The Last Days of Video

I’ve addressed this topic in my blog before, but the problem won’t go away. Years pass, seasons change (not in the UK apparently), people fall in and out of love, but the crisis continues like the growth of mold in a two month old teabag (Not that I would know, my apartment is very clean). These days I think it’s more relevant than ever. Truly understanding the dilemma may be the key to unlocking not only the mystery of the credit crunch, but also perhaps the meaning of life itself. I am of course, speaking of the demise of the Video Store.

When I was 14, my first job was working as a delivery boy for The Video Connection, my local video store on 80^th and Broadway. Back in the heyday of VHS, video stores had names that implied futurism while feeling ancient at the same time, as if they’d always been there and would be for millennium to come. Names like Video Vault, Pegasus Video, Royal Video, and Champagne Video, the lone survivor of the VHS boom. I recently walked through Champagne Video’s doors over the holidays. It was as if I’d entered a time warp: row upon row of rectangular plastic black boxes with poorly laminated covers. Movies grouped by section signs with cheesy, oversized bubble letters. Colorful displays on the checkout counter offering five flavors of microwave popcorn. It felt like 1994 all over again

Those were the days when the world was mine to discover. Every afternoon after school I’d pound the all-to-familiar blocks of my neighborhood, knapsack filled to the brim with tapes like Santa in his youthful prime. During the day I suffered all the indignities high school had to offer, but from the hours of 4 to 8, Tuesday through Thursday, I was in charge of my own destiny. I became a welcome sight to the uptown bourgeois elite, bringing them new releases of the day like Sirens with Hugh Grant and Elle Macpherson and Angels and Insects with Patsy Kensit. The titles and stars of countless, seemingly meaningless films were forever etched in my mind.

Back then (we’re talking the 90’s folks), movies came out on video no sooner than 6 months after being in the theater. This was when the Major Studios were king and had complete control of the supply chain. Whenever they decided to put a movie out on tape was the only time you could see it outside the cinema. Peer 2 peer networks didn’t exist. Pirated copies were made by a guy in the back row holding an off-center camcorder. If you wanted to see the movie you had to rent it. In addition, Studios would price VHS tapes at $89.99, making them impossible to buy for home entertainment. The Video Stores were the only places with enough capital to purchase cassettes and the clientele to make their money back. The Video Connection would get 5 copies at most of a new release (It was a big deal when they bought 10 copies of Jurassic Park). All these factors built up unbelievable anticipation for a movie coming out on video. Only 5 (10 when it came to the dinosaurs) lucky customers would get the latest film on a Tuesday night (Tuesday was the night we would allow customers to rent new movies. It was my most dreaded day, sometimes I would get out of there as late as 9:30!). As the delivery boy, the power was in my hands. I was Hermes, messenger of the Gods, delivering mortals fresh pop culture food for their starved brains. In retrospect, I realize Sirens was a piece of English poo. But back then, Hugh Grant was hot shit post-Four Weddings and A Funeral and pre-Divine Brown. Anything he was in sold like warm bagels straight out the oven.

It was at this job was where my love of Pop music blossomed. I have an overzealous clerk by the name of Derek Davidson to thank for beginning my education. Derek was a guy from Canarsie who’d been living on the Upper West in a one bedroom for ages, and still does to this day. Derek had a serious love of music and movies, and very definite opinions on what was good and what was crap. It was Derek who first gave me Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection, 10cc’s The Original Soundtrack, and Steely Dan’s Katy Lied. It was Derek who introduced me to the films Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorcese and David Cronenberg. Derek was the first guy I ever played in a band with, and he was the first guy to kick me out of one. I have so many wonderful teenage memories of trolling the streets of New York with a Discman in hand, discovering for the first time albums like The Beatles’ White Album, XTC’s English Settlement, Queen’s A Night At The Opera. And it’s all thanks to Derek. If it weren’t for him, you guys may not have these caustic, over-informed diatribes to read online. You’d also be less several nostalgic, sentimental Pop anthems for that matter.

After high school, things became a blur. I went off the college as big chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video pushed independent video stores out of business. A few years after graduation, Blockbuster, once a towering Goliath, was humbled by online rental services like Netflix and Lovefilm (which have a much better selection I must say. Who needs 50 copies of the new Will Smith movie?). VHS made way for DVD, which will soon make way for HD DVD and Blue Ray, or some other medium (whatever happened to Laserdisc?). In the next decade, movies and music will be usurped by video games as the main source of entertainment. Today’s Pop Stars are entrepreneurs, business moguls hyper–aware of the power of their brand. Clothing lines and perfumes are just as important as the song or the screenplay. Old-fashioned storytelling and heartbreaking performances have been replaced by CGI special effects and Super Hero movie franchises. The auteur of the future will be more informed by Halo, Resident Evil, Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft then ET, Star Wars, Raging Bull or Clockwork Orange. The days of dreaming in the Video Store are gone. Maybe it’s for the best. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve wasted, wandering in the wonder of the aisles.

Slumdog Singalong

Maybe this sounds strange, but recently, through the dark days that dawn in London in January, I find myself wanting to write a musical. I’ve been told my entire career my songs would fit right in on Broadway, with comments ranging from celebratory to slanderous, mainly the latter. I think the musical may be the most derided entertainment form. One look at the typical fare and you can’t help agree with its detractors. It seems the cheesiest, corniest, most unbelievable subject matter is reserved exclusively for musicals, be it the shameless rehashing of a film in the name of commerce (The Producers and Hairspary are the quality examples, Shrek, Saturday Night Fever and Lord Of The Rings: The Musical scrape the bottom of the barrel) or ridiculous, unentertaining concepts, i.e. Rollerskating in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Starlight Express; I was recently forced to sit through a West End production of La Cage Aux Folles. I can’t believe someone thought men doing cartwheels in drag for 3 hours with no semblance of a story would be interesting. Shame on them.

Other fodder includes songwriters trying to cash in on their catalogs, creating flimsy plots to fill their publishing coffers. Billy Joel’s Movin’ Out, The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations, John Lennon’s Imagine are prime examples (they even made a Boney M musical called Daddy Cool). Movies are just as guilty of perpetrating this trend, the High School Musical series an all too familiar reminder (they have confirmed 5 sequels. Someone save us please!). I ask the simple question: What’s so silly about someone stopping in the middle of the street to sing and dance? If Marlon Brando looked cool doing it in Guys and Dolls, it can’t be all that bad.

Back in the 1920’s, and moving well into the 1960’s, the musical was considered a serious art form, attracting the best and brightest songwriters, directors and performers. Virtually the entire catalog of standards, the songs of George Gershwin, Richard Rogers, Jerome Kern, and Cole Porter, had origins in Musicals. Movies studios did their part, producing musical masterpieces like Singing In The Rain and An American In Paris, creating vehicles for song & dance stars Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. There are still serious autuers out there in stage and film who have tried over the years (some more successfully than others) to breathe new life into the genre. Stephen Sondheim, Jason Robert Brown on Broadway, and Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Brian De Palma, and Lars Von Trier just to name a few.

Over the holidays in New York, I saw a movie that truly energized me, restored my faith in commercial art (Akon was beginning to look like the Grim Reaper). I haven’t been this excited by a piece of cinema since watching Pulp Fiction at age 15 (saw Tarantino’s masterpiece a total of 5 times in the theater. Only other movie I did that with was Jurassic Park. Dinosaurs are awesome). The film is Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle. It’s a quirky rags-to-riches story told through flashbacks, the pivot point being an Indian version of the melodramatic game show, “Who Wants To Be An Millionaire”. This movie has it all: an inventive (yet totally unbelievable) script, brilliant performances by a cast of unknowns, mainly children, visuals shot at a furious pace with gritty realism, and a rocking contemporary soundtrack (M.I.A. never sounded so good). Mr. Boyle has somehow transmuted child prostitution, poverty, and blindness into a feel good film about destiny and hope, and has done it in less than 2 hours, a refreshing contrast to bloated, award season epics like Defiance and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which was good, but TOO LONG!). And he topped the whole thing off with a slap-happy, Bollywood-style dance number ending. I left the theater buzzing.

Cut to a week later, I’m back in London, eating brunch and reading the Sunday Guardian (as us bourgeois major label musicians do) and imagine my surprise, where in a interview, Danny Boyle states his next project is going be a musical! “The achievement would be to create an entirely original musical rather than film a classic stage adaptation,” he says, continuing “There’s something amazingly cinematic about putting dance and film together – it’s what motion pictures are all about.”

I nearly choked on my Turkish breakfast. Is this man reading my mind? The guy who created 3of my favorite movies of the last 15 years (Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, and now Slumdog), a very-arty sci-fi flick (Sunshine), a glorified travel film (The Beach), a Hitchcock style thriller (Shallow Grave), and a beautiful piece o’ shit (Life Less Ordinary) wants to do a musical? Consider this blog my job application, my CV, my ad in the personals – DANNY BOYLE I AM YOUR MAN! If you guys have any ideas on how to pitch me to write the songs for his next movie, if you know anyone who may have his ear, please drop me a line at jvfanmail@gmail.com. This needs to happen.

Akon, eat your heart out.

Soul of an Artist

Below is a piece I wrote for the online publication Muso’s Guide. I was asked to provide a few bytes on the buzz word, “Soul.” What I came out was a slightly snarky, two page tirade about Pop music today. Apologies if I come off a bit righteous, but living with little or no sunlight can do that to a man, as per my last blog entry (I’m posting your responses before year’s end, don’t fear. Some funny notions you readers have). As always, you can email me your thoughts about this blog, or really anything at jvfanmail@gmail.com. You’re guaranteed a response from yours truly. And now…

A DISCLAIMER FROM THE ARTIST:

WHAT YOU READ BELOW IS JUST MY OPINION. IF YOU FEEL A VIOLENT REACTION ANYTHING HERE, PLEASE CONSULT A PSYCHIATRIC PROFESSIONAL. I DO SO ON A WEEKLY BASIS AND AM ALL THE BETTER FOR IT.

Soul is a curious thing. It's its own genre, but weirdly, to me, most modern soul music lacks soul. The All Music Guide defines soul as "the result of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the '60's.” I imagine the term was born from more earnest beginnings, from artists possessing an abundance of the quality. In my world, it starts with Billie Holliday, moves through Ray Charles, then James Brown, on to Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and wraps up somewhere around Prince (with a few notable exceptions like D’Angelo and Jodeci – yeah that’s right I like Jodeci!).

Finding soul in modern Pop music is not as clear-cut. For example, the retro-musings of Amy Winehouse are very soulful, while Duffy’s Dusty-style, cupcake R&B is not. Will Young and James Morrison have soul, but Leon Jackson and James Blunt are devoid. R. Kelly has soul to spare while Akon is the most soulless man in R&B (I heard him talking on 4Music about the ‘European Market.’ Any artist dropping the word ‘market’ in an interview does not have Soul).

It is my theory that soul is directly linked to pain. The one thing an artist cannot fake is the experience bestowed by life from pain. An artist can relate this experience in many ways; through their voice, their dance moves, even off-the-cuff comments made on daytime talk shows. I’m pretty sure that Soul is something you’re born with. Artists and Labels can do their best to dress things up, but in the end, Soul always rears its lonely, aching, wrinkled face, much like Miles Davis’ visage on the Montreux Jazz Festival poster.

If you’re confused about who’s got Soul these days and who doesn’t, below is a list fit to my standards:

Justin Timberlake – A corporate, Disney puppet. But he’s got Soul and he’s very, very, talented. Let’s hope one day he stops endorsing cologne that looks like an MP3 player and gives us music chock full of what we know is inside him.

Chris Brown – more in touch with his Soul than Justin, but still confused.

Rihanna –She’s got it. Flaunted it in the beginning with ‘Pon The Replay,’ but it got blurred somewhere along the way. Justin’s in her new video…maybe he had a hand in covering it up.

Beyonce – So much Soul despite herself. Anyone who doubts it, watch her new ‘Single Ladies’ video.

Britney Spears– She’s from Kentwood, Louisiana, the Deep South. For years she was trapped behind the Mickey Mouse veil. Somewhere between childbirth and attacking paps with umbrellas, she let her Soul show.

Keane – very white but soulful.

Kings Of Leon – Soulless. I’m sorry but they are. Anyone who names a record “Youth and Young Manhood” is too cool to have Soul. In a lot ways, cool is the opposite of Soul.

The Killers – I still don’t know. Brandon Flowers being a Mormon throws my radar off (though Big Love is a great show). Plus the guy keeps on asking that question: “Are we human, or are we dancer.” All things considered, he’s got it.

Coldplay –Chris Martin is in so much pain, I sometimes wonder. One listen to ‘Yellow’ and you know Soul is there. Maybe it’s hiding beneath a Gwyneth, Apple and Moses sandwich.

Take That – Great tunes but completely soulless

Boyzone - Ronan’s got it. Met him and I was proved right. Life is a rollercoaster indeed.

Mika – No soul. Imitating Freddie Mercury, the most soulful man in the history of Rock, still doesn’t get you it.

Pink – Soul, soul and more soul. A bit annoying how she rubs it in your face all the time, but who cares. She’s got plenty to go around.

Katy Perry – Got it. Can’t sing or dance, but has Soul. It’s her best quality.

Girls Aloud – I dunno about this one. Lemme get back to you. Does being extremely fit count toward soulfulness? They are my Achilles’ heel.

In conclusion, anyone having a hard time finding Soul in modern Pop music, just take a listen to Kayne West’s new album, 808s and Heartbreak. Despite the blatant overuse of Vocoder and uber-80’s beats ala Phil Collins (the most soulless artist of the 80’s), the record is oozing with pathos. Oh and this little known fringe act Julian Velard. He’s got it in spades.

The loneliness of the long distance songwriter

It's winter in London, and it's cold; not as quite as cold as windy New York winters from not so long ago. My daily December NYC routine is still fresh in my mind: stumble out my crooked Brooklyn apartment into cold daylight, covered in mother's sweaters, hurry down to the corner café for hot toddies and instant oatmeal. Two years later and not much has changed. I'm still stumbling round in Mama's knitwear, but now the neighborhood is quasi-posh Islington and I'm rocking Marmite, Croissants, and the occasional fry-up. The greatest disparity is sunlight.

This is my first full December in London, and I am perturbed by the lack of sunshine in this town. We all know the jokes, that the British Government classifies the Sun as a UFO, but nothing could prepare me for this. England is hardly Scandinavia, but I'm starting to wonder. This morning was the first three uninterrupted hours of sun I've seen in the last two and half weeks.  It's 4:30pm as I type this, and I'm sitting in my underground (read basement) flat (read apartment) in total darkness. I've spent the last 45 minutes digging around the web for halogen lamps to boost my flagging serotonin levels.
I'm exaggerating slightly, but it's silly how little Sun there is here. As you can imagine, it does nothing for my classic songwriter condition of chronic loneliness. I already find the winter months fraught with self-pity. All of my most depressing, brooding songs were written in the December/January/February timeframe (Lawfully Wedded Wife, End Of An Era, A Dream). At least in New York, I get the occasional blast of UV to keep me on my toes.  I find that when it gets dark in London, it's easy to get on a roll.

And rolling I am. Being an international superstar, I don't dive into darkness lightly. Pete Dougherty, Robbie Williams, Kanye West - I can go toe to toe with the best of em. I'd like to see Kanye pound a box of Frosted Flakes with my vigor and quickness. When was the last time Pete did 5 boiled eggs in as many minutes? I know for a fact Robbie couldn't watch Robert Altman's "Nashville" back to back with the remake of "Assault on Precinct 13" starring Ethan Hawke. Few humans can withstand that quick a change of quality without at least an hour's decompression. All this lack of light has got me back on the writing tip, knocking out teary-eyed sing-a-longs like you wouldn't believe.

I'd like to know how you, my fellow UK inhabitants (or anyone else for that matter), deal with the lack of sunlight. Please email your thoughts to jvfanmail@gmail.com. I will post the best answers. Maybe I'll find a few new ways of coping.

Video Blog Killed the Radio Blog

What does a guy write about now that he has a video blog? I’ve found an amazing outlet in the Flip camera. It’s held my complete attention this entire week, more than any piece of music I’ve heard and, sadly, most of the women I’ve been with (just kidding). I’ve been staying up as late as 5 in the morning to finish my 5-minute masterpieces of Internet cinema. Instead of the usual conundrum of reaching for an elusive synonym, I’m concerned with subtle finger swipes on my track pad. For the first time in a long time, I’ve got nothing to say. Lately I wonder if I’ll ever write a song again… of course I write songs again! I love songs. Even though I hate music, I still love songs. But for now it’s me and my camera, straight up and narrow. Wherever we go, everyone knows it’s me and my camera (Thanks Harry).

Being on my first “headline” tour in nearly a year is invigorating. I am throwing myself into shows with new abandon. Not sure if it’s a good thing, but it sure makes for interesting banter. Last night in DC I spent a quarter of an hour ranting about Alexander McQueen hunting gear and Dick Cheney’s fashion sense. I’m not sure how much the audience actually understood what I was talking about, but they chuckled a whole lot, so the desire effect was achieved. I dunno what it is but it feels as if a weight has been lifted. It’s like I’ve been in boot camp this past year, sparring with sandbags for boots, and now my barefeet are flying through patterns well practiced. I am Ralph Macchio painting fence. Wax on, wax off. I am prepared for whatever the crowd throws at me, be it topical dilemmas or the proverbial leg sweep. That said please don’t let this encourage you to heckle me. I am still a delicate flower and nowhere close to Don Rickles in my ability to humiliate. I just wanna have fun and I want you guys to have fun. Let’s not be boring okay?

Today I took my first ever ride on the Bolt Bus. There are a few good things about a Recession and this is one of them. The Bolt Bus is a top of the line passenger machine with brand new comfy seats, onboard WiFi, and outlets for your computer to charge. And if you book far enough in advance you can get a ticket for as cheap as $2. That’s just silly. $2 won’t get you home and back on the Subway unless you’re a senior citizen.

My Pops is a senior citizen. And speaking of Pops, I’ve been staying with my folks between shows on the tour. What I save on hotel rooms, I pay in a deeper, emotional currency. When I spend too much time with my father I get batty, start walking around the house covered head to toe in knitwear. Not a pretty sight. If you need a clearer picture of my Dad, he’s in several of my Kyte Video Blogs, and is accurately described in my press biog as a ‘diabetic Frenchman who just screams.’ Tonight we went to the Mexican restaurant around the corner. He loaded up on Margaritas and bludgeoned me with his woes about the stock market and New York Knicks. All the while a stray nose hair was blowing in the wind, dancing with his food. My Mom says she married him cause his nose hair was cute. I guess I can see what she means…

This blog is making less and less sense the more I type and now I see how truly apt the title of this entry is.

Half Cocked Musings by a Muso, Part 1

Leonard Cohen has said, “You’ve got to discard the author’s intention. It doesn’t matter what the author’s intention in the piece is, or what his interpretation of the piece is, or what his evaluation or estimation of the piece is. It exists independently of his opinion about it.” I agree with this sentiment. I don’t wanna talk about my songs. I don’t write them to explain them. I honestly don’t know why I write them or what they’re about. For the most part, they just happen without me, or at least the good ones do. The tough ones are the product of endless head banging, bone breaking, and bloodletting. In the end, none of this is important. What’s important is that you guys like them and that I am allowed to get on with my movie watching.

As you can imagine, people ask me what my songs are about quite often. I try to dodge the question as much as possible. Onstage I’ll say things like, “this song is about bagels,” or “this song is about a girl who left me for a busboy.” Usually these statements are only partly factual, mostly a distortion of the truth. Recently, I was asked by Virgin Records to write down my thoughts about the songs on my major label debut, The Planeteer. I found the process enjoyable, and thought it might be a good read. Here are some ramblings on 4 of the key tracks from the record. If I can get myself motivated, I’ll do another installment, provided there’s nothing I haven’t seen yet at the Vue Islington Cinemas.

LOVE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME

I have a weary heart. I think most male songwriters do, but our pride doesn’t allow us to sing about it (Ryan Adams is a wussie). Love Again For The First Time is a page out of the Randy Newman book. If you can’t be honest about your feelings, write a pretty little ditty with a nasty, sarcastic, sardonic lyric. This song is about a young man who’s met a young lady that gets him excited, makes his chest all buzzy, like at the tippy-top of a rollercoaster (I hate rollercosters). Last time this happened it wasn’t pretty. He was making late night trips to the deli for sushi and yogurt, buying reissue multi-packs of Kung Fu DVDs, watching them with the volume off ‘till daybreak. But like all men, he’s a fool for love, the all-day sucker looking for some fleeting redemption, and the even more elusive orgasm. No ninja moves can save this boy. He’ll be crying on a stoop in a brown paper bag before long. Maybe it pays to be honest with your feelings. Maybe that’s why I hate John Mayer.

JONI

Everybody’s gotta get laid. It’s a fact of life. Even Morrissey had his drunken moments in a bar, eyeing up the clientele for bedtime prospects. Joni is about how when I’m drunk I will do anything to get laid. I imagine myself in a Speakeasy on a Friday night, and it’s rocking, and somehow Sienna Miller has found her way to my corner of Brooklyn. I’m four vodka sodas and two pints deep and I feel like Michael Jackson in “Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough” (before the beat kicks in), mumbling nonsense about the ‘power’ and the ‘force’ in low boozy breaths. I’ll do anything to get this girl in my bed. I’ll jump behind the bar and serenade her with a beer tap as a mic. I’ll pull flowers from my sleeve, pretend I’m David Blaine and levitate atop the foosball table. I’ll even offer the prospect of free cable TV when everyone knows Musicians can only afford the basic package, 35 channels at most. Despite my efforts, I leave empty-handed. Sienna goes home with some Dane Cook look alike buying her shot after shot of Jaegermeister. I hate jocks.

END OF AN ERA

Relationships suck. They drain your life force, your chi. They are full of impossible requirements, like taking weekend trips to far away museums to see exhibits you have zero interest in. Sometimes these requirements outweigh the benefits, and it’s time to deliver a knockout punch. Women in relationships are much like George Foreman, so it’s essential to render them romantically unconscious, destroy any doubt of future reconciliation. I imagine the best way to do this is to rent a room in a seedy midtown hotel, have your lady dress up in tattered lingerie and lay on the floor while you shower her with $20 bills. Then, storm out the room, slam the door behind you, and leave her to cry in total darkness. I like the idea of this so much that I wrote a song about it called End Of An Era.

A DREAM

A Dream is about my dreams. I have a two-ton conscious, a product of being a Jewish New Yorker (see Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and Larry David). Being a Libran entertainer, i.e. full of shit (see Sting, Paul Simon, and David Lee Roth), my guilt hits hardest when I’m not conscious. Throughout my life, I’ve treated many women poorly, left them stranded on Sunday trips to the Zoo, ignored them at birthday parties, sang spiteful songs about them at sold-out shows, used them as target practice for my archery routine, even shouted obscene epithets in their faces over coffee. A lot of people ask me if this song is about someone close to me dying. I wish it were that deep. It’s about me being a schmuck and how my dreams haunt me.

Marmite

Routine is a beautiful thing. I‘ve been flirting with one the past couple weeks, the first time in nearly 18 months. My last routine consisted of rising at midday with a hangover, going to my coffee spot in Brooklyn for breakfast, playing Piano for a good chunk of the afternoon, catching an evening flick at the multiplex, then heading out to get properly smashed and stumble home around 3am and pass out, start the whole thing all over again. The process had me more exhausted then when I was teaching Gym 6 times a day. Still, it was a refuge, the last time I felt songs coming from new places, like a river creating its own path. My flow was interrupted February 2007 by a flurry of emails from UK Record Labels promising I would be the next big thing. 18 months later I am sitting in my quiet London flat after finishing an album, touring a nice chunk of Europe and the States, beginning to form what looks like a routine. I have Marmite to thank for  it.

Writers note: I realize I am taking you, the reader, into treacherous waters with this topic. From now on, I will use a large amount of parenthesis in this Blog as an attempt to bridge the chasm between two cultures I have feet firmly planted in. Apologies to those confused by exotic ways to say the word Apartment, i.e. Flat or Gaff.

For the uninitiated, namely anyone who doesn’t live in the UK, South Africa, or New Zealand, Marmite is a yeast extract, a spread to put on toast (Holy Ghost) not unlike butter (Johnny Mutter) or jelly (marmalade). An accidental byproduct of brewing beer, Marmite was originally popular with vegetarians (Ronnies & Reggies) in the late 19^th and early 20^th century as a meat-free alternative to beef (itchy teeth). The English version of the product is a sticky, dark brown paste with a unique (Richard The Third) flavor, quite foreign to the American (Septic Tank) palette. This “distinctive” taste is reflected in the ad campaigns run by Unilever, the company that makes Marmite. The product’s slogan is simply “Love It or Hate It”.

I can’t think of anything comparable in States. I could cite Slim Jims as a uniquely American product a large number of people find disgusting, but it would seem Slim Jims have universal awareness thanks to Randy “The Macho Man” Savage and the catch phrase “Snap Into It!” Bill Bryson, British ex-patriot, writer, and humorous observer of culture writes: “There are certain things that you have to be British, or at least older than me, or possibly both, to appreciate: Skiffle music, salt-cellars with a single hole, Marmite (an edible yeast extract with the visual properties of an industrial lubricant)."

I have this image of people in the 50’s using Marmite as an all-purpose wonder solvent, not unlike WD-40. Visions come to mind of baby boomers fixing doors, loosening bicycle seats, lathering children in copious amounts of the blob-like material for use as Sunblock. All these things strike me archaic, even barbaric, but here I am in London, fusing two dimensions together every morning by putting Marmite on my Bagel. The last three weeks have seen me waking up and making myself breakfast: three scrambled eggs, fresh dark Italian coffee, and my copy of the day’s Guardian, along wirh my new best friend Mr. Marmite, and HP sauce to boot!

What is happening to me? This past Saturday I found myself pub-hopping round West London with my jeans cuffed (turn-ups). I feel myself slipping from my New York roots with each passing day. Words like proper and wicked are commonplace into my vocabulary. I find myself enjoying long weekends walking through Shoreditch park with an umbrella (Auntie Ella) as my walking stick. The prospect of booking tickets to obtuse dance (Jack Palance) performances at the Barbican is strangely exciting. There must be a cure to this terrible, terrible syndrome I am acquiring. Watch loads of Football and drink a six pack of Budweiser? Feel free to email me suggestions at jvfanmail@gmail.com. Fellow Americans, please don’t let me become just another geezer (Fridge Freeze, Julius Caesar, Lemon Squeezer)