"The Heat This Time of Year is Ridiculous": Kale Returns to Glasgow

During a plane’s descent, there comes that splendid moment when the clouds suddenly pull apart, revealing patchwork farmlands, picturesque villages or sprawling cities underneath. I anticipated the familiar stretches of green as I was about to visit Scotland for the third time (I lived there first as an exchange student and second as a Masters student). At first, as the plane drifted lower and lower, the layers of cloud opened only to more layers of cloud. When the ground below was finally visible, we were close enough to see that it had rained recently, suddenly reminding me of the cold, wet realities of Scottish weather.

It had been thirteen months since my incredibly happy year in Glasgow ended, giving-way to the not-so-happy times between summer of last year and last spring. I now refer to this era as my “post-Glasgow bereavement period.” With the expiration of my student visa looming, and with my inability to find work in Scotland, I unwillingly left Glasgow to return to New York City, losing my student lifestyle and academic identity, a city in which I felt comfortable and stimulated, and various circles of friends in the process; I began life in Brooklyn unemployed, isolated and directionless. The transition made me feel more gutted than a wildcat in a taxidermy warehouse.

And yet, although I spent months thinking of nothing else but returning to Glasgow, finally walking down Otago Lane, Sauchiehall Street and Paisley Road West again did not make me feel as though tremendous wrongs had been righted. A lot had changed. For instance, many of my friends had left Glasgow. I had known this, but it nevertheless jarred me to experience their absence firsthand.

Remembering the cynical refrain of a few Glasgow residents, I asked Stuart – my flatmate during my wonderful postgraduate year – if the saying “Glasgow is a place that people leave” actually held water.

“Eh, you’re surprised that your uni friends who graduated aren’t here anymore?” he said, definitely smiling and probably smoking a cigarette.

***

Sloth Metropolis performing "Wee Fib" at The 13th Note.

Glasgow welcomes myriad music scenes, from "shambling" indie pop to hardcore punk. At a harvest festival in the north of the city, for instance, I watched members of the Glasgow-based band Sloth Metropolis stomp down distortion peddles and launch an electric fiddle freak-out while children played tag, parents sold home-made chutney, a woman gave away clay-oven baked pizza, and a few young men were asking attendees to sample treats made from their proposed, sustainable protein source: mealworms.

By happy happenstance, a Glaswegian band called Close Lobsters – one of the greatest bands to jangle-pop out of the C86 scene – were performing at Stereo during my visit. I discovered them less than a year ago and have recommended their catchy, cerebral masterpiece Foxheads Stalk this Land to just about everyone. Tickets to their gig were a bargain at £10.

Close Lobsters performing "I Kiss the Flower in Bloom" at Stereo last year.

I met a young woman from Hong Kong there. She was a fresher and happened to be staying in the dorm I lived in as an exchange student. When she mentioned that she was vegan, I told her nothing of my temporary devolution into ovo-lacto vegetarianism; egg-and-cress sandwiches, and the yokes of guilt that follow every convenient carton, are part and parcel of my life in Glasgow.

The first song that Close Lobsters played had the refrain “the heat this time of year is ridiculous.” I chanted along, clogged-up by a cold brought on by the chllly dampness this time of year. From Foxheads, they performed “Prophecy” and “I Kiss the Flower in Bloom,” which received the greatest share of the crowd's enthusiasm. After a second encore, and after the DJ signaled the end of the set with Orange Juice’s “Rip It Up” (the Glaswegians in the room recited the lyrics as we left), I walked outside feeling as though I had just been to one of the greatest gigs I had ever seen. I'll provide two reasons in support of this claim:
 

• First, local performances by local bands are always best, and Close Lobsters were playing to an audience that knew their city's musical history. Most of those in the room were old enough to have remembered Close Lobsters when C86 first hit Glasgow, and most probably had fond recollections of how the band affected them in their youth. This leant itself to an emotional intensity to the room.
• Second, Close Lobsters play a kind of music that I find myself listening to frequently these days: a jangly, cerebral, catchy indie pop with a punk lineage. What could be better than sharing my love of this unusual genre with scores of others?

In addition to Close Lobsters, Glasgow is home to musical legends aplenty, and given the amount of times I have randomly walked past Stuart Murdoch during my previous visits, I'm inclined to write that these musicians are remarkably accessible. I had heard that a certain record shop had some sort of connection with The Pastels: another legendary Glaswegian C86 band, and during this visit, I decided to buy something there. One of the people behind the counter looked familiar. Just to confirm my suspicion, I asked a different person at the cash register about their supposed connection with the band. “That’s the lead singer,” she said, pointing to Stephen McRobbie. He rang me up when I bought his new album and we had a brief conversation about Helen Love.

***

On my final night in Glasgow, while briefly separating from a subcrawl (wherein revelers must order a drink from a bar at every stop along the city’s circular subway line), Stuart took me to his favorite pub: an unassuming southside joint beneath a bridge. He described it as walking through a timewarp to the city in the 1970’s. The mementoes from Glasgow’s past, nailed to margarine-colored walls, validated his assessment.

A man had randomly brought in a guitar and was belting out Radiohead’s “Creep.” Stuart and I sang along. A plump woman with short gray hair sang folk, country-western and protest songs next, including a recent song about the Bedroom Tax imposed by the current coalition government.

The anti-Bedroom Tax song covered by the woman in the pub.

Stuart got into a conversation with a middle-aged woman who, after making fun of him for hailing from Aberdeen, somehow got the entire pub to sing the Aberdonian anthem “Northern Lights.” Stuart beamed.

She then asked me where I was from. When I answered, the response I usually get from Glaswegians followed: “You’re from New York City?” she said, expressing genuine confusion, “why are ya over here for? Why would anyone from New York come to this place?”

I immediately thought of everything that's wrong with New York City today: about how suburban kids flock to New York in search of the extinct countercultures of yesteryear, pretending to recreate those countercultures by buying things; I thought about my coworker, who rode the Ramones/Patti Smith wave of punk, only to get pushed out of Bedford-Stuyvesant by hipster gentrification thirty-five years later; I thought about the nihilism that pervades New York City at the present time, and how much privilege a person must possess to have the luxury of not caring.

And then I looked around at this Glasgow pub that had not changed its décor in forty years, at people singing together and buying each other drinks, and how all were welcome to join in – even outsiders like me.

“Because this is real,” I said.

She accepted my answer. I reckon the Englishman who bade us all sing Hamish Imlach’s “Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice” at closing time probably felt similarly.

Indie Break-Up Songs for Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Loss and Grief

Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Loss and Grief are:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

This sequence has been applied to the omnipresent break-up by Darci Gilbert, as referenced on Wikipedia via eHow (Gilbert, Darci. [www.ehow.com/how-does_4674267_stages-grief-apply-breakups.html "How Do the Stages of Grief Apply to Breakups?"] . eHow. Retrieved 13 April 2013.). If it's alternative/indie rock that helps you through, then like an awful pun involving bananas, the following selection may have appeal.


Denial

“The person getting broken up with is unable to admit that the relationship is really over. They may try to continue to call the person when that person wants to be left alone.”

“Yeah! Oh, Yeah!” by The Magnetic Fields

“By Your Side,” by CocoRosie

"Start Again," by Teenage Fanclub

Anger

"When the reality sets in that the relationship is over, it is common to demand to know why they are being broken up with. This phase can make them feel like they are being treated unfairly and it may cause them to become angry at people close to them who want to help aid the situation."

“Waiting for the Winter,” by The Popguns

"The One I Love," by REM

“You Oughta Know," by Alanis Morrissette

Bargaining
"After the anger stage, one will try to plead with their former partner by promising that whatever caused the breakup will never happen again. Example: 'I can change. Please give me a chance'."

“I Apologize,” by Husker Du

“Please Do Not Go,” by Violent Femmes

“Good Woman,” by Cat Power

Depression
"Next the person might feel discouraged that their bargaining plea did not convince their former partner to change their mind. This will send the person into the depression stage and can cause a lack of sleep, eating and even disrupt daily life tasks such as bowel movements."

“I Know It’s Over,” by The Smiths

“It’s Okay,” by Land of Talk

“Katy Song,” by Red House Painters

Acceptance

"Moving on from the situation and person is the last stage. The person accepts that the relationship is over and begins to move forward with their life. The person might not be completely over the situation but they are done going back and forth to the point where they can accept the reality of the situation."

“Here’s Where the Story Ends,” by The Sundays

"Sheela-Na-Gig," by PJ Harvey

 

“This Time There's No Happy Ending," by Television Personalities

Thoughts From a Trayvon Martin Rally

It is difficult for words to express how disgusted I feel with the jury’s decision in the Trayvon Martin case. A vigilante with a history of paranoid behavior racially-profiled and stalked a black boy who did nothing wrong whatsoever, and when the boy confronted his stalker and tried to defend himself, the stalker pulled a gun and shot the boy to death. Those are the indisputable facts of the case. People who argue in George Zimmerman’s favor claim that Trayvon, a lanky teenager, must have been in an advantageous position over his one-hundred-pound-heavier assailant. Of course, we have heard the “who really had the advantageous position?” question before – from those who defended the police following the Rodney King beating.

I read the “acquittal” headline on Sunday morning. It took several minutes for the words to cohere, and when they did, a series of dreadful thoughts began running through my head. What if, instead of Trayvon, it was one of my friends of color who were stalked and killed because they “looked suspicious” and tried to defend themselves? What does this decision confer to these friends of mine about their value in “modern” American society? I made a simple sign – “Justice for Trayvon” – and headed for the Union Square protest.

It began with several hundred people holding a speak-in. Anyone who wanted to speak was encouraged to do so. Because we lacked a PA system, speakers were instructed to use short sentences, which were then repeated (and thus amplified) by the crowd, like affirmations to a prayer. This ”Mike Check” method had a unifying effect: upon echoing modest words such as “I have two black boys,” I can immediately empathize with each speaker and begin to understand the more nuanced implications of the jury’s decision on their lives. Local politicians, university professors, community activists and concerned citizens all took their turn to speak, as facilitated by a charismatic and expertly-competent organizer, bearing the scorching weather in a tie and vest.

We then marched around Union Square Park. Our numbers were not yet large enough to take to the streets, but I nevertheless felt grateful that those around me shared my anger and cared enough to voice it. I chanted at a conversational volume, preferring to internalize the imploring words: “our children matter, our children matter...”

A teach-in followed wherein crowd members offered a diversity of perspectives on the tragedy. None were particularly radical or vengeful, and all expressed a desire for solidarity. In fact, this desire to coalesce against the broad idea of injustice led more than one speaker to declare that Trayvon’s murder was “not a race issue”: a sentiment with which I completely disagree. A series of other speakers pointed the blame at problems in the black community, including drug use, late-night liquor stores, gang membership and gangsta rap. This also irked me, not only because these had nothing to do with the murder of Trayvon Martin, but also because it speaks to an inculcated sense of inferiority within African-American culture; it suggests that Trayvon was killed because black people don’t behave themselves. Such opinions are the painful result of centuries of white supremacy in our country. Fortunately, more than one speaker voiced an opinion with which I agreed; for instance, one woman argued that, although race is a social-construct with no biological basis, racism certainly exists and exerted its deadly-self on poor Trayvon Martin. I also agreed with those who spoke against the legal system. Laws such as “Stand Your Ground” and “Stop-and-Frisk” are designed and utilized to maintain racial hierarchies in America.

The afternoon progressed and our numbers swelled into the thousands. Feeling tired, I was just about to split – I had even handed-off my sign to a fellow demonstrator – when the protesters spilled into Broadway. I joined the march with renewed energy. This time, I chanted the chants at the same angry volume as those around me, shouting “Justice for Trayvon Martin” “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Stop-and-Frisk has got to go!” and a slew of others.

I looked around at my fellow protesters and noticed that a large proportion of them were white. Although thrilled by the number of white people showing camaraderie with the slain black child, certain fears occurred to me: do the majority of people of color feel so disenfranchised by their level of inequality that they think their voice does not matter? Does their voice, in fact, matter in America today? How at-risk do people of color feel at protests? Do they worry that a display of political dissidence could leave them suffering the same fate as Trayvon, perhaps at the hands of the NYPD – those paid to “protect” them? Let us be reminded that the name “Amadou Diallo” still holds a certain currency in New York City.

A fight almost broke out when some onlooker presumably said something calculated to incense a red-headed protester into a furious, threat-filled tirade. At first, the instigator walked away, but then, perhaps feeling the need to prove both himself and his own racialist views, he reversed towards the red-headed protester with all the foolish bravado of a rooster and the kind of smile Eichmann would smile if given a new red pen and a long list of names. Had it not been for a short, stocky black woman rushing towards the fast-escalating fight and risking her own well-being by standing between them, the instigator would have surely swallowed a few teeth. I wondered how the media would have reported the irony of two white men throwing punches, when they were so readily-expecting the “aggressive black male” stock character to explode into riot across urban America that night.

Incidentally, it was that same, culturally-ingrained stereotype that killed a teenage boy a year and a half ago.

A Sociopolitical Anthropology of Office Behavior

Ah, the office: a place more awkward than a class reunion at Introvert High School. Prior to actually wearing the white collar, all I knew about offices was borrowed from Kids in the Hall, which, I daresay, was a grand introduction:

Because politics is off-limits, I fill my conversation with mock-shocked statements about the weather ("can you believe it's raining again?") or reminding my coworkers of the day ("ugh, Monday!"). If I'm feeling particularly adventurous, I’ll allude to some weekend debauchery, but as far as my coworkers are concerned, my Saturday consists of laundry, laundry, laundry.

During my first week, my coworkers took a marked interest in me: the youngest, newest inhabitant sharing their corridors and copy machines. They would constantly ask:

"What's your background?"

Which translates into a question about whether or not you're qualified for your position. For other tyros to the office habitat, and for those likewise lacking in actual job experience, ranting about academic accomplishments seems to have a neutralizing effect, thank the high holy heavens.

Determining the intonations of everyday office language could be paradise to the paranoid. Is "you're so nice" office lingo for "you're such a naive little boy"? Does "get home safely" suggest an inability to take care of oneself?

In addition to language, there's the whole, dire matter of politics, both the interpersonal and macro-level kind. How can we be honest with one another if we are advised not to speak about politics when "the personal is political"?

Veganism is a case in-point. At first, whenever a staff member offered a pastry, a fruitcake or somethings' leg, I'd turn-down the food without explanation. Human Resources identified that I was refusing every food offer. I was told that this could be taken as offensive - not accepting the gifts of others - and so I confessed to my deviant lifestyle. Admittedly, the whole point of veganism is to make a political or philosophical statement, so my initial reluctance to declare my morality sounds less logical than a spray-tan salon in the middle of Oompa-Loompa-land.

Then again, given my apathy towards isinglass and my wardrobe of more than few wool garments, any attempt to share my “reduce harm” mindset seems superficial. I’m not a particularly good vegan; why, I’m worse at veganism than Hitler was at making Jewish friends.

A greater sense of shame resulted from my not challenging the political discourse of others in my office. One coworker (“A ‘liberal,’ but not a “blame-America-first liberal’”) recently claimed that imperialism was a “mixed bag." I'm genuinely embarrassed for not shutting him down; yet, considering my newbie status, I wouldn't want any argument to explode and leave me scraping coins from the subway again. Thus the binds of capitalism.

Finally, being a man in a mostly-female office leads to its share of awkwardness, especially around the damned water cooler, which, I've discovered, forces us to retreat into medieval gender roles. Once I was asked to replace the water tank by an unsmiling, bird-like woman who communicates using automobile sounds. “Beep Beep,” she says, meaning “hi” or “excuse me” or “I am censoring a series of two swear words.” Intending to parody her stereotype of male strength, I said something along the lines of “let me know if you need help with anything else He-Man related,” which I followed quickly with, “I’M SORRY THAT SOUNDED INCREDIBLY SEXIST.” I shouted it across the hall. She didn’t care either way; she simply beeped along like a fussy Fiat in a jubilee traffic jam.

Another female co-worker “needed a man” for the same job, and when I happened to overhear her, I stepped-up to the proverbial, masculinized plate. She thanked me a little too profusely for “acting like a man,” "being a real gentleman" and emphasizing my general manliness in general. Did I offend her? Or were my chest hairs a little too visible? I approached her later on and asked whether she was insulted by my help. She was not; as it turns out, she was emphasizing manliness to emasculate the other male coworker in the room who did not help.

Thank goodness for this one person with whom I work - the other fellow leftist in my office. Whenever we talk, she launches a shameless rant about the importance of feminism, her hatred for her daughter’s hipster boyfriend (whom she impersonates with a hilarious, lackadaisical Californian accent) or her love of Ian MacKaye. I knew we were cut from the same cloth when she looked at my Doc Martens and said that, in her days on the New York City punk circuit, they used to call them “shitkickers."

“Lose Your Fingers!”

A recent, lengthy walk to the edges of Bensonhurst led me to a folksy-looking bric-a-brac shop. Inside, below racks and rows of delicate teacups, porcelain figurines and various other pieces of precariously-cluttered daintiness, there beamed a beautiful, flame-colored electric guitar. The mock Fender's presence seemed like a deliberate artistic statement: a discordant bit of loudness among the myriad quiet, fragile, civilized things displayed.

I expressed interest. “Fifty dollars,” said the jovial, Eastern European shopkeeper, “but for you, forty-five.” When I turned-down the offer, he said, good-humoredly, “I hope it doesn’t end-up with one of those bands that smash their instruments at the end!” He repeatedly smashed an air guitar and laughed to himself.

On the walk home, I decided that I had made a mistake. I thought about the guitar constantly. I even decided to give it a name: "Jocylin." Several more days of rumination passed before I returned.

Jocylin was still there, smiling her big, fierce guitar-grin. I walked over. A small boy, perhaps the store owner’s son, seemed to mirror my enthusiasm. He wanted me to play.

“You gotta do it,” encouraged the boy, “lose your fingers!”

“Lose your fingers?”

“Yeah!” said the kid, “you gotta lose your fingers!” That extra “L” struck me as a perfect metaphor. I held Jocylin for him and began alternating between C- and G-Major as he pawed the strings with his fingertips. The two of us spent a minute "losing our fingers" on the guitar, smiling widely all the while.

I bought the guitar and high-fived the kid as I left.

Once outside, I defrocked Jocilyn from the plastic bag that the shopkeeper ridiculously wrapped her body in: the world should see her. At first, I carried Jocilyn by the neck – like a dead, flame-colored phoenix, ready to burn and reemerge, electric and anew – but because holding Jocilyn in this way felt somehow disrespectful, I instead began carrying her like an assault rifle. As I forged ahead through the streets, as high on adrenaline as a successful revolutionary, it occurred to me that I was wielding a far more powerful weapon: all an assault rifle can do is kill a man.

Jocilyn turned heads. Once, a group of kids, away from their mother’s tether, saw the guitar, stopped what they were doing, and lined-up against a wall: staring awe-eyed, as though for a newly-coronated king in his first royal ride down High Street.

For the amp, I went inside a local music store, where I gravitated towards the black hole in the center letter of “VOX.” I was sold once the owner mentioned the “wah wah” sound effect option, hearkening me back to that bizarre advertisement/track on Pebbles Box of Trash:

10 Nostalgic Songs

As my pre-post internet search for "nostalgic songs" would suggest, nostalgia is a very personal thing. Every similar list I came across was radically different from the last, in terms of genre, time-period, etc. Therefore, perhaps most of what follows is only relevant to my own, narrow experiences, but hopefully there's something here to which you can relate.
***

"Losing Haringey," by The Clientele

Remember those long, contemplative walks? Remember that feeling of 1982-ness: dizzy, illogical, as if none of the intervening disasters and wrong turns had happened yet?

"Slide," by Goo Goo Dolls

Remember consolations?

"I Will Remember You," by Sarah McLachlan

Remember the last time we saw each other? I've long associated this one with graduation day...

"Fast Car," by Tracy Chapman

Remember forgetting it all to wild exhilaration?

"You Get What You Give," by New Radicals

Remember the 1990s: Beck, Hanson, Courtney Love, Marilyn Manson? Remember what the Staten Island Mall looked like back then?

"Green and Grey," by New Model Army

Remember the one who got out, sold out?

"Drops of Jupiter," by Train

Remember your best friend always stickin' up for you? The best soy latte that you ever had?

"Late Night, Maudlin Street," by Morrissey

Remember moving away from the street you grew up on?

"Post World War Two Blues," by Al Stewart

Remember your youthful idealism? Which way did the 60's go?

"Talent Show," The Replacements

Remember how cool we all thought we were in our younger, dumber years?
(Hon. nostalgic Placemats mention: "When it Began," of course)

Neckties; Or, Adventures in Vasoconstriction, Part III

Although I learned during week one that they were not mandated by the company dress code, I continued wearing neckties to my new job until week three: mostly because, for yours truly, the image of me in a necktie was as novel a sight as a gorilla in a shopping mall reading Anna Karenina. The novelty has since lost its affect – like similes with gorillas or puns on the word “novel” – and with summer fast approaching (let’s hope Greenland doesn’t start thawing again), only the hipsterest hipster could bear wearing a sweat-slopped business-noose for the sake of ironic self-parody.

The lesser reason that I kept wearing ties was as a social experiment: do people treat necktie-wearers differently? I discovered that the courtesies and hostilities of everyday urban social interaction remain: what changes is who exchanges what.

For example, in my non-work attire, I accidentally happened upon Chevy's: a menswear shop on 86^th Street in Gravesend. The moment I entered, the owner, sitting behind the counter, asked, with a very subtle enmity:

“Can I help you?”

I responded “just browsing!” and began perusing his wares. Much of it was Italian-made, which meant, to my own paranoid, left-wing head, that I could buy something and not fear that it came from a sweatshop.

As I walked to the back of the store, the owner rose and began sneaking quick glances at me, strongly resembling nervous butler with a peasant in his midst. I felt self-conscious and unwelcome. When I approached a rack of neatly-hung jeans, the contempt he held for my class and kind became clear:

“Those jeans cost $135. Is that a problem?”

Such a question can only be asked to humiliate. “No,” I lied, “that’s not a problem,” but I nevertheless considered buying a pair just to best him. I smiled savagely and asked if he carried the jeans in a size 29.

“I don’t,” said the sallow, class-prejudiced, pathetic little fuck.

“That,” said I, Shakespearean, triumphant, “is a problem,” and I left, mouth puckered inward, teeth clenched tighter than a streetfighter’s fist.

Blatant classism is bad enough, but I was more disturbed by how my peers, or those whom I would regard as such, treated me when I wore a tie. In the subway, my fellow countercultural twentysomethings, with their piercings, thrift-store clothing and chunky headphones blasting almost loud enough to drown-out their student loan anxieties, no longer looked at me with an acknowledgement of <DROOG> in their eyes. No matter what your actual job entails (I would consider my line pro-social), no matter how much David Graber or Michel Foucault you’ve read, and no matter that you’ve listened to every song on Sandinista! at least twice, a necktie immediately makes you The Man.

The absolute worst, however, was the socially-engineered, resentful obsequiousness of the very poor; the exaggerated nicities that we assume we should bestow on those of high rank. Having that directed at me was the straw that broke this camel's heart.

Thus lay a mess of neckties on my dresser table, gathering the same dust that all things, splendid and decrepit, generally do.