All Comments by Steven Lee Beeber
01/04/08 1:30 pm
I agree with Adam, you'll be missed, Michael. You raise some very good points here and put things in context. One major caveat. Did you really have to summon the image of Harold Bloom sleeping with Obama? Much less any one?! That's cruel!!
01/04/08 1:00 pm
New Years is here and the time is right for violent resolutions. So let
it be resolved that henceforth and hereon I shall update you more
regularly on the goings on in Jew Punk land – even when these aren't
necessarily Jewish or Punk in nature.
On that note, let me tell you about a recent gig in which I took part that had as much to do with insomnia – and my new book AWAKE! A Reader for the Sleepless – as it did with PunkyJewsters like yourselves.
This event was a bit of a last minute affair, at least for me, but I’m happier than someone pleased-as-punch that I took part. It took place at Atwood’s Tavern, a wonderful mostly-free-music bar around the corner from my house, and it involved everything from 1930s turntables to clarinets to a guy reading from Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape via a cell phone for the audience.
In other words, it was a “happening” in the original sense of the word, and according to the planners, I could do anything that I wanted. I could get up and take the stage and read from AWAKE or The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s or most anything really, whenever and for however long I chose. Unfortunately, this posed certain problems for me. After all, I am something of a split personality when it comes to the avant-garde vs. the ancien regime. At once thoroughly supportive of innovation, I also am a bit of an indecisive, careful, far-from-impulsive sort. As a result, I was thrown back on my existential resources and suffering a crisis. Too many decisions. Yet another irony of the modern condition. What to do and when to do it and for what reason … it’s a bit of a torture chamber for those of us who might have enjoyed the days when the net was fixed and God was safely in his kingdom. I mean, if anything goes, why not read from the back of a cereal box at this happening? Why not intone in portentous tones the instructional manual for assembling a portable commode, “Socket A Goes Into Slot B” the first line in an epic poem for a new millennium, the one with the KYJ problem?
Yes, I’m a silly old-world modern man, torn between this place and that: The Village Green Preservation Society. Give me the option to do anything that I want and I freeze in place; at least initially. And yet, once things start happening, I happen right along with them. So here for you now is what happened at the happening.
As the noise collective played (“bass banjo,” AM radio, something that looked like a guitar) and the cell-phone Beckett gave pause, I took the stage and began riffing on insomnia in all its wondrous glory. Without at all intending it this way, a pitch-bright ironic tone emerged from my lips in that thin high Bob Dylan mode, the spittle-flecked microphone meeting my mercury-singed tongue with the words of wisdom of AWAKE’s contributors. Charles Simic, Matthew Rohrer, Lydia Lunch and Priscilla Becker. All gave the crowd the derangement of the senses that it needed. Yet it wasn’t until I fell onto the page of “modern surrealist” (how, I’ve heard, he hates that title) James Tate and his tale of an archaeological dig in his back yard, that the crowd really began to “groove” and the noise collective to gel and the gelatinous spotlights of post-bourbon pleasure to glow with the words and music and fire. Tate’s piece, at once comic, dark and lightly deep, brought laughter in the “ah ha” (as in funny strange AND funny ha ha because it’s TRUE) mode, and made me smile as the crowd laughed. “Now we’re getting there,” I thought. “Now we got our Hojo’s workin.”
And quick as an all-you-can-eat clam fry, I Hopped over to your favorite other book – yes, the Jew-Punk epic Heebie-Jeebies (henceforth and hereon known as HBJB’s) – and rendered unto the assembled multitude the message of the Blessed Un-Virgin Lenny, Patron Saint of Jew Punks everywhere, Mr. Bruce of his dirty talk and clean-ass ways, his un-hypocritical anger and rage at hypocrisy’s daze, his restless days and nights in the clubs of America, declaiming in comic tones a jeremiad that might have put even chaste Jeremiah to shame.
“In the beginning was the word and the word was fuck...”
And so forth and so on, you’ve been there my previous readers, and you’re going there, in a hand-basket, the rest of you, so hop on board and brace yourselves, it’s going to be a bumpy night.
Happy New Year to all and to all a good whatever.
La Revolution lives.
We’re going to sleep tight in the streets.
On that note, let me tell you about a recent gig in which I took part that had as much to do with insomnia – and my new book AWAKE! A Reader for the Sleepless – as it did with PunkyJewsters like yourselves.
This event was a bit of a last minute affair, at least for me, but I’m happier than someone pleased-as-punch that I took part. It took place at Atwood’s Tavern, a wonderful mostly-free-music bar around the corner from my house, and it involved everything from 1930s turntables to clarinets to a guy reading from Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape via a cell phone for the audience.
In other words, it was a “happening” in the original sense of the word, and according to the planners, I could do anything that I wanted. I could get up and take the stage and read from AWAKE or The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s or most anything really, whenever and for however long I chose. Unfortunately, this posed certain problems for me. After all, I am something of a split personality when it comes to the avant-garde vs. the ancien regime. At once thoroughly supportive of innovation, I also am a bit of an indecisive, careful, far-from-impulsive sort. As a result, I was thrown back on my existential resources and suffering a crisis. Too many decisions. Yet another irony of the modern condition. What to do and when to do it and for what reason … it’s a bit of a torture chamber for those of us who might have enjoyed the days when the net was fixed and God was safely in his kingdom. I mean, if anything goes, why not read from the back of a cereal box at this happening? Why not intone in portentous tones the instructional manual for assembling a portable commode, “Socket A Goes Into Slot B” the first line in an epic poem for a new millennium, the one with the KYJ problem?
Yes, I’m a silly old-world modern man, torn between this place and that: The Village Green Preservation Society. Give me the option to do anything that I want and I freeze in place; at least initially. And yet, once things start happening, I happen right along with them. So here for you now is what happened at the happening.
As the noise collective played (“bass banjo,” AM radio, something that looked like a guitar) and the cell-phone Beckett gave pause, I took the stage and began riffing on insomnia in all its wondrous glory. Without at all intending it this way, a pitch-bright ironic tone emerged from my lips in that thin high Bob Dylan mode, the spittle-flecked microphone meeting my mercury-singed tongue with the words of wisdom of AWAKE’s contributors. Charles Simic, Matthew Rohrer, Lydia Lunch and Priscilla Becker. All gave the crowd the derangement of the senses that it needed. Yet it wasn’t until I fell onto the page of “modern surrealist” (how, I’ve heard, he hates that title) James Tate and his tale of an archaeological dig in his back yard, that the crowd really began to “groove” and the noise collective to gel and the gelatinous spotlights of post-bourbon pleasure to glow with the words and music and fire. Tate’s piece, at once comic, dark and lightly deep, brought laughter in the “ah ha” (as in funny strange AND funny ha ha because it’s TRUE) mode, and made me smile as the crowd laughed. “Now we’re getting there,” I thought. “Now we got our Hojo’s workin.”
And quick as an all-you-can-eat clam fry, I Hopped over to your favorite other book – yes, the Jew-Punk epic Heebie-Jeebies (henceforth and hereon known as HBJB’s) – and rendered unto the assembled multitude the message of the Blessed Un-Virgin Lenny, Patron Saint of Jew Punks everywhere, Mr. Bruce of his dirty talk and clean-ass ways, his un-hypocritical anger and rage at hypocrisy’s daze, his restless days and nights in the clubs of America, declaiming in comic tones a jeremiad that might have put even chaste Jeremiah to shame.
“In the beginning was the word and the word was fuck...”
And so forth and so on, you’ve been there my previous readers, and you’re going there, in a hand-basket, the rest of you, so hop on board and brace yourselves, it’s going to be a bumpy night.
Happy New Year to all and to all a good whatever.
La Revolution lives.
We’re going to sleep tight in the streets.
12/23/07 2:28 pm
I understand feeling awkward about replying to your own post, but I'm also glad that you did. The best thing about these posts is that they provide a forum for an exchange of ideas -- even those by (in my opinion) simplistic sorts who refuse to say more than a few disparaging, but completely inflammatory words, then creep back into the darkness without revealing themselves (yes Anonymous, I'm referring to you). I may or may not agree with your philosophies, Peter, but I utterly respect your courage to get out there and define them, both for yourself and us. Matters of observance are always complicated, especially when our loved ones are from different traditions. Good luck to you in the future. I'm sure you'll do well considering your honesty.
12/14/07 6:37 pm
...band! You, Abie the Fish Man are a true believer and I think that you should join us for our World Domination Tour. We will be hitting every city with a good deli and dark alley in which to scarf our tsimmis. In fact, you've given me a new idea for a button that will simultaneously link us with our Jewish roots while paying homage (but not royalties!) to those bad boys in KISS. "KISS My Tsimmis!" Rock on Fish Man. And in case you were wondering, the password is "Swordfish".
"Come out come out wherever you are..." on Blitzkrieg Stop: The Nazi Aesthetic of the Stooges (and the Punk Music They Begat)
12/14/07 6:23 pm
Hey Anonymous,
Are you the same "anonymous" who sent the October 29th post about swastikas originating before the Nazis? If so, that comment, and your recent one, undermine your arguments more than they support them. I mean, come on; lots of people know that the swastika predated the Nazis, but do you really honestly believe that using it today is not intended to call the Nazis to mind? Otherwise what would be so shocking about it? You say it originated with the Greeks -- well I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to realize that the Stooges were actually trying to call to mind the ancient warriors of Sparta and the intellectuals of Athens. Who knew that they were so insidiously clever as to bypass us all with this knowledge and leave us gasping on the irony of it all in their wake?
And while we're on the subject of irony, two things: 1, it's strange that you should ask whether I've ever heard of irony when my entire discussion of Jewish punk is predicated on the idea that the punks were being ironic; and 2, it's also ironic that someone who likes to dismiss the ideas of others should hide behind a mask of anonymity rather than come out from behind the veil and speak up like a (wo)man.
Yours,
Captain Irony
"The Protocols of the Elders of Kotter?" on Up Your Nose With a Rubber Hose: Jewcy Talks to Alan Sacks, Co-Creator of "Welcome Back Kotter"
11/27/07 7:44 pm
Hmmmm, you're right. Palillo was Horshack. Hegyes was that other member of Kotter's Jewish Holy Trinity - Juan Epstein. Either Sacks misspoke or there's some sort of effort to keep us from knowing exactly who's who in the cast. Perhaps yet another in a long line of Protocols-like conspiracies? I'll look into it.
11/27/07 12:13 pm
Thanks for the tip about "My Last Two Thousand Years" by Herbert Gold. I'm not familiar with that one and would be especially interested to hear more about the early arc of his career. The little tidbit he offered in the interview -- about how Harpers asked him to change his name on his first published piece so that it didn't sound "so Jewish" -- bodes well for further revelations.
You might also enjoy Gold's novel "Fathers," which explores the often complicated dynamic between immigrant fathers and their "American" sons. Great stuff!
sb
11/21/07 4:03 pm
Hey Tom,
Great to hear that the bartender at CBGB agrees with my book and is in fact loving it! I checked out your blog and enjoyed it immensely. If you want to check out mine, go to my website -- www.jewpunk.com -- then click on the WEB XTRAS page and you'll see the link for it under Blogga Blogga Hey.
On the eve of Genocide Celebration Day, let us all give thanks that there was once an inclusive place like CBGB.
Gobble gobble hey,
sb
PS Be sure to check out my upcoming anthology on insomnia, "AWAKE! A Reader for the Sleepless" (Soft Skull Press). In addition to award-winning writers, artists and comix creators like Charles Simic, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Ames and Frank Stack, it includes contributions from punk-era sorts like Lydia Lunch, Gary Lucas, and Lynne Tillman, just to name a few.
09/28/07 7:25 am
Steven Lee Beeber will be in Washington, D.C. October 9 at the famed Black Cat club to lead a panel on the Jewish origins of punk rock, especially as they relate to the nation's capital.
The event is part of the D.C. Jewish Book Festival and will include Mark Jenkins, co-author of "Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Captial," Steve Kiviat, founder of the early '80s D.C. zine "Thrillseeker" and Lauren Strauss, a D.C.-area academic whose dissertation -- “Painting the Town Red: Jewish Visual Artists, Yiddish Culture, and Progressive Politics in New York, 1917-1939 -- is currently being turned into a book.
For more info go to Beeber's blog, "Blogga Blogga Hey!" at:
OR
http://washingtondcjcc.org/classes/center-for-the-arts/literary/litfest2007/the-heebie-jeebies-at-cbgbs.html
08/31/07 4:29 pm
Hey Joel,
Thanks for your comments as well as your very interesting update on the Israeli scene. While I realize that my original post may have sounded a bit ambivalent in the end, ultimately I think what is happening in Israeli punk is mostly a good thing. Regardless of what the music sounds like (you were right when you said that I was talking about what punk represented ideologically), the fact that Israeli punks are now making the political personal – and not only for themselves, but their fellow countrymen – is a sign of positive developments for sure. I think the squatters’ movement has something of genius about it. After all, what better way to protest an illegal occupation than to stage an alternative one yourself? Squatting on land within Israel’s borders, the kids make it clear that it’s not alright to do so elsewhere – at least not if there’s already someone squatting there in the first place. How do they do this? By making the powers that be take them to court. Whether they are consciously mocking their elders with this ultimate irony is not really important – what matters, in my opinion, is the result. Not only is the issue of land rights brought up in a different context, it is detracting energy from the right wingers who see the “biblical lands” of the West Bank as theirs for the taking. Admittedly, staging such practical-joke-type stunts has the possibility of backfiring and alienating a potentially sympathetic audience, but in another sense it focuses a light on the problems as they exist. I’ve always been one for poetic solutions over political ones. You’re never going to change people’s behaviors till you change their hearts and minds. Just look at Northern Ireland. What finally brought peace? Exhaustion, that’s what. The populace was sick to death of “the troubles” and so they pressured their leaders to do something about them. Once the followers will no longer trouble themselves to stir up more unrest, things have a way of settling down. That’s why I think the new punks decision to just squat in place is most likely a good one. If the issue is one of opposing the occupation, best just to occupy a seat on the sidelines.
Yours squattily,
Steve
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