Maxwell's

Anyone who's been familiar with Hoboken since 1995 knows that the town has experienced a radical shift in housing prices and overall cultural aesthetic.  During the ten or so years I spent in Hudson County, I was continually amazed at the way developers were able to squeeze in yet another towering condo community into a city that's only one mile square.  Back in my day, there was still a hearty contingent of locals and imported freakers who turned their noses up at the inevitable changes that come with the gentrification of a neighborhood.  From their stools in Kelly's Pub, Black Jack's and Louise and Jerry's, these raconteurs would talk themselves hoarse about the good old days of cheap rent and unsafe streets.  All of that has vanished into the mist of nostalgia.

Among the last holdouts from the "old" Hoboken is Maxwell's, one of my favorite all time rock clubs.  The official "backstage" area was in the basement next to the kegs. Bands would have to walk up the basement stairs, through the bar, and then navigate their way to the stage from the back of the club room while accepting (or dodging) pats on the back or high-fives being offered from the crowd. I always thought that was a great proletariat approach as opposed to the usual way that bands appear from the backstage wings, looking down on their audience from on high.  I remember one night when Anton Newcombe was trying to make his way to the stage when someone by the door to the back room tried to goad him into a fight. Thankfully, Todd A was able to gently coax him away and prevent the possibility of having to refund the entire crowd for a show that was aborted before it began.  The stage was barely a couple of feet off the ground so if you were in the front there was a good chance that you might be playing the role of roadie by helping adjust mic stands that were accidentally knocked down. At Maxwell's, you felt like a more integral part of the show.

I read today that Maxwell's is shutting down on July 31st.  The shift in nightlife trends combined with the fact that much of the Maxwell's crowd has grown older and moved on makes it difficult to sustain a live music venue in Hoboken.  Despite the challenges they've faced for well over a decade, Maxwell's managed to outlive CBGBs, Brownies, Tramps, and The Continental.  This is no small feat. I was lucky enough to see a lot of great shows there over the years- Mike Watt, Guided By Voices, Supersuckers, Dead Moon, Doo Rag, The Dirtbombs, Billy Childish, Reigning Sound, Brian Jonestown Massacre, and more. (Typing that list out just now reminds me of how amazing that place was).

I'm at that age now where I can share memories of adulthood that took place over 20 years ago.  Each vestige of my younger days that slips away is another not-so-gentle nudge towards middle age. I'm slowly getting better at accepting this fact and am grateful for the experiences I had along the way.  Thank you, Todd A and gang, for so many magical nights.

The Blarney Cove

    

The Blarney Cove seems to be one of the only bars in the East Village that didn’t receive the memo that the 'hood is now about expensive drinks, NYU kids, and shrieking woo woo girls who truck in from the 'burbs for a night in the big city.  Even those who visit divey shithole bars as hip anthropological experimentation tend to steer clear of the Blarney Cove's front door.  I loved it because it was a place for professional drinkers to lose themselves without inhibition. It reminded me of the line in "It's A Wonderful Life":

Hey look, mister- we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast and we don't need any characters to give the joint "atmosphere".

It was always dark in there regardless of the time of day. The only light I can recall noticing was the faint illumination from the bar. It gave off a weird sort of glow that made everyone look like they were terminally ill.  I would go there because I knew I didn't have to impress anyone.  I certainly was not going to run the risk of running into future wife material and if I happened to rub shoulders with anyone I might've known from my outside life, it was safe to say that the person I saw was as much of a degenerate as I was.

No one cared if you slept at the bar, chewed the shit out a straw, or talked to yourself as long as you didn't bug anyone else.  I've heard that people have been 86ed from the Blarney Cove.  If you can't keep your shit together enough to remain welcome at the Blarney Cove, there's not much hope for you as a public drinker. The next stop is either drinking alone at home or while wandering the streets because there's few other places that will tolerate your sorry ass.  It's a pretty low bar to make it as a Blarney Cove regular. Failure to meet that standard says a lot about a person's ability to co-exist with the rest of the human race.

I learned today that the bar is set to close at the end of the month.  The surprising part is that they managed to stay open as long as they did.  Per an article in the EV Grieve, the whole block is shutting down business-by-business.  What does the future hold?  Who knows? All I can say is that the march of change has claimed another uniquely New York artifact.

Photo courtesy of EV Grieve

Screwed Forever- Messing Up In The Digital Age

It's been a while since I've felt like posting anything here. Over the last few months I have taken a big step back from social media.  I have found that when I log onto Facebook and scroll through my News Feed, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of information that spews out and underwhelmed by its substance. I don't mean to suggest that my life and thoughts are so much more interesting than the rest of the world. Instead, I don't free the urgency to share every single thing I do or every single thought that crosses my mind. These days, I do a quick weekly-or-so scan through Facebook and go about my business.

One huge benefit of all of this is that my head feels so much clearer. At my peak of online activity, my head felt as if it were being cooked in a microwave with rays penetrating my skull and slowly frying my brain. When I initially became aware of this, I decided to enact a No Internet Sunday rule for myself which consisted of not going online at all unless there was a specific urgency. Otherwise, it's all about reading, writing, and listening to music. I won't pretend that I've adhered to this fully but I can say with confidence that there has been a huge change for me.

Over the last few years, I've been alarmed at the downside of being a virtually connected society. Once upon a time, if you screwed up royally you were less at risk for having a black mark attached to your name for the rest of your life. These days, if you do something stupid or commit an action due to some temporary lapse in judgement, it's too easy for that to be documented, uploaded, and stored for posterity.  Some young people appear to be especially oblivious to this idea as they post pictures of their intoxicated selves or share information best left unshared.   The concepts of forgiveness and redemption are harder to come by once your transgression has made its way to Google and the all-knowing Cloud. I had an experience a few years back where a handful of people decided that a minor error of judgement on my part merited four pages of Google results with my name attached that should stay with me until the end of time. These people, with seemingly little time on their hands, felt that the rest of my life should be tainted for something that wasn't my fault but that I was accountable for. Thankfully, this was all before Twitter and Facebook so it was very easy to mitigate the damage although some of it remains years later.

All of this was on my mind this week because I saw a photograph taken on an airplane flight of a man who was restrained in his seat with duct tape and plastic ziplocks along the lines of what police use to arrest rioters. The man was allegedly intoxicated and became abusive to passengers and the flight crew. I fully support the decision of the flight crew to restrain this man if he were presenting a huge safety risk. What angers me is that the person sitting across the aisle from him found it necessary to humiliate this man further by taking his photograph and posting it online. Again, the behavior of the passenger merits appropriate punishment. My hope is that the man is given an opportunity to seek whatever help he needs to address the root causes of his actions. But no matter what he does, the documentation of a single regretful act will be around forever.  Somehow, it seems unfair.

I really want to know what went through the mind of the person who uploaded that picture. Was it because he/she was subjected to this man's abuse? Was it because he/she wanted to help create the next hip internet meme? I find the whole thing shameful and disgusting. Something like this makes me want to retreat further away from the online world.