a dramatist for the cynics?

Back in Grade 12 I had to write a short little untitled play for my English class. I sort of had an inclination towards avant grade theatre back than, I had been interning with the theatre department at Sarah Lawrence College, reading lots of Beckett and Ionesco and plotting to put on a DIY Punk themed absurdist masterpiece of my own. well, my absurdist masterpiece is still very much a work in progress, because to be honest, I often forget of its existence and it goes unfinished for months, only to be resurrected and expanded or gingerly edited every time I stumble across the manuscript. at this rate, I figure I'll have it done by time i'm 27. but alas, my flirtation with the stage withered and died once I entered the academic side of it. that and theatre kids (even in University, they really are kids) are a rather peculiar bunch that I don't seem to "jive" with all too well. However, some little pieces of my brief foray into creativity remain. one of them being this little ditty I penned at the end of High School (forgive the fact that it is written in a vernacular that disregards all formative norms of written drama). I was incredibly cynical and jaded at the time. By my own accord, I had not obtained well enough High School marks to make it into any University I initially applied to, and all the while having to simultaneously wage war with the Orwellian, privatized monster that is post-Secondary education in the United States, made this a quite daunting and sordid experience, and that's putting it nicely! this is a product of that angst. however, time (mostly) healed those wounds and after having attended the University of Toronto (wich coincidentally had been my dream school since Grade 10)I can firmly say my desires were misguided and University is overrated. but nevertheless, my desires for a degree are still not completely stifled......yet. so in keeping up with my quest for education sans indoctrination, I just applied to Concordia University in Montreal. marvelous, eh? rawr.

here is the play unabridged:

*SCENE*

(Enter Lance and Tray)

LANCE: I for one am absolutely floored to be attending this shining gem

TRAY: The beacon of enlightenment, the stalwart of the divine, the leader in the Liberal Arts.

LANCE: do you have it?

TRAY: have what?

LANCE: The Cheque’s

TRAY: Oh Yes

(Tray pulls out two large cheques from his satchel)

TRAY: $56,000 for you, $56,000 for me.

LANCE: The price we pay for such a captivating experience.

TRAY: We are the educated elite, we are better than those groundlings, those inferiors who are rotting in….gasp!....Community College’s!

LANCE: so, what do we do now?

TRAY: lets just get….

(Enter ADMISSIONS DIRECTOR SULU)

SULU: Hey Fellas! Dig my new asbestos suit!

(LANCE and TRAY gaze at SULU’s suit.)

SULU: If you work diligently, and follow the master plan, than You can wear one of these too!

LANCE and TRAY: yay!!

SULU: Now the very quintessence….no….quiddity of the college admissions orgy is its…well…realness and honesty. As you have being doing, you must format your lexicon and speech patterns from these scripts we have so generously bequeathed to you. If you fail to follow the script, you are an anti-intellectual philistine, and you don’t want that do you? We all follow the script here, I do, you do, your professors do, only our corporate overlords who endow our fine institution are enlightened enough to speak freely.

LANCE and TRAY: (reading from the script): I Will not delineate from the master plan.

SULU: Now that the ground rules have been set, and your fine educations are completely paid for, I would like to, on behalf of our corporate overlords, welcome you two to Bernard L. Madoff College.

LANCE: I am so glad to be a part of this fine institution

TRAY: I thank Robert Moses everyday that my status as a member of the Landed Gentry allows me to take advantage of this opportunity.

LANCE: it is such a fabulous life, being coddled in a perverted form of a cradle to the grave welfare system, set up for the perpetuation of the power structure.

SULU: and boys, here at Madoff College, you will be taught only the most progressive of ideals, by the world’s leading left leaning scholars, However, be warned, if you try to act on those ideals, you will face the unrestrained wrath of said power structure.

LANCE and TRAY: We will not think freely, we will regurgitate the same basic form of faux-intellectualism that has been in vogue among the pseudo-alternative educational overmind since the 1960s.

SULU: Now Boys, let us continue our tour by showing our cutting edge facilities!

(enter SULU, LANCE and TRAY outside of a trash receptacle)

SULU: These amenities allow out students to be on the cutting edge of humanities and arts education, our bounty over your heads is but a small price to pay for these impeccable educational devices!

SULU (pointing to the garbage can): as long as you are a part of the lucky few, the humanistic ideals we teach you are as golden as the material inside of this fine device, and in the course of your studies here, as long as you follow the master plan, your minds and this device will share an inseparable symbiotic bond. Isn’t that absolutely captivating?

(LANCE and TRAY nod in approval)

SULU: Now, it is time to show you our room and board amenities!

(Enter LANCE, TRAY and SULU outside of a dormitory)

SULU: after your minds are stimulated, this is where you can vivify your loins! After you complete the process of social sacculation, you too can be a part of the old boys’ network of patriarchical dominance! As healthy young alpha males in the midst of post secondary education, you can choose from our fine crop of comfort women, we have an endless supply in our various sororities!

(LANCE and TRAY look on in amazement)

LANCE: Now that I am in the institution, I can fully enjoy my status as a proud misogynist!

TRAY: Were going to Fuck Bitches, Get Money!!!!

SULU: Now Now Tray, we at Madoff College do not tolerate such language

TRAY: Excuse me….myself and my good friends will fornicate with the opposite sex while illegally procuring large sums of currency.

SULU: Much better!

LANCE: so tell us, Mr. Sulu, we can live out our grandest terminal preppie fantasies in these buildings?

SULU: as long as you keep paying your room and board fees, than yes!

LANCE: and the administration will turn a blind eye to our rampant sexism and the unrestrained moral bankruptcy that we partake in?

SULU: It would be simply un-American if we didn’t, even at an “alternative” school like ours!

TRAY: (under his breath) I can’t believe they actually wrote that into the script!

SULU: Tray! Follow the Script!!

TRAY: yes sir.

SULU: now, we will visit another building, come with me.

(Enter LANCE, TRAY, SULU and ULRICH outside of a large modern building)

LANCE: wow, what a sight to behold!

TRAY: it is magnificent

ULRICH: (walking out of the building): I just got back from Holiday….In Cambodia!

SULU: Why Hello, Jello, care to explain your positive experiences at Madoff College with these two incoming freshman.

ULRICH: Well, the visual arts building is really neat-o, I’m going to be the most talked about artist in the Brooklyn loft scene when I finish here! I also like the school, because it is like, so um.....diverse.

(EXIT SULU)

SULU: that is right, at Madoff College, all shades of white are represented in out student body!

LANCE: Even the Dutch?

SULU: Even the Dutch!!

TRAY: WOW! Ive never seen a Dutchman before!

LANCE: how about Flying Dutchmen?

(ENTER FLYING DUTCHMAN)

FLYING DUTCHMAN: Arrrrgh!!!! SHOW ME YER BOOTY!!

TRAY: this is the worst college ever

LANCE: the worst play ever too.

SULU: NO!!! My dream is ruined!

(SULU collapses and dies, while LANCE, TRAY and the FLYING DUTCHMAN disco dance)

*FIN*

Out on Bikes?

If Only.....


As someone who has had the misfortune to have been hit by a car (while cycling nonetheless) the image above comes straight out of my wildest dreams. unfortunately I come from a place where community activists make DIY bike lanes, only to have them subsequently and abruptly removed by the powers that be. I lived for three months in a city that elected a mayor who is vitriolically opposed to the construction of any new bike lanes and my own bike is currently sitting mangled in my garage from my aforementioned accident.

I will admit I lose serious bike punk points though, I have a drivers licence (sssshhh, dont tell anyone!) A good friend of mine from Paris tells me that having a drivers licence is something that makes me uniquely American, because I come from a place where I don't really need one. how American of me! Most of my Canadian friends don't Drive, and my sole European friend indeed does not drive. yet in the United States the Automobile is king. At least I'm going back to a place where there are 24 Subway lines that run all night and a strong cyclist culture. god forbid I were to end up in a place like Los Angeles, my god that would be rather dreadful. Am I the only one who thinks its a bit...erm....sordid that things as simple as bike lanes could draw so much ire and scorn from the public at large? only in the USA (and Toronto now, apparently).

Its 2:07 AM. now I'm just ranting with out any sort of coherence or eloquence. time for bed.

thanks to David Bilmas for inspiring this post.

and they told us not to idolize our parents generation

I love the Rolling Stones.




















they've made Bob Dylan hip? hence why Cosmos Records sells The Times They are A Changin' for $30 and I always hear Highway 61 played at Black Market Vintage (the hippest faux-thrift store on the hippest street in Toronto). why not the Stones? our parents like the Stones, that's the music of our parents generation! as if Dylan isn't...

I'd rather listen to Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed over Abbey Road and Sergent Pepper any day. both albums are filled with the same counter cultural rage and have that somewhat artsy tinge to them, yet (for the most part) the Stones are still relegated to the status as an "old persons band". I'm not saying this is true in general, but as an example lets take the average marginally-artsy, somewhat-intellectual young adult. lets say this young adult is from a rather wealthy middle class area, lets say Toronto's Forest Hill neighbourhood. said young adult is a first year University student at a somewhat counter-cultural school, lets say the Ontario College of Art and Design. lets say if this young adult is a Male, he goes to the open mics at his school and plays his Simon and Garfunkel covers and/or recites a Ginsberg poem and no matter how awful he is at it, his fellow somewhat artsy, pseudo intellectual friends will always give him credit for trying. he hangs out frequently at the quasi-eclectic intersection of Bloor and Bathurst where he goes to get coffee, show off his cute cardigan sweaters and/or buy vinyl represses of Velvet Underground records at Sonic Boom (because he doesn't know of any real independent record stores). this young man would listen to the Beatles over the Stones.

lets take the same person but make he a she. this young woman is a first year at.....lets say Innis College, a somewhat artsy academic unit of the University of Toronto. she comes from a solidly middle class neighbourhood, lets say Riverdale, that produces like minded marginally creative young people. she likes to wear leg warmers and thick rimmed glasses, yourscenesucks.com would classify her as "apple store indie", not hip enough to roll with the ranks of Parkdale Hipsters on Queen Street West, but has a cultural palate independent enough that she fits in comfortable in The Annex. this young lady would listen to the Beatles over the Stones.

Neither of these two fictitious somewhat indie but really very mainstream musical gormandizers would deify the Rolling Stones as they do The Beatles. they may like the Stones, but no, mom and dad like the Stones, god forbid they like something their parents did!

I could care less how "Indie" I come off as (although cardigan sweaters are very comfortable and I may or may not be wearing one right now) and when it comes down to it, the Rolling Stones in 1968 were a down n' dirty Rock n' Roll band that still managed to have a bluesy, angsty, vaguely anarchistic counter-cultural edge to them. I also would rather listen to something that pays homage to classic American blues over thinly veiled drug references over drippy psychedelia (Lucy in the sky with what?).

while I may not get any points with the Apple Store Indiekids, I'd rather have the Stray Cat Blues and a Honkey Tonk Woman over a Yellow Submarine and some burnout druggie named Lucy anywway.




















BEGGARS BANQUET:
http://www.mediafire.com/?imj4qzymzmu

LET IT BLEED:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mzm2ojywlym

GET YER YA YA's OUT:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ouxme50ghte

Toronto the Good? If only.....

^This is Toronto circa 1980














^This is Toronto in 2010

What is wrong with this picture? well first of all when you look at the Toronto of 1980 you are looking at the quintessential Toronto skyline. Skydome was not yet build, the CN Tower looms over First Canadian Place and the Royal York Hotel is still a major feature of the cityscape. and for those who aren't as familiar with the intricacies of the Toronto skyline I'll put it in laymen's terms, the skyline of 1980 is not obscured by horrendous over-development and atrocious postmodern style residential high rises!

Toronto of 2010 is home to "Condo Canyon" a labyrinthine web of obscenity that obscures the "old, quintessential" Toronto skyline with a seemingly impenetrable fortress of concrete and plate glass, of sleek housing for the upper social orders (Donald Trumps wet dream, Karl Marx's worst nightmare). one can argue this represents not only the dearth of culture but the depravity of Capitalism as a whole, but that's a another can of philosophical worms to be opened at a later time. Toronto is a city in which development supersedes population growth, which means that many of the Condos in the Canyon are not filled to capacity, to the point that developers resort to advertising new condos such as "the mercer" or "the ocean view" (which coincidentally views a lake)on CP24. It makes me wonder, is Toronto's bourgeoisie really this ubiquitous or is this some kind of sick joke?

This is a textbook example of postmodern urbanism. And I'm sure it has Jane Jacobs rolling in her grave. what is postmodern urbanism? well, Condo Canyon is postmodern urbanism, haphazard development based on the whims/at the behest of the wealthy with no regards to functionality and/or community. Contrast this to Modernism, which brought us the marvels of the 1964 New York worlds fair and progressive innovations such as the ridiculously efficient Montreal Metro system (which still runs its original trains of 1966 vintage) and the failures of slum clearance via bulldozer, residential tower blocks and high rise public housing. In other words Modernism was urbanism for all, whereas postmodernism is urbanism for the elite.

Toronto has successfully become a postmodern city. A city that destroys historic buildings to erect condos. David Miller should be very proud of himself indeed. and Torontonians wonder why the rest of Canada hates their city.....

Montreal by Night/Montréal par Nuit

....As a monolingual American anglophone I feel out of place in Montreal sometimes. However, the exoticism (or faux-exoticism, considering almost everyone on "the Island" speaks English anyway) that comes from experiencing a place that is contradictory to ones norms is something I seem to thrive on. I do find solace in loosing my moorings, as one of my muses, avant garde playwright Andre Gregory once said, (in my favourtie film nonetheless) "If your operating by habit your not really living". so if living as a New Yorker in Toronto (American's are barley foreigners in Canada anyway) was stage one in my quest for self-liberation from the mundane, than living as an Américain in Montreal would be no more than total immersion in the eclectic. yet, mostly due to the presence of McGill University, there are enough of us Américain's (as well as the Anglo-Canadian transplants who outnumber us) there that I would by no means be a stranger in a strange land. thus, my rationale in applying to Concordia for the Fall. plus I always wanted to learn another language anyway, now I will have a reason to!

earlier this month, I spend a week in Montreal to see Tragedy perform at Varning Fest plus embark on a much needed vacation from Toronto and the stresses associated with dropping out of Canada's #1 University. and after that rather liberating week, I was able to deduce that I indeed like Montreal better than Toronto anyway.

(Vile Intent at Varning Fest aftershow)










(flier for A Varning From MTL Fest 2010)
















(On a personal note, Varning Fest was something straight out of the wildest dreams of my 15 year old self (the wide-eyed young crust worshiping punk that I was). and I think I made him proud that weekend, having seen Tragedy, Hellshock, Mob 47 and Montreal punk all stars Unruled all on the same bill. Now I can fully lay the last glimmers of my former, naively idealistic and moronic self to rest. so In ways this was a reconciliation and with every stage dive (and failed stage dive) I took that weekend, I made peace with who I was, because I came to realize its not who I am anymore. Thank You, Canada)

the fest took place at the Katacombes, a punk as fuck concert hall on Boulevard Saint Laurent and the Maisonneuve. Its dimly lit interior and exterior bathed in red spot lights was more than fitting for such a festival, and while the crowd was a bit "too crusty" at times (complete with 40oz malt liquor drinking traveler kids who yelled at me in French whenever I come out of the venue, I can ironically appreciate their presence because it keeps me on the right path by reminding me to stay in school and never become a scumfuck) the energy was just right, and while no I was not wearing enough denim and/or leather (no leather for my Vegan self anyway), yes I did manage to have a blast! surprisingly enough the fest drew people from all over, I traveled from Toronto with a Southern Ontario crew, but I spotted people I know (and know of) from back in New York (such as members of the stellar New York City D-Beat band Dawn of Humans) the highlight of which was meeting a prolific graffiti tagger who's work I have seen allover Brooklyn in the alley behind the venue. for the sake of putting an inside joke in here, it was suuuuuubtle! while Tragedy had to play a truncated set at the Katakombes show due to their bassist not making across the border, they more than made up for it in their energy, in the crowd response and their stellar set at the Sunday after show. for the sake of ending this paragraph on a quasi-cliche, If only every weekend was like this!




Curiously enough, Montreal reminds me more of New York than Toronto (which doesn't feel anything like New York at all, despite its label as "the New York of Canada"). there is a neighborhood in Montreal called St. Henri that is curiously known as "where all the Punks live". in St. Henri you have the Fattal Lofts that house multiple show spaces, and I cant help but be reminded of Bushwick, Brooklyn and the lofts of 538 Johnson. Montreal has residential districts of lower-middle class row housing such as Verdun, directly southeast of St. Henri and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve which hugs Boulevard Pie-IX adjacent to Olympic Stadium. architecturally and aesthetically these areas follow a distinctly North American style of design, of dense tenement housing bisected by large multi-lane avenues. When poking around districts like Verdun and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, I eerily feel like I could be in some outer-urban residential area in New York City. if I really put my mind to it and forgot I was in Quebec, I could easily pretend it was Bay Ridge, Brooklyn or my grandparents neighborhood in The Bronx. Juxtapose that with the vaguely European ambiance of St. Henri and there is something incredibly inviting about a city where European and North American aesthetics coalesce.

not to mention that Montreal has a rubber wheeled metro system that shuts down at Midnight, something that is most definitely un-North American.



(Anarchist graffiti on the Metro, props to whoever did this)







I constantly search for analogues to persons/places and or things that I know in New York in every other City I visit, though in Montreal (and to an extent in Toronto) I can never truly find anything that is completely analogous to back home. while St. Henri is undergoing some degree of gentrification it is not over hyped and commercialized like what is happening in Brooklyn. rents are still cheap and the bourgeoisie are still afraid to wander St. Henri's foreboding avenues, which is why it is a place I wouldn't mind living.

(Morning in St. Henri)











(There are some awesome tags in Montreal. This one is especially cute)







Two Sundays ago was the Tragedy/Vile Intent/Omegas/Le Kraken gig. that was an insane lineup and it is probably the best show I have seen in Canada thus far. the show as at a place called Il Motore or Rue Jean-Talon Ouest, just southwest of Montreal's Petite-Italie. Since my friends are anti-Public Transit Luddites I had the pleasure of walking all the way to Rue Jean-Talon from Downtown, and while to my lazy bones this was arduous, I had the pleasure of experiencing the quirkiest of Boulevard St. Laurent (interrupted with some gawking at some omnipresent anarchist graffiti) and in the end it was worth it because I found a dive that bears my name. curious, eh? also, everyone should eat at Patati Patata where they serve "Tofu Bourgeois" for $1.75 each, they're to die for!






(on the prowl for tofu sliders)









(they named a bar after me)










there are very few shows I go to where I feel utterly content and stoked after they let out, and the Tragedy gig was one of them. also, everyone should listen to the Omegas, they're probably the best Hardcore Punk band in Canada at the moment. I will admit Ive caught the bug and have falling in love with this town. and how could you not? Its distinctly and uniquely un-American, its a city that hasn't yet been spoiled by the ills of postmodernism (i.e. there is no Toronto style "Condo Canyon" in Montreal). this leads me to believe that I should have chose Montreal over Toronto as my escape hatch from New York. its not too late though.....

companion music for my escapades in Montreal Punk City:

Omegas-Sonic Order EP:
http://hotfile.com/dl/43405290/1eb85da/Omegas-Sonic_Order-EP-Vinyl-2010-GRAVEWISH.rar.html

check em out:
www.myspace.com/omegasmtl

Vile Intent-Shadow of the Skull (available for DL on their blog):
http://vileintent.likeweeds.org

Primitive Air Raid (Classic Montreal HC Punk Comp featuring UNRULED, from 1984):
http://www.mediafire.com/?mn2ojwzlnwm

Toronto by Night

Most of Toronto falls asleep after 1AM.......














So I set out on a midnight adventure to cure my listlessness two nights ago. and It took me from the Garden District at the border of Downtown, all the way to the edge of Parkdale at the border of Suburbia. All photos were shot from my craptastic cell phone camera, as my real camera is currently en route to my mailbox via Canada Post.


Toronto has the last non-heritage (i.e. non tourist) streetcar system in North America. Curiously enough the Toronto Transit Commission, following the lead of other North American cities, had plans to scrap them in favour of buses as early as the mid 1950s, but by 1972 there had been an outpouring of community resistance throughout the City that the TTC abandoned all streetcar abandonment plans:

http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4002.shtml

For me Streetcars are quite fascinating, having only heard of the New York City "Trolleycars" of yesteryear (that were completely abandoned in the Five Boroughs by 1956) from my Grandparents, it's kinda quirky to live in a town where they still serve a purpose. Streetcars at night are somewhat foreboding, catch the 501-Queen or the 505-King car at the right hour and you might very well be the only soul aboard. cars that area absolutely packed at rush hour take ghosts to and fro non-nocturnal (i.e. dead at night) transit hubs after reasonable hours. Its a solitude that is hard to find otherwise in this town. Its the kind of experience that, in the white light of the streetcar, in the midst of the darkness of a dead Toronto, one can put Joy Division's "Closer" on shuffle and lose themselves...














I found myself where King and Queen Streets finally meet at Roncessvalles Avenue, and the hip strip of Queen West fades into the Queensway and its "hip" factor drastically drops to "zero" as Toronto fades into Etobicoke. the notorious, squalid Coffee Time serves up rancid hot beverages and baked goods to ghosts and weary nighthawks, otherwise the area is frozen still in the night.




Roncessvalles Avenue is the heart of Toronto's polish community, and the end of "West Queen West". when Pope John Paul died, "Roncy" as locals call it, was flooded with mobs of mourning, hysterical zealots weeping at the passing of a sexist, fascistic patriarch of a fairy tale world, but enough of that (I was raised Catholic)....



onwards.........














Trinity-Bellwoods Park is basically the Tompkins Square of Toronto (minus the Punks), a green oasis surrounded by what were supposed to think is "bohemia". this is the hippest part of Queen West, the commercial strip west of Bathurst that is not quite the cozy yet dreary yet gentrifying Parkdale, but not quite the consumerist ectoplasm that is Queen Street from University to Bathurst. Trin-Bell extends from Queen Street northwards to Dundas Street and in its centre it is common to find drum circles, pot-smoking teens, skaters and hipsters. a park for all people, a park for all seasons if you will. I like it...














THE TORONTO INSTITUTE FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSIC brings back memories (by coincidence of a similar name ONLY) of the "Toronto Centre for Intellectual Exchange" aka the BROHOUSE where I spend 3 squalid days this past summer. the BroHouse was on Dupont Street, two blocks west of Spadina Avenue and had punk shows in their kitchen, one of the filthiest kitchens I had ever been in. though, It was very fun, don't get me wrong. the Centre for the Enjoyment Music was also a site of a raging hipster dance party during this years NUIT BLANCHE.

Interestingly enough, as I continued eastward on Queen West, I found myself at "751" a trendy bar that occasionally hosts "punk bar nights". as I was about to snap a picture of it, a well known local music promoter walks out, sees me in the street, phone held up; ready to take a picture and asks "hey man, you alright?" I meekly walk away.....

as I get a bit more Easterly to Bathurst Street, I run into a Homeless man ("my father", but that's a story for another time) who asks me for change, I don't have any so I give him a candy bar. I than encounter some weary, insomniac traveling crust punks and their starving dogs (punks shouldn't travel with animals). I try to feed one of the dogs my apple, but one of the crusties pops up from her stupor and kindly asks me to stop trying to feed her canine companion "people food". she than comments on a TSOL pin on my jacket, asks me if "I go to shows" and hands me a flyer for a Horrorpunk show. I throw the flyer and dog germ laden apple in the nearest trash can.

TIME TO GO TO SLEEP.......














I take the Bathurst Streetcar northbound to College Street, to catch the 506-Carlton car to take back to my room. along the way I stop to marvel at Maple Leaf Gardens, hallowed ground for die hard hockey fans. It lied in a state of disrepair and abandonment for eleven years, however Ryerson University bought it, and one day in the near future it will be a satellite building of the Ryerson campus. there will also be a Loblaws there. yum.

I should do this again some time. goodnight Toronto.

companion music for this adventure:

JOY DIVISION-CLOSER:
http://www.mediafire.com/?tyeydzyhanz

THE ROLLING STONES-BEGGARS BANQUET:
http://www.mediafire.com/?imj4qzymzmu

Dance of Days

I wish I lived in the New York of 1983......



than I would feel the need not to move 780 kilometers to the mythical punk wonderland of Canada, but rather 25 Miles south of my suburban home to the Lower East Side of Manhattan.


I walk down Avenue A and I cant imagine that only 25 years ago, the whole neighborhood was so radically different. Imagine the A7 Club (with a 17 year old Jimmy Gestapo running the door), the 8BC Space, ABC No Rio in its infancy, and blocks that were inhabited by Artists who didn't live off of trust funds, imagine rubbing shoulders with the likes of Raybeez and Pete Missing. Tompkins Square was still a scary place, yet a place we could call our own, and who needed lifelines to the petty bourgeois world like rent, when every other building from Avenue A to Avenue D between Houston and 10th Streets was ripe for squatting.

yes, I admit I romanticize Old New York way too much, yes the Reagan era and the Crack Epidemic were awful, but it did create fertile ground for Punk and a vibrant arts scene, and you cant deny that New York City was exponentially more "real" (if you know what I mean) back than than it is now, and one can still daydream...