718 Superstar

I'm famous, kind of. I want to send a special thanks to the guys at Audience of Two, who blogrolled me recently and put me on their front feed page the other day. It's amazing what a few persistent, obsequious e-mails can do for anyone. Any opportunity you get to catch these guys live with their sketch comedy mayhem, check it out - or, go see Ben Masten (one half of the duo) every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. with Vacation Island at The PIT.


No one ever told me there would be sacrifices involved in my life as performer. Specifically, a few decent hours of sleep. And yet, when the possibility work is involved, there aren't many complaints on my end. That's the convenience of a caffeine addiction (I'm working on that one, Your Holiness) and living near an express train.

I found myself on the Upper West Side this morning, trying my best to make a decent first impression. The Upper West Side, New York City's home to hot soccer moms and female interns. UWS was always my idealization of New York. A neighborhood that often drips with the euphemism "Hey, I'm walkin' ovah here!" I remember my first summer in NYC: while living in Washington Heights, I actually thought about moving to the West 70s after graduation. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with UWS, it's just very different from the parts of New York where I hang out now. Not until I started writing about New York City did I realize that I rarely find a reason to go above 14th Street, with a few obvious exceptions for UCBT, The PIT, and other basic human needs. A wonderful irony about New York exists in such lifestyle: you can live in America's largest city and still know nothing about it. I wonder if it were the same case fifty years ago?

Living in Brooklyn makes knowing Manhattan even more impossible sometimes. I'm a writer, I get paid to work from home, or the vegan coffee shop around the corner, if I choose. I live in one of Brooklyn's most popular neighborhoods that has its own nightlife and social scene. A year ago, The Cold War Kids played a concert four blocks away from my house. This further disregards the need to include Manhattan at all in my life. But this is also dangerous, because writers are inherently lazy people, with busy schedules of staring at skylines and contemplating Sartre. And, a few of us have recreational drug habits; and that juggle can be exhausting at times.

What I'm getting at is: this may be "the city that doesn't sleep," but we sure don't know how to kill that time getting to know each other. I'm reminded of a scene on the D train from the other day. A older man got on and asked for a little charity in exchange for the work of Sam Cooke, wherein he launched into "Chain Gang," A cappella. I don't know this man, and I don't know if he's a junkie, a Bible-thumper, or just genuinely hungry. What I did know, though, is that he was a human being asking for help; he used music to affect change for himself, and others. Maybe that seems like a small thing to regard, or even naive to read into, but I dug it. I dropped him a buck and wished him good luck. Compassion, I'm finding, isn't such a crazy thing to buy into if we give it a chance. Once we learn to go easy on ourselves, then it becomes easy to connect with other people.

For all us scensters in this city, maybe we need to stop taking ourselves so seriously.