the sticking point

"I'm Gonna Lock My Son Up in a Tower Till I Write My Whole Life Story On The Back of His Big Brown Eyes"

I guess this will always be a special, sentimental time of year for me. One year ago today, we got the call from the adoption agency, telling us we'd been cleared for travel to Korea, for to bring home our baby H. It set into motion a flurry of action and emotion, and Thanksgiving week will never be the same for me. This afternoon, I took some time to go back and read the posts from that week, and I sat crying in my office as I read.

There had been a lot of milestone days in our adoption process -- the day we decided, the day we told our families, our first homestudy meeting, the completion of the paperwork, the arrival of the "referral" with the first photos of H, etc. -- but they were all spread out over many months. There was time to take it all in, to process what was happening. But in those days immediately before and after Thanksgiving 2004, so much happened so fast. It was just a blitzkrieg of info and stimuli and emotions. I'm glad I wrote some things down here, because as I re-read them today, I realized how much I'd forgotten.

One thing that has never slipped my mind is how amazing it was to see my wife become a mother. It was incredible to watch her -- with her great warmth and enormous heart -- manifest a new kind of unconditional love for our son.

And what a year it's been, watching our boy learn and grow. He's the most beautiful boy in the world. A boy so gentle and loving that he repeatedly kisses his stuffed animals' noses, yet so rugged and playfully boyish he hurls his toys at our dog's head. When H finds a way to makes us laugh, by stomp-dancing or making funny sounds, he keeps at it -- what a great sense of humor for a 17-month old.

He's my perfect world.

I didn't intend for this to turn into a love letter to my family. It just did, I guess.

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Here are some links to the entries from those days.

Eleven Twenty-Three 0 Four

Eleven Twenty-Six 0 Four

Eleven Twenty-Eight 0 Four (From Seoul)

The Day We Met H (From Seoul)

Eleven Thirty 0 Four (From Seoul)

The Day H Made Us A Family (From Seoul)

Twelve 0 Nine 0 Four

Twelve Ten 0 Four

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Listening: "Blue Moon Baby" from Rockinnreelininaucklandnewzealand -- The Cramps.

"The sun is not yellow, it's chicken."

When I'm on my way to and from work, I listen to my iPod. As I've mentioned before, I use Future Sonics' EM3s. They sound amazing, and they block out nearly all exterior noise. All you can hear is the music and the sounds within your own skull -- like swallowing and throat-clearing. (Plug your ears with your fingers right now, and clear your throat; you'll hear what I mean.) When I'm on the subway platform with these on, I cannot hear the train approaching. EM3s render even an oncoming New York City Subway train silent.

Since anything can happen underground, I have perfected the technique of studying the faces and body language of my fellow passengers to gauge the danger (or terror threat) level at any given moment. If, say, while I'm listening to Elmore James's "Standing at the Crossroads," the subway train suddenly stops in the tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan, I'll get that post-9/11, this-is-it twinge of fear until I check the faces of the passengers around me. Since I can't hear the conductor's announcements, I wait until I see the majority of eyes go back to their books and newspapers from staring at the speakers in the ceiling. The more people I see napping through the whole thing, the better I feel about whatever it was I missed. (Though I know, someday, I'm going to see the looks of sheer panic on their faces. I'll pull my earphones out, and I'll be the guy going, "What? What'd he say?! What's happening?! Oh, well. Most of my music is worth the confusion.)

I was on the #3 train this morning, somewhere uptown of Chambers Street, and during a between-song silence, I heard a guy yelling. I looked up and noticed everyone was looking toward one end of the train at the guy wearing tattered religious vestments and shiny Air Jordans. His afro had been flattened down with what I'd guess was a sort of butter-and-breadcrumbs paste.

He was yelling at the top of his lungs. Since the next song hadn't yet begun on the iPod, I was able to hear a couple lines of his monologue.

"...White man! White woman! Gentiles! Black men are called Hebrews! Or niggers!..."

And, just like that, the next song came on; "Sick and Crazy" by the Stains. I shit you not. I watched my fellow passengers scramble to get out of his way as he paced the aisle. A few people left the car immediately, via the between-car doors which the MTA and NYPD keep telling us we mustn't use. I stayed, earphones embedded, enjoying the rest of the F10.

01.Vegas - The Paybacks: Great song. Wendy Case has the perfect rock and roll voice. I saw the Paybacks for the first time at the Little Steven Garage Festival, and they blew me away. Kind of like a Detroit Cobras/Sex Pistols hybrid. Nice stuff. I recommend the Knock Loud album.

02. The End of Something - Rollins Band: I don't get to hear this one a lot, so it was a nice surprise shuffled in this morning. Not the best song from the underrated Come In And Burn disk, but it's a good example of why Rollins went out and got Melvin Gibbs to replace Andrew Weiss on bass.

03. Lithium - Nirvana: This is probably my favorite song on That Record. I don't know what you call what Grohl is doing on the "I'm not gonna crack" line (a poly? triplets? multiples?) but it's always hooked me.

04. Ice Storm, Big Gust, and You - Tilly & The Wall: From Wild Like Children. Look, if you haven't gotten that T&TW are the greatest pop outfit around, then forget ya! I love these kids, and I mean it as the sincerest compliment when I lump them in with the Monkees, Rasberries, Papas Fritas, and the Knack. (We'll have the pop music discussion someday, I promise.) Plus the Tillies are all better looking than any of those guys ever were. They're currently in the studio and keeping a diary of their progress. (Thanks to Brian Last Stop for the heads up.)

05. Bulletproof - Rilo Kiley: From Take Offs and Landings.

06. Sick and Crazy - The Stains: One of those band names that a lot of groups have had over the years. THIS Stains is the L.A. band that did one album for SST and scattered a few songs on SST compilations. Some pretty heavy shit here, too hot for any of the metalheads in my high school to get their feeble brains around. I think the rhythm section from the Stains went on to form DC3 with the immortal Dez Cadena. This song is from the Chunks comp.

The More You Know... additional info on the mighty SST label here and here.

07. Tombstone Blues - Bob Dylan: I've been listening to a lot of Dylan lately. I always listened, but these days I've been making more of a point to get his disks in the machine and his songs on the iPod. What an ungodly catalogue of work, huh? If I don't see Dylan perform live before one of us dies, I'll kick myself in the ass forever. [From Highway 61 Revisited.]

08. Hayday - The Replacements: People might call this track "filler" on a mediocre Replacements album. Fuck people. They're idiots.

09. Noise Noise Noise - The Damned: Hey! I recently used this lyric as the title of a post. I've been listening to alot of Damned stuff recently, too. I burned this to cd-r from a 7" EP I've got, and I was a bit  late to the "stop" button, so this track is actually combined with "Suicide" on my iPod. A two-fer.  If you only own five late-70s era first-wave British punk records, Damned Damned Damned has to be one of them*. (This song is from the equally mindblowing Machine Gun Etiquette.)

10. Teenage Enema Nurses in Bondage - Killer Pussy: I have this one on an ultra-rare EP 45. There were only a few thousand pressed of the one I've got. It must have come out around 1982. Killer Pussy were like a scatalogical, poor man's B-52s with considerably less talent. I don't know too much about the group, but there's info out there on the web.

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* And here are the other four: Never Mind The Bollocks, The Clash, Singles Going Steady, and Pink Flag.
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"If [The Sticking Point's Friday 10s] were people, I would be a pansexual, horny dervish." -- Ellen Burstyn

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You know how to play: put your mp3 player on "shuffle all songs," tell us the first ten.

Mink'd

Photo: Travis Roozee

When I got in the office today, I found someone had slipped a CD under my door. Sharpied on it was "T -- Just a taste. -- C" and "100% Raw, Totally Unmixed."

Didn't know what it was, and couldn't wait to hear. I put it in the machine and the readout listed four songs at 15m 38s. As soon as I heard the crowd noise and the first notes of the "Miss Happiness" riff, all the blanks were filled in. "C" is Christopher, and these are four tracks from his in-the-works Walt Mink documentary. They're from the Minneapolis reunion show that is likely to be the heart of the doc's story arc.

They sound great, even in raw and unmixed form. I'm lucky to have friends like Chris.

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Listening: "Sweet Loaf" by Butthole Surfers, from Locust Abortion Technician.

Name That Tune

Want to help?

We rented a car this weekend, and it came with XM radio. For the most part, it went unused; we listened to CDs. Genre-, or niche-based, programming is alright, but it's still unsatisfying. Last night, on my way to drop off the fly Pontiac Grand Prix rental, I was listening to Lars Frederickson's show on Fungus 53. I heard a solid half-hour block great music. (Frederickson hilariously described each band as "fucking great." But he's a fanboy, I can get into that.) Pure sonic dynamite. Still not worth buying into XM, because I can't imagine myself listening to much radio anymore -- satellite, terrestrial, or otherwise. But... I'd love to get some disks burned of Lars's show.

I was trying to keep track of all the songs he back-announced to find them later, but failed. Maybe you can help. One of the song titles was (something like) "Hangovers and Busted Knuckles," by a British group. I'd like to track it down. Anyone know the actual title, or band name/label?

Thanks in advance.

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Listening: "Slash Your Face" -- Dogs, from Killed By Death #1.

Jesus is Magic!

But new material, apparently, would be a miracle.

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On iTunes right now: “Heartache” from the album Straight Outta Burbank by Lazy Cowgirls

[posted with ecto]

And Dance And Dance And Dance And Dance And Dance And Dance

This clip is a close second place to the infamous grape-stomper as far as viral videos go. I love this girl. Last night I stripped her song with WireTap Pro, tweaked the sound with Audacity, and added the mp3 to my iPod.

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Listening: "The Prisoner" from Black Market Clash by The Clash.

From Kings To Queens

A couple weekends ago my wife, son, and I were in our neighborhood diner when S overheard the family at the next table raising their water glasses and saying, "Goodbye, Brooklyn!" I shuddered at the thought of moving away from this incredible corner of the world. Eccch. Imagine?

I grew up in a northern suburb just outside of New York City, and I've moved around quite a bit. My mail has been delivered to sixteen addresses in the last 20 years. But for the last nine years, I've enjoyed a measure of stability in the fact that all of my homes were within the same 5 square miles in Brooklyn. I became a Brooklynite, and loved the borough dearly.

But now, what will soon become my 17th address is moving me to a grave new world. Brooklyn Family Sticking Point is moving a couple dozen miles north. To, uh... Queens.

I've never lived there before, and except for an afternoon spent looking at apartments in Astoria at age 22, never really considered it. It felt too unnatural to me. Whereas Brooklyn is like a Manhattan outpost, and my neighborhood in particular a village-y, erudite, Chelsea-On-The-East-River, Queens always seemed cold, forbidding, and well... teeming with bumpkins. It was the nail salon-riddled pathway to Nassau County. With Shea Stadium sitting there like an orange-and-blue zit.

But then.

My lovely wife's lovely sister moved there, and I came to appreciate her Forest Hills neighborhood. Especially since it surrounded her ginormous, gorgeous, affordable-rent apartment.

We've been running out of space in our Brooklyn Heights apartment ever since H started walking. The place is perfect for a married couple, and cozy for that couple plus one infant. But around the same week H had his first pair of sneakers laced on, our 900+ square feet shriveled into a box the size of an Econoline. The poor kid (and his tired mom) spent their days chasing each other through a narrow gauntlet of un-childproofed living space.

So, soon, we're outta there. We've found a palatial 3 BR / 2 Bath in Forest Hills. In the same building as Lovely Sister-in-Law and her husband. It's about twice the size of our current place... FOR THE SAME RENT. We'll move in soon after Thanksgiving. Thus, the Queens Era begins. Forest Hills -- birthplace of the Ramones.

Anyone know Forest Hills? Anyone want to offer some insight / ideas / advice / street knowledge? (That is, anyone who is not deeply insulted by my writing, above, that Queens was populated with bumpkins. Sorry. That was the old, ego-saturated Brooklyn me speaking. My bad.)

We'll always have the Friday 10. You know how it goes: Your mp3 player or digital jukebox of choice goes on "shuffle all songs," and you share (in the comments section below) the first ten songs down the chute.

Today's surprise theme: I Don't Know.

That's not to say I don't know the theme. I mean the theme turned out to be "I Don't Know." Like the first baseman's name was Who. Read on, you'll see.

01 Mommy Can't Drive - Angelfish: I don't know anything about this group, and I'd never heard this song before Brian Last Stop put it on a mixed CD he made for me and Mrs Sticking Point around the time of H's first birthday. Decent song. The band sounds a little like Bloodletting-era Concrete Blonde.

02 Piece of My Heart - Big Brother & The Holding Company: From the Cheap Thrills album, but you knew that already. James Gurley is an incredibly expressive guitarist, and criminally underrated. Shit, Joplin. This vocal is so beautiful it hurts. I think there's a movie being made about Janis. A long time ago I heard some rumors that Pink or Aguilera or Etheridge was going to play the lead role. I don't know who's doing it or when it's coming out, but I can't WAIT to not see it. Why does that film need to be made? Recently, friends who've seen the Joaquin Phoenix Johnny Cash movie have been telling me it's great -- go see it. No. Why would I? Cash lived up to his myth, his life provided the drama if you'd just watched it. Plenty of it is documented in great bios, auto-bios, documentaries, and concert films. Why would I watch Phoenix and Witherspoon portray even a slice of the Cash story? "A movie event from the director of Kate and Leopold..." Fuck that.

03 Voodoo - Godsmack: Someone I know once said "This is the worst band to ever steal their name from an Alice in Chains song." Maybe. (I haven't heard any others.) This song is the sum total of the Godsmack material I own. I don't even know if this is a credible band or not. Maybe they're one of those bands critics and hipsters will tell you you are an ass for listening to. Whatever. I don't know. I don't care. This song has a great hook, and it was the theme to a cool show that MTV had on a few years back called "Fear."   

04 Blue Spark - X: From Under The Big Black Sun. Last night I learned that the almighty X is playing NYC on December 9th at Roseland Ballroom. Almost simultaneously, I ordered tickets and sounded the email alarm to a number of friends who'd care to know about the show. I can say without hesitation that I haven't been this excited about a show in years. I can't wait. I hate that venue, but at least it's right above a subway station for the train to and from my new place in Forest Hills. I'm going to see X in four weeks. I really can't wait.

05 Perfect World - Liz Phair: Whitechocolatespaceegg is underappreciated, not anywhere near as bad as some will tell you it is.

06 Change It Up - Rollins Band: I think Get Some Go Again is out of print, but it's a great album. The title track, "Illumination," "Thinking Cap," and "On The Day" are songs I listen to all the time.

07 Oz on 45 - Squirrels: Last week, friend and Friday 10 participant Hans Gruber sent me an email with a link to a story about the late John Peel's box. Let me explain, necro-pervs. Peel had more than 20,000 records on vinyl. And, one would imagine, at least as many CDs. But he kept a small cache of his most treasured 45s in a wooden box. Here's the link to the article that catalogues these singles. This song is on the list. It's a medley of songs from Wizard of Oz, done with punk riffs and snotty vocal. I don't know much about the Squirrels, but they have a website.

08 Just Like You Said It Would Be - Sinéad O'Connor: I reckon you don't need me to tell you how great the Lion & The Cobra album is. Get the CD here for less than 8 bucks.

09 Splish Splash - Bobby Darin: Another great musician about whom Hollywood has produced a bio-pic I won't see. Isn't Kevin Spacey Darin in that thing? Ha! My dad turned me on to this song when I was just a little fucker, knee deep in Matchbox cars. My folks had a great collection of 45s that they kept stacked (unsleeved!) inside the end table cabinets in the living room. I think I first heard this on the car radio, as my dad drove me somewhere in our '64 Nova. I liked it, and he told me we had the record (pronounced "reckit") somewhere. I found it. And kept it. Between ages 6 and 11, I gradually embezzled most of that collection.

10 Here Comes The Summer - The Undertones: From their first one. Here's what Stewart Mason wrote about it on All Music Guide's website: "What is a perfect album? One could make an argument that a perfect album is one that sets out a specific set of artistic criteria and then fulfills them flawlessly. In that respect, and many others, the Undertones' 1979 debut is a perfect album."

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"The Sticking Point's Friday 10 is as renewing and refreshing as finally escaping a Pakistani whorehouse after years of homoerotic servitude."  -- James LeGros