please exit through the gift shop…

"I belong to the blank generation.

I can take it or leave it each time"

—Richard Hell

the wife is going away this week to our corn fed heartland on bidness…

the bidness of velveeta…

and it takes away from our anniversary…

and my birthday…

and besides…

once you have a kid, you briefly forget how to do all that shit you did when you were dating.

so we went to the punk rock exhibition at the met which always strikes the bastard as the weirdest place to go to see exhibitions of pop culture. 

the met is very old guard…

like something stuck in amber perhaps…

but…

it's well funded so at the very least, it'll look good.

which it did. 

but it was what I saw on the sides that made me take notice.

it's a story about how pop culture influenced fashion trends…

and the evolution of said trends over time…

so if you're going to see a show about  fucking the establishment…

then sling your hook elsewhere squire, this ain't it. 

it's like this, back in the 1970's kids were reacting against the giant bands and arena music and at the time the bleakness of a rough economy (sound familiar yet?) and a guy named Richard Hell started wearing a shirt with a target on it with the words, "please kill me" inscribed on it. 

the bastard paraphrases so there's so much more to it. I don't want to bring the dept of continuity down on me. 

anyway…

across the pond…

similar shit was happening and vivienne Westwood and Malcolm mcclaren owned a shop on kings road and was seeing and doing some interesting stuff. 

so they outfitted a band and put their clothes on then and then the sex pistols were born. 

and boom…

a fashion movement took hold, said the me on Madison Avenue. 

flashy forward to now, and the bastard is looking at clothes from now, influence by a bygone era that may well happen again given the circumstances we all face economically and I'm listening to some idiot who looks like the lead singer of creed telli his friend in his best ”hey brah” voice while I'm slowly trying to poke my ears out with my car keys while he goes over his johnnie rotten Wikipedia talki points

and all I can think is…

"ha ha ha… have you ever had the feeling you've been cheated"

brah doesn't know about this. he's just a product of mass marketing. 

and that's what this was about…

mass marketing

and when we exited through the gift shop, the price tag told me everything I needed to know. 

then my lovely wife and I went to the 29th century wing and followed up with Indian food.

good times

—the bastard

semantics…

the other night the bastard spent debating an evening drinking overpriced whiskey…

arguing gun rights and Wayne lapierre's height with old co workers.

this was from further back in the day.

my old editor has since moved on to the times and other writer/ editors have moved to other things

and aside from a rewarding conversation I had with the first person I ran film for whom I gave my 30,000 foot up assessment of what black enterprise magazine needs to do to be competitive in the modern age…

it was a rewarding conversation…

everytime the half day would interrupt, excusing himself for interrupting to tow the flyers party line on guns…

I felt a great sense of a return to the joust that made me pay attention to discussing politics…

and it was still rewarding…

and I felt lucky…

that Out of most of the art people I knew…

I was still in the game…

for while the men of words can always find work…

the look and feel folk find themselves working at a cardiologists office because they gave up the ghost…

or worse…

they had to

so i feel lucky that I was still in it, even though one day I may not be.

—the bastard

the long walk...

full cuppa...

banging 80 in the ride...

not a fucking dime in my wallet...

so i won't be parking on campus for this visit.

fortunately LIJ is on the queens side of lakeville road and they have houses rather than industrial parks...

so i just slide the old sub sub sub compact into a small spot that would no doubt incense the locals...

but the bastard would imagine that the idea of ANY offworlders to cheap to pay for hospital parking would be off putting.

it's queens...

the spot in front of the house is yours by divine right of kingship.

so like a freight train, the bastard is headed into the belly of the beast to see zsolte.

he's been having a rough go this year.

the wheels are falling off and this is his second trip to the hospital...

last time for his ticker...

this time, it's his kidneys...

you gotta feel for the man...

the community has been...

since the thrilla broke this story to the boys in the band, folks have been working hard at getting out there to see him.

so, in i go to the ICU for a visit.

zsolte is a loud one...

he can bellow when he needs to...

"whoa... i'm on vacation!", he'd exclaim for all the woods to hear, "i don't need to be going on no nature hike"

...and there he is passed out in a chair looking like he's been getting the wrong end of it.

i haven't seen him since jimmy's funeral but, for a man of his carriage...

he looked rickety to me.

dialysis...

it seems...

kicks the shit out of a man.

makes him a shadow of his former self.

so there i sat for an hour or so watching the poor bastard sleep in a chair that was only slightly less uncomfortable than his bed.

i reached for a magazine when he came to, looking bewildered.

"wassup bruvvah", i exclaimed, mustering enough enthusiam for the both of us

"oh, hey bastard...it's you", he whispered almost incoherently.

we talked for maybe 20 minutes.

well i talked, he grunted. like i said, he ain't feeling rright.

then i excused myself...

figured, sleep would be better than me hanging out.

so i take the long walk back to the ride.

and i think of who i didn't give the news to and decide to get on that.

but the whole while back all i can think about is how much i'd love to have a whiskey...

or an egg sammich...

and while it's 5 o'clock somewhere in the world...

the bastard opts for the egg sammich...

probably better overall.

get better bruvvah...we're all pulling for you.

—the bastard

…on brotherhood

"Thrilla, who's that baldy talking to father Kurt?"

"That's Craig from sick of it all and agnostic front"

"I only recognize that guy who played gits. The blocky guy who played the five string guitar"

"Oh he was here the afternoon".

Big names came out…

Small names came out…

Nameless jackasses like myself came out…

For two days…

Jim has packed the room…

To see his closed casket…

And for folks from the scene to pay respect…

And tell stories about the time they and jim did…

The word that folks threw around a lot these last two days was…

"Brother"

How you doing brother?

How you holding up brother?

Jim was like a brother to me

It's terrible that our brother was taken so soon?

That's how it is.

Folks don't come out to a wake on the most easternest part of queens to make appearances…

We came to honor our brother…

And we came to honor the wife and child he left behind…

And his family…

And to weep over the hole that jim has left in our lives.

Sleep well…

We hope that you're organizing a benefit for us on the other side.

—the bastard

a time for everything…

father Kurt from the six posted a piece he wrote as a liner note piece for the showerheads greatest hits package umpity ump years ago.

it reminded the bastard of the Ramones show that happened at the church…

yeah the fhillz finest played at my church…

he followed up later about flying in for the funeral tomorrow.

I uses to see father Kurt at shows…

now I'll see him at memorials…

a time for everything by tull comes on the iPhone…

again my playlist mocks me…

the bastard cracks a smile…

life is funny…

death is funnier…

best give her a smile.

—the bastard

and the heisman trophy goes to…

protip: get the fuck out of the way!

you know…

the bastard. had NO intentions of making the 5:51…

he popped out of the too park headed west and it was dick after dick…

tourist after tourist…

oh hey, I want to take a picture of one penn plaza engulfed in flesh eating fog.

move dick move…

slide to the right…

slide to the left…

to the left… to the left…

Onward we go on the PM barrel westward to this Long Island railroad…

evil bitch goddess I am saddled with until the lights come back on in the liquid city…

I fly straight true toward its stupid entitled suburban maw…

bound for the 6:08…

meatloaf may have been the great motivator

but ho, it's eluviete pouring it on…

and the bastard is here with two minutes to spare…

not by design but by sheer force of will…

I swore to myself I'd never miss this shit when I went back to my life in 2006…

but I never counted on getting my sea legs back for this metal barge to hell.

today's deep cut is everything the same as it never was by eluviete…

and now my playlist mocks me…

full steam ahead…

straight to hell and parts east of it…

yippy kay ay jerks

—the bastard

living is a young man's game…

When the bastard was young…

He used to pack on over to our lady of Lourdes on a Friday night…

Maybe sneak a couple beers out of someone's fridge or just go up to efroni's and buy underage…

And go see the battle of the bands.

The bastard played there a time or three but, that's a different story.

I wanna talk about jim.

Jim sang for a band called Norman bates and the showerheads and they headlined one night along with the six and violence and ultra violet confusion…

I don't remember much of that show from the showerheads but, they were loud, they rocked, and their big songs were a tore up version of if I could save time in a bottle and their closer, "Marlboro man" which I think involved cigarettes being thrown out into the audience which was rather provocative for a show in a church basement.

I also saw them open for the ramones in the church gym.

Flash forward: I'm at one of no redeeming's backyard bbqs and I hadn't been back to the scene for a bit and jim was there and we were reintroduced.

Jim pointed a skinny finger at me and said, "you used to deliver papers to me", and I did.

"89-22 220th street", I replied. We laughed and hada few beers.

I met his wife…

I drank with a satanist later that evening…

I smoked a lot of cigarettes…

The nice lady may have driven home that night…

Might have been better that way.

No redeeming would have a BBQ pretty much once or twice a summer and we'd chat in passing and he has always great to talk to.

You see, jim never left the thorough borough…

He was part of the scene here…

An elder statesman…

An idol…

An artist…

A frontman…

And when I last saw him, he was a giver

Flash forwarder: the last time I saw jim, I went to a benefit at the trash bar, one year ago tomorrow. His old bass player, J garrino had past away and a scholarship was set up in his honor.

Jim was the first guy I saw at the show.

He gave me a big hug…

thanked me for coming down…

Then promptly ushered me to hit the stage to catch the last two songs for no redeeming's set.

That night the showerheads, who had organized the event, only played two or three songs because of the full bill but, jim filled in for another past member of the six and violence for their set…

And at the time, it reminded me how much the six is a little less without paulie singing for them but, to have jim in was apprapo. J was their bass player too and it was a good send off.

Now: I sit in a basement in the old homestead banging this out and i realize that all of the old things in my life are going away and they won't be coming back and until old age takes these moments from me, I get to keep them.

I was on a camping trip last fall to k-love's bachelor party and Jim's guitarist was in tow. After a bottle of scotch, he declared the rock and roll lifestyle, a young mans game.

Perhaps he's right. Perhaps it is a young mans game and dying gets to be an old man's game.

You see, last night jim had lost his bout with lung cancer.

And a guy who touched many lives with his music and his art is gone and we're a little less for it.

But we're also a little more for knowing him.

He will be missed.

—the bastard

…on relics

had a good day out today on the dung heap

they have alot of good stuff going on there.

I mentioned a few weeks ago how the bastard may well have had some of the best chinese food in the swamp.

I had some of the best pizza I've had in a bit today.

but let's back up.

the bastard met his sister in law and her husband… the expert for a day on the park.

a day to donate money to a park.

which is the way the bastard likes to give to the greater good.

but while I was there…

I saw a guy with swastikas tattooed to his arms.

it said white power around them.

I only saw pictures of this in rolling stone in the 1990's.

more recently, online as greenpoint has a bit a racist skins hanging across the bridge from me. a guy who prefers to remain anonymous shot some photos of them recently.

when gawker found them, shit went viral.

but here I am having hamburgers one table over from this relic of whatever passes for the national front on staten island.

watching him and his wife who could pass for a slightly more portly version of snooky and his kids riding a kiddy train with his blood and honor dagger on his arm…

making me wonder what the fuck?

it was still a grand day out. the bastard won't let a little racist iconography wreck his parklife.

later for that.

more importantly, the expert showed me where the secret best pizza in the swamp is.

—the bastard

the mean season…

as the bastard was wolfing down his brekky the other day, he was watching the effing chris Matthew's show.

I frikkin hate that guy

that sanctimonious blowhard shill gets my ire up every Sunday, which is why the wife tries to keep caillou on for the babby.

but what she doesn't know is…

I frikkin HATE caillou, that sanctimonious whiny prick.

always with the whining and the self discovery and the fucking overall wearing teacher.

frikkin bald jerk. go mine me some oil sand you asshole.

but the bastard is getting off track here.

chris Matthews.

on his show on Sunday, his panel of left wing bobble heads are talking about the upcoming Iowa cockus tomorrow

so…

they rock out a sizzle reel of the last 500,000 Iowa cockuses so that I can break my flatscreen with a hammer when the voices tell me that Walter Mondale is in my living room.

I guess the baby isn't going to be able to wash THAT. memory out of her brain.

fucking Walter Mondale.

anyway, with that mess of glass and plasma on my floor, I realize,

A: the bastard bought some fly ass bar stools at ikea

and

B: we are standing on the precipice of what will be the single filthiest presidential election in American history.

FILTHY

and the bastard isn't so sure he can stand it.

but he does have a Des Moines t-shirt.

Des Moines: hell yeah

—the bastard

…on your head buddy

I never met j garino.

well maybe I did.

I've been to so many shows in the q-ville.

I've been to so many BBQ's in the q-ville as well.

so I may have met him.

but it doesn't really matter. j garino's music had touched my life before his sudden death last year.

I think he died of an aneurism.

but that doesn't matter either.

I just know that the civic pride I feel for my old hood is built around the two bands he was in that I'd see on the regular and along with no redeeming social value, they paid tribute to the man on Saturday night.

a bastard never felt so honored to hand over his cover charge knowing that it was going to something better than a case of pbr's for the trash bar's inventory.

you see

his old band mates from Norman bates and he shower heads and the six and violence set up a scholarship in his name so that some young kid who wanted to make some music could do so one day.

and there was a show.

it always astounds me how queens village will always come correct and show Brooklyn how to throw a punk rock show.

that's not just some bluster I'm throwing out there to make you feel bad Brooklyn, it's a known quantity. you don't have to cry about it.

we know you ain't got it in ya.

—the bastard