That Was England

On a lonely and mildly humid August Sunday, I went to the movies by myself. I've always scoffed at this activity. Staring at solo patrons in various Manhattan theatres, I would think "You loser. We all know you don't want to be here alone. You should have stayed home and avoided our judgemental gaze. You. Have. Failed." Counterarguments have made sense. It can be quite a stressful chore to organize a group of New Yorkers who have different commuting, eating, working, blah blah situations, perhaps because its an activity where the shared experience is abstracted by the fact we don't communicate during the actual THING. And do I really need to listen to the fading chirps of relationship bickering as the lights dim?

The last time I had gone to a movie alone was 10 years previous at the Crossgates Mall Multiplex in Albany, NY. It was Contact starring Jodie Foster. There were aliens. Jake Busey. I am sure you're familiar. Somehow my friends wound up in the auditorium showing Spawn and stayed there. This time around it was This Is England by Shane Meadows, currently playing on an itsy bitsy screen at the IFC Center on 6th Ave. An Englishman two seats to my right began talking to me as soon as I sat down. Looking like a summery micro-version of the male lead in the Princess Bride, he mentioned he had been in a much larger theater the day before; a screening room in a Hamptons mansion where he had attended an all weekend party. Naturally, he was not unaccompanied. His female companion stared into the slate floor as we wondered aloud how this film would compare to the gloriously disturbing Romper Stomper.

The seat directly to my right remained empty until the opening seconds, when a woman, dark-haired and attractive, entered alone and grabbed the spot. She laughed and cringed at all the right moments, but after twiddling about with some texts, left about 15 minutes before the conclusion. Somehow her experience was more akin to watching TV on the couch at home; a passing of time activity easily disregarded when something better comes up. OK cool, it really is not a big deal to be here alone. It initially struck me as strange because the film was excellent in just about every respect. Sharp, doubtless performances and a heartbreaking story shot gorgeously around industrial ruin and claustrophobic, suburban malaise. Dare I say, a modern classic.

Oh and not to name drop, but a close friend of mine is credited as the Script Advisor. Stay for the credits.

All We Have to Blog is...Blog Itself

I suppose its only natural in the fetal stages of a blog to go through some existential questioning. Why are we here? "We" being "me", and "here" being at this particular URL transposing my inner dialogue into a medium which is alleged to infuse with it more permanence than the folds of my brain.

I've made the following argument before and I suppose now I will make it again. Unless you were lucky enough to get your memoirs published, tenacious enough to pump out a zine read by a handful of people, or famous enough to have use of press releases in your life, the closest phenomenon to blogging before the rise of internet culture in terms of efficiency was the suicide note. Yes, this handy little patriot missile of personal thought has many of the same benefits of blogging; a built in audience, a predictable time table for the dispersion of content, potential for overnight celebrity, and the default sympathy of your readers. It even beats blogging on the last one! But you have to earn this mighty bullhorn by actually doing something legitimately wild like putting a .45 in your mouth and pulling the trigger, as opposed to logging in to blogger after the guy from Band of Horses upset you by giving you the finger during the performance of their monster ballad hit. Internet communication is now an inalienable right, similar to having a conversation with two friends at a party that another person might overhear. And why not listen? They might be talking about you.

"But theres great stuff out there!" you say. Its true, but if you're looking for something timeless and poured over, well, heaps of information has to be sorted through to find something relevant or quality. The relativity of it all is overwhelming, and brings up another issue. Even with filtering systems pointing readers in the direction of decent stuff, when is all this "choice" going to be become more of a problem than it's worth? And does the convenience, accessibility, and variety advantages make us happier than reading a newspaper or book? Obviously those are different mediums, though if you check back in 25 years I think we'll find them looking very much the same.

Are we losing our ability to patiently craft and nurture something beyond the immediately gratifying? I know thats the point I seem to be missing each time I've tried to maintain a blog since 2001; it does not need to be that good. I believe it was Yoda who described the dark side as "Quicker, easier, more seductive". And really, that perception is my fundamental problem with blogging that I need to get over. Its too easy. Anyone can do it so why not do it? But that doesn't mean it is evil or even disposable. Slam poetry on the other hand...

Ted Leo/Pharmacists @McCarren Pool 8/12/07

Having turned the big THREE OH the day before, I was in pretty desperate need of a hot will to live injection this past Sunday. The McCarren Pool Party shows have become a sort of ritual for me and about 3000 other regulars this summer, though after a late arrival and subsequent shunning at Blonde Redhead the week before, I had little hopes of painlessly getting in after 5pm. Low and behold, at 5:10 there was essentially no line and I entered to the decaying barre chords of The Thermals' last song, meaning Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were up next.

Little background here. In 2001 I could not stop raving about Ted and company. Best record/shows of the year for me. But the following five years of inferior records and flabbier incarnations of the live band left me hollow and reminiscing over one magical night at Brownies where I saw one of the best rock shows of my life. I knew James Canty (The Make Up) had rejoined the band on second guitar for this tour, so I was psyched.

First off, Ted comes out wearing a fucking Econochrist tee shirt. YES! Econochrist was an amazing hardcore band from the late 80s early 90s Gilman scene in California. I'm a sucker for Ted's not so subliminal nods to the hardcore scene of old, and in the context of such a hipster ground zero it was a pretty rad gesture. The band killed it, ripping through an excellently paced set list pulling equally from each record. Even the newer, more cruising numbers were played ferocious, hungry, and desperate; the way Ted's songs sound best. Canty's kinetic guitar was certainly the secret ingredient that had been missing of late, and their combined crunch was at times a little more AC/DC than Clash. Which is fine with me. About halfway in the drummer de-layered revealing a classic Dead Kennedy's shirt underneath. YES! I thought the integrity-meter was going to bust. At one point a bikini clad girl ran out from sidestage, hellbent on grinding a few Pharms. Ted obliged.

In the outro to that "its alright, its alright, its alright" song Ted busts into a soulful vocal from Daft Punk's "One More Time" that underscored the sunshine and beach ball vibe of the day. Ted announced that it was bassman Dave Lerner's final show with the band and suddenly the fever pitch of the set made a new kind of sense. The last song of the set was a hypnotic verse/explosive chorus anthem I did not recognize, but later learned was a Chumbawamba cover. My heart swelled as the entire entire pool chanted in unison, "I never gave up! I never gave up! I crawled in the mud but I never gave up!" The band encored with two of the best tunes from Tyranny; the seminal "Biomusicology" followed by the bombastic dropped D crusher "Stove By A Whale". Absolutely sick and inspiring.