The Power of Unfinished History

Bannerman’s Castle as it looks today. Via Artificial Owl

We’ve already written about the underwhelming first, and every other impression Penn Station makes upon your arrival – be it on the train, subway or from street level. It makes Soviet architecture look lively and warm. Even during its most packed and maddening rush hour moments, Grand Central Terminal maintains a grandeur that excuses the hustle and bustle of the suburban commuters and bewildered tourists.

The only justification that excuses the madhouse that Penn Station can be is the promise of the beautiful scenery flying by your window no matter your destination – north along the Hudson, New England-bound as you hug the Atlantic or south as the train runs through the Chesapeake region. A word to the wise, the absolute worst time to find yourself in Penn Station is Friday during afternoon rush hour. Not only are tens of thousands of commuters making their way home, a fair amount of them already tipsy, but you’ve got a litany of sold-out Amtrak trains loaded with families on vacation, tourists exploring the US by rail and long-distance commuters trying to get home. It’s a combustible cocktail of exhaustion, anxiety and weariness that can test the nerves of the most hardy traveler.

But even the worst Penn Station experiences can be wiped from the memory quickly. Last Friday, just minutes after departing Penn Station for Vermont, as the train rumbled over the Harlem River into the Bronx, the stressful wait at Penn Station had begun to slip away. As the train made it way up the Hudson with the sun settling gracefully over the Catskills, giving the river a golden hue, the hullabalo that is Penn Station disapeared from my thoughts.

That’s the great thing about the ride between New York City and Albany, no matter the weather or the time of the day, the river and it’s surrounding environs are a cathartic bubble if you’re lucky enough to catch a window seat and find yourself in the right state of mind. At night, the lights of the bridges and the small hamlets on the western banks periodically illuminate the river. In the rain, the raindrops, at the right angle look like skips of rocks bouncing over the water and on partly cloudy days filled with a bright sun, it’s easy to understand why a school of art was named after  the body of water.

For me, the best moment comes about an hour out of New York City. For the entirety of the ride, the Hudson River is dotted with speed boats and kayakers, lighthouses and puttering tugboats hauling barges to the port. While these are picturesque, nothing comes close to the the abandoned structure near Fishkill, that is a few hundred yards from land. It looks like it could be the mansion in Jane Eyre – after the fire.

Having ridden this route consistently since 2003, this relic of another century has always left me wondering – who lived there? What was it like to call that building home in a time when the natural beauty of the lower Hudson Valley must have been less hemmed in and towns and cities along the rivers banks were the exception, instead of the norm? What was it like living there through the coldest of winters where people could cross the river simply by walking on the ice? How stunningly jaw-dropping was it to stand on those grounds in the middle of the most perfect summer nights as the constellations were plastered on the sky as if they were nightlights on a ceiling?

For years, my lack of knowledge allowed my imagination to wander about the Victorian and Gilded era opulence that the mansion once could have been and the stories of the scions and their brood who called the place home. And to the eventual destruction of the place – was it overnight? Did it creep upon the estate as the last of the family line aged and was unable to maintain the building financially, physically or both? What type of Franzenian (yea, I turned his name into a verb) family drama ensued that sealed the fate of this once imposing structure? Could it be restored? Would it make any sense to do that? What would it be like to live in the restored grandeur of a 19th Century mansion in the middle of the Hudson?

One of the castle’s exterior walls – Via HudsonValleyRuins.org

Knowledge may be power, but when it comes to confirming the perceptions you’ve honed for years with little basis besides your imagination and fictional narratives imbued in your psyche from years of English class assigned novels, knowledge can be the ultimate downer. During my last trip to Penn Station on Amtrak, I finally decided to Wikipedia the building that had long enchanted me.

Located on Pollepel Island, the structure is Bannerman’s Castle. Built by Francis Bannerman in the early 20th Century, it was intended for his military surplus business. Bannerman needed a place to store his more than 30 million surplus munitions cartridges because his storeroom on Broadway was, naturally, not the best place for these items. However, when he died in 1918, construction stopped. And that began the downward slide that has left the structure in the dilapidated state it’s in today. A portion of the building was destroyed from an explosion involving 200 tons of shells and powder a few years later. The structure was all but abanoned after the ferry serving the island sank in the 1950s. Just a few weeks before man landed on the moon in 1969, a fire destroyed much of the building. The final ignominy for this imposing castle came just a few years ago when a sizable portion of the structure’s front and east walls collapsed.

Like the Titanic, crumbling away as it suffers at the hands of time and nature, Bannerman’s Castle, standing in the middle of the Hudson, is probably not long for this world. In a decade or two or maybe three, this once glorious, unfinished structure will be no more. Who knows how many riders, from the glory years of passenger rail zipping across the Empire State on the New York Central, to the bleak days of the downtrodden Penn Central or today’s travelers on Amtrak and Metro North let their minds wander as this structure, intended to house military curio and relics, caught their eye? Structures like Bannerman’s Castle may remain unfinished in reality, but their unfinished nature gives our imagination the opportunity to right the wrongs unleashed by the unforgiving hands of time and nature.

Sonic Monday: Heartbreaker by The Walkmen [Video]

By the time your second semester of freshmen year at college rolls around, you known both your limitations – that sixth can of Natty Light in the last 90 minutes was one too many – and how far you can push the envelope – waiting till the night before a ten-page paper is due to start writing: yes; waiting to study for a mid-term till the night before said exam: not so much.

All suited up and it’s a school inservice day – Via Pitchfork

Routines also become easier to fall into. Once a week during the spring semester  of my freshmen year at Seton Hall, one of my roommates and I had the same hour-and-a-half block of time in the afternoon free. Invariably, we would play Grand Theft Auto and listen to whatever new CD I’d purchased in Hoboken. One of those felonious afternoons, we listened to Electric Version by The New Pornographers. For some reason, while unleashing utter destruction in GTA, we unknowingly sketched out a very intricate mumblecore movie about the folks living in our dorm suite, using each song in the album as a plot point. This cinematic crafting hadn’t happened before and never happened again, but it gave me an appreciation for songs that sound like they should be in a movie.

From the opening chords of “Heartbreaker,” one of the songs off The Walkmen’s forthcoming album Heaven, to the lyrics and the pacing of the drums, this song sounds like it should play during the opening credits of a good movie.

I’ve been listening to The Walkmen since 2004. Every one of their albums that consists of original material has explored similar sonic terrain while highlighting the variety of sounds that exist in that space. “Heartbreaker” signals a change to that method. Compared to songs off of Bows + Arrows and You and Me, “Heartbreaker” is downright upbeat. Lyrics like, “I’m not your heartbreaker/ Some tender ballad player,” have a vitality and energy to them. Hamilton Leithauser’s vocals have always been powerful and emotional, but in an angry, somber or resigned way. When Leithauser sings “These are the good years/ Ahh the best, we’ll never know,” it’s call to embrace the present, enjoy what we’ve got in front of us and who we’ve got around us. Much the same way, the heartbreaker/ballad player lyrics are both a promise of what he won’t do and also a quick acknowledgment of what he won’t be.

The unique thing for me about this song is that the order in which I heard it is totally backwards. Typically, I listen to the album (and song) ad nauseam leading up to a show, hearing the way the band’s studio intentions before seeing how the tune lives in an open space, performed by folks who’ve really only got one take to get it right. I heard “Heartbreaker” for the first time sitting in the front row of the balcony at BAM. This and other songs off of the upcoming album were totally new to me. I had no preconceived notions of what the lyrics meant or how the vocals would interplay with the instruments in a live setting. Maybe, most important, these songs had yet to make or leave their mark on me emotionally. Sitting in the breathtaking Gilman Opera House at BAM for The Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Festival, I was a blank canvas when these songs played.

The Walkmen, Circa 2004 – Via Clashmusic.com

Even when it was just Hamilton on stage with an acoustic guitar singing “Southern Heart,” a song about a guy who has bourbon in his blood and other Southern characteristics, there was an unexpected peacefulness in the band’s sound. I recently read an interview in Pitchfork where Leithauser discussed the new album. It came up that ten years in, all the guys in The Walkmen are now married and have kids. Is there any possibility that these new sentiments appearing on Heaven come from those changes in the band members’ lives? The utter despondency of “Thinking of a Dream I Had” – lyrically and sonically – has been replaced by a mindset that isn’t teetering on morbid depression and has a far healthier grasp of the world.

One last thing about this song is the still image The Walkmen put on the YouTube video. The photo is of Pete Bower, the band’s bassist, and his wife and two children. As someone who lives in Park Slope, I see elementary school students wearing geek chic on weekends and toddlers who probably think my green chucks are so high school. Maybe so, but the kid in the picture, all suited up, looks like he is on his way to the best 1920s-themed pre-teen birthday party ever.

Petition: Tell New Jersey Transit to Stop Scare-Mongering

New Jersey Transit will scare you on the train. And they will scare you in The Times.

SIGN THE PETITION

Last fall, I wrote about a series of ads I had seen plastered on New Jersey Transit trains that were particularly tasteless and offensive. The ad was part of NJT’s “We’re All on the Front Line” message about the need for all of us to be on the look out for dangerous and suspicious activity that could lead to an attack.

This ad was offensive on two levels. First, it used a photo from the March 11, 2004 train bombings in Madrid. Beyond just showing the wreckage of a blown-out train, it showed several victims’ bodies covered by tarps. This willingness to casually display the dead in a PSA is tasteless.

Think about the language being used and the imagery. The implication is that commuters in Madrid weren’t aware they were on the front lines and that is why 192 commuters killed and nearly 2,000 were injured. So, beware New Jersey Transit riders, unless you realize every single one of us is on the front-lines, you might leave us vulnerable to attack.

No longer finding myself on New Jersey Transit that often, I didn’t think much about the ad till I opened up this Wednesday’s New York Times. In the Times’s New York section was the very same ad. I was so disappointed to see New Jersey Transit trying to revive this campaign that I set-up a petition at Change.org calling on New Jersey Transit to pull these ads. Please ad your name. I’ve also re-posted below the original piece I wrote in September about these ads.

Add your name here.

————-

See something, say something.

This catchphrase is omnipresent in New York City subways, buses, and commuter trains. It has become ubiquitous as the tagline for the MTA’s efforts to get riders to be alert and aware of their surroundings. Earlier this year, Boston’s transit authority unveiled ads with oversized backpacks and other items left behind nefariously with the tagline, “Its never this obvious.”  While these campaigns have been mocked on a variety of levels, there is something we can all agree on: they don’t terror-monger.

Meet New Jersey Transit’s latest safety related ad campaign.

New Jersey Transit is Scaremongering!

Unlike the MTA and T, which use staged photo shoots or photoshopped images for their ad graphics, New Jersey Transit used an image from the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings. Coordinated bombings on four trains during the morning rush hour killed 192 individuals and injured nearly 2,000. Look at that photo again, four of those fatalities feature prominently in this ad.

The only attribution the image has is “Train Bombing.” This is overshadowed, however, by the large fonted, multi-colored tagline that is in all caps, “WE’RE ALL ON THE FRONT LINES.” Seriously, New Jersey Transit? Every single one of us is on the front lines? If that is the case, why I have never once seen a train with NJ Transit Police riding on it? Or bag checks like those done on the NYC subway or PATH? Sure there are soldiers and police dogs at New York-Penn Station, but that is primarily Amtrak related and it does us riders no good at busy stations like Secaucus, Newark-Penn Station, Trenton, and other high trafficked routes.

Now more than ten years after the September 11 attacks, most regular commuters are used to these types public service ads. I’ll admit I saw this ad twice before really noticing it and the accompanying photo. Beyond engaging in ineffective terror-mongering, it is also horribly insensitive.

Maybe it is the fact that no Americans perished in the Madrid bombings, but using a photo of the aftermath, one that includes four bodies covered in sheets is beyond the pale. What would happen if an airport in another country, say Paris’ Charles de Gaulle used an iconic image from September 11 in a public service ad calling on all travelers and airport staff to be alert and prepared?

We don’t need to guess. Check out this Gawker post that compiles the five worst ads that use the September 11 attacks. Even the subtlest of references to that day can send ad folks scurrying back to the drawing board. In the days before the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released and then edited an ad that had a plane flying low over the Manhattan skyline in support of David Weprin’s special election campaign.

Ads that blatantly use the imagery of an American national tragedy are rightly rejected and criticized. If we expect others to respect our wishes to keep our loss and the memory of those who perished sacred, we should do unto them the same. New Jersey Transit, take down those ads.

A Plea to Reporters: Stop Talking About the 2016 Presidential Election

An Apt Metaphor for Mittens - Via ABC News

I can stomach a days worth of tweets about etch-a-sketches. I can even handle an hour of tweets about etch-a-sketch and Mitt Romney’s dog, Seamus.

I am less patient when it comes to all things Tim Tebow. From his uber-obvious mediocrity as a QB to the on-again, off-again, on-again trade to the Jets.

But the one thing that gets my goat – every damn time it comes up is articles about the 2016 presidential election. No less, 2016 frontrunners! Seriously? We’re already talking about this? Do you hear anybody talking about who is going to represent the US in the 2016 Summer Olypmics? No, because there is a little thing called the 2012 summer olympics. People aren’t even talking the midterms – its my pet name for the Winter Olympics.

You know, it would be understandable if so much more had already happened. Like the Republican candidate had locked up the nomination. Or selected a Vice-Presidential running mate. Or how about started to run a national campaign after the convention in St. Petersburg.

With a third of the US Senate seats up for election, all 435 Congressional seats, a bushel of governorships, and a boatload of State Representatives and Senators on the line this November, it isn’t as if there is a lack of important stories for journalists to dig into.

Yesterday’s Roll Call article, “2016 Frontrunners Diverge on Redistricting,” is the second prominent article I’ve seen recently that devotes a significant amount of ink to the Democratic Governors of New York and Maryland, Andrew Cuomo and Martin O’Malley. Even crazier, it tries to extrapolate their place in the Democratic Party based on each state’s redistricting fight! A Sunday Times article from February goes even further and hyping up long-time electeds like Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Not to be outdone, Politico went all in today, in what I can only imagine is their effort to win every morning between now and January 20, 2017 with the top of the page article, “Joe Biden in 2016? Not So Crazy.” The impetus for this piece is that Biden, who will be 73 in 2016, has started to put together a top-flight staff with no indication of the rationale behind these moves. And then throw in a West Wing-reference to fights between POTUS and VPOTUS and you got yourself a top story of the morning. Unless, these folks are being hired to run the Joseph Biden Institute on International Relations, High-Speed Rail, Baseball and All Things Awesome, lets focus on some substantive news.

The prize for earliest article has got to go to the New York Observer’s David Freedlander who wrote up the clash between Cuomo and O’Malley last November! Before the first Republican primary voter had cast a vote!

Articles about 2016 have a lot in common with this logo - Via GamesBid.com

Lets put a stop to this craziness now! Maybe reporters are addicted to the horse race of politics, but even if they are, why are they jockeying for a race that is still years away from even reaching the starting gate. There is a horse race happening right now! Even if the GOP is beginning to coalesce around Romney, it’s not, for lack of a better phrase, signed, sealed, and delivered. We don’t know what type of tomfoolery could happen at the Republican convention in St. Petersburg. We don’t know what the general election will bring.

There is no question that 2016 will matter. But we kind of have an election going on right now and wouldn’t it be nice if we just focused on that? Who would want to miss a campaign trail reference to another “quintessentially American” toy by getting in a tizzy a governor who might run in 2016 or might bomb in the run-up to the run-up? Hey, Bobby Jindal!

Looking Backwards to See Penn Station’s Future

The magnificent original Penn Station - Via Wikipedia

There is something magical about the approach to New York on a Penn Station-bound train. Arriving from points North, the train rumbles under the George Washington Bridge before racing alongside the Hudson River and the West Side Highway’s traffic. Trains from points South pull out of Newark and within moments are flying through the Meadowlands with Midtown’s skyline glistening in the distance. Both of those entrances pale in comparison to the beauty of the Hell’s Gate approach. Rising over the confluence of the Harlem and East rivers and the Long Island Sound, a passenger with a window seat at sunset or in the evening feels like they are gliding through a movie before rushing over Astoria and diving underground towards Midtown.

This magic is fleeting. That bridge – Hell’s Gate – is named after the impact that the confluence of rivers has on the water, but it could very well describe what awaits any passenger getting off the train at Penn Station.

It’s important to remember the Penn Station we have today is not our grandfather’s Penn Station. Especially, as the MTA made a big to do yesterday about Grand Central Terminal’s upcoming 100th anniversary next year. Rightfully so. It is the Crown Jewel of American Rail Terminals, up there with Union Stations in Chicago, Los Angeles and DC, respectively.

There is another rail terminal anniversary coming up in 2013 that New Yorkers would be wise to take note of. Next year is the fiftieth anniversary of the demolition of the original Penn Station, knocked down to make room for Madison Square Garden and a handful of non-descript office buildings.

At the time of the demolition of the Beaux-Arts station structure which had opened in 1910, The New York Times wrote, “a city gets what it wants, is willing to pay for, and ultimately deserves.”

That editorial central message still resonates. Especially when it comes to Penn Station. The modernized Penn Station is a haphazard bunker doubling as the  entry point for hundreds of thousands of travelers. Beyond just the aesthetic shortcomings, long painfully obvious in this “improvement,” the station is now reaching a critical juncture.

Beaux-Arts knew how to make an entrance - Via Wikipedia

Long at capacity, Penn Station’s future is joined at the hip, in some ways, with the future of high-speed rail in the United States. As it stands today, the station serves as the mid-point in America’s only answer for high speed rail, the Acela-traversed Northeast Corridor. In spite of Congressional obstinance and construction delays, I’d be willing to bet Mitt Romney’s $10,000, we will one day see European style high-speed rail in this country. Amtrak has already proposed a next-generation HSR corridor that would halve travel times between DC and Boston.

The only way to bring more trains into New York City is to increase the number of tracks coming in – currently two under the Hudson and four under the East River – and the number of platforms available.

This is where that Times editorial is just as relevant today as it was almost fifty years ago. We get what we pay for and what we deserve. Maybe you’ve heard about Moynihan Station. The efforts to restore the grandeur of old Penn Station would be achieved by moving Amtrak across the street to the equally Beaux-Art Farley Post Office. In 2006, construction for both phases of Moynihan Station was projected at a cool $3.2 billion dollars. Want to guess how many more trains that $3.2 billion would be able to bring into Penn Station? Or how many of those would be new High-Speed consists? If you guessed zero, you’d be spot-on. Right now, just phase 1 which includes the entrance at the post office and some new stairs has been funded, with construction set to wrap up in 2016

Is it a mall? Is it a bunker? No, it's "modern" Penn Station!

I get the desire to bring the Beaux-Art Penn Station back from dead. In a perfect world, I’d be camping out like there were new Apple products about to be sold in the run-up to its opening. But, we live in a world of finite resources, especially when it comes to public transit in general, and passenger rail infrastructure in particular. If we throw money to aesthetic projects, we make it harder to increase train capacity and improve the infrastructure to the point that it can handle next generation high speed rail.

Historian Vincent Scully may be right that where “One entered the city like a god one scuttles in now like a rat.” Penn Station remains the busiest passenger transportation facility in the United States, serving 1,000 passengers every 90 seconds. As our population continues to grow and rail becomes a more popular mode of traveling, once again, our infrastructure will need to meet this increased demands. Count me as one scurrying rat who wants federal and state funds going towards increased capacity and improved infrastructure in lieu of cosmetic improvements. It would be our generation’s Penn Station demolition to do otherwise.

Defending Mister Rogers

Aaron Gell Doesn't Like Mr. Rogers - Via Museum.tv

I am not what you would call a Friend of Fred.

Maybe it was because I had a stay at home Dad who would take me with him as he criss-crossed the city to run errands and attend political events, but I never religiously watched Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood growing up.

My early television memories are of Sesame Street, Cheers and the news. But as I’ve gotten older, particularly, after his show ended, I came to appreciate Fred Rogers’ impact, from saving funding for public television in the late 1960s to his considerable kindness to everyone. Nevertheless, having missed out as a child, I never felt a strong personal connection to him.

Until yesterday. When the New York Observer published “The Crimes of Mister Rogers: He Meow-Meow Lied to Us Meow.” Ostensibly a review of the PBS documentary, Mister Rogers & Me, Aaron Gell decides to not only tear into the documentary, but that it is high time somebody finally called out Fred Rogers for the irreparable harm he did to millions of Americans by exposing them to the negative impact television has had over the last five decades.

Gell tries to argue that Mr. Rogers “encouraged a deeply personal relationship to television that did more harm than good.”

Not only is this thesis unprovable and it’s not like Gell even tries, it is downright ridiculous. He wants us to believe that just because kids get inundated with a ton of ads – ads that run excessively on Nickelodeon and the networks during Saturday morning cartoons, it is Rogers who set those millions on a downward spiral toward commercialized zombieism. It’s a claim so astounding, I find it hard to refute in any way other than to let you just think about it for a few seconds.

You can read this poor excuse for a review if you want, or you can read this Salon article that does critique the documentary for its very evident flaws, while explaining the real impact that Fred Rogers had on generations of children. I suggest you choose the latter and to help in that choice, I’ve excerpted some of the worst low-lights from the Observer’s “review.” Stick around for the coup de grace that is the last excerpt.

By painstakingly cementing an ardent emotional attachment to the medium in his innocent viewers, he groomed us for a lifetime of exploitation.

That is some exceptionally hyperbolic imagery Gell drops on us. Its like he wants us to imagine Rogers hanging outside his windowless van, plying us with candy just to force us to watch hours of commercials once the door slides closed.

Mr. Wagner was celebrating his 30th birthday, and Mr. Rogers ambled over to say hi. (Maybe he was bored – it was just a month after he’d taped the final episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood.)

There is nothing atrocious here. I just like it as an example of how Gell, who should be reviewing a documentary, decides instead to just mock Rogers for being a good neighbor.

Mr. Wagner was then working for MTV, and feeling guilty about it. He was a guy with a ‘PBS mind,’ as he puts it, ‘in a jump-cut, sound-bit MTV world, trying to figure out what I can do to make it a better place.

Maybe Gell has never had to take a job at the start of his career to get his foot in the door in an industry, but as a late-20 something, I know the feeling of being in a job where you know you can do more and are trying to make that a reality. I’m sure Gell has a diatribe ready to take down Jim Henson for starting his career in commercial making and how that colors everything he ever did.

Eventually, though, it began to down on many Mister Rogers viewers – maybe around the time we discovered Sesame Street – that we’d been duped. That guy in the TV didn’t know us at all!

The kicker is the line that comes after that, “WTF Fred?” Classy!

By tricking me into believing that watching his show was a genuine lived experience, he helped turn me and many other kids into perfect targets for those 1 million commercials we’d soon be exposed to.

Don't forget, Mr. Rogers put Congress in its place back in the day - Via AmericanRhetoric.com

The translation: Screw you Fred. Gell took more than two pages to draft a screed against a man who aimed to make television a positive in the lives of children. Instead of blaming Fred Rogers, maybe Gell should be taking issue with his parents decision to plop him in front of the television.

Gell’s critique is the worst kind of social criticism. It extrapolates personal anecdotes for social impacts. It is the poster child for that Latin phrase, “Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.” Gell sees something hapenning after Rogers show started to air and concludes that Rogers is nothing more than a naive peddler of child-exploiting commercials and shows. I see what has happened since Rogers show started airing and say, “Thank God for Fred providing an island of thoughtfulness in an ocean of for-profit cartoons.”

I’d hate for this post to end on such a less-than-positive note, so I believe it is fitting to share with you my favorite Fred Rogers moment, which comes from the 1997 Emmys. Take it away, Fred.

Sonic Monday: Shout Out Louds and Billy Joel

Ferris: Tonight I Have To Leave It by Shout Out Louds

Shout Out Louds - Via Awmusic.ca

The Shout Out Louds have a special place in my heart. Not only was their debut album, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, on constant repeat during the summer of 2005, but when I saw them in person in July 2008 at the Brooklyn venue Warsaw, it was and still is the best concert I’ve been to in person.

With Saturday Looks Good To Me opening, the two-band billed were pitch perfect. The Shout Out Louds owned the room from the first chord. They mixed in songs from the album they were supporting at the time, Our Ill Wills, with songs from their first album. There is no one particular moment at the concert that stands out for me. Instead, it was after the show, when the crowd seemed to be walking in a caravan to the subway. In the moment, it was almost as if none of us wanted the evening to end.

The first single off of Our Ill Wills was “Tonight I Have to Leave It.” When Our Ill Wills came out, I remember one review saying it had a more autumnal, chillier feel than Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, which despite several sad songs, was more of a spring album.

With lead singer Adam Olenius singing about leaving and searching for something real, it’s fitting that the music video takes place on an ocean-faring freighter. With nods to the ships port of call and life on the open seas, the video feels cold and welcoming at the same time. Kind of how I imagine life in Scandinavia to be.

Rusty: Worst Comes to Worse by Billy Joel

When Billy Joel released Piano Man in 1973, it was a triumphant return to music that would resonate for decades to come.  Fed up with his old record label, William Martin adopted his middle name and hit the LA music scene and piano bars.  It was there, along with some of his greatest hits, that he penned “New Mexico.”  Released on Piano Man with the new monicker “Worst Comes to Worst”, the song encapsulated the the album.  Weaving between friendly yet mysterious women, life on the road, and an introspective evaluation of life in the present, the song remains one of Joel’s most underrated (in my opinion).

Billy Joel has aged considerably but still delivers the goods- Photo courtesy of Flickr user Jeaneeem

In the summer of 2009, I was sitting on my front step and surfing the web when I noticed that Joel was hosting a show in Hersey Park that night.  I immediately contacted my mother and asked if she would like to go (Joel is one of the few bonds we share).  It was well-worth the phone call.  Traveling for hours to see an aged but unmatched performer, my experience that day was the epitome of freedom and traveling for all the right reasons.  Even as we waited in traffic for an hour to leave the venue, knowing that we would be home close to dawn, my mother and myself lived in the moment and enjoyed the impromptu road trip.  After all, we had just watched a legend.

As Joel sings in “Worst Comes to Worse”,

Lightning and thunder
Flashed across the roads we drove upon
Oh, but it’s clear skies we’re under
When I am together, when I sing the song.

I hope that you all have had those moments, and plan more for this summer.  No matter the hassle or weight upon your mind, sometimes a simple trip or activity can change your whole perspective- at the very least, for one night.  Years later, I savor the trip and plan on many more this year.  Sure, sometimes it takes planning and resources.  What’s more important, though, is that you make the decision in the first place.  As Joel would put it, “It doesn’t matter which direction.”