There Goes The Neighborhood....

I've been saying it for years, now: Despite all my jokes about my insane neighbors (see pretty much any given blog, Facebook post or Twitter tweet from over the years), you really don't want me moving into your neighborhood.

My growing up years aside, as well as a five year stretch in a fairly nice South Austin neighborhood in the '90s, and the three years I was in Austin in the mid-to-late-'00s, I've found myself living all my life in ghetto or barrio neighborhoods. It's what I can afford. And the food is better. But if you see me moving in next door, it's a bad sign.

Trust me: I've seen it happen time and again. Six months after I move in, you soon start seeing packs of young white people walking around. They're either carrying guitar cases, or you'll see paintbrushes sticking out the back pockets of their skinny jeans.

Three months after that, the convenience store (or bodega, depending on your location) either on the corner or downstairs in your building closes down. Six months after that, it reopens as a combination espresso bar/art gallery.

Inevitably, three years later, rents will triple. Which is when I'll have to move out and find some other ghetto to ruin as a harbinger of the ol' dreaded gentrification.

You hear complaints about that all over Austin these days: Gentrification, over-development, too many people moving here and all that. Certainly, I can remember SoCo when it was just South Congress. No $500 skinny jeans shops and long-line gourmet burger joints then. No, the Continental Club had a gun shop (Just Guns! I shit you not!) and a liquor store for neighbors. What's now an advertising agency down the street was a porn theater, a run-down weekly bedbug motel across the street. If you were walking home at 2 AM from the Continental after seeing Ronnie Dawson, a charming, 6-ft.-tall black transvestite with a sprayed silver high-rise fade would offer to suck your dick for a quarter.

I moved into this neighborhood back in November, after me and my then-roommates all got word that the house off Riverside we'd been in for years (well, year, in my case) would have to be vacated in December. I'd heard there were no plans, other than maybe to turn it into a vacant lot. As skyscrapers went up a few blocks away, in what used to be another crack neighborhood. And so it goes....

The day I moved into this duplex I currently share with three others, the welcome wagon came in the form of first responders dragging a body out of the house across the street, respirator mask firmly clamped to the face. My immediate neighbors in the duplex next door finally cleaned up the mound of garbage in their front yard that has been there since likely before I moved in. But their pitbull still comes onto my property and barks at me like I'm trespassing on hers'. And they still like to yell and blast hip hop at all hours - 4 AM, doesn't matter. I mean, who needs an alarm clock, when you can count on hearing 500 dBs of Tupac or whoever, accompanied by live motherfucking of everything in sight? At 8 AM.

That's okay. They're gonna get theirs'. The 2nd day I lived there, I saw a pair of white 20-somethings in skinny jeans and bushy beards (including the one on the young lady) bicycling past. Couldn't see paint brushes in their back pockets, however. And our landlady power-washed our house a few weeks ago, mowed our yard last week.

So, yeah. Go ahead and steal our city garbage cans, motherfucker. Your rent is about to get really unaffordable.

How's your day, so far?

I've been up since 10 AM. I usually try to be up two hours earlier, but I guess I needed the sleep.

I've had breakfast, read some of Morrissey's Autobiography, finished lyrics on a new song I've been writing on since 1995 (now that I'm a born-again Hormone), and listened to the Radio Birdman CD Live In Texas, which Deniz Tek himself kindly sent for Xmas, and The Heartbreakers'  L.A.MF (Track Records cassette version). I've showered, dressed, taken out the garbage, washed my dishes, and tidied Napalm HQ a bit. Right now, I'm typing this, and listening to the Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks on original vinyl. (I've been making a practice, this past year, of buying back all my original teenage record collection on records, bit by bit. I lost it all when I went homeless in NYC ten years ago.)

I only got on the internets about 15 minutes ago.

This is important. The last two weeks, I was house-sitting for friends, and I took a vacation. I didn't write, except for working on songs and writing in my journal, two things I have not done in a long time. I watched lots of movies, ate good food, and took hour-long walks every day, in a pathetic attempt to insert some physical activity in my life and get back into the fighting shape I've lost across the year I've returned to writing and DJ-ing as my vocation. I played lots of loud guitar, trying to get used to the brand new Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III that I got myself for Xmas. And each morning, I would not get on the internet until I'd finished breakfast and reading some pages from whatever book I was reading.

Two of my favorite things.

It was about ten years ago I finally got on the internets for myself, and was introduced to the wonderful world of blogging and social networking, first through Friendster (Wow! Remember that?) and then the brand new MySpace, which would rapidly overtake Friendster the way Facebook and Twitter did MySpace not that long ago. I love it, and still do. But I also now hate it.

The internets are a wonderful tool and past-time, a marvelous source of information, entertainment, a great communication tool. They are also a pain in the ass, a giant time-suck, and a control system. And I am breaking that control.

I am sick to death of looking up from the keyboard and monitor and seeing that it's six hours later, and I haven't gotten a goddamned thing done except post a buncha shit on Facebook that I've just read. I am also sick of every single utterance I make online becoming fodder for someone to argue the piss out of. I like discussion, not debate. There is a subtle difference. And I don't troll other people's posts to start shit with them. Therefore, I expect the same courtesy.

I am happier and more productive under this new regimen than I have been in a long time. Yeah, I still go digital. But I am severely limiting my digital time and living more in the analog world. Because let's face it: Real life is actually better than The Matrix. Right? *smiles*

Happy New Year. You will be seeing far more posts here now. And by the way, as hinted at above, The Hormones live again, in a new lineup. Check out our Facebook page, and please make note of the event below. See ya.

Yep, I'm back in Austin....

I know. It kinda caught me by surprise, too. But it's okay. I'm already doing better.

Things fell apart dramatically and rapidly in Denver. I love the town, really. But I found myself instantly one step from living on the streets, with no options, almost overnight. And no real security network to fall on.

After searching out other options, it was apparent I needed to come home. And Austin is home: It was apparent, the way old friends and the old school music community here have been so embracing and welcoming and helpful.

Right off, I landed a house-sitting gig, and an apartment to follow in a few days from this posting. And the old boys have come through with (non-music) gigs to keep me in cash until I get a permanent job. Once all those details are settled, I can get back to playing music and writing and all the other stuff I occupy my spare time with.

Meantime, I'm doing well. Better than I have in ages, in fact. And it's getting better all the time. I'm home. I wish I'd been more appreciative of that fact when I left in 2009....

"RADIO NAPALM" 2nd Anniversary Special To Air This Thursday On Woody Radio

Art Fraud (Ronn Spencer, left) displays his excitement at co-hosting the "RADIO NAPALM" 2nd Anniversary Show, in this famed snap with his "The Cool And The Crazy" co-host Vic Tripp (Gene Sculatti, right). (pic: Scott Lawrence)

Greetings. It's 3:34 AM, and I can't fucking sleep. Just popped a Benadryl, hoping it will kick in soon. So I figured, since I'm doing nothing else, I'd post the blog I need to post this week.

For those who've been wondering, yes, "RADIO NAPALM" has been placed on hiatus. And yes, there was supposed to have been a program commemorating the show's second anniversary last month. I committed to completing the show, and producing it as the final show for the year. After that? I have to consider whether I will continue to do the show.

Plain and simple, "RADIO NAPALM" has grown beyond me playing some records I like. It's now a production-heavy beast that has required time and attention I can't really give it. It has even required me to miss work to meet the production schedule, and I can't continue making that a practice, obviously. The show is a one-man operation, but it's growing beyond my means now.

If I continue it, it will be a return to a live show, with various pre-taped production elements interspersed. But at this point, I have to consider if I even want to continue doing the show. My focus, right now, is on getting my life back in order, and on concentrating on a return to playing music and on my writing (especially this fershlugginer novel I've been working on intermittently since 2005), and on a relationship entering a new phase.

I must admit, after finishing production tonight on the anniversary show, I have the bug again. Yeah, everything I've just complained about regarding the show has reared its head, especially its appetite for my time. But I've got playlist ideas rotating in my mind, so I'm sure I'll be coming back to the show sooner than any of us suspect. But I have to work up a new, more efficient methodology.

Meantime, I do hope you'll join me for the 2 1/2 hours we'll be celebrating "RADIO NAPALM's" anniversary this week. I'll have some stellar (if aggravating) assistance this week, in the form of Art Fraud (Ronn Spencer), supreme Boss Jock and co-host of '80s KCRW staple "The Cool And The Crazy," a key formative influence on "RADIO NAPALM." (His Cool Show partner, Vic Tripp [Gene Sculatti], also makes a cameo appearance.) In addition to the wacky hijinks which ensue from this stellar team-up, we get the usual editions of "John Peel's Record Box" and "Crampsology," a special Artist Of The Week (whose identity shall be kept secret until broadcast), and a playlist drawn from a selection of favorite tracks I've for the most part never played in the show's history (including hits from PiL, The Muffs, The Flesh Eaters, Suicide, The Pretty Things, an entire set of Rolling Stones obscurities, and brand new music from OFF! and Motorhead). All in all, this is sure to be more fun than humans should be allowed to have.

So please join me this Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010, to help observe the 2nd anniversary of "RADIO NAPALM." It may be the last time. Tune in at the usual time - 9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central, 7 PM Mountain, and 6 PM Pacific - at the usual channel, Woody Radio Dot Com. I'll be live in the chatroom, as should be Art Fraud, and I'll be tweeting the playlist live at the "RADIO NAPALM" Twitter page.

Meantime, the Benadryl feels like it's finally doing its' job. So I'll knock this on the head. Thanks for reading this. And come this Thursday, I'll see you in The Garage.