Best Of 2015

Hello! Best book I read: The Handmaid's Tale, finally
Best movie I saw in a theater: Mad Max: Furiosa! But It Follows was very, very good, too.
Best movie I saw not in a theater: Take Shelter
Best album: To Pimp a Butterfly. But The Most Lamentable Tragedy was very good, too.
Best show I went to: It's hard to remember shows when I'm not describing them in obsessive detail! Speedy Ortiz at Saint Vitus Bar (August 31st) was pretty good.
Best show I performed at: Pepperoni at holy shit Shea Stadium.
Best veggie burger: Shack Veggie Burger, Pickle Shack.
Best podcast I was on: Chab City.
Best podcast I wasn't on: The Black Tapes.
Best worst movie: Joysticks. But Evilspeak and Bulletproof (aka Butthorn) were also straight-up garbage.
Best reason to listen to WFMU: Dr. Gameshow, on which Jo Firestone - sounding like she's always on the verge of a panic attack - attempts to corral a crew of guest stoners as they play through listener-submitted gameshow ideas.

I took the year off from writing about myself. I reckon my hiatus began as I was poised to give the blog an update to its look and feel, and wondered what its next incarnation should be. Should I pack it up and move it to Tumblr? Roll my own thing? What were the kids doing. A survey of self-documentarians proved thoroughly demoralizing, though: Such idle, solipsistic chit-chat from such desperate, desperately boring people. I didn't feel like I had more of anything interesting to say.

It was also around this time that Beau invited me and Nina to "FloChan," a sort of chat room as implemented over Facebook comment threads, and populated with a crowd of sweet, earnest weirdos drawn from the "Anti-folk" music scene that accumulates around the Sidewalk Cafe on 6th and A, and its weekly open mic nights. I got quite addicted to FloChan in its digital form, bringing my phone to bed to chat with my new friends, and in its corporeal manifestation in the backroom and basement of Sidewalk.

And it was through FloChan (and Beau) that I met Ray Brown, for whom I've been playing drums periodically. Our act, which also includes Charles Mansfield, is called Pepperoni, after the name that our friend Joanna gave Kitty on a pet-renaming spree. The songs are drawn from Ray's catalog of solo material, re-arranged as brisk 80's hardcore. (Because that's what I can play.) It works pretty well! Ray is good friends with John Hall, the lead singer of King Missile (whose "Detachable Penis" played in heavy rotation on Z100 in 1993 coincided with my awakening to popular music) who are performing together again after some years. Ray and John conspird to get Pepperoni onto a King Missile bill at Shea Stadium a week before Christmas this year. Which is how I found myself stashing gear in the green room and sitting behind the drum kit in the House of Reisch & Levine, things I never thought I'd ever get to do in this lifetime. Sure, I was in a state of crawling panic right up until the final half-note, but other than that it was bliss. Nina wrote her name on the wall in the back. Eric Harm mixed us and filled the booth with smoke.

What else?

I mean, the year was filled with pleasure and distress as usual; weddings, trips, projects, incremental achievements. More nice things and friendly people than I deserve. I went to Poland on business; Seattle and Pennsylvania for little vacations.

Kitty is, improbably, still alive.

Happy new year!