music: Phish- Sessions at West 54th 10/20/98
I happened upon Etree’s BitTorrent site this weekend and it is making my ears quite happy. It’s not quite up to where the Archive.org audio archives is in terms of selection, but it’s got some tasty stuff up there. Of greatest interest to me is some really nice sounding soundboards of Phish shows pre-hiatus. I pulled their Sessions set down last night and it is wonderful. Leo is brilliant in the mix.
These things pop up so convienently. Even though Live Live is wrapping up my music habit will still be fed adequately through things like BitTorrent. And never mind tmo’s bold initiative to centralize and combine his, 1ey’s G-Phatty’s, my, and Matt Murphy’s music libraries. I shudder with excitement at the thought of access to such a stockpile…
music: Beastie Boys- The In Sound from Way Out!
On Friday I was kindly informed by a group of ruthless teenagers that I had a bicycle seat-shaped hole in the butt of my pants. Damn. Seeing as though I only own two work-appropriate pairs of pants, this weekend it was time to bite the bullet and go clothes shopping.
I’m not a fan of buying clothes unless, of course, you could somehow call the clothes camping gear. I’ve been lucky in that the clothes I do have have lasted me for a good long while and have withstood some serious abuse on my part. And I haven’t really had to buy clothes either. There’s been enough freebies, kickdowns, and groundscores to keep my closet adequately stocked for the past five or six years. Jah will provide. I have my clothes intake down to a science and really don’t gain clothes when I acquire new ones. There’s a logical progression to it all-the newest items come in and the oldest items come out. Except pants. Pants have a double-life; when they are bumped from rotation they are cut up and made into shorts. T-shirts lead quirky double lives as well. i own a t-shirt and don’t wear it much, but then I cut the sleeves off and like that it’s my favorite t-shirt.
but now that I think about it I haven’t really done any serious clothing purchasing since early in high school. I cut my wardrobe almost in half during the period of mental restructuring right after graduating college as I decided to eliminate stuff in my life that wasn’t necessary or truly valued. It felt good to do so and I’m glad it happened. Having had the experience of living out of a backpack for extended periods it wasn’t all that tough. The closest I came to a net increase in clothes was purchasing two or three new button-down shirts this summer when I realized that my work clothes totalled two pairs of pants and three shirts. That way, I figured, I’d have a shirt for every day of the week. It’s been working so far, although those ruthless teenagers let me know that I wear the same thing almost every day. I miss the days of camp where it was cool to be smelly and wear the same thing all week.
So out I went on a Saturday, down to the mines of Downtown Crossing, down to Filene’s Basement and TJ Maxx. There I found a nice pair of dark khakis for $15 and a pair of beige linen pants for $20. Niether had bike seat-shaped holes in the butt. Yet. But it was a good day’s work, and my posterior will be adequately covered at least through the summer. Since I was shopping for clothes, I decided it was a good excuse to peruse REI for gear just because. I was glad I did as I ran into G-Phatty purchasing some Ex Officios (arguably the best pants in the world). I was so inspired that I went online and got a pair of those too. (and for half off- $35!)
So now I’ve got more pairs of pants than I have since middle school. On the way to and fro during my pants-buying expeditions I paid close attention to what people were wearing, probably because my head was dancing around such an issue. I’ve never been one to pay attention to fashion much but I’m vaguely aware that it matters to a lot of people. Ruthless teenagers especially. And it was interesting-to see how people choose to represent themselves by the clothes they wear. I think a lot of it is unintentional. I think of all the people who see me wearing that same capeliene base layer I groundscored at Berkfest two years ago, my smelly sandals, my buttpack, and I guess that could be called a fashion choice. So be it. I’d call it ‘functional comfort’ but that’s me. I chose some pairs of pants over others. So be it. A guy’s gotta wear something.
music: Aesop Rock- Float
There was an Allston-Brighton Free Radio meeting last night. Much was confirmed, in my mind at least. Time to move on. Live Live’s last show will be April 27th.
Much else to talk about but not now. It’s almost 65 degrees for the first time this year, and on top of that, a Friday. I’m out.
music: STS9- Live at Home
I attended a general meeting of Allston-Brighton Free Radio this evening. My first since last June. There were about 15 people present. Mostly the same faces. Same old story, athough this time the well has run dry and we put the issue of closing down for good on the table. Officially, present members voted to keep the station going after our lease runs out on May 1. When we turned to a conversation of how to ensure this, however, things fell apart. The short story is that we have been running a $400 deficit every month since the Allston Curmudgeon, founder of ABFree, handed the station over to us and took his leave, and our savings will be more than depleted after the bills are paid for April. The long story can be read in every painful detail here.
I have a lot to say on the issue as I sit here contemplating whether or not to put a May 1st cap on Live Live regardless of what happens to the station. If ABFree does survive, it will be at subsistence level, scraping by every month, barely keeping its head above water. I’m not interested in that sort of existence or that sort of pressure. Moreover, I’m no longer willing to put effort into the executive board there. And beyond that, Live Live is not accomplishing its intended goals in the current format on ABFree. There is not time nor resources available for it to do so. That, and I’m fairly sure that nobody listens.
This is exasperating. I’m tired. I have a lot to say on the issue, but not now. The following was a post I made to the members of the executive board ten days ago. Much, if not all, of it still holds.
breaking radio silence (as it were)…zoom out for a minute. humor me. i’ve been thinking a lot about the purpose of doing a show, and by extrapolation, having a station. since i started grad school i’ve had less than no time for much else, and as you know my involvement with things diminished to me going into the station 2 hours a week and spinning cds. occasional guests, fine, but on the whole it was me, my cohost, some microphones, and a cd player. Not one phone call from anyone not on the board in all this time, and even those phone calls were to point out some technical problem. So I hit that point where I could still say that i had a radio show, but the entire purpose of doing it was lost.
what purpose? some are outlined in the charter. others are outlined in the music dept. stuff i wrote (none save steve and patrick clement have bothered reading that though, i think). that the station had the potential to be a powerful tool for change and action, a voice for community is still true, technically, but as of late i’ve called into question just how realistic fulfilling that mission will be. 21 active members. 14-18 of these pay their dues and do their show once a week and that’s it. from where i stand, this business of 21 of us having a radio show has become a highly individual and selfish enterprise. i’ll speak for myself: i do it now because it gets me off, because it is fun, because sometimes i get offered tickets to concerts. i don’t do it because i think people are listening, because the reality is that given our technological and legal constraints, virtually nobody is listening. this is not any sort of purpose worth sustaining. from this perspective, it is very hard to justify putting all this time, money, and effort into keeping the station going.
do i believe that abfree stands for something important? absolutely. do i acknowledge the potential that the station has for significance as far as alternative and progressive media? absolutely. do i think that this group of people, the “members” of abfree, are at any sort of place where this can be realized? absolutely not. as things stand now, this push to save the station, we are setting ourselves up to at best keep our heads just above water. and that we would accomplish even that is highly suspect. i doubt that we would be able to actually do anything with the station besides say it exists if we were to keep it going on a subsistence level. it would be a different story if we had good participation from a critical mass of station members but that is not the case and unless something about leadership and management changes that won’t be the case. member participation is virtually nonexistent-even if we convince people to get active to avert the immediate crisis in may we can more or less can count on them crawling back into the woodwork some time in july or august and the same handful of people will be left to deal with the nitty gritty. ask yourselves: are you ready to work very, very hard to keep the station going hand-to-mouth style? if you handful are willing to do this on the station’s behalf, then i say go forth and thank you emphatically. take that risk. but know that it’s only going to get harder once the savings run out for real.
moving to the allston mall is fraught with problems and i don’t see it as a viable solution. carting all that equipment back and forth will assuredly result in technical problems, and who among us is qualified to fix them? do we really think we can take it all down and set it all up again exactly how it was? or even close? who among our tech consultants can we really depend on? where will the antenna go? the lack of technical know-how among this group scares me, and amazes me that we’ve managed to stumble along this far without learning about transistors and capacitors. (took how long just to get the internet up?) never mind the issue of not being able to trust the landlord. we, being “part 15,” are not really in a position where we can not trust a landlord to some point. plus, my understanding is that we would be going into it with a tarnished relationship from the RFA days. yes, moving would mean less money for rent, but the current location affords us certain comforts and securities that i think we take for granted. my gut feeling is that moving to the allston mall would ease the burden of month-to-month survival if that is our goal. but to even reach the point where we are worried about month-to-month survival indicates to me that any real goal i’ve had for the station isn’t really possible anyway.
before finger-wagging begins, let me cast the first stone against myself. i’ve done nothing in terms of helping out since june. i know this. and sorry, i don’t plan on starting now. the station’s organization as it stands is not where i’m comfortable or enthusiastic getting back on board. the charter is as good as toilet paper. my impression is that djs don’t really care about the station just as long as they can keep doing their show. and i’m not going to say anything about the station as a social endeavour.
to be constructive for a minute: one suggestion i’ve made in the past is to charge by person instead of by show. that way we’d be getting double (or triple) the money from shows with more than one host. i’ll offer that up again. the idea of charging by time isn’t half bad either; i’d like to see it developed a little more before it is put into action, if at all. the last suggestion i’ll make is the one i made last time i posted here, late july of last year. it went something like (exactly like) this:
parting shot: the nail in the coffin will be your ability to organize and
motivate the human beings at the station. you can work until 3AM as many
nights as you like on graphic layout, computer troubleshooting,
underwriting, and whatever else, but if other people are not in on making
it happen, it will all be for nothing. make it a priority. apparently
people have already been leaving, reasons being that “it’s a thankless
job.” the kiss of death if ever there was one. recruit, empower and
motivate station members. everything else will follow.possibly too late for this, in the eleventh hour, but i think it is still the x-factor that will make the difference should push come to shove. and push is coming to shove.
as i’ve said before: if show dues increase, live live is out. that is just not a viable long-term solution to anything. it might buy the station a couple more months, but if we are thinking on that scale, who cares if we end in may or july? only about 10 people care, and those are the ones paying the increased dues. will dues increase until those 10 remaining are paying $100/month? additionally, if we move to the allston mall, live live is most likely out. so things aren’t looking too good. i’m saddened by it, but that’s where i see the situation at this point.
to those of you still set on saving the station, consider your purposes for keeping the station going. consider the long-term viability of such a project and what it will take from you to see that it happens. consider your goals for participating in this station in the first place, and consider whether or not abfree hand-to-mouth will be able to accomplish those goals. i pretty much have formed my answers. part of me hopes you all have come up with something different, but that same part of me thinks that if you have, you are lying to yourself.
somberly,
david
So that’s where things are. Not looking good. Not sitting pretty. The meeting tonight reminded me that ABFree as an entity and idea is something worthy of continuation, but given our current involvement and staffing, I have not a single problem walking away. Sadly.
music: Mississippi John Hurt- Frankie and Albert
Today was Sunday, the Great American Day Of Rest. And (for once) rest I did. Slept in until 10:00 am, a great long time nowadays. Had some food, played some guitar (first time in weeks), did some reading for class, did some reading not for class, took a mid afternoon nap, had a stroll around the neighborhood, and came back home to start work for tomorrow. A rewrite of a paper from last semester, An analysis of student work for my program portfolio, and planning for this week’s lessons. Some time was squandered today and I probably could have gotten a lot more done than I did, but I needed to squander some time on doing nothing.
Doing nothing is a strange thing for me these days now that I have been conditioned to maximize productivity and output every waking minute. It was a good exercise in pausing and looking around, in not charging ahead, in not pushing foward. I felt bad about it. Guilty almost. Shouldn’t there be something to show for my time spent piddling about today? By all quantitative measures and by all grad school east-coast scales, today was a waste. Fine. I’m willing to live with that for today, guilt and all. It was nice to lounge around doing not much of anything for most of the day. The one downside was that I did it at home, which is quite a terrible place.
They say you’ll never forget the roommates you had in college. I assuredly won’t forget them, nor will I forget the roommates I had in grad school. But for completely different reasons. Although I don’t talk with them much, I count the roommates I had in college among my friends. People I like to spend time with, people I’d invite to my wedding, that sort of thing. My roommates in grad school are another story altogether.
I came upon this apartment just blocks away from Harvard Yard through craigslist in the spring of 2003. Craigslist had never let me down; I bought guitar pedals and found people to play music with on the weekends. I had the utmost faith that it would find me a nice apartment as well. And the apartment itself, the physical plant, is beautiful by apartement building’s standards. The four people who occupy the space with me leave much to be desired. It makes coming home a very unpleasant experience.
Of the four other members of the apartment, two maintain existences worthy of clinical attention. The other two live more benign yet equally quirky lives. They give me fodder for stories that will make your skin crawl. I think I’ll hold off on the stories here until after I’m out of this place, in case the walls have ears and eyes (one roommate has admitted to prolonged “spying” on neighbors). The short of it is this: having to live with these people puts me in a foul mood. There is stuff that enrages me, and there is stuff that depresses me. Things are quite sad around here most of the time actually; there is very little evidence that any of my roommates has any friends or much of a social life at all, save one roommate’s husband (living in Africa) and another roommate’s girlfriend (in town every 3 months or so). I get the sense that people come directly home from work and retreat to their locked rooms to watch TV. I don’t think any of them ever are out of the house on weekends. If I didn’t resent spending time here so much, I might begin to feel sorry for them.
Luckily, this is not the year where home is something I think about. I’ve been so busy that it’s almost a blessing to not have to worry about investing anything of myself on the homefront. Still, on the few times that I do spend a significant amount of time here, on those Sunday afternoons that I end up lazing about the house, I would like to have an environment that is even the slightest bit pleasant. Today, though, spending time alone in my room was exactly what I was hoping to do. I could shut my door and forget that my roommates were home, except for hearing their tiptoeing around. Fine.
Perhaps this is the year of the strange roommate. I have mine, and my associate to the West has his own bizzare stories from his old home place. Fine. Not everyone can live in Chowdahaus all the time. But having a terrible living situation, living with people who enrage and depress you at the same time, does not make for pleasant lazy Sundays. At least I don’t feel so bad about staying late at school to grade papers…
music: Altitude Music- 3/10/04
We received a certain piece of advice from one of our TEP directors at the start of the year: “if three people tell you you’re sick, lie down.” I’m not listening. Not to worry my mom too much, but a good number of people have said “David, you’ve lost some weight.” (no, it’s genetic) Or “David, you look exhausted.” Or some freshman at school, god bless them, say stuff like: “Mr. Taus, you look pretty beat.” You have to appreciate the honesty at some level, i suppose. But I refuse to listen. I’m eating enough. I’m not exhausted. I’m doing this fine. And for the most part I am doing this fine, but the pace I’ve set for myself is not sustainable. I’ve only begun to admit my own mortality as of late and allow myself some time for R&R.
It’s a painful schedule: up at 6:30 every morning, all day at high school. If I have classes at Harvard I leave around 3:30; if not, I’m leaving around 5:30 or 6:00pm helping kids or grading papers. Then usually straight home to my own schoolwork-some of the last hoops I’m going to have to jump through in this Master’s/certification program. Add a recent angle to the Live Live project, a bunch of horrific roommates, and a crisis at the radio station that could very well shut us down for good and I’m not one with much spare time. Oh-and some new ideas I have for songs that aren’t being acutalized. And friends. Remember them? I sort of do. I wonder if they remember me.
So I’ve started to realize that this is a lifestyle that is really difficult. I’ve been able to maintain it to some extent and have been somewhat successful at getting most of the stuff done but it’s beginning to take its toll on my mental well-being. As a counter-measure, I’ve started to take time for myself when I can get it. That usually means an hour nap when I get home from school, allowing myself to eat meals on the run more, especially when I don’t have time to cook (which is all the time), including more meat in my diet (efficient source of protein and energy), and letting some things slide that really should get some of my attention were there time. I’m moderately successful. I’m eating better, but I’m still exhausted. And I can count on a migraine about every two weeks to keep me sidelined and force me to take things slow. Still not managing much time for friends though. That’s the next step: re-including fun social things in my week. Visits with friends. Checking out music (something I haven’t done much of, I realize, since the 1ey took off for parts unknown). Allowing some time to gather myself and just breathe in the mornings and before bed. I’m getting better. I went to Murphy’s for a special night of Geoff Scott’s Altitude Music (listening to it right now…sweet stuff) and furthered some ideas that tmo and I have had regarding the future of Live Live.
Stress will be there. Stress will always be there. On the whole, I think I’m dealing with it fairly well. Consider the following: The radio station is in a tailspin, scheduled to wreck on May 1st. Only a miracle will save ABFree at this point. There’s only so much I can do though, and even if I had the time to do it 40 hours a week, I don’t think I’d want to given the other people involved. The curriculum we’re using at school is entirely self-generated, and out of my content area. I find myself talking and teaching stuff that I really don’t know all that well. Pieces of the end-of-grad-program portfolio, a final statement on msyelf as a teacher, are due with increasing frequency. I’m not sleeping much. I haven’t seen friends in a long, long time. And now, on top of that all, I’m beginning to look for a job for the fall.
Small bites. This was the big lesson I learned during my solo travels in Europe. It’s good to keep in mind here. Putting blinders on anything farther away than a week or two (except the job hunt) might be the thing that saves me. That and more sleep. Speaking of, g’night.
music: Bob Dylan- Highway 61 Revisited
I met the guy once on a site observation at the Mary Lyon School. He was impeccibly dressed and it was clear he had earned the respect of staff and students alike. He was stern, yet kind. He worked hard and succeeded at a job that not many people could do. This all from a morning’s worth of impressions based on observations. And then some short time later, word trickled down that Obain was to be deported. And all in the name of the safety of the American people.
The story, as far as I know, goes something like this: Obain participated in government protests in his home country of the Ivory Coast in 1990 and was jailed. He came to the U.S. in 1992, applied for political asylum in 1994. The immigration courts took notoriously long, and finally got up to speed some time after September 11, 2001. Obain misread a handwritten note from the court and missed his hearing date, upon which point he was ruled to be deported in absentia. A warrant was put out for the guy’s arrest. He appealed, but it was summarily denied, and last November he was arrested when he tried to reclaim his car from being towed. Obain has been in jail since November, and this week he was to be deported back to the Ivory Coast. The federal government felt justified in doing so under the Patriot Act. The day of his deportation neared, and administrators at BAA and Fenway, the school where he taught part-time, decided to do something about it. We sent about 400 students and teachers downtown with picket signs and chants of “FREE OBAIN!” yesterday after school. Lawyers were snapping into action on different fronts, but apparently 400-odd chanting urban teenagers with protest posters in City Hall plaza gets the point across. They made the papers, they made the 10:00 news, and today an announcement came over the PA that Obain was released from jail a free man.
So this story ends happily. I am glad for it, of course. Many kids at school testified to friends and teachers on Obain’s behalf. Full-on Americans, born on domestic soil supporting this man who was born in another country but has done a wonder of good here. Obain can stay, but I can’t help but think about all those folks I haven’t met that have been kicked out of the country and returned to their motherlands only to be placed square in the middle of some pretty bad situations. That some fairly high profile people in the public school arena decided to get involved saved Obain, but most in his position are not as lucky. All, of course, done for the safety of good Americans like the students at Fenway and BAA.
Before the kids headed out for City Hall yesterday I watched them get signs ready and practice their war chants. Most of the kids I was with at the time had never met Obain. I’m not entirely convinced that they had personal investment in the situation either. THey were to get out of the last hour of school, which for some was enough, but it was also an event, an exciting thing to take part in. Kids were caught up in the fervor of the idea of protest and demonstration as much as anything else. It was very exciting. But it was also very important to the life of a real human being. I suppose that the ends justify the means here, that any reason why kids got involved in protesting is good because it worked. It was a learning experience for them, absolutely. And for me too, on several levels. In the final analysis, though, I can say that I am glad that this guy who I met only once is free to stay in the U.S. and continue to make a positive difference in this country’s kids.
music: Allman Brothers Band- At the Fillmore East
It’s remarkable how brain processes are affected by the weather. In extreme you get things like SAD but in more normal ranges the weather still has a significant effect on affect. The neurologist I saw about migraines said that they could be triggered by weather changes. And other stuff too. Seasons signal differnt instincts. I find myself wanting to hunker down and close the hatches when winter comes. I find myself somewhat frantic to grab ahold of something during autumn. And when spring hits, I tend to get the wandering bug.
Today was the first reasonably nice day of the year. I walked home from school without a jacket today, a trip that carries me straight up Mass Ave all the way from Hynes/ICA to Harvard Square. There was sun, there were people, there was a stiff breeze from the West. (The walk took me 45 minutes, which is often as long as it takes to ride the subway from Harvard to Kenmore) It was the first time the city experienced a taste of things to come. Maybe a little to early to scream it from the rooftops, but spring is coming. We forget that the seasons change this deep into winter sometimes, but when the weather inevitably turns it boggles our minds how we could have gone so long without the warmth.
The thing that set off the spring instinct was not the warmth or the sun (although they did help), it was the smells. Car wax. Cigarettes and roasting meat. Coconut lotion. Hot tar. Thawed organic matter sweetly decaying.
Sense memory is quite strong. It’s true that these smells don’t really have anything to do with warmer weather except that they have been paired with my own construct of summer via pavlovian conditioning. And like the ringing bell, it did the trick. I began to salivate at the prospect of long, warm summer nights. Travelling. Barbecues. Music festivals. Frisbee. Indeed, there is more to this existence than 10 or more hours a day in urban high schools.
After I got home the wind brought in a brief yet very strong rain. Spring cleaning. The weather remained mild, and the water started to coax life back out of its wintertime hibernation. Spring. Spring. I know I’m jumping the gun a little bit, but the indicators are there. Spring is at hand, bringing warmth, longer days, and all the requisite summertime adventures. And restless teenagers. There’s stuff to do before Spring Proper hits, but today the weather set off my springtime instincts. Which was sweet.