DEO VOLENTE
My New Year's resolutions from last year were simple: finish the new book I had just started or the new record I had just started. I've gotten huge amounts of work done on both of them, but neither is finished, but in the spirit of optimism I'll call it a push, change the 2 to a 3 and keep going.

Aside from that, nothing else, except to spend more time with people who I think rock and who think I rock, and not waste my time with dilettantes and flakes and other people who don't fit that distinction. (I might have a lonely winter at that, but I gotta believe.)

You'll notice no plans to fight injustice or make the world a better place or any of that noble claptrap. That's not because I'm looking to enter a Golden Age of Selfishness (though I certainly am, with as few apologies as my Catholic heart can handle letting out), but rather because any good I wind up doing will be by accident or by reflex, and so I'm just going to have to coast on my karma a little bit.

In reality, you'll see little change. Old dog. New tricks. (My birthday's next week, and not that I want to give away my age, but my granddaughter was Strom Thurmond's wet nurse.) Lights out. God bless. Namas-te.

PURTY PITCHERS

The sisyphean task of retooling the Nervous Nero Website has begun, thanks to my getting a little buggyeyed staring at these here recording machines all week, and so, with the gentle reappropriation of some outdated communist imagery, I've uploaded the first updates to my Desktop Wallpaper pages in almost a year. The half-dozen new images are the beginning of the promotional push for the new album, and all contain the title of the new record in them. (Of all the images, I'm proudest of the test patterns, especially the last on on Page Three. The rest are fine, don't get me wrong, but I had some rust to shake off after going so long between manipulations. That sounds naughty, doesn't it. Well it is.) So go look, see, if you like, take, if you hate, let me know, I can take it, doctor.

So that's a start. Coming up in the new year: free music, more pictures of beautiful people doing beautiful things, usually while drunk, and continued renovations.

Well I'm excited.

GREASE FOR PEACE
This morning, in the train station, I was thinking it might be a good idea, if possible, to remove from the muzak track any versions of "I'll Be Home For Christmas (If Only In My Dreams)," especially when the trains themselves are running more than a little late. That said, I've never been in a train station at sevenish on Christmas morning (actually, that's not true; but play along for a second), and I was expecting to have to crowdsurf my way through some serious crush of last-minute familistas making their respective outer-suburban trails of tears. Or maybe that was just me. Still, there are very few people here. I guess most people made it out to wherever they had to get to for midnight mass. I am such a bad grandchild.

The weather was improperly predicted again, I must say. I understand that the AMA has to expect the reasonable worst in order to cover their collective bootay, but the forecast was for a reasonable amount of snow this morning, and I walked out of my flat into barely a near-foglike mist and sweater temperatures (and I am far from hardy, lemmytellya), which was fine and all, but at a certain point I shall officially refuse to believe a word of what Hackuweather has to say about anything ever again. And not a minute too soon.

Still, it was fun walking the ten blocks to Penn Station and having the streets be almost completely empty, save for a smattering of elderly Asian men and a clutch of smiling Hasidim, looking like they were just enjoying the goy-free streets for a while before dropping into the AMC theatres for a double feature. (I know of, no exaggerating, half a dozen Jews (Jon is one; you'll have to trust me on the rest, but have I ever lied to you before? No, I haven't, of course, um --) for whom movies are a Christmas-Day tradition. Is this an evermorepopular custom? I mean, if it is, it makes sense and all. If the world shut down on Yom Kippur, I suspect I'd while away the day with a book or something someplace quiet. Still. If I was running a Jewish-themed film festival, which you know is going to happen any day now, I'd at least give serious thought to opening it on Christmas Day. And if someone wants to take this idea and run with it, go on ahead, right on, [insert positive you-go-girl-type Yiddish or Hebrew exhortation here].)

[Update: Yeah, so it did wind up snowing. So? I was wrong. I've been shooting my mouth off a lot recently about stuff I know nothing about. That would include the weather outside my window. And?]

Anyway, for those who do, and you heathen savages too, let me be among the last to wish for you everything you wish for yourself this season, especially if (a) your wishes include sex and/or money, and (b) they include me as at least a co-beneficiary.

RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT
Alright. Joe Strummer. His words and style and attitude are a lot of why I went into music and how I've conducted myself since. Most bands, even true ensemble type acts, usually have a real leader (two at most) out of the group, driving force types who provide the impetus and energy while the rest of the members steer and augment and fill in the gaps with their own ability and expertise. The Beatles had John and sometimes Paul. U2 has Bono and sometimes the Edge. The Butthole Surfers had Gibby Haynes, ABBA had Bjorn & Benny, DOA had Joey "Shithead" Keithley, I could pad this out way more but you get the drift.

My point is that the Clash, as great as they were for as long as they were, switched off on leadership. Joe was the logical leader type. Sure, he was the lead singer, and he wrote more than his share of the music and did plenty of the talking, but it's not like he eclipsed Mick, Topper or Paul, on stage or off. They all stepped forward and stood behind each other when necessary, and that was always something I marvelled at, especially after I started playing in bands myself. That kind of dynamic is a wondrous thing, especially in a stress-driven gig like being in a confrontational, politically active, culturally significant band (with the added pressure of knowing that you're all of these things and having very little in the way of active, day-by-day guidance), in a business as openly corrupt as the music business, which did whatever was necessary to make sure the revolution you were hoping for never came close to coming to pass. That kind of pressure will warp your worldview and stop your good works in their tracks. It ultimately did to the Clash.

But before that happened, that foursome put out four genuinely great records (five including Black Market Clash, and eight if you count London Calling as two and Sandanista! as three, which I'm gonna). From 1977 through about the first half of Combat Rock, the Clash were easily the best rock and roll band in the world.

I remember my friend Roger playing London Calling for me at his house in, I guess it was '82, while we were doing some sort of proto-insurrectionist anti-school zine, and it made a world of sense to a kid who knew something was wrong with the way the world was and didn't have a clue where to begin thinking about it. Sure, they were British, and I could barely understand many of the songs, but I knew that rage better than anything, and there was that hope, you could feel it, they really believed that what they were doing was going to change something. And so it did.

That was all I wanted out of my life. To matter. That's why I left everything I cared about in Toronto to move here and type this out sitting on the edge of my futon in a one-room apartment in the middle of the night in Hell's Kitchen on Christmas Eve. Because I still feel that rage, and I still have that hope.

Sure, my faith gets shaken. An unquestioned belief is a weak belief. (That's why I don't trust fundamentalists or reactionaries of any stripe.) But I've bet my life on what I'm doing, and I know that's a good bet, I know it, because I saw it pay off when people like Joe Strummer made it.

[There are dozens of excellent tributes to him sprouting up all over, but Billy Bragg's is especially eloquent.]

HERE COMES THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION IN ADVANCE
Oh, if you don't have plans yet for New Year's Eve, I'll be at Manhattan Theater Source again, playing a few tunes and having a lovely gin-based evening and scratching out a few tunes with a few friends and debating the relative successes of New Year's Resolutions from last year. This is the third straight year I've been there (So, like, all of them since I've moved - no, wait, I spent the first one at the Sidewalk Cafe. Joie DBG broke something like twleve strings on his guitar in some sort of display of punkenness, and I remember being really happy that I'd made it through my first month in New York without something bad happening.

So yeah, Theatersource. It'll be a night of Canadian expats not talking about the old country. And for twenty five bucks, it's all you can eat and drink, and I can vouch for that the spread kicks a certain amount of culinary badonkadonk.

Happy everything to you, and I'd love to see you, either next week or somewhere else.

FRISBEES AND ACCORDIONS
So I wrote this song called Frisbee, about a conversation I once had about looking for the joy in one's life, especially when you're stuck in the mundanenesses of whatever it is you do all day, especially if you're stuck in dead end situations everywhere and there's not a lot of hope to be found. Not that I personally know that feeling. But I wrote this song, which is really about a dog chasing a frisbee (I should check copyright on the term, though I'll be damned if I could substitute 'flying disc' everywhere in the song. I'm wordy, but not that wordy), and my collaborator (bandmate seems premature, but that's the idea) Donna and I have been pfutzing about with it, and I thought it needed an ending, but it turns out it doesn't, I don't think. I worked out the parts, and yes, there's a coda bit, but I'm done writing words for it. It needs either a french horn or an accordion. (Think 'Layla' as performed by Nick Lowe. Yeah, like that.) But I want an accordion in my band anyways. Accordions rock. They serve as both horn section and keyboards in any arrangement, they look so damned cool, and outside of France, there is no song that isn't made happier by the addition of an accordion.

The Frisbee song is jittery and happy, just like I am right now. I won't wish jitters upon you, but the other thing, I give unto you with all the powers vested in me as the self-appointed spokesperson for my generation. I'll post samples at some point next month.

YOU DID WHAT ON THE LAWN FOR CHRISTMAS?
From Salvador Dali's hometown of Figueres, Spain, comes a tradition that inexplicably has not made it into American Traditional Catholic Culture, despite the fact that they've been including these figures in nativity scenes for centuries in parts of Spain. Tradition has it that in every nativity scene, aside from the usual Jesus-Mary-Joseph-kings-and-a-goat, a defecating person is placed, generally just out of sight of the swaddling messiah. (The link goes to a page with many examples, which given the subject matter are kind of cute, all told.)

...(T)he justification for what many might deem an inappropriate presence at such a sacred moment? "He's fertilising the ground and ensuring the wellbeing of the family for the following year. Adding a caganer to the nativity scene is believed to bring fortune and happiness. Not having one is bad luck," explains Joan Rosa.

(I wasn't sure if I remembered something like this from some part of my childhood or whether I'd just made it up after hearing about it, so I went and googled it, and sure enough, this is all true. And I've never heard of it. Certainly in my Italian Catholic family I've never seen this, though I'll ask my Grandma about it next week when I go home.)

I am doing my best to hold in all cheap punchlines involving the phrase "Holy Shit" and any intimation that such a long-standing (or -squatting) figure would never reveal themselves on the lawns of your average tight-assed North American. But all you people who think this subject stinks can scat.
[from the null device]

RELEVANCE
Al Gore has decided not to run for President, and I'm going to pretend it's not a purely strategic move for 2008 and more an attack of lucidity on his part. He doesn't seem like an idiot - he has shortcomings, sure, but lack of intelligence is not one of them - he's just a little opportunistic. (Yeah, him and Madonna.) But even though I don't think it'll help the Democrats much, I applaud the fact that he's exiting the race. Given the heat everyone concerned has to deal with to get to the White House (or anywhere close, for that matter), anyone smart enough to run is smart enough not to run, and it seems Al's actually learned something from that bad year he had. (Yes, I didn't vote for him, but I don't wish him ill or anything. I just don't think he's the best candidate for President.) (Then again, who is? Bill Hicks is dead, Jesse Ventura won't run, George Carlin and Hunter Thompson wouldn't take the gig... I'm only partly kidding.)

Also, this last weekend, I saw The Junction Boys, ESPN's story of Bear Bryant and the ten sadistic days he spent in a 110-degree Texas drought in 1954 with his Texas A & M team, driving two-thirds of his players out of the sport and more than a few of the rest into the hospital. The movie (which has some huge holes in it, but as a male-bonding flick it's not bad) climaxes at Coach Bryant's realization that he doesn't have to be Mister Number One Badass, and that fergawdsake it's just football. And with that sense of perspective, he went on to something like 37 straight winning seasons, becoming the standard against which all collegiate coaches are now measured.

Anyway, like Eugene McCarthy said, being a politician is like being a football coach; you have to be smart enough to understand the game, but dumb enough to think it's important. I didn't put these two thoughts together to drop this quote in, but they occupy the same parking spot in my little mind, and that whole deflating that bloated sense of self importance thing is something I've been thinking about lately. And like Gore and Bryant, I bet that making sure I understand how important (and unimportant) what I write really matters to the world I live in will keep me clear on why I love doing it so much.

TOUGH CROWD
One thing I've learned over the two-plus years I've been writing into this space is that I'm not the most eloquent political commentator. I wish I was; this world needs more actual discourse and less name calling, more logic and less A-then-B. I don't want to hate the boorish entitled attitudes of the people in this country, but sometimes the sheer idiocy of the opinions I read and the assumptions I se people make just makes me want to wander off into the desert and build a shack wherever I stop walking. We need more people like Steven and Chuck out there, and less whining about being powerless. Believing in your own powerlessness is the only way to give up your power in this world. I wasn't born with any gift of passionate discourse. If someone disagrees with me on something, I'm generally shocked at their sheer inability to have thought it through as well as I have. Arguments? Not my strong point.

As a result, I always dig when there's other people's opinions being pitted against each other. Open debate rocks, especially on a medium people actually sometimes pay attention to like television, and especially when there's genuine separation in the points of view (So, not so much on the news networks. One side of the beltway versus the other side of the same beltway isn't allowing ideas to bubble up - they look more like Cinderella's stepsisters continuously elbowing each other out of the way to try and get the prince's attention. Which is kind of what's happening on those shows, I guess).

I dug Politically Incorrect for exactly that reason. Sure, Bill Maher had on movie stars and other schmoes who had no more information than you or me, but that was kind of the point. It reflected a much wider range of the ideological spectrum, and it got buried after 9/11 by people who didn't understand that the government-sponsored party line is not what everyone really believes. Maher seems like he might be a prick, but since when was that a disqualifier, and he did good work. I hope he gets a platform again.

And to that end, I like Tough Crowd, Colin Quinn's new show. It presents a different opinion. Yes, the guys on the show are often pigs, but they're pigs in a different way than the collar-too-tight look-don't-argue-with-me of the pundit shows or the fuck-them-who-ain't-one-of-us of the cable ranters and the sportscasters and whoever else airs social views. Tough Crowd is less about politics than it is about where the world actually is, and what people are actually thinking. Now, he's only aired two episodes, and he himself clearly has not much of an idea what he's doing, but Quinn, like Maher and Dennis Miller before him, are onto something, and once he gets a better handle on it, this could become the kind of show that widens the spectrum of discourse, which can only help.

WHAT IN TARNATION IS A 'SKIRTED EGGSHELL'?
So I had a pretty kick ass weekend.

Okay, so the show on Friday went only so-so (though it was very nice to see my old work buddy Paul & his friends Laura (again) and Steve (for the first time), and then I went to this arty party in Brooklyn with young drunken kids and listened to bootlegs & remixes all night before wandering back out into the STUPID DAMNED COLD to get home. (You know, for someone who has spent pretty much his entire life in climes with occasionally serious winters, I kind of hate the cold weather. I'd move somewhere warmer in a second if I could deal with the hedonism and loss of initiative and IQ that a southward move would inspire. I know it doesn't work that way for everyone, but -- look, I know me. If I thought Miami (or San Juan, or Tangier, or what, Bogota?) had the pace, the connection to the rest of the world and the constant aggressive inspiration that New York provides, I'd -- well, I'd get a winter place there anyway. Who am I kidding. I'd never leave these lattitudes. I'd move to Saskatchewan before I pulled any perma-snowbird stunts like that. Still. I reserve the right to kvetch about the cold all winter long, and live for the stench of August. Anyway. That said.)

So the rest of the weekend I spent writing & rehearsing with Donna and trying to finish a few songs about exes. It's been excellent. The plot has advanced. This is good.

And today at work, we listened to twisted holiday songs and looked up the history of the Mullet. I have no idea why we got on that one - no wait, Peter, one of the longhairs around here, had been accosted from behind, and we all had a good laugh about it, and the conversation led us to look it up.

I knew there were some mullet sites out there, but after having even a perfunctory look, I'm kind of taken aback. There's Mullets Galore, Mullet Joe, Mullet Madness, When The Mullet Hits The Bone, Mullet Junkie, Rate My Mullet, Dan's Mullet Haven and The National Mullet Club (Okay, that last one's about fishing), and that's not even looking hard. I'm not wasting any more effort on this than I already have.

But back to the origin of the word, which was where this started. From Mulletlovers.com:

Well.... Mullets have been around for as long as time has been recorded. They have gone by many different names, most well known as the "bi-level", "camaro-cut", "hockey player", "Achy-Breaky-what-a-mistakey", "Tennessee tophat", "beaver paddle", "soccer rocker", "the El Camino", "10/90", "Mississippi Grapevine", "ape drape", "neck blanket", "shlong", "calm before the storm", "Kentucky waterfall", "handlebar hair". "mudflap", "Canadian passport", "skirted eggshell", "VokuHila (Vorne kurz Hinten lang)","dirtstick", "Alabama shag", "yep nope", "butt-rocker", or the "Missouri compromise". We do not pretend to understand the reasoning behind the Mullet, or why they choose to look the way they do. We seriously doubt most of them are even aware that they are Mullets. However, once you know what a Mullet is and what to look for you will see them EVERYWHERE.

Anyway, according to Yourdictionary.com, the history of the word goes back as far as 1440, though the roots of the hair term begin during the Victorian age, when the flat-headed fish began being associated with a certain lack of intelligence.

It's a short trek from there to Billy Ray Cyrus and Michael Bolton, neither of which was the kind of songwriting I was hoping to get done this week. So, um, never mind.

REFLECTIONS ON 2002 (PART 1)
This year has turned out far from what I had hoped, despite the huge amount of writing I've done and what-all's happened. And aught-two ain't over yet. Also, years are artificial constructs by which one might measure their life. It's arbitrary at best and the expectations of being able to constrain yourself inside of a 365-day timeframe can cripple anyone.

That being said, I can safely say that the best word I learned this year, my favorite, and one I hope enters the lexicon and expands in meaning to transcend its current fairly narrow definition:

Badonkadonk.

I've heard this word used by enough different people in different contexts over the last few months that it's on the verge of becoming a legitimate word, but I think it plugs a niche in the lexicon. Used to be once upon a time there was just bums and arses, and now there just happens to be a need for something beyond a mere booty.

I didn't say it came up in conversation every day, and it's not like I require excessive junk in one's metaphorical trunk to float my proverbial boat. I just happen to be all over the word itself.

Badonkadonk. I can't even say it without sounding like Tracy Morgan from SNL. It's a word that describes itself. It's fun to say. It's perfect. It's a big sexy round beautiful fun word.

Just had to share.

THE ONE ABOUT THE SHORT ORDER COOK
Here's the story I told on stage last night at Adam Brodsky's CD release party for "Hookers, Hicks & Heebs," his third LP:

I got a phone call at 2:00 on Saturday afternoon from Adam, which is cool, cos hey, always nice to hear from him.

Now, let me stop this narrative right here (Tony, the whole story isn't gonna be like this, right? No, gentle reader, it won't, I promise) and explain what the deal was for the night. Adam had invited a few of his closest friends to come and warm up the audience before he came and officially presented the new record to the people. Everyone was to have one song,and that song was to be an Adam Brodsky piece done in your own style. (I have seen this concept fall flat with lesser songwriters and less popular performers, but Adam's nationwide reach and godlike standing in Philly made this kind of operation a slam dunk, with lots of nationally known and obscenely talented people lining up for a shot at one of Adam's opuseses.)

So Adam asks me what song I was planning on playing. Now I've played this song of his, Patsy Cline, about a difficult breakup and how he can't handle listening to "I Fall To Pieces" anymore. It's a lovely, touching, beautiful song, and I wish there were more songs like that in the world, let alone coming out of my pen. So I've been playing it, and Adam knew this, but he tells me I have to find a new song, because someone else wants to do it, and apparently they're more important than I am.

Well, lah di da. So in the next two hours, before I get on the train, I bang out the following song, which I then performed so late in the night I missed the last train coming back and I had to flag a cab to get the last bus back to NYC (not that I'm complaining, och, it's okay, I'll sit in the dark, who needs to sleep in their own bed before dawn anyway, einh?):

Feel Like Adam Brodsky's Fixin' To Kill Me Someday Rag

Well he dresses like a rebel, and he claims to be a freak
But he's got himself a job and he does it week after week
It feeds his soul unmerciful but what it does to his physique is pretty criminal
The angry guy I used to know is changed in ways I guess
You take a potential loser and you mix in some success
And one day you look up and think that guy could have been a mess but he kinda made it

And I'm proud of being in this room, of standing on this stage
And I'm glad that Lisa Marie finally dumped that chump Nicholas Cage
And every time a friend succeeds I die a bit inside
But you can kill me any time you want

He didn't break the mold but sure as hell it's now all dented
Four out of five folksingers said truth decay could be prevented
For a guy who didn't know the wheel had already been invented he's no dummy
If god really existed you'd be on more menus then chicken
And though you're getting older I don't see no bio-clocks a-tickin'
And though I try I can't deny that I'm the guy whose ass Jews sometimes kick in[*]

And I'm honoured to be in this room, standing on this plank
When Chrissie Aguilera is off exploring new frontiers in skank
And every time a friend succeeds I die a bit inside
But Adam, you can kill me any time you want

Folk and antifolk it's all a joke I'm so confused
At the Napoleons in rags and good people they abused
You work so hard your back breaks and your vertebrae get fused it's kind of a blessing
You don't have to yell at fuckers to make them clap no more
Each night you get to choose between Madonna and the whore
You're dropping bigger names all the time, soon I bet you'll score with Debra Messing
(I know, I know, she's married, she might not even be Adam's type, but, but she's hot & Jewish & famous, & she rhymes!)

And I'm honoured to be in this room, yelling at this mike
While America's next sweetheart is a diesel dyke
And every time a friend succeeds I die a bit inside
But Adam, you can kill me any time you want

You wrote off that debt from Jesus, Klaus is still somewhere in the Pampas
You banked your teenage angst in exchange for the angst of your Grampa's
And sixty years from now we'll all be crapping in our pampers & we'll still love you
So from one goy to your mother, Merry Christmas Mister Brodsky
Here you're bigger than John Lennon or Vlad Lenin or Ringo Trotsky
Every time some college girl calls me a fucking Natzki I think of you

And I'm honoured to be in this room, standing in this light
In the last room in this country where we can mock the Christian Right
And every time a friend succeeds I die a bit inside
But Adam, you can kill me any time you want
Yeah, you can kill me any time you want

And I'm honoured to be in this room, trying to look all cool and angular
While Michael Jackson screams, "Ich Bin Ein Baby Dangler!"
And every time a friend succeeds I die a bit inside
But Adam, you can kill me any time you want
Yeah, you can kill me any time you want

Yes, it's long, but that was kind of the point - I tried to do it in Adam's style as much as I could, yelling, never going for the easy rhyme, you know, antifolk style. And it brought the North Star Bar down, which made the whole damned thing worthwhile. I'm all excited to be performing again now. That was all it took, really.

Did I mention I'm playing this Friday at the Baggott Inn? I won't be playing this song. I might never play it again, it was such a site specific installation. But it was nice to rock a big house and reconnect with some old friends. (You can get your own copy of "Hookers Hicks & Heebs" at adambrodsky.com.)