Thirty

Quickly, before it's too hot to think:

My friend Beau, the distinguished lead guitar player of Bel Argosy and frontman of Robot Princess, has been working hard on the script for a movie (with Doug of MiniBoone), and last weekend we helped him film it. The movie is called "Vanderpuss Redux," and it's a comedy of errors, a dinner party farce set in the home of a failed lawyer. Beau cast me as the (creepy) Judge Archibald Brisbane and Nina as a mute woman named Lilly, a plaintiff in a lawsuit against a light bulb manufacturer played by Patrice. I don't want to give away any more of the plot. At the time he cast me, I'd gone a few weeks without a shave. "Does this creepy judge have... a beard?" I asked Beau. "Hey, sure," he said. "Whatever." That was all the encouragement I needed to let my facial hair run wild. Now I've got a big fur coat -- thicker, even, than the Charlie Salinger beard I grew on summer vacation when I was 16 -- on my face that I've been obsessing over and tweaking with a cheap electric beard trimmer.

We just finished filming! Beau was able to get the run of his vacationing friend Ali's apartment, a well-furnished two-and-a-half-bedroom place over in Clinton Hill. It also happened to be the current home of our friend (and Beau's former roommate in the "practice hole" at St. Mary's), Ali's little brother Zain. The only downside to the location was its somewhat cramped geometry. To give the illusion of a larger apartment, Beau shot about a half dozen different angles on the single narrow hallway connecting the master bedroom to the eat-in kitchen. We all (there were about ten people in the cast) shuttled between the rooms in which shooting was happening and the rooms where the air conditioners could be run, all of us wearing our cobbled-together grown-up costumes: Suits, ties, cocktail dresses, all soaked through with sweat. The guy playing Norway Vanderpuss went shoeless, like a Hobbit. Zain and I tried to keep our ties loose. I kept my suit jacket on, though. That is just how creepy judges roll.

We ended the first day of filming at about 7 o'clock, in order to allow us to make it to South Street Seaport in time to catch Ted Leo and his Pharmacists doing a special performance of his 2001 album The Tyranny of Distance, a kind of "preview" show to hype the 4Knots music festival happening on the following Saturday. There was a small stage on Pier 17 between the Seaport mall and The Peking, which is permanently moored across from it. Beau and Doug are both rabid Ted Leo fans and Beau ranks "Tyranny" as his favorite Ted Leo album; me, I got on board with Shake The Sheets, so, while it's impossible not to stomp my foot to the riff in "Timorous Me" (quite possibly one of the best guitar lines written by anybody, ever), I think some of the deeper cuts were lost on me. But it's always thrilling to see them play. Contrary to -- or maybe consistent with -- what he said last year about slowing down as he rounds the bend to 40, the guy bopped harder than ever, sang harder, shredded like crazy. And their drummer, Chris Wilson: Oh man, what a consistent, precise, and economical drummer that guy is. And as a newly-minted beardo myself, how could he not be my new drumming hero?

Seeing a show at a place like the Seaport, where there's so much other stuff going on in parallel, is always a little funny -- on the way in, the sight of people lounging around an outdoor table at a Heartland Brewery franchise or shopping at an Ann Taylor makes you wonder if you're in the right place. 'Cuz if Ted Leo were really playing a mere two hundred feet from here, this place should be empty! And on the way out, you're like "What are you guys doing just sitting there? Do you know what you just missed?" I guess the things I like, they're not for everybody. And that's probably for the best, anyway.

The next week was busy.

I ducked out of work early and Tom and Jerry and Katie and I caught a live remote broadcast of Seven Second Delay at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater over on W. 26th St. 7SD, in case I haven't said so outright, is pretty much my favorite thing, ever. And while I'm not as crazy about their live shows as I am about their in-studio shows ("detention," as Andy Breckman calls them), which are more likely to be train wrecks (and thus light up my squirmingly-awkward comedy neurons), this was still a real treat. The basement UCB theater is pleasantly scuzzy; dark, with low ceilings and plush, old-fashioned movie-theater seats. We drank beers and listened to Andy, weirdly nervous and twitchy, talk to Jon Benjamin about provoking strangers in the bathroom. And then the guy who handles the cue cards for SNL came by and Ken and Andy had a couple of audience members interview him via cue card. The cue card guy was trying to launch a project where he'd auction off celebrity-signed cue cards for charity. After the interview, Ken asked Andy, "Are you going to donate your cue cards to charity? 'Cuz I am."

"Uh, sure," said Andy.

"No you're not. You're just copying me."

"Uh, I'll donate 'em to 'Got You Last.' You ever hear of that charity?"

"No," said Ken, laughing. "Tell me about 'Got You Last.'"

"They play practical jokes on terminally ill people," said Andy, to the biggest laughs of the evening.

I considered lingering afterwards to fawn creepily on the hosts, but I had to make it uptown for Bel Argosy rehearsal, so I said goodbye to my friends and hopped a cab. We'd barely made it to Columbus Circle when it started raining, at first a few scattered drops, the sun still shining, and then, dramatically, a full-on thunderstorm -- dark, oppressive sky; fat, splashy drops. I watched a group of girls try to create a quorum of umbrella shelter before giving up to huddle under a hotel awning. Everything smelled like water and ozone. And it was all over by the time I stepped out of the cab and let myself into Billy's building.

The next night, my sister took me out to see a midnight premiere of the final Harry Potter movie with a group of her friends at the Battery Park Regal Cinema. I was a little apprehensive about participating in what seemed like a rite of passage that wasn't mine -- and it really was a big cultural, you know, happening: The movie theater looked like an airport in a blizzard, people sprawled on the floor amidst their sundry props and accessories. Clearly struggling to keep up with the snack passion of the muggle hordes, the theater had arrayed some backup refreshment stands to dole out popcorn and sody-pop and the like. The weird part: By and large, the first-night attendees were girls. To be sure, there were dudes, but they were mostly, you know, accompanied. "This must be your generation's Lord of the Rings," I said to my sister's friend Jess. "Lord of the Rings was my generation's Lord of the Rings," she said. So I don't know what Harry Potter is. But my sister and her friends were very gracious about sharing the moment with some creepy old guy. I turned thirty years old just as the movie theater's "Shut Up And Buy Snacks" animation started playing -- the viewer's proxy camera hurtling through space on a roller coaster track, through some kind of futuristic hellscape of cinematic detritus. And then it was dark and I was alone with several hundred weeping twenty-year-old girls, watching some chubby British kids take off their shirts and give Ralph Feinnes and his snake the business for two hours.

The next morning at work, my co-workers had gone out get me some birthday accessories -- a candy-stuffed, clown-shaped piñata, which I obligingly destroyed during our morning "stand up" meeting, and a plush, ornate crown, which I wore while I did it. I think they were of two minds -- to embarrass me as well as to fête me, but I loved it 100%.

Bel Argosy'd arranged to play a show that night at Lone Wolf in Bushwick as a favor to Aron Blue, the lady who books Ken South Rock stateside and who produced their album, Ningen. She's been real nice to us, and we were happy to do it, especially since we'd get to "headline" after a good-sounding band from out of town, The Broken Bricks. "You wanna see my new apartment?" she asked me and Billy when we arrived. "It's right here. We just moved in." We walked down the block past the entrance to Goodbye Blue Monday and she let us into a building through an undistinguished front door. We followed her through a real Death Wish kind of entryway and up some stairs to her new place, which turned out to be pretty awesome -- a high-ceilinged wunderkammer of art supplies, an 8-millimeter film projector and film reels, whole rooms crammed full of instruments and recording equipment.

Nina arrived, bearing with her a wonderful surprise -- fucking peanut butter pie from Trois Pommes, plus party hats she'd tramped all the way down to Sunset Park to obtain (99 cent stores in crummy Park Slope don't stay open past 10 PM). We stashed the pie in the fridge behind the bar and stood outside wolfing pre-show deli sandwiches while being eaten ourselves by mosquitoes. The Broken Bricks sounded really tight and hooky, but they also had things turned up to 11, so we didn't feel any strong compulsion to go inside and do our duty as bill-sharers. Despite our bad behavior, they were gracious enough to let us borrow their kit once they were done, and we commenced setting up. Beau briefly lost a set of patch cables down an inconveniently-positioned hole at the front of the stage, but as usual we began frighteningly (for me) promptly. I still get wound up enough on stage that it's hard for me to recall individual moments of our set, but I do know I wore my crown the whole time, and that consequently I was soaked with sweat. We played a somewhat abbreviated set: They wanted us off the stage by 1:30, and Billy was having trouble with his, you know, instrument, anyway. Owing to the lateness of the hour, Billy and Sarah departed before we could serve them pie, graciously lugging all the equipment back up to Spanish Harlem, but lots of people stayed -- Chris, Beau, Andrei, Patrice, Andrei's friend Jake -- and we all had pie. There were a few extra slices; we distributed these to Aron, the bartenders, and finally the bouncer, who hesitated before accepting a plate and fork. The pie was delicious! It was so tasty and sugary that I worried it'd give me a tummy ache, but it turned out to be as digestible as it was tasty. I could probably have eaten another slice or two! Beau, inveterate hummingbird that he is, seemed to enjoy it, too: "Take a picture of me and Julian eating this pie!" he demanded of no one in particular.

When we finally got home, I tossed my soggy crown onto the dresser and switched on the lights to reveal... flowers, everywhere! Nina'd arranged lilies, a (comically large) sunflower, white roses, and many other varieties in artful clusters all around the apartment. It was stunning. For the second night in a row, I didn't get to bed until somewhat after 3:00 AM. But I felt good, babies. Like I'd done it. Great birthday. Greatest birthday, maybe?

And then the next day it was back to the Seaport for the 4Knots Festival proper. I was primarily interested in seeing Titus Andronicus, whom I hadn't seen live since February (if that counts) and last summer before that. My compatriots bailed and the trains were an utter disaster -- had to bail on the C, which was running on the F, at Broadway-Lafayette, thinking I could take the 6 down to the end of the line, but there were no downtown trains at that station, period. Despairing, I left the station and sprinted across town to the W. Houston stop on the IRT, and hopped the train to Fulton. I ran all the way from the station to the pier, but I was still grievously late, arriving only in time to catch the fourteen-minute epic "The Battle Of Hampton Roads." At the end of that song they launched into a spirited "Titus Andronicus Forever." Everyone in the band took a solo in this one, each introduced by Patrick as they did so. "Amy... David... Eric... Julian [their new-ish bass player]... Now watch me!" And he shredded through an Aaron Copland-flavored solo. It wouldn't be a Titus Andronicus show without some hortatory remarks from Patrick to close things out; he didn't disappoint. "Everyone pick up a bottle or a plastic cup on your way out," he suggested. "That shouldn't be too hard. And let's all try to have a safe summer."

Up next were The Black Angels, a "psychedelic rock" band from Texas. I wasn't crazy about them. Leaving aside the fact that all things "psych" leave me cold, the 'Angels looked and dressed like a bunch of Abercrombie & Fitch models. I stayed for a couple of songs and then went inside the mall and bought a pair of rust-colored All-Stars at Foot Locker. The summer's half over; time I had some summer shoes.

On Sunday my parents and my sister took me and Nina out for dinner at Jean Claude. They showered me with wonderful gifts that I probably (definitely) don't deserve: A J.M. Coetzee novel, a casserole dish, a pair of drum sticks that double as mixing spoons for cooking. And most strikingly, they gave me a book, a special book that they'd had custom printed, with glossy pages of photos of me as a young'n, the content of which was a selection of cute / weird things I'd said. Some readers will already be familiar with these quotations; those of you who are not are out of luck: These sayings of mine are mainly anatomical in nature.

Onwards!

America!

Summer continues, and with it the procession of predictably awesome shows. To wit: I went to go see Art Brut at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Thursday. I'd been looking forward to seeing them, well, ever since the last time I saw them, a couple of years ago at Brooklyn Bowl, but then I got word that my friend (well, friend-of-a-friend) Doug's band, MiniBoone, was going to be opening! A word about them: I'd seen them live once before, when we opened for them at our very first show, and thought that they were a fun, sloppy, party band. But that show had been marked by electrical outages and audio failures, and so it probably wasn't a good example of what they're like live. Because they should themselves to be crazy tight and hooky on Thursday -- no easy feat when you've got five guys on stage and they're each playing three different instruments. Their drummer in particular impressed me with his extreme precision and effortless cool.

After MiniBoone was Reptar, a kind of electro-clash dance punk band. They were actually very good, despite the fact that they had two drummers and that one of the keyboard players had a whole bunch of twisty, silly braids in his hair and performed their set wearing some kind of house dress. I liked their singer, too. He was a small guy with a high, nasal voice that put me in mind of Leonard Graves Phillips, never a bad thing.

Art Brut's roadie came out amid anticipatory chants of "Art! Brut! Top of the pops!" and tuned several guitars. And then the bass player, drummer, and guitar players came out and took their places on the stage. There's a sort of back stage area at Music Hall of Williamsburg, with a door that opens directly onto the stage. Eddie Argos lingered in the doorway for a moment by himself, framed dramatically in the blue light of the stairwell behind him, before running out to join the band. "The last time we were here, this place was still called Northsix!" he said. "Ready, Art Brut?" They kicked off their set with a song from "Brilliant! Tragic!" called "Clever, Clever Jazz," which I thought was a funny introduction for what's arguably a pretty arty, weird band. And then they played "My Little Brother," updating the age of Eddie's little brother to "only twenty-nine." He's out of control! Traditionally, that song's got a breakdown in which Argos explains that all of the records they're listening to have the same theme -- "Why don't our parents worry about us?" -- and gave that speech this time, too, except he also went on to point out that, given that his brother's getting married and settling down, their parents are more worried about him (Eddie) since he's been playing in a rock band for the past nine years and they seem to have peaked (his words) a few years back. I'll take his word for it, but their set was tight as fuck. The band still seems to be having fun, especially Jasper and Ian, who bopped around the stage and off of each other throughout. Eddie took frequent breaks during songs to address the audience, which seemed to amuse him as much as it did us. During "Modern Art," he began his customary monologue by saying, "This is the part where I'd usually end the song by diving into the crowd, but since I got a bit too heavy for that a few years ago, I'll just climb down here." With a roadie spooling out microphone cable behind him, he hopped down off the stage and waded into the center of the audience, all the while extemporizing about his first experience seeing a Van Gogh up close for the first time. "You know, when I wrote this song, I'd only been two art galleries," he observed, to good-natured laughter. When he got to the center of the room, he stopped. "Alright, everybody," he said. "Now sit down." And, in acknowledgement of his breezy control of his audience, we all sat or crouched down on the floor, and he went on with the story. The band continued to fill in the song's low, bouncy melody, gradually rising in volume as Eddie wrapped things up, and returning to full power as he bounded back up on stage and we all stood up.

There was the obligatory "Art! Brut! Top of the pops!" and "MiniBoone! Top of the pops!" and "Reptar! Top of the pops!" And, as usual, somewhat confusingly, there was also "We Are Scientists! Top of the pops!" They closed with a very satisfying performance of "Alcoholics Unanimous." "We are Art Brut! Thank you! We love you! Be excellent to each other!"

That Saturday we saw our first Celebrate Brooklyn show of the summer -- The Heavy at the Prospect Park bandshell. I accepted Katharine's invitation before giving them a listen, and when I did I was kind of apprehensive. Oh man, I thought, these are the guys that did that car commercial song. But they turned out to be great! I got to the park as their openers, The London Souls, were finishing their set. They weren't that great: A bunch of hipsters wearing fancy collared shirts and playing Blues Hammer-style rock. Towards the end of their set they covered "Folsom Prison Blues," which just seemed unnecessarily risky: That song gets its intensity from its lyrical tone and from its simple dynamics; it's not a good fit for splashy rock-and-roll drumming and distorted guitar. And it's such an iconic song, that you better bring your 'A' game if you cover it -- which they didn't.

Celebrate Brooklyn's gotten a lot fancier since the last time I went there. They've got crazy prominent branding on everything, and they're really pushing their tiered pricing model -- the low end of that being free, of course, but with a premium end that apparently includes special seating areas with table service from the fancy food vendors who've set up outposts in the park: The Farm on Adderley had set up a full-service thatched-wood kitchen to the left of the bandshell. And there were beer tents on either side serving Hoegaarden along with Bud Lite Lime. And yet it wasn't awful. I remember it being an ordeal to see a show there a few years ago: squatting in the dog shit-smelling earth on the hill sloping up to the road, getting chomped by bugs, straining to see the stage. But this time around, it just felt cleaner, clearer, bigger. I munched on a clutch of fried asparagus while I waited for my friends to arrive.

Kelvin Swaby took the stage flanked by a black-suited horn section on his right and a trio of backup singers wearing cocktail dresses on his left. The band's got a hip, classy, neo-soul aesthetic, and he's got an amazing voice, alternately raspy and smooth, with an attitude to match: Between racing up and down the stage and bearing down on the mic, Swaby mock-chided the audience for making him sweat. "Y'all going to make me get naked!" he said. Sure enough, as the stage got hotter, he stripped down from a suit jacket and tie to his undershirt, but his voice held up. And to their credit they held off on playing their car commercial song until the encore.

Afterwards we killed two waterbugs and then got drinks at The Gate. I ordered a pizza, the Ippolito special: Pepperoni, mushrooms, black olives. It is delicious.

The inexorable march of days: July 4th. I set my alarm for 10 AM in preparation for heading down to Coney Island for the Hot Dog Barfing Contest, failing to take into account the repercussions of my meal the previous night. We'd been having a night out with Winnie and Evan, and sat down for fried things at The Commodore, where I did battle with a scaldingly spicy sandwich which left me sweating embarrassingly about the face parts but ultimately victorious. Tasting it, Evan wagged his finger at me: "That's going to be trouble later on," he said. It wasn't, that night -- we continued on to the Bushwick Country Club, where I ran into Joe, a friend of mine from a previous job, and where I took advantage of the PBR-and-Old Crow special.

But it was trouble later on. And so it was after some stinging discomfort in the bathroom that I dragged myself, groggy and dyspeptic, down to Coney Island for the contest. Knowing I'd been standing in the hot sun, cheek-to-jowl with a pushing, shoving, inconsiderate mass of humanity, I applied sunblock and iced tea to myself in generous quantities, and I brought with me the copy of David Peace's Nineteen Eighty I was reading, which gave the proceedings a bleak and corporeal cast. Conspicuously missing from the event was, obviously, Takeru Kobayashi, whose public feud with the International Federation of Competitive Eating continues (he staged a parallel feat of endurance at a bar in Manhattan); but so was Eric "Badlands" Booker and "Crazy Legs" Conti, two of the more recognizable faces from previous years. In their places were a bunch of chubby white also-rans, as well as, notably, a contingent of Chinese competitive eaters decked out in (tongue-in-cheek, perhaps) matching red jumpsuits. But two of my favorite perennial runners-up, Eater X and Patrick Bertoletti, the Chi-town hipster who looks like Tony Clifton with a mohawk, and whose technique, in a rare deviation from the ubiquitous Solomon Method, involves mashing the hot dogs into a revolting pink paste with both hands and then cramming the resulting fistfuls into his mouth. Not surprisingly, Joey Chestnut claimed victory, but Bertoletti was a reasonably close second. Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas took the prize in the new, separate, women's category. Which I guess they created because there were so many eager female competitors? Ick.

Chris had led me to believe he'd be up for a trip to Brighton Beach, but when the early part of the day turned out to be kind of overcast, he bailed. I'd bought a pair of swim trunks from Target in preparation, though, and was determined to use them, and so Nina (who'd done likewise) and I ventured forth in search of a public pool. The one at Degraw and 3rd Ave. was supposed to re-open after a routine bit of maintenance at four o'clock, but when we got there at 4:15 we found the gates closed and groups of would-be splashers crowded outside the chain-link fence watching a team of lifeguards who were huddled together at one end of the pool. One of the lifeguards came over to explain things.

"We've got a minor sanitation issue with the pool," she said. "It'll be open again at 4:30." Nina wanted to know, if nobody minded, what was the actual problem? "Take a guess," said the lifeguard. Oh no, we thought. Nina had to be sure: "Is it a poop?" she asked. "Is there a poop in the pool?" The lifeguard nodded. "They're drawing straws to see who has to fish it out. That's why I came over here," she said. "I don't even want to be in the running for that." After some soul-searching, we decided we probably weren't cool with swimming in a pooped-in pool even after the turd in question had been removed (despite the fact that we've almost certainly done so unwittingly in the past), and so we slung our towels over our shoulders and trudged southwest to Red Hook Park to have a look at the pool there. (We ran into Mike, another former co-worker, in Gowanus.) But that pool was overflowing with kids and their families, and we made excuses to each other about the oozy blisters on our feet not passing mster with the ill-tempered Parks Department attendants in order to punk out.

"Let me show you something," Nina said, back at our apartment, with both of us wedged head-to-foot into our bathroom tub, the sun long since set. "Tilt your head back. Lie back until your ears are under the water." I obeyed, the lukewarm water muffling the sound of her voice. "It feels like your whole body's floating, doesn't it?"

It did!