By Daniel B. Kline
He stood on the stage much to the indifference of the crowd ironically enough reading a story from his book about the negative audience reactions his band once received opening for the Violent Femmes. People were talking and only a handful of us were listening, but nothing could faze him as he had been through the worst and it would now take much more than an impolite bunch of rock fans to knock him down.
Chris Campion has a rock star's voice, a comedian's stage presence and a charm that makes it nearly impossible to not like him. His band, the Knockout Drops, remains legendary on the New York club scene and if talent was the driving factor in determining musical success, well, then pretenders like Coldplay and Fall Out Boy would be opening for them.
Instead of headlining arenas and picking places to hang his platinum albums though, the middle of Chris' story finds him drowning under a river of liquor having used up the considerable goodwill his undeniable charm bought him with so many people. He had been through interventions, institutions and the best efforts of the many, many people who care about him to get him straight. Unfortunately, nothing they tried made him do much more than halfheartedly pretend to not be drinking.
Campion was a rock star whose band never quite made it -- a man who never got what he truly deserved, though in retrospect that may have been for the best as stardom might well have killed him. Chris had gotten close enough to know what he was missing and the ride to the very bottom of the top had left him a penniless alcoholic who had run out of couches to crash on.
He was the life of the party who had stayed at the bar long after everyone else had gone home and his story seemed likely to end in the morgue. Tales like Chris' rarely have a happy ending, making it all the better when one does.
When Campion got sober, he did it with the same zeal he once put into charming a bartender out of the next drink that he could not possibly afford to pay for. He put down the bottle, picked up a pen and wrote "Escape from Bellevue" a one-man-show that brought him a little bit of the fame that his taltents so richly deserve.
The book that grew out of the one-man-show "Escape from Bellevue: A Dive Bar Odyssey" was so compellingly written it made me want to be Chris Campion despite his excesses and his endless failings. Campion made becoming blindingly drunk oddly appealing only because you know that in holding the book with his name on it, he probably comes out the other side relatively intact.
Whether drunk or sober in concert or on the printed page, Campion has an impossible-to-ignore charm. He would not be out of place leading a late night talk show band or sitting around telling stories to friends and strangers over a cup of coffee. Campion is a hard guy not to like as evidenced by the sheer amount of friends he managed to have even when he was drinking, lying and doing just about everything wrong one man can possibly do.
Sobriety has brought Campion success but, if you can judge by the emails we have exchanged or his passionate reading in the face of a less-than-loving crowd, sapped none of his vitality. Perhaps in his second act, Chris Campion becomes famous and maybe the Knockout Drops become more than just a beloved secret on the New York club scene.
He deserves nothing less and the world could do a lot worse.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Big utilities show indifference, incompetence
By Daniel B. Kline
Like most businesses, my company uses electricity and the telephone on a nearly constant basis. The electricity powers our lights computers and the aforementioned phones and our telephones allow us to take calls, make calls, conduct credit card sales, operate our alarm and occasionally even send a fax.
It's somewhat hard to run my store if either the power or the phones fail, a fact that seems not to matter much to either my electric company or my telephone service provider. One would assume that essential utilities would have carefully constructed plans to deal with outages, but that assumption would prove false. Instead, both companies take a relaxed attitude toward fixing problems, choosing to get to them when they manage to find the time.
I learned the first half of this equation of incompetence when a town truck swerved to avoid a car on my street last week taking out a power pole. In addition to a very exciting shower of sparks and flames, this accident also caused my power to at first repeatedly go on and off then ultimately shut off for good.
The fire and police departments responded quickly -- within five minutes. The electric company made no such quick move. It actually took significantly longer for me to reach a human being to report the emergency to than it took the fire and police folks to arrive.
When the electric company trucks did arrive, the workers seemed to feel no particular urgency to provide my store or the others on the street a quick solution. Instead, they worked for a few hours and then got back into their trucks and drove away, "taking a break," they told one of my employees. This break lasted nearly an hour and was followed by another 15 minutes of leisurely disembarking from their trucks before getting back to work.
The power company debacle cost us almost an entire day's business (probably about $3500) though we stayed open using flashlights to find things for customers who needed them that day. We handed out coupons, gave out slowly warming beverages from our cooler and generally did whatever we could to satisfy anyone who had made the drive to see us that day.
This fiasco would be surpassed, however, by this week's mess where a lightning strike fried our phone service as provided by our local cable company (name sounds like a swear, which is a pretty accurate description of them). Our phone service went out on a Thursday, taking with it our ability to process credit card transactions.
We took this one in stride too because the phone company told us "they were on it." Our customers were patient enough as we made imprints of their credit cards and people calling us got a message that phone service was down for the area.
On Friday we still had no phones and the phone company still insisted "they were on it." This apparently means, "we are aware of the problem, but intend to do nothing" as on Saturday morning, we still had no service.
At this point I began calling them every hour on the hour demanding a technician be sent since phone had been restored to everyone except us. I was told that "a form had been filed," and someone would call me when a technician was on the way. I later learned that exactly one technician and no supervisors work on the weekends. This shows an absurd disregard for duty as one would think that the supervisor who had not solved our case on Thursday or Friday would feel a professional responsibility to not eat or sleep until the problem was solved.
That sort of dedication, however, does not exist at this particular large cable, internet and telephone service provider as nobody appeared the least bit troubled as my business remained unable to take phone calls and we had amassed over $10,000 in unprocessed credit card transactions.
The problem was fixed in four minutes by a technician on Saturday afternoon while I was on the phone trying to find out when a technician would arrive. I was told to be patient and that I would be called when the technician was on his way. No call ever came and no apology was ever offered.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.
Like most businesses, my company uses electricity and the telephone on a nearly constant basis. The electricity powers our lights computers and the aforementioned phones and our telephones allow us to take calls, make calls, conduct credit card sales, operate our alarm and occasionally even send a fax.
It's somewhat hard to run my store if either the power or the phones fail, a fact that seems not to matter much to either my electric company or my telephone service provider. One would assume that essential utilities would have carefully constructed plans to deal with outages, but that assumption would prove false. Instead, both companies take a relaxed attitude toward fixing problems, choosing to get to them when they manage to find the time.
I learned the first half of this equation of incompetence when a town truck swerved to avoid a car on my street last week taking out a power pole. In addition to a very exciting shower of sparks and flames, this accident also caused my power to at first repeatedly go on and off then ultimately shut off for good.
The fire and police departments responded quickly -- within five minutes. The electric company made no such quick move. It actually took significantly longer for me to reach a human being to report the emergency to than it took the fire and police folks to arrive.
When the electric company trucks did arrive, the workers seemed to feel no particular urgency to provide my store or the others on the street a quick solution. Instead, they worked for a few hours and then got back into their trucks and drove away, "taking a break," they told one of my employees. This break lasted nearly an hour and was followed by another 15 minutes of leisurely disembarking from their trucks before getting back to work.
The power company debacle cost us almost an entire day's business (probably about $3500) though we stayed open using flashlights to find things for customers who needed them that day. We handed out coupons, gave out slowly warming beverages from our cooler and generally did whatever we could to satisfy anyone who had made the drive to see us that day.
This fiasco would be surpassed, however, by this week's mess where a lightning strike fried our phone service as provided by our local cable company (name sounds like a swear, which is a pretty accurate description of them). Our phone service went out on a Thursday, taking with it our ability to process credit card transactions.
We took this one in stride too because the phone company told us "they were on it." Our customers were patient enough as we made imprints of their credit cards and people calling us got a message that phone service was down for the area.
On Friday we still had no phones and the phone company still insisted "they were on it." This apparently means, "we are aware of the problem, but intend to do nothing" as on Saturday morning, we still had no service.
At this point I began calling them every hour on the hour demanding a technician be sent since phone had been restored to everyone except us. I was told that "a form had been filed," and someone would call me when a technician was on the way. I later learned that exactly one technician and no supervisors work on the weekends. This shows an absurd disregard for duty as one would think that the supervisor who had not solved our case on Thursday or Friday would feel a professional responsibility to not eat or sleep until the problem was solved.
That sort of dedication, however, does not exist at this particular large cable, internet and telephone service provider as nobody appeared the least bit troubled as my business remained unable to take phone calls and we had amassed over $10,000 in unprocessed credit card transactions.
The problem was fixed in four minutes by a technician on Saturday afternoon while I was on the phone trying to find out when a technician would arrive. I was told to be patient and that I would be called when the technician was on his way. No call ever came and no apology was ever offered.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
South Carolina deserves better than Sanford
By Daniel B. Kline
Despite my relatively insignificant job as general manager of a toy and hobby store, I remain available to my staff at all times. I check my cell phone during movies, return text messages while eating dinner and if I'm going someplace, I let my senior people know where I am.
Were I in a more important position, say governor of South Carolina, I imagine I would make an even greater effort to be reachable. I most certainly would not leave the country without at least putting a sticky note on my chief of staff's desk and perhaps changing my outbound voicemail message to say "the governor is not at his desk at this time because he's off having an affair in Argentina."
Perhaps I would not be that direct on the message, but you get the general idea. It seems that if someone in a job where at best he could have a Slinky-related emergency or perhaps a disaster involving the crash of a toy train remains reachable at all times then it would be reasonable to expect the same from a governor.
The fine people of South Carolina, however, did not get that basic courtesy as their governor went on a South American adultery-fest while telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Though "hiking the Appalachian Trail" stands likely to become a euphemism for having an affair, it did not yet mean that and Governor Mark Sanford betrayed not only his wife with his lie, but all the people of his state.
In addition to questioning whether someone as morally vacant as Sanford deserves to be in office after lying so blatantly to his constituents, you also have to wonder how someone with so little guile got to be governor in the first place. Not only did Sanford cheat on his wife, his attempt to cover it up sounded like a lie concocted by a not particularly bright third grader.
Were I to plan a secret love affair in Argentina, I would imagine I'd be smart enough to at least concoct a plausible excuse for being in Argentina. Perhaps the Governor could have told his wife and the public that he was on a fact finding mission to learn about soccer teams or maybe he could have spun a yarn about a cultural exchange.
No matter what lie he told, the Governor should be smart enough to realize that if he disappears, people may look for him. He also should have known that it's a little odd to be coming out of the international terminal at the airport when the Appalachian Trail resides in the United States.
It's actually pretty amazing that nobody on the plane recognized him as he was flying out of an airport in his home state. Potzie from "Happy "Days" can't walk through a mall without getting asked where Ralph Malph is (autograph show at the Ramada Inn would be a good guess) so it strikes me as a stunning stroke of luck that the sitting governor of state could expect to fly without being recognized.
While I would prefer our elected officials not be the kind of people who have affairs, I'm willing to accept that adultery is generally an issue between husbands and wives. Sanford, however, made his morally reprehensible behavior a public matter when he chose to disappear without letting his constituents know where he was.
Governor Sanford obviously wanted to be caught -- perhaps the urge to brag about his ability to score with an Argentinian woman simply overwhelmed him -- and he's clearly unfit to hold office. Bill Clinton at least had the decency to commit his adultery at his desk while doing his job and John F. Kennedy may have had multiple affairs, but he never let his sex life get in the way of his job.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.
Despite my relatively insignificant job as general manager of a toy and hobby store, I remain available to my staff at all times. I check my cell phone during movies, return text messages while eating dinner and if I'm going someplace, I let my senior people know where I am.
Were I in a more important position, say governor of South Carolina, I imagine I would make an even greater effort to be reachable. I most certainly would not leave the country without at least putting a sticky note on my chief of staff's desk and perhaps changing my outbound voicemail message to say "the governor is not at his desk at this time because he's off having an affair in Argentina."
Perhaps I would not be that direct on the message, but you get the general idea. It seems that if someone in a job where at best he could have a Slinky-related emergency or perhaps a disaster involving the crash of a toy train remains reachable at all times then it would be reasonable to expect the same from a governor.
The fine people of South Carolina, however, did not get that basic courtesy as their governor went on a South American adultery-fest while telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Though "hiking the Appalachian Trail" stands likely to become a euphemism for having an affair, it did not yet mean that and Governor Mark Sanford betrayed not only his wife with his lie, but all the people of his state.
In addition to questioning whether someone as morally vacant as Sanford deserves to be in office after lying so blatantly to his constituents, you also have to wonder how someone with so little guile got to be governor in the first place. Not only did Sanford cheat on his wife, his attempt to cover it up sounded like a lie concocted by a not particularly bright third grader.
Were I to plan a secret love affair in Argentina, I would imagine I'd be smart enough to at least concoct a plausible excuse for being in Argentina. Perhaps the Governor could have told his wife and the public that he was on a fact finding mission to learn about soccer teams or maybe he could have spun a yarn about a cultural exchange.
No matter what lie he told, the Governor should be smart enough to realize that if he disappears, people may look for him. He also should have known that it's a little odd to be coming out of the international terminal at the airport when the Appalachian Trail resides in the United States.
It's actually pretty amazing that nobody on the plane recognized him as he was flying out of an airport in his home state. Potzie from "Happy "Days" can't walk through a mall without getting asked where Ralph Malph is (autograph show at the Ramada Inn would be a good guess) so it strikes me as a stunning stroke of luck that the sitting governor of state could expect to fly without being recognized.
While I would prefer our elected officials not be the kind of people who have affairs, I'm willing to accept that adultery is generally an issue between husbands and wives. Sanford, however, made his morally reprehensible behavior a public matter when he chose to disappear without letting his constituents know where he was.
Governor Sanford obviously wanted to be caught -- perhaps the urge to brag about his ability to score with an Argentinian woman simply overwhelmed him -- and he's clearly unfit to hold office. Bill Clinton at least had the decency to commit his adultery at his desk while doing his job and John F. Kennedy may have had multiple affairs, but he never let his sex life get in the way of his job.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Music can recharge the soul
By Daniel B. Kline
Standing amidst a sea of the middle aged and the nearly middle aged packed into a fairly small rock club in Boston, I felt tired and old, but hopeful and alive. As the band (middle aged and maybe a little world weary themselves) took the stage with a lightly crackling energy, you couldn't help but forget about your problems at work, at home or the general gravity of life as you get older.
As I looked around the sold out Paradise in Boston, I saw faces mostly older than mine, people who had not gone out in a while decked out in their best thirtysomething (or fourtysomething) "night at a rock club gear." My fellow concertgoers wore old t-shirts, faux old t-shirts (likely from Target), ironic golf shirts or somewhat fanciful Polo shirts with the collars askew. I opted for khaki shorts and a black "wow am I deep, plus I used to live in New York" t-shirt.
The sold out club was a sort of alternate universe, a place where Buffalo Tom -- never a major commercial success, was the biggest band in the world. The 500 or so of us knew every word, laughed at every bit of stage repartee and sang along to the wonderfully articulate and melodic rock songs that pulsated from the stage.
I personally reveled in the sense of belonging, enjoying the fact that everyone in the crowd not only knew the band, but believed in them. After a week of explaining to the high school and college kids who work for me exactly who I was seeing and why they are great it was nice to be amongst the faithful -- united in the idea that this was something special that we shared, damn everyone else not wise enough to join in.
Music has the power to be transformative and on this night Bill Janovitz, Tom Maginnis and Chris Colbourn -- Boston's own Buffalo Tom -- turned us from a bunch of middle aged parents and wage slaves into the college kids most of us were when we first heard the band. We danced as much as our-pre-arthritic knees would allow and reveled in the cathartic joy of the moment in a way that just doesn't happen too often once you have responsibilities.
While nostalgia and reliving past glories has its place, perhaps the most illuminating parts of the evening were when the band sprinkled in new songs. Instead of being a sign to head for the bar or the bathroom, the new material filled me with a sense of hope about maintaining my own creative vibrancy.
Buffalo Tom might now write songs about their kids and growing older, but they retain an energy and relevance that has gotten stronger as they -- and their fans -- age. We may not be able to go back to college and experience the joy of discovering something new and wonderful for the first time, but there are experiences left to have, joys we have not yet discovered.
Sometimes, it takes an old friend to remind you who you are and who you can be. On a crowded stage in a sweaty club tucked into a pretty mediocre neighborhood, some old friends got up before us, strapped on their instruments and reminded me exactly who I am and who I want to be.
Maybe the show wasn't as illuminating for everyone else and for some I'm sure it was just a pretty good rock show from a band they remember fondly. For me, though it was cleansing and reinvigorating -- a reminder that small victories matter and defeat only happens when you stay down for the count.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.
Standing amidst a sea of the middle aged and the nearly middle aged packed into a fairly small rock club in Boston, I felt tired and old, but hopeful and alive. As the band (middle aged and maybe a little world weary themselves) took the stage with a lightly crackling energy, you couldn't help but forget about your problems at work, at home or the general gravity of life as you get older.
As I looked around the sold out Paradise in Boston, I saw faces mostly older than mine, people who had not gone out in a while decked out in their best thirtysomething (or fourtysomething) "night at a rock club gear." My fellow concertgoers wore old t-shirts, faux old t-shirts (likely from Target), ironic golf shirts or somewhat fanciful Polo shirts with the collars askew. I opted for khaki shorts and a black "wow am I deep, plus I used to live in New York" t-shirt.
The sold out club was a sort of alternate universe, a place where Buffalo Tom -- never a major commercial success, was the biggest band in the world. The 500 or so of us knew every word, laughed at every bit of stage repartee and sang along to the wonderfully articulate and melodic rock songs that pulsated from the stage.
I personally reveled in the sense of belonging, enjoying the fact that everyone in the crowd not only knew the band, but believed in them. After a week of explaining to the high school and college kids who work for me exactly who I was seeing and why they are great it was nice to be amongst the faithful -- united in the idea that this was something special that we shared, damn everyone else not wise enough to join in.
Music has the power to be transformative and on this night Bill Janovitz, Tom Maginnis and Chris Colbourn -- Boston's own Buffalo Tom -- turned us from a bunch of middle aged parents and wage slaves into the college kids most of us were when we first heard the band. We danced as much as our-pre-arthritic knees would allow and reveled in the cathartic joy of the moment in a way that just doesn't happen too often once you have responsibilities.
While nostalgia and reliving past glories has its place, perhaps the most illuminating parts of the evening were when the band sprinkled in new songs. Instead of being a sign to head for the bar or the bathroom, the new material filled me with a sense of hope about maintaining my own creative vibrancy.
Buffalo Tom might now write songs about their kids and growing older, but they retain an energy and relevance that has gotten stronger as they -- and their fans -- age. We may not be able to go back to college and experience the joy of discovering something new and wonderful for the first time, but there are experiences left to have, joys we have not yet discovered.
Sometimes, it takes an old friend to remind you who you are and who you can be. On a crowded stage in a sweaty club tucked into a pretty mediocre neighborhood, some old friends got up before us, strapped on their instruments and reminded me exactly who I am and who I want to be.
Maybe the show wasn't as illuminating for everyone else and for some I'm sure it was just a pretty good rock show from a band they remember fondly. For me, though it was cleansing and reinvigorating -- a reminder that small victories matter and defeat only happens when you stay down for the count.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.
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