TFT: Where did the name of your band come from?

Nils: Our friend Cody gave us the start of it. The name is a play on words. The basal ganglia is the part of the brain stem which controls emotions or feelings. For us, it doesn’t really mean anything it just sounds kinda weird and we jumped on it. We hadn’t had a band name for a while and decided to fix it with something fun.

Adam: And we’re just The Gang.

TFT: You’ve got two tracks called “Sean the Paul” and “Ellen the Generous”. Was there a theme in the name of the song titles?

Adam: Well, honestly, the song titles are more often than not inside jokes for us. We just kinda make things up as we go, parts and songs and stick it all together. That’s the hardest part of the music that we make, the transitions. We have a lot of parts that we make up quickly and then have to work out transitions.

TFT: Was Oliver a great help in that regard in the studio?

Amir: We can be very sloppy (laughs). Unfortunately, we don’t get to practice as much as we like. We tracked together live so any help we can get is great. At the end of the day even if we got a part wrong if he can make it sound like we got it right that’s the most important thing when you’re making a record. Oliver really helped us in that regard.

Nils: He also gave us a space where we felt like we could experiment and we ended up adding a lot of breakdowns as we tracked.

TFT: That’s definitely something I noticed about your half of Mingling. The tracks are deceptively heavy. What are some of the heavier bands that have influenced you?

All: Doppelganger and the self titled record by The Fall of Troy. Adam: We like The Number 12. Amir: Between the Buried and Me. Adam: Mastodon. Nils: We’re working on a new track that sounds a lot like Mastodon. Adam: We like Daughters and Tera Melos for the weird shit but we’re into hip-hop and rap too, Iron and Wine and Death Cab.

TFT: What are the band’s plans for the future?

Adam: Well we’ve been working so hard on Mingling. Now that it’s done, we plan to go local and get the word out. Play a lot around the city. We’re gonna stick with Mama Coco’s going forward. We’d love to go on tour next summer around the Tri-State, maybe hit Pennsylvania and Upstate New York.

Amir: You can definitely catch us on the 29th at Goodbye Blue Monday and at upcoming Mama Coco’s Showcases.

TFT: Why should people care about Basal Gang?

Nils: Because we care about you! Adam: Come to our houses and say hi! Amir: We’ll make you pasta.

—

Following No Shoes has been a rollicking adventure. From crashing my car driving drummer Emilio Herce to their first show to the moment the police shut down their set last Saturday, the band has been a constant source of insanity and excitement in my life. Their half of Mingling is driven by a pulse of piano-like guitar tapping by George Ramirez. “Honeycomb Mirrors” is a lovely showcase of this technique with sharp jazzy interludes. Then a cry of pain opens the “swirling vortex of darkness” that Oliver Ignatius mentioned and we’re left wondering how such a nice group of boys summoned something so evil. “Raindrops” features a tongue twisting intro and is a joyous ode to falling in love and indie rock. No Shoe’s love of The Mars Volta then shows through in a creepy crawly outro riff. “Werewolf Fight Club” is an explosive set-opener live but could stand some more bite on record; a minor gripe. Closer “Honduras Thompson” begins with a Millenial call to battle before going through a worse emotional breakdown than my last ex. Throughout the tracks, the band retains an impeccable sense of groove and songwriting. My conversation with Emilio, George Ramirez (Guitar/Vocals), Fabian Kaupert (Guitar/Vocals), and Dan Kunkel (Bass/Vocals) continues below:

TFT: Guys, what made you pick these 4 songs to record the split with?

George: We have way too many songs that we need to get out and these fit best. “Honduras Thompson” is the oldest of the batch.

TFT: So “Werewolf Fight Club” is one of the weirdest hardcore songs I’ve ever heard where did that come from?

Dan: The name came from inside joke that we had one night after leaving our practice room. But the song just came from the inspiration to write a really strange hardcore song in 30 seconds. We wanted to challenge ourselves to write this short song quickly that fit us.

TFT: Your band is one of the most exciting live acts I’ve seen. So much of your set is unpredictable. So when a song’s structure seems to change so much from set to set, how do you know when a song is done?

Fabian: Well, George, Dan, and Emilio always insist on playing things differently, especially George I’m trying to get things to be same and that’s a point of conflict for us actually but at the same time the songs express that conflict which is cool.

George: We’re a very young band, we’ve only been at this for a little over a year. We’ve got 13 songs more or less done that we’re proud of, why shouldn’t we perform them for the people? The fact that everything changes all the time is to keep me interested. Experimenting is something I love and it makes for a much better show even if we end up wrecking the whole set list. (laughs)

TFT: So you guys say you have 13 songs finished. But only 7 of those are recorded. Can we expect more recordings soon?

George: Were still working through them all. I’d really like to do a single.

TFT: This one is for Emilio. Your band mates tend to make these crazy songs and that are all over the place. How do you keep everything together as a drummer and make sure things are still danceable or moshable?

Emilio: Well I wouldn’t say they’re that crazy. The songs have weird parts in it but in my mind we always maintain a sense of pop. My main thing in the band is to keep these beats that are danceable; that’s why i play drums. This type of music you write in parts and then put it together so I’ve had to step outside 4/4 or work with different feels but it’s not too bad.

TFT: Why should people care about No Shoes? George: Who suggested that people should care about No Shoes?

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Mingling by No Shoes and Basal Gang is a great snapshot of where the hipster punk scene in New York is going. Both bands showcase talented musicians, artistic daring, and a penchant for goofy song titles. Making sense of this mess and others is Oliver Ignatius, the head producer and engineer at Mama Coco’s Funky Kitchen. Over the last 2 years, Oliver has rapidly built a confederacy of passionate and honest bands around his studio. Affable and unpretentious, he’d be the life of the party even if he didn’t throw most of them. I caught up with Oliver at the Mama Coco’s showcase at Muchmore’s last Saturday to discuss cockatoos, recording Mingling, and how his neighbors drive him nuts.

TFT: How did you get your start recording people?

Oliver: In my own experiences with studios I always came away with something that either didn’t sound right or wasn’t perfect. I’d been recording for my own projects since 8 years ago. I started recording other people about 2 years ago in my bedroom. I wanted to create a safe haven for bands; somewhere they could come and trust that they would get the record they intended. I progressively moved from my bedroom to the basement and this January I set up an LLC and a permanent space for the studio.

TFT: So who is the Mama Coco of Mama Coco’s Funky Kitchen?

Oliver: She’s a cockatoo I own, or I should say she owns me (laughs). Cockatoos are very intelligent and Coco has a great personality, she’s very beautiful, musical and talkative.In fact, when I started out I couldn’t move her cage out of my room so you’ld hear her screeching away on all the drum tracks.

TFT: That was your secret ingredient?

Oliver: No, it sounded like shit (laughs). I love her though and she’s this great erratic figurehead. I’m glad because I don’t want this collective to be all about me.

TFT: If Mama Coco’s Funky Kitchen had a signature dish what would it be?

Oliver: Our signature style is how we get to know bands. I try to get a feel for who the bands are, what they like, and who they like and understand what they’re trying to express.I think that when a record is a manifestation of these individuals and not just a regurgitation of influences that’s beautiful;. So much of music now is in a box; we’re trying to kick out of it trying to kick out of it. We wanna make every kind of music as long as its good.

TFT: Can you speak to some of the challenges you’ve encountered in building this studio?

Oliver: (Laughs) We’ve had nothing but challenges but surmounting them on no budget is what makes life exciting. We charge our artists a pittance because making the art is the most important thing. My goal is to make the studio sustainable. I just wonder what might happen with some investor more muscle andword of mouth? How might it pay back the community and break bands out? I just want Mama Coco’s to not go away. Oh, there’s also a karate school above us which can really get on my nerves.

TFT: What was your experience making Mingling like and the two bands involved in it?

Oliver: Basal Gang and No Shoes; two very interesting bands. I see them and Iced Ink as operating in a similar sort of continuum. All these groups could be over simplified and called math rock. They’ve got a lot that transcends that label however. No Shoes bring these elements of classic psychedelia, folk and pop. But they also can become more than the sum of their parts. We tried to capture how live they can just get so big and scary and build, I don’t know, a swirling vortex of darkness.

TFT: Definitely, that unpredictable side is something I really love in them. And Basal Gang?

Oliver: They’re a bit of a different thing. Basal Gang can take a dip into do-wop, they bring in falsetto, or a 6/8 time. They’ve got these elements of RnB and Metal that set them apart too. But the breakdowns have this pastoral beauty, the hard edges remind me of harsh 90s rock ala Slint or Pavement. I didn’t know where that came from because they’re such mellow unassuming guys when they’re not playing.They have such a bond when they play; it made live tracking sound fantastic. I have to say that both bands remind me of Syd Barrett era Pink floyd which is some of my favorite music ever.

TFT: The two bands have great senses of humor, did you have any funny stories from the studio?

Oliver: Well with these guys it’s always mildly absurd but it all kinda blends together for me. Basal Gang all work at the same coffee shop so it was tough to find time where they could all get off and come in. We had our fair share of technical difficulties too. Ironically enough the finished product came out great.. When the bands came in, they were very serious and worked hard.

TFT: Why should people care about Mama Coco’s?

Oliver: I can’t tell anyone what to care about. We’re trying to do something we care about. The more into it the band is the better the finished product is. We don’t believe in exclusion. We started with 5 bands, we’re now at 25. I don’t believe any walls can hold us back; I just want to make fantastic records and have the time of our lives.

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Sometimes, the champ loses his form. A hint of rust here, a blown punch there, and soon a young contender has taken his belt. The title of prog heavyweight champions had been stripped from Coheed and Cambria after their disappointing 2010 release, The Year of the Black Rainbow. That record which saw the group experimenting with fuzzed out textures more akin to Nine Inch Nails lacked a certain cohesion and immediacy. When bassist Michael Todd was fired by the band for famously attempting to rob a pharmacy for opiates, fans may have began if Coheed and Cambria could stand another round.

Their new single, “Domino the Destitute”, should come then, as a huge relief. The song and accompanying video are a true return to form. Music, lyrics, and images blend to tell the story of a prize fighter who breaks bad and the dire consequences. Coheed and Cambria’s ability to craft memorable hooks and winding progressive guitar lines are on full display. “Domino” is the melodramatic prog they made their reputation on infused with their past album’s dirtier production style. The band seems reinvigorated and the return of their old drummer, Josh Eppard, brings a stomping groove to this raucous track. Fans will eagerly await Coheed and Cambria’s return to the ring in The Afterman: Ascension on October, 9th. The first half of a double album, its conclusion The Afterman: Decension will be released sometime in February 2013.

Click here to order The Afterman: Ascension.

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Amelia Fletcher is back, and that’s reason enough to get excited.

Tender Trap is the fourth band of feminist pop icon Amelia Fletcher (of Talulah Gosh and Heavenly), formed in 2001 out of the dissolution of her third band Marine Research — itself formed in the wake of the death of Heavenly drummer and Fletcher’s brother, Mathew Fletcher — by Amelia and Marine Research members Rob Pursey and John Downfall. The band is now Fletcher’s longest running musical venture, though they’ve released only three albums since forming — as its members split time with other projects, musical and otherwise.

“Step One” is the lead single from the band’s upcoming fourth album Ten Songs About Girls, to be released by Fortuna Pop! on August 20th. The new album (and this single) contains one considerable personnel change: Emily Bennett of Betty and the Werewolves has replaced Elizabeth Morris, who left to concentrate on Allo Darlin’.

If “Step One” is any indication, Ten Songs About Girls will showcase the harmonies and vocal interplay between Fletcher, Bennet, and drummer Katrina Dixon. “Step One” is structured as a witty and self-aware series of advice on how to form a girl band (which is a pretty damned genius idea for a pop song). The first step, at least in the first verse, is to “Find like-minded girls,” with other advice including: “Don’t play live until you’ve learned D, A and G (chords),” “Buy a pink guitar,” “Eschew a manager,” and “Sing all night and sleep in the afternoon.” Fletcher, Bennet and Dixon combine their vocals expertly, harmonizing and trading calls and responses in classic girl group fashion.

The song provides girls with a simple but empowering message: go out there and start a band. It helps that it’s both catchy as hell and manages to kick ass. At a time when popular female musicians (see: Katy Perry, Lana Del Rey, etc.) continue to be little more than sex symbols, it’s a punk/feminist manifesto that deserves to be heard by the next generation. It would be great if “Step One” could find Tender Trap endearing itself to a younger audience. Of course, it’s far more likely that it will simply be eaten up by those who already know and love Amelia Fletcher’s music. And maybe that’s okay — especially if some of those people are inspired to go out and start a band.

“Step One” is the kind of intelligent, expertly crafted, pop-with-punk-aesthetics that there’s far too little of in 2012.

The post New Music Review: Tender Trap; “Step One” appeared first on The Faster Times.

I haven’t envisioned getting down in high-waisted shorts and top-siders for a while, but 1999, the debut mixtape by Joey Bada$$, did get me thinking about the generations of hip hop again.

Bada$$, the 17-year-old phenom, is a second-generation rapper, born in Brooklyn in 1995 at a time when hip hop had already bloomed. While Snoop and Dre grew up listening to P-Funk, absorbing the intergalactic funkmanship and fusing it with velvety pimpish flow, Joey Bada$$ grew up listening to Nas, Wu-Tang and Biggy Smalls; He was still in middle school when MIMS dropped “This is Why I’m Hot.”

This may not seem like a big deal, but believe me, it is. So much of hip hop is about stylistic alchemy — DJ Premier welding Bird onto bass and drums; RZA mixing Barbara Streisand and Samurai swords — that one would have to assume that the game will change once second-generation DJs and rappers start looking primarily to early rap for influence.

We’ve already seen the beginning of this shift — beat borrowing mixtapes have become the standard entryway into the rap game. Nas dropped Illmatic and shocked the world — the beats were original and the flow was smooth, yet affecting. Few have the good fortune to have Primo, Pete Rock and Q-Tip make beats on a debut album, but the new system means that MCs do not even attempt original composition.

What is so intriguing about Joey Bada$$ is that his mixtape might just mark the moment when the second-generation starts to understand their advantage.

It does no good to reboot mainstream hits, because most MCs can’t out-rap a legend on a track constructed specifically for his style. Instead, Bada$$ has scoured the underground for great beats by rappers with vastly different flows than his own. He has managed to truly make each track his own, while also placing himself within a tradition of game-changing hip hoppers.

On “Righteous Minds”, Bada$$ places his silky flow over the Beatnuts “Hit Me With That”, morphing the aggressive, bouncing track into a mellow, “back-in-the-day” lament. On “Hardknock”, Bada$$ grabs a gorgeous composition by underground legend Lewis Parker and uses it to create a mainstream-friendly single that knowingly winks at the underground.

But one track, “World Domination”, shows the most intriguing and puzzling fact about Bada$$: his breadth of knowledge of the middle-90s world he never consciously inhabited.

The track begins with a Pinky and the Brain vocal sample, a show that stopped airing when Bada$$ was still just 3-years-old. Then comes the hook, rebooted for this version, but taken from Eminem’s first album, Infinite, released a year after Bada$$ was born. Yet, despite the distance between Bada$$ and his samples, the track does not feel forced or put-on; Bada$$ manages to mesh the hook perfectly with the beat while giving a gracious nod to a world his listeners knew better than him.

The beat itself is a tremendous feat in deep-underground digging. Presumably stumbled upon while listening to MF Doom’s 2004 album MM.. FOOD, the beat is actually originally employed by an even-deeper underground DJ, Kid Koala, on a track released in 2003. Both Doom and Koala possess impressive non-mainstream chops — Doom plays three characters, each crazier than the other, and Koala had a hand in the legendary album Deltron 3030 — and to reference both or either elevates Bada$$ in underground fans’ eyes. Yet, the true genius of the choice of beat is that neither MF Doom nor Kid Koala recorded rap over the track: Doom samples a scene from Fat Albert while Koala uses vocals from a nature video over the melodious beat. Thus, Bada$$’s version is both absolutely original and steeped in underground tradition.

There is no shame in working in a tradition, but it takes true innovators to create original art from reproductions. All art exists within tradition, but only great art can recontextualize that which was made before it.

Bob Dylan’s first album is nothing more than a collection of folk covers, yet it helped elevate the young singer to stardom. In many ways, the current mixtape world follows the young Dylan’s rationale: sure they know the song, but they’ve never heard it like this before. Everyone was familiar with the tunes on Dylan’s debut album, but his ashy, razor-blade voice made them seem so captivating and new.

One of the few originals, “Song to Woody”, borrows the beat and melody from Guthrie’s “1913 Massacre”, accidently creating the mixtape movement a half-century before it truly resurfaced. On the track, Dylan demonstrates the advantage of being from the second generation of recorded American folk music. He manages to place himself beside Guthrie and lyrically lament a time that passed him by, while all the while demonstrating his own immense talent for heart-wrenching odes. He shows that originality can come in the form of a remake and that a cover song can be much more than just a new rendition of an old tune. While the “Song to Woody” mode of covering never caught in Rock music, it has become the standard practice in the hip-hop world.

And that’s the thing: though the obvious complaint about the mixtape generation is that originality in hip hop has died, the truth is that hip hop has always been a collection of remakes and renditions. Snoop was already covering rap tracks in ’93, every great beat takes from one influence or another. The real issue is not the fact that beats are borrowed nowadays, it’s that they aren’t borrowed in an imaginative way.

So perhaps as the grandkids play catch with their iPad 50, I’ll crank up the volume for a moment and put “World Domination” on the jambox. And maybe, just maybe, Joey Bada$$ will be remembered then, when our hindsight is a half-century wider and wiser, as the man who showed us all how to make a mixtape — new and old and fully your own.

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The dB’s: Falling Off The Sky

Falling Off The Sky is the first album from the original lineup of The dB’s. The North Carolina band’s first two albums — Stands for Decibels and Repercussion were power pop classics, after which Christ Stamey left the band. Falling Off The Sky is, for better and worse, clearly the work of a more mature band than those albums. While The dB’s can’t match the excitement and energy of their more youthful efforts, they have put together a fine album of well-crafted pop songs. Christ Stamey and Peter Holsapple still have a way with a hook.

Guided By Voices: Class Clown Spots A UFO

Wait, didn’t Guided By Voices just release an album? Yeah, this is actually Guided By Voices’ second album this year (and second from the reunited, classic lineup of the band) — yet somehow it’s a marked improvement over Let’s Go Eat The Factory. Robert Pollard is a man that, by his own estimation, can sit on the toilet and write three songs so that’s part of the explanation. At least one of these songs has been around a little while, too: the title track appeared on Suitcase 3. What’s often lost in the face of Pollard’s genius is that in the band’s classic incarnation the band had two great songwriters, Pollard and guitarist Tobin Sprout. Sprout’s contributions here are all great, you could even make the argument he outshines Pollard on this album. Ultimately Class Clown Spots A UFO sounds more like a classic GBV album than anything released under the Guided By Voices moniker in a long time.

Spaceghostpurpp: Mysterious Phonk

Not all the new music this month is from reunited bands. Mysterious Phonk is Spaceghostpurpp’s debut album and the first ever hip-hop released on the 4AD label, which should give you a hint as to what the production is like. Spaceghostpurpp is a much better producer than rapper and the first thing you notice are the freshness of his stripped-down yet atmospheric beats. His immaturity on the mic leads to several embarrassing misses full of misogyny, like “Suck A Dick 2012″ and “Grind on Me.” When he stays out of his own way, like on the stellar opening trio of tracks (“Mystikal Maze,” “Bringing The Phonk,” and “Osiris of the East”), Spaceghost’s hazy, occasionally angular beats prove mesmerizing. While you won’t want to listen to this one all the way through, the highlights are well worth the price of admission.

The Beach Boys: That’s Why God Made The Radio

After an introduction calling to mind some of the band’s more interesting 70s output, the title track is a bit of a (cheesy) disappointment. To be honest, most of this album isn’t that good. But it’s a real (as in with Brian Wilson) new Beach Boys release, which makes it at least worth a listen for historical reasons. And then, if you stick around for the whole thing, The Beach Boys surprise you with a sequence of good songs to close the album. Actually you might just want to skip from “Think About The Days” to “Strange World” and skip all the bad stuff. Pet Sounds it isn’t, but it’s sure a lot better than “Kokomo.” The highlight is definitely the short “Pacific Coast Highway.”

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Dinosaur Jr. proved that the indie rock reunion didn’t have to be a joke. While probably motivated initially by the promise of a lucrative reunion tour, the band stayed together to make two albums — 2007′s Beyond and 2009′s Farm — that, while not on par with the band’s best, are still a good listen and far from the worst thing released under the Dinosaur Jr. moniker. They also still retained the ability to kick a reasonable amount of ass live.

Their reunion was always improbable given the well-known feuding between Mascis and Barlow — they even fought on stage while touring for Bug — which made it that much easier to root for. There was this air of “I don’t know how long this can last” to their first reunion tour that added extra excitement to the shows. Yet Dinosaur Jr. were able to not just put their differences aside to tour, but also to record new music together. New music that mattered — which is what separates them from the plethora of long-awaited but spiritless reunions of the past decade or so.

Given the long holdover since their last album, the sprawling but likeable Farm, it’s fair to assume that Dinosaur Jr.’s latest offering will be just as fresh, if not more so, than their two previous reunion albums. You pretty much know what you’re getting with a Dinosaur Jr. album in that there aren’t going to be any real surprises, and that’s part of the charm. Chances are I Bet On Sky will rock pretty hard.

The band has also announced an upcoming international tour: you can view tour dates on the band’s website.

I Bet On Sky track listing:

1. Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know

2. Watch The Corners

3. Almost Fare

4. Stick A Toe In

5. Rude

6. I Know It All So Well

7. Pierce The Morning Rain

8. What Was That

9. Recognition

10. See It On Your Side

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These days, despite the advent of an “always connected, always disconnected” America, we still make the time for the car rides and communions of rallying around enormous pop records. “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” have barely declined in explosive play, and their relevance doesn’t end at their #1 & #2 positions on the Billboard. These songs were cultural news– extending beyond the musicality of the songs, the actual listening, was what we talked about. “Used To Know” was buzzworthy because it was so devastating: that scream! That video! Who’s Kimbra? We couldn’t help but love it and afterward, as is the cycle of love, love it tongue-in-cheek. “Call Me Maybe” was, of course, funny because its premise came from What’s Happening To My Body? For Girls. I have a friend at Northeastern who studies day in and out for her nursing degree; she’d listen to the song every morning upon getting up, for a dose of c0nf1d3nc3– and she’s probably not the worst offender. Perhaps even more telling of cultural piety than a musical spot on SNL, is when a song becomes a meme.

But what songs can we die for? An era’s attitude is defined by its taste in pop, and a look back to June of 1992 reveals the people’s attitude toward sex and love, was sick-of-his-shit. Or her shit. Or horse shit. Ashanti’s eternal “Foolish,” Diddy’s born-again “I Need A Girl,” and Fat Joe’s perplexingly sweet and super horny “What’s Luv” all rung with a desire to move on from the do-wrongs and recapture independence. Twenty years later, what does our pop chart say about us? Folks, we are insecure. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with Gotye’s lament, nor Kimbra’s verse–people hurt people–but as an American people, their bruises are our bruises. We have them. What does it say that our self-esteem is pumped up no longer by XTina’s “Beautiful,” but One Direction’s? The boys from 1D mean no harm, and I’d get down, but a security in one’s self and one’s beauty apparently needs to arise, as implied by “What Makes You Beautiful,” from a love interest. Christina wanted us to feel good on our own.

Perhaps the attitudes of singers (of Max Martin) hasn’t changed much. Bieber gives us “Boyfriend,” aka so swaggy but still humble, just like NSYNC* and Nelly’d given us “Girlfriend.” Much less popular in this century are jazz-fueled, soulful odes of love– long gone are “You Send Me” and the triumphant “Let’s Get It On.” A voice and its lyrics fall anywhere on the spectrum of active to passive, of confident to vulnerable; and that expression is exactly how we see ourselves in a song. 1D and Biebs are produced in order to satisfy girls who aren’t in a relationship, or if they are, need to be convinced of the devotion, of their self-worth. Aside from Boyfriend and the blood-flowing U Smile, I’m not likely to resonate with a Bieber track. But, of course, I have insecurities about myself and relationships. Homosexuals, homo sapiens, you name it. I’m just more likely to get my pop-crack / emotional catharsis from Rihanna’s “You Da One” than her “Unfaithful.” Perhaps, as Gotye sews the wound, and as the Carly Rae Jepsens (the musical equivalent of a Bieber fan) mature, so will our self-esteem. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Call Me Definitely.

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Today’s column is a guest piece by Sarah Prensky-Pomeranz, a writer and Boston-based social worker who tore her ACL seven months ago in an adult league soccer game. She continues to rehab daily, and as you’ll read below, is finally back on her way to full recovery:

Today, I jumped for the first time in seven months.

Ever since I tore my ACL on November 6th, 2011, my feet haven’t lifted off the ground. Until today.

Until today, I slushed through puddles. I walked down bus steps one at a time and accepted that I couldn’t reach anything slightly beyond my fingertips.

When I received exciting news, I hopped in an up-and-down frenzy on one leg as if I’d stubbed my toe instead of learning that I had been awarded a Fulbright grant. All I wanted to do was spring off the ground with both legs and soar.

Because I couldn’t jump, I spilled a smoothie on my head. I ate scrambled eggs off of a yogurt lid and allowed a Boston basement centipede to squiggle over my sandaled foot.

Because I couldn’t jump, I only could use the toaster when my roommate was home. I wiped up spilled pesto with a beach towel and merely wiggled my shoulders when a Tupac imposter sang “Thugz Mansion”.

My feet fused to the ground.

So today, when my physical therapist told me I could finally jump, I froze. I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. The letters, “J-U-M-P” floated ethereally in front of me and I squinted my eyes against their brightness. “Jump over this line of tape,” my therapist said.

My brain synapses stopped firing. My will and my body refused to speak to each other. I just waited. As if jumping off the ground would happen to me. As if that natural bend and spring would just…go. And still I waited.

I could get sappily metaphorical here and say that I wasn’t waiting to physically jump. That the identity crisis in my knee (a piece of my hamstring was now underneath my knee cap!) wasn’t just happening in my knee. That I wasn’t scared to take a literal leap. That the only thing holding me back from jumping was myself.

And yes, as I faced my physical therapist in an awkward half-squat, it was about me. To jump was everything. To jump was finally loving this city. To jump was proudly yelling to the world that I only have four friends in Boston. To jump was another day closer to my move to Africa. To jump was to make a statement to no one but myself.

And so I jumped over that taped line. Twice.

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It was an odd, random question, but as ice-breaking inquiries go, that one is a lot better than “Top or bottom?” or “Is it true what they say about black men?” I’ll allow the question, I thought to myself.

My response: “It would have to be a three-way tie between dogs, seals and penguins. When I’m in Australia, I add possums and koalas, and after my recent trip to Chiangmai, I’m more into monkeys and elephants than ever.”

Him: “My favorite animal is the human.”

His announcement came across like the only correct answer to what had been a trick question (though that was probably just my own insecurity getting the best of me). Now why hadn’t I thought of that? Maybe because as glad as I am to be a human being, people don’t necessarily fall anywhere near the top of my must-love list.

As I wrote that last sentence, I was reminded of an interview I once read with staunch animal-rights activist Brigitte Bardot. “People make me sick with their petty little lives,” she said, explaining why she loves her pets more than she does humans. I understand where she was coming from (I’ve been known to have a short fuse myself when it comes to human behavior), though I don’t think it’s necessary to put one above the other in that regard.

I also get that animals elicit a very strong reaction in some people, which is why I let patience rule when someone overreacted to the Facebook photos of my recent elephant trek in Chiangmai, Thailand. Her scolding commentary was something along the lines of “How can you do that? Don’t you know how those animals are mistreated?”

Do you? I wondered. She was basing her disapproval entirely on second-hand knowledge she’d received from God knows what source, not an actual visit to Thailand to see for herself. The mahouts at the conservation center I went to in Chiangmai treated their charges formerly filed under “pachyderms” like members of their immediate families. I got the distinct impression that Deng could spend all day with his elephant Oz, just the two of them, and not want for human company.

While I’m fully aware that elephants aren’t treated well everywhere, I wasn’t interested in hearing a sermon about a place this person had never been to from her pulpit on the other side of the world. As I read her opening and closing arguments, I wondered the same thing I do when I see photos and videos of PETA activists dousing animal-fur-wearing passersby with red paint: Does their peace-on-earth-goodwill-to-animals rhetoric apply to ones with whom they can have two-way conversations.

I’m not criticizing animal-rights crusades — or crusaders — in general. Somebody needs to speak up for animals that don’t have their own voice, but extremism in all forms and close-mindedness both vex me, especially when the extremists and the close-minded are not willing to consider dissenting points of view, or the fact that grey — in all of its many shades — is probably the most common color in the world.

One can do a lot worse than being a knee-jerk activist for what is basically a good cause, but people who maddeningly cling to black-and-white worldviews are just one of many reasons why I can’t embrace the human race in general. I’ve met far more people in my life whom I dislike or feel indifferent to than ones I like. I adore my friends, but I simply have no interest in knowing most people — regardless of how many “friends” I might have on Facebook!

It’s not that I’m a misanthrope, though I’m far more a loner than I am a certified people person. But look at it this way: When it comes to monkeys and koalas and Jack Russell Terriers, if you love them, you love them all the same. I like a Jack Russell Terrier because it’s a Jack Russell Terrier, not because of special individual qualities. When I see a bunch of koalas dozing in trees, I don’t like this one and this one, but not that one. One love fits all. My appreciation of humans is far more complicated — and limited. I don’t love all of them, just the ones I love.

Also, humans have a distinct advantage, which can actually put them at a disadvantage. To a large degree, they’re valuable to me because I can communicate with them using oral language. A baby doesn’t have to say anything to make me think he or she is adorable, for me to fall in love at first sight. But with the gift of speech comes the responsibility of communicating effectively. I wouldn’t want to be around a grown up who never says anything — or one who only makes barking noises or elephant squeals.

Then again, I’ve never had a pet, so I don’t know to what extent I could grow attached to a non-human animal. I’m pretty sure, though, that I could never fall madly in love with a monkey, and I’m certainly never going to go to bed with one. I like to think I’d do anything twice, but bestiality is one thing that will never find its way onto my bucket list. So yes, I can love people with an emotional and physical intensity that’s reserved strictly for humans, but I’m far more selective in my appreciation of them.

“My favorite animal is the human” was a good answer, one that definitely made me want to continue the dialogue, one that made me think enough to write this post, but it’s also one that I can’t quite adopt for myself. My love of people is too conditional, and the ones I can do without outnumber the ones in whose presence I delight by too great a margin for me to play favorites in favor of the human.

I’ll take an elephant to go, please.

The post Pets Vs. People: Would I Rather Spend the Day with an Elephant? appeared first on The Faster Times.