Billy Idol at Kings Theatre, Brooklyn, NY

A year ago I wrote to Billy Idol’s website asking when he’d be performing in New York and got no response. After flying across the country in May to see him (and other musicians) perform at the Cruel World festival in Pasadena, he announced a tour. Tonight he performed at the Kings Theatre, a spectacular theater in Brooklyn, NY, and I saw him again. (I won a free ticket from the “new music” internet radio station WDARE, the successor to WLIR and WDRE.)

As he did in Pasadena, he performed all his hits, but I’m particularly glad he sang “Bitter Taste,” from his latest EP, The Roadside (which he didn’t sing in Pasadena). I’m still wondering why that song isn’t getting more airplay. I think it’s one of his best. And “Hot in the City: New York!” (which sounds like “New Yoke” when he says it) sounds a lot better than “Hot in the City: Pasadena!” He even did the same joke in New York as he did in Pasadena about having to do the same amount of promotion for an EP as for an album. 

Idol has accumulated an impressive song catalogue (no one-hit wonder he) and he knows how to work an audience, as well. And his guitarist, Steve Stevens, is an amazing musician who is at least as responsible for Idol’s (and this concert's) success as Idol himself.

Billy Idol is now a grandfather, as he reveals during the concert. But let me assure you: this old punk has still got it!

The marquee

The ceiling

The audience

The man

How to Survive a Job Search

Looking for a job can be one of the most dehumanizing experiences there are. (I should know. I’ve been looking for a job for the past four months.) Want ads for jobs that don’t exist, recruiters who call you and then disappear, having to go through a phone interview and a Zoom interview just to get an in-person interview and then having to compete with who know how many other people. It’s enough to make even the most well-adjusted person crazy.

And it’s even more dehumanizing when there’s a holiday weekend approaching and everyone who has a job is heading to the Hamptons or Fire Island and no hiring managers are in their office to look at your resume, anyway.

My advice is to take advantage of the things you do have control over. Here are some of the things that have worked for me.

1. Exercise. If you’re lucky enough to be able to afford a gym membership, use it. Exercise releases endorphins and you’ll have a feeling of accomplishment when you’re done. If you can’t afford a gym membership, maybe you can afford to invest in some weights. I have some weights at home and I’ve designed an exercise routine I can do at home that’s almost as good as going to a gym. If you can’t afford a gym membership or weights, take a walk. I like to walk to Hudson River Park. Walking clears my head (I often get writing ideas while I’m walking) and parks are perhaps the only quiet place in the city (as long as someone’s not playing music which, incidentally, is illegal in parks). But you absolutely must get out of your apartment.

2. Clean your apartment. For me, a messy apartment is like a messy life. Cleaning your apartment will give you a sense of control and coming home to a clean apartment will be much better for you, psychologically, than coming home to an apartment with dishes piled up in the sink and a bed with all your sheets and blankets curled up in a pile. (Confession: My sheets are blankets usually are curled up in a pile, but I did vacuum today and that made me feel much better.)

3. To the extent that you’re able, continue to do the things that bring you joy. I like the theater but, obviously, I can’t afford $150 for a Broadway show right now. Fortunately, a lot of Broadway shows are available on PBS. (One of my favorites, Anything Goes, is on tonight at 9pm!) I also like to read and if you can’t afford to buy books (books are expensive!), go to the library. Yes, it’s true, a lot of the books I want to read often aren’t available, but a lot of books are available as e-books, so you can read them on your phone. (As a writer, I feel a little guilty doing this, but I literally don’t have room in my apartment for any more books.)

Remember: you are more than your job. (Most of the accomplishments I’m proudest of have nothing to do with my job.) And stop trying to analyze why you didn’t get a job after your interview and just move on to the next one. (It’s difficult, I know.)

And here’s a little secret: Holiday weekends are one of the best times to be in the city. Most of those Hamptons and Fire Island people will have left and those places will actually be more crowded.

But don’t tell anyone I told you.

Cruel World Festival

Today I attended the Cruel World festival at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA, a festival of ’80s bands. The scheduled lineup included Animotion, Berlin, The Vapors, Modern English, Gang of Four, ABC, Gary Numan, Adam Ant, Echo & the Bunnymen, Billy Idol, Love and Rockets, The Human League, Iggy Pop and Siouxsie. This was the most star-studded lineup since Live Aid, especially if you like ‘80s bands, as I do. (Adam Ant canceled but was replaced by Squeeze, who have to be the best understudy since Liza Minelli filled in for Gwen Verdon in Chicago!)

Pundits like August Brown at the Los Angeles Times made the usual old-people jokes (“If you’re a gently graying Anglophile who still can squeeze into leather pants, you’ve likely already bought your tickets.”), but there’s something to be said for nostalgia. In the ‘80s, I was in my twenties, I was in a band that played at CBGB and I even tried my hand at deejaying. I like to say that I have every record that came out in the ’80s, and that’s only a slight exaggeration. And now concert promoters have put together “nostalgia concerts” for every decade (’80s, ’90s, ’00s etc.), so take that, millennials and Gen Zers! On the other hand, some bands do themselves no favors by showing videos of themselves when they were in their twenties, while their middle-aged selves are performing onstage.

Unfortunately, the concert was cut short due to “severe weather” (although it wasn’t raining and I didn’t see any lightning), so Iggy Pop’s set was cut short and Siouxsie didn’t get to perform at all. (There were also several sound outages during Pop’s aborted set.)

I thought it never rained in southern California. Oh, well…

Rose Bowl

Old punks never die, they just move to LA.

Animotion

The Vapors

70,000 people attended.

Modern English

Gang of Four

ABC

Squeeze

Billy Idol

Iggy Pop

The concert was cut short due to "severe weather."

Why Bed Bath & Beyond Is Bankrupt or Bed Bath & Beyond as Metaphor

This is the story of how I tried to buy two pillowcases at Bed Bath & Beyond and how it turned into an all-day ordeal. But it’s also a story of how the entire retail landscape has changed (and not for the better) and how that’s a metaphor for the economy in general.

In case you haven’t been following the news, Bed Bath & Beyond recently filed for bankruptcy and I think I know why. First, they spent God knows how many millions of dollars to renovate their Chelsea flagship store, which was an unnavigable warren of dead ends and the source of one of my favorite jokes. (“I just spent three hours at Bed Bath & Beyond. Not shopping, trying to get out.”)

That was a good thing.

The bad thing is that there’s now no merchandise in the store. No merchandise and no sales help.

You might think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.

Where there used to be an entire wall of sheets and pillowcases arranged by price and color, there’s now a wall of high-priced comforters and nary a sheet or pillowcase in sight. So rather than an array of $20 pillowcase sets, as I’m accustomed to finding, you now find one set of $80 pillowcases.

That’s the other thing that’s happened. There’s no merchandise and what little merchandise they do have is overpriced.

I asked if they had any Wamsutta pillowcases (Bed Bath & Beyond’s house brand) and they said no, and they wouldn’t be getting them in until June.

JUNE!

It’s February! I’m supposed to wait four months for pillowcases?!

And, by the way, it’s still as impossible to find your way out of the store as it was before the redesign (which is not entirely a bad thing because it means I can still do my joke).

Since there are a Marshalls and a TJ Maxx in the same building, I decided to try my luck there.

Woe unto the person who decides to enter either of these hellholes!

They’re both a hodgepodge of low-quality merchandise thrown together in no particular order. I had a flashback to the bargain basement establishments my parents used to drag me to. You know, the kind with bad lighting?

Needless to say, I hightailed it out of there without buying anything.

And what’s the difference between Marshalls and TJ Maxx, anyway? Why do we need both of them?

After I regained my composure, I attempted to do a Google search on my phone for “pillowcases near me.” (Why are there 200 kinds of anything you try to do a search for on Google?)

The closest thing I could find in my price range was Target. I saw that the Tribeca location had exactly one set of blue cotton pillowcases for under $20, so I rushed down there.

Target is another sort of bargain basement hodgepodge, and they also had barely any sales help. (They even make you check out your own purchases. If I wanted to work here, I'd apply for a job!)

But I did find my one set of blue cotton pillowcases for under $20, so I felt like my day had not been a total waste.

So why is this a metaphor for the economy in general?

Because the retail marketplace mirrors our economy at large, which is to say there’s a high end and a low end, but no middle.

Beyond that, there’s the sheer contempt with which the people in charge of these establishments hold their customers (hence the lack of sales help).

The whole atmosphere seems to say, “We only care about maximizing profits for our shareholders, and if you don’t like it, you can go someplace else.”

Except you can’t. If everyone’s doing it, there’s no place else to go.

So old farts like me, who like to actually see what they’re buying before they pay for it, are left holding the self-checkout bag.

So I guess I’ll be (reluctantly) buying my sheets and pillowcases at Target from now on.

Or at least until June.

The Great American Gluttony and Violence Festival

The Super Bowl may be the most American institution we have because it embodies two core American values: gluttony and violence.

Everything about the Super Bowl is absurd, if you looked at it objectively. From the singing of the “Star Spangled Banner” to the Air Force flyover to the game itself, it’s almost an object lesson in self-parody.

Let’s start with the national anthem and aforementioned flyover.

What’s that all about? Are we pledging allegiance to the Super Bowl? Is there some connection between football and our armed forces? The implication is that football is somehow tied to our national identity and if you don’t like football, you’re somehow unpatriotic.

Then there’s the game itself.

Let’s talk about what we’re really watching: a bunch of 300-pound men throwing themselves at each other and trying to cause as much damage as possible without actually killing someone. (I suppose that’s what all that padding and helmets are for.)

But a few weeks ago, the nation watched a football player go into cardiac arrest on prime time television.

For a brief moment, it seemed as if the powers that be might actually stop to consider the dangers inherent in this sport. But I knew from the outset that nothing would actually change. There’s too much money involved!

Which leads us to the other feature of the Super Bowl and the main reason why people like me (who don’t give a shit about football) might actually consider watching: the commercials.

Here’s yet another example of what makes this game so American. It’s all about selling people shit they don’t need and can’t afford.

But, hey, at least the commercials often feature celebrities because we are, after all, a celebrity-obsessed culture. So even if you don’t care about football, we can still bond over our mutual love/hate relationship with celebrities.

Then there’s the half-time show, another exercise in excess but, again, at least it gives non-fans like me another excuse to watch.

Last night I caught part of a documentary about the making of the last half-time show. There was lots of backslapping and self-congratulation to go around. You’d think they’d just cured cancer. (OK, even I would have to admit that the logistics of organizing all those people, sets, and special effects is some kind of accomplishment, but give me a break!)

Oh, and I almost forgot the gluttony part.

How ironic is it that we celebrate an athletic event by gorging ourselves on pizza and chicken wings? And then we act like we’re the ones winning even though we're sitting on our couches stuffing food down our throats!

So, yes, I will probably be watching today’s Super Bowl.

But only for the material.

Why Most Americans Think Our “Good” Economy Is Bad

According to a recent Gallup poll, half of Americans say their finances are worse off now than a year ago.¹ That’s despite record-low unemployment, massive job growth and declining inflation.

But if you’re a temp, freelancer or contract worker, like I am, you might be one of those people. That’s because if you’re a temp, freelancer or contract worker, you have no job security (not that any job is really “secure,” as thousands of tech workers—and others—recently found out). On top of that, you probably have no health insurance and, chances are, you can’t afford any, even with the so-called Affordable Care Act.

Furthermore, while inflation may be declining in some areas, it’s increasing in others. When the price of eggs at my local deli went down to $7 from $9, I was so excited I took a picture of it. But then the next day, The New York Times announced that it was increasing the price of its daily newspaper from $3 to $4.

You can’t win!

My salary peaked in 2015 and has actually been decreasing since then. And that’s not accounting for inflation, which, even if it was only 4% per year (and it was much higher last year), would mean that prices have gone up 32% in the last eight years!

Then there are things like natural disasters (which have increased since the advent of climate change) and medical emergencies, which can wipe out a family’s savings (assuming they have any) in one fell swoop. We’ve now had over 40 years of trickle-down economics and, guess what, folks: it hasn’t worked.

Our so-called “safety net” isn’t always enough to sustain people until they can find another job and some people don’t even qualify for that safety net.

Meanwhile, technologies like ChatGPT are set to further erode the job market, and retirement for many people (including myself) is nothing more than a pipe dream.

This is why it’s so frustrating when I keep reading and hearing people (I’m looking at you, Jerome Powell) say that low unemployment and high wages are bad. It’s as if the Fed is actively trying to make things worse.

It’s even more frustrating that we live in an age of social media, where everyone pretends that everything is great all the time.

Well, I have news for you, people: it’s not.

1 https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/08/biden-touts-economy-wins-half-of-americans-say-finances-are-worse-off.html

Guns and Hate

As many Americans head home for Thanksgiving, there are some who will not be heading home.

That’s because on Saturday, there was yet another mass shooting at a gay bar in Colorado, where five people were killed and many more were injured.

There have been over 600 mass shootings so far this year. That’s more than one every day.

I know we’ve become numb to the frequency of mass shootings in America, but we can’t allow that to happen.

I can’t allow that to happen. I’m too angry.

In the past few years, in addition to seeing people targeted and killed because they were LGBTQ (and, particularly, because they were trans), we’ve seen people targeted and killed because they were Black, Jewish, Asian, and Mexican. We cannot allow this hatred to continue.

But the thing that allows someone who is homophobic or racist or antisemitic to kill people, and the thing that often gets left out of the conversation, is guns.

And I’m tired of the excuses.

Don’t tell me it’s a “mental health” issue. Other countries have people who are mentally ill, but they don’t have anywhere near the level of gun violence America has. Not even close.

Nevertheless, now that Republicans are poised to take over the House, we also know that nothing will change.

And don’t tell me not to politicize a mass shooting. It is political.

That’s why we have laws. The number one responsibility of our elected officials is to protect the health and safety of Americans. And they are failing to do that.

That’s why I want President Biden to sign an executive order to ban assault weapons. And while he’s at it, he should also ban high-capacity magazines and body armor.

No one needs any of these things for “self-protection” or “hunting,” so I’m calling bullshit on Republicans and the gun lobby. I don’t even want to hear it. And I can’t wait another two years for things to change.

And let’s talk about the other thing that often goes unmentioned: hate.

While antisemitism and racism have become unacceptable (at least ostensibly), it seems that it’s still OK to target LGBT people (and, as I said, particularly trans people).

We just had a campaign season where LGBT people (and trans people in particular) were the centerpiece of many Republican campaigns.

And what message is Ron DeSantis sending with his “Don’t Say Gay” bill? He saying that LGBT people are second-class citizens and don’t deserve the same rights and protections as other Americans.

The fact that LGBT people are being targeted for hate crimes is precisely why we need to educate children about LGBT people, if only to say, “Not everyone is a cis-gendered heterosexual, but they deserve to be treated with respect, just like everyone else.”

As for guns, we know that gun control works.

It’s no coincidence that the number of mass shootings went up after we let the assault weapons ban expire.

Other countries have figured this out. Why can’t we?

After just one mass shooting in New Zealand, they banned assault weapons in three days.

Why can’t we? How many more people have to die?

And I’d like to ask our politicians, (particularly our Republican politicians), “How can you live with yourself? How you can allow this to continue?”

And you know that it will, unless we do something about it.

How long will it be until the next mass shooting?

It’s time to stop treating gun violence as yet another “culture war” issue and instead treat it as a public health issue.

I can’t wait any longer. Enough already!