Little. Orange. Bookshelf.

I just got a little orange bookshelf from the neighbors across the hall who are moving out. Steph - she's lived across from me the entire 4 years I've been at 910 - she's moving to Marble Hill. BTW, Marble Hill is weird because even though it is across the river it is part of Manhattan.

Anyway, the bookshelf has a white sticker on it, an office label sticker, that says "I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU" on it. Do you think it means it? I've never been loved by something that orange before.

Wow, this blog is so boring my mom probably isn't even reading it anymore.

Water Taxi Beach

I was at this party on a fake beach in Long Island City, Queens this past Saturday with some friends. Duane spun a hot set of 80's and disco. Unlike in the movies, it is possible to have fun dancing to music from the 70's - even without doing any lines. The crowd was a bit of a weird mix of meat heads and hipsters. It was a good thing I was there with some super fun friends - the meat heads don't want to talk unless you're a pretty girl and I really just don't know what you have to do to get a hipster to talk to you, although some of them did dance with me - guys and girls, which was cool. I just want to point out that I'm from Manhattan (ie, I'm a total nerd) and I don't really even know what a hipster is, so please forgive me if you are a hipster and you would respond to friendly banter by speaking in words instead of giving me queer, mouth twisty looks.

Biking back across the Queensborough bridge was a nice way to unwind after the dancing. I cut across Manhattan at 59th and through central park. On my way out of the park I passed a great big tree that needed me to climb it. I was having a grand 'ole time. Then the cops came and gave me a summons for breaking curfew in the park.
I knew I should have kicked my bike over before getting up there - that's what gave me away.

I'm becoming a hardened quality-of-life criminal.

Red Light District

Last night at about 7:30 I was heading downtown from Columbia on Riverside Drive. I was enjoying the warm air and the sunset when the sunlight began to blink! It was a cop car with flashers on coming up behind me. I stopped my bike and the officer rolled down his window. "Can you tell me why you went through the red light back there?" I told him I didn't mean to do it. He sneered and asked for my license, swiping it through a pretty fancy looking laptop computer on his dash. He kept giving me really nasty looks like I had just drowned a baby or something, and asked me again why I went through the light. I said, "I didn't mean to, I thought it was still yellow." Well, let me tell you, that was not the right thing to say. He screamed, "You think I'm lying? Do you think I would waste your time and mine if you had gone through a yellow light? Who do you think they would believe in traffic court, me or you? Do you want me to look up what the penalty is for this? $200 and 3 points on your license!! That was a really really stupid thing to say."

At this point I am completely dumbfounded, but fortunately restricted myself to "Yes sir" and "No sir." He gave me a few more angry stares and then drove away. I think he looped around at the end of the block to make sure that I stopped for the full 30s light at the next intersection - even though there was no traffic at all, just like the previous 2 or 3 lights that I probably did run right through after slowing down and looking all around.

There's nothing like a close encounter with law enforcement to get your blood pumping.

Spiegeltent Revival Review

The group I perform with, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, just got a really great review in the Times! Read the article and also vote for us in the reader review section at the bottom of the page!
And come to the show! It is every Sunday at 2pm, see the Rev. Billy web site for details. I can get a complementary ticket or two if you let me know in advance, but you can always get $10 tics by having the promo code rbdc!

Blissful and Missful

The Vibes festival exploded all expectations - I am completely relaxed and full of well being - and sad that the festival is over and that the little town we built dissolved in a single afternoon!

Here are Keleigh's words from a message that I got from here right before I headed up:

I'm bummed that I won't get a chance to see you guys there, especially in such nice surroundings. It's really a great festival. An older crowd than most, and it's usually kept in pristine condition throughout the weekend. There are even flushing toilets and showers. Pretty much just car camping in the parking lot, but the stage area is really beautiful. Beware of Wavy Gravy; he says a lot of strange things. Make sure you guys catch Deep Banana Blackout...they're one of my favorites. Martin Sexton is good too. You will find a lot of poser hippies, but I've met a lot of really cool people there, and most of them are truly there to enjoy the music.

What she says is all true - AND the music was just out of this world!!! 12 hours of music for three days in a row, and beautiful beautiful weather! Even the thunderstorm Saturday night was terrifyingy beautiful! I hope some of you will come up with me next year!

On Thursday I met a group of friends that were camped directly across the way from me. On Friday and Saturday we watched the music and danced together - Deep Banana Blackout on Friday night was one of the best sets of the weekend. We traded contact info - Jordan, Adam, Kristi, Steve - very very cool people from Binghampton. Hopefully they will go again next year and we will be able to camp in the same area again.

On the second day, a guy and his adult daughter and son moved into our camp - and put a confederate glad in the side window of his station wagon. They were from Tennessee, right in the middle of the Smokey Mountains. But when the old guy started playing his bigot music, other people all around us told him to shut it off!!! And, his daughter started telling her dad off by the end, and I really felt that she was able to do this because of the support from the surrounding people. That was the over all theme for this kind of thing - there were some people with a violent vibe (see previous post), but the overwhelming majority of gathered good were able to transform situations that normally would make me sick!

WOOT!

Gathering of the Vibes

Tomorrow my friend Dave is coming up to NYC and then the next day we'll go to a festival up near Schenectady called the Gathering of the Vibes. A good mix of folk, blues and rock, it should be a great escape from the city and I am sure I will have a great time and come back totally relaxed and refreshed.

On the other hand, "Great, another 'hippy' gathering." I have been put in this hippy category by many different people over the course of many years. And to be fair, I did and continue to do a lot of 'hippy' stuff - tie dyed shirts, long hair, ultimate frisbee, and, well, use your imagination about the things I wouldn't want to mention publicly. But what the hell is a hippie anyway? I never signed up for that club!

Certainly 'hippy' different things to different people. I say there are good hippies and bad hippies - or false hippies and REAL hippies. For instance, a sexist hippy is a false hippy, which is a little strange because many hippies are (and were) disgustingly sexist! I also don't think you can be happy with consumer culture and be a hippy. Hippy is a progressive political movement that has a firm respect for the natural world and values peace, kindness, and out of control drum circles! Or at least that's what I want it to be. The Radical Faries are an ideal example of what a 'hippy' community should be, though they themselves might not consider themselves under the term. Do you know how many homophobic people I have met at festivals like the Gathering of the Vibes? Worse than your average New Yorkers. Turns out 'hippy' is slippery, even though lots of people seem to know 'it' when they see it.

Is hippy just a retro fad? I was in a bar near my high school home outside of Philadelphia - it's called Crazy Carl's in Scwenksville. I even met 'Crazy' Carl himself - he didn't seem all that crazy - in fact he seemed like a kind, middle-aged hippy! His bar, a few years ago, used to host all kinds of folk and blues acts and was filled with people dressed in that hippy motif - you know, earth tones, not made up, loose fitting clothes and lots of free spirited dancing. But now a days this has changed - confirmed by a friend, Dave Caracappa, who is a regular - hemp has been replaced by leather, earth tones have been replaced by the J. Crew catalog, etc. It is sad to think that something I consider to have such a strong spiritual component could be just a phase.

Music and dancing and parties can be a great source of inspiration and healing, but, like we've seen in the East Village of NYC, the capacity for transformation is quickly undone by the evils of narcissism and the accompanying consumerism. I'm looking forward to the Gathering of the Vibes as a powerful place for communal rejoice and transformation, a safe place for expression and for letting the wild beat of the last days of summer channel through my body.

Inevitably, I feel guilt about the privilege to experience the Gathering - not everyone has the chance of having safe communities like this where they can give and receive freely and feel support for their yearnings and struggles. Sadly, in New York, this type of space has become more and more uncommon, through a combination of government tactics (cabaret laws) and the destruction of communities that create the transformative spaces we have.

We need more of these spaces, we need to push back against the gentrification and mono-culture taking over our city and prove that hippy festivals in the woods aren't the only places to just let go and let the spirit MOVE you. As the Radical Faeries, Rubulad, and countless of other groups in the city have shown me - if you get enough drummers and dancers together blast off can happen anywhere! But right now we are in retreat - outdoor drum circles are subject to the whims of the cops and we are getting priced out of the indoor spaces by gentrification. This is a battle and we need a plan. Does anybody have one?