Come On, Let's Go.
8Feb/100

Certain Prides Thus Obliged

I rode the wrong train home, adding an eight block-long walk to my odyssey from Brooklyn's hip north end. As I plugged away at retaining consciousness on the preceding line, a headful of red wine shifted my attention away from the conductor's garbled announcements and toward the bored young blond sitting across from me. My shirking faculties robbed me of heed for the proper transfer and I boarded my second-choice train, which arrived with a merciful expedience.

It was the wrong end of five in the morning when I came to and debarked – staggered off – at the correct stop in my neighborhood. This was a laudable accomplishment in itself; I was afraid that enjoying a drink and living in Brooklyn's southern boondocks would, yet again, add up to a firm rise-and-shine prodding, indelicately administered by a police officer walking the graveyard terminus beat at Coney Island. I had originally planned to sit out the night, made timid by the radio's apocalyptic pronouncements of the upcoming weather. Fortuitously, the snow had lingered long enough for my night to resolve itself, and lazily tumbled from the stars as I plodded home through the orange silence which descends hand-in-glove with every nocturnal snowfall.


Parenthetical Girls - This Regrettable End

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4Feb/105

Lemme See Yer Gavel

When, at age 20, I first started working at Freaks – the punk boutique formerly found on the East Village's renowned St. Mark's Place – my manager and I got into a conversation regarding embarrassment of one's own taste in music. Rob, who was in his 30s, told me he enjoyed the first wave of emo. I immediately responded “and you … openly admit that?” He explained that no one with a sense of self-worth should ever be ashamed of owning up to their taste. Who is anyone else to judge what you receive enjoyment from? Who worth knowing would peg an individual as a worthwhile human being based on how they like their pop music?

I can't say that conversation miraculously cleansed me of prejudice. I still harshly judge people based on their preferred genres (along with just about anything else), but I now have a little voice in the back of my head rendering me unable to ignore my own snobbery and constantly reminding me of my own guilty pleasures. I try to remember that someone who listens to – in my opinion – disposable trash may have tastes which are, for whatever reason, unrefined. Not everyone makes the time or the effort to sort through the reams of mediocre music out there. Or, god forbid, music might not be particularly important to them. I find my own habits an unreliable yardstick because I'm an obsessive, at best. If they have made conscious choices that do not meld with my own, I try to keep in mind that doing so is a respectable act in and of itself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: listen to whatever you want and enjoy it all the same. And if you genuinely love music, feel absolutely free to be a snob! But a respectful snob. Turn your nose up at the music, not the individual inflicting it upon you.

As a sort of act of contrition for my by-gone days of judgmental prickdom (which some would say I am still smack in the middle of; all the more for writing the above) I present a guilty pleasure of which I can't get enough:

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7Dec/091

Boom

I grew up on Coney Island, sort of. In the two or three summers between being too old for summer camp and too young and lazy to get a job, my mother sent me to live with my grandmother for the summer months. My grandmother lived in projects housing right off the Coney Island boardwalk. Now, this wasn't the sort of projects housing with the potential to give birth to the next big hip-hop artist (that were across the street,) but rather a gated-off, white stone enclave with private parking and a doorman. Built abutting a geriatric rehabilitation center, this building was mostly occupied by senior citizens who, like my grandmother, had recently emigrated from the former Soviet Union. The building was clearly designed with seniors in mind – all the bathrooms, for instance, had emergency “oh god I fell, help!” pull-switches. Google Maps doesn't actually go down the block, so I've tried to highlight the building in the picture below. As you can see, it is right on the boardwalk.

I spent my time time wandering up and down that boardwalk. A 36.6 kb modem can keep a young man occupied for only so long, and I found myself regularly venturing out there with Pretty Hate Machine or Jimi Hendrix' Greatest Hits album blaring out of my walkman and into my ears via those cheap-ass foam covered headphones we all had at thirteen.

One early afternoon, wandering to the Stillwell Avenue train station to get to my programming class – I spent a couple days a week learning C++ and Unix at a front for a diploma mill – I came across a pair of Latina girls wandering on the boardwalk. We didn't speak or even acknowledge our mutual presences, but they had a little radio. The radio was blaring a song I did not, could not acknowledge loving the ever loving hell out of until my freshman year of college...

I love this song. I love everything about it. It even transcends by unnatural love for the genre apparently referred to as “bubblegum dance.” It defines my teenage summers on Coney Island for no other reason than being played at just the right place and moment.

...and apparently Freezepop covered it.


(There's no video, just a black screen.)

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About Me

I was born in the Soviet Union and emigrated to the United States at six years old. I grew up and still reside in southern Brooklyn, although I lived in the Los Angeles suburbs for a moment. I am fascinated by all sorts of media - the more referential the better.

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