d. Stortion

This list is a compilation of some of the media I watched, read and listened to this year. I took in a lot more exceptional art this year – but this is what comes to mind as I sit here trying to string these words together. Also, I should mention that some of the stuff listed here was not produced in 2006; although, I was exposed to it for the first time this year.

In other news, I am steadily working on putting together the radio show/podcast I mentioned in an earlier post. I just need to get back in there and finish it up. Finally, I hope your 2006 was something special. It was a year to put in the books for me, and now I’m wearing a ring to prove it.

1. The Hold Steady – “Boys and Girls in America” There has been a lot of talk about the greatness of this LP. It’s all true.

2. A Scanner Darkly – This is Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Phillip K Dick’s 1977 novel about the horrors of drug abuse in a society controlled by corporate demons. From the moment I started watching I was completely sucked into this dystopic world of rotospcoped hilarity.

3. Legs McNeil & Jennifer Osborne – “The Other Hollywood, The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry” A true insider’s look into the depravity and sleaze of this titillating world. Who knew that the mafia had such strong ties to the porn industry. The stuff about Linda Lovelace is highly engrossing as well.

4. Eric Bachmann – “To the Races” Nine songs of acoustic wonder by the former front man for the acclaimed 90s indy rock warriors – Archers of Loaf. After the first couple of listens the songs were stuck in my head for days at a time.

5. Lost Patrol Band – “Self Titled” This album was released in 2005, and is fearless powerpop that would make Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello proud. I most appreciated these tunes during my late night walks with the dog when I need a little extra pep in my step.

6. Half Nelson – A wonderful film about a progressive NYC teacher with a major drug habit. Top notch acting (Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps) that left my insides all shook up.

7. Chuck Klosterman – “Killing Yourself to Live” Klosterman writes about relationships, rock music and the overall war inside his head. Wonderful stuff that you can’t put down until the last page turns.

8. The Devil and Daniel Johnston – Extremely disturbing and informative documentary about the life and times of Daniel Johnston, a highly talented and innovative singer song writer who suffered from years of manic depression and oh so much more.

9. The Warriors (PSII) – The makers of the Grand Theft Auto dynasty have done it again. What a joy it was to come home after a hard day’s work and dive into 1970s era New York. Tagging subways, throwing bottles, and cracking heads – this is what good times are all about.

10. Freaks and Geeks – “The Complete Series” This was one of those “brilliant but cancelled” TV shows that garnered a huge cult following. The premise for the show was perfect: a bunch of teens trying to figure it out in 1980 suburban Detroit. We’re talking “The Wonder Years” with a real edge.

If you've never heard the tune "Moment of Truth" by Gang Starr then you best do yourself right and check it out now. Not tomorrow. Now..

The lyrics help -- I promise. It set an alarm off in my head that hasn't stopped ringing.

As cliche as it sounds there is nothing more right than believing in yourself. This song will help you see that. Enjoy.

Tomorrow night the lights will go down and a sonic blast is going to hit the air. We’re going to cheer and scream, and let the lighters hang tall. We’re going to feel good – real fucking good, and it will all be in the name of welcoming Dinosaur Jr. to town.

I’m giddy like how I used to feel back in high school before a big show. In between classes I might come across my pals Kleino or Smarooch. We’d smile at each other knowingly and say something like, “Yeah, man -- The Undead are going to tear Blondie’s (the Detroit mecca for hardcore, punk and metal shows) up this weekend.” “Just wait and see dude -- because I’m going to get crazy in the pit this time and do like 13 stage dives.”

These days, shows are far and few between, but when I saw last week that Dinosaur Jr. were coming to Brooklyn with the original line up – I acted quickly. Four minutes later, I snatched up a pair of tickets, and stared at my screen anxiously eyeing the confirmation number. Fuck, I thought, twenty bucks to see one of the greatest rock acts of my time – that will be something to tell the grandkids about.

This time tomorrow I’ll be pumping my fist to the tune of “All right!” and “Yeah!” I’ll be sharing the moment with some good pals who will know what I mean when I say “You’re Living All Over Me is the right stuff.” I might not be fifteen anymore, but I still dig the anticipation of going to a show, and feeling a blast of that good rock every now and again.

I'm thinking of trying out Technorati.  Still not sure of its value.  I know its been around for awhile, and lots o people are hip to using it, especially the "Tag Clouds".  So is this site essentially a news aggreagtor for blogs?  If so, I'm sticking with Bloglines because I can all ready get all my feeds from there.

This evening, as I was driving to the library to drop off some overdue books, I had an idea for a new project. It was a simple concept that hit me in the face like a fluffy bag of bricks: “Hey, D,” I thought. “Maybe you want to try creating your own audio program.”

Here's the plan -- I'm going to play snippets of tunes that I'm currently digging, or have grown to love through the years, and explain what I like or dislike about that particular song.

My reasoning is simple: 1) I know how to pick a good tune. For as long as I can recall, friends have been looking to me to turn them onto what's hot and what's not -- punk rock and beyond. 2) I fully believe in my ability to translate my feelings about the quality of a particular tune. 3) I think this could be a fun and creative outlet.

And I'm going to do it my way; not holding back an inch. Music I can talk about.  Frankly, I'm tired of worrying about privacy issues on the Internet. My writing has suffered because I fear everything I put down is gonna come back to bite me in the ass: “We'd love to hire you, Dan. But after googling you, which is a company policy, we were a little concerned by some of those stories you've written.” The key word here is music, and possibly a few other treats. We shall see.

If I give this a shot, which is still up in the air, I think it's going to be a great way to get back into something I've missed since my days as a college DJ at WIDR. For four years I never missed a show, and I did that shit weekly. Taking it one step further, I never missed a show when I was Punk Rock Dan at WBLD, the West Bloomfield High School radio station, with a heavy duty bandwidth of 1.2 miles.

The point is, I have enough skills to make a simple audio piece or podcast or whatever the fuck you want to call it. It might not be Pro Tools quality, but I think I have enough know-how at this point to pull it off. So we'll see what happens and maybe a week or 2 from now I'll have something ready to go. Be sure to kick me a good one in the arse if I don't follow through.

I’m reading the second James Frey book, My Friend Leonard. It’s good, but I don’t like it as much as A Million Little Pieces. I’m not embarrassed to say that I like his work. In my opinion, he’s a good writer that puts his thoughts out there in a no bullshit manner.

His prose is engaging and so are the stories he tells. I don’t really care if the story is true or false because at the end of the day the only place the characters are living is in my mind. That’s about all I have to say about that.

The famed rock club, CBGB’s is in danger of losing its lease. There is a whole ordeal going on in an attempt to keep the place open. I think this piece written back in February pretty much sums up the issue.

I would hate to see CB’s close her doors after all these years, but some times that’s the way it goes.In an attempt to raise some money Hilly Kristal and whoever is helping him book shows has put together some amazing line-ups for August and September.

Many of these bands haven’t played together in over 10-years. Maybe they’ll sound like garbage and maybe the magic will still be there. Either way, if I don’t catch at least one of these gigs I’ll be crying home to Mommy.

Here are some I want to check out:

8/14 – Gorilla Biscuits, Black Train Jack
8/20 – The Vandals
8/26 – Dead Boys, Flipper, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, Adrenalin O.D. (unreal)
8/27 –Dead Boys, Anti-Nowhere League, SFA
8/28 – Sham 69, Flipper
9/1 Conflict, Verbal Abuse
9/6 & 9/7– Dr. Know, Dayglo Abortions, The Accused
9/8 – The Exploited
9/9 & 9/10 – Circle Jerks, Adolescents, D.I.

Just knowing that gigs like this can still happen puts a warm glow in my gut. See you in the pit.

Sunday night I lost all the tunes on my Ipod. That made me really sad. Almost felt like a little part of me died, which is kind of sad as well. In the end, it’s just music, right?

I did a little searching on Google and found this type of thing happens to lots of folks. I have some good friends who know there way around the Mac a hell of a lot better than me. So instead of reformatting the Ipod and starting over from scratch, which was my first impulse, I decided to wait it out and see if I could fix the problem the next day.

Thanks to my pals, Luke and Justin, I found this neat program on Version Tracker, PodUTIL 2.7.1 that found all the tunes on my Ipod. I had to copy all the Mp3's to my desktop, drop them in a new folder and then throw them back into Itunes. It took awhile, but now I’ve got all my music back.

Of all the things happening in the world this was my biggest crisis. Not such a bad deal I have going on.

Landed on a couple of new bands that I’m really digging:

The Methadones – awesome Pop Punk in the vein of Big Drill Car/Bad Religion. Reminds me of better days when going to 7-11 to get a Slurpee was all that mattered.

Amusement Parks on Fire – a cross between the Foo Fighters (First 2 albums) and My Bloody Valentine (“Loveless”). The dude sounds a lot like Dave Grohl and that’s a good thing.

The Dirtbombs – I’ve always been hesitant to check these guys out because hipsters seem to love them. But their music is amazing--reminds me of a cross between The Temptations and Urge Overkill ("Saturation" release).

Found some other stuff that I hadn’t heard in awhile and it still holds up as good as a margarita with lots of salt.

Screeching Weasel – My Brain Hurts This is a quintessential Pop Punk album that never gets old. Standout tracks are "Guest List", "Kamala’s Too Nice" and "The Science of Myth".

Cap’N Jazz – If you don’t know these guys you should. They came around in the mid-90s and were so good all the Emo kids doubled up on Kleenex.

Friday night, I traveled with some pals to the StarLand Ballroom in Jersey to see Mastodon. All I can say is those guys are something far beyond any other band today. The people who say things are calling them a cross between Rush and Metallica. All I know is watching them play was as intricate as trying to decipher a Picasso.

Throughout the show, I noticed a little kid perched on his Dad’s shoulders. I’m not a big fan of bringing young kids to shows, due to the high decibel factor. Poor kid is going to have blown out ears before he hits 13. I have to say, though, it was hilarious to watch him banging his head to the beats. The kid felt the power.

Hope you can make it to the show. I'll be sitting behind
the drum kit rocking out like Animal from the Muppets.

The other day I was sitting at my desk
staring at some of my possessions.

The Canon i320 printer--
A tattered American Heritage Dictionary--
And a framed, glossy promo from “Repo Man.”

As I sat there swiveling my chair to the sound of the steam heater I began to wonder: What is this moment about?

More so, I desperately wanted to know my purpose, and why I was here.

After some time the phone rang.
It was my Mother calling to see how I was doing.

“I’m fine, Ma,” I said. “Just fine.”

"A kid that tells on another kid is a dead kid."
--Richie White

Name the movie and the actor who said this quote, and I'll be your best friend.

Good luck, suckas...

Update your log so you feel as if you've done something productive today. Maybe you'll
even got some comments from friends and family. The comments will discuss how great they think
you are. You'll read the comments and smile. Then you'll go back to wanting more--
until the next diversion grabs your attention.

Woo--that was heavy. I've got to stop drinking so much coffee in the afternoon.

Woke up this morning to the tune all New York City Public Schools being closed.
Hey, that's no fair, I thought. I want to go to work like everybody else. Then I shut
off the alarm, rolled over, and hoped the dog could hold it for few extra minutes.
Same days are better than others, and this just happened to be one of those days.

The iPod is a strange beast. Must consume more music. I sense that my attention span is diminishing. Having 1,000 tunes at my fingertips is an incredible feeling. However, I found myself spinning through the dial yesterday and thinking the following thought: “Gee, D—why can’t I find anything to listen to?” This scares me, but not enough to part with this beloved new contraption.

Check out Poisoned-- it will enhance your downloading experience ten-fold. I shit you not.

The other day my buddy, Zach, took me to play ball at these courts in the Kensington section of Brooklyn. It’s a quiet area known for its cheap rent. I also spent my first year in NYC, teaching eighth grade English, at an alternative school in Kensington. That was one of my hardest years, and taught this white boy from the suburbs of Detroit some hard lessons about what it takes to stand in front of a classroom full of riotous inner-city kids.

So we’re at the courts shooting around when I notice one of my old students from that hellish first year. This kid, we’ll call him Steve, is one of those big, gumpy types with a real sweet heart. That’s not to say he wasn’t a pain in the ass to have in the classroom. I took a lot of verbal abuse from my students that year, but at least when I told Steve to shut his trap for calling Julio a “stank ass fool” he would show some respect, instead of the usual utterance of “stupid teacher” that so many of my students muttered under their breath.

“Dude, I think that’s one of my old students,” I said, pointing to the thick goon knocking over a kid on his drive to the net.

“I’ve seen that kid around,” Zach said. “He’s pretty good.”

“I wonder if he’ll remember me. It has been a few years.”

“Go say hi,” Zach prodded. “He’ll probably get a kick out of seeing one of his old teachers on the court.

After his game ended I walked over and said, “Steve, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, probably wondering how this white dude knew his name.

“I don’t know if you remember me but I was your English teacher, Mr. Storchan.”

I watched as he searched his memory a moment, and then he came back with a smile. “Oh shit, Mr. Storchan. I didn’t recognize you without your glasses,” said Steve, giving me a shot of his goofy smile.

“Man, you’ve gotten big,” I said. He probably put on about 50 pounds since I last saw him, and had definitely been hitting the gym. “What have you been up to?”

“Yo, this guy was my English teacher,” he said proudly, to anyone within an ear shot.

“Well then it’s time to put the teacher to school,” said one of his buddies.
“Come on, Mr. Storchan. I’m gonna’ get you back for all those tests you gave me.”

We ended up playing some two-on-two against Steve and one of his buddies. Thanks to Zach’s sweet outside shot we were able to clock the win. Steve didn’t seem to mind the loss, especially because he had the privilege of stuffing his teacher on several failed lay-up attempts. The embarrassment of getting whooped by another guy on the court always hurts, but after seeing the spark it brought to Steve’s face, I couldn’t help but revel in his joy.

After the game, Steve joined us on the bench as we cooled down. I passed him my jug of water and listened to him rattle off his future plans. Turns out, Steve’s grades have improved dramatically since I last saw him in the classroom.

“You know why we gave you such a hard time when you were teaching?” Steve asked.

“This I got to know.”

“It was because we liked you. I know it didn’t seem like it then, but you were one of my favorite teachers.”

“It means a lot to hear you say that because that sure as hell was a tough year.”

“Yeah, we used to drive him mad crazy,” Steve added to Zach.

During my first open-school night, Steve came in with his mother, a large Jamaican woman. She asked me how Steve was doing, and I told her he was a good kid, but that he had some behavior problems and wasn’t doing his homework consistently.

“You’re not doing this man’s homework?” she asked. Steve was sitting next to her, guilt pouring out of his complexion.

“No mama. But I can explain ...” before Steve could finish his thought his mother smacked him a hard one in the face. It was an awful moment and even though the kid was blowing off my class I didn’t want to see something like this happen. Steve sat there, tears rolling down his face, not saying a word.

“I’m very sorry about my son’s behavior. It won’t happen again.” Then she stood up, grabbed Steve, and headed for the door.

It had been awhile since I thought of that night. I think it’s one of those incidents you tuck away in the back of your mind and try to forget. But sitting there next to Steve, it all came back. And although I reported what happened to my principal, I always felt like I could have done more. Fortunately, Steve seemed pretty happy as he chatted away about passing the Regents and making the football team. He told me I could find him on those courts everyday for the rest of the summer, and that I better come back for a rematch. Then we shook hands and he walked back over to his friends.

“He seems like a good kid,” Zach said.

“Yeah, I have a feeling he’s going to do alright, I said, feeling a tinge of pride in my gut. After that, we sat back and watched the next game begin.

Carrie helped me devise a list of "things to accomplish." I'm not going to bore my dear readers with the list, but I will say I feel like a new man ready to tackle the many activities and chores that have been calling me for the past couple of weeks. But first I will continue eating this bowl of cereal and then I will change the channel.