an extra four bucks I got 14 other songs. Panama Red may not do it for me any more, but Glendale Train still resonates and She’s No Angel is a great rocker. Country Rock was always a hippie/redneck mash-up, and the Riders were always more hippie than redneck. Overshadowed by the Grateful Dead (Jerry Garcia was a founding member), the New Riders had more warmth and scope than the Eagles, and their records come close to Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

George Jones – you can never have enough George Jones. I think country gospel is my favorite form of gospel. Songs about Jesus are just enhanced by twang. Jones never shied away from slickness, but his songs glow like a neon beer sign in the cracked window of a rustic bar. All the best known country gospel standards, “Amazing Grace,” “Lonesome Valley, “Softly Tenderly,” “Rugged Cross,” as well as some rarities, like “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” which some may recall from the recent True Grit remake soundtrack. Jones conveys a believable sincerity with this collection; a man whose drunkenness and debauchery are well-known, he sounds like someone winning his struggle for redemption.

And Joni… folkie Joni… well Clouds has Chelsea Morning and that’s a song impossible not to love. “Won’t You Stay, We’ll Put on the Day, and we’ll wear it till the night comes,” – reminded me of Laurie Cowlin’s fiction, where Romance makes NYC fresh and new, embodying a sensuality commiserate with your heightened senses. I’m not sure how well this as a collection has aged, it was an utter impulse buy at J&R. Both Sides Now has lost some of its anthemetic impact, but her original has grit and emotional depth that Judy Collins hit could never approach. Her earnestness eventually erodes the built up cynicism preventing full appreciation. Songs to Aging Children may be ponderous, but still haunts. Back then, songwriters never did not resist the profound. More profundity; less irony! Her voice is young and shiny bright, a flame of glass.

But Ladies of the Canyon, the instigating CD to this blog, what a masterpiece. That’s an undeniable fact. Woodstock, Big Yellow Taxi and Circle Game, those are hits, sure. But I love the hippie Ladies of the Canyon and Morning Comes to Morgantown, but with Joni, it’s the relationship songs I love and of course, those chords. She just writes great chords. Conversation – a brilliant song from the other woman’s perspective, about a man who “comes for conversation, I comfort him sometimes” but “she only brings him out to show her friends/I want to free him.” As complex emotionally as anything she’s written, a saxophone pops up on the fade out, prescient of the jazz she needed to explore, which began with Court & Spark, even though she had to get the Blue our first, on that long unforgettable road to Mingus.

Rainy Night is a set piece, about an affair with a trust fund guy, who “gave up all the factories/just to see/who in the world you might be…” is the same elusive man of Troubled Child or Harry from Hissing?

With Ladies (and Clouds), we see Joni beginning to realize her vast talent. It’s like we’re on the same journey of discovery. Optimism doesn’t dominate these songs, but it is present and while she reached more highs lyrically and musically, but her vision grew darker. The hope here – in love songs like Willy, but also anthems like her haunting original Woodstock (compare and contrast to the live version on Shadows and Light, 10 years later) – is just as honest as the despair she was never able to shake. Well, like I said at the beginning, it’s the mid-to-late period Joni that’s been the go to, but hearing Ladies, you hear all the elements that she went on to explore. Hearing them fresh again is stunning. I was both experiencing the music now – captivated by Joni – and joyfully spring into concentric circles of vivid recollection, remerging every lyric to Rainy Night House, realizing I’ve probably hummed and/or sung this song to myself during countless idle moments, forgetting the record, where I knew it from, even the artist who sang it. The song embedded itself into my consciousness and lingered throughout a lifetime. There are hundreds that are like this for me, as they are for you. It doesn’t which songs they are (although, we all know my songs are better) – and these embedded songs are not the only songs you care about or hum for random, unknown reasons. I thought about death, how you think about loved ones who have died. You don’t just remember them; you still have a relationship with them.

Why these records are in my mind for these past few days – the others have their day too – who knows, and in the end, aside how they are bought or when we experience them – music is utterly subjective. What we bring to it is as important as what it is. In fact, more important.

Maybe when I was a kid in the record store, I felt in control. When you’re a kid, you control nothing… except for your soundtrack. When you’re an adult, you control your life even though much of that life is subject to the indifference a cruel world. The sound track remains though, as does the solace it brings you. I am sure there are folks reading this and scoffing, just another baby boomer thinking that his era was the best and everything that followed sucks. Okay, the 80s music did suck but what didn’t suck was you and your childhood and how your experience of the world evolved.

Nostalgia is too simple an explanation. After age 30, nostalgia is a factor, but not the only motivation shaping the sound track. You still buy new music, or at least new records by artists you already like, or new artists that work in familiar genres (Neko Case!). Well, I do at least. The digital revolution has meant that new music exists alongside the familiar more easily, and more obviously that in the past. The days of Record Store Days may be numbered, but your music remains forever… within.

Anti-Sexist Walk & Steps

2013-04-20T06:34:00.000-07:00

I have no idea if this Washington Square chalk drawing has anything to do with Slut Walk, but that’s what I thought of when I read the slogans on the steps just beyond the fabulous picture of a woman. Slut Walk is a movement protesting verbal sexual harassment of women, which I support. I liked their FB page and they’re part of the newsfeed. Why should anybody have to deal with slurs and pejoratives as they go about their day?

Well, this is technically a sidewalk so I thought slut walk. I dig the slogans My Dress doesn’t say yes. Another, that really hits the mark, is I’m a Woman Just like Your Mom. The reason I like that is you know all those guys who feel compelled to yell out sexist crap, intimidating women they do not, have mommy issues. We do not need to share them.

The drizzle will wash the chalk away but at least for a day or so harassment was counter balanced.

Remembrances Blossom

2013-04-20T05:44:00.003-07:00

The Boston Marathon bombing started the week. Terrorism, again. 9-11 will not sleep in peace. In Jersey City, the impact was direct and little is necessary to open the floodgates of memory. The anxiety and sadness and sense of loss felt in Boston we recognized and know all too well. We also know the frustration of being unable to stop it, and of taking measures that have terrible consequences. And, we also know the pain of not just the grief, but the inevitable inexplicability that we arrive at after attempting to fathom the reason behind the action and why those specific victims were targeted. All you have is that anxiety, sadness and sense of loss. You never quite answer, much less resolve the why, but you go on anyway.

The Star Magnolia is a small tree from Japan that blossoms in the spring. The petals are pinkish white stars. The branches bare since the end of summer are now filled with soft color, the tepals like thin fingers of a suddenly open hand, beckoning peace. The local park reminds us to take a moment and welcome Spring.

Read the sign. Jon Schlissel was a 9-11 victim, one of the several from Jersey City. The tree is for him and has shown us Spring every year. This year it blossomed the same week another terrorist attack hit an American city, more than a decade after the one that took Jon.