Earplug Alert

Hundreds of shows, seven days, one week. Here is what looks good

02-06-American Babies Trio @ Living room
The latest incarnation of the post-jam world’s latest supergroup features the Duo’s Joe Russo, Brothers Past’s Tom Hamilton, and Ween’s Dave Dreiwitz (and yes I had to Google search Dreiwitz’s last name to figure out how to spell it)

02-07-Trey Anastasio @ 92^nd St Y
Does it say something about the status of Phish nation that I’m equally interested in hearing Trey speak than play? Wait, who am I kidding, that was always the case

02-09-Cryptic Fiber @ Fontana’s
Coachella got Rage, Bonnaroo nabbed the Police, and we reunited Cryptic Fiber. ‘Nuff said

02-10-Brett Dennen featuring members of ALO @ Joe’s Pub
A SoCal supergroup; a Jambands.com sit-in in the making

02-10-The Plug Awards: Stephen Malkmus, Silversun Pickups et all @ Irving Plaza
The indie-world’s answer to the Jammys has all the flair, but none of the flavor of my favorite night of the year. But it does has Stephen Malkmus

02-11-Jonah Smith @ Rockwood Music Hall
Jonah Smith would top each and every of my top ten lists if he didn’t work with me everyday. And, even so, he makes it up there a good chunk of the time.

Whatever You Do...

It occurred to me the other day, while flipping through some back entries of this here blog, that I’m pretty hard on myself, especially when it comes to girls. Admittedly, while sealing the deal may indeed be my most visible typo, I have learned a thing or two about female interaction in the last twenty-five years and, especially, in the last twenty-five days. And, as it turns out, the answer to my female problems wasn’t so much at the tip of my fingers, as it was at the tip of my toes.

Yes indeed, I am talking about my new shoes or, more accurately, my new six pairs of shoes. A good six years after I gleefully declared sneakers the bastard children of my wardrobe in the Skidmore News column which preceded the semi-dormant Jambands.com column which inspired his semi-active blog, I’ve come to understand that footwear isn’t so much about comfort as it is style. Clearly most members of female gender figured this out log before Bill Haley fused country and blues to rock-around-the-clock (case-and-point, the high-heel). And, over the last month, I’ve discovered that wearing nice shoes in a room full of nice girls is kind of like speaking sign language among a group of deaf people.

Like shirts and pants, shoes are, apparently, meant to be changed along with outfits, moods, and occasions. Contrary to popular belief, certain colors even clash (just don’t ask me to explain which ones). Since I’d sit around in sweatpants and a Phish T-Shirt if left to my own devices (the maroon one with the bee-hive I purchased New Year’s ’98 seems to go well with my sofa), I decided to defer all wardrobe decisions to a series of unofficial female-stylists (if any girls are reading this, I think I speak for all non-metrosexual men when I say that the clothed foot is the only part of the female body we don’t notice). And, after a month or so of research, here’s what I’ve learned.

1) Sandals
According to my research, (aka my friend Jenny, the shopper formally known as “drunk Jenny”) my old school sandals and my new school, but old school looking Reeves go well with the colors blue, black, or tie-dye and are perfect wet hippie festival like Mountain Jam and All Good, as well as summer trips to Urban Outfitter. Hippie chic indeed!

2) Slippers
Not your father’s parlor shoes these lace-less loafers are perfect for lounging around my backyard, by which I mean any area south of 14^th St. and east of six avenue. I like them the best because they remind me of the Velcro sneakers I was allowed to sport until 4th grade (I never mastered the art of tying laces in Kindergarten)

3) Grey Sneakers
Though I purchased this pair of New Balance sneakers to play soccer, my co-workers inform me that they are the best shoes for casual, daily life in my office. Yes, I occupy the only cubical in New York which requires me to dress down for work

4) Black Shoes
I am only allowed to wear my black shoes at formal events like weddings, funerals, and Trey Anastasio’s upcoming appearance at the 92nd St Y. Oh, and I’m told black and brown clash more than a New Yorker at a Widespread Panic concert.

5) Brown Loafers
An updated version of the brown loafers I wore every single day in 2006, I nabbed this shoe while in Israel, a fact I only mention because it means an Israeli woman helped me pick them out. I figured my parents would appreciate that one some level (see, I’m trying)

6) Browner Loafers
These loafers were actually the same color as the above mentioned pair before I attended 12 festivals in one summer. I keep them around because they are perfect for any concert where a tweaker may roll over my feet (pun very much intended).

7) Shitty Shoes
I’m currently searching for pair of “nice shitty shoes,” which I’m told can be both casual and stylish at the same time. I guess I aspire to be shitty chic one day.

Doctor, Doctor...

I‘ve been blessed with good health over the past few years and without realizing it, never built up a network of doctors after moving to New York in the fall of 2004. I also just realized that I never officially stopped seeing my pediatrician---I just kind of slowly stopped going----which makes me wonder if there is still some FBI-like folder containing my name, date of birth, and level of ticklishness filed at the Mt. Kisco Medical Center

Anyway, over the course of the past few weeks, a few minor problems (back, foot, back of my foot) have emerged, and this week, I found myself on mini-doctor tour seeing three different specialists over the course of a two day period (no interlocking sets, alas). While not as exciting as, say, seeing a concert in each of New York’s five boroughs (perhaps my true claim to fame) or managing to mangle two dates in a singe evening (consider that a coming attraction for my next blog), seeing three unrelated doctors in the same week has shed some light on the state of the American Medical Association.

First off, I love how society rephrases the simple act of “going to the doctor’s office” to fit life’s various stages. When I got sick in elementary-school I was sent to the nurse’s office (as opposed to the principal’s office), when I got food poisoning at camp I spent time at the infirmary (as opposed to a military-like bunk), and when I fell ill in college I scheduled an appointment with health services (as opposed to food or, err, custodial services). And, now, finally, I am old enough to see a “specialist,” whose specialty seems to be figuring out creative ways to make me feel guilty about siding with the Evil Empire (aka the insurance companies).

Second, with each passing day I’ve come to realize that, as President Lincoln surely said, “alloffices are created equally dysfunctional,” and I’m not sure if its comforting or alarming that my health is being determined by an team of neoteric, coffee-drinking New Yorkers who spend their days surfing MySpace.

Lastly, I’ve decided that you can tell a lot about a doctor by simply sitting in his or her waiting room: the furniture, the wall decorations, and especially the magazines. Thankfully, I’ve yet to find a doctor who subscribes to Relix (indeed, I never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member or more accurately see a doctor who’d want to read what I have to say.)

You can also tell pretty quickly when you are hopelessly out of place as I learned at my first appointment. The first doctor I visited was a nice, accomplished, woman on the Upper East Side (aka Siberia) who was associated with my uncle’s hospital. After weighing the pros-and-cons of seeing a woman doctor, I decided that I’d rather have my mom tell me I was about to die then just about anyone else, and I scheduled an appointment. After sitting in the waiting room for a few minutes, flipping through copies of Redbook and scanning a few fact-packed flyers about menopause, I decided separate but equal is fine when it comes to doctor gender and got the hell out of there before some nurse tricked me into signing up for a pap test.

The second doctor I visited was more up my alley, a balding, 50-something Jewish guy who seems to have majored in podiatry, minored is twenty-something psychology, and failed standup comedy (though he seemed most interested in showing off his skills in the latter category). The meat of my appointment was divided into two acts: the first focusing on my toe, the second on my last name, which he acutely pointed out is more fun when pronounced The Greenhaus Effect (come to think of it he has a lot in common with my fourth grade class). Thankfully, after fifteen minutes of environmental riffing he returned to my toe, which he diagnosed as so gross, “it will impede me from getting girls into bed.” He then gave me some magic nail-polish remover, which he promised, like Mr. Clean, would make my toenail so shinny it would pull those same girls back from across the room no matter what type of shoes I have on (who says podiatrists don’t saved lives)!

My third doctor was clearly the most qualified to deal with my problems. Not only has he earned enough awards to wallpaper his entire office, but he managed to solve my medical condition without even inspecting my body! Upon entering the room he gave me a once over, realized I had ten fingers, two feet, and a low self-esteem and diagnosed my back condition before asking my problem. “You sit hunched over at a desk all day and it is hurting your back,” he declared from across the room. “But I’ve been sitting at a desk for 21 years and never pulled a muscle before,” I lobbied. “You also have never been 25 before,” he shot back.

Game point. Indeed, it took six hours, three doctors, and a seemingly infinite amount of insurance paper to determine that I am a 25-year old Jewish male named Mike Geenhaus, who works at a magazine and spends a good amount of time hunched over a computer.

Come to think of it, maybe more doctors should spend time surfing MySpace.

Freebie Thursdays

So, for my first freebie Thursday, I decided to offer the first two songs from David Byrne’s long out of print 1985 score, Music from the Knee Plays. For those of you outside New York area and/or off the Carnegie Hall mailing list, Mr. Byrne (who, like James Brown, now seems to be addressed in the most formal way possible), is performing the song-cycle for the first time in many moons tonight at Zankel Hall. He is being backed by the Les Miserables orchestra which may be the most high-brow sit-in I’ve reported in my three point five years handling the Jambands.com/Relix.com daily news. I am reviewing the show for the April/May issue of Relix, but for a more honest, and less sober, opinion, please track me down at the Galactic show tomorrow to hear my thoughts.

Unlike most fading rock-stars who embrace classical composition as a more cerebral version of scientology, David Byrne has actually done some pretty amazing things with his strings. Grown Backwards, his 2004 album on Nonesuch, is one of the best albums I’ve heard since graduating college. While Music from the Knee Plays doesn’t hold up quite as well on CD or, more accurately, on a pirated vinyl record imported into a computer, illegally traded through the web, and burned onto a disc, I’m hoping it will be more tangible in a live setting. I plan on selling caviar in the lot at 7 if anyone wants to join me…

Oh, and in a valiant attempt to protect my digital rights, here is a disclaimer. These tracks are for personal use only and should only be used to show off to overly pompous co-workers and lure unsuspecting girls with a serious Tina Weymouth complex into bed.

Track 1: Tree

Track 2: In the Upper Room

Shameless Plug...

For the first of my weekly shameless plugs, I decided to dip into the Greenhaus Effect.com archives and pull out this typo-plagued entry from February. With the Super Bowl just a few short days away, I thought it was so outdated it was actually timely.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Go Steelers!

Trey and Jon "Jimmy" Fishman in Pittsburgh


Since my Super Bowl knowledge is limited to the bands playing the halftime show, I have no real basis to root for the Steelers. But, I did have my peak musical experience at a Phish show in Pittsburgh and have felt a need to support all things Steel Town ever since (but apparently not enough to actually watch the game…). So, as of tonight, I am on Steelers Tour, eagerly crossing my fingers for a “Harpua” breakout sometime fourth quarter.

Given my obsessive-compulsive personality, I really should have been a sports buff. But for some reason, sports never really interested me growing up, which is probably why I ended up attending a college whose lone varsity team majored in ultimate Frisbee. Like anything in life, I guess I can blame my lack of testosterone on my parents, who lulled me to bed with Peter, Paul and Mary records, and my learning disability, which made me as coordinated as Ray Finkel in Ace Ventura (how’s that for a sports allusion).

Looking back, it wasn’t always easy growing up in suburbia without sports and I still lose my entire high-school clique for six months each year when fantasy baseball is in full effect. But, over time, I’ve slowly cultivated a “jock-identity” for myself. For instance, since I tend to root for underdogs, I fashion myself a Mets fan (as opposed to the Yankees, who I'm sure have some secret tie to Clear Channel, man). On a similar note, I guess getting drunk on Super Bowl Sunday without watching the game is kind of like tweaking in Bonnaroo's lot without hearing any music. So, since I’m still beat from my recent jaunt to Chicago, I’ve decided to forfeit my ticket to Suman’s annual football party in good conscious.

I pondered going to a friend’s house to listen to the Schwartz/Foley Phish Bowl on Sirius instead, but since I get paid to hear Schwartz talk on a daily basis I’ve decided to take this drinking holiday off to listen to a mix tape I made sometime around lat year’s Tibet House benefit. Plus, I think Adam Foley may have accidentally killed a goldfish at my party last weekend…ah, the spoils of being part of the “jamband industry.”

Well, back to work for me and back to procrastinating for you. I’m actually going to be in NYC this weekend (for a change!) so if anyone wants to visit an east village watering hole let me know….

Earplug Alert!

A pretty interesting week of music in and around New York City. Here is where I will be---or at least where I hope to be.

2007-01-30-Jared and the Deyounger Brothers @ Annex
Yes, my co-worker Jared has managed to skip post-jam completely and finds himself playing a hip Lower East Side indie-club owned by none other than 2004 buzz band Interpol (the club is so hip, in fact, Interpol isn't even allowed to play there anymore)

2007-01-30-Tom Hamilton @ Living Room
Tommy previews some material from the awsome forthcoming American Babies album at the Living Room. The first night of a month long ballad.

2007-02-01-David Byrne @ Carnegie Hall
The first night of DB's four night residency finds the former Talking Heads frontman revisiting his long dormant 1985 score, Music From the Knee Plays. Indeed, there is a fine line between art and really, really pretentious artists, but David Byrne always manages to remain in the light

2007-02-02-Galactic @ Irving Plaza
I've seen Galactic about 30 times and still can't name one of there songs. But that didn't stop me from scoring a ticket for show 31!

2007-02-02-Digital Frontier @ Rebel
The baby-Bisco generation's next inverted hope returns to New York City and rolls out the red carpet (pun intended) for Philly's own Push at this midtown nightclub

2007-02-03-Mike and Schwartz on Sirius!
Don't go see live music (sorry Dee and Andy). Instead sit at home and listen to Jon and I talk about Phish for hours on Sirius Jam_On (consider this a pilot for I'm with Relix Magazine)

2007-02-04-I hear something about a sporting event.....

2007-02-05-Cat Power @ Hiro Ballroom
Cat Power has always been a bit out to sea, so the Maritime Hotel seems like as good a place as any to hear her claw away at her emotions

The Greenhaus Effect H20

After almost a month on the road, sometimes for work, sometimes for pleasure, a lot of the time somewhere in-between, I’m finally home and on solid ground. And, after refilling my fish tank (RIP), I’m ready to start the New Year by falling into the same old habits. Speaking of which, I’ve decided to re-launch the Greenhaus Effect with some new tricks and, yes, consistency! From now on Mondays and Fridays will offer “diary-style” entries (basically the usual blog fare), Tuesday will see the return on the Earplug Alert concert listings, Wednesdays will feature some sort of shameless self-promotion, and Thursdays will counter that self-promotion with some free mp3s. We'll see how long it lasts, but, for now, enjoy!

The Mikeys IV

(Jam Cruise Journalism Panel Above: Burning Spear, Patterson Hood, Benjy, Kayceman, and me)

If you asked me in May of 2000, the month I completed my freshman year of college, what bands appear most often in my itunes, urr CD player, the answer would most likely go something like this: Phish, Guster, the Disco Biscuits, The Grateful Dead, moe., the Slip, and Fat Mama. So, it is kind of funny, and even more fitting, that seven years, three apartments, and enough typos to make me question the spelling of my own name, many of those bands still top my annual, neurotic award ceremony. But, whether it’s the Slip’s newest set of songs, Joe Russo’s current set of hair products, or my latest batch of Jewish guilt, the pieces fit together in slightly different order. Indeed, some bands are easy to grow out of, others you simply grow up with.

Albums:

Best indie-rock carpetbagger: The Slip-Eisenhower

Though The Slip’s Eisenhower sums up many of 2006’s central themes for me---the rise of post-jam, the fall of Capitol Hill, the uncertainly of life as a single twenty-something born in July (though not of 1975)---the best part of the year’s best release is that Brad Barr and company weren’t trying to be profound. And, as “Airplane/Primitive” postulates, if it’s truly “the day before the rest of my life,” I can only dream about what the Slip have in store for tomorrow.

Best “it band” without a “the” attached to its name: Cold War Kids-Robbers & Cowards

Hipsters these days. One night their playing an opening spot at the Bowery Ballroom and then you go to the bathroom and by the time you flush the toilet their selling out the place as a headliner (for, as the blogosphere reminds me, three nights). But if any group deserves the buzz it is this batch of artists, who managed to figure out that Billie Holiday and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah aren’t necessarily strange bedfellows.

Best heterosexual take on Siegfried & Roy’s shtick: The Benevento/Russo Duo-Play Pause Stop

Tom Hamilton and Joe Russo may be the next Brad and Jen, but, for me, Marco and Joe will always the true Wayne and Garth. And, as Wayne’s World once mused, “I now know that plutonic love can exist between two fully grown men.” Oh, and their new album is pretty hot too.

Best reason to stalk a member of the opposite sex on MySpace: The Elected-Sun, Sun, Sun

So, I was minding my own business, quietly stalking some girl I met at a bar on MySpace, when all of the sudden the Elected’s “Fireflies in a Steel Mill” popped into my speakers. Low and behold these guys sound like the Byrds, only fronted by Rilo Kiley. I didn’t get the girl, but I sure as hell got the CD.

Best proto-post-jam indie-rock revivalists: Built to Spill-You in Reverse

Built to Spill looks like Wilco fronted by Bill Nershi, sounds like My Morning Jacket crossed with the Arcade Fire, and jams like Neil Young on the Slip’s budget. Oh, and their fans complain like PT dwellers on Pitchfork.

Reissues and Live Albums:

Best reason to pull the Pharmer’s Almanac out from under your pillow: Phish: Colorado ’88
I’m not sure who this band is, but I sure wish they were still around. ‘nuff said

Best obligatory My Morning Jacket award: MMJ- Okonokos

Given all the praise he’s received in the past year, I’m not sure Jim James even has room on his mantel to place a Mikey. But, if he does, I hope he thanks me by breaking out “Bermuda Highway” next time he comes to town.

Best inverted breakup concert souvenir: The Disco Biscuits- The Wind at Four to Fly

For those keeping score at home, this two-disc set is the first of two albums to capture Sam Altman’s first final five nights with the Disco Biscuits (but which turned out to actually be his thirteenth to last shows). No matter, by the time you get through the 17:25 minute “Story of the World” you’ll wish they’d release disc another seventeen discs.

Shows:

Best music industry conference disguised as a music festival: Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN
Five years after some wook stole all our worldly belongings in the name of peace, love, and Tennessee Moonshine at the inaugural Bonnaroo, I’ve figured out to key to surviving Bonnaroo: don’t worry about seeing music . Seriously. Like a needle in a haystack, you will stumble into the weekend’s best offerings, whether it’s G.R.A.B.’s surprise debut, Pavement’s surprise semi-reunion, or Steel Train’s surprise use of a windbreaker in 80 degree weather. Indeed, Bonnaroo keeps me on my toes and, if living in the moment isn’t what Woodstock was about then acres of mud surely is.

Best Organ Donner Rap: Phil Lesh and Friends f. Trey Anastasio @ Beacon Theater, New York NY, 2-12-06

As an unabashed, all around dork, I’ve often joked that life couldn’t get much better than watching Phish and the Grateful Dead jam together while chugging a tall glass of chocolate milk. Well, on this snowy Sunday night at least one lifelong dream came true when Trey Anastasio joined Phil Lesh for his entire set at the Beacon Theater. To top it off the Beacon gave out free hot chocolate all night, resulting in a sensory overload not even a drunk text message could properly convey (though G-d and my phone bill both know I tried).

Best reason to put down your pen and take a stroll down shakedown: All Good, Masontown, WV, July 14-16
Living in New York and working in an office filled with critics (who sometimes discuss music), it’s easy to forgot that concerts aren’t meant to be analyzed. But All Good keeps it real and, for the first time, managed to keep it dry as well. From the Disco Biscuits to ALO to G.R.A.B. to Grace Potter, every performer arrived in top form and, I realized that some areas of shakedown have thankfully avoided gentrification.

Articles

Best Reason to Surrender All My Heady Cred.: Guster

If Guster arrived in New York for the first time tonight, not in 1995, and ditched the bongos around the time of George W. Bush’s first election, Zach Braff may very well have inserted a life changing Ganging up on the Sun advertisement into his Garden State fantasy. And, though it’s impossible to change the past, it’s sure as hell fun to revisit, which is why I consider this column my own personal Natalie Portman…

The First Person Award (for self-indulgence): American Babies on Cold Turkey (at Langerado) Even if we sound like a Jewish version of Chip and Dale, I love doing Cold Turkey every week (or at least every festival). And, this acoustic set recorded backstage at Langerado was not only my favorite episode, but also our most trafficked.
Plus having Magner sit-in made it kosher!

Wedding Tour Set 6: Family Friends

It is often said that you can choose your friends and are stuck with your family, but it’s not always that simple.

I don’t remember meeting Mat, but as long as I can remember we’ve been friends. According to family folk-lore, when I was three-months old my parents relocated from the heart of the happening post-hippie West Village to the slightly less Shakedown-approved suburb of Armonk, NY (with a brief detour in Upper East Side during its early-1980s Yuppie infancy). My mom, being a tried-and-true New Yorker, preferred her trees in parks and entertainment in her backyard (instead of vice-versa) and found it hard to relate to Armonk’s class of ’81. So, my Dad did what any devoted, 20-something husband would do: he picked up a few girls for her to play with. He found one at the bank, another at the beach, and, one spring day, a mother and her son Mat at the pool. I was eight months old, Mat was 10, and for the next 25 years he managed to stay precisely two months older than me. Our parents shared many of the same values---loving, educated, neurotic---and clicked immediately. They started-off as friends, but somewhere along the line we became family.

For the next decade our lives remained eerily intertwined. When we were three, we received younger siblings for Chanukah. When we were nine, we lost a grandparent on the same January day. I lost my first tooth while in a car with his family, he came pretty close to losing something else in my parent’s pool. Our families started sharing holidays and, and with each passing season, we looked forward to new things to worry about: Bar Mitzvahs, colleges, jobs, and, finally, weddings. We both brought girlfriends to Yom Kippur dinner the September after our college graduation, but while mine was gone faster then you could sound the shofar, his stuck around and last night they got married.

As they walked down the aisle, a number of random memories popped into my brain, scattered thoughts in mix-mashed order--- like images from a photo album spread across the kitchen table: attending/crying through the taping of a kids show in Kindergarten, raking leaves in second grade, working at 4H a few months later, carpooling to soccer games, running into each other on the train home from my first concert without the ‘rents…But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t shake this one image from that January when we were nine. In a weird, Wonder Years­-like way, I remember being really sad when my grandfather passed away and remember feeling a bit knowing that we were in it together.

I don’t see Mat that often anymore, but at the same time it’s nice to know he’s there and, more importantly, that he will be there when I find my own neurotic, Jewish girl to drive me slightly insane for the rest of eternity. And, with any luck, one day our wives will teach each other new ways to turn our hair prematurely gray. Mazel Tov…!

Jam Cruise 2007

Day 6: The Festival of the Future

I hate goodbyes, but fondly remember the final night of summer camp. There is something in the air, a nervous excitement, as campers simultaneously pack their bags and prepare for one final party. It is a night to reflect on missed opportunities and ponder the future, especially, how to spin those missed opportunities into stories of success. To slightly miss quote The Slip, who I strongly urge the good folks at Cloud 9 to book on Jam Cruise 6, “it’s the day before the rest of your life,” and suddenly time is calculated in hours, not days. Since the music industry takes a few extra weeks to recover from New Year’s Eve (either that or is really bad about turning off its out of the office auto replies), Jam Cruise and fellow destination packages like Ski Jam and moe.cruise have blossomed into the ideal Indian summer for twenty/thirty somethings who like live music. And, thus, Jam Cruise’s final night felt like the final night of summer camp, only instead of exchanging pen pal addresses and phone numbers, we swapped screen names and message board handles, figuring out creative ways to download a week’s worth of shows and explain to our friends that they “really had to be there” to understand.

As passengers prepared to hastily pack their luggage, or at least to cash in their final tokens at the canteen, Railroad Earth opened Saturday’s festivities, dubbed, arrr, “Pirate Night” with an energetic pool side set. Brock Butler, perhaps Jam Cruise’s breakout performer, followed with a cover-heavy acoustic set featuring both the post-jam space-rock of the Secret Machines and the proto-jam space-rock of Pink Floyd (very inverted!) Afternoon highlights included a jazzy funk-jam led by Karl Denson, a funky-jazz set by Garage a Benevento, and a purebred jazz/funk set by Galactic (who invited Luther Dickinson, Jen Durkin and Mike Dillon onstage during its set). Yet Umphrey’s McGee earned the weekend’s true sit-in award, opting for the one-to-three knock out of Luther Dickinson, Burning Spear and a Triscuit of Disco Biscuits. The Deep Banana Blackout horns also enhanced Umphrey’s McGee’s frat-jam (did I just coin a genre?) version of the SNL skit “Dick in a Box,” which was truly poetic in that American Pie kind of way.

But, like the weekend in general, the final night of Jam Cruise wasn’t so much about the music, as it was the experience (hyperbole justified), like the cruise ending Award Ceremony. I genuinely believe that life is full of two types of people: those who win awards and those who make sarcastic comments to mask some secret insecurity while award winners pick up their trophies. With the exception of a few awards for most embarrassing typos, I’ve always fallen squarely in the latter category and Jam Cruise was no exception. My roommate, however, is a bit different and managed to score the dubious distinction as the passenger who lost the most money at the casino (perhaps the weekend’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar). He swears he won the money back in cash (the award was measured in credit), but I’m just thankful he paid for his half of the room earlier in the night.

Unfortunately, my co-worker “Adam” lost out to “Lot Dawg” in the week’s heated Presidential Race. After consulting the exit polls, I’m not really sure what happened, but I have a sneaking suspicion that either Lot Dawg’s brother had something to do with the count or that a last minute write in (who encouraged passengers to sign a portion of her body I wasn’t born with), offset the margin like Ross Perot in ’92. Either way, I’m proud of Adam’s campaign and hope he heeds these words of advice: you may have lost the battle, but at least you won an asterisk on PT Bisco (see Day 4).

As President Elect, Lot Dawg prepared for his first dance to, um, the Disco Biscuits’ “The Very Moon,” we witnessed the public engagement of Annabel Lukins and Peter Stelling. As both Jam Cruise’s head counselor and most enthusiastic camper, Annabel has come to embody Jam Cruise for most passengers and I think I speak for everyone onboard when I say it was truly special for us to watch her engagement. When/if I ever muster up enough courage to tell a girl I love her like a “Ghost from ‘97” I hope its in as cool a setting as Jam Cruise, but, knowing my luck, I’ll end up losing the ring in my luggage I’ll be forced to ask my intended “to be my +1 for eternity” on the way home from some festival.

As someone who grew up reading online jam ‘zines and combing message boards for B+Ps it is generally moving for me to watch people come of age on the festival circuit. In the future, I think I might even organize my own Post-jam cruise (patent pending), which takes post-jambands from Williamsburg, Brooklyn up the east river to Astoria, Queens with a quick day stop in Long Island City along the way. Jam Cruise really is the festival of the future, even if my bar tab made me regret a chunk of my past.

I ended the night at Garage a Benevento (who broke out a cool version of Trey Anastasio’s “Plasma” which makes me wish G.RA.B. had lasted longer). After the show, I decided to call it a night and retired to bed “early.” As I slowly entered a deep sleep, dreaming of an empty inbox and filtered spam folder, my roommate busted through the door, rapping about some special jam session with Steve Kimock and Brock Butler. He kept talking and his words slowly soaked into my scull as I entered a state of R.E.M., like Jam Cruise in general, a blurry stage where dreams became reality.

Jam Cruise 2007

Day 4: Waving the Tie-Die Flag

Photo Credit - David Vann

Not since the days of Tupac and Biggie has there been an East Coast/West Coast rivalry as heated as Jam Cruise’s Presidential Debate. In the weeks leading up to our departure, HeadCount organized Jam Cruise’s first presidential debate, kicking off over 20 grassroots campaigns throughout the nation’s various local music scenes. Candidates made friends, created witty MySpace pages, and added those new friends to their carefully crafted, witty MySpace pages, setting the stage for the biggest day at the polls since last year’s Jammys. And, since arriving on the MSC Opera Tuesday, two one-name candidates have emerged as frontrunners from the pack of luggage-clad wooks: “Lot Dog” and “Adam.

Lot Dog is a San Francisco scenester with ties to Jambase and the public support of Bay Area upstarts ALO. His onboard friends are known to wear sparkly animal costumes and
his secret weapon is a suitcase full of promotional slap-on bracelets (remember those?). Adam is a New York-based Relix staffer with the support of Northeast jam titans the Disco Biscuits (minus Marc Brownstein, whose HeadCount ties prevent him from participating in the election). His onboard friends walk the tight (pants) rope between hippie and hipster and his secret weapon is a stack of promotional fliers recounting a recent trip to a Manhattan strip club. Both candidates have received onstage support from their hometown heroes and the race is neck-and-neck (or at least Berk-and-Berk) on the eve of election night. At press time, both candidates are preparing for this evening’s Presidential Debate, where Brownstein is expected to ask “the tough” questions, like how many times have you posted Trey’s mug shot on someone else’s MySpace page today, what’s the difference between a > and -> on a setlist, and does freedom of speech truly exist on PT?

And, while we’re pretty confident tomorrow’s election will end better than Tupac and Biggie’s longstanding feud, Jam Cruise’s heated race has brought to light two distinct hippie-rock approved music scenes. Last night, while Adam and Lot Dog discussed strategy with some of jam nation’s best spin doctors (Chris Baron is not onboard, alas), the Disco Biscuits went head-to-head with an all-star San Francisco Grateful Dead tribute. And, with a few exceptions, fans lined up along party lines, with West Coasters paying tribute to their roots on the sixth floor and East Coasters vacating the casino for the first time in days to see the Disco Biscuit’s fan-selected “ocean set” by the pool (a few muckrakers have already begun looking into instances of possible schedule gerrymandering). Lucky for Chicago-based Umphrey’s McGee and the boat’s New Orleans contingent, everyone seems to be down with Middle America and the Big Easy, though we hear rumors that Adam is going to snag Brendan Bayliss as a running mate and Lot Dog will add a Neville to his ticket at the eleventh hour.

Photo Credit - David Vann

But perhaps when Jam Cruise returns, jam nation is in need of some good, old-fashioned carpetbagging. For instance, what if a handful of Bisco Kidz migrated west or some of ALO’s posse were liberated east? Either way, one of the best things about a destination event like Jam Cruise is that it places fans from all over the country on the same, 12-story ship. While festivals like High Sierra and Gathering of the Vibes often draw regional followings (understandable given their location), Jam Cruise entices fans from all over the country (including Alaska, which went without jam music for a good 15 years between the Grateful Dead and String Cheese). For an East Coaster like myself, its nice to know that the hula-hoop is alive and well in other parts of the country and, for West Coasters, I’m sure its comforting to know that Philly kids still wear their hats at inappropriate angles. Indeed, all jamband fans are created equally.

Jam Cruise 2007

Day 2: Somewhere Between Pie and Infinity

I was born at precisely 1:09AM and have strictly adhered to a nocturnal sleep schedule ever since. Add to that a winter trip overseas, some New Year’s Eve jet leg, and a not-so-heady Atlantic Ocean time change and the line between day and night has blurred to the point where eggs only taste good at night and, for some reason, pizza sounds good for breakfast. Which makes Jam Cruise the ideal place to vacation since, no matter what time of day or night it is, you can stumble out of bed and into a game of poker, a guest-laden performance or, yes, a slice of pizza. And, if the sun never set on the British Empire, the show is certainly never over for Funk Nation, which sent a number of able-bodied representatives on Jam Cruise to answer the age-old algebraic question: How many ways can you add up the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, The Meters, the Neville Family, the Greyboy Allstars and Galactic, divide by Skerik, and get a supergroup which has never played before.

As it turns out the, answer is, luckily, somewhere between pie and infinity and Jam Cruise has been able to produce a number of jazz/funk, or really slightly jazzy, really funky, supergroups the likes of which have never been seen. Want to hear Meters bassist George Porter Jr. jam with the Dirty Dozen horns? We got that covered in the Jam Room on deck six! Want to see what he sounds like when placed next to some of Jerry Garcia’s favorite psychedelic musicians (rolled into a new version of the proto-jamband Zero)? Just walk down the hall and hear him play bass with Steve Kimock! Want to hear him with the current kings of New Orleans funk, Galactic? Well, while you went to the bathroom he rode the elevator upstairs and is playing with them right now on the Pool Deck. Oh, and while you were scoring big at poker (just kidding, alas) or watching Allman Brothers Derek Trucks and Oteil Burbridge in Jam Cruise’s Mass wedding (no, seriously!), Karl Denson and Skerik staged a not-so-hostile takeover of both Dumpstaphunk’s set in the Caruso Lounge and Galactic’s abovementioned poolside set. Oh, and even though I’d never really expect Berklee guitar master Eric Krasno to be a fan of the Band, he’s also tearing it up on a cover of “The Weight” with Derek Trucks and his wife Susan Tedeschi (who scored Trucks’ plus one on the boat and has remained busy onstage for a girl on vacation).

But the best part of Jam Cruise is that it takes that blurry-eyed New Orleans Jazz Fest enthusiasm and resets it in guitar fantasy camp. For instance, what better way to bond with Disco Biscuits’ Jon Gutwillig than by stealing his earning from a near sold-out show at Camden, NJ’s Tweeter Center in a game of poker (just ask my podcast co-host, Benjy, when he gets back from filming an episode of Wookies Gone Wild on the beach) or watch the Deep Banana Blackout/Rolls couple Fuzz and Carrie weigh the pros-and-cons post-jam poolside at the bar (which, by the way, has been stocked with some heady beer thanks to Starr Hill). And, is it the Starr Hill talking, or is that kid Avi G who spent a night sleeping at the foot of the Relix tent at All Good onstage with Kimock and that dude from P-Groove in the Jam Room? And holding his own at that!?

Photo Credit - David Vann

Not that Day 2 is only about jazz and funk. For urbanites like me who miss their Blackberries, the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood filled his solo set with the type of hipster heartache that made you feel like you walked out of the pool and into New York’s East Village (and what a damn good feeling it is at that!). Plus, Burning Spear proved to a generation of jam kids that, yes indeed, great music existed before Jerry.

I’m going to go get in line for some pizza now because, according to my clock, it is somewhere around 10AM and last night’s eggs have finally digested. I think when I get back Cold Turkey is going on a diet. I definitely quit my beer-and-veggie burrito-on-lot meal plan for this festival-like adventure, but we’re already signed up for next year!

The Day The Music (Really) Died

Friends, after three years of regular visits and almost famous, garden state memories, Black & White has closed its doors.

They swear they are reopening, but, as of now, my regular mid-week, post-jam, pre-yuppie, gentrified retro-dive bar is no longer. Maybe they finally got busted for letting people smoke inside, maybe the hipsters finally got hungry and ate that cowboy-like bar tender or maybe, just maybe, they finally realized Interpol wasn?t cool anymore and decided to throw in the towel.

Since first venturing to my favorite 10th Street bar (not counting HiFi and French Roast) in 2004 (I think), a lot has changed, yet this shadier than in seems slice of life has allowed me to make the same mistakes over and over again. Some hilights:

My first public fight with …the Christmas Jon managed to cock block me while simultaneously outing himself as a Sex in the City fanatic…Carlos from Interpol spinning in Sundays (I never made it, but can still name drop it), drinking with Evan and the Steel Train crew on Tuesdays (I almost always made it, but no one listened when I named dropped ), my second public fight with Emily...pre-Magic Numbers party planning, post-Modest Mouse party crashing…leaving the bar just as Bono and the Strokes arrived…arriving at the bar just as Christina who I have been trying to hook up with for three years left…my third public fight with Emily...Halloween post-Vegoose, goodbye drinks pre-Bonnaroo…those nights I wish I could remember, more of those nights I wish I didn’t remember my fourth public fight with Emily (come to think of it, maybe I should have brought her to a different bar)?

Perhaps it’s a sign that I’m not going to return from Israel or, really, that I need to update my blog. Either way, Goodbye black and white…Your credit car machine will surely miss my love of Seven and Sevens

Mikey Greenhaus

Jambands.com Year in Review Set

This week: Jon Fishman, Jon Gutwillig, Buddy Cage, Josh Baron, Broken Social Scene, Steve Adams, Steel Train, Andy Hurwitz, P-Groove, U-Melt, Alecia Cohen

+1

The concept of the plus one fascinates me mostly because it’s so undefined. Presumably the plus one is intended for a significant other, business associate, or prospective business associate/significant (or maybe both depending on how you define the term networking). Since I don’t currently have a prospective crazy girl/business associate in need of wooing, I’ve been divvying up any +1s among a few of my favorite concert going buddies who fit the bill of the plus 1, but, whom, also fall outside traditional crazy girl/business associate boundaries. And, yes, figuring out who is appropriate for what show has caused me to lose enough hair to look even more like George Castanza.

Take, for instance, Tuesday’s Ryan Adams show. In general I feel Ryan Adams shows are filled with dudes who pretend their girlfriends are ‘really into Ryan Adams’ so they themselves have an excuse to geek in the front row (if only girls liked Ryan, there is no way his cover of “Stella Blue” would earn a standing ovation). Since the show took place at a pretty stuffy venue (Town Hall) filled with seats really smusshed together (think coach class on an airplane) I had no choice but to take a girl to the show ( not that there is anything wrong with two male hipsters swaying side-to-side during “Sweet Illusions"). But, since the show also took place on a school night when I had homework (or at least an early morning deadline) I couldn’t bring someone who would, um, force me to become otherwise engaged post-show (what is this blog rated again? Has someone created a MPAA ranking system for blogs yet?). Anyways, I decided on my friend Jenny who

a) I have known since high-school

b) Have no interest in hooking with (since I have know her since high-school)

c) Wouldn’t want to hang out with me post-show (since I have no interest in hooking with her since I have know her since high-school

but who still fits the bill of the 5’3 neurotic Jewish girl with a slightly artsy edge I usually associate with (won’t want people to think I actually like Ryan Adams or have, err, listened to Cold Roses every day since January 23, 2005)

And, as expected, mid-show my cubicle neighbor Aaron sent me an o'-so-stealth ‘whose the girl text message.' Jenny loved Ryan, I loved Ryan’s Dead covers, and her plus 1 responsibilities expired shortly after show time. Now, if only the plus two wasn’t so taboo.

And I Thought My Spam Problems Were Bad:

I hate spam, I really do. In many ways, it runs my life, forcing me to keep up with e-mail and to learn every variation of the letters v-1-a-g-a-r-i-a under the sun. As of now, I need to run my mail through three filters before I can read it (the one on Relix's server, through a mailguard system, and, finnally, through Eudora's filter). But my spam problems pale in comparison to the people affected by spam's ansestor, the junk mail:

From Yahoo:

NEW YORK - It's the kind of holiday mail that might have been tossed aside, discarded like any other piece of junk mail: a special offer for a facial at a local spa. Only the address on the letter no longer exists. And the woman the letter is addressed to died more than five years ago in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Hundreds of pieces of mail destined for the former trade center still arrive every day at a post office facing ground zero — the relics of the unfinished lives of Sept. 11 victims. Telephone bills, insurance statements, wine club announcements, college alumni newsletters, even government checks populate the bundles of mail. Each bears the ZIP code once reserved exclusively for the twin towers: 10048.

"I guess sooner or later they'll realize the towers aren't back up," said letter carrier Seprina Jones-Sims, who handles the trade center mail. "I don't know when." Some of the nation's most recognizable companies and organizations, from retailers to research hospitals, are among those sending the mail. Much of it seems to result from businesses not updating their bulk mailing lists, said U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Pat McGovern.

The postal service declined to identify the senders and recipients of the letters according to policy. Several companies formerly housed in the towers also declined comment. The trade center mail meets varied fates once it arrives at the Church Street station. A handful of companies pay for a service that forces the post office to hold the mail until a messenger picks it up. The rest of the mail travels various routes. Some will be returned to the sender, some will be forwarded to the company's current address and some will be sent to a Brooklyn recycling firm to be destroyed. That the Postal Service is even forwarding mail from a nonexistent address five years later is rare. "Normally we'd only forward mail for a year, but we're making an exception here," McGovern said. The trade center's mail used to travel from the Church Street post office and up through the towers. It would start on the ground tucked in the letter carrier's bag and continue up higher and higher — to the 68th floor, the 89th floor, the 104th floor.

The morning's mail never made it through the flames and smoke on Sept. 11, 2001. It stayed put with the letter carriers, who silently observed the chaos that unfurled outside the post office.
Flying debris blew out most of its windows. After a three-year restoration, its doors officially reopened in August 2004. Rafael Feliciano delivered mail to floors 78 through 100 of the south tower for three years. He watched the tower collapse on television from a bar several blocks away with a co-worker.

"He turned to me and said, 'You just lost your route,'" Feliciano recalled. When the dust cleared, he spent weeks identifying office workers who came to pick up their mail, searching for familiar faces to see if they had survived.

Mail addressed to people who were killed was marked as deceased right away, he said. But it kept coming.

"It's been five years later. How many people don't know the towers are gone?" he said.

Jones, 39, took over the trade center mail after Feliciano — too shaken to enter tall buildings any longer — left his route to become a driver. She gets to work at 5 a.m. The mail is carefully divided among white plastic trays labeled by company name.

But the Church Street post office — built in 1935 and now on the National Register of Historic Places — is no longer the bustling hub it was when it stood just steps away from the city's tallest buildings.

Between 2001 and 2002, the total weekly volume dropped from 1.2 million pieces to just 485,000. It has risen slightly in the years since. The neighborhood is slowly awakening, attracting more and more residents and businesses after the exodus that occurred five years ago. The post office's marble floors are newly polished and the building is brimming with employees. When they gaze out the long bay windows overlooking ground zero, they see nothing but blue sky.

"You start flashing back to that day," Feliciano said. "That's why I got off the routes. It's like a movie that plays over and over in your head."

Post-Jam

A style is coined, or at least, defined...

For many jam fans, particularly those in their late 20s located in urban pockets around the country, the demise of Phish and rise of indie rock led to a general backlash against the jamband stigma in 2004. As cited in both the December/January 2006 issue of Relix magazine and a contemporaneous issue of the Village Voice, the term post-jam has come to define a group of more song-oriented live bands with roots in the jam scene. Perhaps more unified by their fans than their sound, post-jam acts like the Slip, the Benevento/Russo Duo, Apollo Sunshine, Sam Champion, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and RANA appeal to a contingent of concert-goers who grew up on jambands but who shifted their interests to groups like Wilco and Radiohead largely through the festivalization of the music industry. Like Neil Young to grunge, My Morning Jacket can be seen as the “godfather” of the post-jam scene, a song-oriented country-rock band with a knack for improvisation. Seminal post-jam albums include the Slip’s Eisenhower, the Duo’s Play Pause Stop, and Apollo Sunshine’s Katonah.

Seasons (There is a Time):

Sometime around third grade, I remember having a heated debut about the seasons and strongly arguing for a two-way tie between summer and winter as Mother Nature’s best offerings. At a time when my life was defined by snow days and summer camp, it’s was only natural that my favorite months were the year’s coldest and warmest, youthful extremes filled with ski trips, swimming pools, and, of course, no school.

So, perhaps then, it’s a sign that I’m getting old, or at least older, that in the past few years I’ve grown to appreciate the more mild, mundane temperatures of the fall and spring, the often overlooked calm before winter’s onslaught and summer’s metal recess. I find a great deal of beauty in not just in the cycle of seasons, but the little, annual traditions we’ve carved into them, like the initials carved into The Giving Tree---that unnamed day the night before Thanksgiving when everyone between the ages of 21 and 28 make one final pilgrimage to their old, hometown bar. In an effort gain some control over my often influx world, I’ve created my own new holidays, things to look forward to each year and keep close with my childhood friends: Fall Day (an afternoon my friend Viv and I go apple picking and to local winery), my Spaghetti marinara mixer (an excuse to eat carbs with my oldest friends), and my hung-over for the holidays extravaganza (which usually falls in January when I’m too disorganized to have my holiday party around, um, the holidays)

So, if Thanksgiving has blossomed into my New Year’s Eve, then it’s only appropriate that I once again resolve to update my blog more often. Starting this week the Greenhaus Effect should adopt a few new features, including weekly mp3s, lists, and the self-depreciative banter which has formed the bedrock of this blog since its launch last April.

I also caved and joined MySpace in an attempt to pull a George Louis Costanza and follow the opposite of each of my instincts. We’ll see how it goes

Until then….

Vegoose Flashbacks

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Vegoose, but I don’t belong in Las Vegas. I mean, I’m all about a four day hedonistic binge, but Las Vegas simply doesn’t appeal to my main vices (chocolate milk, crazy Jewish girls, self-indulgent Garden State reflections). But that’s not to say I didn’t have an absolute blast staying up for four days, helping edit two newspapers, and interviewing everyone from for Guster (heady) to Widespread Panic (even headier). A good fifteen festival’s into Cold Turkey’s eight month summer tour (us hippies have a loose definition of both “summer” and “tour”) , I think I’ve finally figured out how to enjoy utopia. Since I’ve long since established that I’m way too ADD to sit still for a complete set---and way to neurotic to enjoy music for what it is---a multi-stage festival like Vegoose is an ideal way to filter my scatter-brained bounce. For those of you who couldn’t make it to Vegoose (or were to hung over to make it to the festival grounds before dusk), here is brief recap of some of the weekend’s most notable bands: The good, the bad and the blog able:

String Cheese Incident and Keller Williams: You can tell a band is on its way out when covers and guests start to replace new songs and tight jams on its setlist. That being said, I’d take a Talking Heads medley and a classy cover of the Wood Brothers over “Rivertrance” any day.

Jim James: Sometimes I wish My Morning Jacket wasn’t rock-journalism’s great hickster hope. That way they could be my own little garage-rock band, playing reverb drenched rock-and-roll in the rodeo bar down my city street. But, alas, I’m forced to share them with every critic and blogger whose ever compiled a top ten list. Yet, while Jim James’ solo acoustic set was neither solo (Carl from MMJ played throughout), nor acoustic (he used several keyboards and varied electric toys), for an hour the MMJ-frontman fashioned Las Vegas his own little hipster rodeo bar. Less cowbell, more reverb!

Guster: You can tell a band’s buzz by how packed its backstage area is. So it says a lot about that Vegoose’s parade of artists, publicists, and writers stood at the back of the tent instead of Guster’s tent instead of at the side of the stage. They were all there though, bouncing like they’d just received their senior driver’s licensees. Some bands truly get better with age.

Trey and Phil: Since releasing Shine, his 2005 attempt at post-Supernatural pop, Trey Anastasio has gone through two bands, one record label, and enough fans to populate a Phish-size festival. So why on earth is Trey still playing “Shine,?” especially when backed by Phil Lesh, John Medeski, John Molo and Larry Campbell. Besides that, though, seeing Phil and Trey play side-by-side was the best nostalgic combination since peanut butter and jelly (maybe).

Maceo Parker: Coachella might have nabbed Madonna, but Superfly once again proved its might by offering the mother of all diva sit-ins, Prince (and yes, I do mean mother).

Toubab Krewe: If the Slip spent a semester abroad in Africa they’d likely sound like Toubab How do you spell bounce is Swahili?

Yard Dog Road Show: It says a lot about YDRS (did I just coin that acronym?) that its primary guitarist (Enor) might have been too weird to stay in Les Claypool’s band. The perfect Vegoose side-show.

Radiohead: The best band I saw all weekend. Oh whoops, they didn’t actually play this festival. Oh, well we’ll just give them a nod anyway

Widespread Panic: I’m really sad I missed “Airplane” on Halloween. In certain ways, it’s the antithesis of everything Widespread Panic is: a slim, soft, pop ballad written by Michael Houser. But, in other ways, it’s everything Widespread Panic can be: a simple, beautiful song interpreted by a mammoth live band.

The Roots: I like the hip-hop as much as the next suburban jamband kid but these guys made Mars Volta sound quiet.

Built to Spill: Built to Spill has been playing edgy indie-rock since the blog world was just a sparkle in the Brooklyn Vegan’s eye, but took an appearance at Vegoose for hippies to realize that Doug March could be a long lost member of String Cheese Incident(or at least a stylistic replacement for Bill Nershi)

Jenny Lewis: My mom was so ahead of the hipster trends. Not only has she loved Jenny Lewis back when she was still the star from Troop Beverly Hills back in 1990, but she forced me to listen to her best cover (Laurie Nero’s “I Met Him on a Sunday”) way back when I was touring the northeast looking at colleges. Forward thinking New Wave-suburban-retro music at its best.

The Killers: If Las Vegas has a native sound, it resembles the Killers: flashy, stylish, fast superficial, and fun.

Tom Petty: Click Here, here, here, here or, even, here

Robert Randolph: I’ve loved Robert Randolph since the first time I saw him at the Jammys back in 2001, but after watching the pedal steel minstrel spread his gospel to a few lucky ladies on the dance floor during a Vegoose post-party at Light, I didn’t think I can ever listen to “The March” the same way again.

California Dreamin

Circle of Fun


All the Little Ants are Marching
Nick and Jay: right where I left them

I honestly think I’ve spent more time on the road than at home this year and, minus the Blackberries and Admirals Club access, I’m beginning to feel like a traveling salesman. I’ve learned my way around all three of New York’s airports, condensed my apartment into a suitcase size package, and finally figured out how to fall asleep before takeoff without getting my hair stuck in one of those annoying airplane windows (though I did develop a porthole size bald spot along the way). Since traveling is a synonym for stress in my suburban world, I’ve never really viewed flying as a form of enjoyment, but it’s been nice to catch up on my In Flight Magazine and experience a world where taking a field trip to the bathroom is considered a form of studying abroad.

Now that festival season has come to a close, most of my traveling has been part of wedding tour. Sometimes I think I want to get married, but then I realize I just want to throw a big, formal party, so I’ve decided to save my parents some stress and outsource my annual Hungover for the Holidays party next season (more on that in January).

In early-October I spent a long weekend outside Los Angeles, trying to figure out when exactly In-and-Out Burger replaced the gold nugget as Middle America’s main reason to venture west. In general, California is a pretty cool state, though at times I felt like Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm--- a New Yorker trapped in a world where all night subways, Jewish Delis, and dry witted sarcasm don’t exist (oh the humanity). Though I was in town for a family affair, I spent an extra few days in La La Land ( and Los Angeles) visiting a few friends who migrated west sometime after graduation. As much as I miss having them a stoners throw away from my apartment, its nice to have good friends in other parts of the country. I’ve never been one to strike-up conversation with strangers (as this blog surely proves, I prefer to undress emotionally online) so, for me, vacations are usually chances to escape form my social reality. But, with so many comrades on the left coast, hanging out felt like a episode of Saved by the Bell at Malibu Beach (the same story line filmed in a more exotic location). So it makes sense that my long weekend featured a healthy mix of sitting around, watching other people smoke weed, drinking chocolate milk and condensing affluent counties down to their OC-size equivalents. If I didn’t have to come home a day early for a second wedding, I would have spent some more time on Sunset Strip, or at least ripping Amanda and Caity CDs in their living room. But its nice to know that there are people like in all parts of the world, living out their own Seinfeldian fantasies one episode at a time. Lets just some the skate punk falls out of fashion sometime before my California adventure enters syndication.