A quiet, friendly protest about childcare does not rouse the mayor
by Kristi Goldade, Capital New York Friday, June 10th, 2011
At 7:30 in the morning yesterday, a small group of mostly middle-aged women and a few mostly younger men convened in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They’d come to take part in a protest in which mothers would walk their strollers from the Met to Michael Bloomberg’s townhouse not far away on East 79th Street.
Nicole Cicogna, an executive director of Hartley Houses, a community center with programming for children, immigrants and the elderly, was there; she shook her long brown hair and fiddled with her Blackberry. There were three weeks only, she said, before Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s budget proposal, which cuts 29 percent of the slots for after-school and childcare situations for low-income families, becomes law.
A soft-spoken graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin, Gregory Brender, organized the affair. He said he became involved in the battle because his mother is a childcare provider. His father, a jokey former CBS audio man, handed out neon posters reading “DON’T CUT OUR EDUCATION” while his friend, Matt Jasper, coached the mothers in some protest songs he’d organized for the occasion.
A-B-C-D-E-F-G, help us restore kids funding, Jasper sang, strumming at his guitar and nodding at shy singers. The air was heavy and sticky. People wiped their brows with tissues and wondered why there weren’t more children around: there was one toddler in a stroller and one 7-year-old.
“He was in bed,” one mother said. “I let him sleep.”
After a few more songs—“Mean Mayor Mike” and “I’ve Always Been a Kid”—Brender stood in the center. “We’re a bunch of nice people singing,” he said. Then he nodded at the police. “We don’t have money for a ticket. Even if you’re in the right.”
The police laughed, it was friendly. “Put the kids in the front. They’re our best visual,” Brender told the group.
Inez Carbone, mother of the 7-year-old, Isaiah, a Chelsea resident, complied.
“Not everyone can afford to pay high childcare,” she said. “They represent our kids every morning when we drop them off, and every evening when we pick them up.”
The group argues in its literature that each dollar cut from the city’s low-income childcare budget leads to a $1.86 loss in economic activity because childcare programs save future costs for remedial education and lowered high-school graduation rates. Mothers without childcare are often forced to quit working, which leads them to draw on government programs such as food stamps and low-income housing.
As the group marched across Fifth Avenue and onto the block of the Mayor’s townhouse, the boy posed for pictures and handed fliers to reluctant bystanders, which detailed an alternate plan: reducing bank contracts by 10 percent, taxing plastic bags and the rich.
A man wearing a blue T-shirt from the New York Parents Union yelled like a drill sergeant.
“What do we want?”
“Childcare!” They cheered.
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
For a half hour, they circled the sidewalk, waving signs and ignoring some nasty looks from pedestrians. Michael Bloomberg, it appeared, was not at home, or not coming out yet, even at that early hour. The group sang “Where is Michael” to the tune of “Frère Jacques” for a bit. Then the police officer from in front of the museum reappeared and spoke quietly with Brender and his friend, who then shuffled the group toward the 79th Street subway station.
“I have five other programs to direct,” said Nicole Cicogna on the walk to the station, “but this one is taking precedence.”
She looked at a woman who was giving her poster to the organizers.
“Where are you headed?” she asked her.
“Back to work.”
“Back to fight!” said Cicogna.
“Back to the salt mines,” said the woman.
They both laughed and said goodbye.
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In ‘Bored Games,’ Matt Jasper’s move is to the city
by Glenn Gamboa, Newsday Sunday, February 21st, 2010
For his third album, “Bored Games,” Matt Jasper wanted to tap into his own experiences – of being a 20-something moving from Merrick to the city for the first time.
“It’s about living on your own, about moving from looking for a relationship to being in one, about the transition into adulthood,” Jasper says. “It’s definitely a larger trend moving away from Long Island to the city or even to other states. And there’s an even larger issue about moving from any suburb to a big city. But my own experiences are definitely reflected in this work.”
Jasper describes his songs as “indie pop-rock from a singer-songwriter perspective” and those detailed singer-songwriter stories are on display in “Brooklyn Heights,” where he sings of running out of hot water, keeping out the rats and moving from Babylon to Brooklyn Heights to start his career. Jasper taps into a classic chorus on “Ordinary People,” where he sounds closest to influences such as Ben Folds and Ben Kweller.
His distinctive voice, combined with more straightforward singer-songwriter backdrops on “No Secret” or “Amanda,” builds a tension that’s kind of like David Byrne singing Jason Mraz songs, an odd, seemingly ill-advised pairing, that Jasper makes work.
It’s a combination that Jasper has been working on over his previous albums and in the two years it took for him to write “Bored Games,” which he will release March 2 on his own label, as he has with his previous two albums, and support with area shows starting March 12 and a tour of the Northeast in the spring.
“I have the knowledge to do this all myself,” says Jasper, who works on music licensing for the Harry Fox Agency. “But we’ll see what happens.”
Contact The Long Island Sound at glenn.gamboa@newsday.com or follow @ndmusic on Twitter.
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Matt Jasper, King of “Nice Guy Rock”
May 30, 2010 by Dexter Krang (dexterkmusic)
Matt Jasper is the undisputed king of a new type of music termed “Nice Guy Rock” which is an off-shoot of “geek rock” or “polite rock.” His new album Bored Games released two months ago continues his winning streak of witty tunes that cleverly play it safe and does not try to be anything it is not.
Matt Jasper is unique songwriter who doesn’t put on the rock n’ roll persona to win over audiences. His songs are pure representations of himself without any embellishments or falsities. A musician like this is extremely rare in today’s world and should be praised for his determination and will. Don’t get me wrong, Matt is a well trained musician and can captivate an audience with his stage presence, but he’s not doing it to be cool or be fresh or hip, he’s doing it because he likes to and doesn’t care if you listen to him or not.
Bored Games is a stripped down fourth album of just guitar, drums, bass, and vocals, compared to his 2006 masterpiece As a Matter of Fact which included orchestras and elaborate instrumentations.
“Nice Guy Rock” has always been in the background of popular music history from Buddy Holly, to the collegiate politeness of David Byrne and Talking Heads, to California’s Weezer (nerds, until they became famous and started writing about sex and dope.) Matt’s style is hard to pin down his influences seem to change with every record and sometimes with every song. The incredible thing is he does not sound like anybody else, and that is one reason why he is a modern master.
Matt Jasper is just the type of genius singer and songwriter to start a new genre without trying and do it without the help of a corporate record label. Bored Games was released on the Independent label For the Records. Matt will be on tour this summer to support the record. I suggest that you purchase Bored Games, and start mining his back catalog for all the gems that are there waiting for you to discover. Just think you could be the one to claim this undiscovered artist for yourself. Get familiar with the music because once it catches on in the mainstream Nice Guy Rock will be all over the air waves and a host of bands will emerge with this sound which they will claim is their own. Remember, Matt Jasper created this style back when you were still listening to hipster bands from Brooklyn.
Highlights from the new album are the clever, “Brooklyn Heights” about moving from Long Island, NY to the five boroughs and dealing with poor living conditions in dilapidated buildings. Other highlights are “Cats on the Prowl,” about walking around the wild city at night. “A Call from Home,” is a heartfelt tune about communicating with parents after you’ve moved out and having to call home or occasionally visit. The most interesting thing about “A Call from Home,” is how it gets to the root of struggle between parents wanting their child to have something to show for themselves, like a decent place to live, or perhaps marriage. The song also deals with the issues of having to call a grandmother who “hasn’t heard for you in a while.”
There is nothing harmful or threatening about Matt’s music or his image. Matt is, who he is, and doesn’t even entertain an ideas of changing. This is remarkably rare in the present day music climate.
This Rock Critic has to also mention Matt Jasper’s 2006 release As a Matter of Fact an overlooked masterpiece of Nice Guy Rock. It was a heavily produced cohesive effort that blended rather brilliantly. (If As a Matter of Fact was Sgt. Pepper, than Bored Games is Beatles for Sale.) It is not a surprise that since the album was released on such a small label much of the public never got a chance to hear most of the classics on this album. Every song is packed with richly textured overdubs of harmonies and echoes. As a Matter of Fact is the gem of polite rock. (If you can’t find it in the bins at the local record shop it is still available online.)