I went to see Wire last night, who kicked off the South Street Seaport Music Festival. I wasn’t really so sure if the mix of tourists and Wall Street types would be into the band, currently in their third (fourth?) comeback. But, hey, right in front of me were four guys in their late 50s who looked like they just walked out of a casual Friday at a brokerage. They were smoking pot, chugging beers, passing around a flask of Bacardi and yelling for “Ex-Lion Tamer,” which they never got.

Die!Die!Die!’s “terrified” singer Andrew Wilson.

Openers Die!Die!Die! of New Zealand were an admirably noisy trio. Singer Andrew Wilson looped his guitar track so he could put his instrument down and prowl around the gated area set aside for photographers and get face to face with the crowd. He did this no fewer than three times during a 35-minute set. Bassist Lachlan Anderson, looking like an emaciated, youthful J.J. Burnel, also joined him in the pit. Wound-up drummer Michael Prain was a bit of a ringer for Paul Dano, circa Little Miss Sunshine. Overall a good set, even though Wilson admitted to the crowd that he was “terrified.” Their sound was like a dusty vinyl copy of Pink Flag played with a dull needle. In other words — Bravo!

“We Is Wire. . .You Is Welcome.”

Wire took to the stage and singer/guitarist Colin Newman (who now resmbles Ben Linus from Lost) noted to the crowd, “We is Wire. . .you is welcome,” before launching into a song presumably off the new album (due in July). It’s a nod to the hardcore non-conformism that they play to a huge outdoor crowd and open with a song nobody knows and don’t bother to acknowledge the absence of founding member Bruce Gilbert or that touring guitarist Margaret Fielder had taken his place. In fact, no song introductions period. Graham Lewis mock-thanked the crowd for missing a “golden opportunity” to see the Eagles, who were in the midst of playing a multi-night stand at Madison Square Garden. Newman added: “In 1977 the Eagles were one thing — the enemy!” The crowd cheered. Super lanky Robert Gotobed was having some problems, not sure what, but occasionally he got up from his drum kit and waved his hands around. At one point Lewis besought the lighting person to cut down on his predilection for strobe lights: “I’m getting epileptic up here!” Lotsa energy, lotsa rhythm, lotsa songs sung by Lewis. It’s a new prime period for Wire. The only nod to time passing was an Apple MacBook set up on a stand by Newman’s mike, but I couldn’t tell if it was to display lyrics or had something to do with his effects set up.

First encore: “Lowdown”; “1 2 X U.”

Second encore: “Pink Flag” (with Lewis’ dedication, “For all our dead friends. You’ve all got dead friends.”) With the repeated chorus, “How many dead or alive in 1955?” followed with many shouted, “How many?”s observers had to take it as a sly reference to the Iraq War.

Wire has nothing to prove. They are the proof.

And how was your Saturday night? (photo by author)

Laugh if you want. If you’re a snorin’ mofo like me, this could soon be you.

I spent Saturday night not in the arms of my lovely wife but in room 909 (anybody else know that Beatles song ‘One After 909′ by any chance?) of the sleep lab of the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary.

My snoring has been out of control. So I’ve been told. I saw an otolaryngologist a few weeks ago and he said that tissue just sags as one ages, causing drooping breasts, wrinkles and snoring.

“Isn’t there anything good about getting older?” I asked him.

“Well, you gain wisdom,” he said.

“But then you go senile and then you die.”

He had been pretty humorless up until that point, but he found that funny.

Ahead of my appointment at the sleep lab, my wife had found this video on the Internet. It’s a sleep lab demo from Rachael Ray’s show.

Look at all the crap on me and look at how relatively unburdened Mr. Colby “Smiley” Donaldson is. He probably would have shit a brick if he knew he had to put on what I had on.

Colby Donaldson, for this misrepresentation of what being monitored in a sleep lab is like, I will kick your ass any day of the week! You snore because of your mis-healed broken nose. Well I can fix that, handsome!

But enough of my hate-mongering.

In actuality, I am amazed that I was able to sleep. Two devices that felt and looked like plastic cocktail forks were shoved up my nose. I also had six electrodes connected to my head with putty that unfortunately hardened into light lumps of concrete — they hurt like hell when the lab technician pulled them out. Christ, I even had a device attached to my index finger that read the oxygen level in my blood via a light-emitting diode.

Actually, that’s kinda cool. But it felt like a mild pinch all night.

Oh and by the way, testing ended at 5:30 AM and they woke me up.

I staggered home, drank a cup of coffee and then slept four more hours.

Have an awesome Memorial Day Weekend, everybody!

Yeah, I took lotsa pics in this doorway. . .

Check out my Shuffled! feature over on boston progress radio. I talk a leel ’bout six songs picked randomly from my vast music archive.

Artists covered include: Billy Bragg, Asobi Seksu, Taiyo Na, Bad Brains, Asian Dub Foundation and Yellow Rage. I speak of all of them in a rather irreverent tone meant to amuse more than inform.

I will actually be in Boston in July to do a reading, too, man!

I’d figured this would happen sooner or later.

During the Q&A at the Asia Society reading, I was called out by an elder stateswoman of Chinatown for being merely “an observer” not only of the place, but the time (1976).

Sure, I hadn’t grown up in Chinatown. Sure, I don’t understand Cantonese and my Mandarin sucks. But apart from that, she wanted to know when my parents and grandfather came over! Shit, my whole family was under attack for not having street cred!

So far, I had shown the manuscript people who had grown up in Chinatown during that time and got their OKs. Not that I was looking for approval. This Is a Bust is a novel — not a history of Chinatown and far from a sober, objective account.

I completely understand where this elder stateswoman was coming from. “You didn’t live through it, you didn’t experience it, so you can’t understand it.” Moreover, “You have no right to tell it!”

Ah, but if we live with the conceit that no one else can understand our experiences, our culture, our struggles, then we put up these protectionist walls and in turn we stop trying to understand other people. That attitude leads to wonderful things such as homophobia, segregation by sex, ethnicity and race, colonization and wars.

My aim as an artist is to forge understanding. I believe people can find themselves in the stories of other people, no matter how radically different the observer and subject seem to be.

I try to compromise as little as possible and I’ve rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in the past. I remember one woman standing up, asking me why I tried so hard to offend people with my book Waylaid. I don’t remember exactly what I said (something like, “the purpose of an artist isn’t to please”) but I do remember thinking, “Gee, I didn’t try that hard. . .”

In any case, the audience at Asia Society was great, and Helen Koh, Associate Director of Cultural Programs, rocked like an angel. John Woo, acting director of Asian Cinevision, was his wonderful self. Thank you so much for having me!