Best Of Best Year

Gentlefolk, here is my list.

Best book I read: Elizabeth Costello; runner-up: Nineteen Seventy-Four
Best album: Tie: David Comes To Life / Undun
Best song: The Last Living Rose (Let England Shake); runner-up: We're Back! (Turtleneck & Chain)
Best show I went to: Shilpa Ray, opening for Man Man at Music Hall of Williamsburg, May 31st
Best show I played: Bel Argosy at Lone Wolf, July 15th
Best movie I saw in the theater: Bridesmaids
Best movie I saw not in the theater: Heavenly Creatures
Best worst movie: Double feature: Twin Sitters / Double Trouble
Best pickles: Claussen Kosher Dill (sandwich slices)
Best Not-Just-Rugelach scone replacement: Raspberry-walnut coffee cake, Blue Sky
Best brunch: Huarache, Juventino
Best veggie burger: Italian Herb Chik Patties, MorningStar Farms
Best snack: Store-brand peanut butter and Stoned Wheat Thins
Best houseplant: Spider Plant


Bel Argosy played our final show of the year on Saturday the 17th at Legion (again) with Majuscules and a couple of bands we'd never played with before: Cool Shirt, a duo who are impossible to google but who are apparently both members of other famous bands (Rapid Cities?); and The Long Eye, also a two-piece. Cool Shirt turfed out early in their set with irreconcilable technical difficulties: I guess they'd asked for the lights on the stage to be lowered to a cave-like darkness, but found that they couldn't see their instruments in the gloom, and Dennis (who told us upon arrival, "I'm a ghetto Dorian Gray!") was unable or unwilling to get them back bright enough in time. So we took the stage a bit ahead of schedule. While Cool Shirt were playing, I'd leaned over to Beau, and by way of making idle conversation, said, "You should go crazy on stage tonight." He'd taken it to heart, though, and when we started playing, he really did go crazy: thrashing around, jumping off stage debris, doing that thing where you limbo yourself way down while taking a solo and just kind of fall over. He even managed to cut his fingers open on his strings, lashing blood across his face and guitar, Townsend-style. We were playing to what looked like a full house, there were no equipment issues or fuck-ups. It was a great way to end the year. Majuscules played after us, and after them The Long Eye played what seemed like a super-long set that was crazily well-attended -- and their audience included, we think, a very beardy Cillian Murphy. We'll just go ahead and count him as one of ours.

It's kind of amazing to think back on how many shows we played in 2011: Twenty-two! It would have been more than that, even, were it not for some illnesses, double bookings, etc. And there were lots of other milestones this year -- press, t-shirts, promoters -- that really blow my mind. I went into our first few gigs mortified but determined (sort of like what Janet Weiss describes feeling when she started out at, uh, sixteen) and tried to trust that I'd either learn to play better or the whole thing would crash and burn, whichever way it went I wouldn't have to be self-conscious forever. And it worked! Sort of. I mean, I'm always the least proficient person on a bill, but I've learned to stop worrying and love it like a great job.

Ted Leo and his Pharmacists played The Bell House on Friday. I'd snapped up tickets when they went on sale for fifteen bucks dollars in November or whenever, knowing that I would of course want to go. By the time New Years Eve-eve rolled around, they were a scarce commodity, and people were scalpin' 'em for, like, sixty-five bucks. Emma and Jay managed to get a free pair out of the blue, when one of Emma's Twitter fans had two he couldn't use, and so we all went together. We stood around listening to the music over the PA and waiting for Kurt Braunohler to take the stage.

At some point I realized I was hearing "Prisoners" by The Vapors, and I got curious and looked over at the DJ booth. It was Ted Leo himself spinning records! He played a bunch more quirky, not-quite singles before introducing Kurt, who did some jokes and showed an episode of a new web series he's working on. I'd seen some of his material at Hot Tub, his excellent Monday-night show with Kristen Schaal at Littlefield, but everything was still very funny -- I loved his spurious Wikipedia "fact" that parakeets live fifteen human years or one million mind numbing parakeet years -- and I think I've managed to figure out what his appeal is. He doesn't have a particularly distinctive joke-writing voice, but there's a surprising strain of puckish rudeness that comes out on stage, and which he seems helpless to control, that contrasts well with his posh, geeky appearance.

Obits were up next, and they played a weirdly flat set. I'd heard them on Terre T's show and liked them, but their lead singer -- who, appropriate for their sound, looks like William Sanderson with a wasting illness -- introduced their set by saying, "Let's keep things mellow. We did this last night. We're doin' it again tomorrow night at Maxwell's. I spent today curled up in bed. So let's try to keep it mellow." Seriously? Textbook example of how not to get a crowd excited. And they sounded great, especially their drummer, who had an economical but muscular style of playing, but of course nobody moved.

There was a guy -- there always is -- a few feet away from us who was being that guy all night: saying too-loud, unfunny shit to the band; antagonizing other dudes; hitting on unaccompanied girls way too aggressively. Nina and Emma were actively plotting his demise, and so was I. But when Ted Leo started his set and literally nobody was dancing around, he was the only person who'd bop around with me. In fact, I'm gonna credit myself, that shitty guy, and this little short dude for getting a proper, you know, mosh pit going. (That is probably not how it happened, but.) So I was thinking, you know, maybe I'm gonna disagree with Nina. Maybe this guy's not so bad. But then he blew all his good show karma by repeatedly taking this tambourine away from some girls to show them the "right" way to play it. Yikes. Talk about doing it wrong. The band was stellar and played all the songs I was hoping for: "The High Party" was in there, as well as "Timorous Me" and "Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?" which Ted dedicated to Joe Martin and Patrick Stickles, both of whom were apparently in attendance. Kurt Braunohler interrupted the set about half way through to remind Ted that it was almost New Years Eve-eve. They counted down, Ted serenaded him, and then he made to stage dive into the audience. I was right under him and gestured "I've got you," assuming that the people next to me would have him as well. Not so -- he jumped and I crumpled, both of us winding up on the floor. (He really does have a "tod bod," as he explains in his act.) We hoisted him back up, though, and passed him to the back of the house, where Emma and Nina promptly dropped him again.

"I was fine," he told us after the show. "I've practiced falling so that I always land directly on my spine, where it's safe."

Feeling bruised and clammy, I parted ways with people and shuffled all the way to Eve's house, where I gave her and her fiancée Jon's two cats (Sam and Sasha) their second ration of the day. Along the way, I passed a place on 3rd Ave. called Canal Bar that seemed like pretty much the greatest bar ever: Fairy lights everywhere; abandoned on a Friday night. I couldn't stop then -- and felt too weak and wretched, anyway -- but vowed to return.

Dying On The Inside

The NYPD raided Zuccotti Park early yesterday morning, sweeping up tents, tables, books, signs, bins, bags, and people; clearing it out enough that you could actually see the light panels between the paving stones. (The park's owners even turned them back on.) The Occupiers had seen it coming, sort of -- they'd published a number several weeks ago that you could text to be notified of an event like this, with the idea, I guess, that you could show up and be biomass. I didn't sign up, though, and so I learned of the raid ex post facto, waking up to the news as reported to me by NPR in my cozy Park Slope apartment. I didn't feel like I needed to go to Liberty Plaza to see the aftermath; I knew there'd be video of the destruction as it happened and that it'd be much chewed-over by everyone. And I'd also apparently slept through an early-morning rally at Foley Square. So I resolved to go before work to Duarte Square, over on Canal St. and 6th Ave., which a breathless email from the "Occupied Kitchen" address had designated as the "new" Occupy Wall Street headquarters.

Lugging my customary weekly tribute of several dozen bagels from Bagel World, I found Duarte Square less than half full, with most of the people kind of milling about on the north side of the park. Some people were perched on the top bar of the chain-link fence that separated the square from the neighboring lot owned by Trinity Church; they were holding a big yellow Occupy Wall Street banner. Everyone seemed pretty bummed out. Nobody seemed to be in charge. I couldn't figure out who to give the food to, and didn't want to be take responsibility for distributing it myself. Luckily, I found one of the heroic and perpetually beleaguered OWS medics (identifiable via their olive drab-and-red cross uniforms) who was gracious enough to "own" the bagels for me. Eventually the police started to show up, massing in the dozens on the eastern side of the park. With them was Detective Rick Lee, the infamous "hipster cop," crossing the park from Canal St. and heading in the direction of the protesters. Consistent with his reputation, he was impeccably dressed (trench coat, vest, tie) and had uniformly ecru hair. Nobody seemed tense or upset, but I took that as my cue to leave, since I was already late for work. And I flinched a little walking past the uncannily realistic cop mannequin in the window of the security camera place down the block.

That night, Chris and Alec and Nina and I went to go see Titus Andronicus and Fucked Up play a show at Warsaw. It seemed like an inappropriate time to rock out, but what could we do? We already had the tickets. When I got there there was a band on stage called Liquor Store, which hails, I think, from Glen Rock, the sort-of hometown of Titus. I'll cop to being put off by them at first, because oh man were these guys ever gross: The lead singer was a sweaty goon sporting a John Waters mustache; his weird, too-light eyes -- like those of a wharf drunk who'd fallen asleep on the beach -- bugging out below a dirty knit cap. The bass player was a downright skeletal dude with a catatonic demeanor -- a real heavy metal roadie-looking guy, like if you put Derek Smalls on the rack and fed him a bunch of quaaludes. Both guys were pretty much exactly the type of guy you wouldn't want to date your daughter, which is, I think, the look they were cultivating. But they sounded punchy and rehearsed, the songs were catchy sing-alongs a la Wimpy-era Queers, and the lead singer's insistence on conducting all of the inter-song banter in a mix of grunts and gibberish cracked me up. So I'm gonna say they're pretty cool. They're pretty cool!

Titus Andronicus took the stage after they finished up. They've changed: Amy is gone, replaced by another squirrely-looking white dude; Patrick's beard is gone, although that forehead of his still gives his glower the same Neanderthal intensity. I assumed he'd have something to say about Occupy Wall Street, on account of the big cardboard tiles (paint-lettered 'O', 'W', 'S') they'd brought up on stage with them, and, well, just 'cuz it's them, and I wasn't wrong. The raid was bullshit, he said, as soon as he got on mic. And it was bullshit that the constitutional rights of the Occupiers were violated "by the people that are sworn to uphold [them]." We agreed. "Shit is fucked up, but we're going to survive," he added, lest the proceedings wax too gloomy. And then they opened with a version of "Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ" dedicated to Mike Bloomberg. And they rocked! They followed up with what is quite possibly my favorite song of theirs, "Richard II (etc.)" I danced, hard, to everything, pushing and shoving as required, reaching for Patrick's guitar when he said, "Watch me!" I thought about conspiring with Chris to put Nina up, but her venture into the pit resulted in her getting whomped in the nose by some kid's elbow, which seemed to temporarily poison the experience for her. She stalked off to drink beer. Absent from their set were some of their standards, like their theme song and "No Future Part III;" but this might have been to make room for a couple of new songs they played, from an album that is currently in the works. I really liked the one called "In A Big City," which reminded me of The Jam and The Pogues -- in a good way, although they might resent the comparison.

Nina returned, though, and we positioned ourselves off to one side of the stage, deferentially, to make room for the people who were bigger Fucked Up fans than we were. (Which put us right next to the bass player from Liquor Store.) Damian came out wearing a big purple tie-dyed shirt and carrying his son, whom he briefly presented to the crowd, Lion King style, before handing him off back stage. The shirt stayed on for maybe one and a half songs, and then he took it off and it was just like all the concert photos you've ever seen of the band. But those photos don't do justice to the spectacle in motion: A huge, sweaty, bald, hairy, mostly naked guy charging up and down the stage and down into the audience, roaring into the microphone as he's mobbed by adoring punks and boosts them up onto the stage, onto his back, onto the hands of the rest of the crowd, paying special attention to the dudes in the audience that look most like him (heavy-set, hirsute); while the band -- five comparatively clean cut and prim-looking people -- rock out in strict formation. It's pretty nuts to behold. You know me, babies, I've been to shows, but my mouth fell open involuntarily several times during their set. Damian's crowd work is like watching a crime or a bar fight or a video game "boss battle" -- it's visually arresting because of how dynamic and wonderful it is. And the band doesn't sound quite like anything else, either: Obviously it's easy to get distracted by the vocals, but I think Fucked Up is actually a guitar nerd band, what with the finnicky degree of synchronization between the three (!) guitarists they had on stage. And dig the sad, sweet intervals in the lead line for "Queen Of Hearts."

True to the bill, they played the entire album. I'm not gonna lie, it was a bit grueling, not least of all because this band is loud, babies. For the encores, Damian quit the stage, and the band played covers of songs from bands they'd been in previously -- because these people are all veteran hardcore punks, albeit of the sweater vest-wearing variety. In particular, Sandy sang a song called "Unrequited Love" by the band Redstockings -- which is listed as one of the fictional bands on the "David's Town" LP but which I think was an actual band she was in in high school, if I understood her explanation. It was a cute, funny song, whatever its origin.

After they finished, we shuffled outside and found our way to the ever-convenient Enid's, where Chris and Nina and I settled in for a post-show beer. Chris came over to my side and agreed that Titus Andronicus is, in fact, the best band in the world. We stayed out pretty late for a Tuesday. Chris biked home. We took the C/A/B line.

Bel Argosy's played two shows so far this month, the second of which was on Monday, at Otto's. But the first: Our friends in MiniBoone are releasing a new EP called "On MiniBoone Mountain." (By hearsay I am given to understand that their intent is that you pair it with their first release, "Big Changes." The two titles, side by side, give the name of their planned full-length album.) In celebration of this achievement, they're playing a three-week residency at Pianos, performing with a bunch of hand-curated at each show. We were slated to be, observers and not, uh, talent, at these events, but they had a last-minute cancellation (morning of!) for the November 10th show and asked us to fill in. Of course we said yes! But we had to scramble a bit to furnish equipment, and it looked like our time slot might be a bit tight for Chris who had just started a new and exciting job at the United fucking Nations. When Billy and I got there, amp and cymbals in tow, there was a nine-person (!) funk band on stage. They had the chuckle-worthy name New York Funk Exchange, but they were actually pretty good -- their singer was a blond lady with a rich, powerful voice, and their songs were danceable. Billy and I danced.

"Alright," the sound guy told me when I stepped on stage. "To keep things moving, I'd like you guys to set up and be ready to play in 10 minutes." "We'll try," I said. "I've seen it done before," he said. Still Chris-less, we hustled. He showed up at T minus a couple minutes (although who gives a shit) and jumped on stage with his bass, slightly winded, still wearing his work clothes like an indie rock Angus Young rushing to a gig straight from Ashfield High. Our friends in the audience said we were loud, but I gauge our sound by the on-stage mix, which was nigh perfect, and it was the first show we ever played where there was "lighting design" -- all of a sudden things would go all red or blue. It was exciting! We played our set (pretty well, I think) and then handed out some of our new "Bell" Argosy design t-shirts (want one?).

After us was MiniBoone, who played a thundering and characteristically precise set of songs, starting with the four on the EP. They were great, especially the second track, "Brand New Thing." And I always have a soft spot for "Cool Kids Cut Out Of The Heart Itself."

Cee Em Jay

Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long one. The College Music Journal 2011 Marathon just finished, and I saw a bunch of cool shows! This year I used the strategy that worked well for me last year: Wait a frustratingly long time for the CMJ web site to publish the official schedule; ignore the silly music industry panel events; find bands that sound cool within the bounds of my after-work schedule and at venues that are reasonably adjacent, geographically; run.

My first stop was at Brooklyn Bowl for the Live4ever showcase. I got there in time to see Le Blorr finishing up their set. They're a two-piece (guitar and drums) with a high-voiced lead singer whose hair falls in front of his face, Kurt Cobain-style, while he's singing. They were pretty good; but it was early and the crowd was thin. The band seemed relieved to get off stage -- understandably: It's got to be tough to play a cavernous space like the Bowl when you've got a spot in the line-up that's guaranteed to be under-attended.

1,2,3 was up next. They're a four-piece with a lead singer with Lyle Lovett hair and a nasal voice, weird but good. Their arrangements had strong, distinguished lead guitar lines and satisfyingly rubbery drum beats, by which (I think) I mean you could really hear the kick drum go "thwump." They sounded good! Catchy rock songs with an alt-country twang to them.

Fifth Nation was up next. They're a two piece with a lady on Stratocaster and a dude with an elaborate mohawk (Johnny Napalm from Guitar Hero-style) playing the drums. She looked like Debbie Harry as an extra in Easy Rider: She was wearing white and face paint and a dress with a long white fringe, but she could really shred and had a great voice. She wore a tuning fork around her neck. Their songs didn't stick to a fixed genre; they seemed like kind of a mix of college road-trip music: Jane's Addiction, Sublime, Manu Chao. I wasn't crazy about their sound, but there were definitely people in the audience who enjoyed it: Several of them moved up towards the stage and started doing that dance that white people do when Dave Chappelle has John Mayer play guitar for them, including one very straight-laced guy near me -- sweater, khakis, trench coat he'd folded up and placed in a corner -- doing a pretty decent Elaine.

I bailed about half of the way through their set so as not to be late for Bad Movie Night (not a band) at Tom's. This week we watched a long-awaited classic called Mutant Hunt, which is about some cyborgs (who are actually just plain old robots, I think) who get mutated by being injected with narcotics. And this makes them want to rape people, or maybe just do murders. The movie doesn't really make that clear. Although, to be fair, Tom and I were preoccupied with trying to choke down an airplane bottle of wormwood-flavored Swedish aquavit -- you may have heard of it by the name Malört, or Bäska Droppar. Whatever you call it, this stuff is icky, like chewing up a bitter mouthful of Tylenol, and the taste is difficult to dispel. Jeppson, the company that bottled the brand we drank, brags:

Most first-time drinkers of Jeppson Malört reject our liquor. Its strong, sharp taste is not for everyone. Our liquor is rugged and unrelenting (even brutal) to the palate. During almost 60 years of American distribution, we found only 1 out of 49 men will drink Jeppson Malört.

I think I'm probably a 98%-er on that front, but I'll let you know if I change my mind. Yeah, though, Mutant Hunt's a real stinker: Horrible leads, incomprehensible story, indifferent characterization and cinematography. Other things that make it an excellent Tuesday night choice: The line "Inteltrax has a government contract. It can hold anyone for 72 hours since the federation act of [...] two years ago, ever since the space shuttle sex murders," and the fact that its director, Tim Kincaid, also directed the (non-sci fi-themed) title Gale Force: Mens Room II and acted in the movie Cop Blowers. That list bit I learned from the excellent Destroy All Movies!!!, which Emma got me for my birthday; truly a gift that keeps on giving.

On Wednesday I hoofed it down to Fontana's on Eldridge St. to check out this huge twelve-band showcase show. I'd never been to Fontana's before, and I liked it alright -- it's like a nicer, bigger version of Fat Baby, I guess? I'd timed things right, because The Threads were just setting up in the low-ceilinged basement when I got there. I'd liked their Soundcloud offering, but got worried when I saw them wearing black silk shirts and fancy hats. Were they gonna be a super-serious bridge-and-tunnel ska band? Imagine my relief when they turned out to be an awesome, sleazy punk band whose performance hearkened way back to the rip-off shows I used to go to when I was in high school: A six dollar ticket'd get you into a bill that promised, say, UK Subs, but was stacked with four or five hours of unlisted openers you had to endure in the too-close company of (much older) strangers while you smoked yourself sick to your stomach. As frustrating as the experience was when I was 15, the curfew-less adult me wishes those shows weren't a relic of the 90's. The Threads' lead guy came out in a brown suit and a fedora (and sporting what I'm hoping were violet aviator shades), drink in hand, and lay down on the stage. He had the effeminate and dissipated air of a late-period Dee Dee Ramone, and he sang with the mush-mouthed half-articulation of Tim Armstrong (who does that in turn, I have heard, to sound more like Joe Strummer). Their songs had the same gloom-and-doom thematic touchstones as I Love Living In The City and Wart Hog. I ate it up. It didn't hurt that the guy also spent every non-singing moment fucking around with the other guys on stage, whacking the drummer's cymbals, putting the soloing guitar players in headlocks. Take note, rock and roll singers: That is a top five stage move.

After them was a band called Spirit Animal, which was a kind of synth pop group. Their lead singer was an enormous dude with a sort of half-bowl cut, wearing a European-looking multicolored leather jacket; kind of like Win Butler Meets The Wolfman. They were alright, but the whiskey I'd bought myself to keep my courage up had kicked in pretty hard and I was fading. I decided to bail. When I got home, I googled The Threads and realized why they tickled my memory the way that they did: Mick Brown, the lead singer, is a former member of the L.E.S. Stitches, a great Saint Marks throwback punk band that was a staple of my teenage show-trotting at The Continental and Coney Island High.

Thursday was the busiest night of the marathon for me. I started the evening at The Delancey, where I was looking to catch a set by Haim on the basement stage. "I don't know how to pronounce it," I told the girl stamping my wrist. "I'm pretty sure it's 'hi-m,'" she said, "but how cool would a Corey Haim-themed indie rock band be?" While I waited for it to be showtime, I lingered by the upstairs bar listening to the band that was playing on the miniature stage -- it's really just some elevated seating they'd cleared the chairs away from. I missed their introduction, but based on some cursory calendar-checking I'm pretty sure it was Lisa Jaeggi and her band (dude on acoustic guitar, dude on bongos). She's got really great voice, very high and sweet like Feist, and she wore feathers in her hair and face paint, like the lady from Fifth Nation. They played some very catchy, textured pop songs.

When they were done, I went downstairs to check out Haim, who were just getting started. They're a five piece band fronted three women who also cover bass, lead, and rhythm guitar; and who each sported variations on the same aesthetic. They were all cool big-sister types -- as near as I can place it, not having had one myself -- confident, casually authoritative, with long hair and black heavy metal t-shirts. At the beginning of their set, the girl on bass explained that they were all from L.A., and that this was their first unsupervised trip to NYC. "I don't know if it's the New York vibe or what," she said, "but I feel like buying condoms." They played 90s-inflected pop rock, trading off on the vocals, although there was a commonality to their voices as well. At the time, I thought they sounded a little like Lisa Loeb, but I don't know if that's right. They finished their set with a crazy drum-off, all three of the girls dueling the drummer. "Come make out with me, I'll be in the back," said the bass player.

No time for that -- I had to hop the F up to Broadway Lafayette to get to Dominion to see Street Chant. I'd always thought of Dominion NY (are there other locations?), what with its pretentious signage and convenient adjacency to the Blue Man Group theater, as being a bit of a douchebag preserve. And upon viewing their interior first-hand, I don't think I was wrong about that, but I didn't know that they've got a reasonably okay performance space in the back. Street Chant is a kiwi three piece, two girls with guitars, plus a guy on drums. Sonically, they were a mix of Bleach-era Nirvana punk and good, dissonant 00's indie rock (say, Sleater-Kinney). Their lead singer sang with a mumbly, punky snarl. I thought they sounded great, but it seemed like Dominion's monitors left something to be desired. "I can't even hear myself," the lead singer complained. Consequently, perhaps, they cut their set off a song early.

The amount of equipment stashed behind a velvet rope to the left of stage promised more bands, but I bailed to make sure I got to Webster Hall in time to see We Are Scientists. When I got there, there was a not-great frat metal band on stage with a lead singer who looked like the guy who plays Anders on Workaholics, and for a second I was worried that I'd forgotten what We Are Scientists sounded like, but in due time they announced themselves as being Recover, from Austin. We Are Scientists took the stage next, and they looked and sounded exactly like I remembered: Airtight arrangements, bright vocals and guitar lines, not-quite-pop hooks. And warning, dear reader, this is gonna sound lame, but: What impressed me the most about them was their easy stage presence and the way they handled a myriad of technical problems with grace and humor -- they broke strings, their mics and patch cables went on the fritz, but they kept the songs going without letting on how ticked off they must have been. "I've been playing with you for ten years," said Chris Cain to Keith Murray, "and every year it gets worse."

I took Friday off. There were a few show that looked like they could be interesting, but after the requisite Bel Argosy rehearsal I was just so beat that it was all I could do to stay awake on the subway and plonk myself into bed.

On Saturday I went to the best show of this year's festival -- ours! That's right: Bel Argosy played CMJ this year, at Legion, thanks to the good will and connections of Cenk and The Cardinal Agency. We were joined by Majuscules, with whom we've performed several times before; and Porches, with whom we've been booked a couple of times before but who've never managed to make it for logistical reasons (and who turned out to be pretty awesome). We'd played Legion a few weeks previous, and the setting was mostly the same -- noisy little back room; fussy, manic sound guy -- but the somebody'd shelled out for a little drum kit, which saved us from lugging portions of our own, and there were real, honest-to-god monitors in front of the stage. What a difference! Mind you, I still turned in a characteristically sloppy and frantic performance, the weird little house hi-hat periodically tipping over and off of the stage; but I could hear everything that was happening this time.

No, it was fine -- a real treat, actually. I've been going to CMJ for years and never once dreamed I'd get to play a showcase show, as part of a band with less than a year of shows under its belt. And we made 50 bucks! Indie scene prestige; Benjamins: It's the Bel Argosy way.

Occupy Everywhere

Babies, it seems like everyone (well, okay, no one) wants to know what I think about the protests underway in Zuccotti Park.

I've been (and am still) involved with projects and activism that seemed to me to be unambiguously and unequivocally The Right Thing, and getting anyone to pay attention to them has been a downright Sisyphean task. So at this stage of my political development ("Phase III: Exasperation"), I'm automatically impressed by any political movement, however inchoate -- or even incoherent -- that's capable of embodying the zeitgeist or getting call-outs from government or the press. And if the moral position of a movement like that is even within some threshold value of my own, then I feel compelled to help them, uh, capitalize on whatever traction they've magically acquired. Because if you wait around for a successful political movement that matches your beliefs and aesthetic to a T, you're gonna be waiting forever.

...By which I mean to say, of course the people at Occupy Wall Street are gross and often inarticulate, and if you're asking them (less than a month in) to deliver practical solutions to the problems they're shouting about, you're gonna be disappointed. But they've got some smart people doing media strategy for them, and they're fascinatingly well-organized. And most importantly, maybe, they're all really brave.

I don't agree with everything I've heard from the people there -- some of it doesn't even really make sense, like when someone shot down a plan to use donated money to buy sleeping bags, because we're supposed to be getting away from "buying" things from "companies." But there are a couple of things that I'm pretty sure are true, and about which I think I'm on the same page as everyone I've met at the park: First, what Elizabeth Warren said back in August: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody." Second (and more verbose), something that Kurt Vonnegut wrote in 1969:

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times.

Tom has been marching in some of the protests they've organized, including the really huge one that kind of shut down lower Manhattan on October 5th. His "Paul Krugman's Blog For President" protest sign was popular enough to make the front page of Salon.com. (Although apparently one lady he spoke to at the march accused Krugman of being "part of the system." "I didn't really have anything to say back to that weird old lady," Tom said.)

He and I went to a Sunday evening General Assembly a couple of weeks ago. In case you haven't gotten a clear picture from the news: The Occupation is centered in Zuccotti Park, which is a kind of gray stone corporate park, a rhomboid wedge between a bunch of big office buildings and sort of catty-corner to a construction site that's part of Ground Zero. There are narrow strips of flower beds around its edges and there are some little groves of flowers and skinny trees dotted down the middle. It's a place you might go to smoke cigarettes during lunch if you worked for J.P. Morgan Chase. The Occupiers have set up several tables in the park, some of which correspond to "working groups" that exist within the movement: There's a kitchen; an information desk; a medical tent; a media center with generator-powered laptops; and a comfort station, which hands out sleeping bags and blankets. The rest of the biomass takes the form of people with sleeping bags, tents, and tarps, who array themselves wherever they can. There's a scattered contingent of food and tchotchke vendors on the eastern edge of the park. They have the tentative air of dogs by a dinner table, like they're wondering if they'll be indulged or shooed away.

The General Assembly, from what I can tell, is both an alternate name for the Occupation itself, as well as a name for the style of all-hands meetings the Occupiers hold twice a day. Because they're not aloud to use to electronic amplification, they use a technique called "The Human Microphone" to make sure everyone can hear: The speaker speaks a few words, and some designated people near the speaker repeat what the speaker said, and then a second tier of repeaters repeats what they said. In person it's slow but effective, not least of all because it requires that the speakers edit themselves for brevity. The General Assembly doesn't include political topics except insofar as they're related to planning actions, so there aren't a whole lot of shrill or crazy people getting up to talk. The order of speakers is determined by what they refer to as a "progressive stack," which is a kind of FIFO queue with dynamic re-prioritization for underrepresented groups.

Most of the speakers were making announcements about the needs of various working groups or the services they provide. The medical working group wanted people to come see them to learn the symptoms of hypothermia. Comfort wanted to make it known that they'd appreciate donations of boots and sleeping bags. At some point in the stack, someone from the "safer spaces" working group read their notes. People occupying the park should come to them, they said, if they were feeling unsafe for any reason. In particular, they said, there was someone currently in the park who was considered particularly unsafe and who was to be avoided: "His name is Thaddeus. He's wearing an orange shirt and he's got a menorah on his head." Tom and I spent several amused minutes looking for a guy matching Thaddeus' description.

There are a whole lot of police down there, both in terms of boots on the ground and in terms of vehicles -- they've got a half dozen vans and a tower of fun. For the most part they seemed respectful if not friendly. I've seen footage of them being really shitty at some of the off-site events, but down at the Plaza they seem to be doing what they should be doing, which is making sure everybody's safe.

As we were on our way out, we saw a young, pretty blond woman get into a confrontation with the police. She'd locked her bicycle to part of her clothing and was attempting to sit down on the sidewalk at the north end of the park, presumably as an act of civil disobedience -- although she didn't say anything or even seem to be affiliated with the other Occupiers. The cops made a move to grab her bike lock key from her, but she tossed it to someone in the crowd who scurried away with it. Everyone had smart phones out and was filming the interaction, which culminated with the police cutting through the bit of her the bike was attached to and carrying her and the bike to a waiting paddy wagon. Everyone was chanting, "This is what a police state looks like!"

I don't think that's what a police state looks like, but then again I've never lived in a place that definitively was -- or was not -- a police state.

Wrapping It All Up

Summer's over. I crushed it. Naturally I'm crowing about it for your benefit, dear reader, but also for mine, because I am, at heart, a whiner and a pessimist, and a paper record of a good time is something that I need to come back to from time to time to keep my spirits up. So this is just to remind myself that I had a great, sweaty, exuberant three months. To wit: Four outdoor movies, including a short film festival at Socrates Sculpture Park, where I'd never been before. They screened Safety Last! which was also new to me (although who hasn't see that iconic still?), and which, to Harold Lloyd's credit, seemed tense and thrilling even though it is literally several hundred years old. I went to Coney Island three times, if only to the beach once. I saw shows at SummerStage, Celebrate Brooklyn, and 4Knots. We hosted two barbecues. I regularly ran farther than I've ever run before, although I didn't quite achieve my goal of making it twice around Prospect Park. I was in a movie! I did it, babies.

Last night I shaved off my beard, which had grown quite thick and soft -- not scratchy or itchy at all. If you missed it, too bad. It was a summer beard. There's always next summer.

We capped things off the first weekend of September -- still officially the summertimes -- by going to a hipster pool party in Long Island City, at a kind of pop-up venue called The Palms, on Jackson Ave. From what I gather, The Palms is a former bank building converted to a golden-age (40s? 50s? You got me). Miami-style "party space" by the people who run The Danger and 3rd Ward. There's a smallish, one-story interior space with a bar and a dance floor. It looks pretty much like a bank. There's also a big outside space that's decked out with astroturf, ping pong tables, and three retrofitted "dumpster pools" hung on a raised platform you took some stairs to get up to. Reggie Watts was slated to perform that evening, but by the time we got there it was just DJs. We thought we saw him from behind, moseying around in a crowd -- sorta tubby dude, big hair, sweatshirt; wearing a backpack like a middle schooler -- but weren't sure. (Nina observed that big teddy bear type guys could effectively impersonate Mr. Watts, for the purpose of meeting ladies, with a few simple props.)

We played a round of ping pong and made some attempts at hula hooping with a stray hoop. I was recovering from a freak case of pink-eye that showed up at the end of a nasty summer cold, and which had glued my left eye shut three mornings in a row, and so I was reluctant to get in the water, but Nina convinced me that chlorination being what it is, I wasn't a public health menace. I shimmied out of my jeans and joined her in the pool in my boxer shots. The water was eerily but pleasantly warm. We shared our dumpster with a changing crowd of drunk and friendly revelers; some were way younger than us, a few were visibly older. A troupe of costumed ladies (feathers, glitter, unitards) who seemed unaffiliated with the party organizers walked up and down the narrow paths between the three pools, waving their fans at the splashers. For a while they maintained an air of austerity, resisting entreaties to jump in. Ultimately the lead feather lady let down her guard and got wet. Was mid-century Miami a big splashy playground for wild and crazy not-quite-young people? I guess there were a bunch of scary mob guys, too. (I should re-read that Joan Didion book that KT got me.)

The one thing I didn't do a whole lot of this summer was play shows with Bel Argosy. True, there was the show we played on my birthday. That was epic. But we followed that up with a disastrous non-set at Legion the next week where a misunderstanding led us to lug a ton of equipment out Williamsburg on the hottest night of the year for nothing. I'm not gonna get into that. And then we basically took August off. But we're back on the road (subway) again, and on the 16th we played a knockout show at this heavy metal bar in Greenpoint called Saint Vitus.

We couldn't get a guarantee that we could borrow the foundations of a drum set from the other bands, so the evening began with Chris driving his dad's station wagon up to Spanish Harlem, where we broke down and loaded all the drums into it, transporting them in a hand-over relay from Billy's penthouse office where we rehearse down to the living room down the three flights of stairs to the street. There'd been some municipal-administrative hand-wringing the day before over a potential car bomb somewhere in the city, so the NYPD had set up checkpoints all over the city. The Bel Cargosy (Mark II) didn't get stopped, but we did get caught up in the resulting congestion, which put Chris into full-on Liberal Dad mode: "This is a police state, man! Fucking Bloomberg is a fascist!" The only thing that calmed him down was a block of Elton John that came on Q104.3: "Saturday night's alright for fightin', Saturday night's alright!"

Saint Vitus really is a metal venue, which I haven't seen at non-arena scale other than, say, Europa, which doubles as a scary Eastern European dance club. There's a flat black exterior facade, and once you get inside, there's a long, sleek bar all done up with sanded black unfinished wood. Then there's the little foyer where you pay to get into the back room where the shows are, and it's got a little shrine to Azazel or whomever, with a bunch of inverted crosses and an array of nubbly, burnt-down candles. It's all very serious. The back room is very large and impressive -- high ceilings, black velvet drapery on the walls -- and has a huge stage, definitely the biggest we've ever played.

The opening act, who'd kind of orchestrated the show, was an "air travel" themed indie pop band called The Modern Airline. I say "themed" because they played in costume -- stewardess outfits for the ladies, pilot's uniforms for the guys; the drummer played in shirtsleeves -- with props, and sang songs about airplanes. They were great: Lots of variation in the songs, but they were all delightfully weird and precise. And they were friendly, too -- gracious and helpful with equipment.

Our own set was zippy and fun, or at least that's how I remember it. I'm increasingly conscious of my own anxious need for good on-stage sound (i.e., monitors), and Saint Vitus definitely has that. The sound guy delivered a very good mix, at least to the monitors. I got off stage in a great mood, looking to raise hell. After some mutual congratulations with Lee and Margaret from The Modern Airline, we drove the equipment back across the bridge and back up to Spanish Harlem, Chris cussing all the way. He offered to drive me back downtown, with the idea that we'd go wildin', but he wanted to go through North Brooklyn to avoid Lower Manhattan, and by the time we got back across the Pulaski Bridge, it was well after 2:00 AM and we were both flagging. So Chris dropped me off in front of my building -- no small feat of driving and an endurance -- and then made his lonely way home.

Switching gears: Katharine turned 30, and to celebrate, Tom H. chartered a schooner (The Adirondack) for a trip down the Hudson, and we all came along. I was nervous about my lack of sea legs and died a thousand coward's vomit deaths in the seconds before stepping on board the pitching deck, but it turned out to be great! They served us free beers and took us on a nice leisurely loop from Pier 59 to the Statue of Liberty. It was one of the last really pleasant days of summer, and the sun was setting just as we neared Ellis Island. Aside from the wake of an occasional speedboat, the water was flat and featureless. We all tried to take pictures of the sky in an attempt to capture the sunset's fiery palette, but it didn't work. It never does!

Come On, Irene

Hey, everyone else is going with that hed. Why can't I?

Nina and I took a trip to Brighton Beach the weekend before the storm. I'd been to Coney Island twice already this summer, but hadn't been to the beach at all. In between consecutive, obligatory inland LIRR trips, Nina was craving some sand of the non-buried-cigarette-having variety, but without a car or advance plans we had to settle. And Brighton Beach isn't, you know, a private resort or anything, but it's not the public baths, either. We took the Q out past the Aquarium stop and walked out to Brighton 14th and down to the beach. We set up our towels down by the water near a dude who was listening to a Mets game on a portable radio and talking to himself about it. "Unbelievable," he said. "Un-fucking-believable." I stripped down to the trunks I'd put on underneath my jeans and tried to acclimate to the chilly water. Nina lay on the beach with the copy of "A Dance With Dragons" that Tom got me and made a little sand dude. It was pleasant enough, weather-wise, but it wasn't exactly sunny.

When the cloud-occluded sun began to go down for real we called it quits on the beach and looked for a place to change back into our street clothes. We skirted the Brighton Beach changing rooms, where a guy was literally pissing on the side of the building instead of using the toilets inside, but that left us only the public bathrooms on the Coney Island part of the beach if we wanted to protect our modesty. I bit the bullet and ventured inside one of those urine-soaked hell-holes, changing quickly to protect my vulnerable privates from stall creepers; Nina did the same but with less complaining. Then, using her smartphone, she looked for a place where we could get some victuals. We settled on Elza Fancy Food, a Korean-Uzbek (!) restaurant on Brighton 4th St. Once we got there the phone stayed out to help us interpret the menu, which wasn't super accessible to gringos like us. We settled on an order of plov (a kind of lamb pilaf) and some manti (dumpling). The waitress, who was attentive but spoke only halting English, also brought us some compot (fruity drink) and some of the house specialty, a spicy eggplant salad, for the road. It was all super delicious and cost practically nothing. Top marks for Elza! And to me, for being such a flexible vegetarian.

After dinner we took a walk down Surf Ave. towards Luna Park, stopping along the way to check out one of the Russian groceries, where we picked up some treats -- sesame peanuts, sugary chickpeas, and a box of dried cherry-apple tea. We considered but deferred til next time a crazy array of unfamiliar yogurt drinks, cheeses, dried fruits, cured meats, and children's cereals. Our loot in tow, we reached the Coney Island boardwalk proper and took a quick tour of the amusements. Luna Park's been built out a bit more since last year -- in addition to the log flume and the teacups they've got a part of the park now called the "Scream Zone" that's got a couple of real sadistic-looking slingshot-type rides and this thing called the Soarin' Eagle that flies you around Superman style.

After wringing our hands over all that scariness, we walked down the ramp to Deno's Wonder Wheel and visited the video arcade, where I succumbed to the allure of the "coin pusher" machines. Nina, clever little raptor that she is, figured out how to not play the game like a complete chump: Your average pusher's got two shelves, the top one of which moves in and out. The secret is to time the drop of your quarter so that it falls between the front of the moving wall of the top shelf and the mass of quarters on top of the lower shelf. That way the moving shelf will push it into the other quarters and hopefully dislodge one of 'em. In practice, however, that will not happen. The quarters will just sit there. If you're like me you will spend about five dollars in quarters learning as much.

On our way out, we walked through the scuzziest part of Coney Island, the set of rides and booths that aren't part of Luna Park or the Wonder Wheel. There was the ring toss booth with the ghoulish, half-heartedly electrified skull-clown -- wearing a sign reading "Chuckles is not a prize" (yer tellin' me!). And most notably, The Ghost Hole, the haunted house ride I've been daring myself to go on for years but for which I haven't yet mustered the company or the courage. I was feeling a little, uh, crapulent, but thought it was worth taking a slightly closer look, so we stepped up to the ticket booth. ...Where we encountered an animatronic display, enclosed in plexiglass, of a punter voiding himself at both ends simultaneously. Seriously, it was a herky-jerky mannequin on its knees in front of a toilet having diarrhea and the barfs in never-ending succession, like Prometheus getting his liver eaten by the eagle. Nina took a short video with her smartphone; the effect of the rusty water spraying out of the hindquarters of the figure's ripped jeans and all over the plexiglass panel is hard to convey with words. Apparently this thing has been around forever, but I can't remember ever seeing it. Maybe they only take it out when they really need to pique peoples' interest. Suffice it to say I didn't think I could handle The Ghost Hole itself, so we got back on the train at Stillwell and headed home.

The Thursday before the storm, I checked out the free Wavves Summerstage show at East River Park. I quite like that space -- a big concrete amphitheater might not seem like pleasant accommodations for a show, but it's actually pretty dope, especially if you're on your feet. I saw Titus Andronicus for the first time there (a concert that was rained out torrentially). And the Wavves show was even better than that one, mostly on account of the crowd, which was huge!

It was a crazy scene: Young punks with dirty faces, thrashing around in a concrete pit down by the river under a dark and threatening cloud front. There was even a Snake Plissken type dancing by himself on the concrete steps up from the stage. It would've been downright apocalyptic if it weren't so thematically sunny: The band or its management had tossed about a dozen beach balls into the crowd, and people were enthusiastically spiking them up onto the stage and off the band. Someone had also distributed a whole lot of sunglasses with neon green frames throughout the crowd. I would have donned a pair myself and waded in, but I had my bag and, well, I am an old. I could certainly appreciate the band, though: Short songs, an affinity for Pixies-style falsetto, and a drummer whose beats don't make me feel bad about my own drumming. And they played an awesome version of "Nervous Breadown" to round out an encore they played despite the insistence of the Parks Department representative that the show was over.

And then it was time for the hurricane. The city's preparations for the storm have been much discussed at this point; suffice it to say that the southwestern corner of block kissed the edge of Evacuation Zone C. I'll cop to feeling a twinge of anxiety when all the evac and windspeed buzz (120mph?!) reached its peak, but Nina and I went out and armed ourselves a gallon of water and some batteries (we already had the twist ties and black plastic garbage bags that ready.gov recommends you use should the toilet stop working) and then I felt more in control. In the mood to party through it, even. Tom O. was skeptical when I proposed a hurricane-themed get-together, but he was in due attendance at Katharine's when she made good on the idea. Tom H. fixed Pimm's Cups (No. 1 style) for us (we were joined by their downstairs neighbor, Susan) and we all played a 1970s edition of Clue salvaged from Katharine's grandmother's house while The Weather Channel played in the background with the sound off. We also ate football-shaped Oreos.

I was Mrs. White. Let it be known: I did not do shit to Mr. Body.

Come 1:30, the wind and rain started to really pick up and so Nina and I thought it best to wade home. It wasn't even so bad outside, although our umbrellas proved useless. After peeling off my sopping jeans, I got into bed; Nina stayed up. Reclining, I tried to gauge the intensity of the storm by watching the back-and-forth sway of the big tree across the street. Its upper branches waved like the arms of a sea anemone being rocked by the currents. But I fell asleep pretty quickly. I woke up at eleven o'clock the next morning, which was supposed to be the height of the storm, but apparently it had blown itself out early. When I went outside for coffee and such, there were little "packets" of leaves everywhere: The branches off the branches off the branches off the trees on our block. I think they're adapted to break off easily, in order to spare the structural integrity of the rest of the tree. Pretty clever if you ask me.

Mulder Loves Scully

I'm going to try to keep this on the short side, in the hopes that I can turn in more than one of these little dispatches a month. Will it work? Probably not. No.

The heat wave arrived, and it was hot. We're on the top floor in our building, and we took the wooden roll-up blinds down from the living room window (apartment AIDS), so when it gets hot out, it gets hot in here, and it stays hot well into the evening. I'm no delicate flower when it comes to heat, babies, but there's something eerie and discomfiting about coming home at midnight and having the parquet floor still be warm like a pilot light. And there is, of course, the heat at the daily perihelion, which is totally distracting. So we resolved to have the air conditioner up and running by Thursday, the anticipated beginning of the heat wave. I bought a special window mount from Tarzian, but couldn't figure out how to secure it to our brick-and-mortar window ledge; in the end we made a midnight trip to the Home Depot in Red Hook for a good, old-fashioned two-by-four that we bundled up with tape and wedged under the thing.

Kitty responded to the heat by alternating, panting like a dog, between spots inside the wooden cabinet that supports our TV, and on top of a big Tupperware box that's sitting in the middle of the living room. It was only after much encouragement -- and the removal of the cat carrier from view -- that she deigned to enter the bedroom where we were running the air conditioner.

The hottest days of the heatwave were Thursday and Friday. Thursday night we made the sweltering hike up to Prospect Park for The Feelies show at Celebrate Brooklyn. The ambient temperature made it a pretty surreal experience for me, and I wasn't on stage under all those lights; I have no idea how they turned it such a long and consistently good set. In particular, they played a very convincing cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Upon returning, we found Kitty in a sorry state: Prostrate, panting, puffed out to the size of a Christmas ham. We tried to cool her down with an ice pack from the fridge and with actual ice cubes from a cup of ice we bought at the corner store. As a testament to her discomfort, she did not object at all. We have resolved to put her on a bit of a diet.

It was still ethereally warm the following week when Beau and Nina and I went to go see a late show at Shea Stadium featuring none other than Shilpa Ray performing a solo set (well, she had her harmonium). Beau got there early and thus got to see -- and fall in love with, he asserted -- one of her openers, an art school band called The Back Pockets. The way he described it, their live show was off the chain. We arrived in time for the next band, Quilty (ugh that name), who were fun and energetic but entirely too loud for the space. We used their set as an opportunity to go get Snapples. But Shilpa Ray was predictably amazing. It was after midnight by the time she went on, and noting the droopy eyelids in the audience, she suggested that everyone lie down sleepover style, and so everyone kind of fanned out on the floor near the front of the stage where she'd set up, like iron filaments around a magnet. The sound system in that place didn't do her voice justice, but she still sounded phenomenal -- strong and angry enough to rattle the windows. She suggested that we take advantage of the late night, bedroom vibe we'd created and, you know, have a wank, but I don't know if I could do it with those songs as accompaniment. Too sad, too scary!

As a treat to myself I've been watching The X-Files over Netflix streaming on the Xbox, one episode a night. That show is great! The first time I watched it, lying side by side with my dad on the rug in our living room of my boyhood home, I was too invested in the narrative elements of the show and too distracted by my own cliched expectations of the direction the story should take. So I liked it, but I didn't really get it. This time around, my experience is colored by pleasant memories of those Friday nights ("Jeez, close your mouth, Scully!" admonishes my dad), but I'm also struck by how visually consistent the production design is: There are indulgent, meandering shots of roads and gas stations and factory buildings, and everything out of doors is gray or green. The editing is nice and slow; leisurely, even. The acting is pretty remarkable, too: David Duchovny is supremely affect-less, and Gillian Anderson's portrayal is both economical and effective in bringing Agent Scully plausibly to life -- especially given how little she has to work with in the first season. It's nuts that a show this gloomy and contemplative was on the air for, what, nine years?

The first week of August I threw myself a more formal birthday party in Prospect Park, an all-afternoon barbecue where I cooked for everyone and loved it. It was exactly the type of thing I should have done last year but was squirmingly reluctant to commit to and thus managed to duck. This year, though, I willed myself to mail out invites a couple of weeks in advance and so I had to follow through. I got up early that morning, sliced up all the fixings, including cutting whole kosher dill Claussen pickles into the "chip" shape that they should sell at the store but don't. I bought three and a half pounds of hyper-organic ground chuck and made three different batches of burgers, mostly variations on the recipe I found here. Ted lent me the use of his grill (my little $10 dealie long since vanished to the mists of time) and I cooked the burgers, some hot dogs, some chicken sausages, some Morningstar Farms spicy black bean burgers, and some of these awesome college-dining-hall fake-chicken "patties" (also by Morningstar Farms). The weather report warned that it might rain, but I would not be deterred, and it ended up being overcast but dry for most of the day.

It did begin to rain at twilight, and we started to pack everything up. As I knelt by the grill trying to gauge the hotness of the coals, I noticed a fat brown cicada on one of the legs, methodically crawling its way up to the hot underside. The less compassionate among us wondered if we should let it "find out" the hard way that it'd misjudged -- or even if we should toss it on the grill and see if the bug was as tasty as the Oreos we'd melted earlier. But Jon, bleeding heart that he is, scooped it up on some cutlery and helped it attach to the maple tree behind us. Without pausing it resumed its upward climb and was soon out of sight. It wasn't the only one: We found two more cicadas on the same tree, all on the same quest towards sunlight and warmth.

Beau had stopped by the festivities after finishing up one of his twice-weekly runs around the park (he's training for the marathon), and he clued us in on a kind of open house that was going on the following weekend: All the Prospect Park-affiliated attractions, including the ordinarily not-quite-worth-ten-dollars Botanic Garden. Nina and walked up and down the paths of the Rose Garden and smelled all of the plants in the Fragrance Garden. But the best part of the afternoon was when we were heading home past the choreographed fountain in front of the Brooklyn Museum. That thing, when it's on, is almost a bigger a draw than the museum itself I feel like, and that day was no exception. There was a crowd gathered on the steps to watch the water jumping, and a press of little girls around the railing admonishing the boys who were strutting up and down amid the jets. "You're not supposed to be up there!" they said. "Someone's going to yell at you!" And to us: "They're not supposed to be up there." The boys, they did not care. One of them walked up to the railing and asked Nina, "You want to get splashed?" She said yes, she did. It was a hot day. "Stay there," he said. He stepped back and put his foot over one of the jets. At the right moment he lifted his toe.

We just got back from the final bit of birthday celebration I've allotted myself: A Mets game (against the Padres) at Citi Field. Never seen the Mets, never been to the new (or old) stadium. It was very nice! Th place looks more like a Heartland Brewery than a baseball stadium, but maybe I've just had my expectations set wrong by the noisy, brushed-metal Death Star that is Yankee Stadium, with its dispassionate concessions service and super-vertiginous seating. Whereas Citi Field has a huge plexiglass apple that pops up (well, rises surreptitiously, Kilroy-style) whenever someone on the home team hits a home run! ...Which happened three times -- Jason Bay, David Wright, and Angel Pagan all hit home runs. And the Mets even ended up winning, pulling out a spectacular ninth inning after a pretty grim-looking eighth. It put Nina, who's never met a crapped-upon New York institution she couldn't root for, in a puffed-up, cheery mood. After the game we spent some time in a part of the parking lot where the diamond from the original Shea Stadium is marked out with white paint and plaques. Nina found home plate and curled up around it like a cat.

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!