In which we get the NYCFL ready for 2026-7

There has not been Policy at States for as long as I can remember. I think the last time was in Albany, the year Richard Sodikow retired. LD that year was in a bleak high school with virtually no hospitality for the judges or the students. Policy, apparently, made our venue look like a stately pleasure dome in Xanadu. Why Policy went off the boards after that is a mystery to me. They may have rebelled against the State organization, or maybe the State organization rebelled against them. Since then, the shrinking number of Policy schools in the region hasn’t helped. Monticello, Newburgh, Lakeland, Edgemont, even Hendrick Hudson…All gone. In any case, a couple of us were pushing to get Policy back at States, even in its diminished condition. Given that there was no more space at our venue, Bronx Science, why not at least try it as a virtual event on Saturday, maybe live on Sunday for Elims? Or mayb all virtual? Having no portfolio for the NYSFL myself, all I could do was wonder aloud in the direction of Catholic Charlie, a Regional Director.

Maybe next year? I’ll keep wondering aloud. 

Business from two directions brings this up now, because I have spent a bunch of time this most recent week working on next year’s NYCFL debate tournaments. First of all, one of the local CX stalwarts was having difficulty figuring exactly what divisions were when in the whole shebang. This was a case of it looking perfectly clear to me, the exhibitor, but not to her, the exhibitee (so to speak). In this situation there are two possible ways to proceed: blame the viewer for not understanding your obviously clear as spring water exposition, or accept that the spring water of your exposition has a bit of mud in it. Putting all the tournaments up on tabroom solves the problem. You can find all the tournaments offered in a circuit, ours being obviously NYCFL, and when you go to one of those tournaments, the events offered are clearly delineated. 

(Which, BTW, brings up another issue. I tend to be pretty free in approving tournaments for our circuit. The problem with that is that when you look at our circuit on tabroom, it’s overflowing with tournaments that are not NYCFLs. Given that we run a goodly number overall, between the literal NYCFL and the ODL, I think it makes sense in the future to be a little more discretionary with these approvals to make things more manageable for our membership. If someone is nearby, say the Tri-State League centered in Brooklyn, or the Long Island or NJ events that are heavily attended by our NYCFL folks, it’s one thing. But if I can’t find you on the map, even though you are a friend of ODL, no one from our league is really going to need to know what you’re running because they’re never going to go there even if they wanted to. Sorry about that.)

The other business was a question that arose over the nature of an invitation. I claim, truthfully, that our in-person NYCFL debate events are open to non-members. (The speech and congress events, with I think one exception, are all members-only.) In fact, the more non-members the better insofar as creating a more diverse field. The membership accepts same-school debates as a necessary evil, and we do our best in tab to stir things up as much as possible, but different-school debates are way more desirable. Bringing in outside schools helps that happen. So by me, everyone is invited. But as far as this nebulous everyone is concerned, how do they know that? Once upon a time, pre-internet, we were invited to tournaments because they sent us an invitation in the mail. Or they faxed it (look It up, young Padawan). Nowadays, you post it on tabroom. Which means that my posting of all of next year’s debate events on tabroom not only informs regular attendees of what’s happening, but it presents the information in the most public place possible, the de facto information center. Add to that, literally opening the page for any of these tournaments immediately presents you with the information that you are welcome even if you’re a non-member, plus I’m still working on some main-page language explaining as briefly as possible anything a non-member needs to know. It’s not exactly a mailed invitation, but it acts as one in 2026. 

So, two tournament birds, one tabroom stone. Perfect? Not quite. Pretty close? Hopefully.

In which we make another visit to the music queue

There’s a documentary about “Aja” on HBO-Max that I just watched, part of a series on “Classic Albums.” This is the only one I’ve seen. I became a big Steely Dan fan after they broke up (and before they got back together).  It was my assistant at Doubleday, Nels, who first got me involved with them. Nels was a big music fan and performer, maybe a decade younger than me. This was during the period when I was mostly listening to jazz, show tunes, and classical stuff. I asked him to recommend something recent in rock that I would like, and his recommendation was “Gaucho.” And thus began my love affair with the Dan, as Fagen refers to them in Eminent Hipsters, one of the few books on rock that I’ve read. (I think the memoirs by Brian Wilson, Bruce Springsteen, Keith Richards, and David Byrne are the lot of them, but I guess I should include "500 Songs," since I just signed up for Hickey’s Patreon.) The Aja documentary is well worth watching if you’re a Dan fan. They’re a band famous (too famous) for working in the studio, and the program shows the how and why of it on this album. Perhaps a little too inside baseball? But I have a feeling that if you, too, are a Dan fan, you’ll enjoy it. 

The March of the Audit: As a reminder whenever I hear of an artist I don’t know that sounds interesting, I throw them into my audit playlist on Spotify, and every day pretty much I listen to an album or so in the mornings in the order in which I attached them. If I like them, I put their next album at the end of the list. Sometimes I even grab a song for my main rock playlist. Other times I might find an album needs more than one listen before making any sort of determination, so I toss it back in the mix. This is the latest listening review.

• “Up, Up and Away” by the Fifth Dimension. If you’ve been following me you know I love good harmonies, and 5D does that. I never really listened to them beyond the hits, so this is an attempt to rectify that oversight. The songs here that aren’t hits are very Mamas-and-the-Papas-ish; they even cover “Go Where You Want to Go.” It’s all very pleasant, and they have good taste. If nothing else, I want to be sure to collect all their hits in one of my appropriate playlists, and I’m pretty certain there will be a surprise or two as well. (BTW, if you haven’t seen the movie “Summer of Soul,” what is wrong with you?)
• “Asleep at the Wheel” is their second untitled and/or eponymous album. I had a bunch of their stuff on CD, and saw them live for the first time last summer. Bob Wills is still the king. 
• Traffic, “John B Must Die” — I remember when Traffic's first album came out. One look at the picture on that album and you knew you had to have this record. When they announced their breakup, already sans Dave Mason, hearts were broken among everyone I knew. And then, after Blind Faith—who weren’t as good as you wanted them to be but they were all right—John Barleycorn turned up in local racks. It’s a bit different from earlier Traffic—I’m doing a complete replay of their work in the queue—but a super record. If you’re picking a Traffic album for your GOATs playlist, is this the one?
• “Procol Harum,” more untitling/eponymousing — Well, it all sounds like Procol Harum. I still remember the day, sometime in the 90s, when I finally realized that they were saying “that her face at first just ghostly.” I didn’t even have a good mondegreen for it. I used to just “wawawawa” along with it before chiming in with “turned a whiter shade of pale.” Makes sense after the fact. More PH to come. They were more diverse later on.
• Chad and Jeremy, “Before and After” — Pleasant folky 60s British stuff. Sweet. I took a girl to one of their concerts when I first started dating. 
• Sagittarius - “Present Tense” — I listened to them again, and this time felt I had grokked them well enough, pulling a song or two for the main playlist only to find that they were already there. Time to move on. The 60s are over. 
• The Goldebriars were Curt Boetcher’s first group. He worked with Sagittarius, the Association, and the Millennium, all cited in a "500 Songs" episode, which is why these all run together. This one is pretty uninteresting folk stuff. 
• The Association, “And Then…Along Comes” — When it’s their hits, they’re great. When it’s not their hits, it almost sounds like their hits, with that rising “ah, Ahh, AAHHH” background. All pleasant, with memorable hits.
• The Millennium — When I was listening to this I was thinking of Jared from college. He was a Grade A hippie, a gentle soul at worst, and this was the kind of music he liked that always had me running from his room screaming. No doubt he ultimately became a longshoreman. 
• Curt Boetcher, also untitled and eponymous. Finally, the man himself. I enjoyed this album, and I think there’s some potential in it. Some of the songs go to interesting places. I threw it back for another listen. 
• Love, “Four Sail” — As in Cole Porter, "Love for Sale?" Or their fourth album, and they’re selling themselves, and they wouldn’t know Cole Porter from a porterhouse steak? Whichever. Arthur Lee has that unique voice, and their songs, like ‘em or not, are always interesting. A couple of quite good ones here. 
• David Johansen, “In Style” — Having gone away in the 70s and 80s (and 90s and 00s and 10s and, progressively more obviously, the 20s), I thought I would catch up. After listening to this I guess I’ll have to go back to the NY Dolls. I heard nothing that struck me but I did hear enough to know that I needed to hear more. So I will. 
• The United States of America— I vaguely remember this album. That cover, and that name, gave off extremely strong “buy me” vibes that, unlike with Traffic, I somehow managed to resist. If I had bought it, I would have regretted it to this day. 

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• Geese, “Projector” — Probably I queued this up from a mention by Petrusich in The New Yorker. It demonstrates, beyond any doubt, that she and I do not hear the same music. I do not have the words—and in general I’ve got words up the wazoo—to describe how I disliked this album.
• Joe Ely, the last eponymous album in the list, renewed my faith in music after having almost lost it listening to Geese. Artists who can play instruments? A singer/songwriter with all kinds of interesting things up his sleeve? It was his obituary back in December that led me to him, and I happily look forward to following his entire career from the beginning. This one is pretty country-ish, but I understand he went more rock later on. I’m willing to find out.