Sailin' On

Hey. I haven't posted in over a year, have I? Sorry about that. I am now posting on the True Spies network, specifically at http://www.truespies.org/ukiyo. I promise to be a better blogger there, trust.

Winter, discontent

Been lacking the desire to write about anything, among other desires, gradually for the past couple of weeks as everything has become more spring-like, except the actual air temperature. The breaking point was a three day run of warm, rainy weather. I took off work to make use of said weather, which was supposed to show up on Friday. Lies. The only thing that arrived were gale-force winds which ripped the side mirror off the car. The one day that was actually warm and dry was, of course, Monday... and I was 5 minutes into biking home from work when grape-sized raindrops starting firing down from the sky. Despite being soaked and bruised, I was able to paint the frame I've been working on refinishing during the winter during the 3-hour run of decent weather that evening. It's now hardening up in the basement, and the fact that I know it needs at least of couple of weeks to cure is the only thing in the world beneficial about the present icy world of hate and despair outside.

I guess the weather could be worse for me, personally, in that it's been behind many more awful occurrences. Earlier this week, dropping temperatures led to a car accident, which led to the death of the Board Chair of A.I.R., the local printing workshop that employs and is used by many friends. His death was senseless in the true meaning of the world - usually the term implies recklessness or impaired thinking on someone's behalf, somewhere, or at least volition of some sort. Here he just happened to be taking a turn at the moment the road was turning into a sheet of ice, and got out of his car at a time that placed him in harm's way at the exact time someone else skidded off the road towards him. I only met Don once or twice, but apparently he was a really awesome guy.

So, yeah, I guess I don't have much to complain about, really.

long time coming

I guess I haven't written anything here since June. How embarrassing. Apologies to my faithful readers.

Now that it's 2006, it seems like a lot of loose ends in my life are being tied together. New Year's Eve Eve is the non-official anniversary of the wife and me, who have known each other for 12 years, somehow, and we spent a nice half-asleep night discussing the many weirdnesses that brought us together and then kept us at arm's length from each other for half the time since we met. It's assuring that things that that weren't expressible in words for so long can be talked about in terms that are at least understandable to each other, even if things still couldn't be explained to an outsider in any coherent way. Part of me realizes that so much of the weight of such doings degrades quickly along with the memories and immediate feelings themselves, but a much larger part of me is glad that time brings demystification and disarms any unexploded ordinances. Previous attempts to discuss the past were an approximation at best, and now I feel even if I'm not able express it fully, at least I can talk without making any major, embarrassing misstatements. And maybe that 90% success is as much as can be hoped for. As every good Buddhist knows, words never get to the heart of anything, and maybe that's for the best.

On the other side of the same time period, I have finally made contact with a former bandmate from my punker and less likable days. I last talked to said bandmate years and years ago following a tour that left some bruises (and yet, when compared to a later tour with a replacement member, was actually quite civil and successful). Actually, more precisely, our last communication was a series of letters left in one another's mailboxes in which he accused me of a number of interpersonal atrocities prior to his moving halfway across the country, claims which may have been entirely correct for all I can remember. My attempts to Google him in the years past went nowhere. So today, after hearing he was back in town and having failed in my tentative attempts to track him down, as luck would have it I ran into him. We chatted briefly about the olden days and swapped phone numbers, and will hopefully hang out soon. So, yeah, here's to time healing old wounds, whatever they specifically were. Getting older definitely has its downsides, but I'm real into the general mellowing and understanding that comes with it.

In less personal news, I discovered karmadownload.com and, more importantly, that many of the great tunes that were previously available to me only via streams from London pirate radio stations can now be legally and cheaply downloaded. I did so with True Tiger Recordings' "Eye of the Tiger Vol. 1" which, despite the questionable Survivor reference, is an excellent mixtape of synthetic Grime wonderfulness (and a few less wonderful ventures into R&B territory, but nevermind that). Worth purchasing for the multiple versions of the WD25 riddim (a weird, creaking-rope and synth pad jig that seemingly lacks a distinct beat but is nevertheless ridden to great effect by Wiley, Aftershock, Virus Syndicate and others) and "Let it go", a breezy song which might be a little too pleasant if not for the first verse in which Doctor plays the straight man while Bear Man spits from the perspective of an actual bear. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's what I love about Grime. What other hip-hop-related music would employ that level of goofy smartness? Exactly. Download it from http://www.karmadownload.com/album/?2139864, or at least take a listen to the samples.

It will hopefully take me less than six months to post here again.

satanic reverses

Well. It seems I've been dropping off on this a bit, eh? Big annoying news is that J, my wife, has busted her hand. A while ago we acquired a Schwinn Varsity in good shape; I cleaned and tuned it and it seemed to be in good shape. A good deal of time passed, but we finally had a period of time where nothing pressing seemed on deck, so on Friday after work we loaded it into the car and went to the bike oval to let her get a little more adjusted to the racing geometry. Things were going fine, but when cruising around the track she attempted to shift the antiquated crappy deraileur, lost her balance, attempted to brake using the awful, shitty brake extension levers that should be illegal, fully lost her balance, and wrecked onto the grass. The bike oval is directly adjacent to the police / paramedics training grounds, so when I looked up there was a full team of paramedics swarming around us. She stood up and turned down their request for an ambulance, I drove home, and ice was applied to the hand that she landed on. It was swollen, but seemed to have been just bruised. When she noticed that pushing down on the back of her hand produced a visible click, though, we thought it would be prudent to stop in at the emergency room. Four of five hours in the emergency room and an x-ray later, and it turned out that indeed, there was a broken bone. She's got it in a soft cast for now, and with a sling and a prescription for Vicoden, she now has to last out the rest of the weekend until specialists are available on Monday. It makes you thankful for some things (that we have health insurance, that we actually got treatment of a sort rather than just assuming it was a bruise, that she was wearing a helmet and went down on grass instead of the pavement), but there's still a lot of cursing the rotten luck. Why didn't we do this on a Thursday, when if nothing else it would have been easier to get her in a cast? Why didn't I have the forethought to take those stupid levers off the bike? Oh well. The cast should be on for no longer than 3 weeks, which sucks horribly, but, better that than any of the more serious or permanent alternatives.

Otherwise, things are pretty good, but as things almost always are, mixed. I got my sister's old Powerbook with a nice copy of Reason, with which to try to be a little less lazy about making some electronic music with my partner in crime, Bill (good!). When I ordered an expensive RAM chip (bad) to make it a little snappier, Reason suddenly started asking for a CD which I did not have and didn't think to copy when opportunity was there (bad!). I got a whole lot of books from a recent trip to New York but haven't had the time to read anything. The weather has been terrific, and the list of things I have to get done during the nice weather is stupendously long. Long ago, when I was a less well-adjusted fellow, any of those things would be enough to put me in a foul mood. Now, while I can't help being annoyed by the bad stuff, I am acutely aware of just how lucky I am that I have all the good stuff to weigh it out.

Biking, Elections, JME Mic Controller.

So. A couple of weeks have past since I've had the opportunity to update this, in which not much has happened. Actually, since it's been a while, I'll revise that - a number of things have happened. After much struggle, I succeeded in building up a Surly Crosscheck at the wonderful Free Ride, a community DIY bike center that I need to start actually volunteering at. Said bike was built using a number of parts from my Bianchi, which while a fine bike, was just too big for me; so I now have a single speed cyclocross bike. I've been gradually accustoming myself to life without gears , which isn't actually as tough as you might think. This evening I managed to make it up the evil Negley Ave hill to Squirrel Hill without dropping dead, so I think I'm officially coming along. The one time I've ridden my geared bike since then, it was like riding a flying carpet, so I expect to be able to kick holes in brick walls by the end of the summer.

The election (e.g. the mayoral primary) wrapped up decently. The machine fellow won by a huge margin, of course, but our guy did pretty well for himself. He actually won at the poll where I was volunteering, and we got lots of thumbs up and shows of support by people who you'd never think would be supporting the progressive candidate. And, more importantly, he got his council seat by a huge margin, despite not being the endorsed Dem candidate. So that bodes well for the city; not everyone is an idiot.

Um, what else? It's really hot out. I've been really digging JME ever since his set as the main MC on a January Logan Sama Rinse FM. Not sure exactly what it is... He definitely seems to rehash lyrics more than most. Still, in Grime's tough and hyper-masculine world where despite it being the UK everyone claims to have guns and the number of murders mentioned by most crews exceeds the national crime rates, it's excellent to hear someone calling bullshit on the thug stuff. And, more importantly, not being relegated to "non-authentic" status along with Lady Sov and such. For christsakes, who would have a theme built around advocacy for wearing a seatbelt when in a motor vehicle, or mention that he doesn't do drugs? Manga is another MC that has grabbed my ear of late... despite being a fairly prominent Roll Deep member, he's got big nerd glasses and a weird spazzy flow.

That stuff just wouldn't work in the US. Maybe if they were white, and as such didn't really have the option of keeping it real... I've been talking to a recently returned friend about collaborating on some kind of electronic project, and he promises me that there is good backpacker hiphop. It's pretty hard to believe. The couple of times I've seen such things done in a non-ironic manner by fair-skinned caucasians of European decent, it's been real, real, REAL hard to take it seriously. Is this reverse racism on my part? Or a reasonable response from someone who knows that white bluesmen are not good, and as skeptical of equivalent arts being overrun by those whose heritage just doesn't mesh with the music? Regardless. somehow things on the other side of the pond seems to have eluded such icky prejudices, at least for now. As Bruza says, "I spit British / born and raised in Haversham (?) / therefore it's British".

Misty Cold ...

Somehow the curse of Pittsburgh has struck again - despite it being late April, somehow this weekend has been in the 40s with occasional snow flurries. Not cool. I attempted to take a long bike ride on Saturday, and got about 8 miles into before thunderstorms struck and sent my soaked ass scurrying home. Since then, I've been feeling like it's winter all over again. Instead of going out and doing things, I've been staying home and obsessing over things. After my slippery ride home, I've had the realization that the bike I was riding is a little too big, leading to some potential painful injuries in the groinial regions and some crappy handling compared to my properly sized bike. Now, what to do about it? Offer to swap frames with some gangly fellow? Get a new frame and sell the old one? Both are fine things to scheme about while taking a break at work, and during a recent Google spree I found a bike fabrication place near my mother-in-law's place. What makes this weird is that they live in middle of nowhere, literally. Like, in Appalachia. The nearest non-fast food restaurant is a decent drive away. Yet, somehow in the deep, chocolatey forest, some people are welding high-end custom frames. Very confusing.

Another point of obsession - Bill, of late of the New Alcindors and more recently of Minneapolis, MN, is returning to our fair town and is interested in putting together a new band with me. We've discussed many non-rock influences - afropop, baile funk, grime - and we seem to be on the same page. Still trying to figure out how we can attempt to incorporate these sounds without sounding like those hippy bands that with utter seriousness lapse into a patois accent or pull out a digeridoo or tablas. The dangers inherent in a bunch of caucasians attempting to play anything that could be lumped into the "world music" label are huge, and the standard hipster device for defusing such contextual land-mines (irony) will be more than useless here. Big challenges, but, hey, much more interesting than being in punk band #129, and the notion of playing a type of music that I would actually be into (and isn't being done to death) is pretty tempting. We will see what the future holds.

In other news, the Ruff Sqwad "Guns and Roses" mixtape is pretty excellent. Silverdollarcircle or Gutterbreakz or someone posted a track a couple months ago that were really smooth, teetering way close to the American hip-hop landfill. Pitchfork posted a good review of it, so naturally I had low hopes. However, all the other tracks I've heard have followed in the classic RS formula - nimble voicing on top of grim, grey music that wouldn't be out of place on a later Joy Division album. Totally bleak and awesome, and if I could find a way to obtain my very own copy for less that $30 I would be all over it.

Post-punk, pre-something else

Continuing on the theme thus far hacked out on this here blog of how one reconciles their punk past with their semi-adult present, I submit to you the case of one Sam McPheeters. Here is my appreciation for this wonderful, confusing man.

Mr. McPheeters, back when I was getting into punk of the non-ancient and disbanded variety, was a major inspiration to me. Method of inspiration one: Born Against, a noisy and bad-tempered NYC hardcore band that managed to be political without being suffocating, humorless or dogmatic. Method two: writing, most abundantly in Maximum Rock'N'Roll, the long running, horribly-named punk magazine, and also in his own Dear Jesus, probably the best fanzine of that era and possibly ever. Among a cohort who at the time was obsessed with being pithy and nerdily intelligent, Sam managed to sidestep the term paper feel that many of the other similarly inclined zines at the time had and just write like a normal person, only more so, turning phrases wonderfully without pretension or preciousness, making wit look effortless. The end result was a pile of magazines which, even now, in my jaded dottage, stand on their own - even if the idea of a two page spread debating the ethics of outing celebrities seems goofy.

McPheeters had a record label that released his band's records and a number of others of the same ilk, financed by a family inheritance of some kind. As with many idealists, reverses seemed inevitable; the whole empire seemed to peak around 1992 or so, until a public feud with one of the other bands on the label over distribution or something equally boring led to bad blood and a move to Virginia. With a noticeable reduction of its previous steely focus, Born Against released a number more records and quietly imploded. The loss of the band resulted in a 'tour eulogy' in Dear Jesus, an amazing day-by-day journal of discontent and sorrow which was condensed and retooled for a reissue of their discography. An excerpt provides fitting context:
At a certain point,time invested outweighed artistic potential. Our last practice was held in
Tonie Joy's basement (a joyful little museum cavern of lost junk, one of
three underutilized treasures of the final incarnation of the band, along
with drummer Brooks Headley and Tonie himself). Afterwards I walked down the
quiet rural Annapolis street until I was completely alone, leaned on an
aluminum guardrail and blubbered like a schoolgirl. I was crying not only
out of band grief but because one of my last tenuous links to a normal life
had just been severed. I was heading into a few terrible years of
rootlessness; no job, no money, no girlfriend, no ambitions. The thin line
separating me from the sad souls I saw in our audiences had been this band.

After the band died, Sam had two other bands: the occasionally excellent and often inconsistent weirdo electronic Men's Recovery Project, and the surprisingly punk Wrangler Brutes. Both bands had a clear absurd lyrical content, miles away from the political screed of Born Against, but throughout it all the writing continued in Error (Dear Jesus's successor of sorts) and several one-off mini-zines, all painting the portrait of a smart fellow mildly disgusted with the punk scene he played a substantial part in shaping, yet not seemingly willing or able to break into other more fruitful areas of expression. So many of the pieces from that period are kind of cringe inducing, like watching someone willfully injure themselves, or limit their diet exclusively to foods that they're allergic to.

Of late, it seems that he's been doing writing for an LA-area newsweekly, which is definitely a step in the right direction, but still far, far away from the novels that he should have published by now, if there was anything vaguely like a meritocracy at work on this planet. His most amazing work seems to be written while looking over the smoldering wreckage of something he used to believe in, which is a rather draining muse, so maybe that's the cause. Still, when you see how much navel-gazing garbage gets ghost-written every year, it seems a shame that even a thinly disguised autobiography has not made it into reality.

Back to me. In my stack of dusty and tattered fanzines, there is the final Dear Jesus with the words "I'm thinking in picture words and bubblegum" written on it in ballpoint pen. This was written by my friend Erika, in her sleep, at a summer pre-college program in Philadelphia; I had thrust it upon her to try to get her to be as psyched about the writing as I was. Also at this program was Hailey, who later introduced me to a girl who many years later became my wife. Born Against appeared on several mixtapes I made for her, and eventually she bought the original records, and later still I wooed her with my writings which were highly influenced by Sam's style. Who can really say how fate works?