The Russians Love Their Children Too

Jeff and Evan Marien on Bass

Last night was a bit of a nut job. I checked out a bunch of old friends play a gig at Rockwood Music Hall that started around 1:00am. These guys were killin it! It’s my good buddy Iakov Kremenskiy’s group (he and half the band are from Russia, got to get my UN on) and the name of the band is Mass Ave Project (whaddup, Boston?) and they’re really killin that whole Yellow Jackets, groove your face off shit. I have to give special praise to my buddy Jeff Villanueva who held it DOWN on the kit! It was great to see him last night (we haven’t seen eachother in 2 years!) and man he’s a beast. He’s also the sweetest dude and he practices yoga for an hour every day! Namaste to Jeff!

I was in the Lower East Side and for the gig, and somewhere around 2:30am, I ended up at a full-blown hipster dance party (with flashing lights and all) held in what looked like an old church. The party was kind of lame but there were DJ’s spinning some really awesome dance techo stuff. The bartender charged me $5 for a PBR (ridiculous! but that’s what I get for ordering PBR at a hipster dance-off).

I danced my face off.

From there I ended up in a car with people I’m not very familiar with on my way to a bar in the West Village. On the radio in the car was an old school earth wind and fire song that I haven’t heard in quite some time that brought me back. On the wall at the bar there was a HUGE poster describing some crazy-haired man’s music and how it relates to Dogen’s Zen Buddhism. I shit you not. And this was a real dive, Southern looking place with deer antlers on the wall. And there for all to see is Dogen’s Shobogenzo literally in the middle of nowhere. Righteous.

I stepped outside of the bar and into some random pizza shop in the West Village and as I sat down to eat my chicken and broccoli slice, staring me in the face is a sticker of my buddy Alexis Babini who I haven’t seen in almost 2 years but who also just contacted me that day to get together and play some music. He just moved here so I’m not even sure how that sticker got there. Righteous part d’eux.

This city has this awesome self-reflexive thing that can happen sometimes. It will project the image you have of yourself back onto you, kind of proving to you that you are inextricable from your surroundings. The city is you, and since you know you, the city knows you but better than (you think) you know yourself. And if you keep your eyes open it can teach you yourself better than you could have imagined (but it really is what you, yourself, imagined).

Tomorrow I will write a blog on Marxism as Humanism.

Roommate update: Apparently Craig fell off his bike last night.

Gig Update: I’m upstairs at Pianos tonight with my buddy Adam Shenk. We’re doing a Mariah Carey cover. 9pm sharp!