This is what happens at the Wasserman homestead these days.

Bodhi is ALREADY embarrassed, originally uploaded by One Ping Only.

Filed under: Thing of the Day

Funny the way it is…

Jones Beach, Wantagh, NY, originally uploaded by One Ping Only.

So I guess I have to hang up my indie credentials and tell everyone who reads this blog–all five of you–that the Dave Matthews Band show Erica and I went to at Jones Beach last Wednesday was one of the better concerts I’ve been to in years. And yeah, I know, I know–DMB’s fans are a bunch of suburbanites whose musical tastes don’t extend past what they hear while playing beer pong in their parents’ basements, and that the DMB represents pretty much the lowest common denominator in the jam-band scene, which is already pretty much a lowest common denominator in and of itself. But damn, man, when you have a band that can actually a) play and b) create earworm after earworm, how can you expect anyone not to like them?

This was my first DMB show in about a decade, after a three-show run of never having to buy a ticket (my sisters were big fans when they weren’t quite old enough to go by themselves, so I was the driver/chaperon back then). Before going to my first one, I genuinely wasn’t interested. I was into music I thought was more challenging–Nine Inch Nails, John Zorn, the Residents–and wasn’t about to allow myself to won over by a pop group like the Dave Matthews Band. So I went to the New Haven Colisseum, fully prepared to be miserable, and actually came out of it liking a couple of the songs enough to want to listen to Under the Table and Dreaming.

What struck me most of all was that the band could actually play, and play really well. I’ve always been one of those guys who get captivated by really well-played music, which is why I adore Rush and Steely Dan, and the Dave Matthews Band could do that in spades. The drummer was a monster and the rest of the band was beyond tight.

Wait.  What am I doing?  Why do I have this urge to defend my taste when it runs toward something that might seem a bit out of character?  And hold on a second–out of character?  Who am I?  Why would I write something like that?  Am I really still one of those people who define themselves by the music they listen to, the art they like?  Aren’t I too old for that crap?  I had a great time at the show.  I really like the new Dave Matthews Band album (I keep sneaking it away from Erica and putting it into my car stereo–it’s a great summertime driving around CD).  I’ve been catching up on the stuff they’ve recorded between Crash (when I was in college) and Big Whiskey, and finding that I like a whole lot of it.

I think the upshot of the whole thing is that I wish more bands would do what the DMB is doing–play smart, technically impressive music that people actually want to hear.  I play in two bands, as I’m sure you know, and though this might be purely anecdotal, that’s pretty much what any musician wants.  Why make boring music that nobody enjoys?

I’m not saying that all pop music is great–that “Don’t Trust Me” song by 3OH!3 should be considered a capital offense–but obscurity certainly doesn’t equal awesomeness either.

Or am I just getting old?

Filed under: Matters Musical & Artistic

The TLB’s first press

Shoot me, I’m excited.

Check it out. We’ll be signing copies on Saturday at Bobby Q’s.

Filed under: Thing of the Day

A message from a friend in Iran

I got an email yesterday from one of my Iranian friends.  My fears have come true; he wound up hospitalized, along with a couple of his family members, after having taken part in one of the June 20th demonstrations.  Here’s his story:

I am writing this email to let you know all that what is taking place in Iran and especially Tehran is a barbaric crack down of the people who want nothing but their very basic rights. So many people have been killed and injured and you can easily find out the picturtes on the cyber social networks worldwide. All commmunication systems are blocked in Iran and Iranain people can hardly be heard overseas.

Yesterday, June 20th, was one of the most terrible days in the history of democracy in Iran. The central Tehran looked like a red carpet of blood. I personally witnessed so many people were shot dead or beaten by the savages who call themselves as “the owners of Iran”. These hardliners are a very limited minority of Iran who hold the power and have no fear to slaughter the Iranian students, women and children. They have stolen the Iranian votes and announced Ahmadinejad as the president. As an Iranian, and as your friend, I am trying to tell you all that the supreme leader of Iran (Ayatollah Khamenei) and his servant (Ahmadinejad) do not represent the reality of the Iranians who look for peace, friendship and bright future for everyone.

Yesterday, I was beaten on my head and back and my brother mother were beaten too. We spent the night in a hospital which was full of injured people. Among the people who were killed in the last few days, there were many students and some of them were from the University of Tehran. The regime have overtly denied that they have been killed and do not deliver their bodies to their families. The ironic point is that people try to demonstrate silently (no slogan, no violence), but they receive very brutal response from the riot police and the milita. The state-run television calls millions of people as “terrorists” and “hooligans”!!!!

What I explained about is a domestic unrest and the consequences of an Islamic Fascist regime in power. But, the global consequences of such regime in power will definitely affect the lives of people worldwide either directly or indirectly. The regime who does not fear to slaughter its own people, have no mercy on  other nations. As an Iranian student who has so many restrictions to get his voice out of Iran, I do kindly ask you all to inform your families, friends and colleagues in every possible way about the awful situation in Iran. This Islamic Fascist regime is not to be officially recognized by the world.

This is exactly what President Obama was referring to in his statement yesterday:

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

I wrote back to my friend last night asking him whether he was sure he wanted me to post his message, and got this in response:

That would be great if you post my message on your blog. Don’t worry, I’m a tough cookie. What hurts is not my own injuries or my family’s, but the people especially very young people who lost their lives on the streets. I saw a teenage girl die in the arms of her father. I don’t know really what to say. I feel so bad. Any attempt to spread the information about Iran is well-appreciated. The world needs to know.

I don’t know what else I can do at this point except act as a conduit and hope other people read this.

Filed under: Thing of the Day

Iran

As I write this disclaimer, the one that says that I’m not looking to draw any sort of parallel between the Islamic Republic of Iran’s current media crackdown and the filtering policy employed by the school district in which I work, I realize that you, the reader, are probably going to assume that I, as a teacher who works in a school with a really dumb strict filtering policy, am going to draw such a parallel. If you see it, it’s your problem, not mine. You savvy?

 

Once again, there’s massive political turmoil in a country in which I have good friends.  I remember the protests in Serbia in early 2008, and the worry I felt for my friend Alek, whom I’d met in Scotland the year before.  And the violent demonstrations in Greece later that year, during which I hoped fervently that Ioanna would keep her head down.  Now, in June of 2009, with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad apparently the victor in a very fishy looking election, I hope that Kasra and Amir and their friends and loved ones are safe.

I think, though, that the current situation in Iran represents the danger of insisting that your way of doing things is the only correct way, to the exclusion of all other opinions, methods, or beliefs.  In any human endeavour, there has to be communication and empathy.  Hardliners in any situation–whether it be a theocratic dictatorship or a family squabble–prevent reason from prevailing.  Shutting out the other side’s views can’t work.

We see that in Iran right now.  The government has blocked a lot of internet traffic, as well as disabled text-messaging and cell-phone transmissions.   It can’t shut everything down, though.  As stupid as Twitter seems to be–and that would be plenty stupid–it might have found its niche as a way to disseminate otherwise-censored information:

Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, says Iran — like a university campus — pipes the Internet into the country through a central, controlled gateway. That allows the government to block Web sites and do other kinds of filtering.

But, like resourceful American students in search of Facebook, many Iranians can get around blocks, using proxies and other methods. Complicating matters for the authorities, Zittrain says, is the fact that social networking services tend to be decentralized.

Twitter and other proxy-accessible social networking sites are great for calling the world’s attention to what’s happening as the regime attempts to impose a national blackout.  The current state of Iran + Twitter offers some very interesting educational possibilities, too, according to Will.  Even more importantly, though, the voices of dissent online remind the regime that their claim to the only official reality is shaky.  It is important to remind those with whom we disagree that we disagree–not necessarily in a violent confrontation, but in a respectful way.

My parents will celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary later this year.  I didn’t grow up in a calm family; however, we generally were good at letting each other know when we disagreed with what was happening.  There were screaming matches, of course, and tantrums and silent treatments and that sort of stuff.  But under all of that was an undercurrent of constructive criticism that, when I look back on it, has led to a pretty strong bond between the five of us to this day.  My sister and I were talking yesterday about how, despite our definite lack of family perfection, we are in a much better place than a lot of families we know, where the adult children now don’t speak to each other or their parents, let alone acknowledge their existence.

Conflating a repressive regime with the comparative insignificance of suburban American family dynamics is kind of silly, I admit, but my head’s been in this space for the past few weeks.  Since Erica and I got engaged in early May (and even before that) one of the things I’ve been trying to figure out is how our two very different immediate families will become one.  Her family is more traditionally welcoming, I think, than mine–it could just be because I’m still a guest when I go over there, but they’re quicker than my family is to do the traditional host/hostess stuff.  My family is mostly quieter and less protective, but when things blow up, they blow up pretty big.  Both families are capable of holding grudges (I still don’t know why my parents and one of my aunt/uncle sets didn’t speak for years when I was in middle and high school) and both families are capable of astounding demonstrations of love and affection.  

When we try to imagine what our family will be like, we naturally gravitate toward the environments in which we each grew up.  I foresee myself as a parent the way my parents were (and are) parents, and Erica does the same thing for her family.  The reality, of course, is that neither of our families will be the exact model for the new unit that we’re creating.  All we can do is try to emulate what we admire and attempt to avoid the negative examples that have been set.  It’s not going to be easy, but I know we’re both up to the challenge.

Filed under: Matters Political, Thing of the Day

Wedding FAQs

Erica & I, originally uploaded by One Ping Only.

When are you getting married?
Some time between May and October of 2010, give or take.

How many people are you inviting?
Not very many. Start looking for your Golden Tickets.

Why?
We believe in paying for it ourselves. Also, we’ve each been to big weddings and haven’t had too much fun at them. I personally think it’s awesome when everyone at a wedding gets to meet some new people and it turns into the kind of party that everyone can enjoy.

Where is it going to be?
Outside. On the beach if at all possible. Somewhere between New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Jeff, how do you feel about weddings in general?
I don’t want to have a wedding, but I want to be married. Erica signed up for an account on The Knot, which made me twitch a bit. There are so many people who want to sell you things when you decide to get married. It’s kind of distasteful, I think. As soon as it got to the point where there’s so much minutia involved in a modern wedding that you need to hire someone to keep track of everything for you, weddings officially jumped the shark.

I’m not that cheap, but I also don’t want to get sold a bunch of stuff we don’t need. I want everything to be simple, somewhat classy, and fun. The way we are as a couple.

The most important thing is that we’re getting married and having a party. That’s all there is to it.

Filed under: Thing of the Day

Jeff Wasserman is engaged.

What awaited us, originally uploaded by One Ping Only.

I don’t have Facebook, so I knew I’d have to miss out on the awesomely postmodern way of letting people know about major changes to my life. So instead, I popped the question and brought Erica to a surprise gathering of our friends and loved ones. Now everyone who needs to know knows.

We spent today, our first full day of being betrothed, running grown-up errands (including ordering a couch and a chair for our new apartment). Everywhere we went, Erica kept checking out the ring, which isn’t even the real ring. The real ring that she’ll be sporting has yet to be made. It’ll use the diamond from her great-grandmother’s engagement ring, but she’ll be designing the setting, since the antique ring’s setting is damaged to the point where it can’t be used.

I love the idea of Erica wearing something from her ancestry on her finger. I feel like it connects me to her family and brings the past to the present and the future.

There’s plenty more to write about this whole thing, but I’m going to save that for another day. Right now, I’m just enjoying this brand-new feeling of officialness, of a major turning point turned, of overwhelming emotion every time I see Erica’s finger glinting in the light.

Filed under: Thing of the Day

PJ Harvey and John Parish go off the boil.

Let me give some context for what I’m about to say about PJ Harvey and John Parish’s new album, “A Woman a Man Walked by”…

I am a PJ Harvey obsessive. Her last CD, ‘White Chalk’ easily made the top of my best albums list for 2007. It was the kind of record which made me want to go and spend a couple of thousand dollars on a piano (which I can’t play) and spend the next year trying to write even a single line a haunting as those she had put down. The list of great work from PJ Harvey doesn’t end there. Who can forget albums like “Is this desire?,” with its vicious industrial scrawl, or the exquisite “Songs from the City, Songs from the Sea.” Just in case I haven’t made my point, perhaps I can introduce my cats: tabby female “Polly Jean” and long haired ginger female “Harvey.” Yes, when I fixate…

So it’s a sad day when I come to “A Woman a Man Walked by” and have to admit that it has some serious problems. There are some dubious lyrical choices. The lyrics to “April” seem surprisingly prosaic, for example. “Pig Will Not” ends with Harvey shouting “I will not” again and again, and makes you wonder if she really has anything to say this time around.

There are still some great, moving, tracks, like “Passionless, Pointless” and “Leaving California,” but the overall album is very uneven. I’m a little more bitter at this because the single, “Black Hearted Love” is deceptively like an excellent track from “Songs from the City…,” so it raised my hopes that this might be the best new release of the year from an established act. That accolade still goes to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs right now (perhaps until Maximo Park next month?). Meanwhile I’m sad to say Harvey needs to rethink things a little, if she’s to produce the great new music I know she is still capable of.

[Nick also writes for Ryan's Smashing Life and Nick Sounds Off]

Filed under: Matters Musical & Artistic

Apparently, this site is worth something.

Our old domain, rhinosplode.com, lapsed a couple of years ago. Someone bought it and wants $648 for it. Six hundred forty-eight dollars. For a domain name.
Now, I’m not knocking the ‘Splode–it’s a decent little site, after all–but $648? In its current incarnation as a WordPress blog, our biggest day in terms of pageviews was just over 50. That’s not very much at all, even in this age when everyone and their moms have blogs. My mom does not yet have a blog. –Ed.
But I guess it’s worth something. I’m assuming the value of domain names is determined by some weird formula involving searches or something. It couldn’t be that some shady character is convinced that what we have to say here is worth shelling out $648 for, could it?
Anyway, I’d maintain that this place is worth something. As a group blog (a very small group, but that can change), the writing here is certainly a bit more polished than your average tweet. The value, though, at least for me, lies in the community that we have–er, had–on Rhinosplode. There was a lot of writing here, and photos and jokes and all kinds of other stuff, including a thriving message board. And I’d love to have that back, but I think the times have moved on and left this sort of site behind.
Still, it’s kind of fun to go to the Wayback Machine and look through some of the old things. Like this letter, reprinted in its entirety:

Dear Rhinosplode,

I have recently had the misfortune of being hounded by gypsy ladies who want me to kiss their baby. Please send me as many free products as possible.

Yours truly,
A concerned citizen

Filed under: Matters Technological, Thing of the Day

I’m leaving Facebook.

Garage, originally uploaded by One Ping Only.

And no, it has nothing to do with the new layout or whatever–it’s ugly and dumb and too Twittery for pretty much anyone’s tastes, but that’s got nothing to do with it.

The problem is that Facebook doesn’t do anything better than any other app, and yet it’s way more time-consuming.

Let’s see–what have I used Facebook for recently?

• Looking at photos of lots of people smiling, most of whom I don’t know. I have a Flickr account that’s way more flexible than the Facebook photo app.
• Mail. I have an email address. Gmail works great. Also, even our super-retentive network filter at work lets us check email.
• Finding out what friends are doing. Actual human contact is kind of cool, as are phones. Email’s good enough. Twitter? Not so much.
• Getting invited to events. If someone really wants me to go, they’ll call, text, or email. Just no more evites, please, okay?
• Promoting shows. We’ve been using Facebook to invite people to Terryl Lee Band shows, but we’ve got a mailing list that’s better.

What else do I do online? I follow a couple dozen blogs via RSS, use Google Docs for my word processing, and occasionally stream some audio.

The worst part about this is that I feel like I’m just doing the electronic equivalent of telling you kids to get the hell off my lawn. I’m not anti-Facebook the way some of my colleagues are. I definitely get it. I get Facebook so much, in fact, that I’ve let myself waste way more time on it than I care to admit publically.

And that’s really why I’m looking to bail out. I want to get some time back. With Facebook, I found myself logging in to check one or two things–who’s coming to a show, for example, or whether I was tagged in the photos from last weekend’s festivities–and then 30, 45, 60 minutes would go by as I checked people’s status updates, photos, news, etc. And I think I’d like that time back. Checking email and reading stuff via RSS, while time-consuming, is much more manageable, with much less of a sense of urgency and transience.

I’m reclaiming my time in the only way I know how–pulling myself out of what for me has become a huge timesuck. I want to use my after-work Facebook time for getting stuff done, so that I can then spend more evening and weekend time with the people I love. I might even start reading more, or watching the movies that Netflix sends me, or taking more pictures, or spending more time outside. None of these are bad things, and Facebook isn’t either. It’s just not for me anymore.

I’m shrinking my world, in a good way. And I’m still not going the Luddite route–I’m actually planning on spending the weekend upgrading my laptop so I can do more with it–and I still believe in social networking. It’s just that I need more control over how much information I feel like I need to deal with in any given day. My soul needs to select its own society, as Emily Dickinson might say.

Filling the time will be easy. Spring is here.

Filed under: Matters Technological