Don’t Quit Your Day Job

I’m a little late to the party this year (and I was a little late to the parade, too, due to a huge line at Totonno’s), but here are some Mermaid Parade photos from 2008. It was a gorgeous day for the event, just hot enough to be beach weather, but not so hot as to be oppressive.

Check out the slideshow here.

“Young New Yorkers Make a Brand New Start of It, on the Cheap”

“Adam Leibsohn, a 27-year-old communications strategist who makes roughly $60,000 a year and pays $1,650 a month for his own apartment in the East Village, says the trick to squeaking by in the city is to swear off impulse purchases and credit cards. He cooks for himself, pirates wireless Internet access and buys electronics from Craigslist or eBay. If he wants new clothes, he unloads old ones first at the Salvation Army, keeping the receipt for his taxes. ‘It’s kind of a spartan lifestyle,’ he says. ‘I eat a lot of street meat for lunch.’

Let’s unpack this for a minute, Adam Leibsohn.

You make roughly twice as much as I have ever made.

You don’t actually need to have your own apartment in the East Village: you could have your own place in a perfectly respectable Brooklyn neighborhood for about $1200 a month, or you could have a decent-sized room in the same kind of area for little more than $700.

Cooking for yourself, last time I checked, was not a sign of poverty.

The fact that you pirate wireless (which is an indulgence, not a need, to begin with) means that you must have a computer with a wireless card.

That you buy electronics on eBay and Craigslist means that you have the disposable income to buy electronics in the first place, regardless of whether or not you’re getting a good deal on them.

That you have enough dispensable clothing that getting rid of it provides you enough money, from tax deduction, to buy new clothing tells me that you probably have more clothing than you ever needed in the first place.

And finally, eating “street meat” isn’t roughing it. I would imagine that many New Yorkers think that buying any kind of prepared food at retail is an unthinkable luxury.

Verdict: Yes, New York is ridiculously expensive. No, I don’t think that on a $60k salary with your own apartment in a trendy part of Manhattan you have any right to complain. I don’t even think I have any right to complain. You know who has a right to bitch? People raising families on minimum wage. The rest of us are left to decide whether to feel embarrassed that people much wealthier than us are referred to as “scraping by” in The New York Times or pissed off that the same publication isn’t at all interested in poverty that is as real and literal in their own city as it is around the world.

My first concert ever was Beck, Ben Folds Five, and, I think, poor Elliott Smith. At the time, Folds was by far my favorite, though now I’d probably place both of the others ahead of him. I was 13, and I went with this boy who had liked me for a year before and would continue to be interested through my sophomore year of college. His father sat a few rows behind us, chaperoning. And during an intermission, I ran into the 16-year-old guy that I (and every other girl I knew) had a crush on at camp earlier that summer. It was pubescent awkwardness at its best.

This is all kind of tangential to the fact that, a few nights ago, someone mentioned the Rockford Files, and I got Ben Folds Five’s “Battle of Who Could Care Less” stuck in my head. I probably hadn’t heard the song in at least five years, but I suddenly needed to listen to it. Thank heavens for Last.fm.

It’s actually kind of a great song. It’s sort of about the same thing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is about, only less dramatic (okay, less classic) and more sardonic. I don’t think I even fully appreciated all the humor back in the ’90s. It’s packed with hilarious lyrics:

“I know it’s not your thing to care. I know it’s cool to be so bored. It sucks me in when you’re aloof.”

“Watch some Rockford Files and call to see if Paul could score some weed.”

“Unearned unhappiness. Well, that’s all right, I guess.”

“I’ve got this great idea. Why don’t we pitch it to the Franklin fuckin’ Mint? Fine pewter portraits of General Apathy and Major Boredom singing, ‘Whatever and ever, amen.’”

“See, I’ve got your old ID, and you’re all dressed up like The Cure.”

At the time, I must have actually thought that all of this boredom and apathy and getting stoned was pretty fucking cool. Now that I know how much of adult life is actually just like this, I understand what Ben Folds was making fun of.

Oh, fuck. I just tried to play the song for the fourth time in a row, and Last.fm cut me off. At least I still have YouTube.

Dear Man Man,
I have liked you for a while and was excited to see you perform for the first time. I heard that you were great live. Well, you started off on a bad note, torturing the audience with multiple between-set replays of “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and “Kokomo.” You didn’t really say anything once you were onstage. I wonder how much of the forty minutes it took you to set up were devoted to donning those dumb, white costumes and face paint. Your music was still fine, but it wasn’t worth it.
Love,
Judy

Dear Yeasayer,
You at least had a nicer onstage persona. But what was with that guy in the wifebeater, long, curly, hair, and mustache? Hipster fashion and redneck fashion have finally become indistinguishable.
Love,
Judy

Dear Brooklyn Masonic Temple,
You may want to look into never hosting concerts again. Your sound is horrible.
Love,
Judy

Dear Crowd at Brooklyn Masonic Temple,
I guess it’s “hip to be square” these days. Learn to hold your liquor.
Love,
Judy

The crowd skewed young and trashed at Monday’s Black Lips show. Everywhere, mini-hipsters were dancing around, all skinny and disaffected. One guy was regaling a group of friends with the story of how long his hair was the last time he saw the band.

I hadn’t seen Quintron & Miss Pussycat before, but I had heard tell of Quintron’s invented musical instrument, the Drum Buddy. It’s a strange contraption, full of holes and pipes and lights and spinning coffee cans. But it was pretty cool to see it in action. The music was a catchy but noisy blend of upbeat soul and synth pop. Quintron sat behind a keyboard decked out with a vintage Chevy grill, and Miss Pussycat contended with a fussy, flapper-like costume that involved what looked like a head band with a Koosh ball on it. I enjoyed the energy of the performance, which definitely got everyone dancing, but this is strictly party music. Great live, but I’m guessing they’re not nearly as interesting on record.

Oh, and when their performance ended, Miss Pussycat hopped behind the curtain of a big, strange, inflatable puppet theater she had brought with her and did a puppet show. Really.

Despite the drunken yelling, shoving, crowd-surfing, stage-diving, and beer-cup-throwing, the Black Lips were pretty great. They may have been rushing through songs a bit (and seeing the crowd, who could blame them?), but the frenetic element worked for them. An old-fashioned rock band that doesn’t resort to fancy outfits or contrived, onstage theatrics, they’re a purist’s dream. By the end of the set, the guys were completely soaked in sweat, and if that doesn’t signal a good night, I don’t know what does.

The headline?

“All Hail Brooklyn: Alt-Rock Thrives in Alt-Borough”

Choice excerpts?

“For rock bands this is a great time to be weird and independent in Brooklyn. After years in which the sound of New York was defined by various shades of retro monochrome — the new wave minimalism of the Strokes, the disco-punk of the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem, the moody Anglophilia of Interpol — a new generation is making music that is indefinably eclectic and complex, and finding acclaim around the world.” Wait… really?

“The success of bands like Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend is to some degree an indication of a thirst for new ideas in a rock landscape that, from mainstream radio down to the underground, has been sorely lacking in them.” I don’t know where you’ve been for the past few years, dude, but the underground ain’t lacking for ideas. They’re lacking for audiences, and paychecks.

“With the promotional powers of the Internet and a network of increasingly sophisticated independent labels, bands that don’t have an obvious shot a mass popularity are finding fewer reasons to sign with the majors.” What are these mystical “internets” of which you speak? Please, explain to us their strange and magical ways.

All in all, another beautifully redundant Times trend piece. Thanks for that, Ben Sisario. I give it 10/10. A+. Best New Music… etc.

Michael Sarnes’s take on Gore Vidal’s bestseller might as well be the video guide to “Notes on Camp.” Rex Reed, in cinema’s most obvious casting choice, plays Myron Breckenridge, a dandyish film critic who undergoes cinema’s most surreal sex reassignment surgery to emerge as Myra (Raquel Welch), a glamorous supervixen hell-bent on shattering the heterosexual imperative. Inexplicably integral to this plan is Myra’s infiltration of her Uncle Buck Loner’s (John Huston) acting school as she fights him for her portion of a sizable inheritance. But the flimsy plot is incidental to the priceless, midnight movie trash that lurks within Myra Breckenridge’s terrifically fun digressions. Brief clips from black-and-white gems of the ‘30s and ‘40s provide a constant, almost tic-like, commentary on the action. Mae West transforms the film into her own, private Sunset Boulevard, as a debauched talent agent with an insatiable hunger for young men. Thirty-seven years later, we’re still not ready for her close-up.

Watch the trailer here.

Last Saturday night, I caught a perfectly fantastic screening of Milos Forman’s early Czech film Loves of a Blonde at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and then had some wonderful barbecue at Smoke Joint. And then, quicker than you can say “white guy funk band,” my evening totally turned to shit. Upon returning to BAM to check out a free concert by White Rabbits, who I’ve heard great things about, I was faced with perhaps the most distasteful band I’ve had to see live in years.

They are called Miss Fairchild, and they are a bunch of guys from Brooklyn playing blue-eyed funk. Now, I’m as open-minded as the next girl, and I don’t think it’s impossible for white dudes to write some good songs in the genre. But this was so derivative as to actually be kind of racist. Their lead singer was a small, bearded guy in some vintage polyester. He was doing a calculated impression of James Brown. The lyrics and music were total ’70s cliches. And it was all kind of a shame, as the guy has a decent voice, a ton of energy, and the band is clearly quite competent. The only problem was… there was not an ounce of originality there. They may as well have been a cover band.

Now, it isn’t my policy to knock new, untested bands just for the hell of it. But what I see here is just another corollary to the growing trend of cultural tourism-as-music. In a way, it’s exactly like what Vampire Weekend is doing: steal some sort of music that you have no personal link to and repackage it without adding anything new. It seems soulless and boring, and frankly it’s annoying that people are so into these copies of copies of copies when there are a million great innovators out there.

What I’m trying to say is…

One, two, three, four, I declare a CULTURE WAR.

I don’t usually feel the need to repost my own articles here, but I want to make sure everyone listens to the new Mountain Goats record, Heretic Pride. It comes out tomorrow on 4AD, and it is fucking fantastic.

Suggested tracks:
“San Bernardino”
“Autoclave”
“Lovecraft in Brooklyn”
“Tianchi Lake”
“Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident”

My entire, quite lengthy, review is up at Tiny Mix Tapes. If that wets your whistle, you can stream the entire album here.

Some people are too cool to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Others are too hip for Rufus Wainwright. Well, whatever, man. I am gloriously lame, so my boyfriend and I spent this past V-Day at Radio City Music Hall watching Rufus.

Though I rarely spend so much money on tickets (anything over $20 tends to discourage me), the experience was well worth it. I’ve lived in New York for three years without once setting foot inside Radio City. The place is breathtaking: enormous stage, beautiful gold curtain, three levels of balcony, domed ceiling. Sure, all the tourists from Duluth, or wherever they come from, were kind of annoying with their glowstick-illumined frozen drinks and questionable concert etiquette, but we all have to interface with the real world sometimes.

The show began with a short, pleasant set by Sean Lennon. He joked nervously about playing depressing songs on Valentine’s Day and closed with a cute duet with his girlfriend. At one point, he mentioned that his mom was in the audience. I’m not typically so starstruck, but something felt wonderful about occupying the same room–albeit a very large room–as Yoko.

I had seen Wainwright before, and whether he gives it his all or comes across as a drink- and drug-addled sot, he always puts on quite a show. This performance was by far the most impressive I’ve witnessed from him. He played for almost two and a half hours, in two sets and a lengthy, show-stopping encore. Most of the selections came from his past three album, Want One, Want Two, and Release the Stars. Though I’m less familiar with those than I am with Wainwright’s first two albums, Rufus Wainwright and Poses, he brought every song to life with expressive singing, playful theatrics, a large band, and loud costumes.

Among the feats Wainwright performed that night were:
–a few Judy Garland songs, including “Get Happy,” performed in nylons, heels, and a blazer, backed by a chorus line of nuns;
–an un-microphoned version of an Irish folk song;
–an “Across the Universe” sing-along with Sean Lennon, his sister Martha, and his mother, folk singer Kate McGarrigle;
–a rendition of one of McGarrigle’s own songs with her and Martha;
–”Gay Messiah” as production number, complete with the obscene use of a can of Silly String;
–three costume changes;
–and onstage pyrotechnics.

It was an ambitious performance, and Wainwright surpassed even the high standards he set for himself.