Yesterday's Pants: 2006

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Read a book you moron or if reading is fundamental, then why aren't you born knowing how to read?

I used to love to read. I'm not saying I don't love to read now, it's just that for some reason, I used to read a lot and now I don't. I still read, just not books anymore. I read the newspapers everyday, two different ones usually. This I have done virtually everyday of my life. Even when I travel, I will buy the local paper and a USA Today to get the national news. And I read magazines, a bunch of them actually, but that doesn't really qualify, it's sports, entertainment and gaming. And I even still pick up and read the occasional comic book, although what they have done by collecting multiple issues to make "graphic novels" has been the easiest way to read comics lately. No, what I have basically completely cut out of my life have been good solid books. And I wonder why.
I was wondering when I stopped reading books and I think it was when I had to stop traveling and I finally was able to sleep. Let me explain. I used to have to take the train to school a lot. First in the Bronx (from Manhattan) and then to Brooklyn (again from Manhattan). There was about an hour to and hour and half ride. Sometimes I would sleep, but more often than not, I would read. So if you start adding the hours up, that's a lot of hours to just read for 5 days. Plus, I would read on the jobs after school and the weekend, driving and delivering stuff, I didn't drive so sometimes I would read if we were stuck in traffic or when we were just hanging out. So that was nice chunk of reading. Now, I work in the city, pretty close to home, about a 25 minute walk, so I walk, it's inconvenient to take any transportation, sucks ass in a snowstorm I can tell you that, but at least I'm getting some walking in. This of course cuts the reading, unless of course I want to smash into the idiot tourists, wait that may not be a bad idea, no I digress, I would more likely walk into an on coming taxi cab. Nonetheless, no reading while riding.
Now, more importantly, I also sleep slightly better than I used to. I've sort of had insomnia since I was about 13. Just couldn't sleep much at that point. I would lay down and not sleep. I would finally drift off somewhere around 3-4AM and inevitably wake up at 6AM whether I liked it or not. To this day, I still wake up at or around 6AM, sometimes I make it to 7AM, but somewhere in between is where I stand now. This is no matter what time I go to sleep unless it is really really late like 3 or 4AM. But again, that is now, back then, it was about 3AM or worse everyday. At first I would watch TV and hope boredom would put me out. Wrong, Cher and her beauty products were so damn fascinating, come on, you know what I'm talking about, admit it. After I had seen everyone of those and had to stop myself from buying every Ronco product on the market, I started to take walks outside. This didn't do anything to make me more tired but scared the hell out of my family when I would be opening the door at 3AM and they would hear it. And no, I wasn't afraid to go out, when I started to do this, I was probably about 15, where I clocked in at 5' 11" and 220. Also I was already staying out late at clubs and drinking heavily at this point. So, that wasn't working so I started reading at night also, figured I would at least be entertained. The added hours of reading allowed me to plow through a lot of books. I read everything, fiction, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, horror, history, science no poetry, but Greek tragedies. I read The Iliad and The Odyssey in one week. I read every Stephen King Book from Carrie to Different Seasons, in order, in about a month. I enjoyed it all. Bad or good. I would have my phases, from science fiction, to mysteries, to adventure, to horror, to biographies. This kind of lasted past college. Sometime after I finished my second college and finally got a degree, I actually started to sleep. Not great sleep, but sleep nonetheless. I would actually close my eyes at about 12Am and not really feel like waking up again, minus the pee breaks, oh come on, we all get up and pee at night, unless you're wearing depends, until about 6AM, see about 3 inches above for why if you forgot. Then even more, whenever I felt tired and laid down, I was finding it easier and easier to sleep. So, I would have to say that was when I was about to really start falling asleep normally. About 15 years of insomnia slowly went away. With it, since I was working all day and out drinking at night, the reading fell to the wayside. And eventually, I don't believe I read more than one or maybe two books a year. Oddly, I still bought a number of books, with the full intention of reading them. There are a few piles of unread books in the house. But I basically stopped reading whole books.
Recently, I have started to miss reading, mostly because I miss the thrill of books and what they do for you. There are more and more movies based on books rather than original screenplays. 9 out of 10 times the books are superior to the films. Not being a snob, I love films more than anything else, it's just that, reading the books helped you understand more of what was going on in the film. But more importantly, reading fuels the imagination. You have to picture what is occurring in the book, based on the descriptions and in that way you are your own director and film maker in your mind. What someone's vision of something in a book may differ from yours, not by much, but ever so slightly so you can make it yours. But you play the book out in your mind as you read, you become the creator of what is happening by reading. Like I said, it stirs the imagination and I find myself duller and duller lately. Not that I was ever all that exciting a person before, but I find myself staring at the TV and laughing at some of the worst things, and surfing the Internet for way too much porn, more and more. My time would be better spent picking up a book and reading a chapter or two. But then I'm afraid I won't be able to find the time to finish the book, what with my busy schedule of watching crap every night on TV. Freaking Rockstar and American Idol suck my soul.
Anywhos, I just wanted to say, read a book, it betters your mind. I wonder if wrestling is on?

Monday, December 25, 2006

Happy Festivus and Happy Non-Secular Holiday

I've already aired my grievances, feats of strengths to follow.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

All the old places are gone like me or I remember when dinosaurs walked the earth...

Tower Records officially closed on December 22, well the stores anyway. They are now an online service only. I heard from someone at work, that Coliseum Bookstore is also closing now. Another fucking crying shame. It's kinda sad when you see stores that you have been going to all your life closing. You always wonder why. Well the reasons are usually really obvious, but you just wonder why because you can't understand, you went there, they got your business, wasn't that enough. Apparently enough. Tower Records is closing because, officially, online music downloading has cut into there music sales. That is completely true. They fail to accept that they are also closing because they have been in bankruptcy court for the last ten years because they thought they were so popular they could compete with all the other huge entertainment stores and open stores nationwide. Too many stores, not enough demand. But most importantly, they failed to accept that they didn't need to discount their stock like every other store. Only in the last few years did they start to discount new releases, still not as much as Best Buy, Circuit City, etc., but at least they started to. Not enough, no one would buy unless they happened to be there a new release for full price when you can go to a Best Buy and get it for 8 bucks cheaper. The truly best thing about Tower was that it was the place you could find almost everything you were looking for, and that is the feature of the store I will miss more than anything else.

I didn't even think about it until I read it in an article a few days ago, but the first Tower didn't open until the around the late 70's or early 80's in the village. Greenwich Village to you non-New Yorkers. A lot of the smaller record stores downtown threw a shit fit, and rightly so. Tower downtown, although small and very homey, looked like a shiny conglomerate run type store. They had the Wal-mart fear before the Wal-mart fear became a nationwide phenomenon. You know, big store comes in and all the small ma and pa stores get shutdown, not being able to compete with the steep discounts the big store can offer. Tower did it, they didn't exactly offer discounts but neither did anyone else back then. But again, they did what became my most favorite feature of the store, have virtually everything I was looking for. When I was kid, long, long time ago, I used to buy 45's and albums at the Woolworth's. (How many of you even know what the hell I am talking about?) When I was a little older and because of circumstances beyond my control, began to spend my massively misspent youth hanging out downtown, I got into a lot of kinds of music, rock, punk, metal, reggae, jazz, blues, international, etc..., all at clubs like CBGBs, The Bottom Line, Continental (Divide), The Bitter End, etc. (All gone now too, except TheBitter End) I think I was 15 when I saw The Police play CBGBs, loved them ever since, fell in love with Blondie there, heard Jimmy Cliff on reggae night at The Bottom Line. I wish I saw a lot more, but I saw a few big bands start there and make it big, so many, many more not. I was always scrambling around looking for a 45 or an album if I liked the band. Then cam Tower. After that, if they put out a 45 or an album, I didn't have to search around whatever store to find it, Tower had it all. (One of the features of the downtown store that all the other stores didn't have was they would carry the music of local bands.) Over the years, whatever music suddenly caught my interest, I knew I would be able to go to Tower and find an extensive collection of the artist, so if I wanted to start with the first album or the newest, chances are they would have it. I will be the first to admit, lately when there has been a new release, I just go to Best Buy, or even FYE. You get the CDs far cheaper there. But I would go to Tower at least once every month or month and half, and spend nearly $200 dollars there. I love all types of music and I read about music online all the time, see the links on the side, a bunch of them are too music sites that help you here good stuff playing today. But I also love music that is not exactly popular, so finding those CDs in your local Best Buy are pretty much a dream. Not at Tower, biggest collection of Blues CDs you will ever see in your life. Full collections of Buddy Guy, the greatest blues guitarist ever, solo and with Junior Wells. Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Albert King, Debbie Davis, Jon Bonnamasso, Paul Butterfield and the Paul Butterield band in all it's incarnations, everything you could dream of. Every punk band I could barely remember from the haze that was my youth, from The Ramones to Cyanide to Vulcan Death Touch.

The same can be said of Coliseum Books. It is a local bookstore like no bookstore I ever saw. I remember it being near me forever, it was the biggest, shiniest book store, that literally had everything. Classics, recent bestsellers, children's books, text books, adult, everything. And they weren't some big chain, they were only local. Which I guess allowed them to buy 1 every book ever published. They closed about 3 years ago, a victim of high rents. They actually re-opened in another location, unfortunately smaller, so they weren't as comprehensive. But I still went to them. They too announced they were closing, right after Christmas, I believe. Barnes and Nobles ain't bad at all, but this place was special for me.

I ramble, my point being that, two places where you could find anything are/will be gone and I am sad. I don't mind buying music online, but I like buying music that I can hold. I lamented the loss of the big 12" album, with it's glorious cover art and extensive liner notes, shrunk down to the size of a large coaster and a booklet that looks like it is telling me how to operate my blender. I got over it, and now I have to start getting over holding a CD in my hands. And I like the fact that Coliseum was different than Barnes & Nobles, like Scribbners, B. Dalton were different, but better. I would never leave without at least 2 books.

Anyways, there is no lesson here other than, go to the places you like as much as you can, because, they may go away without warning. Like a bad cold or my dignity.

Here's some pictures of some of these places. Bye Bye stores, I loved you the most Scarecrow.

I loved this place, full of different music every night. Taught you how to not be a snob when it came to musical taste.

This the new store, couldn't find any pics of the old store, it was impressive though.

i really don't have to write about this, but one day, I will try and remember all the young acts that became famous there and tell you about them.

nuff said true believer.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Why Are People So Annoying, But I Can't Avoid Them Or Are You Really Getting Shoulder Surgery Because Of A Video Game?

I don't really want to use this as a forum to bitch and moan like the crotchety old man that I am (get your bike off my lawn you young whipper snapper) but let me just say something about your co-workers and why it would be nice to just work from home all the time. At work, you're forced to basically interact with people in both a social and business environment. That means that you have to treat people you would never in a thousand years want to know with some measure of respect. But why do these people not see it the same way as you do. Isn't it common human decency to treat people the way you would like to be treated? There are people at my job who are just pathetic excuse for human beings, who ask for everything, take everything and contribute nothing. And when they are denied, they become pathetic petulant children and find any excuse that doesn't involve taking a long look at what they are doing wrong to show why they didn't get what they wanted. I just want to take a hammer to their heads. If I could just do all my work at home, away from these cretins, I could avoid possible manslaughter charges that may occur at any given moment. But you realize that babies will be babies and you can't tell them what is wrong because they never will, in a million years see it that way. Anywhos, didn't want to really get into any specifics, just felt the need to vent a little frustration about work. Thank you for listening.......reading. Now on to more important matters.

I went to my friends house on Saturday night and played with the Nintendo Wii. I wouldn't say I'm an avid gamer, I like gaming, it's fun and releases tension. I own a couple of consoles, but not everything. So, my friends got the Wii, and were telling me about how amazing it was. I have read about it and was waiting to try it out myself. Woo Hoo, it is more fun than sticking a monkey down your pants. And that is just the basic sports package that comes with the machine. The controller reads all of your reactions so you basically have to mimic what you would do, throw, swing, bowl, punch. Let me tell you young reader, you have to start getting into some kinda shape if you want to play this a lot. Especially if you are a psycho like me and my friend Rob. We both played Baseball when we were younger and had less permanent injuries to the pathetic excuses we called bodies, so when we played baseball, we both acted like were actually pitching and swinging for real. We couldn't help ourselves, you just get into it. 3 innings, and the pathetic excuse I call a body was sweating and huffing and puffing and my shoulder was sore. But i have never had so much fun playing a video game. I don't really feel I need to shill for this, they have sold over a freakin' million units since launch, but if you can get you hands on one, Woo Hoo, more fun than licking a fan. Almost makes a man not think of porn ......... almost. Oh best thing, people are so getting into playing with the Wii, the strap that holds the controller to your wrist has been snapping from sweaty over enthusiastic players and they have been damaging everything from the TV to their girlfriends. Check out the pic of the controller going through the TV,

almost peed my pants, in fact, I felt a little trickle. You can find mo' mishaps at this site: http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/

Now just a quick recommendation. Wanted to just get people that happen to happen by this madness to hear some fantastic music. (Not you Stephie, you already know about him) The gentleman's name is Jesse Malin. He's been a round for awhile, started in a punk band D Generation that I remember hearing and then was re-introduced to his solo stuff by my buddy Dave (buy his CD, see below, sorry I can't help myself. Also he's playing Arlene's Grocery in NYC on Dec.20 for anybody that reads this and lives in the city, go see him, he's acoustic, but sounds great. I will be preparing rotted fruits and vegetables if he sucks.). His music is fantastic, beautiful lyrics and great music. Unfortunately, and I will admit this, he does fall in to the category of one of those musician's whose vocals, you either absolutely love or go eh. It's the Tom Waits factor, fantastic lyrics, but if you don't like his voice, it sounds like rocks being drawn across a cheese grater. This distracts from the music he makes for some. Hopefully those that I turn on to him will dig him. He makes real music that needs to be listened to. He's released two solo albums: "The Fine Art Of Self Destruction"and "The Heat", both fantastic albums. Fine Art has been my favorite album to listen to for 4 years and going. His new album is being released in February, hopefully. Go to his Myspace page, his site is under construction but I'll throw that link up too. Do yourself a favor and listen to this guy, would I steer you wrong? You know I wouldn't.