You weren’t the only one, two, three, four…
2 performances on Leno in 2 nights for the comeback kids. Tom seems a bit off to me though…
Add comment | May 21st, 2009
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Today’s Soundtrack
It is 82 degrees farenheight in NYC today. This is the record that came to mind.
Hellogoodbye - Hellogoodbye EP (2004)
Add comment | May 21st, 2009
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Virgin Goes Under, Bittersweetly.
A coworker today told me all Virgin Megastores would be closed before June. A look of surprise quickly covered my face and my mind became a flutter with reasoning this latest fall from grace of a giant.
I don’t buy music often. However the last time I did, it was from the Virgin Megastore in Union Square. I went to purchase a copy of Wet Hot American Summer, but came out with a compilation called “Joe Strummer’s Jukebox” and the soundtrack to the movie Walker (composed by Strummer). The store is vast and I do often catch myself browsing through from time to time. They have a great selection a stock of pretty much everything. However they have alas, fallen to the big stores like Wal Mart and Best Buy (who price their cd’s & dvd’s low to attract customers who will eventually buy their more expensive products), and of course the mighty internet.
I think Virgin could have survived. But like many other retail stores(i.e. Tower records before them), they failed to adapt to the internet. Their extense selection of the popular as well as esoteric would have done very well on the web against even the mighty Amazon I’ll bet. However I never even thought to see if Virgin had an online store. I went this morning, and alas, you can tell why they are going under. For such a large company, it is hard to believe their website is of a quality so sub-par of their name.
So in the end, the bittersweet taste in my mouth is attributed to the sadness that Virgin will not “just be there” for me to browse and occasionally catch a cool promo gig, and if I do want to shop retail for music, I am forced to cast a shadow on Best Buy’s increasingly obnoxious carpet. However, on the upside, this is going to be a dope closeout sale.
Link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/5001101/Virgin-Megastores-in-US-to-close.html
Add comment | March 16th, 2009
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We’ve Come a Long Way Baby
I am a man of few television shows. Mostly due to the fact that my only exposure to television is what I can get online (both legally or otherwise…) One of those shows that I enjoy (enjoyed enough to even purchase!) is AMC’s brilliant ‘Mad Men’. For those of you who are unaware, ‘Mad Men’ is a period piece television drama which takes place in the late 1960’s in New York City. It revolves around the ladies and gentleman that work at the Sterling Cooper ad agency on Madison Avenue.
The show goes through (what seems to me) a tireless effort to recreate and reflect the aesthetics, mores and events of the late 1960’s. I, myself, am far from being able to judge first hand the validity of their efforts, but from what I hear, they do a pretty good job. The episodes reflect the lifestyle of a glamorous lifestyle in the 1960’s, complete with booze, women, cigarettes, chauvinism, more booze, fashion, and more cigarettes. I can honestly say that my ability to have a glass of something at my desk (working at a liquor store by day); makes me that much closer to being the effortlessly cool, gentlemanly, charismatic and handsome lead character of Donald Draper, played brilliantly by the ‘Never too late to make it’ Jon Hamm.
Although I may not be able to personally vouch for the historical accuracy of the show, I do know that smoking cigarettes was a widespread trend in those days. The characters are consistently in rooms filled with the smoke of their seemingly endless packs of cigarettes (the Sterling Cooper boys and girls, actually did have their own endless supply of Lucky Strikes). Their charisma and confidence would seem somewhat lacking with out a lit cherry to signal their intermission of smart and aggressive quips. They are young, attractive, confident, charismatic and they smoke.
I can remember growing up in late middle school is when kid started smoking. I had my first cigarette around then. (NOTE: I have never been a habit smoker. However I cannot say I have never smoked a cigarette, and I can be seen with the occasional “drunk i”) High school seemed like a time when more than half of the kids were smoking before and after class. Lights, Menthol,unfiltered all that vernacular was hard coded into my mind at that time. I have to admit, I tried it because I thought it was cool, and the kids in high school who were smoking, did resemble that same carelessness and confidence reflected by those at Sterling Cooper.
In my post-adolescence and know-it-all perspective on life, I can’t help but look at the culture of smoking now. Smoking now just seems … unattractive. The majority of those I see smoking are overweight, bald, homeless, cold, and pretty much reflect several other cultural indicators of “unattractiveness”.
What I’m trying to say is, smoking has lost it’s imbuing abilities. It doesn’t look cool at all. Which is unfortunate, since something so small could completely change the way a person is perceived for the better, or should I say “cooler”. Perhaps the ban on indoor smoking in most indoor facilities aided it. Perhaps it is the health risks that cause the young attractive smokers of thee late 1960’s to be the balding, overweight saps that stagger & waddle around the streets of NYC today.
I have a friend who’s mother recently had a heart attack because she had been smoking since she was very young. (She, by the way, is neither fat nor bald, and from the outside looks extremely healthy.) She said that everyone, literally, everyone was smoking during her youth. No one knew about the effects. And if they heard they either didn’t believe or didn’t care.
I understand by adulthood no one (or at least very few) people smoke because of it’s “cool factor”. They perhaps started that way and now are addicted. But to me, smoking no longer carries with it the traits of elegance, class and discrimination it once did. Smoking now seems to be ruled by the “Unattractive” middle agers who started because everyone was doing it and was cool; and the high schoolers who do it now because they’re trying to be cool and mature. As for all the rest in the middle, it just seems to me like it detracts from one’s attractiveness. You are forced to leave social situations to go out and have a smoke, the clinging smell is displeasing, and alot of the time, people just look unattractive doing it. It no longer represents confidence, it’s a weakness.
I simply wanted to document my observation of the huge decline of the perception of a smoker. Where it was once represented by youth, confidence and elegance; is now reserved for high schoolers and our unhealthy elders.
1 comment | March 2nd, 2009
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