Village Voice: Pet Shop Boys, Yes!

Pet Shop Boys kicked off their US tour in NYC last night at the Hammerstein. You can read my review for the Village Voice here. Pictures on Flickr!

Flavorwire: Danny Wang @ PS1 feature

I caught up with Danny Wang when he zipped and boogied through town this summer. The first couple photos are by the awesome Anna White, not me.

Daniel Wang: DJ, Producer, and Little Mister Sunshine

2:53 pm Wednesday Jul 29, 2009

by Jorge Hernandez

Ghostly artist Daniel Wang, a DJ who has been namechecked in Daft Punk liner notes, was on a bus to New York City, when he texted us from his German mobile: “still in boston with family…dont want pay roaming charges.” He was scheduled to play P.S.1’s Warm Up party the next day, along with Arthur’s Landing, an Arthur Russell tribute band. Like half of the East Village, earlier in the decade Wang moved to Berlin and became an instant fixture in the ex-pat broken disco scene. His visits to the States are frequent and fleeting, but giddy and anticipated affairs.

The next day was overcast and rainy. Arriving at P.S.1 early, you might have been worried by the sparse line. Would this be the weekend when New Yorkers just gave up and stayed inside? Brennan Green, a Balihu Records artist (which Wang founded back in 1993), was massaging the early birds with some no-wave and retro pop. Slowly, the crowd grew.

And then Wang arrived, dressed in color-splashed shorts and lime Day-Glo Nikes. After a quick round of hugs, kisses and pictures, he needed a moment alone: “Just give me a minute to get my music together. I can’t really concentrate on anything else when I’m thinking about my playlist.”

Photo credit: Jorge Hernandez

Laying out his CDs and vinyl in what was undoubtedly some kind of theme, he stepped out from behind the boards for a quick chat and a few more pictures. “Sorry I’ve been in such a rush,” he exclaimed. “I”m always going from one thing to another.” The occasion, this time? “It was my birthday. I wanted to see my grandmother, my family. And it’s a fun party to play. I get to spin with Brennan, see some other friends. But then, I’m off again, to California tomorrow.”

Photo credit: Joel Shaughnessy

A few tracks into his set, the motif he was assembling earlier became apparent. Patrick Juvet’s “I Love America.” Odyssey’s “Native New Yorker.” America’s “You Can Do Magic.” And one record that sent a certain writer up to the decks. “It’s called ‘Take Me to the Bridge’ by Vera,” Wang said, waving the record sleeve around a la Shirley Temple.

Later, the globetrotting, patriotic DJ’s DJ added, “I got my German/EU permanent visa in January 2009. I’m hoping to retire to a Greek Isle. USA — too many mixed feelings.”

Photo credit: Joel Shaughnessy

Whatever those were, he kept the negative ones off the 1’s and 2’s. At one point he even hopped on stage during the theme to the Star Wars cantina and did the Charleston. It was only a few days after Michael Jackson’s passing, and a poignant ode was inevitable: “Life ain’t so bad at all, if you live it off the wall.”

The clouds may have lingered, and a stray drop may have landed in a beer or two, but by night’s end, when the sky was dark and the remaining devotees were jumping around on stage, it was clear that Danny had packed sunshine to spare.

Photo credit: Anna White

Urb.com: Nouvelle Vague Live Review

From Urb.com:
Nouvelle Vague Live Review (Filmore East @ Irving Plaza NYC 6/17/2009)
Posted Monday, June 22, 2009 @ 09:01 in Music by Jorge Hernandez

In some circles, Nouvelle Vague would be heretics, likely burnt at the stake. How else to describe and dispense with a French troupe of cover lovers that turns hardcore Punk, No Wave and New Wave classics into soft-core porn Muzak? New York is not one of those circles. Here, their laissez-faire-ness with raw riffs has endeared them to the Pernod-swilling set. But if you rolled into Irving Plaza – er, “Fillmore East” – on June 17 expecting a louche cabaret you were in for a boisterous awakening.

Producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux along with singers Nadeah and Melanie Pain had something much more American Gothic in mind, turning the venue into a honky-tonk revival, complete with roughhousing and supernatural spasms. The opener, Talking Heads “Road to Nowhere” set a deceptively casual tone. By the time Nadeah introduced “Oublions L’Amerique” – “a song by old punks who knew nothing of your wonderful country; pretend we’re singing ‘We Love America’, Merci” – the crowd was getting rowdy. Later as the full house chanted along to Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk to Fuck”, Nadeah, slinking in tongues, turned into Spider Woman, climbing the walls into the balcony, an act that nearly got her removed from the venue by security, unaware that she belonged onstage.

Say quoi?  Are these the same lounge lizards whose entire existence is premised on a cheeky triple-entendre on French cinema, 80’s electronica and Brazilian Bossa Nova? Yes and No. While Collin and Libaux are staples, the singers rotate. On this rare mini-tour in support of their third LP, NV3, the casting was pitch-perfect. As the musicians strummed, rattled and hummed through selections from all three albums, the singers vamped like wayward divas on the voodoo side of town. Their take on “Master and Servant” made a Depeche Mode headliner at the Grand Ole Opry seem like, you know, maybe not so crazy an idea. No matter how your fry your ‘taters, that deserves applause – and possibly a fenced-off stage. Pretty punk.

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Flavorwire: Rune Lindbaek interview

MusicExclusive Idjut Boys Interview Meanderthals Rune Lindbæk

Exclusive: Idjut Boy and Meanderthal Rune Lindbæk Talks the Substance of Size

1:13 pm Tuesday May 19, 2009

by Jorge Hernandez

In Norway, size matters. “The big clubs don’t do well. They try to bring ‘BIG’ names there and it doesn’t really work,” says Rune Lindbæk from his part-time flat in Berlin. “Most of the popular DJ’s on the scene – Todd Terje, Lindstrom, etc – are the dubby DJ’s and we all prefer the small clubs.” How small is small? “150 people or so. We just came back from the Ukraine, places you wouldn’t think of, but people are dedicated.”

Lindbæk, once part of Those Norwegians with pre-Royksopp Torbjorn Brundtland, is presently a third of Meanderthals, along with UK’s disco-not-disco dons Idjut Boys (Dan Tyler & Conrad McDonnel). While Meanderthals’ new record, Desire Lines, was recorded between Oslo and London, it sounds like something out of a Malibu slumber party. After the jump, we chat with Lindbæk about disco dalliances, the impossibility of taking studio albums on the road, and the aesthetics of the Pacific Coast Highway.

Lindbæk had very specific ideas about the new album. “When we started on this project, I said, ‘This record should be like the Pacific Coast Highway – something very California.’ It became a cliche in the studio – our hot crowded studio with the tiny window,”

The trio’s unglamorous confines could have been a set up for failure, considering their working styles. “As a team, we sort of prefer to play alone, DJ alone. I need to go into a zone. Doing a back to back DJ thing, I lose some concentration,” he confesses. While they managed to work things out in the studio, don’t expect Meanderthals to go globe-trotting any time soon. “We’re talking about touring; if we were going to do it, we’d need to bring out a whole studio, a massive amount of gear. What we have in mind would be like a rock setup, and I don’t think it would work in dingy basement clubs.”

With a tour uncertain and the album done, what’s an idle primitive to do? “A remix album is possible; Conrad (of Idjut Boys) is making dub versions of all the tracks on Desire Lines. I’m doing some remixes for Annie, a minimalist/Italo guy on Kompakt called Skateboard, and Dominique Leon from San Francisco. Lindstrom discovered Leon and set up StromLand records to put his stuff out. I’m going back to Oslo on the 14th to work on my next 12 inch ‘Odessa’”.

Reflecting on his homes away from home, the wayward Rune adds, “The area where I live in Berlin, I would be better off learning Turkish, I really love it. I also lived in NY. My heart is there – can you please kiss the pavement for me?” When I ask him what pavement, he says “I used to stay at Danny Wang’s apartment, next to my favorite East Village café, 7A.” By coincidence, I tell him I used to stay at Danny’s as well, and that it was going through Wang’s record collection that I realized Lindbæk had sampled Bill Withers’ “The Stuff” for “Junta Jaegar.” “It’s a great bass line, and when I heard it, I knew I wanted to use it. On the B-side of Junta, I used a sample from a 70’s rock band called Zoo.”

That single, and the album it came from, Sondag, was released by Repap, a left-field sister label to Paper Recordings, the now-defunct deep disco imprint out of Manchester, UK. Paper also released Kaminksy Park, by Those Norwegians. The album’s cover features a pile of melting vinyl, a reference to the Comiskey Park “Disco Sucks” bonfire of the late 70’s often cited as the unofficial birth of House music. “When I was living in London I spent a lot of time in record shops. And one of my best friends used to live in Manchester. So we knew about Paper and decided to send them a demo, just to see. When they called us up, we were like FUCK, YEAH!”

London is also where Rune first met Idjut Boys. “They were on to something with their underground sound long ago. I was always a fan.” But how did this Nordic nomad wind up a disco purist in the first place? “My mom liked Disco and when I heard the rhythm, I liked it too. People my age, we were the first rhythm generation of Norway, I was like a sponge – this was before Paradise Garage and NY radio. We had a radio station, state owned, they had one program for pop music and there was no club scene at all, just really shit discoteques.”

Fortunately for Oslo, those days are over. Kings of Convenience, Erlend Oye, Lindbæk and company have put their homeland on the global music map. “It’s not like we have one place that we all hang out in Oslo – it’s a slow burning scene, and discos come and go. People have been doing their thing for many years. The rest of the world is just catching up now…”

Flavorwire: Taming the Winter Music Conference Monster

Or, what I did on my winter vacation. Snippet below. Rest at Flavorpill, Earplug.

Taming the Winter Music Conference Monster

6:25 am Wednesday Apr 15, 2009

by Jorge Hernandez

Like most of the snowbirds, I was at Miami’s annual Winter Music Conference for some sun, beach, dancing, and schmoozing. As often happens, my first night descended into a series of mix-ups: was Gui Boratto playing or not? Was I “sorted” at Danny Tenaglia’s marathon? Fortunately, I’d caught both of them last year, so calling it a night (especially after a two-hour flight delay) came easy.

Thursday afternoon, I headed to an early meeting with NextAid, a nonprofit organization that works with DJs, musicians, and engineers to provide sustainable solutions to problems faced by Africa’s AIDS orphans. “OM Records just adopted this building,” said director Lauren Segal, pointing to a glossy photo of a modest structure. “It could be used for anything from a school to a clinic.” Asked where she got the idea, she chirped, “On the dance floor, of course!”

SOMA: Interview with MSTRKRFT

That Bad Eartha!

On Christmas day when I reached over to hit “snooze” on the Blackberry, I squinted at my messages. Everything was OK with work, then I checked my Gmail. Harold Pinter had died while I was sleeping. While I’m familiar with and admire Pinter, if I were even to attempt to try to write anything lamenting the passing of the Nobel prize-winning writer, poet, actor and humanist, I’d come across like a fake and a turd. More than usual. And sadly that might not really be as entertaining as it sounds.

The next alert I received a couple of hours later hit closer to home. Eartha Kitt, “the most exciting woman in the world” according to Orson Welles, had just died at age 81. The singer, actress, dancer, and activist who gave the world “Santa Baby”, was blacklisted  by LBJ for speaking out against Vietnam, had a CIA dossier, sang in half a dozen languages, played Catwoman and was an icon to gay men in every galaxy, including the undiscovered ones, checked out on Christmas Day. Ugh. Really?

My mom was a fan because Eartha sang one of her favorite songs in Spanish, “Angelitos Negros”, about the lack of black angels in paintings and churches (but not Heaven). My mom sang it to me as a lullaby, my aunt played it on the guitar. Mixed race people often have multi-hued families, and mine was no exception. Neither was Eartha’s. All three of them sang it from a deep place in their souls. (Cat Power did as well.)

Later, in keeping with the homosexual agenda, I “got” Eartha on a whole new level. I learned more about innuendo from one Eartha Kitt album than a million drag shows. Suddenly, the word “Fierce” had real meaning. Exotic, purring, globe-trotting, award-winning, show-stopping gold-digger – and she made Lady Bird Johnson cry? Talk about Kitten with a Whip!  For two years, fresh out of High School, I lived with my first lover and his best friend. We drank way too much wine and had too many sing alongs – including “Uska Dara”, though we had no idea what we were singing, and of course the Italo-disco classic “Where is My Man“. The phrase “cette petite sensation” from “C’est Si Bon” still tickles when I hear it.

Recently, while living in New York, I kept threatening to drag my best friend to Cafe Carlyle for her cabaret show. Sadly, we never made it. I like to pretend I don’t believe in regret, but if I weren’t me, I’d take away my own gay card. Fortunately, Eartha belonged to the world, so no card is required. All you need to appreciate Eartha Kitt, appropriately enough, is a taste for the better things in life.

gObamarama!

Did ya hear, the USA has its first black president. And not just any black president, a potentially great president. This subtle distinction was often dismissed in the heated dialogues over his nomination and election. But it’s a distinction that stuck in my craw. To say that the only reason he won is because he’s black, is no better than dismissing his chances at winning for the same reason. Since this is not a political blog, I’m keeping this post light and breezy.

Here’s why I think “Gobama” won. Obama uses his big ears to listen. Obama likes tacos and makes sly, poignant references to Jay-Z. Obama uses Twitter, Flickr! and Youtube. (Although he has been slacking on his Twitter; and he may have to surrender his Blackberry on January 19th.) Even Rupert Murdoch’s rabid right-wing tabloid the NY Post dubbed him “President 2.0″ and summed up his victory and pending presidency this way: Obama is digital; McCain/Bush are analog. Michelle looks dashing, and their daughters’ “aww” factor is undeniable. I’m sure the haters in the McCain/Palin camp will look upon the search for a hypoalllergenic White House puppy as yet another example of the urban elite thrusting “Amurica” fast and furiously into the multiculti, liberal, pits of hell. And rightfully so. If I were on “that” side of the slavery narrative in America, I would look upon the coalition from “non-real” America with fear as well. Before the election, hate crimes increased; shortly after the election, gun sales soared. But all the fears of, and prayers for, race riots so far have gone unanswered.

As they did at so many other points in this election, mainstream media and the majority of conservative white America completely misread what was at the heart of this election. It was not revenge we were seeking and driven by; it was not a divine comeuppance. It was simply a chance to try doing things differently, a chance to acknowledge that the world was changing at such an accelerated pace, that falling back into the old school ways was not a viable option. By all accounts, Obama was the only candidate serving up fresh options at every turn.

This is not a new battle cry. This siren has been sounded before. So what was different this time? Simply stated, this time there was a truly worthy candidate to match our will and purpose. What made him worthy? Obama kept his eye on the prize and took the high road – and stuck to it. In doing so, he inspired everyone to do the same. A lesser candidate would have been dragged into the muck, and many were. The tenor of all other campaigns, including Clinton’s, at some point resorted to old-fashioned mudslinging, oblivious to the fact that their mainstream messages were being drowned out by the incessant chatter online. There is no marketing tool more effective than word of mouth.

The collapse of the economy didn’t help his opponents either. Obama’s numbers took a significant upswing as Wall Street’s numbers plummeted. The blame for the meltdown rests as much with Democrats as Republicans; but America and the world were suffering from Bush fatigue. Obama’s policies may need polishing, and he is not a superhero, or messiah that will save us overnight. But he is ready, willing and able to assemble a group of progressive thinkers that, given time, can at least abate the bloodletting, and give us a chance to heal. It’s a process that will take at least four years, and most likely eight. Considering we were willing to let the Republicans take and steal the previous eight years, barring any epic fumbles, I see no reason why Obama, America and the world, shouldn’t be allowed our fair shake at the next eight. Hopefully, we can refrain from picking at the scabs in the process.

Checking Out

I was in our High School library, the one where Van Halen had just shot the video for “Hot For Teacher.” I was always in the library, if not this library, then some other library. I had read that Holly Golightly lost her accent learning French, and as far as I knew, mechanics and leaf-blowers didn’t speak French, so shortly after Truman Capote died, I took up French. One of my counselors noticed and suggested Comparative Literature as a major, since I already spoke Spanish. I agreed to prepare for the AP exams. When the day came to take the test, I walked into an empty room for the French AP, a semi-crowded room for the Spanish AP, and a room overflowing with Academic Decathalon champions in the English AP test room. I was often at school an hour before class, and stayed an hour or two after class, longer if I was having an intense discussion about Apollinaire or watching a Truffaut flick. 

On one of these afternoons, when our library was pretty empty, I grabbed a book from the shelf, and was startled to find my friend B.M. staring back at me from where the book spines had just been touching. He stared at me as if we were in prison and he was planning an escape. Before I said anything, he said, “I know about your secret; I have one too.” I started to ask what he was referring to. My life was rife with secrets, I was unable to pick one to focus on. BM returned the book on his side. I moved around the stack, to ask him what he meant. But he was gone. 

His statement was ominous. I was pretty sure my secret life was wrapped pretty tight. Clearly this was about him. But what could we possibly have in common? We lived and grew up on the same block, went to the same elementary, junior high and high schools. BM was a tall, light-skinned Mexican with green eyes and an Irish last name. He wore glasses, kept to himself, and was devoted to music and played several instruments. He was rarely allowed to play in the street with the rest of us. Sometimes his skin would break out. All adolescent stuff, I thought. 

I was a loner by choice, anticipating life beyond Marshall  High almost as soon as I entered it. I was not planning to bond with anyone on my block, in my class, because I knew someday I’d be living in New York, speaking French, and wouldn’t be seeing any of these people again. I wasn’t worried about my sexuality because after all, we did go to school with a pair of 6-foot Filipino cross-dressers who came to school in full, thematic drag day after day. And everyone on our block knew my family was special – after all, someone had spray-painted House of Dykes on one of our walls. The only thing I worried about was the fact that at age 16, I was dating a 32-year old business man who left his office early to pick me up at school. But even that didn’t seem like a big scandal – at least not for me.

The other thing I could think of was that BM had been talking to someone else, a mutual friend, and a cruising rival. We’d see each other around town, and kept a comfortable distance until one day, just before he graduated we finally connected – in the Aimee Semple McPherson Temple of the Four Square Gospel, of all places. But even this didn’t seem like anything BM should be lurking around about. What was he going to do – tell everyone in school that I popped a teen load in a church; that I had a funny, blond, blue-eyed uncle in button-down shirts? So, what was BM freaking out about? It had to be about him.  As I looked around the library, it hit me – BM was gay too. And unlike me, he didn’t have the luxury of being raised by a swinging family. No, BM was raised by a tall, quiet father and a nervous, submissive mother – a traditional, Mexican country couple raising a large, Catholic family. And here he was, reaching out, as we all do, to a new family.

I stood there, feeling sorry for BM, wondering how in the late 1980’s teens could still be suffering like this – in Los Angeles. I mean, Van Halen was just slithering on our desks. This was where Waldo got off the bus and found his mojo. We were living in Silverlake, where we walked past several leather bars on the way home from AP classes. We could pick up copies of the Advocate, right next to the LA Weekly and LA Reader on the way home. I finished checking out my books and headed home. 

The next day, I didn’t see BM on campus. That night, as I was at home studying, I took a break and did something I’d never done in all our years living in that house. I walked up the block to BM’s house. I rang the buzzer, and waited for an answer that didn’t seem to be forthcoming. As I turned and started walking away, someone, one of his sisters, I think, peeked out from inside one of the windows. “He’s gone,” she said, and disappeared. 

Yellow Fever

I was sitting at my desk, thinking “the honeymoon is over”. I’ve pitched a few product upgrade ideas to the top dogs and have been subjected to adjectives like “genius”, “fabulous”. And now, the feeding frenzy is on. The emails are flying in. The pace is quickened. Results are expected. To make sure I don’t overlook anything, I’ve pasted Post-its all over the place. I am surrounded by them. They’re stuck on papers pinned to the wall, on the computer monitor, on the overhead cabinet, under the keyboard.
“This reminds of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’,” I thought, recalling one of my favorite short stories. TYP tells the tale of a woman’s descent into madness when her husband locks her up in a room in their summer house. In the narrator’s own words, “there is something queer about it.” If I allow myself to think about everything that is expected of me I too start seeing patterns and hearing voices in the yellow stickies. They are the faces and voices of teachers, librarians, professors, poets, journalists – everyone who ever conspired to convince me that I could, should, must amount to something substantial; that my drive, ambition, affinity with language, even my fears of exclusion, abandonment, dislocation – all of it, was of all bloody cliches both a gift and a duty.

As the voices and images ping-ponged in the echo chamber in my head, I spaced out and lost track of where I was, what I was doing, what time it was. I may have been sitting there with my fingertips suspended above the keyboard, staring past the monitor, through the screen, deep into the circuits, looking for connections to my own synapses, for a minute or two, or five. When I snap out of it, I usually have to get up, go out, get some air, get some coffee, grab one of the endless free candy bars in the kitchen. I’m pushing 40 and I still feel like at any moment, everyone is going to stop, point and make some ungodly pod-people sound that makes it clear I am a fraud, a hustler. The older I get, the less I feel like I’m in control of the charade. Like I might go postal one day.

Then, as I’m visualizing the scenario, one of my instant messenger blinks. Someone has sent me a video link. I click on it – because, you never know, it could have some work-related value – and there it is on the screen, my ape-shit fantasia streaming on the world wide mess: an office worker snaps and starts tearing up the office and attacking everyone in it. My anxiety turned to laughter as the office drone had a real-life Howard Beal moment. He was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. It looked so cathartic, like so much fun. But I can’t really say I want to go out like that, dragged out of some office building broken down. That would mean the post-its won, that I took them too seriously, that I really believed that these little yellow sticky squares meant something more than just a paycheck. 

I checked my personal email for an antidote, a quick shot of my other, real life. And there it was, an invitation to interview Yellow Magic Orchestra. “What the fuck with the Yellows today,” I thought. Piss, gold, jaundice, daffodils. Yellow, yellow, yellow. I forwarded the invitation to Earplug who replied instantly – “hell fucking yes!” And just like that, my mood shifted. No longer was I riddled with the anxiety of being an office drone and driving a mobile product into the ground. No, suddenly I was filled with the exhilarating anxiety of interviewing Ryuichi Sakamoto about being an electronic music pioneer. Looking stupid in front of thousands of readers all over the world put the post-its in perspective.

No, I would not be bashing in my coworker’s head with a flat screen monitor, at least not today. But in case you’re wondering what that might have looked like, ping me and I’ll send you the link. I’m online all day.

(Or, just click here.)

Funky Space Reincarnation

This evening T came over to talk condos and brownstones and Washington Heights. I was sitting on the window sill, smoking, one leg on the fire escape, watching the sun set on The Castle where Marie Curie caught radium poisoning. There were raccoons running around on the fire escape last night. They strayed over from the park and climbed the trees and scaffolding and zip, zip – up the ladder to the roof! The building is being rehabbed and there have been ropes hanging outside all my windows for weeks now. Once, I spotted one of my fellow Mexicans in the mirror, working the ropes. I smiled, as I splashed on my eBay-bought Chanel Pour Monsieur on my way to my 2.0 McJob, but he just looked at me, confused.
T laughed as soon as he walked in and fell on the couch, nearly spilling his catnip. Apparently, the fabulousness of my just-home-from-the-office look was too much for him to take in with a straight face. “What the hell is going in here? What happened,” he asked. On the iTunes, Marvin Gaye’s “Here, My Dear” album gave the room an extra lush glow.
It had been running through my head all day, especially as I walked around Hell’s Kitchen in the hot sun at lunchtime. New York, in the summer when it sizzles, is one big meat rack. People were glistening, frisky, looking tres pret-a-porter. The new office is next to Hooters; the construction guys love eating on its steps and ramps. For a couple of blocks, I walked behind two foxy chics in baby doll dresses and counted the heads turning.
Maybe it was the weather, the pheromones, something in the stars – but, I felt relief for the first time in a long time. My allergies were still killing me, and the wind wasn’t helping. But I had the unmistakable sense that after an extended limbo, I had finally detached, caught up with my self, my life again. Homo got his groove back. In time for tonight’s new moon and midnight rain.
And all day this record would not stop playing in my head. When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You – “as I recall we tried a million times” chaka-chaka-chaka “pretty birds, fly away...”
But who was you? Silly Gemini, “you” is You! Of course. The answer to everything sounds an awful lot like Marvin Gaye. Thank God.
(The fact that this track also turns up in a Dior spot featuring Charlize Theron is just sissy gravy – and so has nothing whatsoever to do with anything. Who are you to judge me, anyway?)

I Love Lucid

File under: Barbie Mariposa and the Glittering Goo. Stream of subconscious glimpses from a lucid dream…

summer camp, family resort, all ages
i overhear news that someone’s spreading herpes to girls
i walk out of my room – there is a row of young girls sitting in line waiting for – ?
i feel guilty and panic
i try to say something to my family who’s there, instead i run because the hysteria is turning the camp into a lynch mob
i find a fence, jump it, run up some stone steps into the woods and adjacent railroad tracks
no trains are coming so i run through through the woods to the nearest town
i find a bed and breakfast to stay in, but i hear people talking about the pandemic up at the camp, so i leave and hitch a ride
a couple of guys with guns pick me up and give me a ride, without asking questions
while we’re driving and they’re quiet, in my dream-head in the back seat, i can hear what everyone at the camp is saying and thinking and how they plan to catch me – i think “new jersey, connecticut…new york is the first place they’ll look for me…”
we come to a highway off-ramp, the car pulls up next to a big, new, yellow pickup truck – its flatbed walls are covered with dripping honeycombs. i am distracted by the glittering goo…wondering – how does that work?
i get out of the car, because the two guys with the guns are scaring me
i wander along the highway intersections and end up in a flop house with a group of junkies
another guy, 2 girls and i pair off into couples and go upstairs to have an orgy
upstairs, i’m thinking, i can’t do this, i can’t give this chick herpes even if she is a junkie
as she undresses, i start to wonder why i’m having sex with women anyway – when did this start?
the other couple starts to make out, then stops – the guy says he’s the one spreading the herpes,
they continue to have sex anyway, the girl i’m with changes her mind
relieved knowing it’s not me, i run downstairs and out of the house
i run into the group from the camp who is calm now and heading to a fancy lodge with a tropical theme
we come up escalators into a big hall with modular leather seats
as we’re sorting out where to sit, i turn and start talking to the group i was hanging out with at the camp…”how ’bout here?”

I wake up, pee, turn on the TV to an episode of a cartoon called “Barbie Mariposa”: ” A butterfly fairy and her friends must find an antidote for their poisoned queen…” The fairy says, “This time, I promise I won’t oversleep.”

Miami o Mi Mami?

What kind of evil, ungrateful child would actually be torn between going to Miami for WMC, or going to L.A. and seeing his mother off to her retirement in Cancun? What heartless,narcissistic, myopic, lowlife would see the timing as yet another conspiracy against him? What kind of bleeding-heart smothering mother would torture said twisted child by insisting there’s no need to fly home because she’ll be back a couple of months anyway? And perhaps most importantly, how is this disco demon supposed to work it on the dance-floor and work on his tan while lying on South Beach hungover, looking up at every plane streaking across the sky and wondering – is that it? Is that the one that’s flying mi mami home?

AARP Diem

The other day as I was thinking, “for every gray hair, another pound,” I was interrupted by T, who like Seinfeld’s Kramer, came crashing through my door from across the hall (as he often does) with a big hello and a stack of mail. Among the junk he plopped on my Ikea coffee table was a “magazine” called Phases, or Stages, or some other such thing that I pushed deep into my subconscious as soon as I read the sub-head: AARP. It featured a late-30-something daddy type hoisting a wee tot above his shoulders; both of their faces were smeared with ear-to-ear grins, as if the trees in the backdrop were actually growing “benjamins.”
When did I qualify to start receiving information about retirement? And why isn’t there a Gay-A-R-P featuring a hot multicultural couple on the cover? Is it because with all our expendable, childless income we’re supposedly immune? Some of us have medical expenses that require budgeting and planning; we can’t just run to the Bahamas every time we sprout another lesion, after all.
It’s one thing to be thinking about retirement on your own, as a single sexless sissy in the city, in the privacy and comfort of your own gently-padded denial, but to have a glossy, color leaflet thrust the reminder in your unsuspecting face, well that’s enough to trigger a seizure of a wholly unfavorable kind.

Sleazy Listening

Luring disco dollies to a life of vice is not enough. Once there, the budding deviants need a way to find their way around, a guide, a man-on-manifesto, if you will.
Yeah, Bronski Beat published “The Age of Consent” on their inner sleeve as Jimmy Sommerville’s falsetto implored “Why?”; and sure, Boy George cock-teased “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” in his Rasta-Geisha tropicalia. But Soft Cell, in the best Socratic tradition, broke it down for the PYTs (Perverse Young Thangs) in black and blue and white and every other sizzling neon color their s(p)eedy imagination could conjure.
“It’s A Mug’s Game” is not as well-remembered as “Tainted Love” or “Sex Dwarf” but, along with “Down in the Subway” it’s one of my favorite Soft Cell/new wave/pop tunes/torch songs. The throbbing electro epic comes on Big-as-Broadway and builds to a show-stopping, horn-blaring crescendo, exposing all the thrills, pills, and bellyaches of life pranced away among pimps, pushers and prostitutes.
“Oh god its another night/And your head is feeling/Like a lump of lead” – if it wasn’t then, it should be (still) every parent’s worst nightmare. “Mug’s Game” is not the kind of ammo you should hand a hormonal, impatient – and cute – adolescent. KROQ FM served it up “Nonstop” for much of 1982 and 1983; every play on the air and on my turntable and my tape deck drilled the apocalyptic “last-disco” ethos into my impressionable mind.
“It’s a choice between a cab fare home/And a packet of cigarettes/So you choose and the money sticks/In the machine and the manager says/’Tough shit – drink up and leave/Oh god it’s another disease/And you just got rid of the last/You were beginning to feel OK/And the friends you gave it to/Were speaking to you again.”
This, I was certain, was my fate. And it sounded so fabulous, all I could think and sing as I puffed on my clove cigarettes and mirror-danced in my trench coat was, ” I can’t wait until I’m twenty one/And I can tell them all to sod off.” Pa-pa-pa-da-da…
A quarter of a century after the fact, all I can say is, “Je regret rien.” It is a mug’s game, one you can’t win for losing. Even then, winning is a dubious delight, and not for the faint at heart…