I LOVE It When This Happens

Truly great albums don't always reveal themselves to you right away. Sometimes you really have to spend time with them, peel back the layers, investigate, find the right setting, the right mood, etc. Usually after the third or fourth listen, you have a sense that something truly special is going on and that you've got an album you're going to want to be listening to for some time.

And then sometimes... You hear a song, it blows you away, you immediately go buy the album, take it home and from the first note you're hooked. You LOVE every song on the album on the first spin and as soon as it's over you immediately play it again from the beginning.

That happened to me today.

And frankly, I needed it.

The band is called The Acorn. The album is called "Glory Hope Mountain".

I'm listening to it right now for the third time this evening.

It's making me happy.

Their first single was released as a free download.

Enjoy.

The Acorn - "The Flood (Pt. 1)"

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-IMBA

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P.S. Are you wondering why I know about everything cool before you do? Well, stop it. You can be cool to. By clicking here.

"U23D": A Thorough, Detailed and Exhaustive CYPJN!? Review Of The New U2 Concert Film

Holy.

CRAP.


Go see it.

-IMBA

Dammit

What a stupid fuckin' waste.

Rest in peace, man.

IT'S HERE

I've been waiting.

And now it's here.

The Missus and I just bought our tickets.

Wanna join us?

This Thursday, the 24th. AMC Loews Lincoln Square. 9:20pm.

You can get tickets here.

Do it.

It's going to be rad.

Wait... Wha?

So, of course, the day I post something that says you won't be hearing much from me in the coming weeks, a primo, Grade-A slab of blogfodder lands squarely in my lap.

I'll be brief.

In the 13 years I've lived in NYC, I've never been on a train where someone actually pulled the emergency brake. Never even heard of anyone doing it, actually. Until last night.

Not only was I on the train, I was in the car where it happened.

We had just started pulling away from the Times Square station when, "screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." We slam to a grinding halt, people fly forward, grabbing on to the poles and each other for dear life.

Much confusion and concern ensue.

Finally, from the other end of the car I hear someone yelling "IS THIS GOING UPTOWN OR DOWNTOWN...? UPTOWN OR DOWNTOWN...?"

I'm a little puzzled. Finally, a wave of acknowledgement, disbelief and harumph-y chatter makes it's way from that end of the car to mine.

Someone.

Pulled the fucking.

Emergency brake.

Because...

(wait for it...)

They got on the wrong train.

(...)

I know.

I couldn't believe it either.

Someone pulled the emergency brake because they got on the uptown train instead of the downtown train.

People were BESIDE THEMSELVES. And, of course it was one of those situations which then prompts everyone on the train to have a vocal opinion about what's going on and try to share it with the world. EVERY New York type is there and putting in their two cents. "Someone needs to call the cops... Guy must be crazy... I'D fuckin' punch the guy if I was over there... I've got a DENTIST appointment, man, I don't have TIME... I've lived here since '67, I've never seen... I'm seriously going to move to Alexandria, Virginia. Have you been there? It's really... Seriously, someone needs to call the cops on this guy..."

If it had happened in the morning, I'd have been livid. But, since it was after work and I didn't have anywhere particular to be, I found myself mildly entertained by it.

Ahhh... The City. Just when you think you've seen it all, it readily and definitively reminds you that, in fact... you haven't.

"So... yeah. The blog's been really, um... great so far this year, man. Um... yeah. Lots of great stuff. Keep....uh... keep it coming."

Listen... I know. I've been spotty as fuck of late and I sincerely apologize. I hyped 2008 as being this totally exciting year with all of this cool stuff in the works and then I leave you guys hanging. It's lame, I know.

But, here's the deal...

I'm working on something.

After years of hedging, self-doubt and false starts, I have finally knocked aside all of my self-imposed obstacles and am officially in the process of writing the solo show I've been threatening to write for the last ten years.

I am 20 pages in. I am aiming for about 35. I am shooting for a first-draft deadline of January 31st. I am knee-deep in this thing and it has consumed the better part of the last month of my life.

I am not going to tell you anything about it.

Not now, anyway.

When it's finished and goes up wherever it goes up, you will hear plenty from me about it.

Until then, just know that there's a good reason why CYPJN!?'s content of late has been less-than-stellar. I only have so many brain cells. And I have to spread them around where they're needed most.

I will still post. And hopefully most of it will be interesting or entertaining on some level.

Or maybe it won't be.

Either way, until the 31st I'm in nose-to-the-notebook mode. So, you'll probably be seeing more videos, articles and poems in the next couple weeks in lieu of my usual sharp, witty and insightful blather.

Might be a nice break for you, actually.

Enjoy.

See you in February.

-IMBA

Why I Am Not a Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."

"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

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-Frank O'Hara (1957)

Ladies and Gentlemen... I give you... THE MISSUS

And so we begin a brand new year. Thank God, actually. Happy to get the last one the fuck off my back and looking forward to whatever this one may have in store.

I mentioned in a previous post that The Missus and I are making a conscious effort to shake up our world a bit in 2008. To actively turn ourselves upside down, shake ourselves out and leave behind whatever falls.

As a symbol of her commitment to the process and as a logical extension of her journalistic side, The Missus has started a blog of her own. My Chrysalis Year is officially up and running and I urge you to check it out. It'll definitely be one to add to your favorites.

We don't have plans, per se. But we have notions of particular goals that are all part of potential would-be plans. What we have are images in our minds of the lives we'd like to be living. Which is a good start. And the rest is what we'll be figuring out over the next 12 months.

Neither of us knows what's coming, but we know it'll be different. And My Chrysalis Year will take you through the kooky shit that happens along the way - all voiced with the wit, charm, perspective and barely-contained hostility that is uniquely The Missus.

Enjoy.

And all the best to all of you in 2008...

-IMBA