The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 10

Day 10 - A song that's good to exercise to

Mmm, exercise? Wrong blogger.

However, I have been known to tap a toe to Moby and Debbie Harry's 'New York, New York'. Dance it out:

Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories by Katha Pollitt (Random House 2007)

I should say that it was only for me that Marxism seemed over. Surely, I would tell G. at least once a week, it had to count for something that every single self-described Marxist state had turned into an economically backward dictatorship. Irrelevant, he would reply. The real Marxists weren't the Leninists and Stalinist and Maoists - or the Trotskyists either, those bloodthirsty romantics - but libertarian anarchist-socialists, people like Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, Karl Korsch, scholarly believers in true workers' control who had labored in obscurity for most of the twentieth century, enjoyed a late-afternoon moment in the sun after 1968 when they were discovered by the New Left, and had now once again fallen back into the shadows of history, existing mostly as tiny stars in the vast night of the Internet, archived on blogs with names like Diary of a Council Communist and Break Their Haughty Power. They were all men. The group itself was mostly men.

This was, as Marxists used to say, no accident. There was something about Marxist theory that just did not appeal to women. G. and I spent a lot of time discussing the possible means for this. Was it just that women don't allow themselves to engage in abstract speculation, as he thought? That Marxism is incompatible with feminism, as I sometimes suspected? Or perhaps the problem was not Marxism but Marxists: in its heyday men had kept a lock on it as they did on everything they considered important; now, in its decline, Marxism had become one of those obsessive lonely-guy hobbies, like collecting stamps or 78s. Maybe, like collecting, it was related , through subterranean psychological pathways, to sexual perversions, most of which seemed to be male as well. You never hear about a female foot fetishist, or a woman like the high-school history teacher of a friend of mine who kept dated bottles of his own urine on a closet shelf.

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill (Vintage Contemporaries 2008)

We traveled the length of Coney Island Avenue, that low-slung, scruffily commercial thoroughfare that stands in almost surreal contrast to the tranquil residential blocks it traverses, a shoddily bustling strip of vehicles double-parked in front of gas stations, synagogues, mosques, beauty salons, bank branches, restaurants, funeral homes, auto-body shops, supermarkets, assorted small businesses proclaiming provenances from Pakistan, Tajikistan, Ethiopia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Armenia, Ghana, the Jewry, Christendom, Islam: it was on Coney Island Avenue, on a subsequent occasion, that Chuck and I came upon a bunch of South African Jews, in full sectarian regalia, watching televised cricket with a couple of Rastafarians in the front office of a Pakistan-run lumberyard. This miscellany was initially undetectable by me. It was Chuck, over the course of subsequent instructional drives, who pointed everything out to me and made me see something of the real Brooklyn, as he called it.

The FFS Train

"USA! USA! . . . ‎Anybody give a shit?"

*silence*

Hilarious.

'Idiot with a Tripod' in Astoria, Queens

A fresh blanket of snow in New York overnight allows me to right a blogging wrong by posting this wonderful short film by the filmmaker Jaime Stuart on the blog.

'Man in a Blizzard' was filmed and edited in the space of few hours this past boxing day when New York got hit with that blizzard which resulted in Bloomberg's approval ratings taking a skid and, at one point, thirteen vehicles being abandoned in the road outside our apartment building.

Roger Ebert thinks it should win ". . . the Academy Award for best live-action short subject". One of the funnier trolls on the internet thinks that Roger Ebert should "see more movies". I just think it's beautiful.

That music? Yeah, I thought it was Blur, too, but it turns out that it's Trent Reznor.

UPDATE

Just realised that you really don't get the full experience of the film from my embedded YouTube link. You're better off checking the video out here over at Vimeo.

Tepper Isn't Going Out by Calvin Trillin (Random House 2001)

"I wouldn't have thought you were a reader of the East Village Rag." Tepper said. "Is there something I've missed about you all these years?"

My niece sent it to me," Gordon said. "She lives on Rivington Street. I don't know if that's included in what they call the East Village. We still call it the Lower East Side. You don't even want to know what she paid for the apartment. A co-op. A co-op on Rivington Street! I told her that her great-grandparents worked sixteen hours a day just to get out of Rivington Street. What was cooperative about those buildings when they lived in them was the bathroom. Now whatever miserable cold-water flat my grandparents lived in has probably been made into a co-op. For all we know, that may be her co-op. She may be paying thousands to live in the place her great-grandparents worked themselves to death so their children wouldn't have to live in. What a city."

2 minutes 38 seconds in

Woody Allen will be using that line in his next film.

From the Velvets to the Voidoids - A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World by Clinton Heylin (Penguin Books 1993)

Being 'more suburban', they had something in common with other CBGBs favourites that existed largely outside the scene. The Shirts, like those other local faves the Tuff Darts, were more interested in securing a record deal than in reviving rock & roll.

Annie Golden: We were the hicks from Brooklyn, never aspiring to go across the bridge, but we had read about the Mercer Arts Centre, which had just crumbled, and the back room at Max's, and we went down to see Patti Smith at CBGBs . . . We were holed up in Brooklyn, we all had day jobs, we were rehearsing eight to ten hours into the morning, saving money for equipment. Bands in Manhattan were doing it another way. They were like artists; they were doing minimalist rock and they were starving. But we had this big light show and a big PA.

How Soon Is Never? by Marc Spitz (Three Rivers Press 2003)

We were all a little high-strung. "Hand in Glove" had been elusive. For nearly two weeks, we'd been obsessing about it like only teenagers can. I wanted to hear it because John wanted to hear it. Jerome, Maria and Richie wanted to hear it because I wanted to hear it. And everybody wanted to be the first one to get it on tape and make themselves a hero to the rest. The days of sitting by the radio for hours waiting for the DJ to play one song are long over for me (and you too, thanks to shit like downloading) but damn if it wasn't a perfect, temporary existence for all the frustration it put us through at the time. That rush of anticipation when the ad ends and the start of a new half-hour block of music takes over was amazing. I didn't even know what I was listening for. Just something called The Smiths. I told myself if I'd know it when I heard it. You know, I can't listen to the radio for ten minutes now. It's all ads and no rush at all.

Warriors by Sol Yurick (Grove Press 1965)

Dewey did a cartwheel, the pin in his hat glittering in a circle. The Junior tried it and the war cigarette fell out of his hat. He picked it up and was about to stick it back into the band of his hat when he had an idea. He turned and ran to Hinton, kneeled, and gave it to him. Hinton took it, held it for a second, and put it into his mouth. The Junior lit it for him. Hinton puffed it once, twice, hard and cool, and then let the smoke dribble out of his mouth and nose to be caught, whipped away, and feathered into nothing by the sea wind. He pinched out the cigarette and stuck it back into The Junior's hatband. Dewey looked on and nodded. Then Dewey and The Junior took out the war cigarettes from their hatbands and gave them to Hinton who put them into a half-empty pack of his own. The war party was over. Hinton turned and began to walk to the Boardwalk. The others followed. It was understood. Hinton was now Father.

'Firing bullets' in Chinatown

Jumpers for goalposters, and millionaire sports stars in a Lower Manhattan kickabout.

Vanity Fair Culture & Celebrity blog reports on last Wednesday's celebrity charity game that took place in a small fenced-in area in Chinatown.

In the red corner, Steve Nash - stalwart for the Phoenix Suns, Spurs supporter and Communist Manifesto reading NBA all star (of course, the last bit gives it away that he's Canadian) - who brought with him fellow NBA superstars such as Jason Kidd, Raja Bell, and assorted other tall blokes I've never heard of and, in the blue corner, Claudio Reyna - born in Livingston . . . . New Jersey, played for R*ngers, Man City and Sunderland (then his career got a boost by signing for the New York Red Bulls) - who discovered Robbie Fowler, Thierry Henry, Salomon Kalou and, erm, Jozy Altidore, who's also from Livingston . . . New Jersey sharing a poke of chips - with Irish Curry Sauce - at Pommes Frites in the Lower East Side and thought the impromptu game would be a good way of burning off some off season calories.

What with the preening, showboating and playing to the gallery of the multitude looking on, Julian Sancton, the Vanity Fair blogger, is sort of right when he rights that: "The game had the feel of a live Adidas commercial, with a mix of sportsmanlike bonhomie and goofy grandstanding . . ." but I won't be too snarky towards the assembled sporting celebs because anybody who has walked past a court in the Lower East Side when a handball or a streetball game is going on will know that preening, showboating and playing to the gallery of the multitude looking on comes part and parcel with the shorts, sneakers and the funny sized ball.

And, anyway, who am I kidding. I could concoct some lame arse rant about the double whammy cyncism of secretly thrilled East Village hipsters feigning boredom whilst watching overpaid and overexposed sportstars swallow their own PR bullshit of keeping sport real on the urban streets (insert modern day hovis commerical here of David Villa and Christian Ronaldo playing football with street urchins on the cobbled streets of a rainswept Spennymoor) , but if I'd heard about the game beforehand I would have turned up with my autograph book and thermos flask.

. . . and if I found out that Charlie Nicholas was playing keepie-uppie within a hundred miles radius of my good self? I'd walk barefoot over a broken Stephen Glass to go watch him perform.

Back to the game at hand. Where's YouTube when you need it:

"Later in the game, he [Baron Davis] body-slammed a prostrate Robbie Fowler, who is half his size."

Robbie Fowler's bad rep seems to get around.

And is just me, but what's with Steve McManaman morphing into a young and chunky Tim Robbins? (Click on the pic to see the uncanny resemblance.)

I was only joking about Pommes Frites earlier on, but, with Macca, now I'm not so sure.

Hat tip to Will Rubbish, who found out about the game because of Reyna's Black Cat connection.

An Essex Joke

From 'Overheard in New York':

Mom to four-year-old being picked on by brother: Tell him to leave you alone.

Four-year-old: Leave me the fuck 'lone!

Mom: Hey! Watch your mouth.

Four-year-old: I'm gonna fuck 'im up.

--Staten Island Ferry

No idea what came first: 'The Man who fell asleep' or 'Overhead in New York', but they are both equally funny.

Hat tip to Kara.

Hardhats, hidden history and hard realities

I'm a bit chastened to admit this but the fact of the matter is that I used to read more about the history of the American Labor Movement when I was back in Britain than I do now that I live in the States.

It wasn't so much that I was doing the 'revolutionary tourism' bit, but more a matter of being able to score some excellent books secondhand on the subject that would be now beyond my financial reach. The Encyclopedia of the American Left or Louis Adamic's 'Dynamite' or Joyce Kornbluth's 'Rebel Voices' or any of Eric Foner's volumes of labor history are must haves to have on your shelf. Such books are just not as readily available second-hand as they once were. Not sure if the internet is to blame or maybe there is a new generation of radicals who are less inclined to pass their books on. I hope it's the latter.

The gaps in my knowledge of American Labor have to be filled in somehow, and local cable tv is as good a place to start as any.

This morning's New York 1's carried the wee nugget that on this day in history in 1970 100,000 construction workers (and others) marched down Wall Street to show their support for Nixon's war policy in both Vietnam and Cambodia. Led by the President of the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York, Peter Brennan, the march was to show both the respectable face of blue collar America and its social patriotism in light of the 'Hard Hat Riots' that had taken place in New York City twelve days before.

On May 8th a couple of hundred construction workers had run rampant against anti-war demonstators who were protesting about the murder of the four students at Kent State University four days previously and, as the New York Times article already linked to states, their violence was savage, indiscriminate, and made the actions of a minority of R*ngers supporters in Manchester last week look like a Teddy Bears picnic by comparison.

I did write a "wee nugget" when initially making reference to this shameful episode in American Labor history, and I meant it despite the fact that it doesn't reflect too cleverly on the 'noble worker'. Mob violence is mob violence whoever is meting it out and I do think it's necessary to get some sense of the whole picture of the US Labor Movement. It was (and is) exceptionally grubby in places and its unsavoury nature doesn't begin and end with 'On The Waterfront' or the likes of Gompers and Meany.

What is the Left Forum?

In their own words . . . and better late than never, I guess:

Wait up . . . what's that that Francis Fox Piven says in the clip?

She briefly mentions the differing traditions and movements that make up the attendees of the Left Forum but when she mentions the Anarchist Left the camera pans to a copy of the magazine, Left Turn, on a shelf. Are the Left Turn touting themselves as anarchists these days? That's a bit of a departure from their (brief) time as the American franchise of the International Socialist Tendency after Callinicos and the SWP leadership in London expelled the ISO in murky circumstances back in 2001/02.

Had a quick nosey around the Left Turn website and, at first glance, it does look like they've dropped the S-word in favour of social justice this and anti-capitalist that. I guess that's the sort of misbranding that gets the punters in these days. Bit cheeky that, and it's also a wee bit naughty that they don't clarify their real origins in their 5 Year Anniversary Editorial that they've published online.

But I put it down to the fact that we're living in interesting political times for the left. Revolutionary? No. Confusing? Definitely.

Why else would you have the Left Forum citing Left Turn as the public face of activist anarchism whilst, at the same time and at the same event, the anarchist publishers, AK Press has a mini-bookcase solely devoted to books about and by Che Guevera on its stall at the event.

The world truly has been turned upside down.

"The revolution is just a T shirt (and a panel discussion) away."

Back from The Cooper Union

Just a quick post to mention that I attended the following meetings at the Left Forum today:

It's official: We're up shit creek.

Frank Lampard is an overrated Tory bastard.

That wanker, Karl Kautsky, broke Little Lenny's heart.

What's so funny about peace, love and revolutionary socialism?

I may have half-remembered the titles of some of the meetings, but I'm sure that you get the gist. Hopefully, I'll write a bit more about the event . . . erm, after the event. Or at least, I'll get the titles of the meetings right if nothing else.

At the moment, these are the meetings that I fancy attending tomorrow:

Waiting for the working class to turn up . . . again.

"Concentrate, you bastard. CONCENTRATE!"

Selling your back issues of 'Subversion' on eBay

Anybody spot the deliberate reference to Gregory's Girl? Speak to you soon. Just popping out for a loaf of bread.

Gone Fishing

Back blogging in a couple of days. Have a look through the programme of this year's Left Forum and tell me what meetings I should have gone to. I'll tell you next week which ones I did attend.

A post about Socialism and Sunbeds that does not involve Tommy Sheridan

A comrade writes . . .

"In the July 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard it has the contact address for the Workers Socialist Party listed as 132, East 23rd Street, New York, New York.

I of course Google the address and find out that the former headquarters for our Party is now the 'Beach Bum Tanning' salon.

Capitalism, aint it fucking grand?"

Old Waves

Morphing Into A Music Blog (5)

Accidents Will Happen I hope it amounts to more than Elvis Costello doing a 'Phil Caine'* ('Don't like paying the taxes . . . . they've got no ambition in Britain'.) Just don't tell me that he lives in Chelsea, Manhattan.

Time's Up I listen to the first couple of U2 albums and always want to cut Bono some slack, but when I read him spouting shite like this in the Rolling Stone:

"Just being in D.C., and meeting all the people I've met - I've now been going there for nearly ten years. They let me in their rooms and they listen to my rhetoric or invective or whatever it turns out to be. And I come away from that city not with nausea but with admiration. These people work like dogs. These lawmakers, they're trying to move between their families back home and Washington. All of them could make much more money in the private sector. Not all, but most of them are there for the right reasons. There's very little glamour. And they're listening to me, who's completely over-rewarded for what I do."

. . . I just want to take an axe to his Joshua Tree. I don't think I've ever witnessed a smarmier politician than that *@#%. I don't care if he thinks he's doing it for the right reasons. Spot the reference to the Buzzcocks' 'Spiral Scratch' EP in the interview, and wonder if Bono thinks it's 1993, he's Damon Albarn and he's talking about his new album, Modern Life is Rubbish.**

Step Back in Time That's enough ranting about the posters on your wall falling to the floor, back to when old waves was post-punk, and the best track from Scritti Politti's 1979 EP, '4 A-Sides'

Scritti Politti - P.A.s mp3

For extra credit, flick through Robert Lumley's 'States of Emergency', whilst wondering out loud 'Whatever happened to Big Flame?'***

*The alternative name was Michael Collins. You figure it out.

**Yep, first found out about Bono in the Rolling Stone via The Blogging Equivalent of U2 (Had a soft spot for the early stuff. Turned into bloated insufferable wankers ever since.)

***Yep, I know Green Gartside was a YCLer and had a bad case of the Gramscian MT's to prove it but, in an alternative universe, back in 77/78 he should have been the activities officer of the St Pancras branch of the Lotta Continua

A Brooklyn Bake

Trust me, it's too hot to blog.

Counting Backwards*

Sunday, April 15th 2007. KGB Bar, East Village. Mark McNay and Alison Miller: New Writing

Saturday, April 14th 2007. Judson Memorial Church, Greenwich Village. New York Anarchist Bookfair

Thursday, April 12th 2007. Roseland Ballroom, 52nd Street. Kaiser Chiefs & The Walkmen

Wednesday, April 11th 2007. New York Public Library, 53rd Street Allan Guthrie, Denise Mina & Ian Rankin: Tartan Noir

Wednesday, April 4th 2007. Bowery Ballroom, Lower East Side Sons and Daughters, 1990s & Nicole Atkins & The Sea

*Throwing Muses