Assorted String Instruments

I've been nursing a fantasy of learning the banjo for the past half year or so. Last night I got together with a few friends at Hill Country, the incredible Texas-bbq themed extravaganza down the street from my office. I've been a few times for lunch, but at night the place was really hopping. We got a table directly adjacent to the downstairs stage, where halfway through our meal (I had a quarter chicken dark, a single pork rib, white bread, campfire baked beans with burnt ends, cole slaw, and, this being NYC after all, a PBR) a 5 piece country bluegrass (or something) outfit began doing their thing. I had a really closeup look at the banjo player, and let's just say it was a rather sobering experience. I literally couldn't even begin to comprehend what his hands were doing. It wouldn't have been more alien or intimidating if he'd started flying around the room. I mean, I can't fly. How does he do that?

There were several musicians at the table, so I asked if the banjo was really as difficult as it looks. Not only did they answer in the affirmative, but two guitarists told me they wouldn't even know where to begin with a banjo. This was mindblowing, as I've been suffering under a lifelong delusion that once you've learned any string instrument, you were sort of covered on all the others (perhaps excepting fiddles and other things involving bows). But apparently even if you've played the guitar for twenty years, the banjo is another story altogether.

Looking around stage, I saw a banjo, a guitar, a mandolin, a fiddle, and an upright bass. Obviously the bass is out. What a terrible instrument to take up. Can you imagine schlepping that thing all over town? I was schvitzin' just thinking about it. Plus, it's obviously the easiest to play. Though I want it to be easy, I'm not sure I want it to be that easy. The acoustic guitar struck me as it always does: serviceable, okay, nice enough, but a tad on the commonplace side. Plus, if I learn to play guitar, I'm afraid I'll have to morph into one of those guys who sits strumming out on their stoop, playing and singing at a volume just audible enough to register as annoying. The mandolin was actually pretty sweet, and the dude playing it had a lot of nice moves. But it still looks like it's halfway to a ukulele. Do women find the mandolin attractive? Would strolling about town with my mini-mandolin case make me look cool? I'm really not sure, but it doesn't seem like a slam dunk. The fiddle is cool, but somehow way out of my league. The whole bow thing throws me off somehow. Plus, the musicians at my table vouched that the fiddle was probably even more difficult to learn than the banjo, as it doesn't have frets (whatever they are). I nodded like I knew what they were talking about. Which brings us back to the banjo. Super difficult or no, it just looks incredibly cool when a dude can play that thing. And I just really love the sound. The banjo makes me wanna quit my day job, also quit my night job (writing, in theory), also quit my fantasy baseball league, also cancel my Netflix subscription, and spend my days wandering about Appalachia, playing my banjo and chopping firewood to make ends meet. Can you even imagine the great beard I could grow in Appalachia? Goddamn. That's the life.

Anyway, I'm not sure easiness is the best way to choose an instrument. Aren't you like supposed to feel some calling or creative urge to pick something up? When great musicians start to play, is learning curve on their list of requirements? Somehow, I doubt it. So maybe it is the banjo still.

Oh, and a side note: GO PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Top 20

I just got home and I'm really, really drunk. Saw "Hannah Takes the Stairs" at IFC Center (eh, average), then stumbled upon a preposterously amazing random restaurant that served incredibly strong frozen margaritas for $4, plus really awesome pasta, garlic bread, and salads. I'm barely lucid. It was phenomenal. I can barely think straight...but I was pondering an all-time favorite top 20 movie list in the cab home. I'm, again, incredibly drunk, but I'm going to give it the ol' stream of consciousness try. These aren't the best 20 movies of all time, they are merely the first 20 movies that occur to me as "my favorite." Off the top of my head, these are the 20 movies that make me, well, me. In no order:

The Goonies
Back to the Future
Raging Bull
Rushmore
Annie Hall
Manhattan
To Die For
Out of the Past
Trainspotting
The Princess Bride
The Natural
The Graduate
Sweet and Lowdown
The Godfather
The Breakfast Club
Saturday Night Fever
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Heathers
Rocky
Badlands

Me and My Mac

It's been twelve days since I ordered my exorbitantly expensive Macbook, or Powerbook, or whatever it's called. Twelve days and the thing hasn't even shipped yet! I hope this isn't a metaphor for how slow the actual computer will be (actually, given its price tag, I'd better be able to travel at the speed of light with this thing). It occurred to me during this interminably long wait that ordering a Mac is pretty much exactly like ordering a mail-order bride. But I mean ordering a mail-order bride around the turn of last century (107 years ago, not 7), back when your bride had to schlep over to America on some sort of tramp steamer and get caught up at like Ellis Island or something and then have to lug her gigantic steamer trunk out to the middle of the US via some rinky dink railroad. And there weren't phones or faxes or emails or FedEx, so I guess you just sort of had to wait until the mail-order bride plopped down on your doorstep, however long it took. Then once she was there, you could only keep your fingers crossed that she spoke English, was reasonably attractive (and fertile, this being a century ago, when people still enjoyed children), and didn't give you too much Eastern European socialist backtalk. Yup, that's me and my Mac.

Everyone I mention this ridiculous scenario to responds by asking, "Why didn't you just go to the Mac store?" Uh, for the same reason I don't attend Star Trek conventions. Cause I don't want to be in the same room with several hundred feverish Mac devotees drooling over phones and other slightly intriguing consumer items. It's creepy up in the Mac store. Seriously, I wouldn't look twice if Jim Jones started working at the Genius Bar (or whatever the hell it's called). If any of my readers happen to be scouting locations for the next Romero-esque zombie thriller/social satire, check out your local Mac store.

In the meantime, I wait. One day, perhaps, a computer will actually arrive. Hopefully I'll still be young enough to remember how to use it.

The Wonders of Advertising

So, I'm pitching some television commercial concepts to Cablevision today. The situation, essentially, is that they want to target Brooklyn, touting how they have the best tv, internet, phone, blah blah blah in the borough. Of course my instinct is to just make fun of everyone who lives there, so all of my scripts/concepts are mildly insulting. Anyway, I just heard from the geniuses I work for that I need to delete the word "freakin'" from all my scrips. Seriously. Freakin'. It's too edgy.

Where's my cyanide capsule?

Random Thoughts

Things are really crazy right now. I can't get it together to write an actual post, but here's a few scattered tidbits from my incredibly satisfying and exciting life.

1. I've lost the ability to conduct myself on the fantasy baseball field with anything remotely resembling competence. How did this happen? My dwindling skill set suffers another hit.

2. Did the unthinkable Saturday and ordered a Mac. I can barely look at myself in the mirror. Steve Jobs is the PT Barnum of our time. I haven't felt like such a member of the herd since I voted for Kerry. What next, a tattoo? A Volkswagen? Brooklyn?

3. Two reasons for the Mac purchase. My beloved Toshiba blew up. And I want to learn Final Cut Pro. Alas.

4. But, after switching out the hard drive and ordering a power cord on eBay, the Toshiba has come back to life! Last night was my first with a computer in several weeks. And guess what: it completely sucked. I need to get back to nature or something. I fear I'm not cut out for modern life.

5. On the other hand, how can we live in a society where whoever invented Air Conditioning doesn't score a national holiday? MLK, Jr.? Gimme a break. Air conditioning!

6. My little sister is getting married in four days. I'm old.

7. My competent boss just left for a three week vacation, sticking us all with her incompetent partner. He's like a poodle flying the space shuttle. Unreal.

8. My run as the Greatest Matchmaker of His Generation continues unabated. Seriously, I have a gift. If anyone needs setting up, drop me a line. I'm a miracle worker. You should see these people.

9. Finally popped Reds in the DVD player after 3 weeks of it mocking me from the shelf. Turned out to be rather delightful. Warren Beatty's an attractive dude, in case you were wondering.

10. Veronica Mars Season 2: completely blew me away. Kristen Bell's performance is one of the very best I've seen on TV. She's outstanding, and the show is really, really well done. It's not the Wire or anything, but VM makes the American Office look like the BBC Office. It's that good.

Beasties in Brooklyn

Caught the Beastie Boys playing the McCarren Park Pool in Williamsburg last night. Very cool show, very cool location - a super old, long abandoned public pool, now drained and turned into a concert venue. I've always been more fascinated with the Beastie Boys as a concept than an actual fan of their music (they seem to occupy a thoroughly unique pop cultural non-category), but they were great live. Really good. Glad I went. And surprisingly, it was the first time they'd ever played Brooklyn. Needless to say, they closed with No Sleep Till Brooklyn, which was obviously pretty sweet.

But the highlight of the night was a little old school Polish joint we ducked into for dinner before the show. I seriously gotta track down the name of this place, but it was on Bedford Avenue, probably around North 10th Street or so, West side of the street. Nondescript, for the most part. Small tables. Menu posted on the wall. But, man: for $6.95 I got a monstrous Polish kielbasa platter, with choice of potato (mashed, with bacon!) and two sides (hot sauerkraut, cucumber salad). Mix in some choice brown mustard, and it was a heavenly experience. We also split a side of above average potato pancakes and two ice cold 16 oz Polish beers recommended by the chipper, non-hipster waitress. My friend had a similar ginormous chicken cutlet platter. The tab? Thirty bucks. Once again, NYC is the best place in the world.

And while I'm on the subject, let me reiterate my longstanding belief that Williamsburg gets a bad rap. I lived there for 8 months once, and while I'm much too lazy to live in Brooklyn, there was a lot about the hood I really liked. Incredible cheap food, great bars, the ability to park a car on the street with no hassled. And the super annoying hipsters everyone (rightfully) hates have long moved passed the Bedford stop. That scene is old hat to the avant hip. And it's certainly no more annoying than the Lower East Side. Actually, it's about ten times less annoying.

Real Life

Well, six days in Boothbay Harbor, ME, was just what the doctor ordered. And yes, I'm referring to the doctor I'm allowed to visit thanks to my substandard/embarrassing HealthNet benefits plan — ah, finally a perk! I knew advertising had a purpose in my life. (By the way, last time I visited a doctor, a dermatologist as it turned out, to have a look at the mysterious flesh-eating bacteria on my cheek [or Rosacia], the receptionist actually snickered at the site of my low-rent, cardboard HealthNet membership card. Oh, the humanity.)

ANYWAY: Maine. I'm afraid my ho-hum writing talents don't lend themselves very well to discussing the positive. So, suffice to say, Maine was great! Poetry it ain't, I know. But hey, it's a blog. Gimme a break. And you know what I mean. Maine was wonderful, relaxing, breathtaking, full of lobster, glorious and perfect. Like the Jersey shore without other people. Heaven. Best of all: no cell phone reception, no Internet, no cable TV. My God, I can't believe how perfectly wonderful that felt. Nothing tying us to reality, to jobs, rent, bills, correspondence, atrocious fantasy baseball teams, civilization, responsibility. It was a sublime. I felt like Emerson, but with plumbing. For what more might Man desire? Following this to its logical conclusion, I, er, concluded, whilst staring out across the glassy, chilled Maine water, swatting the mosquitoes (see, again the Jersey shore), that I could really do without the city. And not just NYC, but any city. Maine just felt...right or something. A good book, a bottle of wine, several crustaceans swimming in my belly... ah, Heaven.

Then the Fall. Back to my tiny apartment, to the heat, to the Internet (though, coincidentally, my computer just exploded, so I'm offline at home), the hustle and bustle of city life. Eh, I think I'm over it. Or slightly over it. Or ready for a brief respite, at least. Culture's overrated. Especially when one (shudder) must work for a living. And that's the worst of it, obviously. Being back at work, at my little desk, staring into a screen. What the hell's the point? Paying rent? Seeing movies? Enjoying the occasional decadent meal? I mean, that's it? Then what?

Pardon the sophomoric philosophical meanderings. I'm fresh back from the Wilderness, after all. More snark to come, promise. Next post: Mac vs. PC. Should I, will I, take the plunge???