When I moved to New York I put everything I could fit in a blue trunk. Naturally that meant my car, an old Oldsmobile beater, couldn’t go; I left it with my mom back in Miami Beach. This is why, during my one month break from college (Pratt Institute puckishly called it ‘Winterim’) a year and half later mom offered to drop me off in front of the Miami Arena for a show.
My last 18 months in college, being in art school, and in New York; I strove to carve out an identity. This path led me through the “good old days,” the Fifties and early Sixties and a stack of cassette tapes featuring Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra (I, like most discerning listeners, favored the Capitol Years). I played them in my dorm as an ironic counterpart to the whining sounds of The Smiths emanating from my roomie’s boombox. It was “Louder than Bombs” vs. “A Swingin’ Affair.” But my interest wasn’t ironic, I was really into this.