Stupid things

Time to do that thing where I quote something some podcast personality said and talk about it. This one’s going to be different, though, because I’m actually going to dare to disagree with a person I enjoy. Here’s the quote:

“The people are terrible everywhere you go. Maybe there’s a small town in Rhode Island where everyone gets along. I have no idea. But I’ve lived in Maine, I’ve lived in Florida, I’ve lived in Chicago, I’ve been to LA many times, I’ve been to New York many times…everywhere you go, the people are going to be shit. And it’s all about where do you prefer temperature-wise, the look of the place…what’s the difference? […] I don’t like the people who say ‘you would hate it if you lived here’ because you’re the same people who would hate it if they lived anywhere. You’re those unhappy fucks who think environment is the cause of all your problems.”
-Mike David, Red Bar Radio

Ohhh shit! Time to overanalyze the hell out of something that was said over the course of about two minutes on a show that airs over ten hours a week! Obviously I wouldn’t take the time to do something like this unless I either felt strongly in accord, or if I disagreed to the point of feeling some kind of insecure victimization. I think the latter feeling I’m describing is called “being offended.” I’m incredibly unfamiliar with it, and I can’t say I like it, so try and bear with me.

As per usual with Mike’s rantings, he has a lot of solid points here. The people do suck everywhere you go, and there are a number of people that drive themselves to unhappiness in every scenario. I’ve moved enough to know that there’s a lot of truth to the “wherever you go, there you are” cliche. Given these observations, it would be reasonable to draw the conclusion that changing the people and places around you won’t change anything, and maybe for some people it doesn’t. It certainly seems to for me, though.

I’m not going to pretend I’m the most worldly or traveled person in the world, but I’ve seen some things. DC, Baltimore, Philly, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Raleigh, Charlotte, Knoxville, Orlando, Boulder, Denver, Niagra Falls, Belize City, and a bunch of smaller towns. Whatever. The point is that I don’t think that the personality makeup of a city is completely random or arbitrary. People move places for a number of reasons…work, school, relationships…but one HUGE underlying factor is that they have some desire to be a part of that city’s culture. I can’t say for sure that the stereotypes of the laid-back west coast, the hustling-and-bustling east coast, and the old-timey south were originally based on real regional traits, but they certainly seem to reflect those things now, and people travel with them in mind. To say that this same regional identification doesn’t trail down to the level of cities or even some towns is to ignore some of the first things that come to mind when we think of various US cities.

About time I got to the point, I guess. Here’s what I don’t like about Los Angeles, although I’ve never physically visited and a lot of my information comes from good and bad reports from past residents: much like New York, people move to LA with big heads full of dreams that often involve art. However, while a good portion of New York’s art community involves low-level performance arts, LA’s focus seems to be on the biggest and most lucrative extremes: film and TV acting, studio music production, large-scale scriptwriting, that sort of stuff. As a result, I’ve found that people in the LA area earn a stereotype for being egotistical and unreasonable with their expectations. Weed also plays a large part in LA’s stereotyping, and while that may be unfair to a number of LA citizens, it also plays a part in motivating people to move or not move. Beyond that, California is generally known for nice weather, spirituality, surfing, positive energy, and, oh yeah, MONEY. Tons of money. I’m not into most of that stuff, and I’ve found I really don’t like places with too much money. I don’t like the stuff they do with it.

Will I visit LA some day? Absolutely. Probably sooner than later, because a friend just moved out. I don’t think I’m without logic in gathering the assumption that it’s not going to be my kind of place, though, and I don’t think I’m any different from anyone else because I identify environments by personality. Does all that make sense?

When my memory is functioning, it sometimes recalls a time one year ago, when I was first planning my move to New York, and I had BIG. PLANS. The biggest plan of all was my website idea, which involved podcasting, interviewing bands, reviewing records, and trying to turn the music community into something cool again. One might say that I stole this idea from Gashouse Radio, which was gaining a lot of momentum in Philly at the time, but in truth I actually stole the idea from Brandon Wetherbee’s You, Me, Them, Everybody podcast, which is also still alive and doing well. So why didn’t I go through with that website? Maybe because there were already two groups doing it?

Actually not. While Gashouse and YMTE both wanted to use talk radio to merge arts, current events, and culture, I wanted my own focus to be much more narrow and centralized on music I enjoy, then attempt to tactfully harness that focus to further whatever project I was working with. Despite the blatant narcissism of this plan, I would say it actually went pretty well up until the point where I had to start planning and organizing things. Truth be told, I didn’t have the self-motivation to build a website, review shows and CDs, contact artists, set up interviews, promote the website, gather and maintain followers, and update everything regularly. Even as I put this stuff together in my head, it was too much. Of all of that stuff, the only thing I’d done successfully in the past was review shows I’d been to.

This brings me to why I’m finally telling another story about New York. For as much as I sometimes dislike storytelling, it’s something I know how to do, and it’s something that bands and fans can rally around, because it directly involves them. If you’re a character in my story, I would hope you would at least want to read it to see what you do. After all, I’m not a journalist, I’m just a guy that likes listening to music and making dumb puns. Accuracy is a small priority that rests behind things like fart jokes and making myself seem interesting. Onto the story:

There were supposed to be four of us, and by “supposed to be,” I mean I asked a couple of people if they could come at the last minute, literally the day before, and somehow something went wrong with the booking process. Go figure! So what I had planned as a four-person round-table party bus ride with a bunch of secret boozing became Zach and I playing Nintendo DS, casually drinking, and talking to some larger college girls about their pet turtle. We showed up later than planned to the bus stop, too, so instead of whispering jokes about the people around us to each other like we normally do, we were yelling them across the aisle.

Somehow we survived the whole thing, and ended up in New York only 2 hours late. There was no time for food, or so we thought, so we hurried to the venue. On the subway, we saw two guys do a dance that I can only call “hat-dropping” where they threw their hats in the most creative ways they could while doing something that could be considered dancing. We got off the subway quickly, and darted through Union Square twice in all directions before eventually finding the venue: the famous Irving Plaza.

I actually don’t know if the place is all that famous, but it was certainly big! After checking in coats and using the bathroom, the next stop was the giant concert floor. If you’ve never heard house music playing as loud as any band would while random footage shot in Jamaica plays on a projector screen, you probably weren’t at this show. If you’ve never run into about 50 old friends you know while this goes on, you weren’t me at this show. I met and gret for over an hour with band members, promoters, and other persons of note, while Zach sighed and tried to figure out what was going on and why the show hadn’t started. I don’t know that there was any answer to that question, but eventually the show did start, and Bomb the Music Industry took the show like the Long Island legends that they are.

There’s something to be said for a show that has people jumping and screaming from the very first word that leaves the singer’s mouth, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen BTMI fail to deliver that kind of show. This time was something special, though. Nearly a thousand people experienced the opening chords of “The First Time I Met Sanawan” together, and well over a hundred yelled the chorus, jumping and fighting for space near the stage to get a couple of words into the microphone. This set a good precedent for the rest of the set, which combined a good mix of old and new material, with fans belting out every chorus along with the band.

You rarely see more sweat on and off stage than what’s produced during a BTMI set, especially during an opening act, and perhaps it was for this reason that they chose to slow things down and play a very rare live track: Sweet Home Canada. This was one instance of me really enjoying the older crowd in New York City, because for two beautiful minutes everyone either shut up or sang along with Jeff, and the silence that encompassed everything else was magic. Midway through the song, things came back in with a bang. Literally. Streamer guns popped, lights flared, paper flew through the sky, distortion pedals screeched, people jumped, and shit was nuts. Things were back in gear, and the band’s “one last song” somehow turned into three without anyone caring. The set ended with Jeff climbing onto a balcony beside the stage and playing a floor time while the band once again silenced themselves, then jumping down onto the crowd from about twelve feet up and screaming the final measures of I Don’t Love You Anymore.

After this, I was supposed to meet with a keyboardist from Philly named Ericka and exchange band and contact info, but I instead got dragged downstairs by a couple of people I had just met, and again talking to a plethora of old friends until the Pietasters took the stage. New to the tasters’ familiar lineup was just about everybody, but most notably Chris Rhodes, trombonist of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and a bunch of other guests that randomly took the stage over the course of the show. A band that I’ve always remembered as being one of the drunkest forces in entertainment actually played a very solid and put-together show, and Vic Reggiero from The Slackers was cool enough to join on one of their songs along with the rest of the guests. The horns were great, the band was great, and I’m pretty sure a few minds were changed in the crowd about the bands’ overall professionalism.

In fact, at this particular show, I might venture to say that most of the crowd was more drunk and high than the bands were. Which was good, because the Slackers were coming up! Could over an hour of Slackers greatness be handled without some drug assistance? I would have to find out, because my buzz from the bus booze (there’s a tongue twister) had run its course. As it turned out, a very drunk happy crowd was the best for Slackers fare, as everyone was very accommodating for dancing room and small dance pits and all the stuff that generally happens at these types of shows. I remember a lot of good hits, and Steve Jackson singing I’ll Be There, and a guitar duel between Agent Jay and former Pietasters’ bassist Jorge. Then I had to leave early! I caught hell for it, too. But I had to go to Harlem! And I needed food.

Got a great margherita pizza slice (and something else that wasn’t as good), then hit the subway again with Zach. Some guy was playing the bagpipes terribly in the concourse, and then a bunch of drunk girls were dancing with a salsa band on the train platform. This was the New York I remembered and loved. We arrived in Harlem at 2 AM, right at the end of the Christmas party we were supposed to attend, and began furiously slamming ciders in the kitchen while talking to our old friend-turned-Big-D-trumpet-player Chris. We had a great conversation and Chris and Julie (whose apartment we were at) were nice enough to let us crash in the living room next to a girl who had fallen asleep on the couch. There was some fake snow on the floor, but that hardly mattered. Sleep came pretty quickly.

So yeah, that wasn’t the best writing I’ve ever done, and I’m sure I missed a lot of stuff, but it’s not bad for how long I’ve been away from it! Maybe people got a fuzzy picture of what the trip was like! Maybe I can do more stuff like this in the future and get myself somewhere! We’ll see.

First off, because I’m writing these more to myself than anybody else, I’m going to be completely honest: I’m a little drunk. I put a good deal of sober planning into this, though, and there’s definitely some things that I need to get into and write out and work with a little bit. In my experience, alcohol has been more of a fixer than a destroyer, but I understand it could go either way here. Whatever. The problem: I need to do something with my life. The means of finding a solution: Blizzard’s Diablo franchise.

Stay with me here! I can work this out. I’ve used my nerd brain to separate people into three different groups…let’s say “classes” in this case…that transcend race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Without proper names to refer to these classes by, I might as use the ones from Diablo, right? Warriors, Rogues, and Sorcerers. Or, if you want to go Diablo 2, we can call them Barbarians, Amazons/Paladins, and Sorceresses/Necromancers. Whatever. In any case, the easiest route is the Warrior, who is the standard hack-and-slash character. Easy to build, the warrior will pick the simplest option in any scenario and follow whatever path is laid out for them. Real-life Warriors live the American dream to a T, because they enjoy the simplicity. Finish college, get a desk job, get married, have kids? Done. Click click click click. Then there’s Rogues. One step more complicated than Warriors, Rogues are good for long-range versatility and teamwork. They’re very hard to build unless you find a good group of people to work with, but they will completely destroy in a team. Also there’s less simplicity to a Rogue…there’s going to be some magic work and the occasional employment of strategy. Rogues in reality generally lead double-lives, working somewhat below their potential and doing what they love to do in their off-time. They may or may not choose to get married, get the desk job, and have the kids, because all of those things get in the way of the other life. The dream life.

Then there’s the sorcerers. A rare class to pick, a well-made sorcerer is a complete powerhouse in most situations. Granted, if the monsters are immune to his element, he’s useless, but a good sorcerer knows where to make himself useful. A sorcerer does not need a party of people, but will generally acquire one because the party wants to be around him. Sorcerers are very difficult to build, and there’s a lot of multitasking and tedious work involved. Most people don’t have the patience. Real-life sorcerers are people like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates…people that had a dream, and followed it against all odds, even when things got really tough. When I think of a sorcerer-type, I look to big actors, musicians, and comedians. How did they build themselves up to be so strong? Didn’t that take a ton of work and skill? Yeah, it probably did. But now people want to be around them, even though they don’t need those people, because they made it somewhere. Crazy how power breeds power, right?

So, following this Diablo metaphor (which I hope people are starting to love), I started my campaign when I was 19, moving out of the house to be a Rogue. Externally, to most people, I was a student with a penchant for working technology-related jobs, but a small handful of others knew me as a rock-and-roll trombonist with a small amount of potential and an infinite amount of ambition to go somewhere and do something with it. That was the dream. And I succeeded, too. I moved to Philadelphia, established a new group of friends and allibis, and played with a number of groups I’d only ever dreamed about playing with before…The Aquabats, Bomb the Music Industry, and a bunch of other names that I don’t really feel like dropping. I did it! Beat the game. But that was only the first difficulty setting.

When the difficulty changed to Nightmare Mode, I felt it. The band that got me through the regular campaign dissolved, and I was back at square one trying to piece something together. I knew the rewards were going to be much better this time around, though, so I went all in. I went to as many good teams as I could and tried to tout my abilities as a Rogue, but things were harder this time, and the teams couldn’t pull through, with or without me. And the big difference between Nightmare Mode and Regular: when you lose, you also lose experience. So I crashed and burned over and over until I finally moved to New York for one last try, and when that was over, I found that I was right back at the beginning again.

So, back at the very beginning, the question is: do I start a new campaign again as a Rogue, or do I concede to this being too difficult for me and downgrade to a Warrior, or do I spite everything and try a new campaign as the Sorcerer? If you’ve read enough of this blog, you probably know I want the last one. I want to be the Sorcerer. But the long difficult building process, and the lack of other characters…I honestly don’t know if I have it in me. I’ve always been a Rogue, in and out of the game, and while I respect the hell out of Sorcerers, I don’t have the first idea on how to be one. How did any of these big dreamers do what they did all by themselves? Where did that kind of internal commitment come from? Weren’t they afraid of losing? Sure they were. Probably. And, with that risk over my head, I guess I’ll be too. If I want to be an entertainer and dream, though, there’s going to be risks. Time to start learning some spells.

This title was supposed to be a play off of “Hulkamania,” except I replaced Hulk Hogan’s first name with Gustav Holst’s last name because that’s what I’m listening to right now! Funny! Really classical-ing out right now, and actually not experiencing the overly introspective series of emotions that sometimes accompanies this type of musical experience. On the contrary, I would say I’ve been in a rather good mood lately, with plenty of things to do and enough good friends to talk about said things with. I mean, sure, many of the friends could be a little better about not throwing themselves into life-consuming jobs and relationships, but that’s what people do with themselves, right? But wait a second! Exactly what the hell am I doing with myself? Sure, I’ve been busy, but what’s the goal, and what am I doing to achieve it?

Mike David’s been talking a lot on Red Bar about how most people do what others want them to do, and very few do what they themselves want. Of course I’d fall into that school, right? I love others! But here’s where it gets crazy: I’ve been doing independent bands since late 2000, which means I’m now slowly approaching a point where playing punk and ska has become half of my life. And what do I have to show for it? Well, to be blunt, I’m good at it. I’ve found a knack for writing hornlines and catchy choruses, playing with energy and balls, showing enthusiasm for practices and necessary band business, and conducting myself in a fun and engaging way on stage. These things did not happen overnight. They took yeeeears. And they deteriorate a bit with each week I spend not honing them.

Now here’s the complaint you saw coming from a mile away: it’s about time for me to shit or get off the pot. I’ve spent my entire adult life doing what other people want me to do, which would make sense if I’d been trying to cut a simple and unburdened follower’s life out for myself, but this is not the case. The case is that I’ve worked my ass off with all sorts of different people to try and get them to achieve my dream with me. And in every case, some party has uniquely failed to make this happen in some way or another. I can’t keep making excuses for not doing what I want to do. I’ve got to make it happen, or at least make an opportunity for it to happen, and if it damages some people’s feelings, or my relationship with them, or my finances, or if it kills me, whatever, right? At least I’ll be able to say I gave it a chance. So I’ve really got to push for all of that stuff. Hopefully I don’t forget about writing all of this stuff just because I’m in a good mood.

It’s happened. I’m blogging again. Not good. You ever have that thing where you’re a 25-year-old adult and you start growing bitter and resentful of the fact that nearly all of your friends are committed to serious relationships? No? That’s just me? Shit. I guess I didn’t get it together in time, huh? Now I get the pleasure of dealing with most of the people in my life thinking I’m “wild and crazy” in a mildly condescending way. Cool!

Can I please just keep having fun and doing what I want to do for a while? I’ll have my shit back in order soon enough (at which point I’ll promptly go crazy and dismantle it all), but I just got back from economic rock bottom and I’d like to tread some water here and splash around for a bit if that’s okay. I’ll get over it. Maybe. And if I don’t, I can always be that old guy that gets naivety and positivity confused and hangs out with a bunch of kids thinking he’s part of the crew.

People I meet now seem to branch into three categories: young naive college kids, people my age who are in committed relationships that I find to be soul-sucking and draining, and crazy people. That is to say, people my age who are not in the relationships, and have usually gotten into drugs or some sort of vicious personality disorder instead. I’m not perfect, but I wish I could find some people more like myself in the world right now. I don’t feel crazy. Currently.

I’ve been doing this blog for over a year now (I think), and it’s possible that I now understand myself 10-20% better than I did before. This is a pretty big victory. However, what I’ve come to understand about myself is that blogging is not good for me. It tends to only happen when I’m experiencing some level of depression, and what I present as clean wrapped-up thoughts are actually deep problematic tunnels that I cover up with a flimsy tarp and inconsequentially ensure that I’ll fall into them later. Having found this out about myself, why would I be blogging right now, or ever?

The problem with writing these things is that I drive myself to complain about my life. It’s something I will almost never do in person, so I take the power of written word and use it to bitch on a larger level than what I’m normally capable of. And the problem’s always the same, right? I’m stuck, in some way or another. We’re all kind of stuck at the moment, though. Economy and stuff. I’m lucky to have anything at all, especially job-wise, and yet I can’t help wishing it was more. Learning to be happy with what I have would be the real trick, right?

So I look to the people I respect the most. Ironically these people are not my friends, not my family, not my favorite musicians, and certainly not my favorite people in the world overall. But they think faster, talk smarter, analyze better, and give more life to conversations than anyone else I know of. I am referring of course to my podcast idols. I’ve been into a bunch lately now that I’m back in the job market, but two have stuck out as being more serious and helpful in recent days: Marc Maron from WTF and Mike David from Red Bar Radio.

Both of these men are always in a state of disorder in their lives, and I guess I relate to that. Maron has a number of self-professed anger and psychological issues, constantly demands too much of friends and loved ones until they leave, and begins every episode of his show with a clip of himself asking “what’s wrong with me?” David cycles through a new set of close relationships (cohosts) every two years or so, and then is forced to rebuild his show from scratch when everyone turns on him because of his polarizing thoughts and behavior. I picked two pretty good heroes, right?

Interestingly, these two recently said two equal and opposite statements recently about finding happiness in life. David said that to live your life for anybody other than yourself is both cowardly and unfair, and that you’ll never get anywhere unless you say and do everything for you. Maron said that the only way anybody gets any sort of peace and happiness from themselves is by diverting their attention to others. I guess they’re both right, depending on how you choose to live your life. I’ve always been more of a Maronist ideologically, but I have a lot of David in my opinions and sense of humor. Guess I’m going to try both over the course of the next year, depending on the situation, and see what my results are? Better than being stuck. Probably.