The Mail

The Secret Trachtenburg

Photo by Donald Graham (Paper magazine)

Dear Free Williamsburg,

Thank you for your beautiful story about the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. It just hit me, if you are comparing them to Jesus, then I must be . . . well I must be Jason's dad and Rachel's granddad.

You captured the magic that makes up this act. They are not great musicians. The material is hokey, but put it all together and you have a show that gets audiences more involved than anything in this era. You either love them or . . .love them.

I quickly figured out why they captured both Manhattan and Williamsburg. New York has been overexposed to the sameness of the rock bands to a point of losing any sense of connectedness to the music and there was never a sense of connectedness to these musicians. You know that if you invited some of them into your home, they would defile it.

People have needed to come "home" since they stopped making space for three generations under one roof. The slideshow experience is like an afternoon at Aunt Bertha's back in the day when we were all small and needed the comfort of a family gathering. In the NYC scene, you can't gather much in an apartment that is smaller than a master suite bathroom in Tony Soprano's house over in North Jersey. And, the pseudo-sophistication that makes up the Manhattan denizens is simply a veneer that covers the knowing and still open-to-feelings Brooklynites and the midwestern flavor that is only a brushed-off hayseed behind most of them.

There is no such thing as a New Yorker in Manhattan. Most of them are from Kansas or Butte. They changed clothes and accents and stayed to make a living -- albeit a good living. But under their black clothes and hip or punk hairstyles lays the heart of a midwestern prom queen who yearns to be a Rachel whose genuine sophistication and worldly cool has them in awe. Usually, it is the nine-year-old who stands in awed though itchy silence and waits for autographs. Rachel holds court without pretense and it is the so-called sophisticated adults who ask her to sign everything from tee shirts to G-rated body parts.

Jason is everybody's special one that you would bring home to a family gathering and who would always be there for you. It is not an act. I've known him for 33 years and that is who he is. As a kid, he was the different one who had to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous morons but they are still morons and the best days of their life have already passed behind a horizon to which they can never return. His talent is something he always believed in and he may be overreacting to the frustrating years but that will settle out as he becomes comfortable with the acceptance he is now receiving.

It is writing like yours that encourages the myth of the TFSP. The myth sells tickets and keeps the engines of commerce churning out a living for them. My only fear is that they will start to believe the legend created by others around them.

Stay in touch. The fun has just begun. Galapagos and North Six have become second homes for the Trachtenburgs. Luxx could easily join that short list. If ever they get too big to play those special venues, I promise I will reveal the dark side of the band and bring them back to earth. Just kidding. Unfortunately, there is no dark side unless you'd like to create one. All publicity is good!

Reminds me on one of my leg-pulling routines at Galapagos a couple of weeks ago. During warm-ups and sound checks, a young couple came into the room ad sat down. I told them that I was sorry but that they would have to leave -- no guests during set up time. They promised to sit quietly. I told them, "You know how the music industry is? Sex, drugs, rock and roll? Well, the band is charging only for the rock and roll so . . . no visitors until the show starts." It took them a couple of beats to realize that I was pulling their leg.

Thanks for the kind words and not that we know of

Dear Free Williamsburg,

Yeah, so I'm temporarily relocating to that Third World melting pot called Los Angeles for 8 months. I'm going to miss your website incredibly during that time. PLEASE, tell me there's a website at least half as decent as yours out there on the Left Coast.....

Question 6.
You have an arts degree from a private college.

By predicating the hipster credential on a college credential, you leave out a
whole hipster subset: private liberal arts college drop-outs. As an Oberlin
(hippest of the hip, isn't it?) drop-out, I felt ripped off when I lost points
on the hipster scale for my 'false' answer to this question, when it is
unquestionably hipper to be an Oberlin drop-out than an Oberlin grad.

--Ta,
Eclare

Another one misses the point (it's a joke!)

Dear Free Williamsburg,

Just failed your hipster test to my reserved relief(43). It seems like only rich kids can be hipsters (my Philosophy degree is from a PUBLIC college). I guess the same kids (trust funds?) now populating your hood may be responsible for driving some of the regular folk out of willieB- I mean, who can pay $600 to share a dank, rotting railroad with two others when there are college loans, DSL access, and all those other tech gadgets some of us increasingly rely on (server service?)to pay for? Not to mention the fascist undergrid of the very test design, which assumes answers are quantitative, and conformity is key.

I grew up in Queens, have great faith in BK and am looking forward to some hard piping thugs from Bed-Stuy (I know you are still out there!) roughing up a couple of you transplant folks as you attempt to score C for your next house party. I call that CONFIDENCE:)

Dr.Dre wants to square dance with me- Eminem's words, currently
radiating from my MP3player.

White? We are all Native Americans

Dear Free Williamsburg,
After reading the review of your "Hipsters handbook" and looking at he
questioniare, wether tongue in cheek or not, you are completely deviod of
what was to be hip. Hip the most thrown around and misinteperated word that
we have in modern usuage, is not to describe the upper middle class, TFB,
white college dilletante, who lives in Wiilamsburg and dresses in bad
vintage.

Do you even know the origins of the word hip or cool, if you did, then your
little fatuous observations would reveal something of more depth. Yea, What
is Hip. Hip ain't white trying to be whiter.

Disclaimer from the Editor:
Opinions addressed in Free Williamsburg are
not necessarily our own, godammit!