The Afghan Whigs Live at the Bowery Ballroom

Lynn woke me up at 6:30 asking if I was ready to go.

It took me a minute to process the thought. It’s daytime, as in the streets are lit by things that are not electricity. But I’m still a step behind, so I get off my ass and hit the shower. The doors open at 7:30, which means the first band goes on at 9:00 at the earliest and the headliner will stop drinking tea with honey and start smoking until at least 9:45.

Turned out Lynn was on the sync of time a half an hour before me. I was out of the shower and on the 1 train by 7:45.

Perfect timing.

Got there at around 8. We went in and found ample space at the bar. Soon enough, the crowd began to pour in. They were mostly nice, feeling an urgency to discuss the most recent Twilight Singers show.

I had the ace in my back pocket. I had seen the Afghan Whigs the day Kurt’s death was announced in April of 94.

This blew some people’s minds.

But I looked around the bar and saw old people. I wondered if I looked like them.

The crowd grew and we got to know the bartender wearing the DJ Bonebreak t-shirt. She kept the drinks coming.

Soon I feel the need to pee. When I came back, there was a weird man encroaching upon my girl. I elbowed my way between them, to her relief, but not his. He tapped me on the shoulder and said. “What the fuck, I was here first.” I told him I had been there for an hour-and-a-half and that he was free to reach in for a drink, but not take my space at the bar. Or my girlfriend. This upset him. Unfortunately, he called me a dick. I began to turn around. He soon camouflaged himself into the background.

Either I’m getting big or he was a wuss. Either way, he was the only asshole we encountered the entire night. For an Afghan Whigs show is full of cool people.

We smelled weed from the smoking lounge, then soon enough in the bar. We made more friends. We even bought t-shirts.

Then it was show time.

We made our way upstairs to the ballroom and decided not to encroach upon those who had made their way up earlier. 100 feet away was cool.  We saw everything and heard every note.

Then it was after show time and Matt Pinfield, the longtime Alternative DJ, on radio and at clubs, as well as the host of MTV’s 120 Minutes was there. And for once, all hell didn’t break loose. He said .”Hello, Patrick.” and went to pee. I wanted to get a pic with him, but felt weird after staging it with Lynn after his bladder relief. I just let it go. He’s a cool dude.

We had a final drink at our own downstairs table, found a cab, and made our way up Broadway.

Videos to follow...

Better than Leno, and I'll gladly chat

Never thought it would evolve this way.

I received my first invite to be on a talk show this week. But it has nothing to do with writing, advertising, drinking, drugs, sports, video games, music, surfing, sneakers, or clothes.

It’s for organizing. (The hamper of my mind has officially blown a gasket.)

Go figure. This king of hoarder-bordering before I made the move to NYC became a model of modest materialism. Before I moved, I junked about two-thirds of my possessions.

I saved the books and the writing. Got rid of tons of t-shirts and caps, old furniture, stuff with dust on it, etc.

I moved in to this new place with a fresh, but still crowded start. So I got rid of more. Tons more. Memorabilia, computer hardware, entire stereos.

I then called upon the services of an organizational consultant. Going from 1,500 ft. to 800 ft., is not easy on one’s possessions.  But I did it.  And as a result garnered the attention of one of the most prominent organizers in the NYC area. Plus her cousin is an actress famous for her nasal voice.

I invited her over for a consultation a few months after I made my home here and she felt more impressed than compelled-to-compartmentalize.  She admired me for a willingness to abandon junk for open space.

She even helped me keep stuff. She saw potential in what I grouchily held onto. She read my writing—some of it, anyway. She commanded me to not discard rare personal treasures. We crated “Dummies Guide To ______” books to the bin.

She recognized the value of my rare drum set. She knew my Strat was a rare guitar. She was familiar with the fact that my piano had heirloom potential.

Plus, she saw that I have closets larger than many NY apts. That, in and of itself, is in keeping with the discarding of luggage essential to becoming upwardly mobile/philosophically free (see Robert DeNiro's climb up the falls with the indigenous and the Jesuits in the movie The Mission for reference.)

Now she wants me to testify on her new radio show. I think I’ll help her out. She can cut my armor free any day.

Watch The Mission for a clue for where I hope my point will go during the interview.

Why we sell

My Dad has Parkinson’s. I want to memorize his life as he would want it to be remembered. He, and my mom, want me to start selling his photos. They’re beautiful, and they’re superimposed with pithy poems. That’s a main reason I started my company. It’s also a paralyzing realization.

Time flies

I was 15 when MTV hit my eyes.

I was 17 when I moved into a dorm.

I was 19 when The Breakfast Club came out.

I was 21 when the Joshua Tree was released.

I was 24 when I got my first serious job.

I was 25 when I sprung for my first abortion.

I was 26 when I paid for my second.

I was 27 when Cobain died.

I was 30 when Natalie turned from tits to ellipses…

I was 34 before I ever got fired

I was 35 when I got rehired

I was 36 when the skyline smoked souls

I was 37 when they sent me to the loony bin

I was 38 when I met Christine
(She sent me nude pics. I think I destroyed them to save her marriage. She also knelt down to give me oral. I said no that night. But then we slept together a week later. And then it was a year later. Then two years later. And two gallons of elation here and there sloshing in her womb. Not to mention my sheets and mattress).

I was 39 when we imploded. Even though we were still hanging out together.
(Those days we took the train together into NYC, talking and smiling and appreciating how we would ever exist in the secrecy of memory).

But for room service...

The storm of Katrina was a weird reference point for us to unify sexually. Flood, deluge, escapism, evacuation. Trapped. Starving. Lonely. Protection. Elevation. Wetness. Evaporation. Ft. Worth. 20 pillows. Refuge. Elation. Freedom.

Tanning salon pics, tanline of disgarded ring visible

Watched four hours of Netflix this morning, then decided it was time to shower. After all, it has been three days. New soap, deodorant, and shampoo fresh to go in the tub.

Checked the weather by looking out the window and seeing what others were wearing. I decided on a hoodie and a windbreaker. Caught the elevator down as it hit my floor. Hit the street in stride. Hit the subway turnstyle as the train doors were opening. From my front door to the Village doctor it took me 20 minutes. That’s from the UWS to below SoHo to pick up a prescription.

My prescription was granted with grace and elegant acceleration. (I called ahead). Left the doctor and made my way back to the Sheridan Sq. stop. Unbelievably, I got there, again, just as the train was pulling up.

Rode way north. Finished chores that normally would take two hours. Took me one hour and 15 minutes. Got a weird phone call. It left a message. I forwarded it to a forensic detective in D.C. He owes me a beer. I’ll get results. I have compromising pics of a willing woman that I would never upload to the cloud. Unless that happened when I uploaded all of my hard drives. Oh well. She always looked better without a hoodie and/or a windbreaker. 

Rapidly aging, oblivious thief

Talked to an old boss of mine a few days ago. Told her what was going on in the working world. She had absolutely no comprehension of the fact that there is no remaining economy for anyone succeeding her trough-gorging generation. She was all like, but haven’t you planned for the next 30 years, dummy? I told her that our 401(k)s were decimated. Pshoosh, right over her head. She’s living in a million dollar house. And she lives there like everyone she ever gave a job to owes it to her. An obscene cut from every employee’s salary in a cash business. She’s a “job creator”. (e.g. billing skimmer). She jettisoned key chunks of the creative staff when she realized they were chomping at her ego and making more than $90,000 a year. And, like a fucking idiot, she wonders why we don’t have wealth. All the while she bails her brothers out of jail and goes in and out of rehab. The interest she made pays for the upkeep on her lawn, flowers, and slimy pool. In short, she’s the boss that expects you to thank her for being paid to work 65 hours a week, her cut being the meager 30 hours extra you bill that never went to anyplace but her bank account.

Afghan Whigs

The strongest strands to the past are sometime the most tenuous, the thinnest, and the most unlikely.

The best band of the 1990’s is making a comeback in NYC and I’m going to be angling for the best view from the very front of the stage. Seems like an odd, maybe out of place thing for me to do. I’m of an age that should secede such a precious vantage point to a younger version of myself. Fuck that.

I saw the Afghan Whigs in April, 1994 on the day it was announced that Kurt Cobain had shredded his skull with a shotgun. The Whigs were then Sub Pop label mates of Nirvana.

The lead singer, a dude named Greg Dulli, walked his band to the stage and launched with arrogance and passion into the first few songs from his band’s album Gentleman before most of us could finish our first few beers. I had been stoned for a good hour already, having busted out a phatty with fellow passengers on 1-95 en route.

A few weird things happened in that hour, including memorizing my way to the venue via meta-popcorn kernels left behind three years past. We were so fucking baked that time altered and the band took the stage before the hot bartender girl gave me a few drinks prior to the start of the concert.

Greg Dulli stopped the show and confirmed to the uninformed that Kurt was indeed dead. The audience roared in mourning with his then breaking news disclosure. He cued the band, and they blistered into the song Fountain and Fairfax with meaning that brought tears to his eyes.

The music? It was a bastard hybrid of grunge and soul. Not James Brown soul. More like Otis Redding fronting the Screaming Trees. A double-barreled guitar attack backed by blistering keyboards, drums like cannons across the bow and a voice that howled like a growling wolf in fits of anguish, anger and passion. There was a bass player, too.  

I could tell a thousand stories about that show. Like the one about the pretty girl who was offering to make out with guys for a dollar of beer money. One dude, one dollar at a time. Kinda nasty, but she was Eastern-European-model hot. (I just gave her a dollar. No kiss. To this day I am herpes-free). Or on the drive to the show, when I busted out the blunt and Kenny Cos came to life and I subsequently forgot how to park. Wait. I already told that one—or at least part of it. Or how I stood next to the PA and permanently lost hearing in my right ear.

This is a thin thread to the past. This is a fiber of a thread to a memory. This is a quantum electron to any point in time it lands me. This is a lifesaver thrown off the Titanic. This is a zygote borne into the past to return self-aware. This is a chance to go ape shit.

This is ago, a go, fuck this, no?

This is the Afghan Whigs at the Bowery Ballroom in a few weeks.

TBC

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Testing, 1-2-3

Tshk, tshk, tshk. Hello-lo-lo-lo? Damn. It's empty in here.

I thrive on drama like a...

Dirge digging dive-bomber…

With a full head of steam…

A barrel-chested beer blaster…

Beaming out his dreams…

A letter-pounding lead head…

Following his own screams…

Along the way I became co-dependent in my own wake of heartbreak, hospital bracelets, love letters, blog posts, unopened cans of Fancy Feast, medication, numbness, and submission to all but the blinking cursor. Bye. For now, anyway. R.I.P. Nancy. Thanks, Ann. Thanks, Joe.