RECORD PURCHASE OF THE DAY- Elvis Costello- Taking Liberties

I found this one in the used bin of Academy Records while I was killing time in Williamsburg today for a mere 3$ as the store was about to close(they put on a recording of a baby crying to coerce customers to pay and leave so they can close up.) This was released in 1980 as a collection of Declan McManus's b-sides from his first three albums. Elvis Costello's 1977 through 1980 spawned four albums: My Aim Is True, his debut record, full of Dylan-esque wordplay and honky tonk r&b supplied by the men who would become The News of Huey Lewis and The News, This Year's Model, my absolute favorite, futuristic punk rock with the newly formed and red-hot Attractions, containing some of the most provocative lyricism both political and personal in recorded music, Armed Forces, which Elvis gets really brainy building a wall of sound throwing post-punk and krautrock on top of Bacharach, David and Lennon/McCartney and Get Happy!, a inspired take on American soul music. In this writer's opinion, this is about as great a four record run as anyone ever had. Costello was about 23 for his first record and was 25 or 26 in 1980, when this compilation was released.

There is no doubt that in the coffee-fueled nights writing songs, these inspired years brought more material than three records could possibly hold.

RECORD PURCHASE OF THE DAY: Singles Going Steady- The Buzzcocks

Although I am completely broke and should not be buying anything that I'm not going to eat (or at least smoke), I was compelled to look at the vinyl section of a music tent at the Park Slope street fair. I immediately went to the tiny punk section, which was mostly Siouxie and The Banshees strangely, and found this gem. An original, great copy of Singles Going Steady for $15, which I bought immediately, even though I have no fucking money. The most awesome part is that I know this is an original because somebody wrote on the sleeve: I got this on Tuesday, October 9, 1979.

Jamie vs. College

(This is a chapter from the book of short-stories I'm currently working on, "Everyday I Write The Book")

Sometimes I like to do this thing where I pay around twenty bucks, get on a Greyhound bus and leave Brooklyn, where I have never left for more than the two weeks—I went to summer camp when my mother gave birth to my sister—and visit a place called Real College. I think about the decisions I’ve made in my life and their importance of everything I do now, and the biggest one seems to be the decision to stay in Brooklyn and not displace by myself by going away to Real College.

Mixtape of Love

(This is a chapter from the book of short-stories I'm currently working on, "Everyday I Write The Book")

I have given many mixtapes to many girls and it has never once gotten me laid. Funnily enough, I have gotten multiple comments that they were the best mixtapes they had ever received. In my junior year of high school, I was very into a girl named Jackie Rosenthal, who was very wholesome but also a very good guitar player and reminded me of Winnie Cooper. She loved rock ‘n’ roll but wasn’t aware of the more obscure stuff, so I made her a tape that mostly featured a bunch of indie rock songs for her birthday (I also bought her a nice tambourine). I put the Violent Femmes’ “American Music” on the tape and the next week we were in this little room with a piano in the music department, and she had learned how to play it and we sang it together. I looked into her sweet eyes and she into mine. That was the moment, and I figured I had it in the bag. Soon after, I asked her out and she did not comply. However, I went to her house for dinner and her eight-year-old brother Matty Rosenthal seemed to know every word to “She Don’t Use Jelly” and “A Shady Lane.” This basically meant that while she didn’t respond to the me, she played the shit out of the tape enough that Matty Rosenthal was now the coolest kid in school.

What Jail Is Like

(This is a chapter from the book of short-stories I'm currently working on, "Everyday I Write The Book")

The idea that Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani held the potential to become President of The United States gives me nightmares. Posing as a Messianic figure while mayor, Rudy Giuliani turned the New York City that was famous for being New York City and “cleaned it up” and took all the quirks. Additionally, he took a whole lot of money from nice stuff—like the school sys- tem and social programs—and put it right into the police department. This ba- sically put more cops out on the street and expanded the time and energy put into catching the forgotten, unappreciated, questionable criminals like graffiti writers, bums, the guys that squeegee you car clean, street musicians, people who jump subway turnstiles, people who like to drink outdoors, marijuana smokers, people who like to take a walk in the park at night and public urina- tors. Had he become president,I imagine a future much like the one portrayed in the underrated Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes film Demolition Man, in which people get tickets for swearing, the only restaurant is Taco Bell, you have sex using virtual reality goggles, and going to the bathroom involves three mysterious seashells.

a quick note

I must say that, in the world I live in, full of academics, intellectuals, capitalism, hipsters, vegans, post 9/11 bullshit, big business, cops, social norms, indie rock, black holes, impeding doom, scientology, the type of stuff meant to turn a man into a mouse, still, after all these years. nothing beats Black Sabbath. And eating pork with your hands.

Does This Ever Happen To You?

(This is a chapter from the book of short-stories I'm currently working on, "Everyday I Write The Book")

You’re on the Subway or doing whatever the fuck you do all day. You sit down, examine your surroundings and maybe you notice somebody slightly attractive or interesting looking. You find yourself looking at a young woman sitting across from you on the G train who is both kinda pretty and wearing anshoulder bag that you identify as a piece of merchandise from the indie rock band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. You wonder why the fuck anyone would like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah especially all these pretty girls, specifically this one.You wonder if the fact that you are wearing a Pixies shirt makes you somehow appealing to the pretty girl. In the indie rock hierarchy, the Pixies are like the Beatles of the genre, totally groundbreaking and archetypal (especially Doolittle, my favorite record of all time). CYHSY are a band that are supposedly “from Brooklyn” who were a flavor-of-the month at least a year before this incident, and make their living playing music that attempts a goofy marginal contemporary version of bands like the Pixies. “Does this Pixies shirt make me cool to the Clap Your Hands girl?” This is the kind of conundrum that goes with living in Brooklyn nowadays, or at least Williamsburg, East Williamsburg and every area that has been eaten by Williamsburg and it’s well-dressed, good-looking, condo-building gentrifi-nation. “Hey, you appear to be vaguely interested in indie rock, have you ever heard of the fucking Pixies?”