while you were out

first week at the new job was busy busy busy.

thursday i celebrated iPhone love with tsuyoshi, stood outside of an arty party in soho.









friday i stayed in and watched a gregg araki movie - splendor - god i love this film.







the weather was perfect on saturday.



maria, veronica and kelly picked me up in a cab and we headed to brooklyn.





party @ supreme trading in williamsburg!















cheeseburger played.



i have a snippet of video:



cheeseburger needs more beer.

also: r2 needs more french fries.

meet me in the hotel for the key party

tuesday night was another magical night in new york. gorgeous weather, running into friends on the street, meeting at the gershwin hotel for a performance of the key party, pix in the photobooth first (are photobooths following me? or am i just noticing them more?), workhorse and the silver fox arrive via vespa, andy warhol in the lobby, sitting in the front row, giggling, passing the flask of maker's down the line, aquanet and a toy airplane on the stage, horn section and washtub bass, "his blacks don't match," tequila and red meat as post-show treats.

{the music? like if tom waits had a kid who dropped out of texas military school with liver damage and crabs. i told darren this, and he replied, "can i quote you?"}

music is the message; what's in a name?

i think you can tell a lot about the zeitgeist of the nation's youth by the names of the bands.

in the 50s it was cutesy and braggy - the comets, the rockets, fats domino, chubby checker...

in the 60s, animals and delicious optimism - the temptations, the righteous brothers, the supremes, the beatles, the monkees, the turtles - lovin spoonful??

the 70s gave us war, and a funkadelic parliament. but also got us high and sexy with names like wings and cream, and later peaches & herb, kiss...

anyway. i'm sure someone somewhere is writing a dissertation on this right now. no need for me to go on... and you could easily argue the point that i have no point, or that i'm wrong.

but i was watching some fuse over the weekend and it seemed to me that the kids all have the same bleak outlook... the bands i saw were:

anti-flag
armor for sleep
against me
senses fail
the casualties

add to these my other fave band names:
my chemical romance
and
i love you but i've chosen darkness

this is totally unscientific, because all of these bands are in the same vein - emo/screamo/indie/punk/rock - but i still found the nihilistic pessimism interesting. or maybe just appealing.

by the way, anti-flag's video for this is the end is one of the better videos i've seen lately. low budget, DV, with energetic screaming kids and a message. what else do you need? i think hip-hop should go in this direction - strip it down, lose the slickness (that feels 90s anyway) and get real.