In an effort to prove I do sometimes leave the house for things other than work and feral cats, here's some photos from Matt & Sylvia's party the other night. they live in Greenpoint, and managed to find a place that doesn't yet appear to be played out in the Williamsburg way. And yet, it can boast stuff like nearby bars, bodegas on literally every corner, plus it's on the far side of town from the bulk of the oil spill.

My neighborhood still shuts down too early, and the bodegas that are open 24 hours are not exactly the type of places you want to spend lots of time. Then again, you don't actually get to go in, you boss some schmoe around behind three inches of bulletproof lucite.

The only real drawback to the neighborhood is you're pretty much stuck with the G train. And let's face it, it won't wash. I don't blame the train, I blame the MTA for being fully 5 years behind the times. Every single neighborhood that is serviced by the G has become real estate gold (more or less). Look at this list of areas the G runs through, tell me it doesn't read like the last several editions of NY Magazine's "Next Hottest Neighborhood Our Cool Interns Say are Hot Hot Hot":

Red Hook, Carrol Gardens, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Long Island City. The G connects to the F, A/C, L (Brooklyn), and the E, 7, and V trains in Queens. Not bad, right? So why does the train still suck so much?

I know they're extending the run further into Brooklyn, but that sounds to me like it will take just that much longer for the train to get anywhere. It's pretty impressive that it's been able to handle these ever-more-populous neighborhoods with its dinky 4-car load. I dunno, maybe the folks who live in these neighborhoods learn a kind of zen-like patience I can't begin to imagine. I mean, I used to live off the Classon station for years and somehow survived it, but now that I live on a train line that keeps a pretty tight schedule, it drives me nuts when I find myself standing around that bizarrely run-down Broadway station.

Labels: Friends, Funny to Me, Gentrification, Mass Transit, Parties

In 1990 I bought my first electric guitar with proceeds from my job at Pier One Imports. I'm not sure how I found out about the pawn shop, I think my friend lived near it and had clued me in. It was over the city line in Painseville, Ohio. The shop had a bunch of guitars, and most of them were new. I'm not sure where they got them, but they sure were cheap compared to the stuff they sold at Arrowhead Music in town.

I knew nothing about guitars, I had only recently begun to teach myself to play on my sister's abandoned acoustic guitar but I wanted to get an electric. I went to the pawn shop several times, messing with the guitars and trying to act like i knew how to judge the quality. I ended up buying the guitar in the picture, not so much because it was a good instrument, but more because it was paisley.

This is a Cort brand, a Korean knockoff company so addled by low esteem they feel the need to print the words "Electric Guitar" on the headstock. You know, in case you don't know what it it is. I believe its design, with red fabric printed with greenish paiselys, was meant to resemble a tele owned by Pete Townsend, but I sure didn't know that at the time. The price tag read $175, I offered $150 and it was mine, along with a cardboard box and one of those supercheap guitar cables.

Man, I was such a fruit in those days. Can you picture me with my poorly-realized half-assed Flock of Seagulls haircut and my shirts buttoned all the way up to the top. And this guitar. Which, mind you, I barely knew how to play. It would be another several months before I got a real amp, and another 17 years before I learned how to play it halfway well (jury's still out on that).

I never thought I would see this thing again. When I left Ohio for Brooklyn , I left a wake of music equipment, some amps and speaker cabs, and one neglected Cort guitar. Since its purchase I had moved onto other guitars, a Stewart-Macdonald tele, and a Les Paul Deluxe (which I came to find out is considered anything but 'deluxe' by guitar aficionados, but it is still deemed superior to the Cort).

Meanwhile, former bandmate Al had been busy. In advance of his current band's trip to New York, he fetched the Cort out from behind the furnace, dusted it off and replaced the hardware and electronics. Conveniently located in his town of Athens, Ohio, is the Stew-Mac company, manufacturer of custom guitar parts. So basically you can get everything from wood blanks to cut out your own single-piece guitar, to the little plastic caps that go on the end of pickup toggle switches. Thus armed with a new lease on life, Al presented the guitar to me right before he and the band headed back on the road.

I was fearful of trying to play it again. Let's face it, it was built to be a cheap guitar for kids like me who didn't know better. With some trepidation I plugged her in and went on a sonic journey. At first it sounded a little off, but I fiddled with the EQ on my amp a little and got this really singe-y, high-tension wire sound. It was this point I realized that I never played this guitar without some kind of distortion on it, so the guitar sounding this good was a major feat.

So the guitar still rocks after all these years. I don't normally play single coil pickups anymore so this is a real departure. But the weird thing is I really like that (Shellac) sound, so now it seems odd I haven't played on them in so long. The Cort may just earn a place in my on-stage guitar collection. The only problem is, it's still paisley. Thanks Al!!! Here's some more photos.

Oh and here are some Flickr photos of other paisley guitars, apparently the original is from 1968.

Labels: Bands, Friends, Motico, Music

Ever-attuned to all things related to soundproofing, I read with interest the NYTimes article about people dealing with noise issues in their homes. I'm mostly glad they actually devoted a (small) section of the article to the DIYer, though the brunt of the article was clearly aimed at people who will pay through the nose for quiet. It still astounds me not only that people are willing to pay so much ($3-4K PER ROOM!) for stuff like this, but that plenty of folks in this town are willing to do this for property they don't even own.

Like that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry has Conrad/Con/Conny redo his kitchen cabinets, it always sticks in my craw that he was just renting. But apparently it's not the unheard-of for renters to upgrade their apartments. I guess they assume they'll be there long enough to make the lost expense when they move worth their while. Maybe I'm more old-fashioned that I thought (don't worry kids, I'm still wicked cool), less existential than I thought I was (don't worry kids, I'm still wicked goth). Maybe it doesn't matter in the long run if you own something, as long as you have landlords who will let you install $10,000 soundproof windows and $250 per panel Quietrock drywall.

Meanwhile, the cops have been outfitted with Segways. If there is a god in heaven, please let them start patrolling my neighborhood. Oh sweet jesus I would love to see what the neighborhood would have to say about that. I hope they're teaching the cops to juggle spaldeens as well. That's money well spent!

And congratulations to Jenblossom, whose stray cat just moved a little of kittens into her yard. Ah, what fun awaits them! At least those kittens look a little better than the ones I got (pictured). But they're hanging in there, as is their mom.

Labels: Bushwick, Cats, Friends, Renting, Soundproofing, The City

Oh no! Okay, I haven't been to the Brooklyn Inn in a long time, so maybe I'm somehow to blame for this, but I always liked that bar. Now comes word that the bar is to be repurposed into a bistro. What the fuck is a bistro, anyway? This sounds suspiciously like what happened to the Sweetwater Tavern in Williamsburg. It used to be a foul-smelling, graffitied-up liquor barn with a surly clientele, and then one day I walked by and it was a 'cute' little restaurant, with curtains and quaint lettering on the window. Eww.

The Brooklyn Inn wasn't all that special, but it had the sense to it that it had been exactly the same for decades. I don't even think it was all that cheap. But I used ot meet a friend of mine there after work, as it was equidistant from our respective homes. So now it's gonna be a frickin' bistro, I've moved to the other end of the boro, and my friend moved back to Cleveland. Is nothing sacred?

UPDATE: The bistro may not be true after all! What? Something on the Internet turns out to be false? What a world. Here's an Eater Update, sounds like it will remain a bar, albeit a lame one like Magician and Tile Bar. Whooppee.

Labels: Brooklyn, Friends, Gentrification

You know how sometimes when you drink you end up doing things you later regret? Well, this happened to me the other night. I awoke on Sunday with a pounding head and the sobering realization that at 3:30 the night before I was singing "Captain Jack" because Alex knew how to play it on the piano. Sure it could be construed as an amusing party-type moment, but the more I thought about it, the worse it seemed. Now I keep thinking, "What if the neighbors were trying to sleep? What if their bed is right on the other side of the piano-room wall? Oh god I was singing Billy Joel. I mean, please. Billy Joel."

Luckily, my body shut itself down soon after. My only solace is that I think the neighbors know I live in the lower part of the house, and will blame it on Buzz. They think he's trouble anyway.

Labels: Bushwick, Friends, Funny to Me, House, Neighbors

Look what you missed out on. Actually, I'm not sure who made more a spectacle of themselves: Johnny, whose job it is to be drunk and obnoxious onstage, or Mark (L), who managed a rare feat, getting cut off at an illegal bar in a semi-legal performance room. He was better-behaved the second night, though there was some hollering observed.

Labels: Bands, Friends, Funny to Me

It was Max's first birthday party this weekend at Two Boots in the Slope. I was super late because the J train conspired with the F train to screw me over and make a 30-minute commute take over an hour and a half. I would love to know what they're actually doing in the tunnel that requires the F trian to run on the A line. Anyway, I got there in time for the highlights: Max getting his presents and Max 'eating' birthday cake.

When presented with the fabulous homemade monkey cake, Max started playing it like it was a conga drum. Soon, the monkey was no more. Apparently this cake was the young man's first taste of refined sugar! Soon, he will be a peanut-butter M&M addict like I am.

Here, Sean appears to be more interested in the present than Max. A couple more photos on the Flickr site. Happy birthday, Max!

Labels: Babies, Birthday, Friends, Park Slope