When a young non-white male is stopped and searched at the whim of a police officer, his idea of personal space, privacy and self esteem are shattered, to say nothing of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment protections. The damage goes deep quickly and stays. Stop & frisk, as well as a tactic, is also an incitement.
— Henry Rollins
I have been restless for as long as I can remember.
Music keeps you young. Having music in your life keeps you open to things.
I have always identified with Joan Didion's depiction of Los Angeles and Southern California, ever since reading 'Play It As It Lays,' 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' and 'The White Album.'
While I have no empirical evidence to back this up, I bet that the number of homosexual people per thousand has not fluctuated all that much over the centuries. I do not believe the dented wisdom my father used to extol, that homosexuality was a sure sign of a civilization in decline.
I don't need to have my convictions confirmed by a show of numbers. However, being among people in front of a band leads me to believe that all is not lost, that humans, now and then, can communicate on a higher level than the political and the practical.
Being in New York is an almost overwhelming experience. While Washington, D.C., is my favorite American city, I regard New York City as the most amazing city in the world. No other comes close. It is an incredible, inexhaustible engine.
If you want to go the scorched-earth, Obamacare-is-like-slavery route and choose to stay uninsured, you will have the Palinesque guts, the Cruzian fortitude to wave off the ambulance that will appear to scoop you up should something bad happen to you, right?
As a teen, I heard the second Velvet Underground album, 'White Light/White Heat,' and it was too much for my limited scope of appreciation. It was intense, but I didn't get it.
The month of November makes me feel that life is passing more quickly. In an effort to slow it down, I try to fill the hours more meaningfully.
Have you ever heard the expression 'one hot mess?' I think the term was custom-made for the mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford.
Canadians are often a friendly bunch.
Humans are pretty crafty but will fold quickly in severe cold.
Unsurprisingly, Nelson Mandela had and still has many detractors.
As so much music is listened to via MP3 download, many will never experience the joy of analog playback, and for them, I feel sorry. They are missing out.
It is very difficult to tell Americans that they can't do something.
I am afforded a bit of easy wonderment in relative comfort as to how humans have lasted so long. Climate- and geography-wise, the planet seems to have little use for us.
Harmony is boring.
Live music is the cure for what ails ya.
Think about it: No matter who you are, the past plays a large part in your life. I am all about living in the present as best as I can. Try as I might, there is only so much I am able to achieve on this front.
America was cool with Saddam Hussein when he was killing Iranians.
There is a lot to say about what Bikini Kill and other 'riot grrrl' bands were able to achieve when they first set out. They were not some momentary, convulsive, creative spasm of independent music. There was a very real, relevant point of view being expressed.
It took me until my teenage years to realize that I was medicating with music. I was pushing back against my stupid school uniform, instructors who called me by my last name and my classmates, who, while friendly enough, were not at all inspiring.
To get a human through a life, lives of broken bones, knock-me-over-with-a-feather susceptibility to myriad viruses, and whatever else might befall someone will cost money.
In the late summer of 1986, the band I had been in for five years stopped playing. Suddenly, I was on my own. This new state of bandlessness was, at first, traumatic. When your group breaks up, a lot of broken parts hit the ground.
Lou Reed's music has been in the lives of millions of people all over the world for decades. He had a truly universal presence and was respected by musicians across all genres.
Like a lot of inwardly drawn young people, I spent a lot of time in libraries. At my high school, I often spent my lunch breaks there.
We all learn lessons in life. Some stick, some don't. I have always learned more from rejection and failure than from acceptance and success.
When you have to work with and exist amongst cynical, burned-out personnel on a set, it doesn't matter what you're shooting or how much you're being paid - it's not worth it.
Watching a documentary with people hacking their way through some polar wasteland is merely a visual. Actually trying to deal with cold that can literally kill you is quite a different thing.
Mr. Christ, I read you as an infinitely patient entity who, as they say, often works in mysterious ways, a rebel unafraid to take the tougher, less traveled paths. Seems to me you're playing the long game. Is that why more states are coming out in favor of marriage equality? Is that why the Affordable Care Act is now with us?
'Duck Dynasty' is a ridiculous show, and long may it wave. America and democracy will endure. They've seen a lot worse.
My first visit to West Berlin was in February 1983. The drive through East Berlin, the fact that West Berlin was surrounded by a wall that was more than 100 miles long - the absurdity and intensity of it really knocked me out.
I have had a number of less-than-enviable moments in my life when dealing with other people. I won't attempt to blunt that by saying I am not the only one.
My unconditional sure thing is that I don't have one.
I tend to gravitate to the darkest or most obscure part of any venue in an effort to have my own space to experience the music on my own, free from unwanted conversations and other distractions.
Every single record I have is a fossil.
America sold VX nerve gas and anthrax to Iraq for years, even after the Halabja gas attack, which killed thousands of Kurds.
Please don't think that I am one of those squishy types who can't handle reality. I have plenty of real-world things to deal with all the time. I have deadlines, meetings, I answer the phone, I get turned down, I wait in lines and am forced to pass for normal all the time.
Pizza makes me think that anything is possible.
It's one thing to buy a copy of 'Atlas Shrugged.' You actually have to read it to get anything out of it.
When a band becomes as truly iconic as the Velvet Underground, there will often be a box set released, overburdened with mediocre material that dilutes what was fine left on its own.
It's not lost on me that everyone dies, but some people have a kind of immortality about them, and you can't imagine that they will ever be gone.
I have come to regard November as the older, harder man's October. I appreciate the early darkness and cooler temperatures. It puts my mind in a different place than October. It is a month for a quieter, slightly more subdued celebration of summer's death as winter tightens its grip.
For the last 30-plus years, I have been doing one long, uninterrupted improv.
I am an employment hyena. I am happy to make a meal of what the lions leave behind.
If I had to live my life in anticipation of what others thought of me, little would get done.
Castle Face Records, run by The Oh Sees main man, Johnny Dwyer is always worth checking in with.
Do you know why Albert Camus was so prolific? He wrote to keep from screaming.
We Californians can watch the Weather Channel for images of winter's brutality unleashed upon our fellow Americans and thank our lucky stars we don't have to contend with it.
