Film: “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History”

I like “Not Over You.” I also like Gavin DeGraw’s song “I Don’t Want To Be.” Confessing preferential taste for such songs may be akin to wearing a salmon colored shirt (I kind of want to buy one of those, actually), but I don’t really care. That is not the point of this post anyway. I just want to discuss and dissect the insanity and inanity of one certain lyric in this song. Maybe you know which one I’m talking about it.

First, context. “Not Over You” explains itself in the title. Gavin is not over someone, a female someone, a presumed ex-girlfriend who dumped him. Given this circumstance, one would think Gavin would be trying to move on. And he is. He sings that he is telling people he is doing “just fine,” that said ex-gf is not on his mind. Until…here comes the lyric:

“But I go out and I sit down at a table set for two. And finally I’m forced to face the truth. No matter what I say – I’m not over you.”

WHY THE H-E-DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS would he write/sing about sitting down at a table set for two? This is clearly, according to the song, the only thing that sends him spiraling back into unforgiving depths of heartache. He’s doing just fine, telling people the girl is not on his mind and then he goes to a restaurant by himself and asks the maître d’ to include an extra salad plate and set of silverware for a make believe person sitting across from him. Of course he will get upset.

We all know breakups are hard. We know you’ll want to sulk a little, we know that you will spend a couple of nights in and we know that you might very well crave a meal at a restaurant during this time of sadness and introspection. But you don’t know have to go to a restaurant by yourself. Bring a friend. Worst case scenario, Gavin should go to a diner and sit on one of those stools facing the kitchen. Not only is there nothing “set for two,” there is no “table” to speak of.

But Gavin is not the only jilted lover who writes nonsensical lyrics, not even the only one who has a current hit. Bruno Mars’ “It Will Rain” (another song I REALLY like) starts out with him saying that he wants his girlfriend to leave morphine at his door if she leaves him.

He will presumably take this morphine to get over the heartache. Sorry Bruno, not a great idea. Morphine is an opioid, a type of drug that can heighten depression.

Musicians need to learn from the experts when concocting songs about lovesickness. Robyn and Adele are clearly the queens of this subgenre. If you’re “not over” someone, sneak up on them out of the blue a la Adele and then realize that you have to let that person go and search for someone just like him or her.

Better yet, pull a Robyn. In her hit song from 2010, she sings about going to the club, stalking her ex and watching him kiss his new squeeze. All the while she dances on her own in the corner. Now THAT is normal.

This week: “She Walks In So Many Ways” — The Jayhawks, from the album, Mockingbird Time

Released last September, Mockingbird Time was the Jayhawks’ first album since 2003′s Rainy Day Music, as well as the first with original founder Mark Olson since 1995′s Tomorrow the Green Grass. (Quick aside: Tomorrow the Green Grass features the fantastic song, “Blue”, which is responsible for one of the all-time great live music performances on YouTube — the Jayhawks’ performing “Blue” on the Jon Stewart Show on early-90s MTV.) Enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by The Brew House.

Truthfully, that much is readily apparent the moment you exit the 1 train at 116^th Street and meander up the decrepit staircase into the brisk January air among a crowd of chattering students, an elderly couple or two and a few scattered fans in team colors.

Through towering wrought iron gates, a small avenue leads into a grassy square flanked by enormous, stately buildings* that evoke eras past when New York City was in the early throes of reconciling its European origins with its American upbringing. To the left, up a few minor inclines and past a couple of stone lions, is the entrance to Columbia’s Levien Gym.

* Most impressive is the massive Butler Library, which seems to anchor campus architecturally and can be best described, in my completely unknowledgeable opinion, as a temple to knowledge.

For those without a ticket, there is a two-window box office in the basement. Fifteen minutes before tip, there is no line, nor room for one. Admission runs in the tens, unless you require one of the few available seatbacks. Modest stands rise from each sideline, and press row is practically empty save for a few striving student journalists and the play-by-play and color guys who transmit the proceedings via the athletic department’s website.

Columbia vs. Princeton

During TV timeouts, a student marketer who is MCing a running trivia contest challenges fans to name the first president born in the 20^th century or text in the lone letter that fails to appear in the periodic table of elements. (JFK and ‘J’ if you’re curious.) The women’s basketball team eventually earns top honors, taking home some goodie bags to halfhearted applause.

This is Ivy League basketball. To be exact, this is mediocre Ivy League basketball.

On a nondescript weekend in January, Columbia and Princeton are fighting the good fight* for what will likely be fourth or fifth in the conference this season. It’s the second stop in what I hope will be a parade of East Coast gymnasiums over the next few months.

* Princeton won a fairly nondescript game 62-58, highlighted by scrawny Columbia point guard Brian Barbour’s 25-point effort and a cheeky Tigers’ fan sneaking his orange-and-black ball cap onto the head of the oblivious Columbia Lion as it led the home fans in cheers.

The first was Rose Hill Gym in the Bronx – the oldest on-campus arena still in use in Division 1 – for a matchup between surprisingly scrappy Fordham and a still-reeling Xavier squad coached by a gimpy Chris Mack, who, bizarrely, shredded his knee dunking in the layup line the day before. What the building lacked in size, it made up for with charm – stone walls and an arched roof spanned by steel trestles framing a large, sunny window above the baseline.

And like Mack’s freak injury – an immobilizing brace was hidden underneath his slacks – the game itself was bizarre in its own right, as the visitors struggled to toe the line between being aggressive and reinforcing the reputation they earned following a much-maligned dust up with Cincinnati. All-American point guard Tu Holloway didn’t score, Mark Lyons played with a back-breaking chip on his shoulder and the Musketeers weathered a late comeback to escape with a 67-59 victory, just their second win in seven games.

On Wednesday, I’ll take in a Big East showdown between Queens-based St. John’s and Bob Huggins’ West Virginia ball club at Madison Square Garden. Ten days after that, I’ll board an Amtrak train bound for Philadelphia for my first game at the Palestra, a local derby between A-10 rivals La Salle and St. Joseph’s.

These four games are just the beginning – I hope – of what will be a sort of self-taught East Coast Basketball 101, a further examination of the game I learned to love growing up in Kansas’ college-dominant sports environment. By March, if all goes as planned, my roundball passport will have stamps from St. Anthony’s High School in Jersey City, most of the modest college teams that call the five boroughs home and a sure to be overpriced trip to MSG to watch the Knicks and drink $12 domestic beers.

My goals are admittedly modest. Boiled down to the most basic motivations, I’m simply a Midwest transplant trying to fill my free time in a city and region I barely know or understand. Basketball will be the proverbial wind in my sails as I set out to explore parts of New York City and the surrounding areas that I probably wouldn’t have set foot in otherwise.

Along the way, I’ll do my best to share what makes each team, institution and gym unique, whether that’s some incredible occurrence on the court itself or Ivy League trivia during breaks in the action.

Hopefully, my observations strike a chord. More likely, they’ll just be reminders of my first winter on the East Coast.

Either way, enjoy.

The quote, in and of itself, is about moderation. But really, it’s about everything else.

“I live my life by the theory of everything in moderation,” he would say. “But to truly live out this creed, you also have to exercise moderation in moderation. So, every once and a while, you have to embrace extreme debauchery.”

I always liked these words. 

As I mentioned at the time, I was thinking about all this one day while I jotted down a couple of thoughts running through my head. These were things that were annoying me. Things I wanted to put on blast – real shock-and-awe-type stuff. Thing is, it’s just not in my nature to complain or whine or rip into things that are stupid or ridiculous.

Some people have that cynicism gene. I don’t. And this is where those thoughts about moderation are so important.

Everything in moderation. Even moderation.

So, skepticism and snark, lace up your skates, you’re going in. We’re back with the second edition of an exercise we’ll call, “You know what’s really annoying?”*

Today’s culprit:

Dogs on Facebook. The other day, I opened my Facebook account and scrolled down my newsfeed. Here’s what I saw: A dog. A YouTube music video. A dog. A sleeping dog. A link to an election story (with obligatory snarky comment). An engagement photo (punctuated by some annoying comment: “Wow, look at that rock!“). A dog. Another dog. And, yes, that’s right, another friggin’ dog.

C’mon, people.

It’s 2012, and technology is ridiculous these days. Most of us walk around with small little computers in our pockets, phones that are more powerful than desktop computers from 10 years ago, or the lunar module from Apollo 9. Nowadays, we’re always online, sharing info and news, emotions and life.

And you’re telling me that cute dog photos are the best we can do?

Here’s the thing: I love dogs. Love them. My roommate has a dog. A beautiful mutt. She’s big and friendly, and at least three times a day she’ll make a face that makes me want to snap a photo and hold onto that moment forever. But you know what? I don’t. Because all dogs are cute. My roommate’s dog is not unique. Your dog is not unique. More to the point: You can care about your dog. But I don’t. Fantasy football? Same thing. Dreams? Ditto. Get it?

Listen, I understand that most 20-somethings don’t have kids. Instead, we have dogs. And we want to show that we’re growing up. Look, I have my own dog. I feed him. And take care of him. Look at how responsible I am. And now look at this hilarious face he made!

You know what? That’s shit. We can do better.

Music genre : Love Rap

Eye Know by De La Soul and Set Adrift on Memory Bliss by P.M. Dawn

Love rap is maybe my favorite subgenre of what is probably my favorite genre. You get songs with wonderful R&B hooks and self-proclaimed thugs showcasing what they consider their softer side but is really just their lusty side. Sometimes this can lead to unintentional hilarity.

Example A: “Wanna Get To Know You”  by G-Unit.  The chorus starts with someone crooning “I Wanna Get to Know You.” He then proceeds to say, “I really wanna fuck you.”

When done right, the hip-hop love song is beautiful. De La Soul and P.M. Dawn both made classics with “Eye Know” and “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss.” They are genuine, not overwrought, not gangster at all. They’re about love rather than lust. And really, they just sound good. — Mark Dent

***

Book: “Self-Help” by Lorrie Moore

I first came across Lorrie Moore’s work in a Creative Fiction class in my senior year of college. We read selections from “Self-Help,” a collection of short stories penned in the early 1980s as part of Moore’s Master’s Thesis at Cornell. At the time, I found Moore’s stories dry, not because they were too academic or Ivy League or sophisticated, but because they seemed sad and grey and drab.

Then I graduated from school. I worked bad hours for low pay. I left Kansas for New York, made more money and worked better hours. But I never got any younger. Maybe Lorrie Moore’s words were what real life was like.

As I’ve read and re-read every story in the slim volume, I’ve found “Self-Help” livelier and more true to life each time through. “Self-Help” is witty, sad, even-keeled and static. The stories don’t always feel good, but they always make sense. — Asher Fusco

***

Random movie: “Gattaca”

Late last Sunday, as the New York Giants were laying waste to the all-powerful Packers, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was handing out awards on another swath of network television.

The Golden Globes: one more overstuffed awards show in a trophy season that seems to span the calendar. Short of being a fashion junkie, there seem to be few legitimate reasons to care about any of it.

But this year, I was surprisingly fascinated by the Globeys. I still didn’t watch. But it did crystallize a thought that had been festering for a few weeks. Man, movies sure did suck this year.

Perhaps this is confirmation bias. Of the five movies nominated for “Best Motion Picture: Drama”, I only saw one: “Moneyball.” And it was about as “meh” as a neighborhood Olive Garden or the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The others: The Descendants, The Help, Hugo, The Ides of March and War Horse. In short, none of the these movies SEEMED good. We’ll concede that there’s probably some undetermined quality in there somewhere. But if you’re looking for something better, we have a random offering that you’ve probably never seen — or never cared to.

Gattaca was released in 1997, and it opened at No. 5 at the box office behind I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Devil’s Advocate, Kiss the Girls and Seven Years in Tibet. It racked up a reported $12.5 million at the box office, nearly a third of its entire budget.

I can’t say for certain why it bombed. In fact, critics loved it. (Quick aside: I first discovered it during college, while I was a cable-less 20-year-old who subsisted on a half-broken television and a cheap DVD player).

It stars Ethan Hawke —still one of the most underappreciated actors alive — and Jude Law, back before “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” made him a momentary Hollywood heavy bag.

From Roger Ebert’s review:

“Its hero is a man who challenges the system. Vincent (Ethan Hawke) was born in the old-fashioned way, and his genetic tests show he has bad eyesight, heart problems and a life expectancy of about 30 years. He is an “In-Valid,” and works as a cleaner in a space center.

Vincent does not accept his fate. He never has. As a child, he had swimming contests with his brother Anton (Loren Dean), who has all the right scores but needs to be saved from drowning.

“Now Vincent dreams of becoming a crew member on an expedition to one of the moons of Saturn. Using an illegal DNA broker, he makes a deal with a man named Jerome (Jude Law), who has the right genes but was paralyzed in an accident. Jerome will provide him with blood, urine samples and an identity. In a sense, they’ll both go into space.”

So… there you have it, the film equivalent of a 10-dollar bill in your pocket, found money, and something to watch instead of the next awards show. — Rustin Dodd

That’s right, I have an IPhone. I’ve had one for about a month. I’ve caught up with culture.

Depending on your age or entertainment preferences, you were either introduced to the cellular phone by Gordon Gecko or Zack Morris. Morris (PREPPY!) would sneak his into Bayside and with the phone comparable in size to that of an adult meerkat, he had trouble hiding it, leading to many a detention from Christopher Richard Belding. Gecko used his for prestige, for calling the hussies Charlie Sheen would meet in his stretch limo. In reality, these cell phones were novelties that looked and probably functioned as reliably as walkie-talkies.

By the late 90s, that changed. My dad bought a cell phone for my mom around this time, meaning suburban white moms, bellwethers for when any technological trend has reached the masses, had discovered cell phones. In other words, the world had discovered cell phones and very much liked them.

You know how they have progressed since then. We saw the Morris phone turn into a smaller form that still flipped up, the awkward flipper that had a sweet Snakes game on it, the Motorola Razr, the Euro-cool Vodaphone, the Sidekick, which actually featured a standard QWERTY keyboard, something called “Chocolate” and then finally the IPhone. The IPhone was released in the summer of 2007 and really did change the world. Everyone must have a Smart Phone now. You can read news in your hand. You can watch entire episodes of Entourage. You can text photos with ease and dress them up to look like Don Draper would have taken them. You can play ANGRY BIRDS! If you feel lonely or awkward at a party, you can pull up Facebook and act busy. Phones have become part of us. Most of us.

Until late December, I had never progressed past that awkward flipper phone, and mine didn’t even have Snakes on it.

*****

A fellow student wrote an editorial for the high school newspaper about cell phones when I was a junior. This was the message. You were lame if you had one, you were part of the machine, the type who listened to Good Charlotte and considered them indie, the type who quoted Napoleon Dynamite every freaking day and thought you were the only one who did it.

I was not that type. I wore shoes that didn’t have shoelaces largely because this was a perfectly passive-aggressive way to piss off the school administrators and dance around their so-called dress code. I wasn’t really into following the “in-crowd,” unless that “in-crowd” happened to religiously read Runner’s World and secretly record rap songs in his parents’ study.

But my parents recommended I take my mom’s cell phone out on weekends in case of an emergency. Soon, a few friends began calling me on the cell number. Because it wasn’t mine full time, calls from friends were likely received by my mom, who would usually answer it with the bewilderment of a grizzly bear awaking from hibernation, the conversation going something like this:

Mom: (yelling) Hellooooooo!

Friend: Is Mark there? I thought this was his phone.

Mom: (screaming) Central Park? Yes it is featured in Home Alone.

This was only slightly more effective than the aluminum cans attached by yarn communication system for making social plans on Friday nights, so I asked for my mom’s cell phone full-time the Christmas of 2004, my senior year of high school.

It was awesome, especially the ringtones. I set a synthesized “Copacabana” for my ringer and a ridiculously synthesized “Your Body Is A Wonderland” for my alarm. I could even text, something that I did not even know existed until the day after Thanksgiving of 2004. If I ever stayed up really late at night, I would text my friend Pat with the message, “ha,” in hopes of waking him up.* I loved that phone and didn’t realize anyone could consider it out of date until college.

*SOOOO cool I know. Further evidence of my elite “in-crowd” status.

One day coming out of the dorm elevator freshman year I saw a girl holding the same model of phone I had. I pointed this out. She said she hated it, that she was getting a new one. Those new models like the Razr and the Chocolate had been released. The IPhone would come out a year later. The end was beginning; it just took me a while to notice, an accident to notice.

One night on the way back from a bar my junior year of high school college, I dropped my phone, cracking the back so it would no longer slide into place. The battery and the SIM card were exposed. I now had to restrain them with a rubber band, an accessory that actually complimented my overall look, which consisted of green sweatpants, a tattered UCLA sweatshirt and coal soot dusted on my cheeks.

Reality soon struck. My phone, probably originally designed for Jacob Astor, had to go. My solution was simple: Replace it with a different model from the era of Jacob Astor that I found on EBay for $8 plus shipping and handling.*

*Pricey, I KNOW!

It arrived on a Tuesday night in early December. I had plans for this phone, big plans. I wanted a cool ringtone, T-Pain’s “Bartender” to be exact. I got it, and that was all I needed.

A year later, I went to Europe for a few months. Up to this point, my phone didn’t seem all that out of style. It sucked, sure, but I knew few other people who had Smart Phones at this time and still knew many who didn’t have the Sidekick style of phones. When I got back, everything changed. Everyone had an IPhone or the equivalent, or a Blackberry at the least. I felt like I was at a Radio Shack. People were whipping out all these new electronic accessories and berating me for owning a rotary cell phone. That was 2009. I wouldn’t leave Radio Shack for another two years.

*****

I got the IPhone as a Christmas gift. My dad and I went to the AT&T store to pick one up on December 22. The signs for change had become painfully obvious. Besides the fact that I was told it sounded like I was in the middle of a hurricane every time I talked on the old phone, I had reached its maximum storage levels. Anytime I wanted to add a new contact’s phone number, I had to delete an old contact out of my life forever in some sort of elimination game. The scenario wasn’t entirely unlike “The Bachelor,” aside from the fact that it wasn’t even remotely like “The Bachelor.”

It happened so quickly. One second I was holding my Motorola, the next I had the IPhone with all my contacts in it, a warranty and plan purchased for it, and an offer from the AT&T salesman to feed it to a hungry alligator that was waiting in the back of the store.

A couple days later, Christmas came, then my birthday and then the New Year. At the beginning of every New Year, I feel a little different. I remember everything from the year before and January 1 is technically arbitrary, but there is a clear delineation. I’m new, refreshed, always older, always viewing the coming year as a possibility for a new phase in life.

Here’s another IPhone picture:

I’ve been in Dallas for the last three new years. This is crazy. Three years of the real world, three years of meeting new people, three years of adjusting. I used to struggle with new jobs, places or people, and, yes, new cell phones, but it’s starting to feel normal. So, maybe more so than every other New Year, I predict this one will be even better, that everything will come together. Of course, I’ll be asking Siri for plenty of guidance questions, generally ones regarding  Taco Bell locations.

It starts with breakfast. Breakfast in a hostel. A hostel in Paris. Paris in the summer.

We had been traveling for five or six days, give or take a town. We would travel for five or six more, my brother and I following the EuroRail map from Annecy to Nice to the Cinque Terre and back.

But that’s a story for a different time. This is a story about breakfast. And you probably know that breakfast in a Paris hostel consists of about three things. Bread and cheese and… and maybe water. That’s it. This particular hostel had a tiny room for the travelers to eat. It had faded wallpaper, and frilly curtains on the windows, and white table cloths from 1981. My brother and I sat down at the table and surveyed the spread.

During our 17 days on the road, we would engage in approximately 34 or 35 arguments. Mostly passive-aggressive stuff with lots of groans and scowls and sideways glances. And every argument sprouted from one topic: Food.

When you’re walking around foreign countries for four weeks, hunger can overtake your existence when you least expect it. It’s not unlike the mold that arrives on raspberries after what seems like two days in the fridge.

On that morning in Paris, we were looking for something, anything, to tide us over until lunch. Something cheap. It would need to have substance, but what could that be? We’d burn off the carbs from those croissants after 30 minutes of walking to our next destination. The cheese added a little bit of hope. But the hope faded when we realized that the plate of sliced brie and mimolette had been sitting out in the air-condition-less hotel since daybreak. It was past 9 a.m. And it looked, well… questionable.

And then… I saw the packets. A basket full. Little white pieces of plastic with a name I’d never seen before: Nutella.

“What’s this,” I asked my brother.

He shrugged.

I opened and began my primary inspection. Hmm.

It looks kind of like peanut butter, I thought. But not quite. It’s chocolate.

Chocolate peanut butter? Deece.

These days, I hear about Nutella quite a bit. It’s in grocery stores. And hipsters post about it on Facebook. (Non-hipsters, too, I guess.) And some folks swear by it.

I guess it’s a mainstay in the United States now. Maybe it always was. Although it certainly doesn’t seem that way. For me, Nutella was always some sort of European fantasy, complete with faded wallpaper and French accents and sweating cheese.

Chocolate peanut butter? This will NEVER fly back where I come from.

I still haven’t had a single ounce of Nutella since that summer day in France, back in 2004. I thought about buying some the other day when I went to the store. But it didn’t feel right. What kind of person, exactly, buys Nutella? A chocolate/hazelnut spread? Well… I’m not that kind of person, I thought. Couldn’t be. I was sure of it…

***

It started with breakfast. Breakfast in a hostel. A hostel in Paris. Paris in the summer.

And it ended with a sunny walk to a museum. That, and a full stomach.

This week: “Kangaroo” — The Big Wu, from the album, “Tracking Buffalo Through the Bathtub”

According to Wikipedia, these guys haven’t toured for about five years — just occasional shows in their home state of Minnesota. But they’ll always have “Kangaroo”, one of the underrated classics from that jam-band saturated era known as the late 90s. Yes, this song — String Cheese’s “Texas” — is also in the pantheon.

Thanks for stopping by The Brew House.

We’ve written about this before. Back in October, Rustin pondered what exactly it meant to wear Chuck Taylor. Beyond the contents of that post, I don’t really know much about the history of the iconic sneaker. What I do know is that my Chuck Taylors are dying.

***

I bought my current pair of Chucks (not my first, or second, or third) in the summer of 2005 before I headed off to college.

My shoes and I have carried each other to a lot of places and through a lot of life.

My Chucks have lasted longer than my longest relationship to date, longer than my longest tenure at a job, longer than my time in college, and they’ve outlasted every other piece of my wardrobe.

My Chucks have seen Radiohead on a sticky South Dallas summer night. They’ve lived in Wichita, Lawrence, and Brooklyn. They’ve visited both coasts, hiked the Rocky Mountains, and biked over the Manhattan Bridge.

***

Chucks aren’t intended to be squeaky clean. The laces shouldn’t be display table white. The signature rubber toe-cover should be scratched. They should bend and flop and feel as simple and utilitarian as they are. Just canvas and rubber and that’s basically it.

For years, my shoes were just the right amount of dilapidated. The canvas was a bit frayed on top and split ever-so-slightly along the outside edge of my feet. The shoes’ rubber turned from white to speckled to off-white to some vague sandy hue.

***

From afar, my Chuck Taylors still look beautiful. They’re slim and long just like they should be. Skinny jeans, grey chinos, even cuffed Ludlows — any pant falls perfectly over their barely-there profile.

Up close, my Chucks are a wreck. The toe holes are widening into toe(s) holes. The laces are filthy, frayed and torn. The rubber side panels are peeling apart where they meet the soles. The canvas of each shoe is split near the heel.

Death by thousands of steps, days, miles and memories.

***

It’s not over yet, but it’s over. I know we’re at the end, but I don’t want to be the one to cross the finish line first. I wish the rubber and canvas would detach completely; I wish a gaping hole would appear in the sole; I wish the decision to say goodbye were less unilateral.

I’ll get new Chucks. I’ll curse my new pair’s stiffness and whiteness and propriety while I mourn the loss of what fit so well until one day it didn’t.