Introducing the next candidate to fill out SUGAR -N- THUNDER’s New World Order Employment Application: WILLIAM RUBEN HELMS!
Sometimes in life you encounter people equipped with the kind of raw dedication that pushes them to live, eat, breathe, and sleep what they love to do - they do it at all costs and at no half-measures. They work harder, stay out later, pump the music louder, and capture all the moments that others miss. When it comes to documenting music of all types in NYC and beyond with an intensity and literary flair all his own, William Ruben Helms is that person. This sharp and ever-personable Corona, Queens-based writer, photographer, and editor knows few limits when it comes to his craft (and having a debaucherous good time..!) and has published articles, reviews, and photos in myriad publications including New York Magazine‘s Vulture Blog, The New York Press, and WNYC’s Shots You’ve Shot blog. His claim to blogosphere fame almost two years ago was the founding of his own music and photography site – The Joy of Violent Movement, which has claimed readers in the UK, Germany, Israel, Canada, France, Japan and 24 other countries since its arrival on the ‘net.
Who I am & what I do:
I’m a music journalist, music blogger, photographer, freelance writer, troublemaker, soldier of love, unrepentant badass, and generally a master of several trades.
Projects you should know about:
My music and photography blog, The Joy of Violent Movement (also on Facebook).
Here’s some samples of his work [click to enlarge]:
The Survey:
1. What defines awesomeness to you? If you’re familiar with any literary criticism on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, almost every critic (and professor for that matter) will refer to Polonius as a fool, a buffoon, a windbag, a total fucking bore. They’ll tell you too that he’s a joke and that practically everything he says should be viewed with ridicule and suspicion but he offers some of the wisest and most difficult advice to his son Laertes: “To thine own self be true.” We modern folk view such a statement as a cliche – I mean you’ve probably heard someone say something along those lines at least 20 times a day. But if you really give it some thought, you’ll probably realize how difficult it really is to be yourself, to be that person that the Divine (or God, or the Infinite or whatever you prefer to call it) made you. Biologically speaking let’s put it this way, unless you’re someone’s identical twin, for you to come out exactly how you are is a one in about 70 trillion chance. In most cases, there will never be anyone exactly like you. If someone doesn’t or just can’t accept you for everything you’re about, it’s probably one of the worst personal insults of this life. And by far, the greatest and most unforgivable sin is for any individual to not be the only self that you’re supposed to be. Think about that when there are so many external pressures to conform, to blindly follow along, to be and do things that you’re not or don’t fucking care about. I think it takes a lot of courage to say (even if it’s mentally) “Fuck this! I need to be me and I need to be me at all costs.” So anyone authentically themselves are pretty awesome.
Dive bars are always awesome. In fact, I’m drawn to the lurid, the profane and the sleazy.
Getting up every day and realizing that you do something you love, is both lucky and awesome. I’ve had plenty of jobs that I’ve hated with every fiber of my being and I can tell you that there are far more people who do things that they loathe because someone pressured them into it or they need the money and can’t figure out what to do with their time.
A perfectly poured pint of Guinness and a Romeo Y Julieta cigar or two are awesome.
2. Have you ever had a near-death experience? Actually, I’ve had a couple. Back when I was in high school, I dated this very lovely young woman, who was my first love. When we split up, I took it badly – there were other things going on in my life, and it kind of felt like my entire life was falling apart at the seams. And of course, when you’re a teenager, you’re pretty melodramatic – everything is pretty much the end of the world. I fell into a deep, suicidal depression. One day, I decided that I was going to kill myself. I had felt weary and had enough. So I decided that I was going to throw myself in front of a car. It wasn’t a well thought out plan – I mean, it didn’t enter my mind that the driver being scared shitless may avoid trying to hit me, that maybe I’d miscalculate or misjudge something. Nor did it enter my mind that I might be scared or that I might want to continue living. In any case, I tried to jump out in front of this car and I guess there’s a part of me that (thankfully) hesitated and I narrowly missed getting hit by this car.
I’ve also nearly drowned a couple of times.
3. If you could be absolute ruler of the world for a day, what’s the first thing you’d do? I’d ban anyone from trying to sing Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston or Stevie Wonder while on American Idol or Glee. I’d eliminate student debt up to $40,000. And most importantly, I’d legalize weed and most other drugs, excluding crack and crystal meth, as well as gambling and prostitution.
4. What’s your guilty pleasure? I honestly have a lot of guilty pleasures – I happen to enjoy vices, lots and lots of vices. With that in mind we’ll talk about guilty pleasures, and they include: Guinness (by the tap and only by the tap), Romeo Y Julieta cigars, gambling, fast food, women, porn, The Maury Povich Show, Jerry Springer, dirty South rap, women, coveting others’ property, wives and girlfriends, photography, modernist and post-modernist literary fiction, books on theoretical physics, Buddhism, the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, the New York Rangers, dive bars (the sleazier, the better) and well – I’m quite proud of being a depraved person with tons of terrible habits.
5. What do you know now that you wish you knew as a teen/kid? That being an adult is really pretty fucking awesome, actually. Just having the ability to do what I want and to tell people to fuck off, is a great thing.
ONWARD! »»
