Joel Schalit

Pimping Product

One of the many responsibilities I ended up assuming at Tikkun was writing six 100 word book reviews which we always printed on the interior back page of each new issue. Titled Tikkun Recommends (my last TR can be found in the present edition – Jan/Feb 2007) the purpose of the section was to promote books and publishers that we felt ought to receive special consideration, above and beyond the publications we’d review in the Books section of the magazine.

I particularly enjoyed writing these reviews, because, as Tikkun‘s culture editor,  there were always books I wanted to cover which we neither had the room nor the writers to tackle. As one of those many editors who wished they had more time to write, penning these short pieces always gave me something of an outlet for this frustrated desire. Having written numerous book reviews over the years – for the San Francisco Bay Guardian‘s Lit supplement and Punk Planet - this also allowed me to keep my review writing chops somewhat fresh.

The reason I mention all of this is because yesterday I wrote my first TR-style reviews for Zeek, the periodical that I recently joined as a contributing editor. As burnt out as I still am, it was nice to re-inhabit this style of writing, and push a few books which deserve attention. If you were to ask me precisely why I like to do these things, that pretty much nails it. There is so much excellent culture being produced right now – by writers, musicians, film directors, software designers, the works – that it feels almost like a categorical imperative to continue to support it all somehow.

This was always the modus operandi we worked with in terms of the bands and writers we covered when I was Punk Planet‘s associate editor. As a culture magazine, we channelled this ideological sensibility religiously, to a point that we treated our cultural coverage as though it were a political endeavor. By pointing our readers to productions that we felt were important, like many punks, we genuinely believed that we were creating some kind of cultural front out of which a better politics would emerge.

Upon sending out my reviews late yesterday afternoon, I recalled this political impulse and asked myself whether, ten years later, I still believed in it.  “Yes,” I muttered to myself, giggling. “If only because I’m still being asked to write the same things I’ve always written.”  Wondering if I was talking to them (and not myself), our two dogs got up from the carpet and started nuzzling my knees with their small furry heads, thinking that I was telling them it was time for dinner.

Currently in Rotation: Various Artists, Tectonic Plates (Tectonic Recordings/Baked Goods)

Music to My Ears

It’s taken nearly four years, but the second Elders of Zion record is officially out. Released by Sounds From the Roof – a terrific new LA label run by  Rooftop Promotion‘s  Garo Kuyumcovic -  this eight track EP compiles a number of songs we wrote for queer festival porno shot Damnaged, our final pieces recorded with Pansy Division/Plus Ones drummer Luis Illades, and a remix of the Tight Bros From Way Back When‘s “Show Me,” which spent a good number of months housed on the front page of the Kill Rock Stars website before disappearing into the hipster ether.

Like the last Elders record, Dawn Refuses to Rise, Twilight War features a few interesting guests in the sample department. Mixing Ho Chi Minh with a group of Russian Jews recorded at a passover service during the 1950s (saying “next year in Jerusalem” in Yiddish) on album opener “Viet Cong Jerusalem,” we have our fair share of fun again employing obscure vocal parts. However, what makes this record distinct from our last is that it is primarily instrumental. The politics, as it were, are carried forth by the tone the songs set rather than by traditional protest music polemics.

Released as an iTunes exclusive, we’ll be following up Twilight with a brand new full-length album on SFTR in the fall.  Delightfully enough, it’ll appear on vinyl as well as CD and downloadable formats. I’m quite excited about producing a vinyl version. By no means an analogue loyalist, (I’ve been composing music on computers for eleven years), I still prefer the sound of analogue over digital. The former label manager in me is also tickled by the fact that vinyl LPs and 7″s have been going through a sales resurgence over the last several years.

Despite all of this business nonsense, its just nice to have a new record out again.

Jennifer Takes Note

My lovely wife.

My New Job(s)

Its been nine days since I left Tikkun. Unwinding has not been easy. As I imagined, there would be email and calls to answer, and loose ends to help the accountant and staff sew up. I’d wager that at least three days were devoted to helping the office out, which is actually less time than I anticipated would be the case. Having spent six weeks at the office after resigning on November 22nd, I dedicated myself to wrapping up as much as humanly possible. I’m sure that there will be more calls and emails in the future. But for now, until the magazine hires a new managing editor, its my assumption that my major post-Tikkun work is complete.

Every time I find myself growing impatient with my inability to get going on my next projects faster – a book, a record and two essays – I always look back at my “To Do” list for December to remind myself of why I’m so damn beat. (That does not include the fatigue accumulated from having worked six days a week for two and a half years.) Ranging from IT, distribution and general business tasks to editorial planning, writing, updating the website and employee training, the six week period during which I undertook my concluding work sums up everything that made my former job so draining. I’m really grateful for the experience, but I’m also extremely relieved to be moving on.

The best part about being home is how comfortable it is to write in. Ever since we moved into our new house in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood two years ago, unfortunately, given my work schedule, I’ve had a devil of a time finding any real occasion to spend time here. Every weekday morning, when I’d get up to make coffee before work, I’d stare into my beautiful office, wondering whether I’d ever get a chance to enjoy the space and take advantage of what it ideally could afford me. Lined with books and vinyl LPs, and a large desk bearing my home studio set-up, sitting in my decrepit Berkeley office, I’d frequently find myself daydreaming about importing old records bought at foreign flea markets into my rapidly aging computer.

Now that I’m truly here, I can’t say enough good things about it. The sun shines through my window for the better part of the day, giving my room some of the best light of any spot in the house. Sitting in my father’s old office chair, typing away while my favorite BBC shows stream through my Mac and my two dogs chill on the floor beside me, I can’t quite recall a time that I felt so at home. Really, anywhere. Though this definitely will not last forever -  essentially five months from today – it feels like I won the lottery. And I don’t feel the least bit guilty about this opportunity either.

As much as this all might seem like its about finally doing what one really wants to do, that’s not quite it. It’s about having a decent quality of life, and the time to take care of the kinds of things that we ignore, delay, or put off when we work sixty hours a week. Like spending time with one’s family, paying bills promptly, returning phone calls from friends (the same day, as opposed to two weeks later), and doing laundry.  And, most importantly, cooking dinner for my wife.  Seeing the smile on Jennifer’s face as she sat down to a freshly-grilled flank steak last night summed up exactly why this was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. All I can say in response is “Sweetie, there’s a lot more meat where that came from.”

Permanent Vacation

Jamaican mountain village, June 2006. Click on image for details.

Shawarma with Sharon

It was late in the afternoon at Tel Aviv’s Olympia restaurant. Barely a soul was present, with the exception of an overweight middle aged man sitting at the center of a large table, surrounded by several IDF officers sporting berets neatly folded inside their epaulets. Some were sipping cups of  Turkish coffee. Others were smoking cigarettes and talking, while the gentleman at the center of the proceedings sat there in silence.

Eventually a large plate of shawarma arrived, and when it did, all of the soldiers present allowed him to help himself first. Digging his hands into the steaming hot dish, he ended his silence. “Nu, Elie,” he yelled out across the room to my father. “Manishma?” (“how are you?” ) he asked. My father got up from our table and politely made his way over to him. “Beseder,” (“Fine”) he said politely, explaining that he had arrived for a late lunch with his son, whom he’d just brought over from the United States.

“Who is that man you just said hi to?” I asked my father after he returned to our table. “That’s Ariel Sharon,” my father said. “He’s a retired general, who’se now working in politics.” I recognized Sharon’s name. I’d seen it in the newspaper. It corresponded with a picture book I was reading about the 1973 war. “Isn’t he a hero?” I asked.  “Well, yes,” my father replied, sounding a little conflicted. “He lead the charge against the Egyptians two years ago in the Sinai.”

Over dinner at a friend’s apartment in Tel Aviv in 2005, I asked what had become of the Olympia. “It closed many years ago,” the hostess said. “When did you last go there?” “When I was eight,” I replied. “In 1975.” Telling them the story of running into Sharon, they both laughed. “I once worked on Sharon’s ranch when I was a kid,” the host  said. “Watching him eat was an amazing – and a somewhat unpleasant experience. He would attack food like it was the enemy.”

And We All Fall Down

By now, you’ve probably heard the news: America’s biggest boutique magazine distributor closed its doors on December 27th. By no means a surprise, the closure of the Indy Press Newsstand Services (formerly known as Big Top) remains a big blow to independent periodicals in the US. A significant number of its former clients remain owed substantial sums of money – including my former magazine, Tikkun. While Tikkun will be fine (we left the IPA a year ago), it remains unclear whether many of its former clients are going to survive.

In the interim, the IPA’s inability to pay its titles have resulted in the closure of a number of outstanding national magazines, including the award-winning Clamor, and the end of the print edition of one of America’s best up-and-coming music publications, Grooves. (Interesting to note that in all of the online discussions of the IPA’s closure, no one has said anything about this specific periodical’s status.) One of the first  reported casualties of the IPA’s financial misanthropy, Grooves stopped appearing on newsstands in 2005. In 2006, it relaunched as a web magazine.

As a publisher, the most important lesson I learned from the IPA debacle is how much it underlined the continuing crisis of professionalization in indie culture. For example, every time I’d go to the IPA’s office to attend a sales meeting, I was continually reminded to be ‘more professional’ regarding design and editorial considerations. For a brief while, I found myself grateful for these talks. I already had a strong background in distribution, and had been hired in part to help shore up the business end of things.

But, as time wore on and the issue was increasingly invoked, I began to wonder whether the subject’s continuous reappearance in our business discussions was symptomatic of something far more worrysome. When our regular sales statements and payments  eventually halted, and allegations of poor accounting and distro fee collections emerged, I finally understood what all of this talk about  being ‘more professional’ was all about. The IPA was failing to perform its most basic functions as a distributor. To put it bluntly, the company could barely tie its own shoelaces.

For any firm, administrative incompetence is always a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, such imperfections are common to many independent businesses, and have more often than not led to their downfall. What troubles me most is not the fact that the IPA was not an exception to the rule, but the cultural consequences of its failings. Through its mismanagement, the IPA put an entire wing of the American periodical business in crisis. Some would even go so far as to say that the IPA killed it. I’m not just talking about any community either. I’m speaking about the countless number of publications which grew up in the turn of the century indie publishing scene.

For the past thirty plus years, America has witnessed the growth of one of the most creative periodical industries in its history. Despite the fact that this business has weathered numerous ups and downs, it was not until the ‘zine explosion of the 1990s that independent periodical publishing in the US fully flowered, creating numerous special interest political and cultural titles expressing the enormous ingenuity and literary talent of an entire generation of artists, writers and designers. Not only did this milieu produce something culturally valid; it also created a market, which despite its small size, was sustainable, significant, and most importantly, politically influential.

And that is precisely the problem. The IPA’s ultimate crime was that it never took this milieu seriously enough to understand what it was putting at risk through its administrative incompetence. By failing to live up to its mandate to be a responsible “antidote to media monopoly,” the IPA helped irreperably damage a counterculture that was a proven platform for distributing alternative information and ideas. That is a horrible legacy to be responsible for. But it is one which ought to serve as a burning reminder of why the left still has to learn how to do business properly.

Just Say No to Emo

Anarcho-punk nostalgia has finally kicked in. Perhaps the only kind of 80s retro that’s remotely acceptable, this beautifully pieced together compilation CD released late last Fall (the 4th in a series issued by the UK’s Overground label) is an absolute must-buy for anyone interested in the intersection between music and radical politics. Written by former Crass drummer Penny Rimbaud, the liner notes are worth the price of admission alone. Get it in the US from AK Press.

For those looking for an excellent monograph of the genesis of the UK anarcho-punk scene, the American edition of Ian Glasper’s excellent The Day the Country Died is forthcoming from Reynolds and Hearn in March. Hallelujah.

The 1980s marked the most profound political rationalization of popular music ever. Given how absolutely dire the events of the past five years have been, (and how impovershed most musical responses remain), the rise of anarcho-punk historiography seems utterly appropriate.