A Quick Word on Jack Rose

I was at a wed­ding when I got word that Jack had died. It felt like a punch in the gut. I did­n’t know him par­tic­u­lar­ly well, but well enough to say hi when I saw him around town. He lived around the cor­ner from me here in Port Fish­ing­ton, and I’d often see him smok­ing a cig­a­rette out­side his house on Cedar Street. I named this blog for the song he’s play­ing in the video above. Watch it and let it soak in.

Jack­’s music con­tin­ues to amaze me. His genius was revered with­in a small group of fans here, grew some­what when Kens­ing­ton Blues was released, and then shrank again. See­ing him play was always a treat and I saw him pret­ty often, most mem­o­rably in the First Uni­tar­i­an Church sanc­tu­ary when he opened for Sunn O))). I saw him play with Pelt when they opened for Earth in the church base­ment. Jack was the sort of artist who had his bonafides and did­n’t need crit­i­cal praise from Pitch­fork to grow a com­mit­ted following.

I can’t believe he’s gone. It’s one of the sad­dest sto­ries in music for me in 2009. I some­times imag­ine him still play­ing at 60, daz­zling a new gen­er­a­tion with his sin­gu­lar style. I want­ed to see where he’d take his music. It’s a shame that we won’t all get to see that hap­pen. I’m hope­ful that Thrill Jock­ey can release his final album and that Jack gets the recog­ni­tion he so rich­ly deserves.

Rest in peace, Jack. Your music lives on eternally.

My Time at TLA Video

The past ten years were host to the great­est chal­lenges and joys of my life. I start­ed the decade as a tough-mind­ed grad stu­dent at the New School for Social Research. Some­where along the way I turned an unpaid hob­by into a career. Crazy, huh?

In between times, I made the best out of under­em­ploy­ment, teach­ing myself about movies dur­ing a stretch as a video store clerk. I fell in love with film at TLA Video’s store at 4th and South Sts. The store closed ear­li­er this month. Need­less to say, it was a Philly insti­tu­tion that will be sore­ly missed by any­one who set foot in it.

I feel for­tu­nate to have worked with the peo­ple who made TLA Video a safe haven for cinephiles here in Philly. I can’t tell you how many cus­tomers thanked us for sim­ply being the loy­al oppo­si­tion to Block­buster. We knew who Wim Wen­ders was when the big box stores bare­ly car­ried for­eign titles. Sure, it was a low-pay­ing retail job, but at least it had a mis­sion and a clear iden­ti­ty. We were going to offer the sort of movies Block­buster edit­ed out of exis­tence, whether that was for­eign or adult or what­ev­er. TLA was every­thing Block­buster wasn’t.

The road got rock­i­er when Net­flix start­ed to bul­ly brick and mor­tar. When I think back to my time there between 2003-05, I swore I’d nev­er go to Net­flix. It lacked imme­di­ate grat­i­fi­ca­tion, I thought, dis­re­gard­ing all those times I went into the store only to dis­cov­er the movie I so des­per­ate­ly want­ed to see was cur­rent­ly rent­ed. I thought the mail was just a clunky way to deliv­er movies. How wrong I was. Cus­tomers loved it and we watched our busi­ness dwin­dle even in Net­flix’s ear­ly days.

I think the peo­ple who worked at TLA made it the insti­tu­tion it was. I was intro­duced to more off-the-wall movies by my co-work­ers than I have been in 3+ years as a Net­flix cus­tomer. Every­one had their area of exper­tise and our reg­u­lar cus­tomers sought out those of us they trust­ed most when they need­ed to see some­thing, but weren’t sure what to rent. It was a joy to help peo­ple find new and inter­est­ing movies to watch, and a greater plea­sure to dis­cuss them when they returned. It was the only thing we could offer that the com­put­er and it’s Amazon.com-esque rec­om­men­da­tions couldn’t.

Ulti­mate­ly, con­sumers chose con­ve­nience over that lev­el of cus­tomer ser­vice. Oner­ous late fees and the has­sle that came with them were enough to kill off the brick and mor­tar biz. Trust me: we hat­ed those argu­ments as much as you did! The brick and mor­tar busi­ness tried to accom­mo­date this cus­tomer with ter­ri­ble results. There was no price point that would work for a com­pa­ny with the sort of over­head TLA had.  What made TLA Video spe­cial will ulti­mate­ly kill it off. The video store will not die with dig­ni­ty, but rather a slow, lin­ger­ing death at the hands of Net­flix, Red­box, and the mot­ley offer­ing from your cable provider.

When TLA laid me off in 2006, I was hurt most because I real­ly believed in what they hoped to accom­plish. It still hurts. I’ve watched help­less­ly as they’ve laid off many of the peo­ple who made the com­pa­ny great. I’ve since moved on and am very hap­py where I am, but I still miss the ide­al TLA rep­re­sent­ed, even if it set a stan­dard no busi­ness could live up to in today’s economy.

I think what’s strangest of all is how I will strug­gle to explain what a video store was to my son when he asks about the jobs I’ve held. Are knowl­edge work­ers at the shal­low end of the jobs pool des­tined to go the way of the milk man?

Resolutions, I’ve Made a Few

I’m look­ing over the res­o­lu­tions I made last year. Hilar­i­ous! Apart from final­ly find­ing a theme I could live with and a cou­ple easy plug-ins for the right rail, I’ve done noth­ing that even resem­bles my goals for the year. In light of this I’m going to take some advice from Paul Rud­d’s char­ac­ter ‘Kunu’ in For­get­ting Sarah Mar­shall and try to ‘do less.’

What does that mean exact­ly? It means mak­ing res­o­lu­tions that make sense to some­one who’s start­ed a fam­i­ly. I spend hard­ly any time on the com­put­er at home now. I stay con­nect­ed via my beloved iPhone, but it’s hard­ly an ide­al tool for try­ing out new things on Word­Press. No, I need to set real goals for 2010 that aren’t in any way con­nect­ed to my life online.

For exam­ple, I need to pack my lunch more often. Glam­orous, right? I fig­ure I could save about $50 a week if I just took the deli­cious left­overs in the fridge rather than get­ting yet anoth­er roast pork with sharp at Tony Luke Jr.‘s dur­ing my lunch hour.

A corol­lary to pack­ing my lunch: take cof­fee to the office! I usu­al­ly drink a small French press every morn­ing before I head into the office in the morn­ing, only to find myself in line at the Tir Na Nog branch of Star­bucks with my co-work­ers almost every morn­ing. That has to stop. I’ve cut back to a tall cof­fee there, but it’s still about $10 a week on some­thing I have read­i­ly avail­able at home. I think one of these new Klean Kan­teen trav­el cups should do the trick!

One thing that’s a con­stant in my life is the desire to read and write more. Since Char­lie was born, I’ve spent more hours in front of a TV than ever. It’s the per­fect anti­dote to being shut-in, but it estab­lish­es bad habits that I did­n’t have as a child. I don’t want Char­lie to devel­op those habits either. Keep in mind, it’s very dif­fi­cult to do much read­ing when you’re tend­ing to a baby, but doing some would be bet­ter than what I’ve been doing. The days of read­ing 1200 pages per week dur­ing grad school seem impos­si­ble now. If I could read even just a book a month I’d be happy.

The writ­ing’s impor­tant, too. As my job changes, I find myself less inclined to write about music. The time it takes to do it right, plus the lack of inter­est from the gen­er­al pub­lic in read­ing music con­tent have dis­cour­aged me from writ­ing. I still love read­ing great music writ­ing and I’m inspired by folks who’ve real­ly had to over­come set­backs in their careers as music crit­ics, name­ly my old boss Christo­pher R. Wein­garten and some­one who became a dear col­league and music crit con­fi­dant for me this year, Mau­ra John­ston. Their work con­tin­ues to amaze me, even as we’re told that the audi­ence for such writ­ing approach­es nil.

On a per­son­al note, I need to do a bet­ter job of get­ting my house in order. Lit­er­al­ly. I can’t hang a shelf in this place with­out some­thing going hay­wire, which might explain why there are so few shelves. I’m call­ing on my old high school friend Kevin Der­rick to help us sort out how to make life with a baby in a mod­est Kens­ing­ton rowhome a lit­tle more beautiful.

I’m not sure what awaits me next year. My won­der­ful, sup­port­ive wife and love­ly baby son amaze me every day. I’m excit­ed for the chal­lenges that lie ahead in my pro­fes­sion­al life. I’m excit­ed to focus on the prac­ti­cal rather than the per­fect. I feel the future burst­ing with pos­si­bil­i­ty. Bring it on!

Music’s Mystique Mistake

One of the things I’ve been see­ing recent­ly are peo­ple say­ing that music has lost its mys­tique. I could­n’t agree more. There’s a great line in Guy Debor­d’s Soci­ety of the Spec­ta­cle that applies here I think; to para­phrase, the things that sep­a­rate celebri­ties from the rest of us are pow­er and vaca­tions. That was true for musi­cians, once upon a time, but now that the rock star is dead, how can we still be awestruck by musi­cians and the music they cre­ate?Con­tin­ue read­ing “Music’s Mys­tique Mistake”

Music’s Demand Problem

I start­ed read­ing Michae­lan­ge­lo Matos’s Slow Lis­ten­ing Move­ment blog. I’ve seen vari­a­tions of the argu­ment for slow­ing down, like the slow food move­ment, as a means of chang­ing con­sump­tion habits, which in turn con­tribute to a dif­fer­ent way of liv­ing one’s life. It’s an inter­est­ing idea, but I think the notion of “slow lis­ten­ing” should some­how address the music indus­try’s instis­tence on treat­ing a prob­lem with demand as if it were a sup­ply-side prob­lem.Con­tin­ue read­ing “Music’s Demand Problem”