it's been quite some time, as time tends to fly--however, i saw robert pollard at irving plaza on april 20th. bob was the writer, singer, front-man, and general charisma of guided by voices, one of the biggest just beneath the surface-type bands of the past twenty years. the similarity between guided by voices and "bob pollard" is almost one on top the other, and a pollard show is like a gbv show--the songs are short, messy, and poppy as hell; in two hours they play about forty songs; and bob gets drunk.


robert pollard at irving plaza, april 20 2006

i gotta say, i really liked this show. it was kind of wild, yet completely polite, and--i shit you not--when the encore started, and the crowd was chanting G B V, and bob wandered back out on stage: the first stage diver, up there, he just jumped in, holy shit, i know that guy, i work with that guy. to the crowd all around, i, armed with three budweisers in my immediate past, announced: "holy fuck! i don't fucking believe that! i know that guy! i work with that guy!"

hey, it was exciting. new york city--so large, yet so quaint.

guided by voices, while never quite being mainstream--meaning no one ambivalent about pop music ever hummed a gbv song by accident--had its heyday through the nineties. they are from ohio--specifically dayton--and when their following was still small, they used to play cleveland, usually at the euclid tavern.

guided by voices wouldn't become important to me till the millennium had passed, despite the fact i lived a block from the euc through most of the mid-nineties. in fact, i learned to drink beer there. in a way, i learned to like live music there. i learned to think something like gbv can be important to a level-headed, mature person because of the euclid tavern. but, close as they were, i never saw guided by voices there. a 36-year-old bob was getting shitfaced and singing some of the most beautiful songs of the decade, and i was playing cards a block away.


guided by voices at the euclid tavern, 1994 (copyright derek hess)

anyone from cleveland will recognize the distinctive gig posters of derek hess. just looking at that makes me feel all 20 years old. a derek hess poster is one of the wonderful little things about cleveland, and i remember that one. a guided by voices gig from 1994. "what's guided by voices?" i probably thought.

you can even look it up and see what songs they played. if you're that way.

last night i was getting off the N train, going down the steps and through the turnstiles, down the outside steps onto the street. rain was dropping off the overhang, telling me i was going to get wet when i hit the sidewalk.

a guy sped by me down the stairs, with his cell phone pressed up against his face. he was speaking superfast spanish, which sounds to me like la la lalalala la la la!--and then, he said, "yo la tengo, yo la tengo!" i was so happy. see, he and i like the same band.

this morning while waiting on the bus in astoria, a formation of fancy-looking jets went over, being followed by this big plane with propellors. at the big astoria boulevard and 31st street intersection, all the people waiting on the bus and driving in slow-moving cars and all the construction guys and all the cops and all the people walking to the N station and all the parks people picking up garbage, we all stopped and looked up and watched it go over, really low.

when i got here to work, i looked on gothamist to see if someone wrote about it, and i was rewarded with the exact scene. fleet week's always good value. from jets buzzing the city to the twelve year old boys in their navy outfits drinking themselves stupid in times square. (no, they're not twelve--they are eighteen. they just look twelve.)

yesterday there was a scene of helicopters like my dad used to fly. i sent it to him, and he pointed out that they are slightly different--a smaller helicopter with only one front wheel, rather than a chinook. cool, but for me i suppose it might as well be the same thing. to get bogged down in details when being wistful about one's father--such behavior would indicate a small soul. those are my dad's helicopters, man.

but, hey, i had something to ask. once a day someone looks at this website through this page, my archive from may 2005. that was a good month for me, i suppose, so i approve. is that linked somewhere? do you know?

mark and i were on the 1 train, heading downtown. it was crowded.

mark: so what are you doing with rotation speed in your experiments?

[bear with me here]

josh: nothing. i'm scanning the electrode potential up and down, so you know that current density is equal to square root of the scan rate times a bunch of constants. right? so when you change the rate you get a straight line, and with the slope you can back out all those constants. and if you know all of them but one, then you know that one. diffusion coefficient.

mark: so then you vary rotation rate, so you know the surface concentration?

josh: no, it doesn't do anything if i change rotation rate. remember, i'm dealing with a film stuck to the electrode surface, and that's my true volume. so it spins with the electrode, and rotation rate is irrelevant.

(pause)

woman: (sitting next to us and eavesdropping) you boys want free tickets to this movie we're giving out? it's the new jennifer aniston movie.

mark: really? that's nice, but no thanks. i don't ever go to the movies.

woman: well, all right. [to josh] don't take one if you're not going to go, because we only have so many to give out. (pause) so you guys are in film yourselves? i heard you talking.

mark: (laughs) no, no. we're in chemistry, actually.

josh: but thank you. we're flattered if we seem like we could be in film.

the radio keeps saying light rain this morning, but as far as i can tell it's fucking pouring.

at the post office in my home town, eight years ago this summer.

josh: hi. i'd like to send this.

postal woman: sure. you're josh, aren't you?

josh: yes.

postal woman: (does package-sending stuff) that's two-fifty. you don't have any brothers and sisters do you?

josh: no, i don't.

postal woman: must be nice.

josh: i always wished i wasn't an only child.

postal woman: you get everything.

josh: yes. i got everything.

i got my hair cut today. for me, by my standards, it is essentially a buzz-cut. as short as it gets. i. have. no. hair.


practically military

i took two pictures of me. this one is spacey and innocent, and the other is worldly and mean. really, i would like to emphasize the mean side--it is most salient. but, for some reason, i pick this one despite that.