The Department of Useless and Ill-Informed Opinions

Live Bands

For as long as I can remember, I've been going to see bands play. I don't mean in the local-band-at-shitty-club thing, though there was some of that. I'm talking more about seeing a touring act. In junior high and early on in high school, it was mostly summers at the Jones Beach Amphitheater. By the time I was 16 or so, my mother used to let me head into the city with friends to see others, at places like the Wetlands, Roseland, and Irving Plaza. At 18, upon heading off to college, I got involved in student radio, seeing that many more. Coming back home eventually, the city thing resumed.

Point being, I've seen a shitload of bands in my 31+ years.

I've had the chance to see almost every band I've ever wanted to, and a few I haven't given a shit about. I've been to see bands who I was off-the-wall-excited to see and been massively disappointed by, and others I couldn't have cared less about who managed to floor me.

And in the course of this, I've created a list of those bands I want... screw want... need, to see, before either I or they drop dead. Today, until science figures out a way to bring Kurt Cobain or John Lennon back from the dead, there are just two left on the list (granted, the poetry of this would have been much, much better if there were only one). But first, this is who's come off the list, and how:

• Foo Fighters @ Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY (11/12/2000): These guys were great once, but the truth is that I've seen lots of great bands who weren't "must see's" in my time. Dave Grohl's membership in Nirvana bumped these guys up on my list. While it's not like the Foo's strutted the stage playing Dave's old classics, it was the closest I'd ever come. Nirvana was the inspiration for the list, as I'd once memorably passed up a Nirvana show at Roseland, saying to a friend that they'd be around for a while and I'd have plenty of chances to see them. After Cobain diedthe list was created. It was fitting that the Foo Fighters were the first to be crossed off the list.
• Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band @ Thomas and Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV (8/18/2002): Probably the best pure Rock God in the world. You can take your Clapton or your Townshend or whomever else, but Bruce is it. He still does all of the heavy lifting himself (unlike lots of his contemporaries), and he still puts on a show longer than anyone else I've ever seen. In 1984, The E Street Band were the greatest band in the fucking world, and then they were gone. Sure, Bruce was still around, and he was still pretty good, but when he decided to hold a reunion tour, how could I pass that up? Especially when my friend Mike got the idea to fly to Vegas to see them, partly since tickets in the NY/NJ area for him were nearly impossible to come by and partly because it was an excuse to go to Vegas for a weekend. Our seats sucked (high up, straight back on the opposite side of the oval), and I've since seen them play way better shows with some great seats, but this show was mind-blowing. It was "The First Time I Saw Springsteen."
• Rolling Stones @ Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (1/16/2003): It's the fucking Stones. I can honestly say, and I freely admit that this runs contrary to every single other person I've ever met who's seen them perform, that I did not enjoy this show. I thought they sucked, to be honest. But, it was one show before (two actual nights, there was an off-day in between) an HBO telecast. We were pretty sure they phoned it in, saving their energy up for the big show two nights later. Sure, it was disappointing. But, I can say that I've seen the Rolling Stones, so I'm ok with it.
• Pearl Jam @ Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (1/16/2003): I'd fallen away from Pearl Jam by this point. In high school, and even early on in college, they were one of the biggest (and best) bands in the world, and there was no way to get tickets when they toured. But their popularity had waned, and their last couple of albums hadn't been so great. Tickets were easier to come by, only very slightly, so we chose to go. Still, they sold out two nights at MSG, which is no small feat, especially for a band who were supposedly washed up. We showed up at the Garden, and upon seeing the huge crowd, thought that maybe this wasn't just some stupid nostalgia trip after all. Maybe they would still be that good. And they were. Eddie Vedder kept control over the room, and Stone and McCready ruled it. One of the best live bands I've ever seen.
• R.E.M. @ Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (10/4/2003): Similar situation to Pearl Jam, but I'd still been into them. R.E.M. had been huge, both commercially and for me personally, for a long time, and their last couple of albums had been widely considered busts. The difference here is that I actually liked the recent music that everyone else hated. Still, we didn't know what to expect, and were hoping for a smattering of the old stuff. I went because I'd had the chance back in the classic Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe days to see them and passed (for the same reasons I'd passed on Nirvana, "plenty of time"). Now Bill Berry was out. Realizing that with commercial failures (which I hate to admit can lead to a band's too-soon demise) their days might be numbered, we went. What we didn't know walking in was that R.E.M. were on tour to support a greatest hits package. I'm generally not a great hits kind of guy, but it's hard to argue when it's R.E.M.'s best. They played songs from their entire career, with heavy focus on the old stuff. Whenever I see a band, I always have a mental list of specific songs I'd love to hear them play, usually some standard and some obscure. R.E.M. hit just about every single song for me (made all the more impressive when you consider they had what was then 12 studio albums), starting with Finest Worksong. Seriously. Fifteen years after it came out, they opened the show with it. As soon as they kicked into it, we knew things were going to be good. Here's to Bill Berry performing with them at the Rock and Roll  Hall of Fame induction.

Everyone has music that defines them. There are select albums that define a specific stage of your life, that when you hear a song from it you're instantly taken back to that day on the playground in 5th grade or whenever. And then above individual albums, there are whole artists, bands whose music has stayed with you, where different albums stir memories from all sorts of different time periods. I have three like this.

The first is Living Colour, who were like a religious thing for myself and 3 friends growing up, and they've stayed with me for that reason. I've had the pleasure of seeing Living Colour live a bunch of times, at places as big as Roseland and as small as CBGB.

R.E.M. are the second, and I've already talked enough about them today.

The third band on my lifelong list are also one of the two left on my Need-To-See Concert List: The Police. And would you look at that, they're back together. I was too young to be around for their best times, seeing how they more or less stopped being a band when I was 8 years old. I have distinct memories of Synchronicity's videos being all over the MTV, but my real appreciation for them came later on, when their box set came out. Since 1993, The Police have been a constant sidebar and comparison to most music I listen to. I'd been a casual fan until this point, and what makes them different is that I didn't get to experience that progression of new albums every couple of years, but had to ingest it all at once. I almost think that gave them a mythical status, especially for the concert list. The Police's live shows were renowned, and knowing the hatred between them we thought this might never come. But whenever my friend Jason and I discussed bands, and the dream list, the comment about The Police was that we'd pay any amount we had to in order to see them play just once.

And now we can, hopefully without the Stubhub'ed prices. The idea that I might know tomorrow whether I'll have tickets in my hands to halve my list is exhilarating.

Now I can go back to waiting for Leonard Cohen's rumored 2007 tour to close this list out...

Callum Robbins Needs Your Help

It's not often that I get serious around here. Usually this is for flittering flights of fancy, random ramblings, or just plain ignoring and not bothering to post for months. But every now and then, something strikes me that's of a more sobering nature, and I like to speak about it. As such, here's a story for you...  It's about a 1 year old child, a now-defunct band, and a rock club in NYC that's long gone.

My story starts... Well, I don't remember exactly when. I'll place it in 1995, but that's an estimate, a stand-in, considering it may have been a year or 2 before. My phone rings, it's my friend Nick. Nick's older brother worked at Tower Records, which for us was the epitomy of cool-as-shit. I was never able to pull off a job there. I'd applied once, and though I thought I'd aced the music test they included on the application, I guess I just wasn't cool enough.

Nick's brother was our musical barometer. Back then we didn't have the ways to find new bands that we do today. Nick calls me, and says we're going into the city with his brother to see a band which he swore would change our lives; a band with intertwining guitars, deep bass, and tightly-wound drums, so tight you'd swear they'd split open when they were hit. How could I possibly say no?

Well, I did. I protested that I was tired, and I had to work or something the next morning, and I just didn't want to go into the city that might. Thankfully, Nick and his brother won, and I got into the car and off we went to Coney Island High.

What we saw did indeed change my life. We saw Jawbox.

At the time, apart from going to school, I was an intern for a small college radio promotions company. This isn't so important to the story, but it leads to something more, because after around 2 years there I decided to move on and intern at a label. Talking with my bosses, they agreed to help me where they could by reaching out to friends. All I had to do was pick the place I wanted to be at.

I went through labels in my head, and in the end knew that there were a few where I'd be put to good use, but only one where I knew I'd be happy. Atlantic Records. Why Atlantic, with an entire city full of record labels? Jawbox. I wanted to play whatever small part I could in drumming up support for them, knowing that had just recently put a record out.

I saw them play a few more times... Brownie's, Maxwell's, other places I can no longer remember.

And then Atlantic dropped them, along with the other few bands I personally gave a shit about, in a purge designed to only keep acts who were selling Hootie numbers, this being the day when Hootie & The Blowfish sold 16 million records. (Seriously. 16 times platinum. I shit you not.)

And then, Jawbox went away.

But I didn't. At least, not entirely.

Jawbox is still a regular part of the constant swirl of music on my iPod, and everytime I'm scrolling through and opt to stop on them for a while, I'm always happy I did.

Jawbox, and as a result J. Robbins, did much for me when I was younger. They helped shape and refine my musical tastes in ways they never otherwise would have had I never been turned onto them. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

And now, it's our turn to help J.

J.'s wife, Janet Morgan, gave birth to their first child, Callum Zachary Robbins, on January 27, 2006.  In September, after a visit to their pediatrician and subsequent trips to specialists, Cal was diagnosed with Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy. J., on his sites, and Bill Barbot and Kim Coletta, on theirs, put it so heartbreakingly simple that I won't even try. Cal Robbins has a very difficult life ahead of him, and we can help.

J. and Janet are accepting donations to the Callum Robbins Family Fund. I've given a small something, not much, but what I could, and I'm asking you to do the same.

Visit Cal's blog for more details on his condition, and for more information on how to donate.

Things To Do

I turned 31 last week (and threw myself a party at a bar that I learned only 2 days prior was an apparent blogger hangout, which tempted me to change venues), and as such I decided to spend my post-birthday semi-hangover putting down a list I'd been mentally working on for a while (which I liberally lifted from another site, on which I can't find the specific piece I'd wanted to reference). And so...

Things That Every Man Should Own/Do/Know/Comprehend By 31 (I'd have said 30, but I think it's fair to give us all a year to adjust to that big new roundish number to figure shit out; I'm cutting you some slack here, so don't take advantage):

1. Not just own a suit, because you should've had that taken care of way earlier, but own 2 or more suits.
2. Have a quality writing implement.
3. Even it's not your everyday one, possess a fine timekeeping device, i.e. a nice watch.  One that doesn't have a band made of rubber being a good start.
4. The number of books sitting on your shelves should be greater than the number of Xbox/Playstation/Wii/whatever video games.
5. Sure it varies from day to day and is dependent on all sorts of external conditions, but know how much beer, wine or booze you can drink before you get sick. I'm not telling you to stop before the sickness hits, I'm just offering the suggestion that maybe you shouldn't be caught offguard by it anymore.
6. On that line, know a good "business drink" that you can order so as to not look like a moron in front of serious people. The sort of drink that if you're at a thing, and a real, live adult hears you order it will prompt them to be impressed. Sure, maybe they're more impressed that you're not ordering a Fuzzy Navel, but maybe, just maybe, they're impressed that a young-ish person such as yourself can handle a real cocktail.
7. Be able to sit through a foreign subtitled film.
8. Own a corkscrew that isn't of the $5 "I grabbed it at some store in a rush" variety. I'm quite partial to the one I have.
9. Vacation in Europe. It's "where the history comes from."
10. To that end, have yourself some decent luggage. Maybe even a luggage set, if you're feeling particularly bold.
11. Have knowledge of current events that goes beyond what the score of Monday Night Football was.
12. Vote. Seriously, you have no idea the number of excuses I get from people, and none of them is valid. Short of "I was hit by a bus the day before Election Day, and am in a full body cast" I can't think of many others. And no, being out of town isn't legit. It's called an absentee ballot.
13. Learn to dust, scrub, vacuum, polish or whatever else you need to do to keep your place clean. If you can't manage that, drop $50 on a cleaning lady. (I'm wholly ignorant on that one, is that what it costs? For all I know it's $150 in NYC.)
14. Be able to hold a conversation at a party that doesn't consist entirely around sports, your fantasy teams or the real ones.
15. Call your mother.
16. Read A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present. It'll blow your mind.
17. Have at least two bottles of quality booze, of different varities, in your apartment.
18. Have the ability to go see a great band on a weeknight, stay out until 1 or 2am, and go into work the next morning. Trust me, this one will shock and amaze friends, family, and co-workers alike.
19. Go out for way-too-expensive cocktails every now and then.
20. Don't need to buy the cheapest tickets to a sporting event, be able to buy something mid-level. I'm not saying to necessarily buy the more expensive tickets, because there are few things I like better than a ticket that's cheaper than a beer, but it's good to know you don't need to scrimp on the seats.
21. FInally, and this one is my favorite, find a couple of things that you used to do, that once made you happy, and do them again.

So... Comprehensive, informative, blah blah blah. I won't say how many off of this list of 21 I do myself, but I will say I sure as fuck don't comply with all of them. This much I will fess up to: I fully adhere to #'s 1-4, sometimes follow #14, and blatantly ignore #13.

Is it considered acceptable behavior...

...to post once, directly after a vacation, saying that I'll be back on track shortly, followed by a second post 2 or so weeks later saying that I was perhaps wrong earlier and wasn't back just yet, but would be soon, and then to disappear for 3+ months only to claim to be back once more?

Right, didn't think so.

I make no promises as to just how "back" or not I may be. Let's see how this goes, and we can move forward from there.

So, what's been new since October? Sadly, little. But there are a few things I can say:

1. I've been promoted, or am at least deep into the process of being promoted. Offer letter has been signed, business cards with the snazzy new title have been ordered, and I've started doing some of the new work. All while technically retaining my old title and still doing my old job on top of the new one. It's a special form of bureaucracy, really. Wonderful stuff.

2. New cell phone that I'm quite pleased with. She's a looker, if I do say so myself.

3. I watched my favorite sports team go out with a fizzle. But it was a damned good year for them, the best in 18, so I shouldn't complain. Though I probably have, and will continue to.

4. I nurtured a good friend through a horrible ordeal: bedbugs.

Fuck. Is that really it?

I won a pub quiz one night, but it didn't nearly as much to do with me as it did to my friend Jen and her boyfriend Sam. They were the whiz kids.

Here's the thing, about the absence from here... This, here, right now, is the first thing I'm writing since... well since oh-so-eloquent "Be Back Soon" post in mid-October. I've mentally drafted a bunch of things, probably one every week or 2, but I've never put finger to keypad, as it were. And as for anything non-website-related, it's been much, much longer. I haven't gone so far as to look back at Last Saved dates on any files, because I'm scared that I might be underestimating myself, but it's been a good, solid year.

So, plans are afoot (though not quite in place just yet) to change the neglect I've shown to myself and my writing. If all goes as planned, I'll be back here, and I've got some interesting ideas I've been thinking about (a collection of short stories, an unrelated one-off short story, and maybe a 3rd draft of my most recent novel). It's time to shit or get off the pot.

I just don't know what the pot symbolizes.

Be back soon...

I know, I said I'd have some stuff to say within a couple of days of being back from Germany.

And now it's been two weeks and I haven't said anything.

I do have lots to say. I've been amassing a list of shit I want to talk about.

But, things are a little nuts at the moment. October is typically a very busy month for me, socially speaking. And with my team in the running, well, it's that much more.

I'm trying my damnedest to remain rational, as I watch this fantastic season I've just seen fly by begin to crack at its foundations right in front of my eyes. I've never been (and I don't want to become) one of those Fever Pitch-esque types who live and die by their teams' every moment; those people who obsess over each nuance of each game. And I think that while I've been watching intently, either by TV or in person at Shea Stadium, I've been good and have decidedly not been That Guy.

However, it is affecting somewhat my ability to concentrate on extracurricular activities, such as writing. If I had to guess (or at least hope), my money says it's more from the consecutive late nights out than it is from my mind spinning with permutations of postseason outcomes. But whatever the root cause it's fucking my shit up, to put it succinctly.

Tuesday night, the first off-day for the Mets in almost a full week (though they're talking about the possibility of another rainout on Monday night), is a good target for me to say a little something more. I'm exhausted by the NLCS. I can't even imagine how the players must be feeling.

Back...

So, I'm back (and fully recovered) from the trip.

The Zurich layover turned into a marathon, going to something like 6 or 7 hours, though time started to blur after a while. And no, it wasn't blurring due to alcohol. Or at least not much of it.

No, drinking was saved for Munich, and drinking was indeed done in Munich. Not quite as much, from a sheer volume perspective, as two years ago. But it was a respectable showing nonetheless. Pictures should be up on my Flickr stream this week, and I'll make note of that when it happens. I took close to 300 shots, but many were doubles as I was fucking around with color overlays and B/W and all that good stuff. I will say that having only glanced through them so far, I'm very happy with some of them, specifically the ones I took at the Olympic Stadium from the 1972 Summer Olympics.

I'm going to try to get those up there, and also get some more comprehensive posts up to both here and Inactual Size, but this week is nuts. New dodgeball season begins, and of course, so do the baseball playoffs, and I'm going away again this coming weekend. So, more later certainly, hopefully tomorrow.

Greetings from Zurich

Ok, I'm a fucking tool. But at least I know it, right?

But I have an excuse, because I'm on an insanely long layover, and there's no way I can sit and keep drinking (either coffee or beer). I'm already severely over-caffeinated, and it's 11:20am local time. Which of course makes it 5:20am in my brain, and I didn't sleep a wink on the flight from JFK.

So, I got into Zurich around 7:15am today, and with my flight to Munich scheduled for 11:55am, I decided to ask about getting the hell out of here. I went to the information desk, and the lady said that as long as I had my passport and boarding pass, I could leave. And leave I did.

Passport Control barely even looked at my passport, and they didn't even stamp it. I ended up knowing someone on my flight, who was flying to Zurich for work, so she and I shared a cab into the city. She went to crash at her hotel, and I went to roam. It was 8am, I was in a city (let alone a country) that I'd never been in before, and I'm walking around.

And it was nice. Really. I like some time to roam by myself in foreign cities. I spent hours doing it in Lisbon earlier this summer. It's a great way to get to know the non-museum and non-monument aspects of a city.

I was also hoping to score some breakfast, and some coffee. Everything I passed was closed. And the other walkers were sparse. I found a Starbucks, but I eschewed. I get enough of that shit at home.

So, after a half hour of wandering aimlessly I turned a corner and saw two things: a train station, and a cafe that was open. I figured this was fate telling me to get a quick cup and head back to the airport. It's not like I had 5 hours to wander, and I didn't really feel like spending $50 on a cab back to the airport.

Turns out the station was Zurich's Hauptbahnhof, the central station. Once I figured that out, my decision was made. Done and done. And I mean done.

Since all I spent in Zurich proper was an hour or so, I've got nothing at all to report. And no pics. Though I did get a shot of my company's new global ad campaign at the airport on my way back in through Passport Control (where they again gave my passport just a cursory glance; I guess my days of looking shady are behind me).

Anyway, what the hell am I doing blogging at what's now 11:25am when I have a flight in a half hour? Well, after a five hour layover, my flight is delayed. With a non-specified new time. They told us to go to the gate at the correct time, and an announcement will be made. Super-duper.

So yeah, I'm sitting in the Zurich airport blogging.

I'm going to head to the gate, and see what's up. Could take me a few minutes to clear security. Though if the passport screening process is any indication, I suspect I may just be able to roam straight through to my gate without so much as an X-ray. Mmm... Radioactive beams.

With any luck, this is where this ends. But believe me, if I get stuck here for any length of time, this baby's going to have an update tacked right on the bottom of this post. More thrilling airport tales!

Packing List

As I'm about to head off on vacation, I'm going to help everyone out and give you all some packing tips, in the form of sharing the list I've written for myself to make sure I don't forget anything:

Underwear... Check.
Socks... Check.
Shirts... Check.
Jeans... Check.
Shoes... Check.
Toothbrush & toothpaste... Check.
Deodorant... Check.
Q-Tips... Check.
Large pair of scissors... Check.
Cricket bat... Check.
Samurai sword... Check.
And of course, most heinous of all, skin moisturizer... Check.

But seriously...

I won't be around for the next week or so. I'm going to be on vacation, at Oktoberfest in Munich. Because I don't drink nearly enough in the US.

Want an idea of what it's like? Well, you're in luck. Check out my pictures from Oktoberfest 2004, which shockingly include some non-beer-related shots.

Inactual Size will continue to update while I'm gone, as I've staggered out a few pieces for next week on that nifty delayed post thing that I only very recently learned about. The Department will be back when I am, plus or minus a few days for recovery.

Prost!

What's The Headline?

I work with a guy who, whenever we have a major problem with a client, always asks the same question: "What's the headline?"

What he's asking, in case you haven't figured it out for yourself yet, is what are our everyday contacts reporting back to their management internally. Sure, we provide them with a solid and lengthy explanation, but their bosses want the most concise answer possible. So a 500 word e-mail or a 30 minute conference call that goes through all of the various nuances of why we don't suck gets boiled down into one or two sentences. "The vendor fucked up." And then we look bad in the eyes of the client's management when we shouldn't. It's all about perception. That shortened explanation? That's the headline.

NBC had similar headline issues earlier this summer, when they announced that both Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and 30 Rock would both be on the fall schedule.

The story wasn't about how two diverse yet slightly similar shows might both succeed, it was how viewers might possibly confuse them with each other and not tune in to one (or perhaps even both). Now, anyone who actually pays attention to any small detail is immediately going to notice the differences. In the simplest way, one is an hour-long drama and the other a half-hour comedy. But, every news outlet in the country talked about how the public would be confused, and how could NBC make such a stupid move.

Of course I get that our less-intelligent neighbors might confuse the two, because they both take place around the backstage machinations of an SNL-esque show. But, were either of these shows being marketed to our less-intelligent neighbors? Were the people who keep shows like Wife Swap on the air suddenly going to develop the desire to become Aaron Sorkin and Tina Fey fans? No, of course not. But, stories said they would, and they went on to say that when our Fear Factor loving friends tried to tune in they wouldn't comprehend what was going on, simply because of the most basic of similarities. Not by any means because the concepts on the actual programs were way beyond concepts that these people can comprehend.

So, did NBC fight the headline, and point out how different these programs were? Yes, for a time. And then they gave up and succumbed. Of course, they'd never fuck with Studio 60 in a major way (nor should they), and so they messed with 30 Rock. The show hasn't aired yet, but (apparently in August) two major things have been changed:

1. The show's dynamic has changed from backstage antics to an examination of the complex relationships between the Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan characters, making the SNL-clone almost incidental. I'm willing to bet that the fake Studio 60 is going to prove to be incidental to the real Studio 60 as well, but whatever. They're downplaying 30 Rock's fake sketch show, called 'The Girlie Show'.

2. Rachel Dratch, who I can attest from multiple takings-in of Asssscat at the UCB Theatre in NY, is funny as shit. And in the original pilot she was playing Jenna DeCarlo, the star of 'The Girlie Show'. Now, the pilot has been reshot/retooled and she'll occasionally appear on the show, sometimes as recurring characters (a cat wrangler in the pilot being one of those) and sometimes in one-off roles (I'm guessing under heavy makeup and prosthetics), and Jenna DeCarlo is now going to be played by Jane Krakowski.  The blonde chick from Ally McBeal. This change has been implemented so surreptitiously that on NBC's little 3 minute preview trailer for the show that's still on my cable's TV Guide On Demand channel, Rachel is in fact listed first among the other named cast members of Fey, Baldwin, and Morgan, and they show a scene where she introduces herself as "Jenna" and then a PA addresses her as "Ms. DeCarlo."

Now, look, I still think 30 Rock looks great and I'm still going to watch it. Alec Baldwin seems to be playing the egomaniac role he loves so much to the hilt, and the fake news camera scene of Tracy Morgan running on an LA highway in tighty-whiteys with a plastic light saber screaming "I am a Jedi!" might be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

What disturbs me, but of course doesn't shock me, is that NBC was so willing to completely de-ball 30 Rock for the sake of trying to change the headline. I'm sure it'll still be funny, but I suspect that if the original version of this series that we were supposed to see would have been infinitely funnier.

The truly funny part though is that, because they're downplaying these casting/concept/plot changes which were actually made back in August, the headline hasn't changed one bit.

What's Wrong With Where I Live?

Every now and then I meet new people. And sometimes, I'll meet someone I consider this person to be like-minded. Perhaps it's politically or socially, but more often than not it comes down to the other person's tastes in music, books, or movies. It's a connection based almost purely on how cool we think each other might just be.

When you're in on some artistic secret, a band nobody else really knows yet but you wish a few more people did (but not too many people), and then you meet someone who's also in on it you're happy. It gives the two of you common ground, a jumping off point into hopeful continued commonalities, maybe even into discovering something new. This is how it works.

So I'll be at a party or somesuch and I'll be talking to a person who I deem of equal coolness, and who deems me of the same, and the conversation will eventually turn, as it always does with New Yorkers, to where we each live. It generally goes something like this:

Me: "So where do you live?"

Them: "Williamsburg. How about you?" (Incidentally, insert any number of supposed hipster neighborhoods in here, and it works the same.)

Me: "Upper East Side."

Bam. Conversation's over, just like that.

Suddenly I go from a kindred spirit, someone who likes and hates most of the same things, to some guy who clearly is just trying to co-opt their indie mentality in order to seem cool. A poser, if you will.

And so I ask you, what the hell is wrong with where I live?

I'm the first guy to admit that the Upper East Side isn't exactly a hotbed for the indie scene. My neighbors don't posess all that much street cred. But just because I live amongst the over-privileged older and very-recently-ex-fraternitied/sororitied younger, does that suddenly make me one of them? One of the JT-listening, Us-reading automatons who I'll freely admit infest this place?

Look, I know what this area is. And in truth, I don't even know what my overarching point here is meant to be. Maybe I'm just pleading with the hipster masses to not write me off straight-away. Maybe I'm trying to help myself and those huddled few like me who live up here, assumed as a member of the uptownocracy (I just made that word up, and I kind of like it) based purely by our heinous zip codes. Or perhaps I just feel like bitching. I think I'll go with a little from all three.

Am I accusing the downtown hipsters of being judgmental? Well, yeah, I guess I am. I think it's a prime quality of being a hipster. You're always on the hunt to identify the few who are like you, and to scoff at those masses who aren't. And so when my supposed made-up exterior of guy-in-the-know is revealed to be just another damned UES'er in their eyes, the handshake turns into a scowl. But, I'm just as judgmental. My friends can tell you that apart from muttering "fucking tourists," my next most common group to curse about are "those fucking downtown hipsters." I like to think I do it because I'm vengeful towards their contempuousness, but I wonder sometimes if I don't do it because I'm simply jealous that they live in a 'cooler' neighborhood than me. It kills me to think that, but they've managed to make me completely subconscious about my own home.

I write this, I realize, because I have a massive inferiority complex about my apartment. I'm so concerned that I'm going to be crumpled up and thrown away like a fast food wrapper (not like a McDonald's wrapper though, because hipsters don't do McDonald's) that I find myself constantly on the defensive, and becoming immediately deprecating when talking about my home. "What? Oh, yeah, Upper East, I-know-it's-fucking-lame, but, you know." How sick is that?

I need to get over my bullshit about where I live. Or, I guess I could always move, which would be the more expensive and greater physical effort of a choice, but incredibly simpler from a psychological point of view. I suspect I'll go with neither option. I'll likely stay up here, being convenient to work and enjoying my relatively reasonable rent, and continue to belittle this neighborhood that in truth has been quite good to me. It feels unfair, and it feels like I'm betraying my pizza place, my local pub, my dry cleaner, and so on. But this is just one more example of what this city can do to you. It's not judt about who you are and what you do, but it's also about where you live. I may have a double walking the streets of this city somewhere, a guy who has completely identical tastes to me in everything, but because he lives in the Lower East Side he's levels and levels above me on the social scales that I (hate to admit) that I sort of want to belong to, the ones where I know I'd fit in.