Free Forest City Redemption Project Day 1: Little Runner

Fame is a strange thing. It’s not something tangible that sticks with a person. At its height, it can be frighteningly alluring, repulsive and inspiring all at the same time. When it wanes, you wonder why you or anyone else ever wasted their time; why that person endeavored or made the effort to put themselves or their work out into the public; or, if that person’s fame came without perceived labor, why you even bothered to care, why you wasted rainy nights or quiet mornings to follow their next thought, move or release. We all want to be relevant, but the degrees that separate relevance, fame and immortality are great and often confusing and it’s easy to forget what really matters or which aspect we truly want.


Forest City was clearly not a famous band. But to me, someone who is clearly biased, they were the best band in Brooklyn for a period of time. Their concerts were shambolic, loose and messy, but not in the legendary way that we remember Bob Dylan, the Replacements, Faces or Bruce Springsteen. They were messy because that’s just what they were. There was no great statement. The music was a take on country music, a sincere take that was meant to be lived in—and the band was lived in if it was anything. That is to say, four separate lives and ambitions carried on outside the parameters of the band and the shows they played, which made the fact that they were loose and messy make so much sense. Yet, in the days of head nodding and pretending to drink too much, Forest City concerts were the only places without computers were I saw honest dancing; where the sense of happiness, warmth and friendship that I look for in music best manifested itself in a close proximity to me (the albums I love are distant pinnacles with impossible sounding drums that play at the corners of my apartment on speakers and reverberate in my mind). People left Forest City concerts saying things about “fun” that eased my heart because, for a moment, they loved country music and that made me happy. And without knowing it, they loved what rock n’ roll was originally about: fun and loss.

In the midst of loving The Larry Sanders Show and watching the 2011 NBA All-Star Game in L.A., what I mean to say is that I’ve lived in Brooklyn for about three years. Nearly all of my friends are in bands. As someone who wants his words to be seen by the entire world, I know that all of us aren’t going to be famous. It is quite possible that the Tony Castles are the only band I know that are going to gain a modicum of fame; and even that isn’t a prediction. And I know that we’re going to feel shitty and petty toward each other to get to what we want, to get to that level of relevance for our work, of who we are, that level that may or may not resemble fame. Whatever that level of relevance may be, we should never forsake our art. And, even if we manage to do that, we will surely fall short of immortality.

And as I grow tired of Brooklyn and music and think about my search for an audience for my words, as I think about people that I’ve spent weekends with who have now died, I feel OK for moments about falling short of immortality. I feel OK because I know that I have this batch of songs. Not that they are extremely poignant or mind-blowing, but simply because they exist and I can remember a happiness from an era of my life as we move past it and into the vastness of whatever fortune will make of us or what we choose to make of it. I feel OK because in that era I could see these songs played on a Friday with friends, new characters in my life, new people who influenced me and one poor soul who I admired. In that era of song, I saw the first marriage of my young life unfold right before my eyes between two friends. And most of all, I formed a lifelong bond with someone who I thought would never be able to surprise me, which is a phenomenon that I am forever thankful for.

Of course, all of this isn’t in this set of eleven songs. However, some of it may be in you, so just take a listen.

 
Click here to listen to "Little Runner," track one of the Forest City album, Forest City.

Puddles of My Podcast - Episode 26

It's a bit of a hectic week this week, my Puddlers, but that doesn't mean I can't bring you some high quality podcasts as well as columns (hopefully).

Today I bring you another installment of Puddles of My Podcast.  In this, Episode 26 of Puddles of My Podcast, I welcome Miles Debas of Snakes Say Hiss and Paul Sicilian of the Tony Castles.  In this installment, Paul, Miles and I discuss the 2010-2011 Boston Celtics, Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals, and debate over the best storylines of the upcoming season. We also play a game of "thumbs up, thumbs down"; decide what movie you would take Kevin Durant too; and Paul and Miles each give us their all-time starting NBA starting lineup with some surprising results.  This podcast is not for those weak of heart, or not interested in the NBA.  Needless to say, I enjoyed this podcast very much and I recommend that you listen to it.

Stay with me Puddlers, I got more coming.

Can't Start A Fire Without a Mark

Hey, all my Puddlers.  Sorry for the lack of activity this week.  There were two podcasts that I was supposed to record, but they both needed to be rescheduled.  However in the coming two weeks, we will have podcasts with Erik Gundel of Motel Motel, a secret podcast, and the NBA Season Preview podcast with Miles Debas of Snakes Say Hiss and Paul Sicilian of Tony Castles, both Boston Celtics homers whose bands are both playing the CMJ festival this week.  There will also be an ongoing special project as part of the blog that you will have to stay tuned for.  I think some of you will be pretty (slightly?) excited about it.

Also, what you all should be tremendously excited about his my 2010-2011 NBA Preview column that will be going up on Monday.  I go through every team in the league, tell you why you should care about every team and then predict what their fate will be.  I'm a pretty humble guy, but this is the best piece of fucking writing that you will ever fucking read in your miserable, self-involved lives.

Now, speaking of CMJ and other assorted topics of life, Mr. Mark Jack is here to deliver his weekly column to you all. In this post, Mr. Jack ruminates on a variety of things, but most of all some poignant theories of walking around listening to music and the nature of history.  This main is articulate and concise.  You should all tell him how much you love him.

OK, my Puddlers, now I step aside and leave you with Mark Richard Jack to lead you to your weekend.

Lower Dens and Walking History

Mark Jack

So, you made notes on American History. You walked with your ears pointed at inward angles, with your ears stuffed with nascent, floral stuff, and wondered as the world passed like a movie and you thought how easy it would be to make a movie of one long, smooth tracking shot of the world - if only you had the right soundtrack...and a decent camera. You made little notes on our expectations and fears and, well look...

Maybe no one else feels this way, but I love a good walk with soundtrack. My whole approach to the personal music player is in some way enhancement and/or complement to the world as visual experience. Now, I do like listening to the various sounds of the world sometimes, but I find music to be a useful (almost) way to approach a life lived amidst so much that is not readily, personally identifiable. The anonymity of the city, as it were, becomes personalized movie when a good album is running alongside a world that, because it is muted by headphones and notes, is more vibrantly visual. Of course, certain music is required for the experience, and not just good music. There are plenty of albums that I adore and yet will not listen to while walking. Recently I found a beautiful album, or rather, my friend Kieran over at his blog, Big Head Stevenson, alerted me to it, that lends itself perfectly to a cinematic stroll.

I don’t think I am necessarily revealing a hidden gem, but the Baltimore based band Lower Dens and their album, Twin-Hand Movement is a near perfect walking album.

They’re playing a number of shows at this years CMJ, so if you are in New York today, you can still check them out. I haven’t seen them in concert yet, though I’ve heard they’re fantastic. Of course, what really interested me about this album is the way in which the beautiful melodies, small and repetitive, almost ephemeral, combine with driving but not obnoxiously insistent rhythms to move ones ear-budded mobile mood. I don’t really want to go into an in depth review of this album, and I don’t think anything would be served by such a move. This post is more a review of sountracked walking--I’ve got to develop a better term.

So if I can offer some advice: buy Twin-Hand Movement and go for a walk. Feel the world around you and create a vague narrative that creatively compliments the visual and auditory experience. Seriously, it’s either that or get those fucking earbuds out of your soil head and be in the world as it is. Not that I am in any position to speak of any thing as it is - as if it does remain constant. Look, how we inscribe ourselves in/onto to the world is never a permanent act. We write ourselves into history, over and over again. If we do not pay attention to the material around us, the streets as sentences the people as paragraphs or punctuation (depending) then we confine ourselves to boring footnotes at best. The prevalence of the iPod is not something that is necessarily damaging of the societal fabric. Trust me, pick up this album and go for an observant stroll.

Puddles of My Podcast - Episode 18

Well, my Puddlers, its going to be another heatwave weekend, so watch out for those psychopaths as they emerge out of the woodwork trying to stay cool.  And since it is going to be such a hot weekend, what better thing to do than to wade in some Puddles of Myself- er, rather Yourself.

Anyway, like I promised (I always live up to my promises) we have a podcast up this week.  In this Episode 18 of Puddles of My Podcast, I welcome basketball enthusiast as well as the bassist and singer of the Tony Castles, Paul Sicilian.  In this latest installment, Paul and I discuss LeBron's Decision, the NBA Finals,  playing the clarinet, Paul's musical history, the legacy of Dwyane Wade, the best Celtic of all-time, the genesis of the Tony Castles, their upcoming album and tour with the Tom Tom Club, and 2010 NBA Predictions.  This podcast was a few months in the making so please sit back with a cool glass of water or beer in front of a fan or air conditioner and feel cooled by the sound of two grown men talking about basketball and music.

Podcast of Myself Episode 3

I had an action-packed weekend. My childhood friend Jeff came into town for the weekend and we treated ourselves to some good dinners and brunches as well as went to the Knicks vs. Heat game last night.  I should have a write-up of that game and some other general thoughts for you later today.  I also am still working on my She and Him/Joanna Newsom post, which I should have up here for tomorrow.

However, now I am giving you the third episode of the hit series known as Podcast of Myself.  In this episode, I welcome Willie Miesmer who is the guitarist for the band Tony Castles as well as a member of the band Boogie Boarder. In this episode, we touch on such topics as Willie's experience playing in the Tony Castles and in Boogie Boarder, the South by Southwest Music Festival, Larry Johnson's Four Point Play, the movie the Runaways and Kristen Stewart, Joanna Newsom, and the book The Blue Star by Tony Earley.  Parental discretion is advised.





Keep track of this space as I will be bringing you more of this always great and always new content.

M.I.A. (Not her, but I think she is sexy?)

Now, I know I have been missing in action for some time; I apologize for this. The last month has been very busy. I got my first vacation time from my job in the year I have been working there so I headed down to Virginia and other parts for a week or so, which kept me from updating anything. But also, I have been working on big music event that will be going on June 12, 2009 in DUMBO. The event is called the Brooklyn Invitational. My friend and I have booked six bands to play. Two or three of which I have mentioned on this very blog (Tony Castles, Motel Motel and Boogie Boarder). You can find all of the information about the event and these bands at the official Brooklyn Invitational blogsite -

THE BROOKLYN INVITATIONAL

Now as far as blog matters are concerned on this blog from blog to blog to blog to blog to blog to.
I have a few posts stocked up for you all (who all?). Namely, a review of the new Wilco album and how it will make you understand the band in toto (#1 NY Times Crossword answer). Also a review of the NBA Finals and my take on the Cleveland Cavalier (read LeBron James) collapse that is occuring. Then, ramblings on Faulker followed by a return to music with a review of the now released Grizzly Bear album Veckatimest.

So stay tuned. I will not treat you wrong, though I may become neglectful and busy, I will never abuse.

Now, the next installment of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt"



James

“Everything look in order for tomorrow?” Eve asks me.

“Yeah, I think so. She did a good job getting everything set up beforehand.”

“She was a very organized woman wasn’t she?

We’re sitting on the floor in my room, on the black carpet. The lamp in the corner is on. I can hear Tom and dad laughing downstairs. Sounds travel in this house; they always have. The rain on my window: pit, pit, pit, slowly. Are Liza and Maggie packing up their rooms too? This house needs to be empty by Wednesday.

“Yes, she liked everything to be in place.”

“Did she like me, James?”

I look at Eve in my dark room. Even with the top light of the lamp illuminating the blue walls and the white ceiling, it’s dark. Yes, of course mom liked her. She would’ve loved to be a grandmother to Eve’s child.

“Marry that girl, James. You’ll both make such handsome children.”

She always said things like that in an old-fashioned way. Handsome children. I think she might’ve been jealous of Eve in a way for taking me away. But maybe I’m being to full of myself thinking that way. I should say something instead of just packing these books.

“Of course she did.”

“Are you sure?”

“You knew that didn’t you.”

“It was tough to tell.”

This confuses me because I thought that mom was always warm and welcoming of her into the family. She never said a bad thing about Eve to me not once. But as honest and eloquent as mom could be, you always got a sense that there was a certain silence she kept. She could’ve had reservations about it, I’m sure that a lot of women do when their children get married, sons or daughters. But with the way that dad welcomed her into the family I figured mom must’ve felt the same. Maybe he knows something about it.

“She could be quiet at times, but I’m positive she loved you as much as my dad does.”

She nods at me and places a few more books in the box. The one on top is an old child’s book of mine with quick retellings of the Greek myths. The cover is brown and the print is old looking. It’s been old since I was young. There is a picture of what is supposed to be an ancient Greek looking depiction of Zeus’ face. Eve’s pushes the books down in the box and the cardboard rubs: eek, sccrrp. She’s quiet and her thin eyebrows are drawn down. I know she’s working something out. I know something is coming. Is it what I think it is? I should’ve been honest from the start. She exhales, closes her mouth, her lips part again.

“I sort of wish we could’ve had a baby before she died.”

I feel somewhat relieved and at the same time, I feel even guiltier. I’ll tell her after the funeral. I’m too wound up and concerned about what will happen tomorrow. What kind of behavior dad will be on. What kind of behavior we’ll all be on. Uncle Connor will no doubt be there and they haven’t spoken I don’t think in twenty years at least.

“We couldn’t have known how things turned.”

“I know,” she says. “It would’ve been nice. I know she wanted to be a grandmother.”

“Yeah, I think Maggie knew that enough.”

Eve laughs and then sighs again. She has so many different sighs. I can’t decide which one I like the best, but part of me says it’s the sexual sigh. And I know that’s right even if I don’t want to admit it.

“I feel bad for your sister,” she says.

“Why is that?”

“It seems like your mom put a lot of pressure on her as far as that’s concerned.”

It’s true. There was a lot of pressure put on Maggie, but more pressure put on me. She was the oldest, but she made it clear a long time ago where her priorities were. They belonged in Morocco or New Zealand or Iceland or the far side of Siberia. Whatever was on the other side of the lens.

“No more pressure than the rest of us.”

“I don’t know. I just think being the oldest and a girl maybe your mom expected more out of her. Expected her to be more of a traditional woman maybe?”

It’s amazing how intuitive she can be sometimes. I don’t know if what she just said is true. But it’s not because it isn’t. I never paid attention to that part of the relationship between mom and Maggie. I figured mom accepted who Maggie was after so long and especially after she broke up with Jake. We’d all figured he would be the one to settle her down a little. I liked him a hell of a lot. What is he doing now anyway?

“That could be. I never really thought about it.”

“I don’t know. I just kind of got that feeling. Your mom was intimidating in a way.”

“I never heard anyone say that. You think that?”

“Yeah. I do.”

I’m quiet thinking about it. Thinking about my mom cooking a pork roast on a Wednesday night when I’d come home sweaty and wet from some late March practice. The afternoons still cold and dark. There would be grass stuck to the elastic bands at the bottom of my green sweatpants. I’d put the stick down by the back door and my cleats outside and mom was by the oven. Everything smelled warm and roasting potatoes. I’ll never forget that sensation. That’s one of the things you can’t get back. Is it wrong to associate mom with cooking meat?

“I’m sorry if she was.”

Eve laughs. “It’s nothing to be sorry about…I just…”

She holds off.

“What?” I say.
“I don’t just wish we would’ve had a baby for your mother. I wish we weren’t having such trouble. I mean I really thought the last time…”

I put my arm around her back and pull her close to me. She’s starting to cry. She’s crying into my armpit. With my right hand I rub her back, with my left hand I rub her thigh. Her jeans are soft and worn in. She looks up at me, her face red and moist.

“Don’t you wish it were easier?”

“Of course I do,” I say. “I want kids as much as you do.”

She breathes in her nose, sucking up the loosened snot and making that gurgling stuffy nose sound. She nuzzles against my arm and armpit and I love the way it feels. But what is wrong with me? If I love even the sound of her snot and her puffy crying face then why am I afraid of her child? Our child. What don’t I want to give up? I’m already married; I didn’t have cold feet about that. I don’t miss any bachelor life. I’ve never been afraid to make the next step in my life, but something is holding me back right now. What would mom say?

“You hid my child from me? How could you do that? What is wrong with you?” Eve says.

I’m in court and handcuffed. There is a judge looming in front of me. He wears a wig like an old British aristocrat.

“We find the defendant guilty of cowardice. One of the high treasons of American society.”

He slams the gavel and the guards carry me away by the armpits.

Eve nuzzles me some more and puts her arms around me. She squeezes me tight. I wrap her up too and pull her close. I take in the shampoo of her hair. It still brings me back to our first date when she only kissed me and then gave me a hug. That long hug when all I could smell was her shampoo. That soapy smell like flowers. I knew it was artificial but so artificial that it was realer than real. More natural than natural. Each time I smell it that first love and nausea comes back to me. Even here and now on my floor where I used to pass out drunk or lay with caked sweat from practice when I didn’t even have a clue about her or that she would be pregnant and I’d be hiding from my wife.

I’ll tell her after the funeral.

Two Things on Tuesday

There are two things I want to address tonight:

1.

I've been on a new fiction kick lately. After months of rereading Anna Karenina and then delving into a Tolstoy biography, the past two weeks I have been catching up on some back logged Christmas gifts of new fiction (because really Christmas is the best time to ask for what is, for most consumers, an unknown commodity). The first week of March I wafted through Jim Harrison's "The English Major." I do not mean to use waft as a pejorative term, the book is very light and reads easily. However, it is a very good road story told from a perspective that has not been seen, by me at least, in a road novel. That perspective being an elderly man. What this narrator is looking for is not much different than any other protagonist in a road story, a new beginning, a better understanding of one's country and why one feels an attachment to it, and how all of the emotional entanglements, romances, and nostalgias of that individuals life are tied to their country - or their understanding of what they think America is. Good book.

The past week and a half I have been working on Joesph O'Neill's "Netherland." I am about three quarters through but have been compelled to comment on it from the first few pages. This is truly a fantastically written book. You will receive overwhelming waves of the Fitzgerald senisbility and mood when reading the novel - his sentences flow, digress and then resolve just as beautifully as Fitzgerald's do. There is also that almost unexplainably true sensation a reader gets when reading Fitzgerald as with O'Neill that a story is meant to be told in the wake of some significant moment that will only be revealed at the very end of the story. Now, this may seem elementary, but in the Great Gatsby, Nick has a terrific way of reeling the reader in and then letting the line slack as to why his tone and relation to the events that have occured to him are so profound and so heavily reliant on a retrospection that is intoxicating. So far, in O'Neill's story of a displaced Dutchman/Englishman in New York, the utilization of retrospection draws the reader in and places him in those shoes. O'Neill's protagonist may be estranged from his wife and child for reasons that he understands and at the same time struggles to see the truth in, but his tone and approach to the matter, with a vague sadness that points to the profound appeals and seems familiar to any reader. We all picture ourselves walking with our hands in slightly stale khaki pants, walking city streets in a mild cold in bewilderment. How did this all happen to us? And what are we going to do next?

2.

The Tony Castles. Now all three of these guys, Gabi Wurzel, Paul Sicilian, and Willie Miesmer are good friends of mine. Gabi plays in the Muggabears, Paul a former member of Bernie Tonka, and Willie a member of Boogie Boarder, but all three have come together to make a band that is really going to do something. I am biased of course. However, if you go to their Myspace page, linked above, and listen to "Black Girls in Dresses," you will agree it is the hit single that no one is listening to yet. Forget about noise pop with little girls singing in asian, this is the music for the young and the masses. You make sure to look out (you who do stumble on this) for any next show they have listed. Ask me and I can ask Gabi.

Now, for the next installment of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt:



James

The rain is falling outside and I don’t feel like doing anything. Dad’s leather study chair isn’t comfortable but it reclines back with my weight so I can trick my posture into being comfortable. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat and admired the rain. I was never melancholy enough to do it so often. I always got the sense that Tom was that way although he never really told me so or shared so much. I’d catch him reading poems and gazing out the window when I’d come home from school or on the holidays. I think he had an artistic bent to him. Turning and turning in the widening gyre. He had to recite that for English class. Mr. Marsh. I had to do that also. I forget what I picked. I think it was one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. There were so many of those to go around. I couldn’t really enjoy it. You don’t enjoy poetry or get caught up in a school assignment if you are on the lacrosse team. That would make you look like a fag. I always hated that word.

Drops are falling on bushes, the leaves are still full on trees and they move slightly in the wind. Things are green and wet and the light is still a summer light even though it is grey, it’s not dark and depressing like the rain or grey of November or December. How considerate of mom to die in a month when the weather is still nice and we don’t have to shovel snow to get to a grave. That’s what I’m looking at. The paperwork for the funeral. She and dad had enough morbid sense to make their payments already and plan everything out in advance. Who thinks of that? I guess we all have to think of that. We all have to set up our gardens to plant ourselves in, make our advance payments for it too so that everything is neat and clean trimmed mounds of dirt next to the green of the grass and maybe a flower or two. I spoke to Aunt Diane before.

“I ordered a flower arrangement.”

“Thank you but my mom had already picked out her arrangements.”

“A sister can add her own too. That’s the way it is at funerals.”

“I guess I never noticed before.”

“Best that you didn’t. What does a young man need to notice flowers at a funeral for?”

“I don’t know.”

“You had a good mother.”

“I know.”

“We could all use extra flowers.”

Everyone sounds so sad and seems so sad. We weren’t all this messed up all the time were we? I don’t think so. I had a happy childhood. I’d like to think that people were envious of our family. I was a good brother. Maybe I was too anxious to grow up. To handle paperwork and be a man, be relied upon by a wife like Eve. I could’ve been a better brother to Tom. I tried to teach him things, to stay away from losers, the guys I hung out with on the team. I wanted him to escape too. But what is he doing now? Why does he still live on the Island? Why does he come home? Why is he at mass now? I could’ve been a better brother.

The chair rocks back and forth and I hear it squeak underneath my weight. I grip the wood of the table with my right hand and shift the paperwork around with my left. Bryant and Sons Funeral Home. Old Town Road. The name is written in script with a slight flourish of graphic underneath it. Piles of paperwork make up this world; it’s the world that I work in. Numbers, files, papers. I don’t want Tom or Liza to be in a world like that, but I don’t know if you can escape it.

“You’ll be a good husband, James.”

“Do you think so, mom?”

“It doesn’t really matter if I think it.”

“Of course it does.”

“You had your father to look at.”

“But he had his problems didn’t he?”

“And so did I.”
“You did?”

“We’re all faulted.”

“That’s only the Bible talking.”

“Well, if you think that then we all have compromises to make. We face ourselves and sometimes we have to give things up. Luckily, your father was able to do that. He gives me too much credit. I might’ve been too much of a bitch when I was younger, but he seemed to understand something in it.”

“That all seems too nice. How can it all make sense like that?”

“I don’t know if it all does make sense like that.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll be a good husband, James.”

“Mom.”

Her red cheeks. The reddishness of her hair like Maggie. The youth that remained in her face, especially in the corners by her eyes so that they still looked twenty-four. Why couldn’t dad catch the illness?

The desk lamp makes the room look gold. My life and childhood have been something out of a movie. I spin the chair and as it slows, I face the window and the rain again. Life isn’t so sad. Life is made up of rainy days and I should learn to enjoy rainy days more. I should let water drip off the end of leaves and fall to the grass to enter into the rest of the earth. I can remember taking naps in October on cloudy days in college and listening to music. I’m still young. When did I become the leader? When did I become responsible?

Come in here, James. There’s a little boy who wants to meet you.

I’m a father?