Our Friend David

I always love to blog about my incredible friends and the wonderful things they do, but truth be told, I do not do it nearly enough! So today I shall dedicate my blogging endeavors to our dear friend David Shenton, who did something really incredible this week.

Brief background: David is husband of Erin, friend of many moons, and former college roomie at 527 Highland Ave in Bloomington, Indiana. When I first moved to NYC, Erin, along with Andi, Kristin, Tovah and Beth were all upstairs roomies at our place in queens. It was there that Erin met David (who was at that point living in London), fell in love, and thus, he moved here to be with the lovely lady, and pursue his musical endeavors state-side. They were married last October.

In any case, David decided this year to record his first album (being an excellent composer/pianist), called Sunnyside Blues. He went through a company called DiscMakers to get the cd reproduced... and it turned out they have a contest open to independent musicians, which is partially sponsored by Billboard Magazine. The grand prize is $50,000. Sooo, David decided to enter, and after his music was sent through various rounds, found himself one of the 6 finalists up for the prize! On Thursday, he was invited to play alongside 5 other musicians/bands, to compete in the finals in NYC.

All in all, this was a very strange contest. The judges, whom were supposedly "music industry people" (having worked for a major music publisher, I can only imagine what that means these days... failed plumber? Recent business school graduate? Child of retired former music industry persona with nothing better to do?), ranged in age from 18-22. The entire show, the judges sat in the back, getting drunk and paying zero attention to the bands that performed. The winning band, incidentally, Glint - was not a horrible band. In fact, they sounded a lot like most popular bands these days, with hints of early 90's brit-pop (especially the NYC singer with the astoundingly British accent), Interpol repeated-note bass-lines, whiny Robert Smith-like vocals, the Coldplay-ish keyboard figures... Truly astounding the way the managed to sound like every major band from the past 20 years, and yet offer absolutely nothing new. Not to mention the song where they all tried to harmonize with each other, while though a valiant effort, sounded slightly worse than our neighborhood on those spring nights when there's a feral cat around.

This in itself is not too surprising. The fact that no one in that band (or any of the preceding bands) would know what an extended tertian chord was if it crawled up their nose and ate their brain, is nothing less than expected. I think a few of us, knowing David's caliber, were hoping to hear some creative, interesting, beautiful music, since they'd managed to beat out a few thousand other musicians to get there. Somewhere, in the deepest corners of my mind, I'd always had this image of kids like myself, who loved music, who wanted to learn everything they could about it... who would grow and evolve musically, and give back something they'd worked extremely hard for... coming together in a retarded musical utopia that gave people's lives more meaning...

But that would assume the music industry is something other than the vile succubus it is, and I learned that lesson a long time ago. But enough of my pretentious rant! Sorry about that.

So, having now painted the glorious picture of the DiscMakers contest, I'd like to get back to David. Despite knowing what this contest was all about, despite the drunk twenty-somethings sitting around hitting on each other, despite the self-obsessed musicians handing out their free cds and stickers everywhere; David got up, sat at his keyboard, and played the absolute best he could in front of that crowd. David's music is truly representative of him. You hear it, and you can imagine him sitting writing it, thinking about translating Sunnyside into music, and incorporating his favorite things about music and the musicians he's loved as he goes along. As a performer, he was composed, charming as always, and completely engaging. In fact, it was very surreal - as David resolved certain passages, the crowd would roar just like they would at a rock concert after their favorite song, or at a sporting event after a great pass. This funny little NYC crowd was transformed, and people I'd never seen before were standing at the front of the crowd, cheering him on, hanging on every note.

His message came through. And after all, that IS what it's about.

So I'd just like to say congratulations David, for getting up there and showing Billboard Magazine what music is all about. We're so very proud of you!!!

Hay nobody ever listens to me

how about this guy?

Weathering the Storm

We’ve been called upon to blog about the recent rain events. I’m happy to do that, but something else needs to be addressed first. Well, not something else; everything else. I’ve been a lazy blogger, and not for lack of material. I can’t tell you how many times over the last few months I’ve thought to myself, “I should blog about that.” Because this state, this city, this HOUSE is full of hilarity, and that hilarity ought to be shared. So while I can’t possibly make up for months of blog neglect, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share at least a few highlights from NJ, JC, and OHIJ.

1. Earlier this year, Men’s Health Magazine ranked Jersey City 2nd on its list of cities with the safest drivers. I don’t mean to question the driving abilities of my friends and neighbors, but I imagine that this news raised the eyebrows of more than one local crossing guard. Had I blogged properly (or at all) about this at the time, I’d have described the way my usually happy-go-lucky friend Aaron turns into an angry alpha-male rage machine when he gets behind the wheel; the way people park their cars right up to the corner so that other drivers have to nose most of the way into an intersection to see if anyone’s coming; the way many drivers, accustomed to this inability to see if anyone’s coming, alert other drivers to their presence by aggressively laying on their horns as they run the stop signs; the way drivers on Newark Avenue (and I hate to say it, but it’s usually police officers) pull up quickly and suddenly onto the sidewalk — forcing law-abiding pedestrians such as myself to dodge out of the way — as though there is something going on at the dollar store that requires immediate JCPD presence.

So if Jersey City is the 2nd safest driving city, I can think of quite a few candidates for first place. Turns out the big winner was Des Moines, Iowa, whose drivers earned a big, fat A+.

My old home, Rochester, NY, ranked 23rd with a grade of B.

Kansas City got an F.

Boston got a B-minus.

If, like me, you have been in traffic in both Kansas City and Boston, you’re probably scratching your head right now, wondering what criteria the folks at Men’s Health could possibly have used to flunk Kansas City while sending Boston to the head (okay, near the head) of the class. According to the Men’s Health article, the authors looked at each city’s rate of fatal accidents; the number of deaths caused specifically by speeding; stats on accident frequency; and stats on seatbelt use. In other words, Men’s Health managed to rate driver safety in 100 U.S. cities without ever necessarily visiting those cities to observe the driving. I suspect they used a similar methodology in researching their piece on 12 Steps to Seduce a Woman, but that’s a whole other blog entry.

2. In April, our governor was critically injured when his driver, State Trooper Robert Rasinski, demonstrating safe driving techniques at over 90 mph, crashed into a guardrail. Governor Corzine now does PSAs promoting seat-belt use, which, fingers crossed, may help JC nudge Des Moines out of the coveted #1 spot on the safe driving cities list.

3. The US Postal Service recently saw fit to replace the mailbox on the corner of Jersey Avenue and 4th Street. While I appreciate the efforts of the USPS to keep the neighborhood looking nice, I can’t help but miss the old mailbox, which was adorned with graffiti that said, “Thunder Lizard Be Thy Name.”

I’m not saying that I like graffiti. Most of it is destructive, inspired by what I imagine are really boring stories:

"Baby, I love you so much that I’m gonna go to the hardware store and get some spray paint and write ‘Carl loves Brittany’ somewhere real special.”

“Put ‘forever’ after it, baby. But spell it with the number ‘4’ and a hyphen, like I did in your yearbook.”

But “Thunder Lizard Be Thy Name” on a mailbox? That’s graffiti that makes me think about its origins. For one thing, the mailbox sits outside of a church, which leads me to believe that the person who vandalized this particular piece of federal property is not one of the God-fearing people who shop the “Religious Candles” aisles at our local supermarkets. For another, it’s written in white, which leads me to believe that it was either pre-meditated graffiti or that the artist is a frequent vandal. I mean, who’s carrying around a white marker/paint pen/whatever? A black Sharpie is the tool I associate with spontaneous graffiti. I could be wrong.

At any rate, an anonymous blog reader notified us several months ago that Thunder Lizard Be Thy Name is a local band. The band’s MySpace page describes its style as “Blues/Thrash/Psychedelic,” which only makes the whole thing more intriguing to me, because, as you may be surprised to learn, I don’t know a lot about the Thrash genre or its fans.

I’m sure that most of the neighborhood is glad to see the old, rusty, graffiti-ed mailbox gone, or that they never even noticed it in the first place. But I think it had character. Not everything needs to be shiny and new.

4. One resident of Our House in Jersey has a small role in an original Tony Clomax production. I’ve seen the film, and it has forever changed me. While the film itself is not yet in wide release, you can see the trailer on YouTube. Or, heck, maybe I should post it right here for your convenience.

5. There are countless other things that I should write about — our many recent visitors, the week that Olivia and Basil went berserk and kept attacking each other for no apparent reason, our singing refrigerator repair man — but I need to get to the weather events of the past week.

Basically, three inches of rain flooded the subway system on Wednesday, leaving an awful lot of commuters stranded. Our friend Anthony was stuck on the PATH train (not part of the MTA and, notably, facing far less disruption than the New York lines) for an hour and a half, “standing under an aging hippie’s armpit.”

It’s not that the city’s drainage system can’t handle three inches of rain; it’s that it can’t handle three inches of rain that quickly. A slow and steady precipitation is manageable, but this disabling rain was fast and hard (I slept through it) … and the system simply isn’t equipped to deal with that.

For the record, I’ve heard that NYC has been quietly working on upgrading its drainage system for a while. But with this transit disruption occurring so closely after Minnesota’s bridge collapse, aging infrastructure has quickly become a hot topic around here (and everywhere, I’m sure). I wonder what the implications are for PlaNYC 2030, Mayor Bloomberg’s sustainability plan that addresses the aging infrastructure, an increasing population, and the environment. Will the plan be revised to focus even more closely on infrastructure? Will media attention to the issue prompt Albany to allocate more money to those sorts of projects?

Some Brooklyn neighborhoods were hit particularly hard by the storm, which uprooted trees and tore the roofs from several buildings. In fact, the National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down. And if that weren’t enough, the lingering humidity made the afternoon especially hot. NYC and NJ opened cooling centers so that people, particularly seniors, could get out of the heat.

We had minor flooding on our first floor, which Maria & Moray cleaned up before I even knew it was there. (Thanks, guys.) Other than that, our household weathered the literal storm just fine.